The Perils of Lesbian Dating

I wrote this piece for my friends on FB back in August a couple of months before the BBC published its piece on similar experiences happening in the lesbian community. I hadn't wanted to write something so personal as how I operated on a date, but it turned out to be an effective story to convey how gender ideology is impacting the personal lives of lesbians in a way that is increasingly becoming a form of harassment. 

Throwback Thursday: In 2014 I was active on dating sites OkCupid and Match. I enjoyed meeting women, hearing their stories and telling mine. I also corresponded with two transwomen who contacted me. Both had recently transitioned. One described her journey to me at length answering my gentle questions. She was exploring her feminine nature on a spiritual level encouraged by her yoga teacher she told me. After two weeks she said that telling her story to me was the reason I had appeared in her life and we did not need to meet or correspond further. 

The other, pictured here, had just moved to the Bay Area and asked to meet me. I suggested the restaurant and picked her up outside her condo. Given what she was wearing (a semi formal gown) I treated her like a lady and opened the car door for her. She also waited for me to open the car door upon our arrival. She towered over me at close to 6ft as I opened the door to the restaurant. We were at a Thai restaurant where I could show off my Thai by ordering dinner. 

As we talked I learned that she was from Texas where she had raised three children as a man and that her wife had not wanted to remain married as she transitioned at the age of 58. She asked her company to move her to California for the more liberal atmosphere. She was well received here and her workmates seemed to think her transition was innovative; the company was a weapons manufacturer and commercial and military electronics firm. She appeared to be quite high up in this firm and was regularly flown across the country to review projects. She offered that she was politically on the conservative side of liberal.

As I was realizing how highly paid she likely was I was also noting that there was nothing about her story that was the life of a woman. Nothing of the history and struggle of being a woman. Nor did this tall thin person appear to be a woman apart from being dressed as one. All I could feel was the male privilege of a high ranking man. And such a presentation did not qualify as a woman in my book (her trans struggle notwithstanding). Not that I was going to tell her that. I had just thought there would on some level be something that would say woman to me. Then she mused that having transitioned it seemed that she would have to take up the identity of a lesbian. It was not a category that seemed to garner much enthusiasm.

I thought of how I had spent a good deal of my life energy defending this category of lesbian long before any of my lesbian peers had come out or thought it was even a good idea to be out. And I was offended that here was a man assuming that not only could he just take up this title, but without even considering if other lesbians would have him as a romantic partner. He certainly wasn’t asking me this question (or anything about me for that matter). Why did he not just seek partners from the pool of bisexual women? I had seen a profile of such a woman who specifically stated that she would date transwomen because as she put it she "was familiar with the equipment”.

At the end of our dinner we each paid our way and I asked our waitress to take our picture. She was happy to do so and that was the last we saw of the wait people. Thai people know a transwoman when they see one. Or as my aunt once put it “that’s a Katoi; you can’t fool me” when I showed her my college photo album and she pointed out my friend Mark in drag. Katoi is the word for third gender meaning those, mostly men and likely gay, who cross dress and take on the role of the opposite sex. 

I took my date back to her condo and gave her a hug in the parking lot. She wrote me later that she enjoyed our time together, but did not wish to date me because I was too close to having just ended a long term relationship. Such judgement did not sit well with me. Hadn't I decided I was ready to enter the dating pool? In turn I said that I did not wish to date her because she didn’t have enough body fat on her. 

“That’s the first time anyone’s complained of that to me,” she responded taking it as a complement. I didn’t want to appear rude by pointing out that I didn’t sleep with men no matter how much of a woman he fancied himself to be. I was fine letting these men have their woman idea of themselves. I just wasn’t willing to accept that I should be expected to date them.

In debriefing this experience I learned that there was a term called “the cotton ceiling” that referred to lesbian underpants. It was used in a title of a workshop at an LGBTQ conference offered in 2012. The complete title “How to Overcome the Cotton Ceiling: Breaking Down Sexual Barriers For Queer Trans Women” was for a workshop designed to convince lesbians that transwomen are women (biology notwithstanding) and should be regarded as such. It is fully admitted in the workshop description. I was incensed by the concept that barriers had to be overcome so a man could, through linguistic sleight of hand, persuade a lesbian to consider him a suitable romantic partner. I did not wish to be strategized by such language. I am the kind of woman who considers the visual thought experiment of removing my underpants for the purpose of breaking down sexual barriers for male access to be a violation akin to rape. 

And that my friends is how I came to be “peaked” as they say in the resistance.

Now workshops are recommending that transwomen in my age group hide their trans identity due to our exposure to 2nd wave feminism and steadfast ideas of what a woman is; whereas before transwomen had been proudly open about their male to female status on dating sites. And so it was that I found myself earlier this year corresponding with a person presenting themselves as a woman who I strongly suspected was a man. So much was every line devoid of female camaraderie and imbued with a slight tone of condescension. There was only one small portrait to go by plus a lot of group shots from a winter mountaineering expedition while she tried to impress me with her LinkedIn resume which showed the considerable commercial accomplishments of an architect. When I told her of my early lesbian activism and asked about her coming out she said that was a question that required a lot of thought and would have to wait as she was being deployed to the Gulf by the Coast Guard. And that was the last I heard from her. Yes, no transwoman wants to be interrogated by a long time lesbian activist as to their lesbian credentials. 

