A BDU Exclusive | Leaked Thoughts From a Sailor: Repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell

[Ed. Note: I know we tend to limit posts to people within the Duke community, but I thought that our Community was so invested in the fight to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell that the perspective of an active Navy Sailor might be really interesting and pertinent. Below are a few thoughts that a friend of mine put together first after DADT's repeal and then again after beginning training to teach service members how to accept LGB people. He actually wrote to me personally after reading the blog for a while (unbeknownst to me!). It was only then that I asked him if I could share what he'd written. He works with an out sailor in a very small team (which as you probably know was a focus of anti-repealers..."What if you're in a small team and someone is gay!? You couldn't work under those conditions!"). Please note that even though my friend is straight, he has to write anonymously because he is not permitted to discuss his views on the policy or his experiences.] (Photo credit: Jeff Sheng; "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Project")

“Today we recall that unity, not uniformity, is our goal, that we need not fear differences among those united to defend our nation's freedoms and its dreams. Today we honor ALL brave men and women, including those who served so long without the honor they deserved. O Lord our God, and God of generations past, help us move forward, toward a nation a little more united, more indivisible, a union a bit more perfect, founded on a great deal more respect.” -Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff, Captain, U.S. Navy (ret.)

I am a straight Sailor in the U.S. Navy, stationed at a seagoing command. I work on a ship of 4,000 people in a department of over 300 people, but in a workcenter of only 5. In our small, yet efficient workcenter, is an openly gay Sailor. He came out to most of the department on his own about two and a half years ago, much to everyone's surprise, honestly. In those two and a half years, there has not been a single incident of hazing or blatant homophobia, and he has not been withheld from gaining responsibility or advancing in paygrade.

We just came back from deployment to the news that Don't Ask, Don't Tell has been repealed. The concept was brought up in our workcenter in an informal matter to a group of about ten to twelve people about six months ago. The most compelling comment came when one of the other straight Sailors quipped that the only people making a big deal about it are those who don't wear the uniform. And it's true. I am not necessarily in a position of combat, but I, like pretty much all of my shipmates, know that I don't care if the person working next to me is male or female, straight or gay, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim--all I care is that they work hard and do their job with superior effort. And I don't see how someone's sexual orientation affects that.

The core values of the Navy are Honor, Courage, and Commitment. The program in which I specifically work demands integrity to the extreme. I don't see how you can tell a Sailor that he must exemplify integrity, yet he must hide who he is from everyone else. I'm glad that enough of Congress has finally opened their eyes to this hypocrisy, and I know that they will not regret their decision.
---
Those words were my first reaction to the abolition of the “closeting policy”. In the months after the new policy was announced, we were told that it would not go into place until we were all properly trained on it. Trained? What, people are aliens or lepers because they are attracted to the same sex?

The training itself incensed me even more. Not a lot of people know too much or understand the extent of the new policy. It sounds like all the problems are solved--not so fast. Sure, anyone is allowed to serve openly in the military. But as far as benefits go? Fat chance. If you have a same-sex partner, he or she is just plain ignored. Your partner is not eligible to receive the same health benefits that straight spouses receive, nor are you able to receive a housing allowance for married couples. That’s only the beginning--every benefit that a married man and woman could receive are off-limits for gay couples, even if you are legally married. The legislative and executive branch are patting their own backs over this idea that everything is fixed now. Whether they realize it or not, they are not done.

The Defense of Marriage Act is the next hurdle. DOMA narrows the definition of marriage to a legal bond between a man and a woman only. Not only do our representatives believe they can regulate the most fundamental aspects of life, but they think they can outdo Merriam-Webster? Fortunately, there is a current movement to overturn this reprehensible law as well, though we as the people they represent need to put more pressure on the legislators to progress. Otherwise, what’s the point in letting people serve openly when the policy of legal discrimination still stands?

D.
Electronics Technician (Nuclear) First Class
United States Navy

In which I pass for a girl

[In addition to all of our awesome visible and identifying columnists, we also have some awesome anonymous columnists that for one reason or another must use a pseudonym not their full name (and pseudopic?). Details on anonymous columnists here.]

My post is a day late because last night, I was still in Washington D.C. with my mom. She and I spent the weekend together for my birthday, exploring museums, eating amazing food, and having "girl time."

I actually had fun. Like, a lot of fun.

I was panicking a lot before I left. I had intended to come out to my family long before now, and hadn't seen my mom since before I started going as Lawrence pretty much full-time on campus. (I'm out to two of four professors now, and to my boss. Possibly this is also why I was panicking; I was pretty emotionally drained.) I resolved to be myself as much as possible, though, and only packed my most masculine clothes. I also got my hair cut just a few days before leaving, so I was as butch as I could get without binding.

And... it was fine. She didn't say anything. Last time, I got some flak for cutting my hair so short-- but this time she just talked about how happy I seemed these days, and how glad she was that I was finally enjoying my life. She asked how things were going with my girlfriend. It was the kind of experience I've always wished I could have with my mom, but never really did. It was also completely surreal, because it was so different from being at Duke but it only took an hour in the air to get there.

The strangest part was that I didn't even mind when strangers called me ma'am, even though it happened all the time. All last week, it was like little ma'am-meteorites were smashing into me and cracking me into a million pieces; I came out to a lot of people in a desperate attempt to get it to stop.

I think the difference is that in DC, I wanted them to read me as female. I mean, I didn't want it, but I also didn't want anyone to out me to my mom. They were accurately reading the gender cues I was trying to give them, so it was all right.

Of course, I'm back on campus now, and back to wishing people could get it right. I'm already struggling to remember how I felt yesterday, because I've sunk back into being Lawrence. I couldn't find the binder I wanted this morning, so I'm keenly aware of my breasts under my polo shirt. For just a few days, I was oblivious to this feeling, and although I don't think I could have maintained that facade for too much longer (it was just as psychologically uncomfortable, in entirely different ways), it was nice to take a bit of a break from my usual crises.

