Yin/Yang

So, it's been a month since I've published anything here. Sorry for kinda dropping off the planet; it's been a pretty crazy month.

My family and I are currently on vacation, visiting our extended family in Utah, and tonight in family scripture study, we read Alma's great sermon on the atonement, in Alma chapter 42. As we neared the end, we read verse 24, and something clicked over in my head:

24 For behold, justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; and thus, none but the truly penitent are saved.

(emphasis added)

Look at the pronouns Alma uses: why is justice male ("his demands"), but mercy is female ("her own")? When I was on my mission, I remember my mission president using this passage as the theme for a zone conference, and though it's now fuzzy and I may be misremembering his interpretation somewhat, I think it was something along the lines of the importance of having both justice and mercy, both male and female approaches to life, in order to have a well-balanced whole. Two sides of the same coin... the yin and the yang.

I've said before on this blog that I feel gender is not strictly binary in nature, and that I personally feel that I have both masculine and feminine traits, but a single "me" (unlike some, who feel they have separate male and female selves). How does that square with what my mission president (and maybe Alma) is saying?

A fellow member of the TGIMormons Yahoo group I belong to recently made an observation I kinda like: perhaps, instead of a rigid gender binary (i.e. just 0 or 1) or a single male<->female continuum (e.g. 0, 0.1, 0.2, ... 0.9, 1.0), maybe gender is more like a graph with two dimensions, one X and one Y (hmm, interesting that those are the common math terms and also the common gender shorthand), and every individual's gender identity lies somewhere on the graph. Most people would cluster around the axes, the majority of men having a high Y value and low X value, and most women the opposite. People like my friend Sam that have a sense of neutral gender would lie near the origin of the graph, near (0,0), and people that have two distinct gender expressions like BiGender.net founder Brin would land up in the top-right of the graph, near (1,1). It's not a perfect metaphor, but I like that it points to maleness and femaleness as separate-but-closely-linked traits, just as justice and mercy are separate, but closely linked concepts in Alma's cosmology, and you can't have one without the other.

I'm interested to hear people's opinions on both my reading of Alma 42 and my friend's 2-axis conception of gender. Sound off in the comments below, and let me know what y'all think.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Okay, I'm a few days late with this one. (I'm on vacation, okay?)

This past Tuesday was the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day set aside to remember all of the transfolk that have been killed by acts of anti-trans violence.

I have a couple of dear online friends who are currently experiencing tremendous distress and hardship because of their desires to live an authentic life. Not physical violence, fortunately, but vicious emotional violence that threatens to tear apart their families and destroy their professional lives.

And why, exactly? Is it ignorance? Fear of the unknown? Is it an irrational hatred born of misunderstanding what "righteous indignation" is supposed to look like, and when it's appropriate? Maybe. But in both of my friends' cases, their avalanche of suffering has been triggered by the actions of a family member!

"Tough love" or not, that isn't how love is supposed to work!

But as bad as these situations may be, I can't help but think of those who have it so much worse. A recent report by Transgender Europe (TGEU), a non-profit organization that monitors these things, stated that by their count, at least 265 trans folk have been murdered in the past 12 months alone (and that count is likely low, due to unreported or under-reported cases)!

That breaks my heart.

There may come a day when transwomen and transmen alike can navigate the world with the confidence of relative safety afforded most cis folk. Where even if someone disagrees with your worldview, they respect you enough not to kill you over it. (honestly, that seems like a such a LOW bar to clear! Has humanity progressed so little since Cain and Abel?). I pray that day will come soon.

Thanks!

Image by See-Ming Lee

Just a quick note before the day is past. To everyone who has been there for me this year, as I've struggled to come to grips with who I am and what it means, a huge THANK YOU! Seriously, you all mean so much to me, individually and collectively, I would be a lesser person indeed without your friendships.

I Don't "Get" Guy Talk

So this morning I was part of a conversation at work with several of my co-workers (all men), and as is sometimes the case, there was a little mild teasing going on (I forget about who, exactly). Trying to get into the spirit of the thing, I made a joke that kind of ribbed one of the guys for not being as unrealistically awesome as his predecessor was. Then I almost immediately felt bad for doing so, because I was worried I'd hurt his feelings. Not that he'd ever admit to that, of course, and honestly, given the tone of the conversation, I doubt anyone gave it a second thought beyond the initial chuckle. But I so often read these things wrong!

I'm at a point in my career where it's becoming just as much about my people skills as it is my technical skills, and situations like this have a tendency to make me overthink everything. It's like I'm speaking a foreign language when I try to banter with guys, because I have no instinct for it. Maybe this is a learned trait that I just never learned, because I hung out with nerds and other social outcasts through most of my growing-up years. I don't know.

And you can just forget about "smack talk" before any kind of game or sporting event. My brain's just not wired that way.

Western Gender Roles and Christlike Attributes

Way back in the spring, I read a blog post by Christi Taylor about the Bem Sex Role Inventory. Developed in 1971 by Dr. Sandra Lipsitz Bem, it's a 60-item survey that asks you to rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 7 (never to always) on various personality traits like "sensitive to other's needs" and "willing to take risks." When you submit the survey, it take your input and uses it to give you kind of a "thumbprint" of your personality as masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated, essentially based on cultural gender stereotypes.

Christi posted her score: 65 masculine / 76.667 feminine / 67.5 androgynous (all out of a hundred). At the time, I took the test to see where I fell on the spectrum, and got 55 masculine / 86 feminine / 70 androgynous.

Interesting.

Recently I was curious about whether my rating had changed at all in the past half-year, given the effort I've been making to be truer to my self and integrate the different sides of my personality. So, I went back tonight and took the test again. This time around I got 50.833 masculine / 82.5 feminine / 61.667 androgynous... so my rating was less than before, in all three categories! I can only guess that this is because I chose the more neutral options for a lot of the questions.

Obviously, this has very little to do with eternal gender identity, or even brain gender: it's solely based on how much we reflect the gender stereotypes of Western culture. So the fact that I don't strongly reflect the stereotype, male or female, doesn't surprise me all that much, nor does it upset me.

Actually, I think Christ set a good example here... He was kind, compassionate, always thinking of others, sympathetic, tender... a lot of the things on the Bem survey that feed into the "feminine" category. Likewise, He was always truthful, a strong leader, and was willing to take a stand: all masculine traits according to Bem. So, clearly, this is a cultural thing, and not an Eternal one. In fact, I'd go so far as to say if He were to take the Bem survey, I'm fairly confident His score wouldn't be 100 masculine / 0 feminine / 0 andro, but something closer to 60/70/80. So no matter what our feelings about our gender may be, patterning our lives after His, and not caring about how that may affect others' perception of our gender, is probably a good place to be.

Alias

I felt like the blog needed a new name to reflect where my head is at.

The last name, "Me, my Wife, and Arcee," implies a couple of things that don't feel right to me at this point: one, that Arcee is somehow separate and distinct from my male-self, and two, that we somehow had to make space for "her" to fit into our marriage.

Yeah, not so much.

Since coming out to D.W., I feel like that's not really been the focus of our conversations, nor of my own thoughts and impressions relating to my transgenderism. I also don't feel like "Arcee" is a separate persona anymore, rather, just another facet of the prism that is me.

Soooo... new blog name: "A.K.A. Arcee."

Gender, Sexuality, and False Dichotomies

Hank Green is one of my favorite people on the Internet. He and his brother John share one of the most prominent YouTube channels, VlogBrothers, and they talk about all kinds of stuff, from the fascinating and deeply profound to the nerdy and trivial. Today Hank posted this video addressing the whole concept of the gender binary and why it's an inadequate framework for understanding the incredible diversity of human experience (from physical sex to gender identity to physical and romantic attraction). If you've got 4 minutes, give it a watch:

Wasn't that a great video to share with people who think we're crazy and all this "trans stuff" is just in our heads? Life is, as he says, complicated. Or, put another way, as Hank's brother John often puts it, "the truth resists simplicity."

