“I know because I am you,” were words I spoke in my It Gets Better video, and turned out to be one of the most heatedly debated moments in my online life (next to the transsexual vs. transgender brouhaha). It was a moment of impromptu human revelation. It was something I had said from the heart, something that I didn’t have in my talking points while I recorded my It Gets Better video. It was the one thing I knew for sure as I sat there pouring my heart out for the world to see.
And it was something that a number of personal blogs attacked: “Well, she is not me…coming off Oprah-esque with supermodel looks.”
Initially I was offended. Well obviously I wasn’t speaking to you directly, I said to myself in my own defense. I was speaking to the kid out there that was brave enough to deal with the bullshit of high school and transition as a teenager, to the girl who snuck mini-skirts and padded bras into her bedroom drawers, the boy who bought a binder at the moment his breasts began to bud. I was speaking to them.
But I didn’t really get it, didn’t really understand where these heated bloggers came from until I watched the Chaz Bono transition documentary Becoming Chaz with the Point Foundation’s LGBT scholars, regents and alumni over the weekend in Chicago. I was in town to speak at the LGBT non-profit’s (which was founded the same year I graduated from high school in 2001) annual leadership conference as part of a panel on blogging, new media and activism with fellow panelists Andy Towle of Towleroad and Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend.
We shared our individual coming out stories, our experiences with living transparently online, and our varying outlooks on writing and curating content for our readers. But what was most fulfilling was spending time with the Point scholars. After the talk, I spoke with the LGBT scholars about writing and storytelling, about gender identity and expression, about my personal activism of visibility, about being a trans woman of color. After our face-to-face, I joined Pam and Andy and the scholars for dinner, before watching Becoming Chaz.
In a screening room filled with the scent of salted popcorn and just-opened cans of soda, the documentary was introduced by Point’s only transgender board member Joanne Herman (author of Transgender Explained For Those Who Are Not) and the film’s producer and director Randy Barbato. It was my second viewing of the documentary as I saw it’s much-publicized premiere on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, and both times I found the relationship, the bickering and scene-stealing Jennifer Elias, Chaz’s longtime partner, to be the focal point of the film, not so much Chaz’s transition from Sonny & Cher’s little girl to a “middle-aged man.”
Watching it in a room full of LGBT people was another experience all together. Most of the room cracked up at Elias, she stole the show from her famous offspring of a partner, who seemed to be more interested in twiddling his thumbs and gaming rather than becoming a spokesperson for trans men everywhere. Elias, on the other hand, was never “boring” as Chaz points out about his attraction to his girlfriend. She’s tailor-made for The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills; she’s good TV.
Upon Q&A with Barbato, a few scholars took issue with the light-hearted nature of the film, which was touted as a story of transition (mirroring the title of his book – one part of his multi-platform coming out story spearheaded by Hollywood publicist Howard Bragman, a producer on the doc). One scholar was near tears as he respectfully challenged Barbato and his film with something to the effect of:
As a trans man, I don’t feel Chaz and the presentation of his transition as representative of me and the trans men I know. I was offended that people in the audience were laughing, as if transitioning is something that’s funny. Injecting testosterone into your body and undergoing top surgery is not a laughing matter…Chaz is not me.
I immediately, as a fellow trans person, felt guilty about my own laughter. Was I insensitive? Did I watch a different movie? These questions ran through my head as I reflected on the moments in the film that brought me to chuckle: the bickering between the couple; RuPaul commenting on the video game characters’ wardrobe; the tense moments, fueled by Chaz’s stress and hormone levels, when they’re setting up Jennifer’s graduation brunch.
Then, other scholars offered their varying points of view. And in that moment I realized that though this is an LGBT organization and the scholars are well-versed in sexuality and the gay movement, gender identity and expression is still an uncharted territory, where we as a diverse community have yet to embark on. That’s why I was glad to be in that tense room, where I heard this uncomfortable, sensitive debate. Like race, I yearned for these moments when we could all just express our feelings and thoughts and opinions in a space where it was OK to slip up, learn and be enlightened.
The point of the discussion wasn’t to get an answer that would satisfy the men hurt by Chaz’s documentary, it was to get the conversation started, one that was unfortunately cut short and promised to continue in the morning. (I really hope the scholars really did get to continue the conversation at breakfast). Throughout the remainder of the weekend, I couldn’t stop thinking about the screening. I knew there were no right answers, no perfect sound bites that would assuage the concerns brought on by Chaz’s representation.
To me, the documentary was about how he and his partner and those closest to him transitioned because of his transition (Chaz went from a social recluse and prescription drug addict to a more outgoing – and oftentimes sexist – finally getting happy in his own body; Jennifer went from Chaz’s lesbian partner to his straight girlfriend who sought refuge in alcohol to get herself through his transition). Because of the limited portraits of trans people, the few that we do have tend to represent us all because they’re oftentimes the public’s introduction to trans people.
Therefore, Chaz’s journey is every trans man’s story because of its reach, but at the end of the day his journey is uniquely his. These stories shed light on all of us as trans people. The personal is political, but they’re also a solitary journey, one that is first and foremost your own before resonating with or representing others.
I felt for the filmmaker, for the men who felt Chaz is not me, and for Chaz himself having lived his life openly. When I shared my story publicly many said my experience was not theirs: I was called privilege because of my fitting into society’s physical ideal of how women are supposed to look; privileged because of my family support; privileged because of my access to education and a trans-inclusive medical care. Due to my “positive” outcomes, my experiences as a trans woman has been deeply discounted.