What is the logical outcome of this hiding strategy? Where does the secret end? In the bedroom? In the deplatforming of homosexuality? In the reprogramming of lesbians? All this already seemingly a done deal with the young.

Today if a lesbian states on her profile on lesbian dating sites that she will only date biological women she will have her account shut down for not adhering to community standards. To state a preference for a biological woman is to use “hate speech” and is called “genital essentialism”. Lesbian groups that state biological women only are shut down. Lesbians are being asked not just to mind their own business, but to show their solidarity to transwoman i.e. men by pretending to be open to sleeping with them. The term “lesbian” is now more and more being associated with being a hater. While "pansexual" is the preferred term for "bisexual". 

Transwomen fond of positions of power have asserted their voice and their demands in just about all organizations devoted to women and lesbian causes. The American Medical Association by advise of trans activists recently recommended that the designation of sex be removed from the public side of birth certificates making biological sex a matter of utmost privacy implying that we have no right to know the true sex of a person. As if it will no longer be obvious given enough plastic surgery and pharmaceuticals. 

The public will continue to be asked to ponder if laws that safeguard women and girls safe spaces and opportunities reserved for them being now open to men is just fine for a society that prides itself in upholding women’s rights and women's opportunities. This is just my report from my lesbian corner of the world on the status of compelled speech, thought control and the right to assemble here in the U.S.

To Incarnate As A Woman

 

My ‘big sister’ cousin in Bangkok made this avatar for me. She chose the photo. The one that reminded her of my father. The one I posted to show the butch side of myself. The male persona that telegraphed itself from a previous life into my rebirth as a woman in this life. For clearly my karma as a man in that previous life needed a new perspective. I may have been a womanizer, a man of power. An abuser of such power as a man with many wives as one (American) psychic channeled it. I was a young feminist angry at male privilege when I received this news. It struck me as a cosmic comeuppance. It gave me more compassion for men, but made me no less of a feminist.

The cosmic joke of reincarnation is that we are all "born in the wrong body". Over and over again for the sake of experiencing separateness and a different perspective with each rebirth. For that is the human condition. To compress the entire gloriousness of the soul into this animal existence of biological human form. It is the seat of our existence to experience this dissatisfaction and if we do not see it at first we will in sickness, old age and death.

To incarnate as a woman is to be gifted a relationship so closely tied to the body that it feels like an assault. An assault of messiness, drippiness, blood red so visible we must learn to hide it as part of our suffering, our coming of age. And what about birth that ultimate messiness? Or as my American teacher of womanhood told me “The woman is the one whose body is turned inside out in pregnancy and birth. The woman is the one who faces her own death. And she breast-feeds. She feeds the baby out of her own body. She feeds the baby her own blood turned into milk. It is the woman who is forever changed in that physical metamorphosis. And it is so utterly completely and totally difficult.”

I am gifted in this life to love women as a woman. To serve and empathize with women. To luxuriate in their bodies, their carnal sacredness and beauty. To receive their love in my earthly body of female knowledge. I am gifted in this life to bridge two cultures (three if you're counting) so that I may better see all that an incarnation has to offer in human society. I rejoice in being reincarnated yet again. To once more arrive in a new body in an unfamiliar life so that I may be reborn into new knowledge as I spend this incarnation getting to know it so very intimately as my own life experience. 

I offer you this message of incarnation in a familiar form from American culture.

"Goddess grant me the serenity to accept the biology of my sex, the color of my skin, the circumstances of my birth. The courage to be proud of who I am, who I have become and can become. And the wisdom to know it is all a journey. A karmic ride."

Happy Pride Y’all.

The Inauguration

As posted to my FB page

Thoughts on the morning of: I am somehow reminded of a sunny January day when the Challenger exploded on live TV. Today it is what is in our heads that will have us glued to the TV. May it be uneventful in the nicest ways. May we be a governable people. May the peaceful transfre of power remain the organizing principle of this country. For it is a beautiful thing. I never fully appreciated this before. 

My Morning After review: I didn’t expect to be so moved by THE INAUGURATION. The joys, the firsts, the brilliant colors all chiefly brought onto the stage by women. It was that final scene in a tense suspenseful movie when those in hiding can come out again into the sunshine. But there was no director artfully manipulating this storytelling. It was ritual that held it together. And in the making of this event each person makes their own decision as to what to bring to it. From my personal favorite, Lady Gaga in her inverted Vulva skirt so large and so red (so as to be seen from the eye of a satellite) belting out the anthem on her own personal gold microphone to the poised and petite powerhouse of a young poet in a bright yellow coat rapping the nation into participatory attention to this thing called democracy. Words to march by.

“If only we’re brave enough to see it

If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

My eyes followed Kamala Harris stepping out in her Shirley Chisholm purple, her pearls and her spike heels with her protector husband standing in ritual on the Capital steps to see her predecessor out. Pence giving us that grace just by attending where the Other would not. And so we had our moment of knowing what it looks like when a woman stands at the helm. A preview. 

And I stayed too to watch the new President and his Dr. First Lady leave in the protector vehicle and then get out and walk all the way to the White House. She again in spiked heels. So much more are the details by which women will be judged. But it is now by with style that ritual is enacted.

