Real Motherhood

From the Times of India, via TransGriot.

17 Aug 2008, 0407 hrs IST,
T S SREENIVASA RAGHAVAN,TNN
from The Times Of India

It was a quiescent Sunday evening. The sky was alight in hues of red and purple, and an energetic breeze from the seashore whirred into the bus I had boarded from Cuddallore. I was back from an interview, an unusual one but, more importantly, one that had answered one of the nagging questions of my life.

The meeting with Kalki a transgender friend of mine had answered the question: ‘Who is a real mother?’ Through my life, I had never got an answer perhaps because the mental illness my mother has been suffering from for the last 43 years had created a chasm in our relationship. I grew up in my grandmother’s custody. I didn’t expect the question to be answered. But a phone call from the 30-plus Kalki started it all: “I’ve something to share if you could make it to Cuddallore…”

The stunningly beautiful trans-gender, whose father was a senior DMK leader in Tamil Nadu, is based in Pollachi, some 450 kilometres from Chennai. An arts graduate, she later did her post-graduation in journalism and mass communication. Till recently she worked for an IT giant as web designer before she decided to pursue the career of an independent media specialist.

As I reached the orphanage in Cuddallore, Kalki came running out. “It’s been so long since we met,” she said warmly. “I’m so happy you came. Meet my daughter, Selvi.” It was then that I noticed a child who was playing with toys scattered around her.

I was fazed at first. Suddenly, I recalled a news report I’d read recently in The Guardian: ‘Pregnant man gives birth to baby girl.’ But I still couldn’t believe Kalki.

“Don’t tell me. I know you’re beautiful. But, I also know…” I hesitated.

It was then that Kalki unfolded her story. In 2006, she and her friends had gone to Cuddallore to hold an HIV awareness camp. It was there that she met Selvi and her biological parents begging at the entrance to a temple.

“The parents were pitch-drunk. They were physically tormenting the child to beg,” Kalki recalls. Unable to stand the sight, she approached the mother: “I’m a childless mother. Can I have your baby?”

It was a lie. But Kalki had no hesitation in mouthing it.

“Give me Rs 1,000 and take her. And don’t ever bring her back,” the mother replied.

Finally as she walked away nonchalantly pocketing a paltry sum of Rs 500, Kalki and her friends were shocked.I learnt from Kalki later that the mother had, in fact, sold the same girl for Rs 2,000 earlier. But the buyer returned the baby soon afterwards when a doctor told him that apart from being malnourished, she had a hole in her heart and would not survive.

But that didn’t stop Kalki from doing what she felt right. “Selvi anyway would have died,” she avers. “But I said to myself ‘First let me make an attempt…’”

Fortunately, Selvi survived and the doctor now says that there’s no room for worry, though the child is slightly retarded. “Normal or retarded, I love her…she’s my daughter,” Kalki told me, holding the baby to her closely. What will Kalki do if the biological mother turns up? “I won’t give Selvi up. I may not have given birth to her but isn’t there a motherhood that’s beyond biology?” she asked.

As I took leave of Kalki and later waited for the bus, I realised to my infinite emotion that the question that had been troubling me for so long had just been answered.

sreenivasa.srinivasa@gmail.com

Lesbian Uniform? Oh the lulz!

I haven’t been posting to CM much lately. I’ve been busy with moving house, battling gatekeepers, getting involved in flame wars on LiveJournal, and nurturing a new relationship. Today though, I saw this FANTASTIC blog post which is just so amusing that I couldn’t bear to leave it unposted.

Are Blue Jeans a Feminist and Lesbian Uniform?

My favourite part:

Men, if you’re tempted by such a woman, her jeans signal that you may have to deal with her “GID” – “gender identity disorder.” Her jeans are saying: “I don’t want to be a woman. I don’t want to look good for men. I fear and distrust men. I want male prerogatives.”

You know, I refused to wear jeans for YEARS. I would wear corduroy, or canvas, but nothing denim. It chafed my legs, and so I refused to wear it. I only started wearing denim in 2004. Maybe I don’t have GID after all!?

And here’s a word of advice for us men:

Men should politely voice approval and support of women they see who are dressed in a feminine way.

There is nothing more beautiful than a women wearing a summer dress. I can still remember a young woman I saw five years ago wearing a frock. This is how powerful femininity is. Let’s not let pious highly-paid feminists and lesbians destroy it. It’s time for real women to relegate jeans to garden work.

Yes, and the dude that wrote this post has a PhD!

Tales of Medical Woe

I went to see a doctor yesterday, for an issue entirely unrelated to my transition. I signed up for the University health service, because I felt it was quite urgent. They don’t bulk bill staff, only students, so I was forced to pay $50 for the appointment, which sucks arse, but what can you do?

