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So glad it was renewed, too bad we have to wait for March...the best show on tv. Viva la nerd!

Reading Updates and Summer Plans

Since last posting I've read the following:

Genderqueer (great great book)

The Color Purple, Alice Walker (just as awesome as everyone says it is!)

Peninsula of Lies: A True Story of Mysterious Birth and Taboo Love, Edward Ball (This was horrible, it was written by a cissexual white straight male who while up to speed on trans and intersex terminology doesn't give his subject the benefit of letting her be her identity hunting for the "truth" of her sex. Kinda like what All S/he Wanted did to Brandon Teena.)

Labor of Love, Thomas Beatie (this was good also. I prefer hearing transmen talk about their own histories rather then read whatever fucked up stuff the media throws out about them.)

In regards to Summer plans, besides working on the L M Dillon Memoir, I just applied to intern for 8 weeks in the lower ninth ward of New Orleans working on rebuilding homes and recovery counseling. We'll see if it pans out...but I'm really excited about the prospect!

Looking forward to graduation, with the appropriate nostalgia of course (hey, it is me!).

Holy Week 09

When I was eight I had a dream that I would die at 16.

At 16 someone did die...my straight cover, a claim to gender/sexual "normativity." I came out as gay. But something much truer and beautiful grew out of that death.

Going undercover to survive my first and most unwanted adolescence I came out again at 19 inside UC Davis's campus ministry. I also made a vow to never surgically alter my body and accept my femaleness.

Then Berkeley called and I read God In the Balance by Carter Heyward. I packed up my Aggie clothes and moved to the East Bay, leaving behind my ambitions to be a Music Historian or Composer.

Didn't know who this "Judith Butler" person was when she sub'd for Gayle Salamon at the end of my Junior year Queer Visual Cultures Class...why no one would speak to the laid back Professor in jeans and a t-shift in class that day. Looking at MDiv programs became my obsession...along with trying to avoid my gender questions.

CJ Pascoe's masculinities class reopened everything in a completely non-threatening, intellectual way. I think if it wasn't for her class and the Vagina Monologues, I'd still be struggling with pronouns and breasts. In a similar way Trinh Minh-ha's Identity Across Difference. Suddenly hiding my Cantonese background behind my Scottish/Irish/Welsh heritage seemed ludicruous. I am everything and nothing at once. It always seems that way. Hybrid that I am.

Tonight feet are washed, vigils begin for those who follow Christian traditions. I no longer count myself as a Christian, but there is still something very powerful to me about aspects of Holy Week. I think about Christ in the garden, very human pleading for his life, terrified about the known unknown and I can't help but find myself in the Passion Story. Asleep from exhaustion perhaps. Or sweating drops of blood from crying so many tears. It was one very long night of pain for him.

Gethsemane is very similar to the Jacob story from the Hebrew Bible. A man alone in the middle of the night, feeling very much at the end of his rope fighting for his life with a superior (masculine) divine figure. Neither leave the encounter completely intact. Perhaps with more resolve to do what they must. To face the responsibilities that they have been dreading. Jacob limps away with a wounded left hip. Jesus is exhausted from what is characterized as a futile prayer. Jacob must face his angry brother Esau. Jesus...well a lot of angry people out for blood.

Three years ago I was struggling with choosing between HDS and PSR. (ah seminary acronyms) This year I'm in a pickle around three doctoral programs: my desire to return to California and a school with strong ethnic studies but also to work with one of the greatest Trans Theorist/Historians ever. My clone and I always fast on Good Friday (I broke this tradition the day I started T two years ago). Something interesting always comes from this practice. I'm hoping that will be the case again.

After all, there always is something life transforming at the end of the story.

Current Book List

Read since last in school:
a mercy
Decreation
Eros the Bittersweet
Talking Back
Invisible Cities
I'm Looking Through You

Currently Reading:
Economy of the Unlost
Genderqueer: voices from beyond the binary
(Dis)identifications
Orientations

To Read:
A Walk in the Woods
Dracula
The Descent of Alette
Read My Lips
This Bridge Called My Back
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Time to Roam...

