Risk and Reward (?)

Tomorrow the article I was interviewed about transgender students at Michigan is going to press.  I never imagined I would agree to interview for the Michigan Daily, but I’m not the kind of guy to burn any bridges — especially where others are hastily building bridges to meet me.  I have been involved in the editing process, so I know what’s going to press, and it’s not bad.  I can’t expect the Daily to publish my book about gender for me, so of course it’s not as intricately complex as it would be if we had unlimited space and unlimited time.  It is a step in the right direction.

I think that generally we could use more of this ethic in the community.  Most of the reactions I got when I told people I’d been interviewed were, “Oh god, what?”  And even today, during our photo session, there were some derisive looks and comments made about the Daily.  It’s easy to dismiss the paper (it’s not like they have a stellar track record) but it’s also a matter of who’s working when.  The reporter who interviewed me is new blood at the paper, and I think that bodes well for its future.  There isn’t anything malicious about the Daily’s occasional poor editorial choices and general cluelessness.  They’re not going to get better unless concerned members of the campus community encourage them to get better.  And help them to get better.  I’m tired of hearing this groaning every time this comes up.  I’ve been slighted more than the average bear by the Daily, but all I’m saying is let’s give the younger reporters another go.

To tell you the truth, I’m not worried about the Michigan Daily.  I’m worried about the rest of campus.  I started second-guessing myself sometime last week, and basically what I’ve concluded amounts to this: I’m sticking my neck out.  Way the fuck out.  Not just in terms of even agreeing to be part of this article, but also agreeing to be outed to such a wide audience, and also willing to be judged for being a part of this project at all.

I haven’t had good experiences lately with transphobia on this campus.  I realize that I may have just put myself in harm’s way — and I’m not sure that the Daily recognizes that.  I am not too worried, though, because I know that by changing my behavior I can reduce my risk.  I just think it’s important that both the paper and I are conscientious of the fact that I have taken a risk.

Also, I hadn’t exactly counted on this being part of the fallout of this project, but the skepticism from the community has been surprising.  Maybe I think too much about the things that make me look anything other than highly principled, but I don’t see this as selling out, because coalition building and meeting people halfway isn’t selling out.  There isn’t much more to it.

We’ll see how this goes, but I want to put it out there that I’ve had a lot of agency in this process, I think this is a step in the right direction, and I’m probably going to be on lockdown for the next few weeks.  That means no walking alone at night further than two blocks, getting rides from people, and probably staying over at others’ houses more often.  I’m bracing for the worst but hoping for the best, and wondering what my reward for this adventure is going to be.

An Unexpected Start

After last semester’s (second annual) Transgender Day of Remembrance debacle, I was hoping I could ride out the rest of my senior year without being incensed by something the Michigan Daily printed. I guess it helps that I don’t read it much anyway, and that this semester I will be on campus only seven or eight hours a week, but the first friend I ran into today at the Union showed me the first issue of The Statement for the new year. The Statement is the Daily‘s magazine insert, published every Wednesday. I have in the past at least found the contents of The Statement interesting. Today’s cover took me by surprise.

The cut-off text on my hasty scan reads “HIS APPLE. HER APPLE. ? APPLE.” The byline for the article is “Why singular pronouns aren’t as simple as a rule in the grammar book.” Already I could feel redness filling my face when my friend showed me this. The implications of the symbolism here are clear. People who don’t conform to the gender binary (and quite rigidly too — note the “man” apple’s huge stache and the “woman” apple’s pouty red lips) are incomplete people: monsterous and frightening.

What makes this image even worse is the rigidity of the binary gender system the cover expresses. The “man” apple is burly and hairy. The “woman” apple is made-up with mascara and lipstick. If this is what “men” are supposed to be and what “women” are supposed to be, you’d be hard-pressed to find too many “men” and “women” on this campus.

A greater affront is, after this negative protrayal of gender non-conforming people, the article goes on to only mention transgender issues curtly, in a single sentence. That sentence paints with a broad brush a stereotypical transperson.