Anyway, I just had to share this with you, dear readers. Now I need to go to bed. Until next time, as Hank and his brother always like to say to one another, don't forget to be awesome.

My First Purse

Gendered cultural items are so weird!

Recently, I read a post over at Feminist Mormon Housewives that reflected something I'd recently experienced too: in Western culture (at least here in the U.S.), a lot of people seem to be very uncomfortable with the idea of men needing a bag that serves the same purpose as a woman's purse.

As part of my ongoing chiropractic adventure to fix what my summer bike crash messed up, my doctor suggested that I would have better posture if I stopped sitting with a wallet in my back pocket. So that had to go somewhere, and my front pockets are mostly too small for that. Add in my phone, car keys, glasses/contact lens cases, chapstick, work ID badge, and so on, and the need for a bag to carry all of this stuff should become clear. Plus, I've taken to carrying a knockoff Moleskin notebook and pen & pencil should inspiration ever strike while I'm out and about (which it often does, actually). So for a while, I've been carrying a fanny pack (or "bum bag" for those of you that come from somewhere that speaks Queen's English) with all of that stuff in it, slung over my shoulder. That works out okay most of the time, but sometimes it's too big to carry around, and other times it's too full of other stuff (I use it as my lunch bag for work).

Then a while back, when I was perusing the purses at the store to find something suitable for my teenage daughter's birthday, I saw one that fit my needs perfectly:

(It's not exactly like this one, and it's certainly not Prada, but it's nice)

It's black nylon, lightweight and strong, and has a bunch of separate sections for my various stuff, and a great shoulder strap!

Best of all? It's completely stealth — people see it and just think it's a small messenger bag, so it doesn't set off anyone's T-dar, but I know, and it's just one more little affirmation of my femme side.

Silly? Trivial? Yeah, probably. But it means something to me, and I don't have to stuff my pockets to bursting anymore. :)

"The Dip" and Coping

I'm still alive!

Lately I haven't given a lot of attention to this blog, largely because I'm in a dip, or ebb in feelings of Gender Dysphoria at the moment. Also, I imagine, because I'm starting to figure out the things that trigger my GD, and finding coping strategies that take the edge off. Fellow nontransitioning MTF Calie has what she calls her "TIDE" recipe, which inspires and informs my approach quite a bit:

T - Trans friends who understand me.
I - Immersing myself in my work and hobbies.
D - Diet and eating right.
E - Exercise and staying healthy.

I should probably add "pure will-power" to the list.

Thanks to the Internet, I definitely have Trans friends who understand me. Thanks, everyone! :)

I have indeed been immersing myself in work, home & family time, and returning to some hobbies I haven't made much time for this year. Being busy helps.

I've been paying a lot of attention to my health this year, exercising regularly (almost daily when the weather and my health allow it), eating less, and almost entirely cutting soft drinks out of my diet (but I do drink a lot of Crystal Light, because I'm a little obsessively particular about the taste of water). All told, I feel WAY better about my body and overall health than I did a year ago (face scar from this summer's epic bike crash notwithstanding). Still not the body my inner self wants to see looking back at me in the mirror, but closer.

Surprised

The other day when we got a few minutes to talk without the kids overhearing me, my sweetheart asked me a question that has apparently been bothering her:

"Why hasn't anyone commented on the second part of your post about me?"

I didn't have a very good answer.

I get the sense from the overall slowdown in my feed reader queue that at least some of you, my dear readers and friends, are largely preoccupied with your own lives right now. I certainly understand that (and have a whole post coming up on the subject).

I think maybe some people might be afraid to comment because they know D.W.'s now reading my blog, and they might not want to say something to offend her...? Maybe...? (At least I can imagine feeling that way about one of y'all if the situation was reversed!)

Anyway, this isn't a plea to go and comment over there, really it's not, because that would be kind of pathetic. But I have to admit I'm surprised.

I guess the takeaway I want to leave with anyone reading my blog is that they should feel free to express their opinions in comments here, and not hold back for fear of hurting our feelings or anything (but note that doesn't mean I'm giving you license to be trollish). I'd really like my blog to be a place where people can feel free and welcome to express themselves truly, and I will try to be a gracious host.

Between the pink and the blue

Nonbinary gender symbol by lilfoxieroxie@tumblr

A few days ago on the TGIMormons mailing list, a member named Cassandra posted some beautiful thoughts on the challenges we face as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who experience some measure of gender incongruence. I liked it so much, I wrote a much longer reply than usual (full disclosure: usually I just lurk over there, and don't post much at all, so any reply from me is going to be longer than usual). Anyway, I thought her initial comment and my reply would make a good fit for here on my blog:

First, I want to make it clear that I sincerely believe that transsexuality results from divinely-inspired natural processes that are designed to maximize diversity among His children. Diversity is good and healthy. (Ditto for androgyny and other points on the gender map)

...

In a gender context, the challenge inherent to androgyny is hammering out one’s own path that will bring them to joy and exultation. Androgynes can’t use either the “male” or the “female” cookbook.

— Cassandra, TGIMormons Yahoo group

I was really happy to see her include androgynes in her very thoughtful post! Yeah, the more I ponder on my unique position along the gender spectrum, the more I think that's where I fit. Which is weird, because that makes me something of a minority, even among the transgender support groups I've joined online!

Often androgynes get forgotten about, I think, because most Trans folk have a very clear picture in their head of which camp they should be in, pink or blue. It's taken me a while to slowly come to the conclusion that I'm uncomfortable in the "blue" camp not because I want to be in the "pink" camp, but because I know, somewhere out there, there's a "purple" camp!

Like Cassandra said, neither a pure-male or a pure-female cookbook would feel perfectly "right" to an androgyne, and indeed I do bounce back and forth a bit in my interactions with my ward family members. For instance, I tend to lean a little more toward femme topics and interests when I'm talking with other kids' moms while waiting for my kids on Mutual night. Then when I'm in a gathering with other Elders, I gravitate to the guys that, like me, have a deep disinterest in sports, cars, guns, and movies full of explosions (there aren't that many of us). So either way, I'm able to carry on a conversation with my fellow ward members, and I think I get along reasonably well with everyone, but it's rare when I'm able to really connect with anyone, and I don't have many what I'd think of as close friends (not saying "oh poor me" or anything, just stating a fact).

I guess another way to say that is to say this: I find myself smiling and nodding a lot, simply choosing not to disclose when my thoughts and feelings don't line up with the gendered expectations of others. Sometimes, I'll speak up in Sunday School or Priesthood if I feel things need to be clarified — the notion of the Prosperity Gospel," for example, sneaks in every now and then, and certain interpretations of the Proclamation on the Family — but often I have learned to just keep my big mouth shut so I can keep my foot out of it!

Someday I'll find that purple cookbook... or maybe I'll have to be the one to write it...

Pet peeve of the day: "LGBT"

So I'm listening to NPR on my way home from work the other day (yes, I'm the "crunchy granola" sort of a Mormon) and a story came on about a group in Los Angeles doing outreach to the Latino community, particularly around the issue of parents supporting their adult gay and lesbian kids when they come out. Overall it was a good story, and I certainly sympathize with the efforts of this group to promote family love and understanding, but I have one issue: I don't think they ever actually said the words "gay" or "lesbian!"

I know — crazy, right?

The reporter, and everyone they interviewed, all seemed to bend over backwards to instead refer to this as an LGBT effort. That wouldn't bother me if this group actually addressed trans issues... but I don't think they do.

