A Conversation

I don't know how to start this, but you might need some context. Know that this post isn't about me or my health. It's about a conversation I had with my doctor.

I've known him for some time. He's my dermatology surgeon. He removes basal cell cancers and I have a lot of them, so he knows me well and I know him too. So we trust each other. I have his cell phone number!

Yesterday I saw him and he asked me about the lesion he removed from my breast last month, as he was taking a biopsy of a very likely site on my belly. I said it was fine but a little lumpy, and he said it was because of the movement of the skin of the breast.

"Yeah, I've heard from trans friends who have to wear tape for a few months after removing breasts because of how that tissue moves."

He paused a beat and asked, "How do you know trans people."

"Um, I'm queer and in community and have friends who are trans?"

I talked about folks in a faith community I was in, the queer org I worked at in the early 90s, the queer homeless youth host home program we were in. Then he launched.

"What do you think about the explosion of trans people right now?"

Woah, I thought. Is this what cis people think?

"Well, is it an explosion or is it just that it's safer to be out about it than it was 20 years ago? I bet people thought there was an explosion of gay and lesbian folks in the 90s and 2000s."

Then he was done with the biopsy (they never take much time) and he left. I'd brought my knitting because it's usually 15-20 minutes before he comes back to either take out more or to sew me up. So I picked up knitting and turned on some music on my phone.

Within two minutes he was back. Instead of waiting elsewhere for the slide to be read and analyzed, he wanted to talk. He seemed curious and he had opinions.

"I think it was a mistake to push for trans kids to be on sports teams."

I talk about how movements form and react to pushback and learn.

"It's easy to look at that in hindsight and judge it, but what if it created enough pushback for these issues to be a national dialogue and balloon the movement?" Then I talked about Bayard Rustin's freedom ride in the 1940s that in many ways was a disaster. But it taught folks in the civil rights movement, including Bayard Rustin, the architect of the March on Washington, how to do it better. How the violent pushback from southern institutions emboldened even more people to want to do something about racism.

I also talked about the history of sex verification at the Olympics and all the times they've tried, it's been problematic. How hormones and genetic testing reveal that there aren't standard norms for "women" and "men" and how gender is a social construct.

We moved onto his own experience of his kids and their experience of young people. "It feels like an epidemic," he said. "No, not a disease...but a lot of my kids friends are changing their gender. I asked my kids if any of their friends changed their pronouns back and they say no."

Then we returned to how it's safer now for kids to express who they are in a way folks in our generation (we're close to the same age--he has kids in college, so maybe a little younger). He said he had trans patients but not many. I pushed back.

"That you know of. Lots and lots of people hide who they really are for a long time. I did. It took me a long time to come out to people in my life, let alone doctors." 

We talked about safe places. He talked about New York City and The Castro. I talked about how Pride is a place where I feel more completely myself than I feel anywhere else.

"I'm just afraid the pushback to trans people will get [REDACTED] elected again."

This. This is what he's afraid of. Fascism. I wanted to tell him that fascism isn't caused by movements for justice. I wanted to tell him that fascism breeds well in fear. But then the slides were done and he had to go check them.

He returned to sew me up, which also doesn't take long, and wanted to know about surgical stuff, which I know little about, other than it's out of reach, financially, for so many people. Then he was done.

I think I'm going to text him this article about the first NOTSEE book burning at the Institute on Sexology, how attacks on queer and trans folks was an easy rallying cry and testing ground for fascism. I wonder what he's going to ask me about when he takes the stitches out.

No Eulogies

I didn't write a eulogy when you expected me to do it. I grieved for a long time and wrote eulogies to my therapists, my lovers, my friends, all the people I loved. Over and over until the wounds scabbed over. Until they were torn off again and again and healed over until there were scars. I grieved for decades, wrote eulogies for years until I was loved enough to love myself and didn't need to write them anymore. So you're not getting one from me. They were all for myself. My grief. My wounds. I don't need to grieve anymore.

Names/Identity

March 10th is Middle Name Pride Day. In 2009, the TSA started requiring that the name you use when you buy an airline ticket match exactly your state-issued ID or passport. I understand the need for it, and I even have come to accept it. But because airlines haven't updated their databases in decades, their fields are limited by the number of characters in a name or in a collection of names (as in, First Middle Last), they only print the first name.

I don't go by my first name. I've never gone by my first name. Most of my friends don't even know what my first name is or even that I have a name other than Jeanne. And I'm not alone in this.