Anyway, I go in, and explain to the doctor what happened, that I’m not too concerned but that I would like to rule out any serious issues, cos I wouldn’t want it to happen again. She took my medical history, and asked what ‘FTM’ means (cos I had crossed out ‘M’ and ‘F’ on my form, and written ‘FTM’ since I figure its about as medically accurate as it gets). So then she checked my temperature, my ears and throat while bombarding me with questions. I told her I was on testosterone treatments, and the medication is called ‘Sustanon’.
While she was looking up Sustanon 100 to see if there is any connection between it and my problem, she was nattering on about how men that want to be women are so much more common than… what did I call myself again? FTM’s, thats right.

I was like ‘Thats just what people THINK, there are about the same number of each.’ However, she is clearly one of the few medical professionals in Canberra who has read True Selves, and she clearly, being a medical professional, is much better informed than me, a lowly trannie, and so she told me that FTM’s are extremely rare compared to MTF’s.

She checked my heart then, and noted that it was going extremely fast, (which its done for my entire life), so she took my blood pressure, which was high (which it has been since I was 17), and so she took it again. (Doctors always do that, apparently I am too young for hypertension… HA). While she was taking it again, she started asking me about my breasts, and then when I said I would be having top surgery, she asked me why I would bother having a mastectomy, cos don’t the androgens make my breasts disappear?
Then she was like ‘Oh my your blood pressure is through the roof now! Does talking about *your condition* make you anxious?’

Which made me grit my teeth and say ‘Not generally.’
At the end of the appointment I had quite a heated argument with her about gatekeeperism, and she was clearly unimpressed by my concept of autonomy, and other such high falootin’ ideas, that are so unbecoming of a trans person.

Anyway, she ordered me a bunch of blood tests, which I get the results for next week. I suspect that she tested my hormone levels as well as other things relevant to the issue I had.

No impressed. Also, sick of educating every doctor I see. Its not like I can just leave out my transition unless the issue is a head cold, or something similar.

Keeping my head down? I don’t think so!

Its been suggested to me many times in the last 12 months, that if I would just keep my head down, and not make such a fuss, then my life would be much easier. I have been told that my life is more difficult than the average, and that is my fault. That things could be easier if I would just learn to flow with the status quo.

I don’t buy it. I spent years trying to go with the status quo.
I was submissive, gentle, spoke when spoken too, didn’t argue, didn’t contradict my elders or betters, prayed, fasted, read the bible, cooked, cleaned, was complimented on my femininity and told I’d ‘make a good wife’. I even applied for Bible College as well as University.
My life was still non-stop drama. Child abuse, domestic violence, bullying at school, harmful relationships, self harm, depression, eating disorders, emotional abuse, rape… Yeah, that was all so easy, and the bits that ‘weren’t so easy’ were my fault.

My life is actually pretty cool now. I mean, I have friends, no one yells at me, or hits me, I don’t have to walk on eggshells, I don’t have to do what other people tell me, I am not afraid in my own home. I have my own personal strength. I can assert myself, and I can fight back, and sure I spend a lot of my time fighting, but at least I have some fight in me… and I’m starting to get my way more and more.
The future is bright. I am starting to feel comfortable with how I look, I am starting to see changes in myself. The sound of my own voice doesn’t annoy me.

I am also confident that as time goes on I will be making a positive change to the world.
Sure, if I put my head down, and melted silently into the background then people around me wouldn’t have to feel so uncomfortable about the issues that largely go ignored in our society, but that I bring to the surface.

What I find most remarkable is the vested interest other people seem to have in convincing me to conform to societies norms. Its that fake concern that annoys me so much.
“Oh dear, but you are making your life so hard! Why don’t you just chill and conform? It makes stuff easier… trust me….”

If they are so sad about my life being tough, why don’t they step up to the plate and make an effort to change things so that my life… and the lives of thousands like me a bit easier?
Don’t give me some bull shit about how we all have ‘our own race to run’, our own ’struggles’. If you are so busy with your struggles, you can stop wasting your time trying to convince me to conform.
Besides, it doesn’t take that much. You can do something simple… like request your employer make a toilet in your building/floor unisex, even if you don’t need to use it! Not use sexist insults, and pull other people up on them when they use them. If you’re a med student ask your course convener why trans and intersex issues aren’t on the curriculum. If your Christian ask your pastor what they think of queer issues, and if they are homophobic challenge them, or change Churches. Use the correct pronouns to refer to trans people that come up in the media, like Thomas Beatie, even if others are using the wrong ones.
Most of all… educate yourself! Even if you don’t think that this shit applies to you, every thing that you find out on your own is one less embarrassing faux pas you will make in the future.

