I guess it’s interesting that one of the ‘Words of the Year’ for 2015 is ‘Transgender’.
I wonder, though, what this actually means when I look at myself in the mirror in the morning, own the word, and then, for the rest of the day, find every form of media imaginable saturated, infatuated and preoccupied with who and what people like me are. I wonder what I might have done to enable my own most authentic ‘self’ to surface and evolve, and how this understanding might be reflected back at me, in a sincere and unpretentious way, by mainstream media?
PinkNews broke the story on Guy Fawkes Day. Helen Newstead, Head of Language Content at Collins told us that ‘Collins Words of the Year offers a fascinating snapshot of the ever-changing English language.’ She’s right about that because alongside ‘transgender’, which saw a 100% increase in usage during 2015, are terms like ‘ghosting’, clean eating’, ‘binge-watching’ and ‘dadbod’.
In case you’re sceptical about this, and to add to the credibility of this factoid, many of the new terms were also added to the Oxford English Dictionary earlier in the year. Lexicographers attribute this rise in usage to the increased visibility of transgender actress Laverne Cox and reality TV celebrity Caitlyn Jenner but it’s actually much more than that. It is helpful, however, because increased usage is one way for social science researchers to track and measure societal change and we, for better or for worse, seem to be at the vanguard of it.
Don’t be fooled though. If you think we magically appeared out of Caitlyn Jenner’s capacious closet, like a virgin and for the very first time in April 2015, you’d be wildly mistaken, because we’ve actually been around forever, you just haven’t been paying attention.
Historian and transwoman Mercedes Allen has tracked our earliest recorded appearances to the original matriarchal civilizations of Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Northern Africa (Mesopotamia, Assyria, Babylonia and Akkad) where male to female priestesses, some with actual body modifications, were greatly esteemed.
We’re mentioned by the great Roman historian Plutarch as having ‘two sexes not yet split’ and David F. Greenberg, Professor of Sociology at NYU, confirms that we date back ‘to the late Palaeolithic period (if not earlier), and mostly in tribal and religious leadership roles.
My first exposure to transgender came in about 1953 when I heard about the fabulous Christine Jorgensen and I knew, when I read that initial magazine snippet, that, like it or not, I was just like her.
From then on transwomen were constantly in the popular media, certainly not with the frequency we are today but we were there if you chose to look, it’s just that most people didn’t choose, for whatever reason, to do so.
In 1970 The Kinks released Lola on their album Lola Versus Powerman and the Money Go Round, Part One. The vocalist sings about meeting someone, in a club in Soho, who ‘walked like a woman and talked like a man’, and so a contemporary music myth began.
In 1972, on the album Transformer, Lou Reed unleashed Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling and The Sugar Plum Fairy on a barely witting world in Walk on the Wild Side and our innocence of things transgender became, instantly, a thing of the past for these characters, in the hands of Reed and Andy Warhol, would simply not be denied. While Candy Darling (1974) and The Sugar Plum Fairy (Joe Campbell, 2005) are long gone, Holly Woodlawn died only last week but she, along with the others and Joe Dellesandro, will no doubt continue to be a force in popular culture for as long as people choose to play great music.
It didn’t end there either.
Later in 1972 and on a bewigged roll, Bowie introduced us to Ziggy Stardust, ‘the boy in the bright blue jeans who jumped up on the stage and Lady Stardust sang his songs of darkness and disgrace’ and a whole new underground, gender diverse genre was confirmed across the popular media and, no longer a one-hit wonder, this fascination has never gone away.
Do you doubt it?
OK, then think Cabaret and Mrs Doubtfire, and if you still need convincing there are so many movies that I’ll lay odds that you’ve actually heard of, and possibly seen. There’s Goodbye Charlie (1964), Myra Breckinridge (1970), La Cage aux Folles (1973), Switch (1991), Just Like a Woman (1992), the wonderful Orlando (1992), Prelude to a Kiss (1992), The Crying Game (1992), M. Butterfly (1993), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Different for Girls (1996), Ma Vie en Rose (1997), Better Than Chocolate (1999), Boys Don’t Cry (1999), All About My Mother (1999), Wonder Boys (2000), Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), The Cockettes (2002), Wild Side (2004), Soldier’s Girl (2003), Transamerica (2005), A Soap (2006), It’s a Boy Girl Thing (2006), Becoming Chaz (2011) and Boy Meets Girl (2014).