Le sigh.

Perspective from a Spouse

So while I was slaving away at how to write my "coming out to D.W." posts, a new voice appeared on the blogging scene, one who I'm really excited to share with you, my dear readers. Her name is Elizabeth, she blogs at A Purple Picket Fence (love the name), and she's the young LDS wife of a transgendered spouse!

Unlike the occasional post by a loving, supportive spouse on a t-person's blog (which I appreciate too, don't get me wrong!), this is the reverse: it's HER blog, and she's telling things from HER perspective. So far I'm really enjoying it. Go. Read.

Telling my Sweetheart (part 2)

So last Friday night, D.W. surprised me by picking me up at work for a really sweet date night out! It was fun and spontaneous and romantic and very thoughtful. She knew exactly what we needed as a couple, and it was wonderful.

As our date was in the "big city," we had a lot of time in the car to talk, and at one point she asked me when I was going to finish telling the story of my coming out to her. "Even though I know how it ends," she said, "I still want to read it!"

The fact that she asked me that, and the fact that we were even able to talk about it on a date, should tell you something about how things are going. ;)

Anyway, like I said last time, I wasn't really surprised by her initial reaction to my emailed "hey, I'm trans" letter (ouch, it still bothers me that it happened that way), but it hurt all the same.

She felt lied to. She felt like I'd been dishonest with her all these years, which in a way I guess I have, at least concerning this one thing that I've been keeping from her. (Although in fairness, that's because I was denying my own transgender nature as well, basically putting my fingers in my ears and going "LALALALALALALA," like that could actually drown it out)

She told me she wasn't entirely surprised. As I mentioned last time, she'd caught me dressing a few times early on in our marriage, and of course she knew I shave my legs, so she'd always kind of wondered if things weren't really over.

She was angry. She was worried about what was going to happen to our marriage, to our kids. All her future plans for growing old together seemed in jeopardy.

All of these are fears I shared, of course.

After her initial email reply, we went back and forth a couple of times through email, but I suggested that we really needed to talk about it face to face, and she agreed. Meanwhile, I encouraged her to go visit my blog and my friends' blogs (thanks, you three!), and cautioned her against looking at too many other things on the Internet, because there were so many different ways of looking at our situation, and most of them wouldn't be very helpful to her.

I don't really remember the rest of that work day. I just remember being worried about what was going to happen to us and our family.

That evening was pretty tricky too, because we had to act like nothing was going on until the kids were asleep. Finally, we got time to sit down on the bed together and talk face to face.

That afternoon, in spite of my warning, D.W. had done some Internet research, and as I feared, a lot of what she read freaked her out. Rightly so: trans folk tend to have a much higher suicide rate, divorce rate, and a raft of other challenges no one in their right minds would willingly take up. Fortunately, she'd also read Laurie's, Christi's, and giantC's blogs, so she saw that the two of us weren't alone in the darkness, and she saw three people with very different life circumstances but surprisingly similar approaches to our common challenge. So to my friends with the courage and willingness to blog difficult things: thank you!

(well, honestly, at first she wondered why I'd tell my troubles to perfect strangers and not to her. But when I explained that I needed a safe haven where I could work through my feelings and figure things out first, thus saving her undue stress, she understood)

Now, a quick aside... right about the time I started this blog, when I first began to recognize that it was possible to reconcile my transgenderism with my faith and family, I started trying to "Metro" up my appearance a little. I put more effort into skin care and shaving, got some new (guy) clothes in brighter colors / softer fabrics, and - this was a big one - I started growing my hair out. I've worn my hair super short for years — military short, pretty much — and I felt like it was important to the overall image I wanted to convey that I have more nicely-styled hair, perhaps a tetch on the long-for-a-guy side (think Josh Groban or Orlando Bloom). When I told her that this was what I was aiming for, she didn't yet know about Arcee, but she went along with it, because I think by that point she knew I was having a midlife crisis or something.

I tell you that to tell you that once she knew what was going on in my head, this apparently sudden shift in my attitude made more sense to her. And for the most part, she was understanding, except for one little detail: dressing en femme.

To be blunt, the idea of me dressing skeeves her out. As we talked through all the ins and outs of what the reality of my transness means to us as a couple, this was the one thing on which she wouldn't budge: no more dressing like a girl. Go as Metrosexual as I want, sure... but dress like a man! (whatever that means these days... I mean, you can't really say Russell Brand and Sean Connery have anything even remotely in common, yet they're both "dressing as men") Anyway, that was her concern: could I give that up?

Well... yeah. I love her and the kids more than I love myself (which I guess means I'm not a "true" Metrosexual, since one of their defining characteristics is narcissism). But would it be easy to give that up? Don't count on it! That said, I've found some strategies that are working okay so far, which I'll be blogging about soon. This is very much a case of us feeling our way through the dark together, and it's going to take time.

The important thing is, now D.W. knows, and we're working through all the implications of my transgenderism, however it solidifies, together. Over the past few months since our initial conversation, we've had several others like it, and she's beginning to understand what I told her that first night: I'm still the same person she married, now I'm just a little more free to express my whole self.

Occasionally when we're alone, she'll get really serious and ask me, "how are you?" — most of the time I can say I'm doing okay. I've had a few dysphoric episodes (my friend giantC calls them "gender freakouts", which fits), but overall, I think things are beginning to level out a bit into a new sense or normalcy. I'll talk more soon about exactly what that means and where I think it may lead, but for now, I've probably said enough.

I'm so grateful for my dear wife's love, patience, and efforts to understand something she never asked for, and probably never in a million years would have imagined would fall in her lap. I pray I never let her down.

Telling my Sweetheart (part 1)

I've been wrestling with how best to approach this post. Ever since I started blogging here, my online friends have been urging me to share my transgenderism with my dear wife (let's call her "D.W." for the purposes of this post). I knew that I wanted to share all of this with her, and that she deserved to know, but I could never seem to find exactly the right time, due to a whole pile of other stresses in our lives. Well, a little while ago something happened that forced my hand, ready or not. It's kind of involved, and is taking me a painful amount of time to articulate well, so I'm going to split it up into parts. Here's Part 1.

I was getting ready to go on a work-related trip for a few days, and had been pulling a couple of late nights trying to get ready to go. One night, as sometimes happens, I felt the strong need to dress en femme (I hate the term "cross-dress" — it just carries too many negative connotations for me, and doesn't feel like a good match for why I do what I do). I can't put my finger on any specific triggers for these feelings — they just come on strongly sometimes, while at other times it's a barely-noticeable undercurrent in my stream of consciousness. Not that dressing really "solves" anything for me, anyway — it just seems to make the dysphoria more bearable, taking the edge off things, so to speak.

Sorry, tangent. I'm like a dog in a park full of squirrels sometimes.

Anyway, I threw on an old pair of D.W.'s jeans that she'd tossed out, a comfy silk shirt from my small stash of girl clothes, and on a whim, I grabbed a pair of my sweetheart's strappy heels from our closet. Usually I wouldn't bother with shoes... after all, I'm not actually going anywhere. But, I'd recently shaved my legs, and I wanted to see how they looked on my feet (answer: meh). Once changed, I bent my mind toward my evening's tasks.

At some point while working, I kicked off the shoes, because my feet are a little too big for them anyway and, like I said, I wasn't actually going anywhere, and barefoot was more comfy. A little after that, I went into the downstairs bathroom to answer a call of nature... and fell asleep! Usually not a big deal — it happens from time to time when I'm pulling a lot of late nights in a row. Usually when it does, my alarm clock will ring upstairs in our bedroom, D.W. will realize I'm not there, and come downstairs to wake me up. I'll look a little sheepish, she'll roll her eyes at me and go back to bed, and the day proceeds as if it hadn't happened.