As always, I love getting questions in the comments. What's on your mind?

"In a relationship with ______"

I know it's not my day to post (sorry!) but I just had to write this short entry. Hopefully, you'll enjoy it enough to not be annoyed that I've broken the schedule. Anyways, on with the post:

I've always been wary of Facebook and have been cautious with the information I put on it. The reasons for that range from the fact that I don't want people to know so much about me without even having a conversation with me, to the issues of privacy and selectivity in who gets to see what about me by way of the internet. Facebook currently has somewhat limited information about me and I kind of overuse the security options.

One thing that causes common discussion in regards to Facebook amongst the LGBT community is the "interested in" field. However, I suggest we turn our attention to the "relationship" field. Did anyone else notice the new options in that field? Or, perhaps they're not really new and I've only just noticed them.

"In a civil union"

"In a domestic partnership"

Regardless of how new these options are, I think there's something to glean from their existence. What do you all think? Perhaps this is a step forward for the community? Would you (and will you) take advantage of their existence if they were applicable? Or perhaps you think they're a step back--just another way for us to unfairly be told "Hey, you can't get married, but at least you have these options." Are these new options a slap in the face; an unwanted reminder? To be honest, I'm still trying to decide myself whether or not my initial happiness at seeing these options was justified.

In which I don't want to talk about my feelings any more

[In addition to all of our awesome visible and identifying columnists, we also have some awesome anonymous columnists that for one reason or another must use a pseudonym not their full name (and pseudopic?). Details on anonymous columnists here.]

Hey there. So, last week I came out to one of my professors. I also got called ma'am approximately eighty-four thousand times. And I confirmed with my mom that next weekend we're gonna go to DC for several days of solid "girl time." So, last week, I was exhausted; this week, I just have nothing more to give.

So, rather than rely on my utterly-depleted emotional resources for a post, I'm just gonna fact-dump on you and talk about binding. I assume somebody will be interested, anyway; I feel like a lot of people want to know The Details but very few ask. Caveat: this is very much about my experiences. I'm pretty sure things are a little different for everyone.

The first time I bound my breasts, it for Hallowe'en. My senior year, my gay ex-boyfriend was Belle, my best friend (female) was the Beast, and I was Gaston. My girlfriend helped my best friend and I bind in the morning before school, with duct tape. The critical thing with duct tape is not to put it directly on your skin! We took control-top pantyhose and cut off the legs and crotch, and used the waist part as a sort of tube-top. Then, starting at the top, we wrapped the tape around and around over top of the hose. I actually just stood there with my arms up and let my girlfriend do all the work, because I wasn't exactly shy about having her touch my breasts; I think I got much better results that way, because I didn't have to worry about twisting around and potentially dislodging things.

The results were quite good, and not too uncomfortable-- while they lasted. Duct tape, it turns out, doesn't exactly breathe! I started to sweat underneath the binder, and the whole tube started to work its way lower and lower on my torso. Suddenly, in the middle of Scripture class (really!), my boobs popped free over the top of it, and I had to sit through the rest of the class with a duct tape tube hanging loosely around my waist and bare breasts jiggling under a flimsy shirt. Luckily, I had lent my ex-boyfriend one of my bras to hold his fake breasts, so I didn't have to go the rest of the day bra-less, but I did still have to get the binder off. Which meant... cutting it off. I had to borrow some heavy-duty scissors to have a hope of cutting through the multiple layers of duct tape, and it was still a slow and sticky process. A slow, sticky, process happening immediately next to my skin. And my boobs. For that reason alone I could never recommend binding with duct tape regularly: when the scissors get stuck in the tape, and you're trying to force them out, there is no safe course of action. You just have to be lucky.

I tried Ace bandages next, the three-inch-wide ones that I already owned due to my weak ankles. This was years later, and I was binding in order to explore my own gender identity. I was never satisfied enough with the results to leave the room with them on, though, so I ordered a binding shirt from Underworks. The first one I got was basically just a long tank top made of nylon and spandex, and I really liked it. To put it on, I have to step into it like it was a skirt and then work it up my body (it's really right!). It's an awkward process but eventually I'm able to put my arms through the straps and then reach into the shirt to arrange my boobs. The compression is really powerful and the shirt smooths everything out and doesn't show under clothes, so I really love it.

At least, until it starts to roll up... the bottom of the shirt is supposed to be near my hips, tucked into my pants, but dude pants aren't exactly tight around the hips so the bottom often rolls up to my natural waist. The thick roll of bunched-up shirt is quite tight and uncomfortable, and I always feel like it emphasizes my natural hourglass shape. (If you've ever seen me fidget with my shirt a lot, or "go to the bathroom" several times for extremely short trips, I am probably trying to fix this. It hurts!)

Sometimes to pre-empt this problem, I put the shirt on and then immediately pull the bottom of the shirt up to my chest (as if I were going to turn the shirt inside out and take it off) and wear it with two layers over my chest. I feel like it's hard to describe-- I roll the bottom up over the main shirt, so the hem is at my collarbone. Of course, from this position it can slide down, bringing me back to the same situation as before, but I find it easier to tug it back into place before catastrophe strikes when it's doubled up.

The best solution to the rolling problem, though, is the version of this shirt with little shorts attached to the bottom. I step into it and pull it on the same way, but because the bottom is actually attached to something that can't move, there's no rolling. There's no need to fidget with it, so it's so comfortable I forget I'm wearing it at all... until I have to pee. To go to the bathroom, I have to undress completely. This is extra-annoying if I am wearing a suit. So many layers! It gets in the way of enjoying myself because I'm always worrying about whether or not I'm going to need to pee.

I've been getting more frustrated with my Underworks shirts lately, and less willing to put up with their drawbacks. So one night, when I'd left both binding shirts at my girlfriend's by mistake and needed to wear a suit, I tried binding with the Ace bandages again. Unexpectedly, I was really happy with the results.

