Stepford Comes to the 21st Century: Preventing ‘Masculinity’ in Females

If you’re too young to remember the original movie The Stepford Wives (I didn’t like the remake), here’s a brief synopsis: Women in Stepford love housework. They dress as if they’re going to the Academy Awards just to go to the grocery store. They don’t age, their boobs are firm, and they love to have sex at the drop of a hat (or the drop of a man’s drawers), even with their aging, sagging husbands. And even with all the sex and glamour, they can still keep their homes spotless.

The women in Stepford are ultra-feminine, according to the standards of the day (the film was made in 1972, amidst the women’s rights movement of the time). They reject everything that the women’s rights movement stands for. In fact, they think it is ridiculous – after all, a woman’s job is to cook and clean and keep her man happy. If she can’t do that, she’s no kind of woman.

The women are able to do these things and think this way (in truth, they don’t really think at all) because the men in Stepford have learned how to create robots that look just like their wives and infuse these robots with some of their wives’ sensibilities, but not all of them – not the ambitious, even somewhat rebellious ones that make women want to pursue hobbies and careers and maybe leave the breakfast dishes unwashed for a while.

For the times, it was a movie that made a strong statement – and maybe that statement needs to be made again. A paper from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, appearing in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry and reported in The Advocate, claims that U.S. physicians are “using a synthetic steroid to prevent female babies from being born with ‘behavioral masculinization,’ or rather a propensity toward lesbianism, bisexuality, intersexuality, and tomboyism.” (quoted from The Advocate report)

In other words, doctors are creating Stepford wives in the womb. Apparently, pregnant women who are at risk of having a child born with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), an endocrinological condition that can result in female fetuses being born with intersex or more male-typical genitals and brains, are being given dexamethasone, a synthetic steroid, to try to “normalize” the development of those fetuses. Note that the report says “women who are at risk” of having a child born with CAH – the medication is being received by fetuses who do not even have CAH, and, in some cases, by male fetuses.

And even if the female fetus does have the condition, it appears that not much is known about the long-term risks of giving this drug to pregnant women, both for the women and for the children who have been exposed to this drug in utero. The doctors who are administering this drug, and the women who are accepting it, are obviously more concerned about the “femininity” of these female children than they are about potential health hazards. The drug has not even been approved by the FDA for this purpose.

Read Full Post »

Ask Matt: Living as a Man Without Medically Transitioning

A reader writes: “I’m a cisgender woman and I write this from my partner’s perspective, mainly because he asked me a question that I couldn’t really answer. It was more for validation rather than a question.

“My partner is a man, and I see him as a man regardless of his body situation, and he says the same thing to himself. He always saw himself as a boy, or at least existed in some neutral zone as a child.

“He grew up in a conservative community, and didn’t have any uncensored access to the Internet or any groups until he moved out. He didn’t know there was anything such as surgery or T, and while he’s considering top surgery, he’s not really wanting T. We talked about it, and he said he’s afraid that he will lose his sense of self that he has jumped through many loopholes to get to.

“He dresses in a masculine fashion and binds, and most of the time he’s read as male until he speaks. He said perhaps down the line it will be a consideration, but he seems to have found comfort within himself, but feels isolated by a community of people who call him ‘fake’ or a ‘cis woman trying to feel special’ because he doesn’t want to transition. He gets this both from cis people and others in the trans community. He doesn’t feel that he’s a woman regardless of his body.

“So, I ask, still from his perspective as someone who does not want to transition medically at this point in life, is he still valid as a man or at the very least a trans man? He knows he is and I know he is, but for others he’s not seen that way, aside from our circle of friends.”

The concept of “validity” is tough in this case, because it can mean so many different things. In my opinion, he is valid as a man and as a trans man, but I believe that all people and all identities are valid. I don’t see how anyone can argue about the validity of a personal identity – but there are plenty of people who will try.