Are you getting the picture?
So, you see, while this new obsession with all things transgender may have surfaced hysterically in 2015, we’ve actually been around for yonks and, it seems, we’re not going away any time soon such is the tantalising allure of gender difference.
Caitlyn Jenner was identified as male at birth and named Bruce. Bruce found instant fame when she won the gold medal for decathlon at the Montreal Summer Olympics in 1976. Yes, she won it. The fact that she was identified as male at birth and spent decades living unwittingly in this disguise does not mitigate against who she now demonstrably is and has actually always been.
As Bruce, Caitlyn became a reality television star in the Kardashian stable – and thereby hangs an opinionated tale. She ‘outed’ herself as transgender this year in an interview with Diane Sawyer on 20/20 insisting, however, that she continue to be called Bruce and that she still preferred male pronouns. For many of us this seemed ludicrous – but it was her choice, so it was largely respected. For the seriously cynical – and I was one – the whole thing reeked of Kardashian and we awaited the next announcement, I’d like to say with bated breath, but it was, in fact, trepidation. This could, after all, go horribly wrong for us, and so it has.
On 02 June, 2015 Ed Pilkington in The Guardian and Samantha Allen of The Daily Beast each referred to Jenner as ‘the most famous openly transgender person in the world’ and the die was cast even though we still didn’t know what name she would eventually go by.
In July, Jenner finally announced her name change from Bruce to Caitlyn in a beautifully illustrated and touching Vanity Fair cover story. It was obvious even then that Jenner was using her immense power and wealth to orchestrate her coming out and that this would impact the transgender community worldwide and not necessarily in a good way.
This was followed by an eight part documentary series entitled I Am Cait which debuted on the E! Entertainment Television Network on 26 July, 2015. It’s fair to say that many in the worldwide transgender community held their collective breath even if they publically supported Jenner in finding her true self and having the courage to come out and live an authentic life. Let’s face it, we all know what that feels like, how liberating and centring it is, and who would deny that experience to any fellow traveller?
Sadly, especially for those of who work extensively with new transitioners and who see, on a daily basis, the wreckage that coming out can exact on relationships, families, employment, housing, education, health and any number of other factors, Jenner’s journey has not been the beacon of hope that many of us wished it would be. In truth, it’s been nothing short of a train wreck.
Sure, there has been oodles of exposure around the concept of ‘transgender’ and Jenner has milked it for every ounce of personal publicity possible but none of it has benefited any of the rest of us in any worthwhile way whatsoever. I’ve little doubt she’s also turned a pretty penny from the series and, while I don’t begrudge her that, the image she has portrayed of a privileged, self-obsessed, white transwoman is so far from the truth of most of our daily lives as to be laughable. E! Entertainment Television Network has announced that there will be a second series of I Am Cait in 2016 and I, for one, couldn’t care less largely because the ratings and viewing audience numbers in series one plummeted after the first episode and it’s now more a vanity project than anything vaguely influential.
Laverne Cox, transwoman of colour, star of Netflix Orange is the New Black and unlikely Time magazine cover girl in May, 2014, said, in the same magazine in June 2015, ‘I’m so grateful that I had the luxury of transitioning in private. Because when you transition in the public eye, the transition becomes the story.’ It’s a shame Jenner didn’t note Cox’s comment and do likewise because the damage she has done has been immeasurable.
Cox, on the other hand, has become an icon, not only for the millions of fans of Orange is the New Black and there are millions of those, but of the transgender community worldwide for the dignity and poise with which she has handled both her transition and her star status. Jenner’s astonishing Buzzfeed comment that ‘the hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear’ is offset by Cox who says ‘I think transwomen, and transpeople in general, show everyone that you can define what it means to be a man or woman on your own terms.’ She goes on to add ‘A lot of what feminism is about is moving outside of roles and moving outside of expectations of who and what you’re supposed to be to live a more authentic life.’ I’m sure you’ll see the difference, that her view and Jenner’s are polar opposites, and that you don’t need to be a genius to work out which one stands up most to mature scrutiny.