I used two three-inch-wide, several-yard-long bandages of quite nice quality. (Most transmen online recommend six-inch-wide bandages but I'm using ones that I already had for my ankles.) Starting as high as possible, and pulling tight, I wrap them around my torso. I don't wrap too far past the end of my boobs (which about where my ribs end, thanks to the squish factor) and when the second bandage runs out, I tuck the end up underneath the bottom of the binding. I've never had a problem with the bandages slipping down like the duct tape or rolling up like the binding shirts, but I trade those for the problem of... potentially causing myself serious harm. I'm pretty sure men have actually fractured their ribs, binding too hard with Ace bandages. To reduce the risk, I breathe in deeply before I start wrapping and try to keep my chest expanded the whole way through. I also make sure not to pull the bandages to the very tightest they can go. It can sometimes be uncomfortable, and look lumpy under a thin shirt (especially if I'm sloppy), but with the multiple layers of a suit it doesn't show very much and I've grown to like it, because it's not fidgety and it doesn't make me feel like my entire body is encased in a cocoon.

I'm gonna go ahead and open the comments section up to all your questions, especially any you might have about the practical aspects of transition. If you're curious about transwomen, my girlfriend has agreed to answer questions as well. And if you're embarrassed, you can always comment anonymously! I love to hear from you.

In which I am a little exhausted

[In addition to all of our awesome visible and identifying columnists, we also have some awesome anonymous columnists that for one reason or another must use a pseudonym not their full name (and pseudopic?). Details on anonymous columnists here.]

Hey there, what have you been up to? Doing okay? Great, great. Oh, me? I've been knowingly making myself miserable, but what else is new?

So, every month, I do this thing where I start running low on birth control pills. I wake up and say, "Only five pills left! Better call in the prescription!" -- but then I don't. So the next morning I wake up and say, "Only four pills left!" -- but I still don't call. I don't call in the prescription until long after the pills are gone. I resist and resist, until PMS sets in. I can't describe how terrible PMS is for me. (Well, I can, but I deleted it because it's super gross.) And yet, I knowingly bring it on myself -- more than once a month, since lately I've been getting sloppy about taking my pills even when I'm not running out!

Or, this semester I've been doing this thing where I kind of don't go to class. Well, I always attend my grad class. And I pretty much attend Romanticism, because that dude is a hardass about late homework, but if there's nothing to turn in, I don't bother. King Arthur, though-- I think I'm literally 50/50. And Astronomy... last night I was up until 5am marathonning recorded lectures in a desperate attempt to prepare for the quiz today, because I haven't shown up since the last quiz. I wish that guy kept track of attendance; I might actually go. I like these classes. I like these professors! I'm actively curious about the subject matter. And yet-- resistance.

I know what I need to do, to make myself happy, and it even lines up with what I'm naturally inclined to do, and yet-- I resist. So I just end up stewing in my unhappiness and my bitter knowledge that the whole thing is my own damn fault.

Except-- the resistance isn't my fault, not completely. I resist taking my birth control specifically because it feels so wrong to put fucking estrogen in my system. And I resist going to class because it's the only place where I'm still in the closet. The closer I get to making my life look the way I want it to look, the harder it is for me to endure the parts that still don't match.

I wish I could just dodge the question for a little while, to take a break, but the world we live in doesn't allow for that. People make judgments about my gender before they even ask my name, so I'm fighting an uphill battle from the beginning. I can only choose to correct them, or let the lie stand. And when my teacher starts with "Yes, the girl in the back-- sorry, I don't know your name," there's no way I'm going to respond to that by saying to the whole classroom, "It's Lawrence."

I had to choose between outing myself to everyone in all my classes, and shoving myself back into an increasingly-agonizing closet every time I wanted to learn something. Being closeted is hard to bear, and genuinely impeding my ability to learn, but coming out would have to be such a production, it would surely get in the way of my classmates' education, too. I don't want class time wasted on people's double-takes, or on clarifying my identity, or on anything to do with me. So until there's a chance that anyone, ever, would look at me and consider the possibility that I might be male, this is what I'm sticking with.

Which just leaves me feeling like this whole thing is so unfair. I have to choose between having my identity acknowledged, and learning during class time. But I've been a little sick lately, and I'm stressed out because my car broke down, and I don't want to go through that kind of emotional turmoil to learn how to predict lunar eclipses. I just want to go to class and do my homework like a normal student. And I can't.

Usually I like to open things up for trans 101 questions in my posts but I think I'd rather not, this week. Right now I'd like to focus on all the other things in my life, rather than letting this one aspect define me.

Instead, I'd like to ask all of you to do me a favor. Don't assume you know someone's gender until you've at least asked their name. Actually try this. When you get dinner tonight, don't think about the girl in line ahead of you who is taking forever-- think about the person ahead of you. Self-censor your own gendering instincts as much as you can. And I guess, let me know how it goes. It'll probably be harder than you expect.

In which I backtrack from last week's bravery

[In addition to all of our awesome visible and identifying columnists, we also have some awesome anonymous columnists that for one reason or another must use a pseudonym not their full name (and pseudopic?). Details on anonymous columnists here.]

I did not come out to my parents, everyone. I didn't even come close! My mom derailed everything right from the start by handing the phone to my dad instead, and while I love my dad he's totally different from my mom conversationally and I wasn't expecting that. Then, last weeks' "how is the LGBT center?" conversation was totally not revived, contrary to my expectations; instead, he asked about classes and then said he was watching the game (what game? I have no idea) and needed to go.

So. I've been fluttering around dealing with the rest of my life while wondering how I'm going to handle this.

I only named myself Lawrence a little while ago (October 16). Even that is kind of a long time, really, since I started coming out en masse to people pretty much as soon as I was settled on the name. Three and half months of being absolutely sure who I am, down to my very core, and living that out-- it's starting to feel more solid. But every time I comb through my history, trying to pin down one single day when I finally knew... it's like there's this whole huge chain of causality, and it just keeps stretching further back.