On the heals of the break-up was news that I got into UCLA and Indiana University's Women and Gender Studies Doctoral Programs. Because of this I am spending a good part of the first and second weeks of March visiting Bloomington and LA. I have a six hour plane trip back from Indianapolis (due to layovers) that gets me into Boston at 11pm and then have a 7:50 am flight out of Logan the next morning to LA (luckily that one's a nonstop).

UCLA doesn't have anyone working on Trans Theory/Studies, but they have a fantastic Asian American Studies dept. Also the music history dept does a lot with gender and sexuality. I got a phone call from one of the Profs from the department and she suggested that I get the Trans Theory from USC (for those who don't know SUC is the cross-town rivals to UCLA and the bane of Cal's existence). Ah, the Trojans. I gotta say it's really tempting to spend the next 5-7 years in LA. It'd be nice to not be the only transman of color in the city. Since I know my big educational gap is in critical race theory, I know I could get that from UCLA. There are also the budget cuts to consider; the whole UC system (like everyone else) is going to be in spin cycle from the recession and the Govenator cutting off all state funds to the UCs. Haven't found out about funding yet. I axed UW because of their lack of financial support, thanks to Cali residency if I do have to pay out of pocket for a bit it's not going to be as bad as being out of state.

Indiana is the cutting edge program right now, they frame the dept on third wave feminist theory and put Trans experience at the heart of the program. Indiana also has a fabulous Religious Studies Department. But they are kinda weak in regards to Asian American Studies/Ethnic Studies. Also, I need a pretty hefty financial aid package to be a Hoosier next year. But the cost of living is fan-freaking-tastic in the Midwest. A lot will depend on what they plan on doing hiring-wise, financial aid and my impression on living in Bloomington 5+ years. It sounds like they are trying to get their grad students in and out fast, which is a plus in my book.

T asked me about my Summer plans, and a lot depends on getting a job. I found out that I can keep my barista job until the end of the year, which is great because right now finding a job with a commitment of 6 months is hard. I've made some inquiries and done some searches but most want a commitment of a year. All the temp jobs have pretty much vanished.

I'm also still kicking around the idea of working in New Orleans this Summer. It'll be tough to leave my queer family. That's going to be hard regardless. But I'm getting the itch to leave again. I have a lot less tying me to Boston and it's been no secret that I hate the weather here during the summer and when the temp drops below 30 degrees in the Winter. Sidewalk skating rinks suck. That said, Cambridge/Somerville has been more of my home then any other place for the last eight years if home is measured by years spent in a place. Also in regards to friendships, I have found a family and level of intimacy with my friends that I only had with Nina and Jen at Berkeley.

If I do get a job here, my plan is to work through August (hopefully extend my lease through then) and do some Dillon research on the side. Sept 1 pack up a u-haul and drive to Bloomington or LA. I'd like one last roadtrip to wherever is my spot for the next five years of my life.

butch-femme

When pinocchio said,
“I want to be a real boy!”
What did he mean?
desiring soft flesh
instead of wood;
Stone.
Who was his femme?
Geopetto? The Blue Fairy?

What other way can you read this Tale of
becoming Real
legible, desired, human?

spectacle of Other embodiment:
the entertaining little wooden boy barely loose of themastersstrings
Seen only by a Lady in Blue
or a gentle older Cisman.

All those books...

I never read but wanted to. Since finishing two weeks ago I have read:
a mercy, Toni Morrison
Decreation, Anne Carson

Currently reading:
Talking back, bell hooks
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

Next:
Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingslover
Economy of the Unlost, Anne Carson
Eros: The Bittersweet, Anne Carson
Orientations, Compilation
(Dis)identifications, Jose Munoz

Break Up Music

The Cripple and the Starfish, Antony and the Johnsons

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbG2MfElkVc

Samson, Regina Spektor

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1283668

Goodbye Love; Thanks Phoebe

New Year Thoughts

I think it's time to reassess. I haven't written in this for a while.