You don’t have to become a full time activist to challenge peoples ideas.
Just think ‘Whats respectful?’ because respect is respect, no matter who you are talking to.

The Privilege Meme

It was devised by PhD students at Indiana State University - Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, and Stacy Ploskonka. If you participate, they ask that you please acknowledge their copyright.

I found it at The Singing Librarian

Explore the Meaning of Life

When I was 14 my home church ran the Alpha Course. I was a little young for it really, but I begged to go along. Why? The poster… it said it was an opportunity to explore the meaning of life. A life with MEANING! So exciting.

I still remember a lot of the lessons really well. The video’s with Nicky Gumble that we watched. I bought all his books. I read them over and over. He spoke at length about the hole that people have in their hearts, and how we can try to fill that gap with all kinds of things… sex, alcohol, money. In the end though, he would tell us, the hole is God-shaped. Without Jesus in our hearts, we would always feel empty.
He quoted CS Lewis, and I read all of Lewis’s essays. I said the Jesus prayer over and over, at the end of every session, whenever there was an opportunity to pray the prayer, I would… Like a magic spell I hoped that if I said it often enough I would suddenly understand the meaning of life.

I believed that I lacked faith. If I really had faith that I was saved, why did I still feel empty, and like my life was meaningless? I didn’t see a future for myself. I was struggling with depression, and body dysphoria, and was so so lonely. I didn’t have many friends my age, and couldn’t reveal myself to the adults at Church. If I had of, I would have simply been rejected 7 years ago, instead of now. I wasn’t strong enough to take it back then.
I had hands laid upon me so many times. I cried, and I begged, and I prayed, and I studied the bible. I went along to a girls bible study group, I got more and more involved in the dark side of Christianity.
When I was 18 I was at a cell group meeting, and ended up in tears. My companions believed that I had finally been seized by the spirit, but no… I just felt incredibly cut off from everyone else in the room.

My life had no meaning. Living for death didn’t seem terribly meaningful to me. Living to convert other people to Christianity, so that they too could live for death, didn’t seem meaningful at all. I was sure there must be more to life. I was lacking something.
When I left home, I went looking for it. Whatever this essential ingredient in life is, that keeps people alive… and more importantly *wanting* to be alive.

These days I have meaning in my life. I am quite attached to my life now. I would like it to continue. I’m not terribly concerned about death. If it happens to me sooner than I would like, it would be inconvenient, but nothing more. Sadder for the people around me, than me. As Dumbledore said: To the organised mind, death is nothing more than the next great adventure.
There’s plenty of adventures in this life to keep me going for a while yet though.

Is there actually a need for something more meaningful than adventure? The search for greater understanding of ourselves, and others, and the improvement of everyone’s situation?

I have recently come to the conclusion that I am in fact, morally superior to the Christians that would criticize my ‘hedonistic’ lifestyle. (Yes, I have been accused of hedonism.) After all, what is more moral? To lead your life based on what is written in a book of dubious origins that is thousands of years old, and claim that even if you have sinned, its ok, cos God’s forgive you, even if you haven’t made amends with those earthly beings you have wronged? Or alternatively, leading your life based on whether or not you are harming others, and then making amends where you do harm someone, regardless of your status with ‘god’?

Link Round Up: Trans-Monster Posts

Just for my own interest, as well as for all those that are puzzling over my fascination with the Monstrous at the moment.

Susan Stryker:

The transsexual body is an unnatural body. It is the product of medical science. It is a technological construction. It is flesh torn apart and sewn together again in a shape other than that in which it was born. In these circumstances, I find a deep affinity between myself as a transsexual woman and the monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Like the monster, I am too often perceived as less than fully human due to the means of my embodiment; like the monster’s as well, my exclusion from human community fuels a deep and abiding rage in me that I, like the monster, direct against the conditions in which I must struggle to exist.