I knew my name on October 16 of this year. But before that, I spent six whole weeks this summer wearing exclusively dude clothes, as a treat to myself. And before that, I had my fraternity composite photo taken in a suit, because I knew how I wanted to look immortalized on the wall. I met with Janie February 9 last year, to tell her I was pretty sure I was transgendered (the first time I used to T-word to describe myself to someone else!). But even before then, I knew what road I was on. I was terrified, but I knew. I bought myself a binding shirt October 18, 2009. Almost exactly a year before I knew my name, I knew that I was going to bind my breasts often enough that I should invest in something better than Ace bandages. And it was November of two thousand and eight-- more than two years ago!-- when I first confided in a friend that I was uncomfortable with the way that people reacted to my gender expression, and that I wished people would use male pronouns to refer to me.

And now that I think of it, it was at just the same time that I started planning to create a male online pseudonym to write under, who would gradually take over the writing of my blog until I was able to retire my female pseudonym. In the end, I stopped blogging entirely rather than follow through with this plan, for reasons I couldn't adequately explain to myself at the time. But I was going to name that new pseudonym Lawrence.

I usually tell people that I should have known for years, that the evidence should have been obvious, that I did all kinds of things "for reasons I couldn't explain to myself at the time". And that's still true, I think-- there is surely another chain of causality stretching back from that Skype conversation in 2008, and who knows where it leads-- but I also think that really, I did know why I was doing the things I did. I was just afraid. Pretending I didn't understand my own reasons allowed me to do things I desperately needed to do-- like bind-- without facing my fears before I was really equipped to handle them.

This is where I whine about the fact that I saw three different therapists over those two years, and if one of them had been halfway competent they could have shown me that I really had no reason to be living in fear of myself-- but I have made it out the other end regardless.

I guess this is really just another kind of pep talk for myself, trying to accumulate proof to use as armor (or weapons?) in the showdown against my parents... and trying to remind myself that in every case, for two years at least, as soon as I conquered the fear I discovered that there had been nothing to be afraid of after all. So although I am still terrified that my parents will disown me, prevent me from seeing my brothers, refuse to pay for my study abroad this summer-- I know that really, even if it doesn't go well (which it doesn't always!), it can't be as bad as I fear. And I will be glad that I've done it.

Hopefully after a few more weeks of using the blog as public therapy to psych myself up (sorry, folks!), I'll actually have something to report here... in the mean time, I'd like to remind folks that I'm always up for questions, no matter how basic, and that I love email! So you can comment here or email me at lawrenceevalyn (at) gmail (dot) come and you'll pretty much make my day.

In which I take everything too seriously

[In addition to all of our awesome visible and identifying columnists, we also have some awesome anonymous columnists that for one reason or another must use a pseudonym not their full name (and pseudopic?). Details on anonymous columnists here.]

People tell me I'm brave, for being so out. I've been hearing this since I started dating a girl, when I was fifteen years old, but I've never really been able to agree with the assessment.

A sense of honor is critical to my identity. Throughout this post I'm going to be using some pretty strong language to describe my relationship with honor, but that's because I really do feel this way; please understand that it's not silly to me. I can't be satisfied with myself unless I am able to think of myself as being an honorable person. Truth is the foundation of honor.

So, when I was fifteen and I realised I was totally in love with the cute girl in my math class, I broke up with my boyfriend of ten months and asked her out. And then I told my parents and my friends that I had a girlfriend. My friends were great, even if my timing was laughably bad-- two of the girls were actually topless at the time, what was I thinking??-- and my parents were terrible, but I didn't consider the results when I decided to tell them. If I had thought about their reactions-- well, I probably would have waited until all my friends had their shirts on, and I might not have told my parents at all. But I also would have been a little disappointed in myself for considering a lie.

Honor comes at a cost. I accidentally broke someone's headphones at work last month and they cost me $250 to replace, but that's an easy cost to pay. When I was fifteen, my honor cost me a lot more than that.

I refused to break up with my girlfriend, and I refused to lie about us. I followed every single one of my mother's draconian rules. I spoke on the phone with my girlfriend for 120 minutes a week and no more; I never emailed her; I received one good night text a day but did not send any; I only saw her in person with the appropriate chaperones (an odd number, three or greater) and went home as soon as one chaperone was ready to leave; I didn't even say "I love you too" if my mother could overhear our conversation.

I stopped eating, that year.

However, I am still much happier about that year than I am about the years that followed. When my girlfriend graduated high school, my mother declared that our relationship was over. I was seventeen by this point and exhausted. I decided that, apparently, all the honor in the world couldn't make me happy, and I started seeing my girlfriend in secret.

It didn't last long; it was always hard on her that we could spend so little time together, and her life was different as a college student. She tended to feel shortchanged by my unwillingness to confront my parents more. She started cheating on me, and after a month or so I found out and we broke up.

It hit me hard, because I felt like I had sacrificed everything I had for her. I had damaged my relationship with my family by coming out, and I destroyed it by lying. I couldn't look my friends in the eye any more, because I was so ashamed of having involved them in my lies. But the thing that hurt the most, really, was knowing that I didn't even have my honor. Maybe forcing the issue with my parents, and refusing to end the relationship, would still have ended in disaster-- but I would have been able to hold my head high through the fallout.

These days it seems like poetic justice, really, or perhaps just a fact of the world, that my girlfriend cheated on me; I colluded with her to betray my parents' trust in me, and she betrayed my trust in her -- if she had so few qualms about one betrayal, why would she balk at a second? I tried to learn my lesson from it.

Which is why, this Christmas, I finally finished coming out to my fraternity. I swore an oath to my brothers, and I take my oaths seriously. I had always felt a little uncomfortable with my place in the fraternity, as if I wasn't as honest with my brothers as I wanted to be, but I had no idea why I felt that way. As soon as I was sure that I was not the cisgendered woman I had been presenting myself as, I began to withdraw from the fraternity as much as possible, until I knew who I really was. It is always painful to be around people who misgender me and be unable to correct them, but it was unbearable with my brothers because I felt so keenly that I was forsworn. I couldn't stand to lie to them, but I didn't know the truth yet. I felt sixteen all over again.