Struggling with how personal to be on this...I guess I made this my transition journal so I'll try and stick to only queer and tranny things (which may of course be one and the same).

There is still residue from last year. I mean more then scars and friendships.
A paper I still need to write that is still traumatizing in it's content. Don't have to write it of course, but I do think I can do better.

For any FTM out there reading this, writing about Boys Don't Cry before top surgery when your family (if they haven't abandoned you) is falling to pieces around you is not the best idea. And trying to write about the same topic over winter break (in my blood family Christmas) the next year is not any easier. Esp if you are in a new relationship and gender stuff is complicated.

Milk was horrible. It displayed a lot of the racism and xenophobia rampant in the A list crowd of the gay and lesbian community. Diego Luna's character was composed of every terrible Latino stereotype imaginable. Penn's Milk said great lines to his white ex-lover about Luna's character like "It's ok, when I go home from work I don't have to think." and "he's taking english classes, so he's getting better." Urgh. I really hope it flops at the Acads. Brokeback Mountain was so much better.

This last topic is difficult to write about, esp. since I meant to tell my gf this last night and didn't. I'm thinking about bottom surgery. It's probably at least 3-4 years out (probably way more), because it's damn expensive and right now I'm really worried how I'm going to get through the month. But it's come to the point where either T has to go or I need to "mutilate my body" again. There's too much pain to write here, but lets just say I've felt more like a freak in the last two months then I have since I lost my virginity. Esp when having sex.

I don't know how I'm going to live the rest of my life like this. I hate public restrooms. I hate turkey basters. I feel hand tied and scared. I hate questions about "transitioning back" (as if there's only two genders to live in) when I talk about stopping T. I hate it when old "friends" ask me what sexual orientation my girlfriend is. To them I'm not a "real man" unless I'm "with a woman" who must be straight. This hurts because not only does it delegitimate queer transguys, and cite horribly misogynist gender histories of women "making" men, but by implication they are saying that queer women aren't "real women."
Like Susan Stryker said in "My Words to Victor Frankenstein" gender is violent. And the continual process of being gendered by one's partners and choices to make visible (or invisible) one's gender identity is so god damn violent.

I don't know if I should just be single my whole life. I think her life would be easier without me. I feel that who I am is just doing violence to her and everyone she's loved. I'm afraid of turning into too much of a "breeder" for her taste.

Chest, one year later

First anniversary of top surgery. Swelling is gone and still have the remnants of the hematoma on the right side. Fischer was amazing, but I agree that she doesn't make you as flat as Menard in Montreal. Still, after all the panic of last fall trying to get everything in line I had a (dare I say it?) fun time in Baltimore.

Nostalgia

It's the midst of finals week. EDS already had it's graduation last Thursday. Since I didn't know a lot of last year's class and Amy and I were about to take off for a cross-country roadtrip last year I was anticipating the end of schoolwork.

But this year I get to be one of the one's left behind. And let me tell you it sucks. When I graduated from Berkeley I kept thinking how happy I was that I wasn't taking an extra semester. Mostly because you have to remember all the people you used to talk to in all of their old haunts.

So nostalgia hits you like a mack truck, and I know I've been grieving my friends leaving since Spring Break. It's odd how finals begin and then graduation happens so quickly. You see someone briefly and wonder if that's the last time you'll see them. And maybe you didn't get especially close to them but they were a regular face and aquaintance in your life. You got used to their smile their voice saying your name. You both laughed at a certain joke during orientation. Or maybe you pulled metal poles out of the ground with him.

Well to avoid anymore of this sob story I'm making my Summer Reading List:
1. The Amber Spyglass
2. Black Skin, White Masks
3. The Last Battle
4. The Metamorphoses
5. This Bridge Called My Back
6. The Great Deluge
7. The Gita Govinda
8. Laura Nee Michael
9. Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?

Summer Movie/TV Watching List:
1. Prince Caspian
2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
3. The Dark Knight
4. When Harry Met Sally
5. Stagecoach
6. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
7. The Neverending Story
8. The Muppet Show Season Two

How I hate saying goodbye.

