Anonymous Posts (3.19.12-3.25.12)

Every week, we collect anonymous entries sent in using the link on our sidebar and post them all on Monday. We post anything as long as it doesn't contain personal attacks, hate speech, or express or insinuate that one is at risk for hurting themselves or someone else. Please read this for an explanation of this policy and seek help if your or a friend find yourself in that position. With those exceptions aside, please feel free to submit your thoughts and questions. :)

So I guess y'all know what this intro blurb is going to be about! That's right, that big festivus out on the plaza to get Duke voters involved in the upcoming election! As I'm sure you're aware, May 8th is going to be kind of a big deal for us. So if you haven't registered to vote yet, you may want to consider getting on that. We've got an amendment to kill!

But yes, Lav Ball was also this weekend. It was a hot mess, in the best possible way. It was great to see the Doris Duke Center packed with OC, props especially to the Allies who came without dates. All in all, it's great to see that kind of involvement.

Now without further ado, notes from OC:

#1
I am a white queer person, and one of the reasons that I have stopped going to the LGBT Center at Duke is because it frustrates me that the community is not doing enough to reach out to LGBTQ(A) people of color. There are a few people in the community aware of this problem (and I thank them for working against the white privilege in the Center), but the Center is not doing nearly enough. I am frustrated at the other white people in the community for not recognizing or trying to solve this. Some of them do try to actively work against it, but the Center is NOT doing enough. Please recognize this, and if you are a white person in this community, start thinking of ways to actively engage with topics and individuals of LGBTQ students of color at Duke. It is not a student of color's responsibility to attend Center events to try and change this. It is the responsibility of the Center and the white-dominated community to ACTIVELY self-educate and actively program and reach out to students of color. Acknowledging and being aware of this problem is the first step (and many do not even acknowledge it yet!). The second step is then to actively work again the white privilege in the Center and to program events and reach out to communities of color constantly and with all events as possible.

#2
I cannot even begin to explain how much the gay men talk down to me as a woman or how much they seem so self-absorbed. And we wonder why none of us women go to the Center.

#3
Today I came out to someone I was really nervous about coming out to. When I told her, she smiled and told me she already knew. She said "I'm happy for you! And I hope you have a great time at Lav Ball!" I don't think she even realizes how much she made my day! It gave me such a boost of confidence to know that my friends love me for who I am, not for who I thought I was coming into college

#4
I feel like gay women really get the short end of the stick and I'm fed up with it. My straight friends always try to change me (give me make-overs, have me wear dresses etc) and it's like I'm not your damn project, stop trying to change me. You don't see people making the gay male friends adhere to more masculine stereotypes. Even my gay male friend who you would think understands that gay people don't necessarily follow gender stereotypes insists on me dressing up "fancy" (aka in a skirt/dress looking miserable with my hair down). He says I look prettier that way, but it's his version of pretty not mine. Hell, I don't even want the word pretty to be used to describe me. At this point I'm left wondering if the friends I have that keep trying to change me really are my friends.

Please remember that there are a number of resources available on campus and in the local community. These resources are available over breaks and throughout the school year. If you or a friend are experiencing thoughts or urges to harm yourself or somebody else, please reach out to the following resources: In an emergency, please don't hesitate to call CAPS at any time, including "after hours" at (919) 966-3820. Ask to speak to the advice nurse and tell them you are a Duke student. You may also call the Trevor Project, a national hotline specifically for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and questioning youth (college students included). Their number is 866-4-U-TREVOR (866-488-7386).

In which, like most physical entities, I must occupy space

I've been thinking a lot about gendered spaces lately.

This semester, I'm taking a class on women in comics. When the teacher commented on the first day that the class appeared to be all-women, I piped right up and said, "Actually, I don't identify as a woman!" It all went over well, I was pleased, and I mentally categorized the class as a neutral space.

But then, earlier this week, discussing multilayered identity, one of my classmates made the point that specific identities are often called to the forefront of self-perception based on context. "If a guy came into this room, for example," she said, "he'd probably feel a lot more aware of his gender!"

I was surprised how physical my reaction was, and how fast it happened. The classroom became a female space, and in an instant, my entire body tensed, and it felt like my fever had shot up several degrees. (I still had pneumonia at this time.) One of the other students looked directly at me, clearly expecting me to say something, but seeing the recognition in her eyes just made my throat close up. I literally couldn't breathe; it felt like my body was trying to will itself into no longer existing.

When I say I'm uncomfortable in female spaces, this is pretty much what I mean.

She didn't mean anything by it, of course, and if I'd spoken up I'm sure everyone would have agreed that the classroom wasn't really a women-only space. But it's part of a larger loss, for me; women's spaces used to be safe spaces, the places where I felt most capable of speaking up. Now, it's like going 'home' to my parents' new house in Arkansas instead of my childhood home in Kansas; I remember a sense of belonging and familiarity, but I don't feel it any more.

This is the part where I start to wallow in self-pity, because I don't feel any more comfortable in male spaces. I learned the rules of femininity very explicitly; my best friend in high school said she wouldn't want to be my friend if people kept making fun of me, so she taught me how to dress and act like a girl. It involved a duffel bag of example outfits, and more than one practice session. Nobody ever taught me the rules of being a man, so I'm always worried that there's some secret code I'm missing.

I'm not actually all that interested in following the rules of traditional manliness, since I'd much rather come up with my own queer, feminist interpretation of masculinity. I would be OK with being a too-feminine guy in a male space. But instead, I tend to feel like I am seen as an insufficiently-masculine woman, and it's even worse than being in a female space.

Put another way: when I think about entering a women's space, my womanhood doesn't 'measure up', and that's uncomfortable because it's always uncomfortable to be an outsider. But when I think about entering a men's space, I'm worried that my manhood is insufficient, and that's uncomfortable because holy fuck how can I even express how awful and scary that is?

