© 1995 Transgender Forum
Sept 18, 1995
Too Woo Fong is the number one hit in theatres right now, and that is ticking off Chi Chi Rodriguez. Rodriguez, a flamboyant golfer on the PGA's Senior Tour, is upset that the hit picture features another Chi Chi Rodriguez, this one a very cute drag queen. So upset that Chi Chi, the golfer, wants Unversal Pictures to pull back all the prints of "To Woo Fong" because he doesn't like the notion of a fictional drag queen sharing his name.
In a recent statement Rodriguez said that the movie had caused him embarassment and ridicule. I was surprised by how strongly Rodriguez came out about this fictional character. I'm a hacker (a LOT worse since starting up TGF) who has long admired Chi Chi for his well-earned reputation as a generous man with a terrific sense of humor. I also loved the fact that here was a skinny guy who could hit a golf ball a long way, like I wish I could. I'm sure he's getting a little ribbing, but this is a real shank job from a guy who has been known to do some ribbing himself.
Hey Chi Chi, just roll with it. It isn't like you're sharing a name with Ted Bundy. Besides the movie Rodriguez is cute and fun...just like you. Just think of this a 6-inch uphill tap-in...You'll make it and move on.
I'm not that thin-skinned but I'm getting a little tired of this particular question. Think about this: would anyone outside the looney fringe ask RuPaul why she was gay?
I always answer this question like this: we were born this way. Just my opinion? Maybe, but I meet too many people who tell me that their brother, or dad, was also transgender. Yes, I know the genetics research isn't conclusive, but isn't it clear by now that this is not the result of some chance discovery that nylons feel good on your legs?
Even without conclusive evidence of a genetic link, we shouldn't have to put up with such questions. We are who we are. We harm no one. We are found in EVERY society. We are gay, straight and bi-sexual. We are different, but so are redheads and gays. Why we are different may never be answered. It is an irrelevant question anyway. We are here, we have always been around and we aren't going away.
Specific items on the lobbying agenda include: discrimination in employment and housing (e.g., the Employment Non-Discrimination or "ENDA" Bill, which currently does *not* offer protection for gender expression), national health care, prison conditions for transgender inmates, child custody rights, discrimination in military & veteran's affairs, and the rising rate of bias-related violence against our community. Get behind this effort and if you want to know more about what you can do pleaseE-Mail me mention your interest in "Gender Days" and I'll get you in touch with organizers.
The Tri-Ess leadership, specifically Board President Jane Ellen Fairfax, will be given a full opportunity to respond to Kaye though they could not be reached by publication time.
According to Kaye, there are a number of people in the national "leadership" who apparently are inactive in their local groups. How does that work? And how can you know what the troops need if you aren't in contact with them. No wonder Tri-Ess' leadership seems so out of touch with the real world...apparently it is.
One of Kaye's allegations was particularly interesting to me. She states that Tri-Ess was formed in California, operated there and raised funds without paying taxes. Then, when it was decided that the organization needed to get nonprofit status, it "dissolved" in California and reorganized in Texas, apparently to wipe the slate clean.
I'm not sure if the situation is precisely the same, but when ETVC went through the nonprofit process two years ago we realized we too had a potentially serious tax liability. We had incorporated and had not filed any tax returns for several years while the person who was supposed to move the nonprofit application along did nothing. I got directly involved in the process and after I discovered what had happened became very worried about past tax liability. Our back taxes looked like they were going to be large and I wondered if it might not be a bad idea to just dissolve the organization and start all over.
Our tax lawyer disabused me of that idea quick. She insisted, correctly, that this was a big mistake and when ETVC put together it's package for getting nonprofit from the state and the IRS, we filed back tax returns, plus estimated penalties. It hurt, but we did it.
I have never been enamored of the homophobic, anti-transexual aspect of Tri-Ess, but I also believe that people have the right to associate with who they wish. Regardless of my personal feelings, I did think it was a pretty well-run organization. It is hard to feel that way now given what Kaye says.
Now I know what it's like to be on the other side of an outting.
Late at the end of a recent workday my neighbor was standing at his desk talking to me over the partition. We've known each other for eight years and kind of shoot the bull every day near quitting time, discussing politics or music, etc. Today the topic was movies with transgender themes, a favorite of mine but not one in which I thought he'd have much interest.
But he knew a lot about them, which wasn't odd because he knows a lot about films generally. But when he told me he'd seen "Paris Is Burning" "Ed Wood" "Priscilla-Queen of the Desert" and "Just Like A Woman" the hair started going up on the back of my neck. Everybody's seen "Some Like it Hot", but those other movies tend to attract a certain sub-group of society.