What (Goe)s in(to Choosing) a Name?

Because I'm two weeks away from my one year anniversary as Jacob, I thought I'd post some of the other names I considered:

1. Harry. As in Harry Potter...yes I am a freak. Given my last name I think this wouldn't have worked. Plus as my twin pointed out it makes you think of "hairy" which I have become, but that's not quite what I was going for. She still gets a laugh out of thinking I might have been Harry/Hairy Lau.

2. Scott. I've always really liked the name. But I'm not a Scott.

3. Judas (Jude for short). Let's just say Jesus Christ Superstar really made an impression on me. In high school I hated how much Judas Iscariot was demonized, both in classes and in the Bible. I tend to side with the underdogs. My EDS friends voted for Jude and (surprise, surprise) were not thrilled with Judas. This was my third choice for a name.

4. Gabriel. Ok these are sounding ultra Christian, but for the record this was what my best buddy/hall mate April really wanted my name to be. She thought I could have been a Gabe. I was a bit apprehensive about being associated with an angel. This was my fourth choice for a name.

5. Gene. This was the spelling of my grandmother's version of my birth name. Ironically it's also traditionally the "more male" spelling. I seriously debated this name more then the others. I thought I could both keep and reclaim my birth name. But the history of abuse tied to this name got to be too much for me. I wanted a name of my own with a narrative that didn't have so much historical victimization. I thought somehow I could transform Gene...but it seemed better to leave that with the memories of my Grandmother.

6. Elwood. I know this makes most people think of the Blues Brothers. I pondered this one because it's a family name and I liked that it means "old forest."

7. Robin. A gender neutral name and I liked Robin Hood growing up. ;) But I wanted a clearly male name in the end. Plus my middle name begins in a similar way and that would have made my full name sound weird.

Others considered very briefly: Thomas, Moses.

Mass HB 1722

Today is a huge day for Trans Equality in Massachusetts. If you are in the Boston Area come to the state house at 1 pm and show your support for House Bill 1722 "An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes." This is just like changing the non-discrimination code at Harvard except much, much bigger.

Coming from California where I didn't have to think about basic non-discrimination issues at all, I think it's about time that Massachusetts had gender identity and expression covered.

In other news healing from surgery is going well...I have a sizeable hematoma under my right nipple that hurts (and unfortunately looks like I'm growing a breast)...but I was told that this should vanish in about four more weeks. If it doesn't by then I'll have to get a revision (which will be a few years out since it's expensive).



Some pics of healing thus far:
1/30/08























2/22/08

New Year, New Chest

My Top surgery is a little over five days away. Time for some new years resolutions to ring in 08.

1) Call my (Berkeley) mother.

2) Lift 2-3 times per week.

3) Tell and show the people who I love that I love them.

4) Walk for a few hours 3-4 times per week, and start training for Half Dome in March once my chest has healed enough.

5) Help out with the service trip to New Orleans and try to make inroads to move there after graduation.

6) Reach out to the family members who have been supportive to me. Let go of those who don't and won't respect me for who I am. It's been way too painful trying to be in "relationship"
with people who treat me like an alien and only communicate with me because I'm a blood relative. I don't have to save face for the sake of the family because no matter what I do my parents have made it obvious that they're pretty disgusted with me (esp. my mom) and would have nothing to do with me if I hadn't been born their daughter. I don't think I'll be visiting them in California for a long while.

7) Legally change my name and gender.

8) Work music back into my life.

9) Try to find other service opportunities in the Boston Area (maybe volunteer at the Living Center or Cambridge Cares).

10) Get my social life back.

11) Take time out to meditate and be.

Poetic Renderings

Ocean Springs

At twelve oaks I was renamed.
Blessed by 32 hands, some biting gnats and one playful Airedale.
Not kicking, struggling, gripping by the wrist;
the ankle. No Esau to usurp. i was my own Laban
supplanting the Bean which never grew stalk.
But meanwhile;
I yanked out the roots,
willing the end of destruction even while
I destroyed.