And then almost a throwaway moment as Kamala walks up to the White House and returns the salute of the military officer with the many gold braids adorning his coat. Salutes not in submission, but as second in command and as a woman. That’s not something we’ve seen before.

President Jo Biden gave a speech I actually listened to, so compelling was the reality he actually addressed. And then we had a much deserved party of high caliber entertainers all across the nation and a fireworks display that pulled out all the stops. I had no idea what a patriot I was to find this all so gratifying.

But I will offer a recent story. Last year in Thailand at a farming conference attended by a handful of nations I was the sole representative of the U.S. which prompted the presence of our flag on the stage with the five other nations. And we were told that on the final day we would be asked to sing a song of our country. I would have to sing it solo in English, the language everyone would understand. When I thought of the song I would sing I was so choked up by it I near burst into tears in a field of cabbages. So when the microphone was passed around on the shuttle home on the last day I belted out in my best high school musical style the song that had welcomed me to these shores in 5th grade in 1968. 

“This land is your land and this land is my land

From California to the New York Islands

From the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me.”

Normally I Woudn't Be Here

In which I question call out culture, extremist activism, LGBTQ splintering and perspectives in an opinion centered culture vs a non-confrontational collectivist one.

I would normally right now be overseas in Thailand enjoying being pampered by my cook and traveling to my farm with Clasina. Or alternately traveling to my other home of origin the UK. My devising to be overseas every six months began in earnest during the Trump era. This has proven to be an excellent strategy for saving my mental health. 

Thai culture being a collectivist culture doesn't burden the individual with the need to move daily through a barrage of opinions. I once joked to a Thai friend that for every American who believes they can change the world this instant by delivering an opinion there needs to be at least a hundred Thais in agreement just to begin a discussion on a topic. This expressed equally our frustration with both Thai and American culture.

While in Thailand any actual requirement of me to express myself is so reduced that my stress level comes down to a soothing slowness that gives me a sense of timelessness and spaciousness. It also gave me the clarity of mind to look back at American culture through Facebook and sharply see the biases at play there. 

When people ask me how I stay so thin I tell them it is because my brain uses up so much fuel just trying to deconstruct my life given all I have to process making sense of it as an American of multiple perspectives.

Lockdown Retreat

Luckily I had the best of all possible lockdowns mostly alone which gave me a lot of space in isolation in my tiny house with lots to do putting in a garden and adding new dimensions to my off grid life. I kept expecting long tracts of boredom which never appeared. I was kept so busy reading the news. And I had two classes to attend on Zoom for which I installed a hanging chair. One class is called The Fool’s Journey, a year long exploration into the Western mystery school tradition using the Tarot deck designed by my teacher Pamela Eakins. I spent a lot of my shamanic journeys for the class hugging my two spirit guides and holding hands with them to fill the void left by all the social distancing. This  felt so real to me I could feel my heart opening to receive their love.

The second class was also taught by Pamela and that was a women’s writing class. We had been meeting for several years at her comfortable home on the coast and now on Zoom in the strange prison of our individual cells we spent that first meeting voicing our fears and wondering if anything we had been writing had any relevancy at all. Pamela with her usual stroke of inspiration had us sit down and write whatever we had to say about the pandemic. The pieces were so full of energy she decided we were to do a book and invited more women writers on her list to contribute. The poems and essays came in so fast that Pamela was soon able to produce our finished book. Called  Pandemic Carona: Poems of Shock, Fear, Realization and Metamorphis by the Sisters of the Holy Pen which you can now order on Amazon.

This project saved our sanity and gave us purpose. And most important it kept us writing and I was able to regain my sense of relevance. The book itself is a diverse collection of voices some intentionally ordinary and full of love, some brilliant at times profound. It is a capture of the arc of this pandemic and its impact on us collectively. We did a book reading this week on zoom for 29 of the writers hosted by Bookwoman an independent bookstore in Austin Texas attended by some 70 people. The reading a performance that was part ceremonial, part intimate revelation. It was recorded so you can soon enjoy it at your leisure. 

Nevertheless as we approached June I had been alone so long I started to feel the edges of the abyss, the sense that if I didn’t work at holding it altogether I would unravel into some sort of crazy fractured despair. I was no longer as captivated by the discoveries of the evolving virus and the shenanigans of the current administration threatening to collapse our country. I kept in mind an astrological interpretation of 2020 which described a year of turmoil as long held assumptions and structures were challenged, but clarity would come sometime in December it promised. As I wondered how this turmoil would manifest George Floyd was killed and society broke open with rallies led by Black Lives Matter. 

I breathed a sigh of relief. If this was the turmoil we needed to process (yet again) we could do this. Race was something every American had to address in some fashion and had a handle on though likely not the same handle, but at least a perspective from which to begin. In short order just about all the books on the New York Times bestseller list was about race. I was touched by the interest my white women colleagues showed in rolling up their sleeves to get a grip on white fragility and structural racism so that a solution might be found and applied. I also came to understand through Black activist contacts that white women were far from considered trustworthy (largely because of their role in lynching history and now as Karens) and had to work super hard to offset this distrust. I came to the conclusion that only with a Black woman in leadership would we regain any sort of feminist credibility. (Go Kamala Harris.)

