The Transgender Paradox...

well one of them at least...;)

By Jennifer Lynn

L iving life transgender is, of course, an exercise in Paradox. Those of us so blessed or afflicted offer a challenge to many of the heartfelt beliefs of western society. Since we are neither men or women in the conventional sense most people have difficulty relating to the reality we present.

None of this is new, nor is it something that will IMHO change to any significant degree in the near future. To live life Transgender in the waining years of the 20th century is to live on the outside looking in...

This is a harsh reality and one I am sure that will be challenged by many in our 'community'. However the harsher reality of lost loves, broken homes, closeted existances, and living life alone is perhaps the lot of most transgender folk. For every person living a fullfilled Transgender life I feel there are scores who can only dream of such an existance.

Given that premise what is it I wish to speak of in this article? The particular dilema of which I speak is one that has to some degree obsessed me these last few years. It is the paradox of self awareness VS. public awareness.

With a growing sense of self and the achievment of some comfort in my Transgender skin I have come to finally accept Jennifer and.... accept her as... well simply as me. This notion needs no explanation nor does it require validation. Having travelled a long and circutious path to this place I believe that I am Jennifer and she is me...:)

However.... there is always a catch isn't there... I am still living in a world that has yet to accept my personal definition of humanity. I am neither man nor woman but both. This world has no place for me. As such a person I am constantly faced with the challenge of explaining who and what I am. I must justify my existance and my place in this world to those around me.

Be it friend or lover, wife, child, or brother, or the person sitting next to me in a dark bar... they all want me to explain. "Who are you?" and "What does this all mean?" and "What made you this way?" or the ever popular "Are you Gay?". Having just achieved a personal self acceptance I find this need to justify myself troubling at times. I do accept the need to explain as a form of outreach in hopes that if we educate the world one person at a time we will in some very small way change the world. I only wish it would change a little right now...

Well that is so much crying in my beer.... and for my Canuk $ beer is too expensive to waste. So what is one to do EH? I guess all that is left is to find a REAL effective way to communicate the basic ideas of Transgender to civilians in our world. Hummmmm... a tall order that.

Over the years I have tried and seen many approaches. We can try to explain the difference between Gender and Sexual Preference. We can explain the fine points of the Cross Dresser, Transsexual, and those simply Transgendered. However we are often lost in a sea of contradictory terms and definitions. Most times this only serves to confuse rather than illuminate.

We can attempt to popularize new terms to describe ourselves. One such term, GEM (Gender Enhanced Male) which was coined by Sarah Michaels as part of a discussion thread on a long forgotten gender BBS is an example of this approach. While this term does command attention and does generate discussion it too leads us back to confusing definitions.

Another interesting attempt description was the use of color to describe Transgender. I first was exposed to this technique by Jami Ward in one of her postings to a TG BBS. (does anyone remember BBS's or is my age showing .. again...;)) This attempt too shares the flaw of GEM by leading us back to confusing and complex discussion of the many issues embodied by Transgender. However I did enjoy the search for an appropiate shade of navy/fuscia to describe myself...;)

As a heteregenous group we simply IMHO defy simple explanation. Unlike Gays we cannot be described in a few words. Can anyone tell me in 10 words or less what it is to be Transgender? I can't and I am willing to bet the task is impossible. So again, what are we to do?

My next attempt at a solution was to follow the axiom that a picture is worth a thousand words and attempt to develop a graphical representation of Gender and our palce in it. My first crude attempt was to use a simple bar graph to illistrate the point

This approach while simple and accurate as far as it went lacked the ability to explain the variations of transgender behavior or the difference between gender and sexual preference. A good start perhaps but I felt the need to go back to the drawing board. Literally.

My second attempt was rooted in the idea that if one line graph was good well 2 was better and 3 were great. It was an interesting concept but as you can see this idea was doomed by its sheer complexity. In essence I was trying to illustrate a multi dimensional concept in a one dimensional plane... times 3 in this case...;)

The next version of a graphical technique I used was not mine. On a trip to Ottawa I had occasion to get into a long philosopical discussion about living life Transgender with Joanne Law, the President of the local support group Gender Mosaic. She presented me with a variation of the bar graph that solved many of the problems with my attempts at such a creation. While better than my efforts her representation too fails to encorporate the multifaceted nature of Transgender and sent me again back to the drawing board. (Any inferences to biological processes inferred by this diagram are purely coinciental...REALLY...;))

Until recently I was at a loss as to how to bridge the gap between ond dimensional graphics and a multi dimensional concept. A solution found its way to my conciousness in a most curious way. I was reviewing an article comparing various computers in a popular magazine. This particuar magazine tries to graphically illustrate two opposing concepts, bang for the buck and performance in one graphic. While this approach is not without its flaws it does succeed in many ways at illustrating the point far better than any of my previous graphical efforts at illustrating transgender.

This revelation let me to the next graphic.... I call this the Gender / Sexuality Wheel or Gen/Sex for short.

The wheel is divided up into four quandants: Male Straight (Blue) , Female Straight (Pink), Female Gay(Red), and Male Gay(Yellow. Each quadrant is subdivide into four equal parts. If you review the following examples I will present Gen/Sex wheels representing some of the varied of people possible under such a system.

I hope that you will forgive the use of Male and Female instead of the more correct Masculine and Feminine. While not strictly correct I chose to use Male and Female to aid in communication the concepts to those unaware of our Gender reality.

Please note that this is only an attempt to show the ROUGH relationship and overlap between the various categories of individuals. The 'typical' or 'ideal' individual in each category rarely if ever exists and is used only for illustration purposes. In the Transgender charts the examples are meant to cover the range of transgender realities since there is NO 'typical' or 'ideal'. What will perhaps be more interesting is having individuals draw their own GEN/SEX wheels to show who they are to the world.

While this approach is obviously a preliminary one and perhaps flawed in some ways it is one that does IMHO work, if only partially. As I am constantly challenged to explain and justify my existance I feel this tool will aid me in that task. I welcome your enhancements to this model.

This approach has the advantage of ilustrating gender and sexual preference in one diagram. It also allows us to place many of the known alternative lifgestyle 'types' on our graphic to allow for placing the varied forms of Transgender into some sort of rough context. While this is far from perfect I feel this is a vast improvement on my previous graphical efforts and may offer some level of understanding to many, inside and outside the cummunity, in search of answers.

Comments, corrections, rebuttals?

Please feel free to let loose. Otherwise I am just muttering in the dark and as such am liable to be given a rear lacing suit and be hauled off to a quiet and dark place....;)

Eh!!! (Old Canadian Anachronism)