Being the self-centered dummy that I am the only thing I could think of was that he knew about me as was trying to signal that it was okay.
He asked me what I thought of "Just Like A Woman."
I played it casual. "Haven't seen it, but I heard it was good,'' I said, telling the truth. Then the phone rang and distracted me. He put on his coat and walked around to my desk.
"What's up?"
"You knew about last month at ETVC, right"? he said.
Now I was starting to feel the adrenaline psychosis that happens to me in the first moments of panic. I wasn't ready to out myself to him, but if I was forced to...
"That was me who came up to you and said we knew each other and you couldn't remember from where." he said.
I'm almost never speechless, ask my kids. But this was too boggling. I did indeed remember her, she looked good in her short dark hair and stylish outfit. I also remember thinking that it bugged me that I couldn't recall her while she seemed so sure. I also recalled that she had come up to me as she was leaving and never gave me a chance to probe a bit.
"I didn't really know how to approach you,'' he said.
We talked a bit more, but only a little more, before he left. I had so many questions! I was also slightly dazed.
Over the next few days we talked some more. He'd been dressing for years, but had done it while he was either way out of town or when he went to the Motherlode, a semi-sleazy bar in San Francisco. ("I learned real quick about keeping my hand on my purse in that place," he told me during a lunchtime walk.) He told me about the concerns his wife had and his feelings about disclosing his trangender nature to his son. It was all terribly interesting to me, though I'd heard variants of it before from so many people.
He told me he hadn't recognized me at the July ETVC meeting, until I made what he said was a characteristic gesture. (No, not THAT one.) "I thought, wait a minute, I know her!" he said.
It is so wonderful having someone right there at work to talk to about all of this. But I'm also finding that we don't really need to talk about about being transgender every minute.
I think now that I understand something of the experience of people I've told, all of whom have been accepting. . It is disorienting at first, more for some than others. Spouses and lovers are a whole other issue, but for many of the people I have told it seems like the discombobulation kind of goes away after the basic questions are answered ("what does your wife think?" "do you go out in public?" etc).
It is a little different in the present case because "Elizabeth" and I are both transgender. Not quite as earth-shaking a thing as coming out to your straight friends and family. But while we do have a lot to share, I've been pleased that since she disclosed herself to me we still talk about how stinky the Giants are and local politics and the latest OJ and all the rest.
On the other hand, if we veer off into what's the hottest from Milan occasionally, that'll be just fine too.
I hope you've been pleased by these efforts and have found the information here useful. And thanks for your continuing support!
We ran into each other again a few days ago at Kimo's, a friendly gay bar in San Francisco that has drag shows on weekends. People are pretty used to outrageous appearances in that place, but Mary still managed to attract attention. Both of us were there to take in an ETVC education seminar on clothing styles and color coordination. Somehow this seemed fitting.
Every time I see Mary I'm of two minds. The left side of my brain says "Her thing. You don't have any business judging her. Leave this alone." But liberalism is pretty weak right now, my right side has becom so much louder, and surer, now: "She looks like a whore and makes us all look bad. She's insulting women and confirming the worst stereotypes. Straighten her out."
After the seminar we got to talking about a few small things, I don't recall what exactly, but I remember thinking I was going to give her the kind of advice she sorely needed and that she would thank me for it later. Probably profusely.
As it was getting near time to leave and I realized that she intended to walk out on the street dressed like that, no long coat to cover up or anything. Here was my chance.
"You know you could get jumped looking like that," I said.
"Hasn't happened yet," she said blythely. "And it won't in this neighborhood."
"You mean you go out like this a lot?" I asked.
"No, I only dress like this when I go out in public...," she said.
How the hell does she dress the rest of the time? I kept getting this image of her in a Brooks Brothers suit but that was way too weird...
Anyway, I could tell that my prior line of reasoning wasn't going to work so I tried another.
"The cops are going to get the wrong idea if they see
you...there are a lot of working girls just down the street," I said, hoping I'd taken enough condescension out of my voice for her not to notice.
"Oh, the cops won't bother me, I'm not going to talk to
anyone on the street," she said. "I'm not stupid."
"Well, be careful anyway," I said.
"Look I have to go, but can I tell you something?"
"Sure," I said."