I am not the first to link Frankenstein’s monster and the transsexual body. Mary Daly makes the connection explicit by discussing transsexuality in “Boundary Violation and the Frankenstein Phenomenon,” in which she characterizes transsexuals as the agents of a “necrophilic invasion” of female space (69-72). Janice Raymond, who acknowledges Daly as a formative influence, is less direct when she says that “the problem of transsexuality would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence,” but in this statement she nevertheless echoes Victor Frankenstein’s feelings toward the monster: “Begone, vile insect, or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust. You reproach me with your creation” (Raymond 178; Shelley 95). It is a commonplace of literary criticism to note that Frankenstein’s monster is his own dark, romantic double, the alien Other he constructs and upon which he projects all he cannot accept in himself; indeed, Frankenstein calls the monster “my own vampire, my own spirit set loose from the grave” (Shelley 74). Might I suggest that Daly, Raymond and others of their ilk similarly construct the transsexual as their own particular golem? (1)

Little Light

It is time to look the monstrous in the eye. It is time. It is time to say that we are beautiful in our fierceness, and that we are our own. We are not the rejected of what we can never be. We are what we were meant to be. We are not pieces of wholes thrown together incorrectly. We are not mistakes.
We are not inferior knockoffs of someone else. If our monstrousness is frightening, then it is time we bare our teeth and draw that fear close to us and stop being so afraid of our fearsomeness that we fear everyone and everything else right back.

I am throwing my head back, here, and saying it: no more being afraid. Hell no. My monstrousness is not a place of shame. It is a strength. It is the power to say I am mine, and I will tell you what I mean. Not you. I am not any thing trapped in anyone’s body. I am tougher than that, and I have plenty of blood to spare in this body of mine, and plenty more miles to go before any of you can bring me to my knees, and I dare you to try.

Boots Potential

The monster identity, however, is an imperfect model. I do not necessarily want to associate myself with viciousness, irrational violence, and pathological insanity (although mainstream culture has already associated these with queers and trannies, so perhaps it’s not so far a stretch). Nevertheless, there is something very promising about a monster culture that might revel in itself, that might deliberately position itself as monstrous in the sense that it deviates, threatens, and within this, challenges. As in the case of gender freaks (trans, genderqueer, FTM, MTF, multigendered, and so on), it is only the common experience of transgression that defines monsters and arranges them together as a group. Frankenstein, Vampira, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon have nothing in common but their “abnormalities.” Yet they are bound by their monstrosity.

Queen Emily

Utada in the video is cyborg, trying to articulating hir trans desires through the dizzying blur of technology and pop culture images by which heterosexual genders are reproduced. Both song and video produce a powerful alienation effect from the sentimentalised versions of heterosexuality one usually finds in sparkly pop music. The subject produced is partial in the way that early transition subjects are, barely audible through the electronic noise. And yet, technological mediation is necessary, since the humanist dream of organic wholeness is not one that trans people can ever access in the same way that cis people do given our body modifications, even if it proves strategically useful for us to understand ourselves and be understood by others.

Media Art Nets ‘Monstrous Bodies’ section

Donna Haraway conceives of her cyborgs as artifactual marginal figures and equates them with Chimeras, hybrids and monsters. A disarranging, shifting identity policy of the non-authentic and the «inappropriate/d others» is to be conducted by means of the offensive identification with hybrid cyborg subject positions. [3] While the representatives mentioned above think of the monsters as opportunities for a reconceived humane future beyond androcentric notions of the subject, many portrayals of monsters and mutants have gotten stuck in an ambivalent spectacle of fascination and horror, norm and deviance, especially in art.

Robert Anderson

Further, the transgender man (female-to-male) occupies a similar discursive space and provides us with a post-modern link to Frankenstein’s creature, as both are surgically constructed men, a construction that, in the eyes of society, renders them monstrous (particularly for trans-men who can’t pass). Frankenstein’s creature embodies gender transgression on two levels, both of which are the fuel for Victor’s horror: the first being the creature’s status as being a surgically constructed male, the second being Victor’s own gender transgression in co-opting the feminine trait of reproduction, transforming his laboratory into a virtual womb. Given the scientific origin of the creature, as well as both its and Victor’s unstable gender, is it possible that the modern Gothic monster pre-figures the post-modern science-fiction cyborg, the significant difference being that the monster is reviled and the cyborg is celebrated?

Turning Queerness Invisible

Clearing out my drafts folder, I found this post… Originally written 17th May

So a few weeks ago I had a flip out about lesbians. I lost my temper, and wrote an angry blog post fisking a stupid article I was linked to.

At the end of that post I declared that I would never date another lesbian ever again. Now, I still see some problems with dating someone who’s political and sexual identity is centered around only loving other women. I am not so secure in my masculinity that I can date someone that doesn’t consider their sexuality at least a little fluid… same deal for straight men.

I also have difficulty with the kinds of lesbians that say they only date ‘pre-transition’ trans men. After all, thats like putting a time stamp on your relationship, and well, I don’t consider myself pre-transition, although I know that a lot of those women would consider me so. Which means, at what point do I become ‘too transitioned’ to be a suitable partner?