I listened to podcast discussions of American History including the 1619 project and a much more comprehensive series of podcasts called “Seeing White” and “The Land That Never Has Been Yet”. This last title a quote from Langston Hughes. 

Seeing American history through the eyes of slavery and the cruel brand of capitalism that evolved from it along with the associated societal disdain for the poor was a perspective that actually made me feel better about the current administration. When Trump was first elected I felt that the GOP had pulled off a coup which was an alarming concept even for a Thai. But from this historical perspective I saw that the U.S. had all along contained this element of bias for wealthy white men and Darwinistic cruelty for those who couldn’t cut it in this supposed land of opportunity. This made me feel that the core of this country was still stable in nature; it had just been backsliding rather terrifyingly.

It allowed me to see that those who managed to succeed at all in such a country were heroic. This was a helpful concept. It reminded me of the Buddhist teaching that all life is suffering. So we were doing well if we managed not to suffer. 

Out Onto The Streets

I attended the Black Lives Matter rally in Redwood City which happened early on while we were still in quarantine and was well attended. I was pleased to see the large presence of white people and subsequent rallies through the largely white towns of Woodside, Half Moon Bay, Palo Alto and Menlo Park. In Menlo Park I attended the LGBTQ+Black Lives Matter rally held on the anniversary of Stonewall. I pulled out my vintage “Queer N’Asian” t-shirt and made myself a little Black Lives Matter sign. The t-shirt gave me claim to being a part of queer history. I hadn’t felt such a sense of belonging in a long time especially as a woman of color and now as an elder asking the young women if I could photograph them.

Having given my time to Black Lives Matter I reserved a little space to present my own cause by presenting myself as a butch lesbian in a post on Facebook. Most Americans don’t read me as butch because I am Asian and have kept my hair long. And Asian women are so highly fetishized as sexual creatures that they are seen as a dish for men (and thus assumed to be straight and femme). So in order to counter act these assumptions I posted a picture of myself wearing my Fruit of the Loom tighty whities. This classic garment being the only male garment not appropriated by women so could still truly be said to be cross dressing. I paired it with a wife beater tank top and photographed myself from overhead while lounging on my bed in classic pseudo pin-up fashion. It got my point across. See it here. 

I wouldn’t have to do this in Thailand where I am read as a Tom the slang term for masculine presenting women. Tom is short for tomboy and also means lesbian. I was assured of this presentation by my housekeeper when I mentioned to her that I was going to lunch with my Tom friend. 

“Are you a Tom too,” she asked.

 “A little bit,” I said. 

“More than a little bit,” she responded. I smiled broadly pleased at this reading. That was another perk ofbeing in Thailand. I am seen for who I am. And the visibility of other butch lesbians in Bangkok is prevalent. 

I was making myself visible to my Western audience in order to maintain this aspect of lesbian culture especially in these times of makeover by the transgender movement. 

Thai people already understand what a transgender person is. There is the term katoey used to identify those (mostly men) who are cross dressing and presenting as women. They do not hold the same status as women, but they have a place in society that goes back through history. Most Asian societies have this category in their lexicon. Similar to Native American society under the name Two Spirit.

It was because of the term katoey that I knew I would have a place in Thai society. The explanation for this transgender presentation is explained as most things in Thailand are by the concept of karma and reincarnation. I was told that I still carried the spirit of a boy implying that I had been a man in my last life. The idea that transgender people are persons who are trapped in the wrong body would seem beside the point to a Thai. The whole point of incarnating is to work through your stuff where you now find yourself which is as a man or a woman. Though Thailand being the sex change capital of the world is eager to accommodate those who wish sex reassignment surgery. Because if you can have it why not? The Thais are as much about acquisition as any consumer society.

Given this reincarnation karma story you would likely call this a religious ideology and I’m fine with that. But by the same token I can also claim that the idea of a person being trapped in the wrong body is an ideology. One that is being enabled by the “new” science of gender. Such science has proven that those who are transgender have the brain of the sex they identify with. Society needs science to prove such things because of the logic of American civil rights. For in order to legislate protection for those who face prejudice from others who would enact violence or bias against us it is best that such characteristics be determined to be immutable. 

In other words it’s not a choice or a psychological aberration. Because after all we are a self flagellating moral society and if it were a choice or a psychological aberration we would be obliged to fix it to conform to societal mores. And if science says you were born in the wrong body then by all means let us alleviate the stress of this suffering preferably wth medical intervention as we do every other condition in this over-medicalized society so we can make some money off it and contribute to the GNP.

The ideology of karma makes for better stories about past lives which includes historical circumstances and some artistic nuances in the telling. A psychic is the professional you would call to help you see into this past. But mostly we just shrug and leave it to the mystery of not knowing. Remember mystery? That element of awe and how to live with what you cannot know with a hope for the poetic justice of karma in the end.

Cancel Me This

An opinion in Thailand does not require a response. To object to it would be to seek conflict which would cause suffering and that would just not be a good practice of Buddhism—to intentionally cause more suffering. But here in the West we have elevated an opinion to such a point that people are publicly reviled, lose their jobs and their reputations while attempts are made to prevent them from speaking further. 

I read a few analysis to understand this phenomena. Call-out culture I learned was largely due to Twitter empowering those who usually don’t have a podium. From the perspective of the status quo it was mob rule. And this technology had empowered young people, African Americans and Trans Activists one article stated. I remember being young and gay recklessly making declarations and refusing to trust anyone over 30. The second category wasn’t surprising given the history of this country. But this final category; how did this tiny .01% minority become so virulent?