She smiled sweetly and moved conspiratorially close to my ear:
"Look I didn't want to mention it before but you really have to do something about the way you look. That blouse you're wearing just doesn't go with those navy pants, it's all wrong for you. Try an off-white instead of lavender...and put on some jewelry. You look like a housewife from the 'burbs. This is downtown, honey"
She turned and walked towards the door, every eye in the place on her. Then she stopped and motioned me over. "Here take this..." she said pressing into my hand the calling card of the style coordinator who'd run the seminar.
"You might find it useful..."
The Human Rights Campaign Fund is a gay/lesbian political lobbying & fundraising organization that has taken action to exclude transgenders from the proposed federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). After a year long effort by transgender political organizations to produce a transgender inclusive bill, the HRCF succeeded in having transgenders removed from the legislation. This is not cool.
In the bad old days IFGE's leadership always claimed they couldn't get involved in such issues because their non-profit status could be revoked for political activity. This was nonsense and little more than an excuse for laziness and inaction.
Laing is doing exactly the right thing and should push IFGE into other areas of great importance to this community, including civil rights and anti-defamation work. Besides, if IFGE doesn't find some reason for existence beyond putting out the Tapestry magazine and doing research hardly anyone cares about, it is going to die.
This is a crucial time for IFGE. It is now hoping to raise funds for its depleted treasury by selling memberships, which is a fine idea. But people won't join what they don't understand. Nor will they back an "international" organization that seems to have no substantial purpose.
But if anyone can rescue IFGE, Laing can. She has already taken a good first step.
Anyone who has ever done any sewing knows that the average male waist is lower that the waist of a woman of the same height. One good way to fix this, if you use padding, is to try and make a faux waist about midway between your elbow (with your arms relaxed of course) and your natural waist. Experiment a bit.
But the greatest of all the Carmen impersonators was the first: Mickey Rooney, shown here kissing the Brazilian Bombshell on the set of 1942's "Babes on Broadway" from Anthony Slide's book, "The Great Pretenders." Oh, and check out the shoes. Look carefully and you'll see that Carmen is wearing her platforms under those pants.
That show also featured an stunning male impersonation by someone who became one of the great drag icons: Judy Garland. The circle stays unbroken, doesn't it?
I'll have a lot more to say about this, but just a word to the wise: don't cut corners and make sure you know who you are dealing with. And stay out of Tijuana.
Hurrying to have SRS is always a mistake. One very good friend, who thought she knew what she was doing by skipping her real life test, rushed over to the Netherlands a few years ago to have her surgery at a price that was half of what any reputable U.S. or European doctor would charge. Sounded great. Fast service, no shrinks in the way and a discount on the price.
You know what happened: she nearly died from infections and was so badly scarred by the botched surgery that she now needs a lot of very dicey -- and extremely expensive -- additional surgery. Before this disaster she used to tell me that she had "lost so much time I can't afford to lose any more." Ever hear that one? Like in your own head..?
We are in all walks of life. I've met doctors, scientists, judges, truck drivers, carpenters, computer people (lotta those)and, well just about every kind of person, including cops.
It's tough being transgender, no matter what line you're in, but it is doubly so for a cop. That's why it was so great to see TOPS! (Transgendered Officers Protect and Serve!), a new international transgender group formed this week in the midst of all the transphobic media hype about Hoboken (NJ) police Lt. Janet Aiello.
The purpose of the group was to show our visibility among the ranks of firefighters and police officers and to lend Ms. Aiello support in a difficult time. Check out the story. Hopefully, because of the guts of Janet Aiello and others like her, being a transgender cop or writer or plumber or politician won't be a story much longer.
Gay, straight, bi?
I knew we'd get a lot of responses to this question on the new BBS because it goes right to the core of a lot of issues for many of us. Credit for the question goes to Wendi, a thoughtful reader.
This was our first controversial topic and it brought out what I love best about our community: a genuine willingness to disagree in a civilized manner. We don't see that much these days and I was proud to see that OUR traditions are still strong.
Back to the issue. I think this one hit a nerve because so many of us have had to "prove" our sexuality to our loved ones. What is the first question asked by a wife who has just been told her hubby wears her clothes when she isn't around? Either "Are you gay?" or "Are you going to have a sex change?" A lot of us have answered "No." But we really aren't all that sure...Are we?
It is our own uncertainties that make this a hot button topic in this community. Deep down, we wonder if maybe being with a man wouldn't be so bad at all. But whether you actually do something about it has less to do with being transgender then it does with the kind of relationship you have with your partner.
If that relationship is strong and loving, you aren't going to stray. Simple as that.
Let me get more personal. I've been cruised in bars, had my ass pinched by strangers, and yes, I have my fantasies. But I don't have to go out and get cheap, sleazy sex.
I can get that right at home...