This time was a little different.

When the alarm went off, I heard it, realized I was still en femme, and quickly changed into my pajamas before D.W. came downstairs to wake me. I assured her that I was up, and she went back to bed. I stashed my girl clothes, returned the heels to their place, got ready for work, and left, feeling guilty that I still hadn't told her about what was going on with Arcee.

Only... remember when I said I'd kicked off her heels before going to the bathroom?

On her way to wake me up, she saw them.

... Oops.

A few hours into my workday, I get an email from D.W., asking if it was just her imagination, or if she had indeed seen her shoes downstairs, and if that meant I was getting into her things again...? You see, early in our marriage, before I'd really come to terms with my gender dysphoria, she'd caught me dressing once or twice. I'd feel guilty about it, we'd both cry a lot, then I would promise not to do it anymore, because of course we both "knew" that this was just some weird, sinful thing that I shouldn't be doing (spoiler alert: after a lot of fasting and prayer, I don't feel that way anymore... but it still skeeves D.W. out just as much as ever). So here I was, caught in the act, and being asked about it over email, no less (which is, I have to say, a terrible communication medium for this sort of conversation if ever there was such a thing)! What to do?

As it happened, I had been working on a letter to D.W. for a little while, based in small part on a similar letter my blog-friend Laurie had shared with her wife. I excused myself from work for an early (and longer-than-usual) lunch break, then shlepped my laptop over to the nearest McDonald's to partake of a salad and their free wi-fi. There, I finished the letter and emailed it in reply, all scared and nervous about what her reaction would be, then I went back to work. What else could I do?

Two hours later, she sent me back a reply. Even though I'd anticipated her reaction, it still hit me like a punch in the stomach.

To be continued in part 2...

Giving directions

So the other day I was out on my usual lunchtime jog, when an older couple in a minivan pulled up next to me and asked how to get to (a nearby hotel that shall remain nameless). The road they were on, a small, residential dead-end, just happened to share a name with the larger, commercial road where the area's high end hotels are all situated, so I knew right away what had happened (darn GPSes! They're always getting people into trouble around here!). I gave them directions as best as I could, bid them good luck, and continued on my way.

About 5 minutes later, it occurred to me that I give directions differently than most guys I know, and I started to wonder if this was another "gender thing." That day I focused mainly on landmarks (e.g. "you'll pass a park on your left"), rather than on concrete map directions ("go north on Poplar about 2 miles until you get to Hollyhock"), which made me think of something I'd read a while back on the subject:

Studies over the past decade have shown that women are likelier to rely on landmarks and visual cues, and men on maps, cardinal directions (such as north and south) and gauges of distance.

There's a Men's Route And a Women's Route, washingtonpost.com

Sounds like what I experienced! But in Googling the subject tonight, I found a least one scientific study which seems to indicate that these differences are probably anecdotal at best:

[the researcher] gathered data from a more natural context, by driving alongside a customer in a petrol station, winding down her window and asking the person for directions. She did this 60 times, asking 30 men and 30 women. Ewald found no differences in the directions that she received, with the single exception that men tended to estimate how far away the destination was more often than women did. However the men’s estimates were more likely to be wrong than the women’s!

Linguistics Research Digest

Still, there may be some truth to this. Not that it makes any difference, any more than if my ring fingers are the same length as my index fingers, or if my arms turn outward when I face my palms forward. But still, it made me chuckle.

Back!

Peek a boo...?

Just a quick note to say I'm still here and still have a lot I want to get around to blogging about. Shortly after my last post, two things happened that have affected my ability to blog here:

1. I got busy with work and my side business.
2. I wrecked my bike, earning me a stiff neck & shoulder, long and uncomfortable nights of restless sleep, and a nasty face scar that sends my dysphoria into overdrive if I stare at it in the mirror for too long, because of how it makes me feel about myself (there's probably a blog post in there somewhere).

So, yeah. You'll probably see me pop up in the comment threads for my friends' blogs, and I occasionally jump in to a conversation on the two LDS email groups I joined (TGI Mormons and NorthStar), but I have three or four posts in draft that I'll be posting soon, the biggest of which is the story of how I came out to my wife, and the effects that it's having on our relationship.

That one's heavy stuff, and I don't want to be misconstrued, so it doesn't exactly write itself. I'm hoping I can carve out some time to finish it later this week.

On blanket answers

Earlier today, my friend Laurie posted a new entry to her blog, talking about how great it is that recently she, Christian Taylor, and I have all seemingly arrived at a similar place in our transgender-tinged walks with Heavenly Father:

1. Each of us has some measure of gender dysphoria / feelings of feminine gender identity.
2. Each of us was born & raised male, received the priesthood, married a woman, had kids, and is active in the Church.
3. Each of us would likely lose all of these things if we were to pursue gender transition to live as a female.
4. Therefore, we have each decided to remain with our spouses, remain in the Church, and remain primarily male, finding ways to embrace and express our femininity from this side of the gender divide.

I agree with this characterization of my thoughts and feelings today, as well as my agreement with my wife (I know, I still haven't blogged about how I came out to her! Next post, I promise!). But I confess to feeling a little bit uneasy with the overall message that appears to be coming from Laurie's post (I'm not going to ascribe this to her directly, because this may not be her intent at all, and just my interpretation * I'm positive that this wasn't her intent, and she has since said as much, but someone might still get that impression in reading over our blogs without the proper context).

It reminded me of a conversation going on over on Josh Weed's blog right now. The gist of it goes like this:

1. Josh Weed is a self-declared homosexual man.
2. Josh Weed is happily married to a straight woman.
3. Therefore, some argue, these so-called "mixed-orientation marriages" can work and are the solution for all gay men (and women) of faith.
4. "Not so," reply others -- Josh & Lolly's situation is unique. It works for them, and though there are other charter members of Club Unicorn for whom mixed-orientation marriages work, saying "wow, I can't wait to show this blog to my gay friend!" is harmful, because there are many gay Mormons (perhaps most?) for whom such a marriage wouldn't work at all (or who have tried one and failed).

I think the same can be said of our mutual position on our transgenderism. It works for the three of us, and we can rightly rejoice in having found a way forward in our lives that preserves the things we hold most dear, but there are other transgender Mormons for whom this wouldn't be a solution at all. Like Christi said a few weeks ago, our thoughts and ideas should NOT be taken as the official position of the Church, or the One True Way(™) for transgender Mormons to live their lives. Just as gender identity and expression is along a continuum, so too I think are the ways each of us has to come to grips with it.

* I edited this parenthetical to clarify my intent. I'm not trying to criticize Laurie here at all, I just wanted to make sure not to make things harder on transwomen for whom our solution isn't the right one.

On the Internet...

© 1993 Peter Steiner / The New Yorker (Vol.69 (LXIX) no. 20)

I saw this famous New Yorker cartoon a while ago that I thought was kind of funny, about how everyone on the Internet can basically craft their own identity to be what- or whoever they want to be. The other day something kind of interesting happened that reminded me of that cartoon.

For the past 6 months or more I've been playing Wordsmith (like Words with Friends or Scrabble) with a few people on my smartphone. It's a fun little diversion, and keeps my mind (relatively?) sharp. Anyway, recently one of my regular opponents, with whom I've been playing for many months, sent me a surprising little chat message through the game: while I don't remember the exact quote, she said something to the effect of "please don't be offended, but are you a man or woman?"

I think my jaw might've dropped.

My game username is pretty much gender-neutral, so I guess that could be confusing, but the funny thing is, my avatar in the game is VERY masculine: shaved head, dark power suit... cosplaying Lex Luthor, basically. So was it my word choice? The way we interact when we chat? I have no idea. But even though I answered "male", I have to admit that Arcee preened a little.

