April 23: Patrick Califia, Richard Docter, and Assorted Pictures

When I first saw the assorted pictures of Christine Jorgonson, I thought she was an older woman or something to explain any small facial features that she had. I figured she was some possibly famous old lady or star that wasn't all that attractive in my opinion. I didn't make the connection to how it kind of was that truth.I felt guilty for falling prey to what we covered in class; I began recognizing features that made sense. Thin, straight legs, the "elder" facial features, ad other minuscule details. What was important though, at least for her sake, was perhaps, that I didn't question anything before.


I felt happy when I was reading the part of Docter's paper about Christine's appearance on December 11th. She "did something no other transsexual had ever done before and few have ever done since" is a powerful statement, and it's one that she led very well. Having read this after looking at the pictures, it was interesting to see that the reporters thought she looked like "a glamorous young blonde who looked more like a movie scarlet than a transsexual woman who had just checked out of Royal Hospital." They had a great view on her, it seems, which I'm glad for. I didn't realize it was just after she had left the hospital, too. It's interesting that Chris made such fame and fortune without having revealed anything much about her treatment or medical history in her transformation. I wonder if the European doctors, in their distaste for such unprofessional approaches for displaying medical work, refused to work on other transgender patients afterward, or made them report in a medical journal instead.
It must be stressful beyond belief having to be absolutely perfect. It was her mission to establish the image of transgenders to the world, and she had to keep her act up. She had to make every sentence, facial expression, body gesture, and self image perfect. She said it was natural for her, but even as a girl myself, I can't imagine having to be so precise in every detail of my being for the world. It's nice that she got to have a get away for a while to recompose, relax, ect. She knew how to work the media though and she is one classy lady. She must have practiced, because she's more of a natural than women themselves.
As for the husky voice, some guys dig that in a lady ;) It's hard for a MtF to have a feminine voice if it was a post-puberty transition, so there's not much to expect. If that was the only indicator of remaining masculinity, then props. Some women just have low voices, but I guess the reporters wouldn't take that. When they attack her for not being a woman because she couldn't get pregnant, my first thought was "Not every freaking woman can get pregnant either, assholes. Ever heard of infertility? Hysterectomies?" If they were using this to call her a man instead, well, she was castrated and wouldn't get someone pregnant, so she was certainly not a man either. Attacking the exact technicality of whether she was a man or not doesn't mean anything as far as how she was a lovely trans woman. What's in her undies doesn't change who she is, and the letter from Hamburger was just a meaningless slap to the face.

I was a bit confused about where to start reading on the Califia reading. I found the part about masturbation and fetishes on page three to hit the head on the nail. So many baby boomers and other older people condemn masturbation as if it was a curse. It's stupid because you see it in nature and it's so common. It's accurate in saying that people see it as shameful and dangerous. As for fetishes, I think that literally everyone has fetishes. There are fetishes that cause harm to women, but there are some that harm men as well. Fetishes are fine to have and aren’t satanic. Some of us argue that sexuality is a fetish. Without fetishes, we wouldn’t be here today; no schmanging goin’ on.

I’m surprised I haven’t really heard about/don’t remember reading about Havelock Ellis in the two classes I’ve taken. It’s a surprise to see someone possibly from the same time as Hirschfeld(? Maybe not but it doesn’t say) to find cross-dressing not a threat.

It’s unfortunate but something I have thought about that historically, people haven’t been able to have GRA/SRA. How did they deal with it? Was it easier because people didn’t recognize the issue? Or was it worst that they had to live without being in the body that they wanted? It gets more complex with the more options open. If they were caught, it was worse than it is now as far as I can tell, but I think it would be harder to catch because it wasn’t a super-known subject that was a part of culture. People wouldn’t question something without knowing it exists.

A lot of this covers the Christine Jorgonson topic we covered ages ago (since I’m doing this so late, it probably is from the same week) and we’ve talked about her in class a lot. I found the last paragraph of her book that was quoted to be inspirational in a way. It’s great that she finds so much love in herself when I can’t even. And saying that feels like I’m discrediting her identity, but she found her way through more problems than the majority of the population gets. She believed in God, too, which was something I don’t normally expect people of criticism to do. It is unfortunate that she died of cancer, but she did change the world in a graceful way.

Morris’s comparison and debate about “true transsexual” and “untrue transsexual” kind of brought up a point I was curious about. I’ve heard “true transsexual” before. I thought about the honors paper research where someone felt “fake” or possibly not a “true transsexual” but in a different sense. It was more for this trans man considering if what they wanted was what he needed because he had no base comparison to know the difference between want and need. That seems like it would make more sense but is similar to the reason for transitioning being for “erotic” reasons. They argue a lot about the whole “true” and “untrue” transsexual. Sure, some people have the additional bonus of meeting some sexual desire in transitioning, but that doesn’t invalidate their transitioning desire. If they want to have sex after the sex change or if they enjoy it, does that make them untrue? Or is it only assigned before the transition? I think true/untrue titles to people in general and for any category is stupid; A person knows themselves more than anyone else and so who are we to tell them who/what we think they are? Who are we to call them fake?

Although it’s more of a tangent, when I read about Martino’s wife being pregnant and dying, I remembered the “pregnant man” a few years ago. I was more of a kid so I didn’t get it and I didn’t really care to judge. Later I learned that the man was a trans man without a complete surgical transition. How was he pregnant though? Isn’t it 100% completely and utterly a “no” to receiving testosterone if you’re pregnant? If you’re on T, you temporarily stop ovulating- right? That’s something I’m curious about; what doctor let the trans man do that?

At the end, the author makes a really good point that medical gatekeepers shaped how trans individuals shape themselves to be and see themselves as. It really, actually, kind of is. If trans people are seen medically as “wrong” or “sick” or up for selection and picked to be true/untrue, they’re going to view themselves in those opinions. Do we do this because the “doctor knows best”? Because they have a higher education and qualification?