Because the TSA doesn't understand the difference between a name and an identity, and because airlines are clueless, here is how some famous people (who go by their middle name) would appear on their airline tickets:

Christopher Kutcher (Ashton Kutcher)
William Pitt (Brad Pitt)
Laura Witherspoon (Reese Witherspoon)
Hannah Fanning (Dakota Fanning)
John Ferrell (William Ferrell)
Marvin Simon (Neil Simon)
Walter Willis (Bruce Willis)
Robyn Fenty (Rhianna)
Henry Beatty (Warren Beatty)
Troyal Brooks (Garth Brooks)
Francis Fitzgerald (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Navarro Momaday (N. Scott Momaday)
Lafayette Hubbard (L. Ron Hubbard)
Lyman Baum (L. Frank Baum)
John Hoover (J. Edgar Hoover)
Manoj Shyamalan (M. Night Shyamalan)
James Quayle (Vice President J. Danforth Quayle)
Thomas Wilson (President Woodrow Wilson)
James McCartney (Paul McCartney)
Thomas Connery (Sean Connery)
William Maugham (Somerset Maugham)

My name is just a name, but it's also my identity, much like Paul McCartney or Woodrow Wilson is an identity. When a faceless government agency and a behemoth airline refuses to let me use MY identity, the name I choose, my LEGALLY GIVEN name, I feel like a vital part of me has been blacked out, redacted as if it's a danger to national security.

Remembering the 1991 Halloween Blizzard

Remembering 20 years ago today, staring down from my Harriet Ave 2nd story apartment at the trickle of trick-or-treaters bundled up against the light snow beginning to fall. You couldn't tell what any of the kids were dressed up as. My roommate Wendy swore the snow would be gone by morning, that it was too early for anything to worry about. Another friend told me that I wouldn't need a real winter coat until just around Thanksgiving, so my first Minnesota winter coat, a down stadium coat, was on layaway at the Burlington Coat Factory. I put on my unlined one-button wool jacket and headed to the bus which would take me to my overnight job at Kinko's, across from Macalester at the time.

By the time I got to work, most of the trick-or-treaters had given up. My hiking boots hadn't kept my cotton socks from getting wet, so I pulled them off and laid them next to one of the copy machines to dry out. My coworker (not Jason Goodyear that night) had the radio on. They were now calling for 6-8".

Every few minutes it seemed the radio announcers upped the projected totals for this storm. 10-12" 14-18" over 20"....I couldn't see across the street, the snow fell so hard and fast, but I shoved anyway. Three times before morning. I couldn't say sunrise because it didn't seem to that morning.

The third time I shoveled, a woman pulled up in an SUV. She was dressed in a business suit. I was shocked because no one else came to the store over night and it was really cold. The temps had plummeted from the 40's to the single digits and the wind was whipping. I said to her, "I can't believe you're out in this." She said, "Eh, a little snow never hurt a Minnesotan." She set the bar for me on winter and snow.

I handed the shovel to my coworker who arrived shortly after that SUV woman left and started to leave. The manager arrived and asked if I could stay because the buses weren't running, but I had another commitment. My coworker offered me a ride to the bus and I said, "Nah, a little snow never hurt a Minnesotan."

I walked up to Snelling, just a few blocks and decided not to wait for the Snelling Ave bus to take me to Marshall, so I walked. That bus never came. When I got to Marshall, I decided not to wait for the 21 and walked toward Minneapolis. Mind you, this was in over 24" of snow, windchill in the negative teens, and I'm all in cotton except for an unlined one-button wool jacket.

Sitting in front of a fire tonight, I can't recall how cold I was when the bus finally did come, about 2.6 miles later. My hands were white and everyone around me looked fine but I was shivering. Not thinking I would make it all the way back to my Harriet Ave apartment, I got off on First Ave and Lake and rang the bell of a friend Elliott BatTzedek.

She stripped me down naked and put me in a warm bath. Probably saved my life, if not a digit or two. My clothes lay on the radiators in that warm south Minneapolis apartment. I don't know how I got home that day. But I still remember my landlord, an Iron Range guy, shoveling and snow blowing a fourth or fifth time said, "Dis ain't nothin'. Ah, a little snow never hurt a Minnesotan."

Three weeks later we got another 18 inches. The snow stuck around all winter. To this day, there hasn't been a winter storm that has phased me.

Mafia Game

A game I'd like to try sometime: Mafia Game

Mafia Game

This stationary game (originally invented by psychology student Dimitry Davidoff in Russia, 1986) is a popular group game involving strategy and bluffing. It is good for discussing topics such as lying, deception, trust, good versus evil, etc. or just for a fun time. There are five roles one can play: one narrator, two members of the mafia, two members of the police (or one the group is not large), one doctor, the remaining people are townspeople.

Setup

The narrator needs to prepare the right number of playing cards to set up the game. He or she takes out two aces (which represent mafia), two kings (which represent police), one queen (which represents the doctor), and several number cards (one for each of the remaining roles to be played). Therefore, if there are 12 people playing, there would be two aces, two kings, one queen, and seven number (non-face) cards, adding up to 12 cards. The narrator shuffles these cards and each person randomly selects a card, without revealing his or her identity. The person assumes the role for the round.

Roles

Ace card: Anyone who gets an Ace card is a Mafia member. Their goal is to keep secret that they are Mafia and blend in with the Townspeople. For them to win the game, they want to eliminate the townspeople one by one each round but not to get eliminated (voted off) during the day.

King card: Anyone who gets a King card is a member of the Police. These members try to figure out who is guilty of being a Mafia and who is innocent. Thus, their goal is to help the townspeople vote correctly in who to eliminate during the day (the good people, not the bad!). They generally want to keep their identity secret so that the Mafia cannot eliminate them early.