The Incredible Hulk and the Transgendered Mind (an Avengers Review. No, Really!)

So I want to see the Avengers movie with my kids a couple of weekends ago. To say we loved it would be a significant understatement... It. Was. Awesome!

(At least for those of us who like superhero bash-ups)

A lot of the conversation about the movie has involved Mark Ruffalo's role as Bruce Banner, alter-ego of the Incredible Hulk — rightly so, it was really great, both in person and via the Gollum-style motion capture that drove the CGI character. The script, written by geek icon Joss Whedon, is really great at balancing a lot of characters, giving everyone's favorite their chance to shine — I love Captain America's line about flying monkeys, for example, and of course Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man is something of a smart-alec. That said, I think Hulk did get some of the best/funniest lines. One in particular really jumped out at me, but I'll get to that in a minute.

Okay, first a brief comics history lesson for those of you who aren't up on your Marvel history. The Incredible Hulk is Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's take on the old "Jekyll and Hyde" dichotomy: a peaceful man of science trapped inside the brutish body of a man of action, updated for the atomic age. In most incarnations, Bruce Banner is a genius scientist who gets accidentally exposed to massive amounts of gamma radiation, which has the effect of turning him into a rampaging monster (unchecked id, basically) when he gets angry. Over the years, the comic has covered this basic premise from a bunch of different angles, from psychological horror to straight up superhero action. It's always at its most interesting, though, when the stories do something to contrast the man inside versus "the other guy," as he refers to his hulkish alter ego in the recent film.

Through most of Avengers, Banner almost always refers to his brutish alter-ego only indirectly, only actually calling him by name once, before immediately correcting himself. This mirrors the "Jekyll and Hyde" theme commonly seen in the comics, where Banner and the Hulk were two distinct personalities, mistrustful of one another, only rarely working toward common goals. The last two feature films to focus on the Hulk have tread this ground, but began to hint that Banner was trying to use meditation and other self-mastery techniques to get control over his "anger issues." This bears fruit in the movie's climactic battle scene:

(pay special attention around the 0:35 mark)

So (spoiler alert!) the big secret is that Banner has learned to control his anger, and thus control his transformation into the Hulk! Pretty heady stuff, and a great 11th-hour reveal. Here again, the comics actually went down this road for a while, with a psychotherapist helping Banner integrate the various splintered aspects of his psyche into what the fans typically call the "Professor Hulk," which reconciled the Hulk's strength and pride with Banner's intelligence and compassion. (full disclosure: the "Professor" era's stories were my favorite to read, so I may be gushing a bit)

So what does all of this have to do with being transgendered? I'm glad you asked, Dear Reader. :)

For a very long time (most of my life, actually), I've seen my feminine side as my Hulk, my "other gal." For quite a while I paraphrased King Benjamin, calling her my "natural (wo)man" (and, therefore, an "enemy to God"). None of this was healthy, and it led to a lot of cognitive dissonance and years of emotional whiplash as I swung wildly between indulging and ignoring that voice inside me. It has really only been these past few months, when I finally realized that Arcee is a part of who I am, and accepted that there were positive ways to listen to and validate that part of myself, that I've found something approaching inner peace.

Are there still metaphorical supervillians in my life that need fighting? Of course there are. But I feel like, having made peace with myself, I'm finally equipped to meet life's challenges head-on. For me, beyond the epic superhero fights and struggle for freedom against a seemingly unbeatable foe, my enduring memory of the Avengers will be that scene: Bruce Banner, calmly accepting the duality of his nature, and turning to face his challenges with confidence. I hope to do the same.

"I used to be a man"

(I got this picture from Google Images, but the site it came from, ironically enough, belongs to a fellow trans-sister! Her story, while still unfolding, is pretty eye-opening, but probably not appropriate for all my readers, because Nikki's a former sailor, and swears like one.)

Last week, I blogged about where the first part of my pseudonym comes from. In order to explain the second part, I need to tell you something about my Mom.

I was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but my Mom wasn't. In fact, even though my Dad was a member of the Church as a kid, he wasn't super active until years later either (but that's another story). I remember Mom telling me once shortly after my mission that I was "her first convert," because she got interested in the Church via her mother-in-law (my Grandma) when I came along. So Mom took us kids to church every Sunday, and Primary every week (what day was it on before the unified block schedule, Wednesdays?) I owe my testimony, faith, and trust in God to her in more ways than I can count. She's amazing. (Not to take anything at all away from my Dad... he just wasn't spiritually there yet)

So let's skip ahead a few years. I must've been about 12 or 13 at the time... my gender issues were in full swing at this point, and thanks to the public library, I had a vague notion of what it meant to be transsexual. We were in the car, driving out to visit my grandparents, when out of the blue she nonchalantly says to my sister and I: "You know, I used to be a man."

I was stunned!

Really?!?! My amazing mother was born a guy?!? I couldn't process this. These crazy transgender feelings I was dealing with? My Mom knew what they felt like...? This might change everything!

After a beat, though, clarity (I don't remember if she told us, or if it just occurred to us on our own): her maiden name is MANN! So Mom was born a girl, but before she got married and took my Dad's name, she was a Mann! Not a "man".

D'oh!

So this was just a corny joke, completely innocent on her part, and not at all what I had read into it. It certainly didn't help my dysphoria, but years later, it would make the perfect pseudonym: one that says something about who I am and what's important to me (i.e. my awesome family), while yet saying nothing at all. So now, you know.

"Club Unicorn" goes viral

If you haven't seen this yet. My wife shared this couple's story with me yesterday, and it's worth spreading. It's very quickly making the rounds in the LDS blogosphere, and their story is pretty awesome. Obviously gay issues aren't the same as trans issues, but the fact that people are even openly talking about these kinds of issues represents a huge step forward in my mind. And the fact that my Sweetheart thought to share it with me is significant as well, but that's the subject for another post.

What's in a Name?

It should come as a shock to exactly none of my readers that Arcee Mann isn't my birth name. So, where did it come from, and why did I choose it? Read on to find out.

First, a little background. I said way back in my first post that I was a big Transformers fan as a kid. A good friend of mine collected GI-Joe figures as well, since they both kind of inhabited similar universes and their comics (and cartoons, I think) occasionally crossed over with each other. The thing is, though? I never liked GI-Joes. Like, absolutely no interest at all. So thinking about it now, it occurs to me that there must have been something else about the heroic Autobots and nefarious Decepticons that appealed to me, beyond the whole struggle between two paramilitary groups and the big guns and such.

Thinking about other toys I collected, the other major group that comes to mind is my Star Wars toys. Like Transformers, the Star Wars movies were about this epic struggle of good versus evil, and there were certainly blasters and lightsabers and so forth, but it wasn't the violence itself that appealed to me: instead, it was the richness of the worlds that were created! Indeed, as I grew older, I became fascinated with science fiction and fantasy stories, to the exclusion of almost everything else — because it wasn't the conflict inherent in fiction that caught my attention, it was that ability to escape into a whole new world, so unlike the one outside my window!

Please understand that I had a happy childhood (for the most part). My family loved me, I had a few good friends, and I could pretty much ignore the kids that teased and made fun of me (which was most of them, including most of the kids in my ward at church). But still, there was something really magical about these stories that could take me away to worlds where good would always stand up to evil in whatever form it took, and though sometimes there would be cliffhangers, good would always triumph in the end.

Anyway, that's way more analysis than I had intended to put into explaining my Transformers love, and it was all leading up introducing this particular Autobot. Meet Arcee:

That's right, Arcee is a Transformer. Originally the only female Transformer, to be exact. Eventually the creators added other female robots, but for that first generation of stories, she was the Autobot Smurfette. I never owned her toy, but nevertheless, I always knew of her, and she carries a special significance in my heart.