So as soon as I had a name, I started introducing myself to everyone all over again.

Maybe it was brave. I'll never be able to think of myself as brave until I've told my parents the whole truth, unflinchingly. What I've done so far is only what I had to do. And it doesn't matter to me how painful it is to do the honorable thing; it is infinitely more painful to know I have chosen dishonor.

I think this has turned into a pep talk to convince me to tell my mother the truth, when I make my obligatory weekly call tonight. I was going to wait until it had been a year since I first put into words my desire to transition, which will be mid-April. I was going to wait until it had been a year since I chose my name, which would be nine months from now. I was going to wait until my youngest brother was away at college, a few years from now. I was going to wait... until I absolutely couldn't stand waiting any longer.

But I think that might be now.

I'm really fucking terrified by the idea, so I'm not going to commit and say it's definitely happening -- but if it does, I promise I'll post again.

Wish me luck?

In which I have a lot of wine at Christmas

[In addition to all of our awesome visible and identifying columnists, we also have some awesome anonymous columnists that for one reason or another must use a pseudonym not their full name (and pseudopic?). Details on anonymous columnists here.]

Merry Christmas, folks!

Transgender Day of Remembrance was a while ago now, but I've found myself almost haunted by a question someone asked. I attended a reading of Gender Outlaw at the Regulator, and a woman in the audience said, "I want to raise my children to be gender neutral, but what do I say if my son asks for a Barbie?"

At first, I thought she was objecting to Barbie on feminist grounds, and I found it a really interesting question-- should you allow your sons access to toxic marketed images of femininity that you wouldn't give to your daughters?-- but then it turned out she didn't actually have a problem with Barbie. She had a problem with boys playing with girl toys. She didn't want her son to be picked on by other kids, she said; wouldn't it be better to teach him to fit in?

I have kind of a lot of problems with this.

First, I really object to the idea that a child's gender is readily apparent. Mine wasn't. How do you know it's your son asking for a Barbie? If it's your daughter, you're only going to break her heart if you deny her gender expression just so she can fit in with the "other" boys. This was my girlfriend's experience, and it caused her a lot of pain for years.

I lucked out a bit due to another flawed assumption-- the idea that "male" is somehow "gender neutral." It's way more okay for a girl (or, in my case, a "girl") to act boyish than the other way around (good ol' sexism!). So, if your goal is to give your kids a gender-free environment but you ban Barbies for the boys... you have epically failed to understand gender. Honestly, if you banned Barbies for girls, you'd still be failing at "gender neutral."

But I think the most difficult thing for me to swallow was the idea that, somehow, if the rest of the world is going to disapprove of your kid, it would help if you disapproved, too. This is the argument my mother still uses when she tries to convince my brother and I to stop dating people of the same (or in my case, "same") gender. She claims to have no problem with gay people, but wants us to be straight to make our lives easier.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I've always felt that I could deal with everybody else in the world with no problem if I knew I could count on supportive parents at home. I would almost certainly be going as Lawrence in class by now, for example. No problem is easier to overcome if you think your parents can't accept who you are as a person.

I'm actually a little intimidated by the prospect of ever having children, just because childhood is so full of gender policing, and I couldn't possibly protect my children from all of it. I can't bear the thought of the kids on the playground picking on my child for liking Barbie. I might go on a one-man crusade and talk to all those kids' parents. I might just give my kid a lot of pep talks about how some people are terrible. I would probably spend a lot of my time very worried. But I would still give my kid the Barbie. For me, that would never be in question.

And, you know, I don't give my mom a lot of credit for tolerance (largely because she remains "devastated" that I like girls, six years later) but she was pretty good about letting me just be myself. And this today we had a conversation that gave me hope (for the first time ever) that when I finally tell her I'm trans, maybe I won't have to be estranged from my whole family.

I usually get some nice new clothes for Christmas. Usually it's fancy dresses, shoes, or maybe a really stylish coat. Always in hyper-feminine prints and colors. This year, it was pajamas and some nice shirts from J Crew. Two or three of them had a few ruffles but they were all in earth tones, and they were probably the least-feminine clothes my mom had ever bought me.

"I noticed you were sort of dressing more neutral," she said, "so I tried to do that."

I didn't even care that she was conflating "masculine" with "neutral." I was just so, so happy. I'm pretty sure this is the first time my mom has had anything nice to say about my unfeminine tendencies. Usually it's a constant stream of criticism because I don't shave, she liked my hair better when it was long, I should wear earrings or my piercings will close, etc. But this time... when I mentioned that the ruffles were maybe too much, she said we could go exchange them tomorrow for something I'd like better.

And then, she asked if I had dress pants for an upcoming fancy dinner; I told her I'd outgrown my last pair, and said that I was just planning to wear a dress. I groaned when I said it, but I'm not sure I needed to. She immediately dismissed the idea of wearing a dress and insisted that we'd get dress pants. This is a huge turnaround from this summer, when she nagged me into waxing my legs specifically so I could wear dresses.

And you know-- it really does make a difference in how I feel about tackling the rest of the world. So I'm only more convinced that no matter what kind of consequences it has everywhere else, parents have to resist gender-policing.

As always, I'm just chitchatting about what's on my mind to get a conversation started. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here or email me at lawrenceevalyn (at) gmail (dot) com. I'd especially love to hear from other gender-non-conforming folks to hear your point of view. Come on, queer up my break for me!

In which it gets complicated

[In addition to all of our awesome visible and identifying columnists, we also have some awesome anonymous columnists that for one reason or another must use a pseudonym not their full name (and pseudopic?). Details on anonymous columnists here.]

It's still Friday night, right? It's not Saturday morning until the sun rises.