In a more recent movement, “hir” and “ze” (pronounced “here” and “zee”) are sometimes used to describe transgender people — a contemporary challenge that confronts the idea of epicene English like never before.

This isn’t even an accurate representation of how many transpeople feel about gender neutral pronouns. The wording is all wrong. For an article about grammar and semantics, it sure is off the mark. A better construction would point out that some transgender-identified people prefer the gender neutral pronouns. Not all do. Nor do all gender-neutral pronoun preferers choose “ze” and “hir.” A little additional research here would have probably been helpful. I think that the lack of information here also bothers me because there is an implication that people who opt into gender neutral pronouns are “just” playing a language-game. It is kind of belittling, really.

And that’s all that the article says about transgender people. I’m not going to pretend like transpeople matter an awful lot to the vast majority of the Daily’s readership, but the issue to me is not that there isn’t any discussion, but the fact there are glaring missed opportunities and where the opportunity is taken, there is misinformation. We’re talking about confronting the gender binary, here, people. I live this. Give me a little credit where credit is due.

I’m pretty tired of raging against the Michigan Daily, but they really don’t give me any choice. Some of my LGBT Commission friends say the Daily wants to talk more about these issues, but it seems to me like the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Which happens. But that doesn’t make it permissible to portray my folk as incomplete monstrosities of people.

Exasperated

I am so goddamn exasperated with the Michigan Daily.  I am exasperated with the fact that their lack of coverage of Transgender Day of Remembrance — and the community reaction to it — has forced some truly ugly hate speech out of the woodwork.  I am exasperated that in previous years the Daily has covered events in the transgender community.  And I am sick of being blamed for my own community’s oppression.

This year, in response to their lack of coverage, the Michigan Daily ran a few letters to the editor.  Okay, it’s better than nothing, you might say.
Sure, it’s better than nothing, but it’s the only reaction the newspaper had.  Instead of giving room for a legitimized voice of the trans community, this basic action creates negative press.  Many people, whose only contact with the trans community is through events like this one where we are able to slip a word edgewise into the dominant narratives on this campus, think that we’re a bunch of whiners.  They think that the lack of coverage in other traditionally liberal media outlets like NPR means that it’s okay the Michigan Daily doesn’t pick up the story.  They accuse us of not sticking up for ourselves.

I’ve got a newsflash.  It’s hard to stick up for yourself when there are people who don’t think you’re legitimate, who deride you for being an “aberration,” and who force you into filling the angry minority activist role.  It’s a kind of tokenization that is destructive to any social equality movement.  It makes us into caricatures of ourselves when we most need to be seen as human.

Maybe there’s a bit of narcissism that makes me say that I’m still shocked that the Daily hasn’t asked any voices from the trans community to write a personal statement or something for their paper, since I’d like to volunteer myself to do such a job.  Of course, this is just a fantasy, but if they can run this tripe, they could possibly run a 300-word statement about what I’m thankful for.  (Not being a victim of a hate crime?  Having a family that is at least willing to accept me, contrary to what mainstream society would have them do?  Being a member of a supportive group of friends and colleagues?)

I’m also tired of people who say that our struggle for equality is not the same as the struggle for equality of blacks in America because there are so few of us.  I remember Andre telling me that, when revising the university’s non-discrimination clause, someone at the hearing said, “why bother?  There are so few of them.”  Part of why many people think there are so few transgender people is that we aren’t visible.  We are taught that we aren’t allowed to be visible.  We are discouraged from speaking out, and sometimes threatened when we do.  Sound familiar?  I thought so.

The importance of protecting the civil rights and livelihoods of a section of the population isn’t about how many people the protection affects, but lies with the fact that there is injustice.  Period.  There is injustice in this world, and I think Dr. King would agree that no matter who suffers that injustice, it is unacceptable.  As I remember the quote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

I’d just like the chance to have some of the people who have reacted negatively to our attempts at finding justice walk a mile in my shoes and see how easy it is for them to speak up.  I’d like the chance to show them how difficult it is to operate on a daily basis.  I’d like the chance to open their eyes to the difficult reality that is being a minority in America.