As with all my anxieties, most of this is in my own head; I don't think I've ever had someone explicitly say to me that I don't belong in a certain space. But I've also never been successfully read as male, ever. So I prefer to dodge the question by occupying co-ed spaces as much as I possibly can.

In this way, my classmate was absolutely correct. My awareness of my gender is directly related to my context. In class, at work, or with close friends, I don't worry about fitting into a specific category, and sometimes I even enjoy being a little 'in between.' (A much cheerier blog post is pending on just this topic!) But as soon as I'm reminded that gender is apparently supposed to be a binary, I panic.

And that's where baby blog posts come from.


P.S. - Starting to wish for a neutral space of your own to explore your gender expression? Consider visiting Spectrum, a discussion group for "all individuals who do not conform to gender norms or embrace the sex they were assigned at birth, including those who identify as transgender, genderqueer, transsexual, intersex, gender questioning, or are reading this blurb and getting excited that there might be a place for you on campus." We are open to anyone who would like some support as they deal with questions of gender, with no policing, but please be aware that this group is not intended for allies. Membership is not publicised. Meeting times are on the LGBT center events page; email jess.evans@duke.edu for more information. We are especially hoping to connect with those who fall onto the feminine side of the spectrum!


And if you're an ally who just wants to know more about trans issues, as always, feel free to ask me a question here or email me any time at lawrence.evalyn@duke.edu!

Healthy Confrontation

As my semester at Duke slowly comes to an end, I realize how much my routine reflects that of the average Duke student: I have worked hard (kind of), played hard (REAL hard) and have, more often than not, taken what Chronicle writer Ryan Brown describes as the “something bigger than ourselves” mentality.
My semester at Duke, unlike my previous semesters at UNC, has forced me to face many unfortunate realities. One of these realities is the palpable sense of destructive gender norms that exist in the world (and the notion that feminism is a bad thing); another is the existence of individuals who are, dare I say it, conservative!
[I am not saying destructive gender norms and conservatives do not exist at UNC; rather, I am saying that they exist behind a liberal curtain and (as recent weeks have demonstrated) a safe and inclusive university façade.]
At Duke, I have interacted with conservatives, with the “I’m not a feminist, but…” students, and with those that would fight till the end to maintain the existing gender culture at Duke. I have attended a handful of meetings at the Women’s Center and have had numerous conversations with individuals, both conservative and liberal and all in between, regarding feminism. Yet, like Brown, I prefer to push my headphones into my ear and pump up the volume rather than fighting complacency and, in turn, a destructive culture. I have these conversations, but then I go on with my business, thinking to myself, “Well, we talked and they still didn’t get what I had to say…oh, well!”

What I have loved most about Duke, however, is the opportunity to have interacted with those that align themselves on the opposite sides of an issue. What I love about my semester here is the fact that I think about these things and realize my “something bigger than ourselves” mentality. And most of all, I love that I have more opportunities to not be complacent; to continue to have conversations with people, but also take action—to attend events such as Be A Man [Thursday (April 14th) at 8:30pm in McClendon 5] and Fab Friday with these people who have different views than my own.

Confrontation is uncomfortable, but healthy confrontation can be life-changing. So I encourage myself and others to have conversations with individuals who normally wouldn’t agree with you on an issue (such as feminism), befriend these individuals and listen to their stories, and then bring them to some healthy confrontational events (such as Be A Man or Fab Friday). Whether they change their minds or not is not what is important; what is important is us not subscribing to the “bigger than ourselves” mentality and taking action AND making new friends.

If there is nothing else to bond over, you and your new friend can always bond over being Blue Devils, a community I am honored to be a part of during my college experience.

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.

And you thought being gay was hard?

In 1998 a woman named Rita Hester was murdered because she was transgender. Her murder kicked off a memorial project that would eventually become the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), which occurs November 20th of each year.

Part of the TDOR project was the creation of a website dedicated to memorializing individuals who were murdered because they identified as (or were perceived as) transgender or intersex. I recently looked through some of the profiles of the deceased, and I was horrified. From an infant forced to eat glass because it had ambiguous genitalia to an FTM individual who was found in a barrel of hydrochloric acid with electrical cords around his neck, this is the stuff of nightmares.

I'll admit it- I used to feel uncomfortable about the idea of transgendered individuals. It wasn't until recently that I understood and came to sympathize with their struggle. Not only do they enjoy fewer rights than the rest of the LGBTIQ conglomerate, but they also suffer greater prejudice. Even the LGBTIQ community occasionally plays down the "TI." Transfolk have it rough.

LGBTIQ individuals often tell heterosexuals not to take their sexuality for granted. But how often do we take our gender for granted? What if your body was a prison you felt trapped within?

18 years old and I've only ever met one (openly) transgender individual. If you're reading this post and identify as transgender, contact me. I want to become a better ally. Help me out.

---

Gov. Paterson signs order protecting state employees against gender identity discrimination:

From the Office of Governor Patterson:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
December 16, 2009

GOVERNOR PATERSON SIGNS GENDER IDENTITY AND EXPRESSION EXECUTIVE ORDER

Executive Order Will Protect State Workers from Discrimination Based on Gender Identity

Governor David A. Paterson today signed Executive Order No. 33 that will prohibit New York State agencies from discriminating against any individual on the basis of gender identity and expression in any matter pertaining to employment by the State. Executive Order No. 33 directs the Office of Employee Relations, in consultation with the Executive Director of the Division of Human Rights, to develop and implement clear and consistent guidelines prohibiting gender identity and expression discrimination by all State agencies.

...

Currently, 13 states and over 90 municipalities and counties - including the City of New York - prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression by statute, and numerous others have imposed such a ban through executive action or policy.