I feel like "it's complicated" has been my mantra ever since I started questioning my gender. Today I want to untangle my identity a little, but I want to be clear that all this is only true for me, personally. I make no statements, or even guesses, as to how other transgendered folks relate to these things.

So, I guess I think of myself as having three selves. There's me, which is whoever I am when I'm completely alone, and then there are the slightly-processed versions of myself that I allow to be seen in public. I don't want to make it sound like these are totally different identities-- I think it's pretty normal to have a private-self and a public-self. You know, like, maybe your private-self likes to eat peanut butter out of the jar with your fingers, and thinks your boss is ugly. But your public self doesn't show this side of you to the world. Normal! Right?

Except for me It Gets Complicated, because right now I have me, my girl-public-self (whom I shall call Lavinia), and my boy-public-self (Lawrence). Lawrence is basically me, plus underpants, and minus nose-picking. Lavinia, though-- hoo boy, is Lavinia something else!

Lavinia is the perfect daughter my mother always wanted, plus all the coping mechanisms required to get me to go along with the act. Lavinia is high femme, and totally straight. She has an incredible work ethic. She's unfailingly polite. She's ambitious.

But in order to be that person I could never let myself make any close friends. It required momentum to keep Lavinia going; it broke my heart every time I had to put Lavinia back on after leaving a friend; I couldn't imagine going through the world as anyone other than Lavinia; clearly, the friend had to go.

Lavinia got a little tainted by my misery. She was a snob and a cynic and kind of a bitch. She was very aggressive and not very empathetic. She was so, so self-absorbed. I didn't like Lavinia, which only made her more unlikeable.

In a particularly tough period of my life, I tried to kill Lavinia. They made me stay in the hospital for a week. This was, as you may imagine, a bit of a wake-up call. I decided that I didn't care if I had no idea how to live without the facade, I obviously couldn't live with it, and I gave myself permission to find out what was underneath.

I am afraid I became an even more unbearable person at this point, as I removed all my self-censoring instincts and thus spewed my drama onto any and all unsuspecting passerby. I quit and re-joined all kinds of groups and projects, and changed majors every week. I flirted mercilessly with a cute girl and never called her back. I ate three gigantic ice cream sandwiches in a row one night, and skipped class to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender.

But gradually-- so, so gradually!-- I began to put myself together, and make myself presentable to society again. And I found out that I don't really care about making money, that I don't like to be in charge, that I do care about social justice -- and, oh yeah, I found out that I'm a guy. Surprise!

I am working hard to put Lavinia behind me, and to become a better, happier, truer person. A lot of this doesn't really have to do with transitioning at all -- though I don't think I could have gotten so carried away with the facade if I hadn't been so deep in denial about my gender.

It's not so bad, really, pretending to be Lavinia, now that I know that's what I'm doing. She's less of a bitch now that I'm less miserable. And hey, that work ethic is great!

But the rapid switching I have to do on campus causes its own stress. I have to be on the watch for people who "don't know," and if just one shows up I have to immediately switch to Lavinia. When they leave, I try to work her off again, but it's a slow process, and there are a lot of people on campus who know Lavinia. This is why, if I introduce myself as Lawrence to someone, I refuse to tell them my legal name (which is not Lavinia) -- they can't expect a facade they don't know.

I do have to "put on" Lawrence as well, but mostly this involves consciously rejecting Lavinia. I don't think I'd notice changing my gestures, voice, posture, etc. if I didn't have to change them from something radically different, several times a day, at a moment's notice. And, well, I have to put on pants to go out in public, too. So I don't worry too much right now.

But anyway, that's why I don't really feel a connection to my former, girly self. I am kind of the most effeminate guy in the universe, but Lavinia never got to have fun with her gender expression; all the terribly stereotypical love for fashion, Lady Gaga, and camp-- that's all me, and I'm Lawrence. The more baby steps I am able to take towards transition, the more I feel... congruent. And Lavinia has nothing to do with it.

In which I talk about some terms

[In addition to all of our awesome visible and identifying columnists, we also have some awesome anonymous columnists that for one reason or another must use a pseudonym not their full name (and pseudopic?). Details on anonymous columnists here.]

Well, I'm absolutely exhausted by finals already, how about you? I've been trying to write a complicated, personal post about how I related to the female persona that I still live as much of the time, but, um, it's complicated! And personal! And I am absolutely exhausted by finals already! So instead, I thought I'd take a moment to define the way that I use some trans-related vocabulary, and open the post up to questions again, since there seemed to be a lot of interest in that last time.

So, here's how I use these words:

Cisgendered: basically, not transgendered. Your gender identity matches up with your genitals without assistance.

Passing: This can be a problematic concept. To say that a transman is able to "pass for" a man would suggest that he isn't a man, which is just blatantly transphobic. So, I tend to think of it as passing for a cisgendered man. In practical terms it's pretty much the same-- the idea is that people don't know you're trans-- but I find "passing for cis" much less problematic.

Closeted: Because I am a transman, I am closeted when I tell people I'm a woman. Being in the closet means lying.

Out: Because I am a transman, I am out when I tell people I'm a transman. Being out means telling the truth.

Stealth: Because I am a transman, I am stealth when I tell people I'm a man. Being stealth also means telling the truth. I kind of don't like the word stealth, because it sounds a little pejorative but I don't think it's necessary at all to tell people you're trans once you've transitioned. I have a problem with being closeted, because I have a problem with lying, but being stealth is totally different. Trans lurkers out there: do you know any terms for this that are less judgmental-sounding?

And now you know enough to learn something new about me: I am out as much as possible because I don't pass for cis well enough to be stealth, and I hate the closet!

I hereby open the comments section up to any and all questions once more. Also, if you want to ask me something personally (or if you're in any way gender-non-conforming and just want to hang out!!) please feel free to email me at lawrenceevalyn at gmail dot com. I'd love to hear from you!