Just prior to the airing of the first episode of Jenner’s I Am Cait, a mere eleven days in fact, came the first chapter of the TLC series I Am Jazz, an American reality television series about a transgender girl called Jazz Jennings. It’s an eleven part series featuring Jazz and her family ‘dealing with typical teen drama through the lens of a transgender youth’ and it’s as different to I Am Cait as it’s possible to be. The content is rich and down to earth, the situations not really much different to those faced by most families with teenage kids and it’s as charming as hell. Jazz is likeable, fun and articulate and, for any young woman struggling with gender issues, hers is a fabulous place to start.
Cox, on the other hand, also takes us into an illusory arena that, as a performer and a creator of performance art, is incredibly close to my heart. Not just for me, of course, but a wide cross-section of transwomen and men across the globe are concerned about the authentic representation of the lived transgender experience in the media – and in particular in mainstream fiction. Many of us believe that this experience is best viewed through a transgender, rather than a cisgender, lens and up until now this simply hasn’t happened. Cox says ‘I’m always sceptical about representations of trans people, especially when trans people are not making the work’ and I totally agree with her. It’s only recently that we have found our own voice and we sure as hell want to exercise it now and in the future in every way possible so – don’t speak for me, I can speak for myself, thank you. Just shut up, free up the keyboard, let me shape my own narrative, cast me, give me the camera and the key to the editing suite and leave the rest to me. I can tell my own stories, thank you very much. (You see how polite we always are?)
So far, this hasn’t transpired – with the exception of Cox in OITNB – but this is surely the next step. It has to be. Otherwise all you will get is what you have now, shallow, colourless impersonations of who we really are, shaped, tailored and ultimately viewed through a largely heterosexual, exclusively cisgender, lens, and that’s simply not good enough, regardless of who the producers imagine their audience to be.
2015 is, unfortunately, riddled with such productions.
Jared Leto in The Dallas Buyers Club – do we really have to be the HIV infected, screwed-up, sadmouths all the time – and must we always be played by cisgender dudes or chicks?
Yes, I understand that marketing your product requires ‘names’ who will put bums on seats but does Hollywood always have to resort to the transgender equivalent of ‘blackface’ to do this? The production values of The Dallas Buyers Club were good and the performances in the main OK but there was no authenticity in the central character of Rayon. Even Caitlyn Jenner acknowledges in her recent Time interview that, ‘if you look like a man in a dress you make other people feel uncomfortable’ and she, it is presumed, should know. Sure, in Jenner’s case she happened to be talking about transitioning transgender women and not cisgender male identifying humans in dresses with the result that the trans community rightfully screamed ‘internalised transphobia’ at her, but she’s also not wrong in her assumption. The last word about Jenner’s contribution to the media circus around transgender in 2015 should, in my opinion, be left to Bette Midler. The Divine Miss M invaded the Twittersphere with ‘regardless of gender identity, I guess [Jenner] identifies most as ’uninformed.’
Amen to that!
To be honest, I found Leto’s performance shallow and self-indulgent – his Oscar acceptance speech was also conceited and arrogant – and the same can be said of Eddie Redmayne’s emotionally wrought and overly-mannered outing as Lili Elbe in The Danish Girl but, it should also be noted that both were far better than Stonewall which, though widely acknowledged as only being loosely based on historical events, manages to completely overlook transwomen of colour Sylvia Rivera and, in particular, Marsha Johnson who, according to David Carter’s book Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution (2004), started the whole thing off. Writing quasi-fictional versions of history is one thing, manipulating it in favour of the imagined roles played by gay, white men is quite another altogether.
In mid-year it all got pretty ugly.