Queen card: The doctor role. This optional (but recommended) role serves one purpose – to try to protect people during the night. He or she can also be selfish and choose to protect themselves during the night.

All other cards (number cards): Townspeople. Their goal is to figure out who is a member of the secret Mafia, and to eliminate them from the town during the day.

How to Play

Arrange the players in a circle, with the narrator outside the circle and walking around it. Each “day” of the game, the narrator takes the entire town through the following commands in this order:

1. Nighttime

• It is nighttime, so everyone please go to sleep.” (Everyone puts their head down and closes their eyes)
• “Mafia, please wake up.” (Only the mafia quietly opens their eyes. The ones that are still “alive” quietly and unanimously choose a person to eliminate by pointing to someone in the group. The narrator takes note of the person chosen.
• “Mafia, please go to sleep.” (The mafia closes eyes and places their heads down again.)
• “Police, please wake up.” (The member(s) of the police that are still alive open their eyes and quietly points to one person who they suspect is a member of the Mafia.)
• The narrator quietly nods or shakes his or her head to indicate whether that person is indeed Mafia.
• “Police, please go to sleep.” (The member(s) of the police close their eyes and place their heads down.)
• “Doctor, please wake up and choose someone you’d like to protect.” (The doctor, if still alive, wakes up and silently points to someone they would like to protect for that day.)
• “Doctor, please go to sleep.” (The doctor closes his or her eyes and puts his/her head down.)
• “It’s morning. Everyone please wake up.” (Everyone opens their eyes and raises their head.)

2. Daytime Update

The narrator announces the person who was eliminated, unless the doctor correctly selected the person who was targeted by the Mafia for the night. The person who was eliminated MUST quietly leave the circle. This person may not speak to anyone for the remainder of the entire game, but he or she may now keep his/her eyes open to watch everything.

3. Daytime Discussion/Voting

The townspeople (along with the Mafia and Police who may pretend to be townspeople) then nominate and vote on people who they suspect is a Mafia. Each person nominated may make a defense and plead their case. The person receiving a majority vote (50% or above) is eliminated. After someone is voted off, the day is over. The day may also end without any eliminations if the entire group decides to do so. The day ends, and the pattern starts again (Nighttime, Daytime Update, Daytime Discussion/Voting).

How to Win

The police or townspeople win if they successfully eliminate all mafia members. The mafia win if they successfully eliminate all the townspeople.

This group game involves lots of strategy, knowing how and when to reveal your identity, who to trust, etc.

Good News: A Changing World

A Facebook post from January 29, 2015

We are surrounded by bad news every day. Here's a bit of hope about our changing world. A carpenter we've worked with in the past is doing some work for us. I asked him about his daughter, who has had quite the exciting adventures over the many years we've known Alan, including sitting in trees to prevent deforestation. I asked about her and without missing a beat, Alan said, "He's doing fine in Oregon. He was back recently because his mom died." After a bit Alan explained to me that he's a Trans man, and then went on with his story. The world is changing. A little bit at a time. But it's changing.

Stories As Non-Violence

My Letter to the Editor/The Nation

In an article in The Nation, author Richard Kim suggests that people who wish to fight for equal rights for GLBT people (and others), we "weaponize" our stories. He uses the story of Jose Antonio Vargas to prove his point. But I think he missed the point. Here's his article.

Here is the letter I just submitted to The Nation in response (I'll let you know if it gets published):

One of the most difficult things to see when you're not looking for it is an act of non-violence. We think of it always as something showing in the face of violence, as an act against violence. But sometimes that act is in words. So I understand how Richard Kim missed the act of non-violence Jose Antonio Vargas committed when he wrote his June 22nd New York Times article coming out as an undocumented immigrant (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.html).

Kim shows his lack of understanding when he suggests that GLBT people and others tell their stories and say "Are you with us, or against us?" He suggests that New York organizers did the same and said through their stories "you’re either with me, or you’re with the haters—but you can’t have it both ways."

The power of Vargas's story isn't that it is a weapon, that it divides people into haters and supporters. Its power comes from his act of laying himself bare in front of the American people, making himself vulnerable to the very thing he was afraid of: deportation from a country and people he loves. He didn't do it so that he would get deported, but so that he could show the injustice of the system. This is exactly how non-violence worked in the Civil Rights movement of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. People put themselves in harms way at lunch counters and on freedom buses to expose the injustice of the oppression. Their actions invited compassion, and did not divide people into camps that they did not choose for themselves. Never does Vargas say or even imply that his readers either be with him or against him. He says "Here's my neck. Cut it if you can. Now reflect on that."

I refuse to use my stories as weapons against neighbors and friends who are not sure how they are going to vote on the Minnesota marriage amendment in 2012. They deserve to have my compassion as they tell me they're not sure. But I'm going to tell them my stories, hopefully to lay bare the injustice. Not to impugn them but to fault the system we all inherited and want to make right.