Of course, those are just pipe dreams.  For the time being, I’m just thankful to live in a town where I’m not checking over my shoulder every minute, and surrounded by people who uplift me, intellectually and emotionally, even when there are so many others out there who would rather see me trampled down.

The Invisible People

Last year, the Michigan Daily didn’t run anything about Transgender Day of Remembrance.  Even though I incited a bit of a flame war with my letter to the editor, nothing was published again this year.  I’m not too surprised, although I will say that I didn’t send them the essay that I’d written about TDoR that I did last year.  Still..they are a newspaper and there were events held on campus.  I am incredibly incensed at the fact that, in the face of a group of people who are largely invisible, but who have made their presence felt on this campus, the newspaper did nothing.  It really speaks strongly to how goddamn invisible we really are as transgender folk.  My original article is reprinted below.

I didn’t know 16-year-old Ian Benson of Holland, MI, but one of my best friends did.  He took his own life just two weeks ago.  In some ways, I see a lot of myself in Ian.  I see every transperson in Ian.  I guess I feel like Ian is my brother, just like all transpeople are, in some way, my siblings.  Sadly, we’re brought together by discrimination and violence against us.  I was never one for claiming any kind of community with the people who fall under the “T” in “LGBT,” whose challenges to the binary gender system are as diverse as the people themselves.  Not until this year, at least, when something began to awaken in me.

I’ve been out to myself since my junior year of high school.  I, too, was 16.  By some stroke of luck, by some force of will, I’ve made it this far.  It hasn’t been easy.  Sometimes getting out of bed in the morning is so hard I can’t do it without being coaxed and cajoled by my roommate.  Now I’m almost 21, I’m out to everybody who asks.  That includes my friends, my family, my coworkers, my classmates, and my professors.  The reception has been warm.  Things are okay.  I would almost go so far as to say I’m otherwise a happy, normal guy: classes, friends, parties, work, dating, and road trips to Chicago in my beat-up car.

But I can’t live in a bubble, and going outside of the circle of friends, family and colleagues who I know are willing to support me is to go out into a world that is, if not hostile, largely ignorant.  It’s manifested as misunderstandings with profs and GSIs before you could pick a name on CTools, to being harangued in the bathrooms on campus.  I can point to events where I have felt physically threatened, but I always thought this was just par for the course.

There is no reason this should be par for the course.  Life may not be fair, but it also doesn’t have to be too difficult to keep living on account of a social identity you claim.  There’s no reason for anybody to have to think twice about doing something because they’re worried they’ll be attacked for who they are.  There is no reason living in fear and self-hate should be par for the course and make a bright, sweet 16-year-old take his own life.

The health and happiness of all people can be influenced by what we do as individuals.  I used to be quiet about the things I thought were wrong with the world, but now it’s time for me to step up.  It’s time for all of us to step up.  I’m ashamed of myself that it took the suicide of a young man who was truly valued, and not so unlike me, to get me to really step up, but enough is enough.  We have seen enough heartbreak.  We have known enough pain.

The only way that we can prevent more deaths in the larger community and the communities around ours is to come out against intolerance and ignorance.  Nowadays, fewer and fewer transpeople fall victim to direct violence, but a negative environment can be enough to make someone want to give up.  That’s sort of good, I guess – I can walk home from my friends’ houses at night without having to worry too much.  But it’s also bad.  How do you prosecute someone for hate crimes who never actually committed a crime, per se?

The only thing I can think of is work to create a community where you don’t have to worry about that.  I’m finally fully prepared to stand up for what is right.  I’m finally fully prepared to face the ramifications.  History has taught us that social justice does not come easy, or without a price.  But as we remember those who have been killed or driven to an awful choice this week, we must also remember that deaths can be prevented.  And moving forward, it’s also up to all of us to make sure Ian Benson did not die in vain.

We will not be silent.