Sometime I'll tell the story of where my last name comes from, but that story's pretty interesting in its own right, so I'd better leave it for another day.

Labels

I'm going to try dictating this blog post from my cellphone. Here goes...

I've been thinking a lot about labels lately -- what we call ourselves, what we call other people, what other people call us -- and it occurred to me that I tend to play kinda fast and loose with the words I use to describe my own situation.

I remember I was young teen when I first found the Renee Richards biography, Second Serve, that talked about her t************ and eventual gender reassignment surgery. (Wow, Android voice recognition censored that last T word. Interesting...)

Anyway, I think it was this book, or another of the very few my library had on the subject, that first helped me put words to the feelings I had inside... where I learned that there is a difference between "transsexual" and "transvestite". (I don't think "transgender" was really in common usage then, if the term had even been coined at all). I knew that I wasn't a transsexual, not exactly anyway -- I didn't want to change myself into a woman (well, most days, anyway). But the literature I read said that that transvestites get some kind of sexual charge out of dressing in women's clothing, and I didn't (more on that in a minute), so that didn't really feel like the right term either.

Now, fast-forward a couple of years.

Over the years while I've been wrestling with my GID, I've wondered exactly what it meant for me and my family. I know I'm not a transsexual. I don't think of myself as a transvestite, at least not in the "gets turned on by women's clothes" sense. (I dress because it's comforting and reaffirms my occasionally feminine feelings). For a long time, when I thought those were the only 2 options, I wasn't really sure what to make of myself: someone who doesn't feel very comfortable in a lot of the traditional male role, but doesn't really want to be a female either; someone who loves his wife and children and wants to stay with them and be a good husband and father, but doesn't want to be a "Ward Cleaver", Father-Knows-Best sort of a dad. These past few months, in reading a lot about this it seems that I fall more into the "squishy middle"... where we now have this neat word, "transgender," which seems to kind of cover a wide range of people -- myself included, I think.

So, that's my gender identity: feminine-leaning male, mildly androgynous... transgendered.

And then there's my sexual orientation, which, it may come as a surprise to some people, is really a totally different subject. Teenage-me used to think they were the same thing, which led to a lot of weird self-searching, because although my gender identity is a bit muddy, my sexuality isn't. I am, always have been, and probably always will be attracted to women -- and one woman in particular, my amazing wife. Sometimes I hear transwomen refer to themselves as "lesbian" because they identify as female, and are attracted to females. Okay, that makes sense. I also know of male to female transwomen that are attracted to men, making them effectively hetero. There also appear to be a growing number of genderqueer folk that you don't really care to be pigeonholed as either male or female, and who are attracted not to a gendered body, but to a person's mind and spirit, be it male or female.

I guess I come back to the point that I've made a few times already on this blog that things are just not as binary as everyone wants them to be. Yes, there are "mens' men." There are "women's women." And then there are all the rest of us.

The Rules

if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you.

— Equal Rites, Terry Pratchett

I've been re-reading Terry Pratchett's book Equal Rites, one of his very first novels set on the Discworld*, and one explicitly concerned with gender roles. The main character, Esk, is the Disc's first female wizard, having being accidentally gifted the magic of a dying wizard that thought she was a baby boy. This quote perfectly sums up her 9-year-old attitude toward the world, but it struck me how much it applies to transpeople too. Self-confidence and fearless determination make all the difference in the world.

* This probably won't be the last time Pratchett comes up on this blog; he's one of my very favorite authors, and has written quite a bit about gender, faith, and other thought-provoking subjects.

Music and Me, part 3

One final note (heh) on music, kind of as an epilogue to what I wrote a few weeks ago

.

The other day I was listening to a podcast by one of my favorite, tragically geeky bands, They Might Be Giants. I thought I'd heard most of their music, even from the (relatively few) albums I don't own, but then a song came on that I'd never heard before that stopped me in my tracks:

How Can I Sing Like a Girl?

Now, it should be said that over the years the Johns (as they call themselves: John Linnel and John Flansburgh) have been incredibly prolific and have produced a huge catalog of music, not all of which has made it onto an album. (there are at least two blogs that I know of that are posting regular updates highlighting some of its weirder corners). In reading these blogs and listening to this podcast, it occurred to me for the first time that they actually sing quite a bit about gender issues! One more reason to like them. :)

Alone in the Universe?

I recently saw a great middle school production of Seussical the Musical, and was really touched by a couple of the songs. One of my many girlish traits has always been that stuff like this makes my cry, and this show was no exception.

The main story is about Horton the elephant trying to save the tiny Whos, who live on a dust speck on a clover blossom. Only he, with his enormous ears, can hear their cries, and only he, with his enormous heart, dedicates himself to helping them find a safe haven -- in spite of the mocking, scorn, and even threats of harm that everyone else in the jungle heap upon him. The other main character, Jojo, is one of the Whos down in Whoville that also feels like an outcast because he sees things differently than everyone else. The play weaves their two tales together, and becomes this amazing story of how love, friendship, and understanding can give us all hope.

There's one song in particular, where Horton and Jojo both feel alone and outcast, then find each other -- a kindred voice in the darkness that understands exactly what they're feeling, and lets them both know that they're not alone, as long as they have each other. This in spite of the fact that they may never actually meet in real life, due to being literally worlds apart. The song really jumped out at me in bright neon letters 3 stories tall; what better metaphor for what I've experienced in the past few months, thinking myself alone as a transgendered husband and father, then discovering amazing friends that are feeling and experiencing much, if not exactly, the same things! Wow:

To my new trans Mormon friends, who let me know that I am not alone: thank you!

And to anyone else out there reading my blog: you're not alone in the universe, either! We're out here, trying to make our voices heard in whatever small way we can, hoping we can make a difference in each others' lives. And by that act alone, we can.

Yes, I'm a Transgirl Geek

So, I have a bit of a confession to make.

Yes, I have transgender feelings and tendencies. Yes, a lot of the things our culture tells us are "guy" traits don't fit me at all, and I score 55/86/70 (masculine/feminine/andro) on the BEM sex role inventory. But like I said when I started this blog, I do like some stuff that's often considered stereotypically male: video games (though not the ultra-violent stuff like Call of Duty), and superhero comic books.

Of course, these things aren't really limited to the male gender, but you maybe don't see them as often with transwomen. Which was why I was so happy to discover Morgan McCormick! Morgan started a blog and YouTube channel a couple of years ago, and while she's not the most prolific of bloggers/vloggers, I love her, if for no other reason than that she's a devoted gamer and unapologetic geek! She's also much less preoccupied with sex than many (most) of the transpeople on YouTube, so I appreciate that about her too.

Anyway, this blog isn't about her, specifically. It's more about the fact that she and others like her exist, making me feel more like my passion for geeky stuff doesn't make me any less authentic in my trans-ness. So, if you see some of that sort of stuff pop up here on the blog (or over on my Google Plus) from time to time, now you know why. :)

LDS Transgenders' Voices Needed

One of the first blogs I found when I had my "hey, maybe transgenderism isn't evil after all!" epiphany was The Exponent, an LDS Women's blog that spends a fair amount of time talking about gender roles. Lots of interesting threads, not all of them directly related to my own situation, but all of them from sisters in our faith who are trying to find the will of God in their lives. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, the Exponent publishes a quarterly magazine, Exponent II, and they devoted the whole of their most recent issue, which was just released a few weeks ago, to LGBTQ saints. I enjoyed what I read, but when I got to the end I was disappointed to note that they couldn't find any T or Q members willing to share their stories!