Legally, of course, it all becomes a different issue, because he might or might not be able to get his gender marker (which is really a sex marker) changed on his paperwork. Depending on the laws in his state and what documentation is required for a driver’s license change and so on, he might be stuck with a driver’s license and other documents that say “F.” I also think name-change laws vary from state to state. So he might never be seen as a male (biological sex) under the law.

Read Full Post »

Ask Matt: MTF Transition in a Highly Conservative Field

A reader writes: “I work for a defense contractor (a heavily conservative field) in one of the most conservative states in the U.S. and am in the process of transition (I’ve been on hormones about eleven months). Couple this with the fact that I’m still just a consultant, not an employee, and can be let go at any time simply because my coworkers don’t like me (something I’ve struggled against already). As you can imagine, I still have to work in guy mode.

“However, I’m in that limbo where I get called ‘ma’am’ in guy mode and ‘sir’ when presenting as the real me. I’ve found that I hate wearing the mask that is guy mode so much now that it takes me a couple of hours to decompress from the masquerade I spend all day doing. I don’t want to lose my job, but I want to be true to myself.

“I’m reaching my wit’s end where I’m beginning to snap at my cis ally friends who are trying to be supportive, simply because they don’t understand what it feels like and how hard it is for me. I’ve tried discussing this with my therapist (a cis lesbian), who just suggested listening to music that ‘makes me feel feminine’ on my way home from work, which is no help.

“So I come here, asking you and your readers, my trans brothers and sisters, what to do. How do I reconcile my identity with my desire to keep a decent job in this economy? If I can stay with it a couple of years, I could save up enough money to pay for all of my transition, including surgeries. The pay is just that good. What can I do?”

I think that one of the most difficult places to transition, particularly from male to female, is within a “good-ol’-boy” environment, which is what I would imagine a defense contractor in a conservative state to be. I didn’t have this experience, but I’m sure some of my readers did, so I’m hoping that we’ll get some opinions and tips from those with first-hand knowledge.

There are people who will tell you to wait (and that might be the best option), because in two years, you will be able to afford everything that you want. But this is one experience I have had – being told to wait (in my case, just for a couple of months) before I started presenting as male because of a major event that I had to host for my employer. I did wait, but it was agony. People don’t understand this. It doesn’t make sense to anyone who hasn’t been there.

Read Full Post »

Ask Matt: Rejection Painful for In-the-Closet Trans Activist

A reader writes: “I have a pressing question. A friend of mine began transition and, due to extreme medical issues, had to stop transitioning. It was crushing for them. They have only recently begun to come out of constant suicidal ideation and I am still very scared for them.

“And aside from that, their work advocating for trans people’s rights is being undermined because people assume they are non-trans due to their looks, such as facial hair. Most of the pushback they get is actually from other trans people, who assume that my friend is non-trans.

“And when people accuse them of not really knowing anything about trans rights (because their past is too painful for them to disclose right now), I’m infuriated. But any response saying, “Yes, they do,” would out them. Right now they are presenting as non-gendered and prefer to stay that way, and their past is rightfully very triggering for them.

“They’re suffering and so am I. What can I do for them? And how do I handle their treatment from some members of the trans community? Not everyone is awful about it, but the ones who are are extremely awful and have basically made it a demand that they disclose their trans history or be repeatedly accused of trying to speak for trans people without actually having any experience as a trans person.”

It’s unfortunate that some members of a community that should be the last to judge a person based on appearance are the most ardent in doing so. We as trans people should know more than anyone that you can’t make assumptions based on appearance about who a person might be – but we continue to do it. And this can cause obvious misunderstandings and a lot of pain.

And speaking of pain, let’s take the most important issue first, which is keeping your friend alive. The suicidal ideation might be gone temporarily, but the underlying cause is not gone. I am not a therapist, nor have I been trained in suicide prevention, but I think that you need to talk to someone who does have that training.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has a lot of resources on their site, as well as a Crisis Center Locator where you can find a center near you. I think knowing the signs to look for is helpful, but I also think that going beyond that – getting as much information as possible and figuring out some possible preventative and emergency-intervention strategies – will make you feel more secure and less helpless in the face of potential suicidal ideation and attempts.