The best way to explain this last category is through the shallow lens of American pop culture. You will no doubt remember that five years ago Bruce Jenner became Caitlin Jenner in a manner so public it put the whole trans story into the public eye and explained the idea of a man trapped in a women’s body. And because Jenner had access to not only the finest plastic surgery that money can buy but the glamour arm of Hollywood the results were absolutely spectacular. Americans love a story of transformation and glamour and ate it up. The story might have ended there, but for the political aspects of the trans movement and the ongoing violence enacted on transgender people. This violence targeted at any gender nonconforming, cross dressing individual, but because of the popularity of the transgender story it became mainly about transgender individuals. And how to protect those individuals.

Both the United States and the UK took steps to protect transgender people basically by inserting the word gender into all the discrimination clauses where the word sex had originally been inserted to legislate equality between the sexes i.e. men and women. This change had an impact on the protected class of women. But before we could even get a grip on what this might mean cancel culture determined that anything that was not pro trans was bad whether it had an impact on natal born women or not. And that’s how J.K. Rowling became the poster child of transphobia. And by trouncing the writer of this most popular children’s book series of all times every liberal straight person could now virtue signal their support for the T in the LGBTQ alphabet without even fully understanding what any of it meant. And trans activist could use the headlines trouncing the author for being a transphobe to further present all the pro trans ideology as established fact (to fill the vacuum of this absence of understanding). 

When I read these articles I was struck by the calm matter of fact language used to establish an authority that was not to be denied with links thrown in liberally to “prove” that these facts were not to be contested. And when I followed the links  I found more of the same style of language interpreting science based research that basically came down to opinions rooted in an authority that was backed up by nothing more than the lived experience of a trans woman. 

This illusion of authority was so complete that it took me a few minutes to realize that we were allowing a person who transitioned as an adult and had no actual lived experience as a girl to comment on both the lives of young girls and how their social lives operated. And that I in fact had more authority having come out much earlier than my peers in the context of an all girls school. A school that came to be known in the psychiatric community as the hotbed of eating disorders and other self harming practices due largely to the incredibly high expectations placed on girls being groomed to leadership as stated by the school mantra or at the very least the trophy wives of the rich given the demographic.

It is in the arena of high school that trans ideology is having its biggest impact and had come to the attention of research scientists given that the number of teenage girls seeking sex reassignment surgery had shot up by 4,400%. Seventy times what it had been before which was so negligible that it couldn’t even really be counted. Before 2016 the number of gender dysphoric kids had been predominantly pre-school age boys. 

The moment the first research study was published it was debunked and cancel cultured into disgrace by trans activists. But the researcher prevailed, apologized for any offense taken and successfully republished the paper with just a few clarifications on methodology. But further research has been stymied and gone underground. Nobody wants death threats just for doing their job. But a brave journalist did publish a book on the phenomena of this trans contagion among girls which I have duly read and reviewed here. It’s a compelling read of sociological significance.

Meanwhile almost no girls seemed to be identifying as lesbians anymore. Lots of lesbians in my age group wanted to be boys as children including me (and we are all glad we remained women). So what was going on during an era that is supposedly so gay positive. Or was it?

Gay Liberation No More

When I came into the movement post Stonewall it was determined that to be accepted by the public we needed to present ourselves as ordinary people. Ordinary in the sense of being just like anybody else, wanting to live quietly with our chosen partners, get married and have a family. This line of thinking required the right optics i.e. that we also look and act like straight people and basically keep our fabulousness off the streets and safely cordoned off to the night club act and movies as entertainment for y’all. In the process of this assimilationist strategy we threw all the gender non-conforming and poly pansexuals and what all under the bus. And that naked man with the boa constrictor who appeared in all the San Francisco Pride parades at the time.

Liberals embraced gay marriage as their virtue signaling token issue and haters targeted gay youth and gender non-conforming individuals. To assuage this wrong and the accompanying guilt of the assimilationist strategy the movement now feels that the time has come for the T in LGBTQ to be the focus of the times. And that California schools are to be apprised of all the various flavors of our rainbow down to our many sexual preferences and gender non-confirming presentations including the whole brain in wrong body thing to prevent further bullying of our people. As a result or maybe as a clever workaround to the ordinary vanilla male and female stereotypes being described in the process the number of those identifying as non-binary entering college has shot up along with the incidences of transitioning. While the number of out gay youth seem to be disappearing per the observations of my peers. Homophobia was clearly still at large.

Last year to get a feel for this transgender era I took myself to the Trans March the weekend of Pride. I immediately noticed all the Toms—the Asian girls presenting as butch, arm in arm with their femme counterparts. And I was delighted to see Latina Toms too. I also photographed the proud shirtless transman showing off his bare flat chests for us. There were what I used to think of as drag queens—gay men with more style than could be contained in one gender to paraphrase a drag queen movie of the ‘90s. One in a wonder woman outfit. And lots with a more vintage slightly dowdy style I used to recognize as transvestites—straight men who like to dress as women (and were observed by gender scientists to be sexually aroused by this, but this autogynephelia is now considered a transphobic concept). There were also young children identifying as trans accompanied by their entire family. And a dour androgynous woman holding a flag I didn’t recognize striped in olive white and violet. It was the “gender queer” flag I was told upon inquiry with some annoyance. My favorite flag was a transgender flag with the words Trans Queer Witches Against Fascism scribed across it with a drawn glyph of pagan and gender symbols. Standing next to the flag was what I used to recognize as a lesbian with the fade haircut now popular with butch lesbians. On their shirt a button proclaiming the pronoun “he”. My photographs organized for you here. 