Elderly academic and Second Wave feminist icon Germaine Greer is never far from the spotlight and therefore the camera, nor is she ever short of the type of comment that saw her ‘glittered’ in Wellington by activist group The Queer Avengers. Her most notable contribution to the media debate this year may well have been her suggestion that ‘just because you lop off your dick and then wear a dress doesn’t make you a fucking woman. I’ve asked my doctor to give me long ears and liver spots and I’m going to wear a brown coat but that won’t turn me into a fucking cocker spaniel. A man who gets his dick chopped off is actually inflicting an extraordinary act of violence on himself.’
Take a moment to digest this, think Jurassic World, and move right along.
On the increasingly large small screen there are, of course, the I Am reality shows featuring Jazz and Cait, but there is also the highly praised Netflix marathon Orange is the New Black and the Emmy award-winning Transparent.
Orange is the New Black is an exceptional series in that it breaks down barriers for transwomen in the same way that The L Word started a similar landslide for lesbians. It’s far from perfect but it’s a fictional presentation that has authenticity written all over it and that’s all we ask at this stage. Not only does it promote transwomen accurately but the makers have also had the courage to cast – and endorse – a transwoman in a starring role. At this point in our evolution I, for one, can forgive the minor blips and blurs that the show has in favour of applauding its guts and foresight.
When it comes to Transparent I won’t deny I’m conflicted. To half quote Cox’s Sophia Burset character from OITNB ‘they have some fucked up priorities’ but, despite these, the show just sneaks by.
Digressing momentarily, the most profound moment of the year for me was realised by Cox in her interview with Katie Couric. Cox called Couric for focussing exclusively on genitalia and transition and ignoring ‘the homicide rate in the trans community, the disproportionate discrimination’, and encouraged her to include in the ongoing narrative ‘someone like transwoman Islan Nettles who lost her life just because she was walking down the street.’ Shifting the narrative away from transition and surgery was powerful moment because never before had anyone challenged that narrative on mainstream television whereas we, as a community, have been talking about this, and been frustrated by it, for decades. Unlike Jenner, Cox doesn’t want to be a transgender role model. She says, instead, that she prefers the idea that she might be seen as a ‘possibility model’ and, in this, she’s absolutely bang on.
Kory Grow in Rolling Stone magazine described Transparent as an ‘ensemble-focused show in which Maura’ [Maura Pfefferman, the transgender character] ‘is the catalyst that inspires all sorts of changes in her children and her ex-wife as well as everyone around them.’
Admirable?
Well, yes, it is.
Maura is played by Jeffrey Tambor, an actor favourite of mine, which presents its own challenges because I desperately want him to be good and bugger my principles. Tambor says of Maura that she has ‘stuck with him and his own family.’ He adds ‘What drew me to the show was authenticity. The family was first and foremost. I’ve never seen a family portrayed like that. It just went, ‘Bang’ right on the nose.’
Tambor also asks the questions we all ask when we transition: ‘If I change, will you still be there? If I change, will you still love me? Can I count on you to still be my child? Can I count on you to still be my parent if I change?’
He also reminds us of the old acting adage ‘you’re stuck with the character, but the character is also stuck with you’ and yep, there’s the rub. Good though Tambor is, touching though the script undoubtedly is, authentic though the situations, conflicts and trauma that the narrative projects are, there is still an abyss at the centre of the work that echoes again and again ‘Jeffrey Tambor, you’re simply not real.’
So why is this a conflict for me? I like the show, I can appreciate it on so many levels, my friends like it to the extent that a colleague recorded all the episodes of the first series and gave them to me on a USB. ‘You have to watch these’ he said, so, out of respect, I did.
It was fun. It resonated a little with my own journey as an older person transitioning and dragging family and friends with me. What it doesn’t do, however, is view Maura’s life through a transgender lens.
Director/writer Jill Soloway, whose own father transitioned at the age of 74, would have us believe that, for this reason, her lens is authentic but it’s simply not. How can it be? She’s not her father, and hers is a cisgender perspective. I can assure you (and her) that this is so far different from how I view the same set of circumstances as to be from a different planet. Don’t get me wrong, it’s top stuff for what it is, but much of what it professes to be it simply isn’t.