Anyway, this reassessment of lesbians was brought about by the realisation a few days ago that there is in fact a radfem lesbian I would date. I also realised that part of my attraction to her is because she would never date me, and more importantly, the reason she would never date me (I am man, *duh*). It made me wonder if I was too hasty in my judgement that I would never date a lesbian? I don’t know.

Current Thoughts:
Thats as much as I had written, and I got distracted or something. I am kinda over my little ‘ZOMG LESBIANZ ARE TEH EV0L’ thing. Its a bit stupid, and reactionary, and was essentially the result of some hurt feelings.
Lesbians are in fact pretty awesome, and it was silly of me to let my lifelong admiration for dykes get tarnished by one argument.

What I think that is at the core of issue here is the idea of visibility.
I want my masculinity to be visible. I also want my queerness to be visible. This means that sometimes I like to hook up with gay guys just because it reinforces both my masculinity and queerness all in one heady, intoxicating kiss.
A Lesbian dating a trans man wants her queerness to be visible, but unless the couple can negotiate an alternative kind of queerness, she risks erasing or undermining her partners identity in order to ensure hers remains visible. Sometimes trans men stop identifying as queer, and thats cool, but that can suck for his girlfriend, if she identifies as a lesbian, and doesn’t want to redefine as straight.

I tend to either be visibly male, or visibly queer. I am interpreted as one or the other, but rarely both simultaneously. Sometimes its more important to me to be seen as male, sometimes its more important to me to be seen as queer.

Most of the time I can define myself, and thats enough. However, if one is part of a relationship, one cannot define oneself with complete disregard to a partners feelings. If I am dating a man he cannot decide to redefine himself as straight, and expect me to be totally fine with that. (Especially if he starts screwing up my pronouns consistently after this ‘redefinition’ *frowns*)
Of course, if one appears to be in a heterosexual relationship, how does one go about ensuring they are still welcome in queer spaces, still welcome at queer events?
I think that its important for people who are primarily part of cissexual ’same-sex’ relationships to remain aware that bisexuals, and trans people often still define as queer, even if they are not always visibly so.

Any thoughts on this? My idea’s are still kinda fuzzy, so I hope what I am getting at is kinda clear. (Meanwhile, the second half of this post is totally different to the first half, cos I don’t really remember where I was going originally…)

Putting the Cheerful in Megalomania

The name of this blog originated during a game of Munchkin, in which I was blackmailing people and amassing hoards of wealth while giggling maniacally. It then became the name of a short lived 10 strip webcomic, and then became my blogs ‘brand’.

“Cheerful Megalomaniac” is a phrase that sums up who I want to be, and who I am becoming, rather neatly. I am hopelessly optimistic, and cheerful, and excitable. I am also filled with a rather inflated sense of my own importance and power in the world.

I have been called cynical several times recently. I told someone today that maybe I’m falling in love, and they laughed at me, and said “You? You’re too cynical to fall for constructed social myths like LOVE, right?”. I wasn’t offended, because it was said with friendly humour, and a sense of irony, but sometimes I think that I do stray a little to the side of cynicism at times. I prefer to think of it as having a ‘clear eyed view of society’.

I think that maintaining one’s levels of cheerfulness is very important. If one spends too long reading about tragedy, and oppression, and hate, it can send one over the deep end, into cynicism and bitterness.

Recently I have been thinking a lot about Trans Pride. I used to think that Trans Pride was impossible. After all, who could be proud of being a freak?
Of course, Gays, Lesbians and bisexuals were all considered deviants and freaks when they came up with Queer Pride.

So anyway, somewhere along the way, I realised that I was rebelling against shame. Rebelling against the idea that I would be unwanted, discarded, ugly.
Thats when I realised that I was happy to be transsexual, to be monstrous, to be genderqueer, radical, different. Proud even.
I’m still somewhat excited about this realisation, and so I’ve been mentioning it quite a bit.

Loving Your Soul

This post is about pansexuality.
A warning:
I have had people suggest that since ‘pan’ in this context means ‘everything’, that means that pansexuals are open to bestiality, and pedophilia. Therefore I shouldn’t label myself with that word.

The hetero- in heterosexual comes from the greek ‘heteros’ that means ‘different’. So clearly, heterosexuals must all want to fuck animals, cos animals are different from humans. Right?
*rolls eyes*

We understand that homosexual and heterosexual and bisexual refer to ’same gender’, ‘different gender’ and ‘two genders’ respectively, in regards to who someone falls in love with, and who someone fucks.
If you want to claim that ‘pansexual’ means something other than ‘every gender’ or ‘all genders’, then srsly, fuck off. I wont engage with you in this post.