The takeaway of my foray into this brave new queer world was that it was so splintered into factions that nobody would look anyone in the eye let alone smile. So much depended now on defending one’s identity. Because apparently it wouldn’t be apparent otherwise. The chalked messages on the sidewalk gave me a clue of the underlying pain. “I Am Trans Enough” and “Let People Be Themselves”. I realized that this movement both included me as an Asian Tom and rejected me as an American lesbian. It also empowered me to defend myself.

The very definition of lesbian being oriented around being a woman and being attracted to women seems to defy the very existence of trans women whose vocal activists have mounted such an aggressive public attack on women who don’t want to sleep with persons who have penises that they sound exactly like men who tell lesbians they haven’t met the right man yet. (Not all trans people have genital surgery so they are stuck with the equipment they were born with as it shrinks or enlarges in response to the hormones they are taking.) No comparable attack seems to be aimed at straight women. Maybe their appetite for penises is too intimidating. heh. Plenty divorced their husbands who wanted them to be lesbians to support their late blooming transgender lives.

Meanwhile online lesbian-only space has been completely excommunicated from social media platforms. Even the ever tolerant kink community can no longer allow their members to express their particular preferences if it involves only natal born women. I have though found an online group that regularly shows me photos of cross dressing lesbians hosted by a clothing company offering clothes for women affecting masculine style. This fashion group called Butch Fashion, Style & Care was the perfect cover for natal born women only. Fashion serving as a cover for a persecuted minority. I was able to post my lesbian stories and photos there and occasionally others would discuss the pros and cons of taking T (male hormones) or the best brand of binders to compress their chests into a male appearance. All closely moderated to stop any fights.

The trans identity has benefited the community greatly to be sure; it created a political category for gender non-conforming people and thanks to recent Supreme Court ruling this category is now to be protected from job discrimination. This was huge in my mind because it finally allowed all cross dressing persons to have a place in American society. 

I do not however think it a good thing that people are being punished and prevented from simply stating a preference for natal born women. Being able to state our sexual preferences was the main point of the gay movement. Not to allow this is homophobic. But now the bigger activist epithet is that I am being transphobic. Well have at it then. I’ve devoted my entire life to being free to express myself without fear of reprisal either from losing my job or by besmirching my reputation only now to have my voice canceled by my own tribe. 

A society that cancels what people can say so punishingly is practicing a self imposed totalitarianism. It is a mob rule that is stoked for revolution, but has no skill set for the long slow work of diplomacy and coalition building. It is adolescent and punch drunk from unaccustomed power. Reminding me of revolutions that having thrown over a society devolve into corrupt governments with little vision.

I have a long memory going back to a time that strived for freedom of expression and a live and let live openness to differences. One that allowed a certain curiosity to ask questions and a diplomacy in answering those questions. My values didn’t change; the world around me changed and my language dates me. I now regard anyone under 35 with suspicion. I feel like an old crank spouting insults.

American culture as many have pointed out denigrates and mothballs their elders. Another perk of going to Thailand was that my status as an elder gave me a reverence that was palpable in the sky train station as I pulled out my senior card. It made me feel seen and respected.

Now I am trapped here in this ridiculously shallow, polarized society that has so politicized everything that even wearing a mask in a health crisis is a political statement. But with little to lose I realized that I could afford to speak for the unfavorable positions as I saw them.

I have long been of crone age, but maybe curmudgeon would be a better fit. heh.

Trans In Amandaland

This is as trans as it gets in Amandaland. This would usually be the opening weekend of Frameline, the LGBTQ film festival. So here’s a homemade queer image. It is a recreation of a scene from “Bound” which I saw at Frameline in 1996 with a sold out house. I also created it to hold down the space for a particular niche—that of the masculine woman. It is a niche I’ve been enjoying as a member of an FB group where proud butches come to show off their suits and their haircuts hosted by the Black lesbian owner of the clothing design company Haute Butch.

A niche that was nearly disappeared by the ultra femme representation in The L Word (which we consumed voraciously for its very hot depiction of glamorized lesbians in L.A played by straight women particularly Jennifer Beals). The reboot even more over the top femme glamorous even with addition of a trans man and soft butch wearing Tomboy X boy briefs. I have a stack of those briefs too, but they are not as real as my Fruit of the Loom traditional tightie whities. Real in the sense of honest to god cross dressing. Because there is power in that realness.

I also hold down this space because in a heteronormative, binary world the category has been eclipsed by the trans movement coming into its own and the pressure on non-gender conforming youth to go the trans route especially girls. Thank-you youtube. Because being neither here nor there is too ambiguous for a culture that demands hard line categorical definitions full of color coded pink and blue children’s toys. A culture that demands that either you’re a man or you’re a woman. Gender identity is a spectrum in my mind, not a box to check. And my belief in reincarnation allows for all kinds of overlap in personal gender issues as you go from one sex to another from life to life. That is the underlying explanation for my state of mind on the masculine nature of my self identification. And I wish to hold this ambiguous gender presentation as an option for queer youth.