On Good Friday I was rebirthed.
Surrounded by the beauty of a family beyond blood.
Claiming my eunuch-hood, awaiting the needle.
My entry way, birth pain through the hip.
Held in the silent circle willing to wait up the extra hour, overcome with anxiety and joy.

-4/6/07

I pass because
I have to.
(Do I really pass?)
Pass, such an oddity (I am).
Pass into male out of female,
Passerby looks:
-first, at the front
-next, the face
-finally (if interested) the crotch

I thought about it again today
leaving my binders, wearing a bra.
Not as a political statement or to
genderfuck the pass-(h)er-bys.
(This thought makes me smile)
Simply,
to breathe.
Out, In-hale.
No more lyrca, spandex or velcro;
elastic lines etched into
reddened skin.
I will have red skin soon enough.
A permanent (in)visible bra, binding skin to muscle,
encircling my areolas.
And I wonder,
does that really make me male?
Or do the scars really make the
pass-(h)er-bys more comfortable?
As they pass him by.

-9/ 07

What it feels like to be hapa me

You didn't
want this: the yellow mixed with
the White.
You'll never say
this; miscegenation.

I didn't want "this" either: my mixed race. But
Your eyes staring. Orientalism.
Being told that my almondshapedeyesmustmeanthatI'mJapaneseor
Mexican. I was an
"exotic female"
Polynesian looking. I had a round face,
small muscular waist.

Now I am "like chocolate cake" to the rice queens. When
You look for It tomorrow
the ricebowl will be cleared.
And you
won't
get
one
bite.

-11/8/07

Adam's Rib

did he missher when she came
out of
hisside?
were there unrecorded scars? silent, unspoken.
Fig or Apple is there a difference?
the guilt is just the same;
clothing, breast, color, scent.
he was only sleeping(it was only a rib)
dreaming of what he could never know;
childless birth(er)
while She, fully conscious,
watched his pale blue lips.

-10/28/07

Countdown to Top Surgery

http://www.makecountdowns.com/show.php?id=97468

It's gonna be a happy new year.
Whoo-Hoo!!

FTI

I think the time has come for me to admit something. Something that won't be popular to a lot of FTMs but is very real experience for me.

I feel more and more intersex then male. Honestly all that t has done is make me more aware of how I am not like men then am of the male category. The urges I have sexually don't correspond with the equipment I have.
I joined the yahoo group FTMsex to talk about issues of sexuality within the transmale community. It is open to FTM loving partners (of all genders) as well as transmen. A recent discussion has been around the feeling of not being male the longer one is on T. An older FTM recently posted that while phallioplasty helped with this discrepancy he did feel more and more like a eunuch or intersex the longer he was on testosterone, to the point where he was pretty depressed.

Now it is true that I've always never felt like a woman or female, but I know now that I don't really feel like I'll ever be male either. I don't align with either prototype (mythic gender/sex norms that they are) of the binary. But to exist as a person one has to align themselves at one point or another. Over the last few weeks this tension has been building and this Friday it came to a maddening breaking point. How can I as a person who does not embody either gender psychically or (ever will) physically feel that my path must be from one side of a gender/sex line to the other? Will I imprison myself on the male side? How do I keep my past gender/sex within my present?

I am frustrated by the labels/narratives/boxes others have put me in during this process. One of my hallmates, someone I've told numerous times that I want to keep my vagina (and am damn proud of it) recently got wasted "she"d me without any thought and repeatedly told me that I haven't found my voice yet. I was angry, hurt and pissed. I was scared because this is someone I've asked to go to Maryland with me in January. I was irritated that someone would think a man can't have a vagina.

Yet at the same time my parent's letters to me at the beginning of this process have been slowly beating into permanent soundings in my head. "No matter what you do to mess with your body's chemistry or how much you look like a man, you will always be a woman in a man's body." Ah biological essentialism, how I cannot escape you. As much as I detest the phallic obsession of Freud it seems to be the first marker of masculinity in this culture, ridden down even into the substance I inject into my thigh every 14 days.