Even as our faith community seems to be becoming more accepting of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, methinks transpeople don't yet feel quite so welcome...? Or maybe we just aren't as willing to share? Or, maybe, people just didn't know about the Exponent at all before the submission deadline? I don't know. I don't want to be judgmental of others, but I can't help but feel like there's room for improvement here.

I say this, fully aware of the irony that I'm still anonymous here, not even out to my own family yet. And yet I still feel like there should be transgendered members of the Church who have come to terms with themselves and have chosen to remain active and in full fellowship. Where are their voices? Maybe this ever-increasing group of our gay and lesbian fellowsaints have been able to come forth and talk about their experiences because someone first stepped out in the darkness and blazed the trail before them.

So my question is: who's going to be the brave one and make those first steps so that the rest of us aren't so afraid to follow?

Interesting Conversation with my Wife

So this morning I shared that BYU "It gets better" video with my wife (who, remember, doesn't yet know I'm trans).

It kinda blew her mind. And it started a conversation that I think will lead to me being able to share all of this with her.

My dear wife (from now on let's call her DW) has a good friend and former BYU roommate that she just found recently on Facebook. This friend, judging by her profile and posts there, appears to have come out as a lesbian, and is living with the consequences of that decision. Another of DW's friends, a boyfriend from high school that investigated the Church for a while in his teens, has also come out as gay, and is somewhere out in the third world serving others selflessly (just, I might add, as Christ might be doing if He were here). As someone who, like myself, grew up in the Church with President Kimball's views on gender and sexuality (such as in the Miracle of Forgiveness) very much the norm, these kinds of things tend to... well, challenge her worldview somewhat.

DW shared with me that she'd just read a press release from the Church decrying all forms of persecution (including against LGBTQs), which was apparently released in response to a teenager in northern Utah recently committing suicide over anti-gay bullying in his school. Attitudes in the Church, it seems, are changing. Perhaps too slowly for some, but they are definitely changing.

I want to make it clear that I think we need to continue to stand for truth and righteousness in a lone and often dreary world. That said, we also need to recognize the difference between real sins and those attitudes, thoughts, and actions that are sometimes wrongly perceived in our faith community as such. Until we receive further light and knowledge from the Lord through the prophet, the onus is on us as individuals and families to study it out in our minds and hearts, and love all our brethren and sisters--both LDS and otherwise--with Christ's unconditional love.

Truly, we live in interesting times.

Tall for a Girl

When I was a teenage guy wanting to be more like my tall Dad, I would round my height up to 6 feet exactly. Nowadays I usually say I'm 5 feet/11 inches, which somehow sounds better to me for some reason. Still, that makes me pretty tall for a Caucasian woman, since the average height is apparently around 5 feet/4 inches. Which makes me feel like it would be hard to find clothes that fit, and unlikely I'd ever be able to "pass" as a woman in public, even if I got around my hair issues.

Then again, there are women around my height, including Brooke Shields, Michelle Obama, and even Wonder Woman herself, Lynda Carter! So, maybe I'm not such a tall freak after all! :)

Music and Me, part 2

Last time, I talked about how music played such an important part in my wife as I grew up.

As I got older, my voice got deeper and deeper, more and more like my dad's gravelly bass. For many years, I just kind of went along with that, and whenever we participated in our ward choirs, I always sang bass. I like being part of the choir and singing praises to the Lord, and a lot of times our wards haven't had many interested male voices, so I've always felt welcome. Bass was easier, both because that's where I thought I was stuck and because the bass part in church hymns tends to be a lot easier than the tenor part, and anyway tenor was just a bit too much of a stretch for me.

A couple of months ago our ward choir started practicing for our Easter program. My 9-year-old son, who for years has opted out of ward choir even though his big sister has sung with us, suddenly decided he wanted to take part. His voice hasn't changed yet, so he sings tenor (well, probably baritone actually). Since this was his first experience with the choir, I wanted to sit with him for moral support... which meant singing tenor too. Turns out, with a bit of an adjustment in my posture and a small mental shift in terms of where my voice is singing from... I CAN sing tenor! The very highest notes are still a bit of a challenge until my voice has warmed up, but with proper support, I can actually sing tenor quite well! :)

I know to many people, this may seem a really minor thing. But it's been a huge confidence-booster for me in terms of carving out a more gender-balanced identity for myself. With my newfound ability, I've been practicing singing along with Josh Groban and Collin Raye when I'm driving alone to and from work, and it's been so freeing!

Based on this success, I've started trying to figure out how to adapt my vocal ability to my speaking voice too. There are tons of video tutorials on YouTube that talk about how to do this, some more useful than others. One of the big clues that really helped me was to speak from the throat instead of from the abdomen; it's really pretty amazing how much of a difference in makes just relocating the sound resonance from your chest to your head! I've been trying this on and off lately, even sometimes at work and when talking to my kids and wife, and so far nobody's said anything to me about it, because it's still my voice, just pitched a little higher. Wow.

Music and Me, Part 1

I've enjoyed singing for almost as long as I can remember. When we were really young, my mom, a "reformed hippy," would play her acoustic guitar and sing folk songs with my sister and I. Some that I remember from those days:

• I was Born About 10,000 Years Ago
• The Name Game
• Make New Friends...
• The Crawdad Song

When I was a little older, we discovered Mom's old 45 RPM records in the garage, and quickly found our favorites, which we played over and over (and over) again alongside our own kids' records like Monster Mash and Flashbeagle:

• Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?
• Alley Oop
• Snoopy vs. the Red Baron
• Dinner With Drac

(Yeah, my musical tastes ran a little quirky when I was a kid. They still do). Fast-forward a few years, and I was making mixtapes with stuff from my friends, my sister, recorded off the radio and TV... it's probably hard for my kids to even imagine that world, when the Internet wasn't there to give us basically unlimited access to nearly limitless music, almost entirely on demand (otherwise I wouldn't have even been able to put together these playlists!). Plus, music was much more social back then, I think — I discovered Weird Al Yankovic, Ray Stevens, the Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, Erasure, ABBA, They Might Be Giants, Rush, and so many other bands via friends that gave me copies. I kind of miss that, actually. Online sharing somehow isn't the same.
Anyway, now to the actual point of this post. I remember singing "Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song" in our elementary school choir, and it touched a nerve somewhere deep inside me. I LIKED singing in a group! What's more, I seemed to be pretty good at it... I don't have perfect pitch, but I can copy others pretty well (which is the subject of another blog post entirely), and I'm pretty good at remembering lyrics (unfortunately, the corollary is that once something's stuck in my head, it's nearly impossible to unseat it). A few years later in middle school, I had the chance to avoid having to take P.E. (which I hated[1]) by signing up for choir instead. Kind of a no-brainer for me.
I didn't pursue choir in high school (one of my few regrets from that time), but I never stopped singing along to the stereo when I was driving alone, and music became a constant background presence in my life. Then, as in other aspects of my teenage years, puberty came along and messed things up. My middle school baritone slowly but surely descended into a deep bass. Guess that means no more singing along with Collin Raye, right? Well, I certainly thought so...
To be continued...

Notes

[1]Except for swimming class – swimming was awesome.

Me versus the male gaze

A couple of times recently, I've realized something a little unusual about myself. Occasionally, I'll find myself looking closely at attractive women I see when out and about (at the grocery store, pumping gas in the car, that sort of thing). I try to be discrete about it, but sometimes they notice, and kind of give me the evil eye like I'm undressing them with my eyes or something (which I'm not; although I'm attracted to women in general, my wife's my one and only).

Awkward.

I wonder how much more awkward it would be if they knew I was actually admiring their cool boots, pretty blouse, or very feminine short haircut. ;)

How Elder Nelson`s Conference Talk Addressed Gender

Wow, definite food for thought: Mere`s Critical Analysis of Elder Nelson`s Talk “Thanks be to God” in Support of LDS Acceptance of Same-Sex Temple Marriages.