Second, I would recommend speaking to your friend about when, how, and if they want you to speak up for them (I am using “they” because this is what you used and it might be your friend’s preferred pronoun). I know you want to defend your friend, but if they don’t want you to, then you would not be helping by doing so, no matter how mad you get.

Read Full Post »

McDonald’s Happy Meals and Asking the Right Question

“Is the Happy Meal for a boy or a girl?”

I had no idea that McDonald’s Happy Meals were gendered, but then I’ve never ordered one before this week.

I’ve been suffering from a nasty bronchial thing, which I thought was improving but which then circled back on me. I still had to run some errands, though, and I was hungry, so I pulled into McD’s. I decided that, since I couldn’t taste anything anyway, a Happy Meal would be an inexpensive way to go.

I was surprised when the clerk asked me if the meal was for a boy or a girl, but I quickly decided on boy, and as I pulled up, I found out the reason behind the question. It had nothing to do with the meal itself – it was about the toy that came with the meal.

In this case, the “boy toy” was a Star Wars Yoda Spinner. I saw that the “girl toy” was something involving My Little Pony. And while the Yoda Spinner turned out to be pretty cool, I was intrigued by the My Little Pony idea and wanted to see what that was all about.

So the next day, I stopped at another McDonald’s and ordered another Happy Meal. This time, when the clerk asked, “Boy or girl?” I said, “Girl.” But when I looked in my bag, I was disappointed to discover that this particular McD’s was not giving away My Little Pony items.

Instead, their “girl toy” was “Jeanette,” a female chipmunk character from the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, who spins around in a little plastic leaf bed. I have no idea what the “boy toy” was at this particular location – perhaps a Transformer, because that’s what is advertised on the website.

The problem in all this is not the toys themselves. They are fine for what they are – cheap plastic that provides some amusement for the kids while the adults are eating. The problem is with the question – “Is the meal for a boy or a girl?”

Read Full Post »

Teeny Weenies and Other Short Subjects

Teeny Weenies and Other Short Subjects is available now! My latest book can be purchased directly from the publisher on the Outskirts Press website and on the Barnes & Noble website, and it is winging its way to Amazon.com. It is also available as a downloadable e-book on the author web page through Outskirts Press. (Note: The e-book cannot be printed, but can be read on your computer.)

Teeny Weenies is a collection of personal essays (with one short story thrown in for good measure) about my female childhood, my trans adulthood, and, well, teeny weenies – including mine. When Just Add Hormones came out, quite a few readers contacted me saying that they wanted to know more about my childhood. Be careful what you wish for – a section of Teeny Weenies is devoted to just that – including the excerpt below:

The Disappearance of Richard

I don’t know how the game got started, but one night it just did. It didn’t strike me as unnatural and probably never would have had I not eventually moved from the world of a seven-year-old girl into a grownup system of gender and sexuality that didn’t approve of bending the rules. The game that Toby and I played seemed almost normal – a game of pretend. And maybe it was normal. Maybe it was everything else that was suspect.

Toby was a girl, and that was obvious – at least if you looked close enough. She already had the beginnings of breasts at nine years old, and she didn’t have a penis. I knew this because we often took baths together when I spent the night at her house. But she wasn’t like any of the other girls I knew in 1962 – the girls at school or in my Brownie troop.

Those girls ran screaming from spiders and worms, wore dresses to birthday parties, and served high tea to their dolls. I did these things, too. It was these little-girl activities, more than the lack of a penis or the expectation of breasts, that defined us as girls. Toby was the only one I knew who needed to present anatomical clues so I could nail down her gender. She was different.