And so this is my quandary, to shape myself as a man loosing my hair, gaining weight, putting myself on the path of early stroke and heart disease, loosing my 20/20 vision. Only to be told I will never reach that point in which I am supposedly striving for. The ever illusive manhood that seems to be an obsession in both the straight and FTM community. But this is not my goal...I have deceived myself and my friends if this has been the understanding.

What I am trying to do is to become myself, who I am in accordance with my gender identity. And my gender identity I have come to realize is not what is programed into T. It is not the biological blueprint of maleness involving a penis (unless that penis is a dildo). I have never desired those bits, testosterone does drive one to obsess about penetration. This has frustrated me.

So I have realized that I may give up testosterone sometime in the near future. I have to for surgery anyway so my month long break may be extended. I have always wanted a male upper body (including the beard) and female lower body (minus the menstruation). I have wanted to be treated like a woman, but physically made up like a man. Being an FTM results in this, except one is forcibly socialized like a man. In a way I guess I have always wanted most to be like a modern day eunuch, the go between of gendered spaces, taking a place in both and yet neither. If I were to strip in public anyone who read my body would see that this is most definitely the case. But clothing reinscribes the binary, it saves me from violence even as it masks my bodily reality.

Whoa, hair!

My voice has finally become noticeably lower. Alex pointed this out to me during the first day of work, but now when I speak I don't have to make an effort to make it go down. Travis confirmed my low voice after I picked up the Deathly Hallows on Friday night/Saturday morning. It's funny cause for the folks I haven't outed myself to I have to make an effort to sound like female.

I feel like I'm turning into a werewolf or a combination of Kenny (body hair-wise) and Dad (veins sicking out of my tanned hands, dandruff, and voice-wise) except with a little pot-belly. (It's weird having love handles when you never had them before) I'm trying to combat the fat redistribution with weights and walking more often. Also trying to eat more fruit, protein, fiber and veggies. I'm developing forearms. The hair on the upper knuckles of my hands are turning darker and wiry. My pubic hair is starting to head north towards my navel and spreading south along the insides of my upper thighs. My kneecaps are almost completely covered with brown fur. It's almost like I'm growing a winter coat. Luckily I won't get any chest or back hair (it's not in my genes) I think my face is starting to change a bit too. Not much as changed on the facial hair front. Shot #8 is tomorrow.

I am really grateful to Alex for helping me get a job. My boss has been awesome calling me Jacob and using the right pronouns in large part to Alex doing both from the get go. It's been a really good experience so far.

I might try to post some pics of the physical changes I've experienced. (nothing too graphic of course)

Changes

Getting hair on the back of my legs and kneecaps. The veins on top of my hands have grown and are sticking out more. The fat around my knees has thinned out some so now my legs are becoming more defined. I feel like the hair on my head is thinning out too (unfortunately). The last two times I got a haircut I haven't asked for my hair to be thinned because I haven't needed too.

I've been trying to lift weights every other day and walk about more. I got my blood work results back and everything cholesterol-wise is better then before T which is wonderful. But I've gotta keep track of all that.

I had a long talk with SKimmel about how different it feels to take on a male social role. I didn't feel it so much around Amy, but around everyone else in the family. Trying to learn what it means to be a son or little brother because whether I wanted to acknowledge it at first or not my family is beginning to treat me differently. It's a step in the right direction, but sometimes I feel frustrated that I should be treated differently then I was as female.

Since starting T I don't pass as often, and I've been wondering why that is. It may because I'm growing into my body and while everything feels more comfortable I don't really feel at home yet. Physiological ways I've reacted to certain situations have surprised me. Bodily movement is different then a few months ago. My always somewhat hairy upper lip has gotten darker and thicker showing the beginning signs of a mustache. My five pound dumbbells feel like one pound. And it is true that some days you wake up and some marker of femininity has been erased from your face. Something you didn't notice before. I think I may have eased into passing as male easily before because while my body didn't feel in line with my gender identity, I knew how to work it to make it act and be read as masculine. Trying to readjust constantly is a lot of work when you're also trying to pass.