The above comment came my way last week and I asked the commenter to expound on those words.
“In Mother Night Vonnegut notes that ‘You are who you pretend to be, so be very careful about who you pretend to be.’
“One problem with the classic Virginia Prince/FPE/SSS definition of crossdresser is that it demands a kind of schizophrenic performance, being both ‘woman’ and ‘heterosexual male’ at the same time, boundaries enforced by the consensus of the group which says that slipping too far into queer is betraying truth and right.
“When you have Funnies that are based on the joke that one of the women is ‘really’ a boy, you highlight that kind of conflict in policing ourselves intended to enforce social binaries and deny any possibility of transformation. Are we our performance or is that too radical an idea, one that might allow boundary slip and allow us to let go of status and privilege.
“I understand how you feel a need to hold onto your history, onto assumptions placed on your biology, because letting those defences slip feels scary and radical.
“But as Ms. Finney Boylan notes, if trans is just regular on Jeopardy is it really radical anymore? Or is it just scary to those who feel a need to cling to some kind of enforced separation?
“Your own long held and deep trans nature is obvious. So is your need to hang onto habitual handles of self-policing.
“It’s up to you to find your own balance.
“Just one more point.
“No matter how liminal April Ashley knew herself to be, knowing her birth sex and biology, knowing that she passed between worlds, I bet in her many decades of life she never felt the urge to announce ‘But I'm a boy!’
“Thinking is the only way I have found to move beyond culturally implanted expectations, assumptions and habits.”
So the question for me is: Am I a woman or a female impersonator?
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| Wearing New York & Company |
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| Andee attending her local support group's holiday party. |