Thailand which has become the sex change capital of the world has recently forbidden minors to undergo sex changes because too often the minors in question changed their minds. Hint hint. Minors are defined as age 21 if male and 18 if female.

In Asia the cross dressing person has long had a social position and a label. A category that is also represented in the Native American Two Spirit culture. And I would not be surprised if indigenous Africa also had such a category. This is the information I learned at probably six years old which informed me growing up, gave me a space to occupy and giving me maybe a 10-15 year head start in coming out over my American peers.

Western culture has always had non-gender conforming queer folk as well as oppressed gays and lesbian, but as the largely white gay community became more straight presenting assimilationist and more accepted by society, the rest of the community was pushed aside. Some reinvented themselves as trans with their own story of origin of being persons trapped in the wrong body. I’ve gotten into heaps of trouble with my own community in trying to make my case so this is completely my take. But over time the trans position itself became more receptive of gender as a spectrum of presentations (or maybe they were always that way). So I decided to stake my position within the trans community just to hold down my niche which has its own history and cultural representation even in the West. The butch lesbian manager in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel comes to mind here. As does a character in Orange Is The New Black.

And having created this political trans position as the T in the LGBT alphabet and having that category so recently legally recognized by the Supreme Court decision last week we gender queer people are now all protected ironically enough no matter where on the spectrum we fall or whom we love. We shall see anyway. Happy Pride.

(Backdated to reflect date first posted to Facebook.)

International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia

Remarks for #IDAHOT #IDAHOBIT

This portrait from the early ‘90s is a rare capture of my butch lesbian persona. Thank-you Warren Hukill. I would show this side of me more often, but the butch lesbian isn’t given a rightful place in Western (European) society; too challenging to the status quo of male power with such a solid example of female autonomy. It is a persona I mute here in the American suburbs because I can. I am privileged with such flexibility. I mute it so people can better relate to me and offer me a friendly reception that doesn’t have to focus on what they perceive to be my sexual orientation. (Instead they focus on how to handle my racial presentation.)

I also mute it to keep the discomfort of straight and straight passing women in my company to a minimum. And I play with the edge of this acceptance constantly. I believe I have these borders dialed in so I can gauge exactly where they are. You likely do too, but not so consciously. I know this because in the past when I asked the question “How do you feel when you are mistaken for a lesbian?” I got the most revealing responses from an adamant “I’m never mistaken for a lesbian” (from a woman with dyke haircut #1) to “I would be less suspected if you hadn’t just come out in the local newspaper. I am after all the one in this office with short hair who plays sports.”

What to me is annoying homophobia (as opposed to dangerous) is the fear of guilt by association. The internalized homophobia of those who fear being seen with me. That to be seen with a butch lesbian is to cast doubt on one’s own status as straight. I am pleased (no utterly delighted) to report though that I have more recently met straight woman who were proud to be mistaken for lesbians whether in my company or not. Because after all what could be cooler than the autonomy, strength and beauty of two women together?

This entry was greatly informed by my reading of the book Transgender Warriors: Making History From Joan of Arc to Ru Paul by Leslie Feinberg which I review on my flickr book review platform here.

After posting my butch picture and the above short entry to FB, Warren tagged me in another image from that era that I'd never seen before or even have any memory of making. Warren preferred his female nudes to display breasts so that's what he printed, but I had chosen to suppress mine with a clasped hands pose that reflects my boy spirit.

The most striking feature about the photo though is that face and those eyes— the beauty of that face cannot be denied. I recognized this beauty at the time to be a gift especially of my Thai heritage. I had in my '20s played it butch with short haircuts but because I lived in the States it just wasn't butch enough in the sense it would have been recognized in Thailand in the Tom world. In the States it just read as American lesbian which was a ghetto that couldn't accommodate my multi-ethnicity at the time so in order to claim the Thai part of me I grew my hair long and lived with a femme presentation.

And attracted bi identified women who were attracted to exotic beauty (as opposed to lesbians searching for someone they could relate to inside the lesbian culture.) I could relate to being bisexual because it shared similar border crossing territory of being bicultural so I could make it work.

But now I am single and intending to remain so which opens up more territory to explore as a person with a visual message to impart rather than as a woman wishing to attract another. I do not have to stay within the boundaries demarcated by someone else's idea of attractive. My territory has become more geographically determined by the local on-the-street vibe and global on social media with our image making tools.

Celebrating This Body Of 61 Years

I posted this story to FaceBook earlier this month and it received more attention than almost any other post to date. Women rarely celebrate their body in quite this way. At least not very often given women's battle with body image. It was my version of Gloria Steinem's "this is what 50 looks like". (Gloria who is now 85. Long may she reign.) I also wanted people to know that I did not come by this body without attention to its maintenance and a fitness regime. My friends often assume I have an Asian genetic advantage for thinness and natural fitness. This has not proven to be true among my own Asian family members. I also hoped that my story would inspire others to take care of their "earth suit" as one of my mud hut sisters put it as well as staking out ground for a non-medicalized body as much as I can which is to say free from pharmaceuticals. And finally it is a post to celebrate a butch presentation and a female persona that does not connect with the male gaze or any other gaze as I look heavenward for my inspiration. A tripod self portrait.