Perhaps Tambor, inadvertently, sums it up in his own words. He says of Maura, again in the Rolling Stone interview, ‘She’s making a break for her authenticity at the age of 70, which I find sort of valiant and rather brave.’ Ask any transwoman if what she did in deciding to transition was ‘valiant’ or ‘rather brave’ and these words won’t resonate at all. Instead you’ll find rhetoric that mirrors ‘I had to do it, I had no choice’ and ‘what would have been brave, but not valiant, would have been to remain as I was, living my privileged male life, and never being, warts and all, my true self.’
Brave and valiant, no. Liberating and redemptive, yes.
Overall, 2015 is certainly the year that transgender women have been dragged from the shadowy world of Warhol, Reed, alternative music, indie film and the street into the blare of the mainstream whether we liked it or not, wanted it or not, needed it or not and the results, as projected on the screens of the Western World, have been a real curate’s egg. Jenner is, so far, an unqualified pain in the ass with her misogynistic internalised transphobia, focus of trivia, ludicrous objections to same sex marriage and what it is to be a member of the queer community. Her oft-stated desire to be a spokesperson for the transgender community is preposterous but her story hasn’t played out fully yet and some of us still hold out hope that she might – and it’s a very big ‘might’ – actually do some good along the way. I certainly hope so. Until that flame ignites though, I for one will be calling her on every stupid move she makes.
Orange is the New Black, Laverne Cox, Janet Mock and others keep us facing in the right direction and mainstream communities are seemingly – and happily – ambivalent to our existence. I think it’s fair to say that many of us are deeply suspicious of this ‘flavour of the month’ role that’s been imposed on us because the statistics around suicide, hate crimes and murder have gone through the roof since April. Coincidence based on familiarity? Maybe, but the jury is still out on that one and we have no research to guide us. Let’s see what 2016 brings, and hope it’s a progression towards understanding and acceptance and that our media focus on that.
Personally, things have looked up.
After a productive 35 year continuous professional career as an actor/director in live theatre, film and television, work for me dried up utterly the moment I transitioned. It is, in fact, over a decade since I last appeared in a play and being even cast then was something on an in-joke. I played Teiresias in a University of Auckland Classics Department production of Sophocles ‘Antigone’, the joke being that Teiresias, born a male, incurs the wrath of the goddess Hera by smiting two of her copulating snakes and as a punishment is turned into a woman. After seven years as a woman she is released from the curse when she comes upon another pair of copulating snakes and this time chooses to leave them alone. Subsequently, when drawn into a dispute between Hera and Zeus as to whether man or woman experiences the most pleasure from sex, Teiresias answers that the woman gets ten times more pleasure than the man and the goddess immediately blinds him for his impiety. Zeus, unable to reverse the curse, endows Teiresias with seven lifetimes and second sight which I’ve always felt was somewhat of a mixed blessing. I enjoyed both the role and the joke, but that, as they say, was that.
Don’t call us, because we’ll never be calling you again, and that was it, end of career.
Until recently, that is, when I was cast in an all-female production of a great classic play by a visionary male director and all the old joy flooded back: I’m to tread the boards again. I’m terrified of course, but I’m seeing this as a further sign that significant progress is being made towards some degree of transgender equality. There are major hurdles still to leap but, all in all, it’s been a positive year for transgender women in mainstream media and I’m heartened even more when I think of how gay men were often presented on mainstream television – that’s when they were actually visible at all – less that twenty years ago and how positively and authentically they are presented now. It’s been an affirmative journey for them but it also reinforces the need for constant vigilance – and we will be vigilant
While you ‘watch this space’, remember that, in all things, Bob Marley says it best – and this will remain my transgender activist mantra: ‘Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, don’t give up a fight.’
BIO:
Lexie Matheson is a transgender activist, academic, event manager and performing artist. She identifies first and foremost as a spouse and parent, second as a martial artist (Goju Ryu Okinawa Kan Karate) and is a tireless advocate for the queer community.
dykiegirl 