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.

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.

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. :)