On my birthday I did this photo shoot to celebrate this amazing body of 61 years. I'd show more, but my channel is PG. heh.

Here's my story: When I was in my '20s I hadn't taken up any form of exercise or sport. I was a proud slacker and only cared about getting to the movies on time. When I was late to a movie and had to run for it I would end up in my seat breathing hard and sometimes coughing. I thought I must be seriously out of shape. So me and my movie buddy took up running the Parcourse which was a new thing then. An outdoor running circuit with stations for doing push-ups et al. They were installed in communities all over. We picked the one that went around Lake Lagunita at Stanford. This improved my stamina and I was proud to increase my reps of push-ups and pull-ups.

A few years in I attended a celebration at the International House at Stanford where it was Asian night and the entertainment was a man and woman from China in silk costume doing martial arts. I fell in love and that's when I started looking for a kung fu class. Once there the movements were so similar to Thai dance that I felt at home, plus it brought back all those kung fu movies I had watched as a child and yes the TV series Kung Fu. The horse stance fixed my bum knee that still bothered me from a ski incident and the exercise improved my lung power further.

Fast forward a few decades later and I am late for a train. Now I have the power to run for it, but I still landed in my seat breathing so hard I was coughing for a good few minutes so I asked my family doctor what I should do. She had me breath a full lung full of air into a measuring device and said I only had a third of my lung capacity, did my parents smoke when I was a kid? Yes my father did from the time he was 12 to the time I was 12. Well there you go, she said, that's why I tell parents not to smoke around their kids. I was so mad at my father.

"I could have been a contender," I said. Then I thought what am I complaining about? I'm already up for my black belt. And I am injury free because I couldn't quite push myself hard enough to seriously compete because I'd end up coughing. The doc told me I had exercise induced asthma and gave me an inhaler to use before exercising. Well that's not going to help if I'm late for the train I thought. I tried it a couple of times and refused to use it. What was the point? Why become dependent on this device and whatever chemicals was in it when I already had what lung power I needed? The doc agreed that exercise itself had helped. Ok then. I don't need to go further than what my lungs are capable of. And it is still my lungs that are happiest when out on the mat being stretched to their capacity. I was now too old to be a contender, but I am still kicking.

Flashback Friday

While in Thailand I felt compelled to post this picture to remind me of the lineage that is lodged in the memory of this land that I called home. The photo was taken in the garden during a visit I made back in 1977. My boy cousin Thop sitting between my grandmother and his mother (my Aunty Ah Pahdt). Thop still lives here with his family as does Aun daughter of Prayoon the little girl in the lower left hand corner who is now the family cook. She was at the time of this picture the playmate of my girl cousin Pong on the right. Pong lives nearby at her in-laws household.

My grandmother bought this property in the 1930s and built her house here which still stands. She was born into the social class of Bangkok now known as Hi-So short for the English phrase ‘high society’. She spent her life working in jobs befitting her station. At one time for the prime minister in the capacity of receiving and taking care of foreign visitors i.e. Ladybird Johnson and the President. Also Queen Elizabeth and later Neil Armstrong.

She was a devout Buddhist and a philanthropist. She passed along to me her frugal values of living simply. Her original house was never remodeled, just added onto. She had only one child, a son she sent to college in England where he earned a Ph.D in engineering. She raised and educated Ah Pahdt (my father's half sister of another mother) who at the time of this picture was managing director of the alumium blind company started by my grandmother's second husband. It's complex this family you don't need to tell me. heh.

My grandmother's baby sister my Aunty Lily who also lived here was once the managing director of the Bangkok franchise of Polish Ocean Lines which was her husband’s business passed to her at his death. Aunty Lily had her own stylish 60s era house on their parent’s original land (now sold to Bayer Aspirin for its Bangkok headquarters). Aunty Lily lost her wealth to an embezzling manager in the company. Thus my grandmother invited her to come and live on our compound along with her loyal maid Weil and her family.

My grandmother housed the staff, invited them to bring their boyfriends/husbands and sometimes their elderly mothers to live here and helped educate their children. Prayoon's sister Saiyud also lived here while attending college and did my grandmother's bookkeeping.

My grandmother was a great lady in everyone's eyes and her memory remains vivid in all our minds. Late in life she received the title of Khun Ying from the late King Bhumibol.

I am the offspring of a college romance and shotgun marriage to an English lass majoring in psychology. I am called a Look Klueng, a child who is half—half Thai. I was brought back to this household when I was three until my mother migrated us to California when I was ten. My father would further complicate this family by marrying twice more.

At the time of this picture I am still in college and had the choice as I always had of where I would make my home. I was my grandmother’s only grandchild and she loved me to death. A bit too much for my independent spirit and I squirmed away for many years.

I would spend my queer life wandering around explaining myself to everyone who asked because in the West people did ask incessantly until I finally published my memoir “Diamonds In My Pocket”. The book also served to explain myself to myself and make me into a whole person.

I took this photo with my father's vintage Leica on a tripod using a long squeeze bulb gripped in my left hand. This technology already trailing edge as is my habit. We are assembled here on the wall bordering the patio of my grandmother's house.