The Absurd Hellishness of My First Semi-Disgrace, Pt. I

[In addition to all of our awesome visible and identifying columnists, we also have some awesome anonymous columnists that for one reason or another must use a pseudonym (and pseudopic?). Details on anonymous columnists here.]

She will probably read this somehow, eventually, and it hardly matters—she knows, and has for some forty-eight hours.

I slept in my car last night. I had been offered plenty of beds, but fell asleep drunkenly slouched all the way down in the front seat of my car, and never bothered to respond to my benefactor’s text message inviting me in.

The library computer has a sixty minute time limit for personal use, and I don’t even have a membership card. My tremulous fingers retard the fever pitch of my thoughts and it’s hard to sit upright on this wooden stool on account of my hummingbird heart.

She has known for some forty-eight hours, but the corporeality of my semi-disgrace only emerged yesterday with the text message that broke her stony silence after locking herself in her room and slinking around in the background while I entertained friends in my home for

brunch:

“You may as well have reaped out my heart & then spit on me.”

There’s an odd inversion process when a child moves out of the home, whence the child’s parents graduate from abstractions and turn into real human beings, for all their successes and failures and malaise and turpentine gradations of consciousness and abject depravity.

Preceding this transformation a parent is merely a vessel of self-service, an artificial processing mechanism whom you love unequivocally and who serves you French toast before high school,

even waking up hours before their own work day to do so.

I had hoped for a reciprocal process, but the text message tells me better: I am still mere progeny, reflecting upon my mother the triumphs and inadequacies of her own imparted will on my being. Though it was she who insidiously found her way into my gmail account and read long, stream-of-consciousness messages forming the rough draft of my imminent Bildungsroman, and multitudinous uncensored anecdotes of my sexual experiences over the course of the last year, I am the aggressor here, thrusting her headfirst into her own naiveté and veritable nightmare, manifested in the candid prose of her devilish creation of four-limbed fleshfulness.

“Only God can forgive you for what are doing (sic).”

This couldn’t have happened two years ago, I wouldn’t have written about it. “I hope you are able to be proud of me again, though I can’t stake my happiness in that possibility,” was my SMS response. I can’t, and I can no longer deign to placate her in a guise of superreligious contrition. God cannot forgive me, nor do I desire forgiveness.

My instinct is rationality without succumbing to condescension; I dismissed the thought and replaced the word ‘rational’ with ‘calm’ in my text message, “I love you and can talk to you calmly when you’re ready.”

Rationality is secularism-cum-treachery in her universe and, despite having studied contemporary Hebrew Bible literary critique and history in my past semester at Duke, I should spare my insistent earnestness about the nature of the Bible—how its divine infallibility is a farce, how it’s teachings of worth—if any—are excluded from its grossly antiquated moralizing; how its social artifice is cruel and unbecoming of modern humanity in ways no lesser than it’s haughtily dismissed distant cousin Islam; how it has no conception of sexuality and speaks in only discrete terms of sex.

No of these ruminations will pass from my lips into her ear, even were I to scream them vociferously and hand her a bold-faced transcription replete with dictionary definitions of terms.

Having finished brunch in the highest of spirits, I sprighted up the staircase into my bedroom to retrieve my laptop and show my friends pictures from a recent vocation. The laptop was gone, in its place a Bible in a black slipcase with the acronym “WWJD” emblazoned in rubber pressed letters.

The last time this happened, condoms had been discovered from their hiding place in my bookcase. They had been used for women, then. I was sixteen.

“I can’t even bring myself to tell your father, who is so proud of you. “

The third and final line of her text message, and sum total of communication with me in the past forty-eight hours, is the only line without a grammatical error, and for my ESL-mother, this means she has pondered it most heavily.

And yet, it is nearly immaterial for me. I had divorced myself from my father’s approval in middle school, when I decided that I would retreat to a false projected identity in his presence—a typical response I feel, for those of us deeply wounded by our father’s inabilities to emote.

The timing is unfortunate, if inevitable—I had first desired economic solvency, a pragmatic consideration that could not be exaggerated; though my present hellishness is unexpected it is concretely unsurprising—twelve years ago my eldest sister revealed her nascent lesbianism. I want gather my courage, and resist effrontery, and be graceful. I want to articulate that, unlike my sister, I will not internalize feelings of self-loathing and “conviction” and become purged in a penitent religious catharsis that has maimed my sister’s soul and leaves her at impossible odds with her own identity.

I sat in a brew house last night celebrating a friend’s birthday, in the presence of at least four men whom I love dearly. No amount of rhetorical self-esteem-instilling-therapy can replace their investment and confidence and love for me, and the solidarity of their faithfulness —in no uncertain terms—presents to me a reality far more palpable and esteemed than even the foulest lapses of the (supposedly unconditional) parent-child contract my parents can possibly impart.

I can’t end this post with any modicum of resolution, because I have still yet to converse with or look upon my mother or father in the flesh, and am currently cherishing my self-imposed defection from home and hearth and the reverie of being “on the road.”

—tbc ,

Eric Fürst

Eric Fürst

[In addition to all of our awesome visible and identifying columnists, we also have some awesome anonymous columnists that for one reason or another must use a pseudonym (and pseudopic?). Details on anonymous columnists here.]

I tend to squirm uncomfortably in my seat when someone inquires point blank about my sexuality, and not because I’m bashful. It’s just that I have to make a quick decision, and it usually depends on: how drunk I am, how long I want the conversation to last, and the hotness of the person asking. In some cases I’d rather be seen than heard. So yes I can be a Big Fucking Hypocrite. But beyond it all I’m trying to avoid using a word I find most unsavory—bisexual. Primarily, it wrongly supposes two standards of sexual expression apart from this intermediary. And then there’s that annoying idiom, that bisexuality is merely a way station for gayness. I heard a friend (entirely oblivious to my recent sexplorations) parrot this belief, and made a mental note to postpone any divulgence of the kind. And in my flirtations with the periphery of Duke’s LGBT community, I’ve been surprised to observe the wariness with which the “B” is tolerated; I sometimes feel that it’s given obligatory lip service for the sake of community but not necessarily true solidarity. I guess it’s difficult to embrace a sexual category comprised of participants who embrace categorical uncertainty.