It Gets Better at BYU

If only this had existed when I was there... I might have learned to embrace who I am sooner than my late 30s.

Hairy

I've got a real love-hate relationship with shaving.

When I was a preteen, I saw my Dad shaving with his electric shaver, and thought it would be neat to have enough peach fuzz to need my own (I was one of those boys that want to be "just like Dad"; whatever gender confusion I may have had was buried pretty deeply at that point). Then I got hit by the "body hair fairy", and I quickly discovered how much of a hassle it can all be.

For starters, I've got a LOT of hair. Arms, legs, chest, back, and of course on my face. Way more hair than any genetic female would ever have, and enough that people notice when I shave it. For my face & legs, that's fine... guys can do that, especially if they're cyclists (I am). But everything else? Arms, chest, back, shoulders, armpits...? When that hair goes missing, people tend to ask questions I'd rather avoid.

So, I shave what I can safely shave in our culture without raising eyebrows. Not the best, but I can live with it for now.

Unfortunately, even for the places I feel free to shave, I have issues. I've always had super sensitive skin, which makes using a blade of any kind tricky — I tend to cut myself, a LOT. Plus, my face gets pretty irritated if I shave on anything approaching a regular basis (like daily). And as if that isn't enough, my hair grows in at a weird angle, so that even the closest, smoothest electric shaver leaves me with a Homer Simpson-style 5 o' clock shadow. Sad face! :(

It's taken me years to figure out how to deal with this. For a while I tried growing a goatee, because it seemed like it would be less of a daily hassle. I was also in a phase of my life when I was trying to deny my feminine side, and I thought having a beard would make my GID feelings weaker, or at the very least easier to ignore. I quickly found that I was wrong in both cases: it took even more effort to keep a goatee neatly trimmed, and after a few days the prickliness would really start to bug me (and my wife, for that matter), so I'd end up shaving it all off, and the feelings would come roaring back.

More often than not, then, I end up being lazy and looking like a less-masculine George Michael, with a day or two's worth of shadow. Yuck.

Honestly, if electrolysis / laser hair removal weren't so expensive and time-consuming, I'd have probably done my face and legs already. Le sigh.

Ah, yes, my legs. I've been shaving them on and off for years. Once, early on in our marriage, my wife commented on how sexy my legs would look if they were shaved. So that night I took the opportunity to shave them... slowly, and with several painful nicks, but I rather liked the results (my girlish feelings were just reawakening after being dormant for most of my college years). I loved their smooth silkiness, and the way my pants fabric felt slipping over them when I walked was absolutely delicious. My sweetheart was surprised when she saw what I'd done the next morning — I think her original comment was just playful and not really serious — but if I remember right, she liked them. (I was riding my bike back and forth a lot to college classes at the time, so my calves were pretty toned). But shaving my legs was so time consuming, not to mention hard for me to explain, so I'd go months or even years without doing anything about them.

Fast-forward to last year. I've spent the last few years exercising on my lunch break at work a couple of times a week, usually just power-walking or some light weight training in the gym in my building. Then I had the brilliant idea to bring my bike to work and leave it in a corner, so I could RIDE on my lunch breaks instead. It's easier on my bad knees, and I can go further and burn more calories in the same amount of time... win-win! Plus, as a serious cyclist, I finally had a justifiable reason to shave my legs on a regular basis... make that win-win-WIN! I've got my own Venus shaver for the job so I don't mess up my wife's blades, and she's come to accept my doing it.

I've kept my legs clean-shaven pretty much constantly since then. Doing maintenance shaves maybe once or twice a week is enough to keep them soft, smooth, and comfy. I still wish there was a better way besides shaving to get my face and legs to where I want them, and wish I could follow suit with the rest of my body, but for right now, this feels like a good compromise between sasquatch and naked mole rat, and makes me feel just a little bit more like myself.

Is Gender Binary?

This morning Christian Taylor published a new post on her blog that got me thinking about how my views on transgenderism are changing. I commented there, but I feel like those comments could be fleshed out a little more, so here goes.

I've been reading and studying more on the subject lately than I have in the past (again, I'm finally approaching my transgenderism as something to be learned from, not something to be ashamed of), and have had some very interesting insights. In a nutshell, the more I learn, the harder time I have seeing gender as a strictly binary thing, either 100% male or 100% female, and not as a complex continuum of thoughts, feelings, desires, and attitudes that shape our perceptions of the world and inform our approach to it. I'm still trying to reconcile that with the LDS church's Proclamation on the Family, which I believe to be inspired of God, and which includes this passage:

All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.

I'm trying to exercise some spiritual insight here, and I think maybe terminology is getting in the way a little. Mirriam-Webster defines gender as "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex". So in the common usage, gender is, indeed, binary, and the Proclamation's usage is consistent with that definition: all God's children are sons or daughters, and this gender is part of their eternal identity.

Now contrast that with a common feminist perspective on gender:

...according to this interpretation, all humans are either male or female; their sex is fixed. But cultures interpret sexed bodies differently and project different norms on those bodies thereby creating feminine and masculine persons.
...
This means that genders (women and men) and gendered traits (like being nurturing or ambitious) are the “intended or unintended product[s] of a social practice”

So in this characterization, sex is binary, but gender is most decidedly not! I recently read a really great article about this on the Exponent, an LDS women's magazine. Seriously, go read it, it's fascinating. Here's a snippet:

Furthermore, the behaviors, traits, roles, and expectations of gender are culturally relative. I witnessed this first hand during my dissertation fieldwork in Ghana where men unabashedly hold hands with each other, wear pink, sing soprano, and like hello kitty without any reflection on their masculinity, “machismo,” and/or sexuality. It is also a land where women “provide.” They farm, they own small businesses, they occupy the most prestigious and wealthy positions in the largest outdoor market in the world. The variations continue from culture to culture in what fundamental behaviors are “male” or “female.”
...
The obvious socially, culturally, and politically constructed continuum of gender behavior gives me serious doubts about the concept of the “eternal nature of gender” argued in the Proclamation to the Family and subsequent talks. It is implausible and carries the remnants of Americancentrism and 1950′s idealism inapplicable to much of the global membership. Thus, is the theology merely a remnant of our church leaders’ generational and national upbringing? Is it the one and only true gender construction? Or am I missing something?

I think we in the transgender community do a disservice to each other by trying to "categorize" different types of transgenderism (i.e. crossdresser, transsexual, genderqueer, etc). To my mind, it seems like we're accepting the scientific premise that gender is a continuum, and yet we're not quite able to let go of the emotional need for tidy little boxes or labels for people. I think of myself as a transgendered man, and crossdressing is part of the way I express that, but it's not an end unto itself — that's just more like a means of connecting with my feminine side. I've been praying and pondering a lot about this lately, and I'm feeling pretty strongly that my essential sex identity, the sex of my spirit if you will, is male (I know it seems weird to impute a sex to spirits, but work with me here). That said, my gender is a very different matter, and not so easily categorized. My physical and linguistic mannerisms, the way I approach any number of subjects from politics, to my profession, to friendships, to church doctrine, to my marriage and parenthood — I fall all over the male/female spectrum, and I don't think I'm alone in that respect. There are a ton of ways people may express their discomfort or lack of fit with their society-proscribed gender role, and I don't think this necessarily tracks with any incongruences in the genders of our bodies, minds, and spirits.

Please note that I'm not attempting to criticize anyone for understanding these things differently. We all see the world imperfectly, as Paul anciently told the Corinthians:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
— 1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV

I'd like to think the day is coming (Paul's "then") when we all will know one another the way our Heavenly Father knows us, and the fractal beauty of our infinite gender variations will take our breath away.