Toby was two years older than me, big and broad-shouldered, with a spray of nutmeg-colored freckles across her nose. One canine tooth sat crooked in her mouth, so that it was the first thing anyone saw when she smiled. Her cropped hair was more beige than brown or blonde, and she didn’t seem to care much which direction it went when it decided to go somewhere. Over the three years that she befriended me, she owned two dogs, two salamanders, a guinea pig, a hamster, four chickens, a snake, and an iguana.

She took in neighborhood strays and I was one of them, trying to find my home among the ballerina paintings on my bedroom wall and the various Barbie dolls that were strewn about the floor among a sea of fashionable clothing and accessories. I knew what beautiful was supposed to be, and I knew what a girl was supposed to be, and Toby wasn’t exactly either one of those things. But she was the most beautiful girl I knew.

Read Full Post »

Ask Matt: Reality Checks for a Son in Transition

A reader writes: “Here is my question, which may or may not be written fully PC, so forgive me if it is not. My child is in the process of deciding about how far to take his gender change – and at age nineteen, is wisely not moving forward until he knows what he knows from the truest place within.

“He is sure he hates being called she, and he passes at college as male and was accepted as male even by the admin (yeah!), but he wonders about changing his body and if that is too far to go. He knows at age nineteen many things are uncertain, and he doesn’t want to make a choice for life that he is not sure about. He’s pretty mainstream, an engineering major on full scholarship, and “shades of gray” are not his cup of tea.

“What I see out there, so far, is that things are changing quickly in the world of the trans person – and hopefully inclusion of all gender identities is on our social horizon. And yet no matter how much the world changes, and he changes, as a trans man he will always be caught in some shade of gray. By this I mean born female, living male; some body parts changed, or all, or none; intimate relationships that require knowing his shade of gray; living stealth or not or something in between. He knows this, but this is the hardest part for him.

“So how do you deal with shades of gray within yourself? Does it feel like that? How do I support that reality without sounding like I’m not supporting him as a male only – how he has requested to be seen? Do I keep that ‘reality check’ to myself, since life requires shades of gray from everyone, and that’s just a life lesson that comes in time?

“My number one goal is to be supportive, but not blindly supportive in an inauthentic way – honestly supportive of the amazing young man I have raised and his courageous process. Bottom line: Am I doing more harm than good pointing out the shades of gray issue?”

First of all, let me thank you for being such a supportive mom. This is a difficult thing to go through, and it can be very hard on family members, so kudos to you for caring and for wanting to do the right thing to make your son feel comfortable.

I have some thoughts, as always, and I know my readers will, too, so be sure to check the comments for the real wisdom.

I think that your son is wise for not jumping into anything with regard to correcting his body until he is absolutely sure that it needs correcting. There are many trans people who live their entire life in the body of their birth, either by choice or because financial or health reasons prevent any surgical (and sometimes even hormonal) interventions.

There are many more who live with some surgical corrections, but who would still be seen by a binary sex and gender system as possessing physical attributes of their sex at birth. This is primarily true of people who do not have genital surgery. And then there are those who have had as much surgical intervention as is possible or available.

In all of these situations, there are no doubt people who feel as if they are living in the “gray area” that you are talking about, and in all of these situations, there are people who do not feel that way at all. So I think that feeling of being “in the middle” or living in some “shade of gray” or however someone wants to define it depends less on the configuration of the body itself and more on the person whose body it is.

Read Full Post »

Ask Matt: Why Do Some Lesbians Bash Trans Men?

A reader writes: “I was having a conversation with my mother the other night about Newt Gingrich and how I was really tired of all the GOP discussion that is constantly in the news. She brought up a fact I had forgotten about. She stated that Newt had a lesbian sister who definitely did not agree with his politics.

“Then she said, ‘She looks just like you.’ I think my mother was trying to describe the fact that many lesbians tend to lean way over pretty close to the male spectrum in appearance and dress, and she has not come to complete terms with the fact that the main difference between me and butch lesbians is that I relate as a male and not a female.