This perception of bisexuals can be expressed in mainstream terms: straight people think they’re hiding something and gay people view them skeptically for not fully fulfilling (or maybe half-rejecting?) their gayness. If a straight man has sex with a man he is commonly considered gay, closeted, or bisexual. If a gay man has sex with a woman, is his sexuality questioned so?

I’m going to take some stabs at deconstructing this rationale. Kinsey may be an easier starting point but I think it’s a misunderstanding of the more complex social construction theories that lost popularity in the last two decades, as the gay rights movement surged and activism was badly needed as the AIDS crisis emerged. The threat that these views posed was misinterpreting sexual orientation as mere “preference.” If this was the case, the conservative opposition could dub homosexuality a choice. Then, what’s wrong with asking someone to choose different, especially if this gay option is so strongly correlated with the frightening emergence of a new disease? This idea of preference can be especially pungent when applied to bisexuality. One might assume that most bisexual men would rather—if their sexuality really was so subjective—spend their lives in a monogamous heterosexual relationship—the kind that allows identity conformity, minimized discrimination, greater sexual health, and of course, the possibility of natural procreation.

With subversion a more enlightening (or at least more daring) end than conformity, I’d probably be interested in a sexual regimen more strictly homosexual than heterosexual. But as it is, I’m happy to traipse through the nebulous grays, confusing some and delighting my own ADD tendencies. Still, it’s easy to envision adopting some monogamous gay lifestyle characteristics. I can think of several male friends with whom I wouldn’t mind signing a lease, and—perhaps unsurprisingly—I don’t exactly subscribe to the notion of heterosexual couples as the gold standard of child rearing. Yet, the thought of homosexual monogamy, from my point of view, is more restrictive than heterosexual monogamy is boring.

Anyway, construction theory doesn’t really discredit the validity of these singularly-oriented referents insofar as individuals derive personal meaning and community from them; it merely challenges the notion that this language actually defines something intrinsic in the way that physical characteristics are thought to be an expression of alleles coded intrinsically in one’s DNA. To me, sexuality hardly makes sense as a phenotype. Sexuality in its essence must account not only for intrinsic desires and orientations but also choices made on the basis of free will, which ultimately has a large stake in the gender of partners whom we seek to bed.

I would further counter that by discrediting this theory, you are not only embracing the mainstream gay rights movement, but also the rote categorization by which people dismiss, abuse, and misunderstand the deeds of others. It may be contrary to the simplicity of mantras like, “We’re here, we’re queer!”, but I think there’s an importance to understanding unconventional sexualities and resisting the compulsion to categorize. Even if one’s experience isn’t specifically covered by the LGBTQAI (etc) umbrella, in the end, it’s going to be phobias regarding otherness that drive policy and retard progress more than any pragmatic concern for the individual, or disease, or equality. For me, it’s an important exercise in unlearning the illusory differences and embracing a more dynamic conception of “self”—an exhilarating and exhausting work-in-progress with no foreseeable end.

So forgive me if, the next time I’m sitting with you in a bar, I try to avoid the word vomit above by just saying “I’m not straight”...it might mean that I think you’re cute.

—Eric Fürst

P.S. Please disagree with me. I’ve assumed an annoyingly didactic tone that I wouldn’t typically use in real life, in an effort to stoke some dissent.

Letter From The Editor: Anonymous Columnists

I think a major strength of our site, and something that differentiates it from its predecessor is complete absence of anonymity of our staff writers. When redesigning the blog in the Fall, we decided that the use of pseudonyms connoted that there was sense of fear among Us, and that couldn't be further from the truth. To reiterate our mission statement, we are not afraid, and we feel safe here. We've gotten so much positive feedback from people that have commended the openness of the writers, and this comment is pretty much Sentence Of The Year for me. The Out Community is blowing up on campus, and I feel as if all of these pictures and full names effectively convey that.

We were not so stupid, though, to think that everyone would be willing to be so visible. Our goal is to effectively and honestly capture what life at Duke and in America is like for LGBTQA students, and this cannot be done without also providing a podium for our closeted peers or those who just could not be as open were they writing under their full name. We set up the anonymous posting system to address this, and it's been hugely successful. 65 entries since November 9 is so many entries!

But! But. I think we may've overlooked a major possibility - that some of our out friends in BDU, more than willing to display their full name and picture, would not be able to out of fear of repercussions at home. A quick Google search of a columnist's name+"Duke" would lead here, and could very well mean a cutting off of tuition funds by parents for some or a revoking of scholarship by ROTC for others. As valued, awesome and all-the-more important as their visibility on the blog would be, it would not be worth being disowned or financially cut off. I know some that would argue otherwise and I understand their point of view, but I'm going to stick by this one.

At the last blog meeting, though, we all agreed that we should find a way to include the voices of those who were still willing to be regular columnists. Our current anonymous posting structure is not conducive to the frequency or length of columns, and I personally don't like the connotation of putting longer entries in a separate post like I did last week. So from now on (starting today) we will have some anonymous columnists.

Here's what I'm worried about. I don't want Readers to assume that anonymous columnists are not sharing their name out of fear of being out on campus. This is no doubt the case for many Duke students, and may even be the case for some anonymous staffers in the future, but I urge y'all to recognize that the choice to not identify one's self is not necessarily a reflection of campus culture (however discouraging campus culture can be). More often, I'm finding, this is a testament to what life's like back home.

Anyhow! While this seems like an obvious solution, it was a decision and precedent we had to discuss quite a bit. Like I said, pseudonyms didn't work too well on the old blog, but I'm confident that we will differ in our huge volume of identified writers that'll be right alongside :)

Okay! Let's do this!