“She lived only a small fraction of her life actually ‘suffering’ from Transsexualism,” one woman wrote about me on my Facebook page. “In almost every way, Janet’s story is the fairy tale that the majority of us dreamed of, but never got.”
For me, the key takeaway in Becoming Chaz were the trans and gender-nonconforming children highlighted towards the end of the film, who have their very own play group organized by the support group, Transforming Family. With the support of their parents and community, these kids may be able to transition as young people, enabling them to live in bodies that reflect their inner essence, whatever that may be.
“The paradigm is, thankfully, shifting,” Jenn Burleton, executive director of TransActive Education and Advocacy, a Portland-based non-profit which supports trans youth, wrote in response to the “fairy tale” reaction above. “Children and youth are being given the opportunity to avoid all of the struggles you mentioned. Janet may NOT be a role model for you, but for current and future generations, she is. Please celebrate that.”
I personally don’t believe in fairy tales, but I do believe in happily-ever-afters. Maybe with support and acceptance and heightened visibility of trans people, these kids can grow up to transcend their bodies, society’s gender norms and live happily-every-after in their own tailor-made fairy tale that they’ll glowingly live to tell – one in which we can all gain wisdom, heatedly discuss and raise our society’s consciousness not of trans experience but of our collective human experience.
I couldn’t believe that from were I came , so much hostility and cruelty. To all this acceptance , even the guys in the neighborhood who had be so mean to me , began speak to me respectfully and call me by my new name Eve.
When I tell my other Trans friends my story , a good deal of them are in awe. Because so many have terrible stories of abuse , abandonment , and horrible rejection from there families… so many even being disowned ! But let me be clear ,no one has the right to devalue my experience because it appears to have been to easy for me , Janet or anyone else. Conversely no one has the right to devalue me because of the things I’ve done , that they disprove of . The goal here is not diminishing each other but rather all of us telling our individual stories to hopefully give someone else inspiration and courage to come out and live there live the way they deserve. I so wish I was able to know of a “Janet Mock” when I was a babe. I would have believed a lot sooner that I could be something great in this world…Ive only just come to realize that truth very recently.
On the flip side, i Have worked in the sex industry , I’ve dabbled in drugs , and even had a 5 month cocaine binge , before I decided to clean up my act. But my having worked in the sex game , and experimenting with drugs does not make my story any more valid or any less inspiring than Janet’s . It’s just my story! Perhaps there is some young girl out there involved in sex work… And can’t imagine that she can have a life after it … well , she can , and perhaps seeing my story will encourage her. Perhaps seeing my story will inspire a non-trans person to make changes in their lives .
And while some of my hardships had to do with my being trans , not every bad choice I’ve made in my life was a directly because of my being Trans/. Some of it was just being a dumb ass kid. Some had to do with me be raised kinda sheltered. And my Dad dying just a few years after I came out to him. I was out there ,on my own , and I wasn’t ready for the world.
Janet I’m no writer ,so I hope post is not so clumsy , that you and your readers can’t get my point lol! But, let me say this last thing. I hope that the overwhelming majority of comments and messages and emails you get are of a positive ,encouraging ,congratulatory , or celebratory nature ! I for one am so happy that you had the life you had , great family , Education and beauty , and grateful for your willingness to share your story with the world! You’re my hero Sugar!
PS. And I love your writing ….inspiring!
I was in the room for that screening and I am so happy you wrote about the experience. I appreciate your measured and thoughtful reactions to the debate and dialogue that took place. I can only imagine what it must be like to come out as a public figure. As someone who has come out as gay and queer to thousands of people through my advocacy work in my community around the country, I have gained a respect for the impact telling my story can have on how people perceive the communities I come from. I also have a respect for the impact it can have on the person telling the story. It will always be a dicey affair as long as representations of trans people and access to accurate information remain scarce. I deeply appreciated the space to challenge the filmmaker, to push back against the feedback and to sit in the intense emotions that emerged in the space. I can assure you the conversation didn’t wait until the morning to continue. Many of us continued to process the screening late into the night. Personally, I walked away with the following: as a community (whichever community) we should not fear complex and intense emotions – they’re OK; there is a lot of work to be done to improve the visibility and understanding of diverse trans experiences; we should always celebrate those who take risks and put themselves out there, whether that be coming out, challenging the status quo or sharing our lives with the public. I applaud you, Chaz, the young man who emotionally and thoughtfully challenged the film, and everyone who participated in that dialogue. Change isn’t possible unless we are all present.
I feel strongly that it is important for there to be places for all kinds. As much as those attitudes are fading in some places and trans children have those freedoms, they are being ever-reinforced in others. It’s just as important to let those children know that they are part of this community and that the mere fact that they weren’t able to transition in their teens or early 20s does not make them broken and somehow not deserving of transition.
Your story is valuable in the same way mine, which is significantly different, is also valuable.
Thank you for lending your voice to this conversation. I too believe that no matter what age you decide and/or are given the freedom and support to transition, no one story is more valuable than another. My hope is that by sacrificing my anonymity, I can do my small part in supporting trans youth AND adults in transition.
Once again, I am moved by the compassion and love you share in your writings. Thank you.