“My daughter had been at a bar the night before and ran into a butch lesbian, and my daughter told her I was transitioning. The lesbian told my daughter she did not understand why I needed to be that way and why couldn’t I just be a butch? So I want your perspective on why is it so difficult for some butch lesbians to understand trans men and why some find it so easy to bash trans men within our own community.”

I am aware that this has been an ongoing issue in some, but certainly not all, lesbian communities for at least the past fifteen years, because I heard about this type of non-acceptance when I was first transitioning (I am speaking now of non-trans lesbians). Because I was never in the larger “lesbian community,” nor was I involved in any smaller lesbian communities, I have never experienced this phenomenon first-hand.

Most of the lesbians I know well are women I met after transition, and I have never had any of them question me about my reasons for transition or criticize me for doing so. I have felt completely accepted and in no way judged by the lesbians I know, and I know quite a few.

However, I do know that, in some places, there has been some friction between lesbians and trans men. Because I have never spent a lot of time in lesbian communities, I’m not sure if this friction occurs across the board, if it is found primarily in white communities or if there is similar friction in communities of color, if it is related in any way to social or economic class, or what other factors might be involved, so I can only speculate from my personal perspective. I hope to hear from readers who have more experience with and more knowledge of this than I do.

Read Full Post »

Trans People: Are We ‘Just Like You’?

The “just like you” argument is about as old as time, dirt, and me. It probably emerged with the first person to be marginalized by a group in power, and there was likely enough of a difference between this person and that group that the group was able to justify shutting him or her out.

So clearly this person was not “just like them” – at least not in whatever way mattered to the larger group.

Trans people (as well as people with non-straight sexual orientations) continue to use this argument in our demands for equal rights, and it certainly is a valid one – but it’s not the only one, because not all trans people see themselves as “just like” the (non-trans) population in power.

I have made this pronouncement myself on many occasions over the years, and I was, and am, sincere when I make it. But there are other times when I have questioned the wisdom – or even the truth – of it.

The fact is that I – and all other trans people – deserve equal rights whether we’re “just like you” or not. And one of the great things that the Internet has done – besides make resources available to isolated trans people and keep us informed about what the Kardashians are up to, whoever they are – is that it has brought to light the fact that most people aren’t “just like you.”

In fact, there is no mainstream “you” and there never was. We just didn’t know it, because we didn’t have access to all the goofy, weird, and utterly bizarre stuff that those people who are considered the mainstream “you” take part in.

Read Full Post »

Book Excerpt: There She Is

I am taking the holidays off as much as possible, so instead of a regular blog post, today I bring you an excerpt from my upcoming (ETA March 2012) book, Teeny Weenies and Other Short Subjects.

One comment that I got frequently from readers of Just Add Hormones was that it didn’t address my childhood at all, and people were interested in what my younger years were like, so a section of Teeny Weenies consists of essays about my childhood. What follows is part of one of those essays. Hope you are all well and warm and preparing for a better new year. Thanks for reading!

There She Is

When I was growing up, the Miss America Pageant was greeted with a reverence usually reserved for Christmas. The whole neighborhood shut down, and everyone drew their curtains and gathered around the television set as if it were a decorated tree. The phone didn’t ring and no neighbor dared to come calling. There was serious business going on inside those houses, and it had to do with the armchair judging of the most important race in the country. Fewer people probably watched the election returns than the crowning of the most beautiful woman in America.

There was no doubting the importance of this contest. At five years old, I literally believed that a group of judges visited every one of the fifty states, lined up all the women of a certain age against a plain white wall, and chose the most alluring of the bunch to come to Atlantic City for the contest. It was the ultimate goal in life – to be publicly recognized for the most important accomplishment known to womanhood, and to get a crown, a brand new car, and a scholarship besides. There was simply no better deal in existence.

Read Full Post »