Not an Identity crisis

[eumelia]

The Ha'aretz weekend edition in English published a really fascinating article about a visible member of the Trans* community in Israel - Eli Avidan Azar - who isn't shy about talking about the fact that he was born 26 years ago and given the name Lihi.

The whole piece - The man I am - is fascinating and worth the read.
But it's this bit that I found really interesting, the interview portion of the article, that is, his answers to the questions:

Hetero-normative assumption

In 11 years, you've changed identity twice.

"That's a question that bothers me of lot - did I change my identity? Was I straight before I became a lesbian? I don't know. The assumption that until you declare yourself a lesbian you're straight is an assumption of the hetero-normative culture. Anyone we meet, we assume he's straight.

"As for the change of gender, it's weird for me to say, 'When I was a little boy' - to use the male vernacular, but if I'm sitting in class, say, and I were to say, 'When I was a little girl ...' it wouldn't be very coherent. I try, like a lot of male and female transsexuals, to create some kind of connection between who I was and who I am now. There were people who told me they needed to grieve over me - but really they were mourning for themselves, for the function I fulfilled for them. Because of this, too, it's hard for me to come out of the closet to people. It's very hurtful. Suddenly, I feel like my gender function is so critical. I'm the same person. I'm smarter because I've matured a little, I have a few more wrinkles, and yes, I also have facial hair."

Do you feel that girls no longer feel comfortable talking with you about subjects they used to be at ease with?

"Not at all, just the opposite. I really understand, I know what it means to be a girl and I identify with women's struggles, though obviously I can't know how every woman really feels. My girlfriend and I laugh that one day I'll come out of the closet ... I'm a sensitive person, delicate, I like clothes, my transition to the male category doesn't mean I have to obey all the social imperatives that go along with that."

What's it really like to be a transsexual in Israel today?

"One of the main problems right now has to do with physical changes. Not all trannies are interested in physical changes, but our society categorizes gender according to body and appearance, and many of us feel a need to toe the line with this. Someone who's interested in a physical change needs to cope with the difficulties piled on by the Kupat Holim health maintenance organizations. If you want to have any operation in Israel, you can't do it privately. The moment there's an attempt to question the gender you were born into, people freak out and their biggest fear is that the person will change his mind, and so you have to go through this series of tortures that lasts for many years, and includes being humiliated in front of the Tel Hashomer hospital committee. At the basis of the investigation is the question of whether the person is suited to the gender to which he wishes to belong.

Read the rest of it, it's linked above, it's totally worth it.

The video embedded below has been going around for the past week or so. Seeing as it touched on the subject of this post, I though it fitting to put it in.

Enjoy the Gender Subversion!

"On Being Genderqueer" - Text of "Swingset"

So, I teach in a preschool. Hehe… I make a goddamn difference, now what about you. That’s one point I had to make before I read this poem. The second point is, I usually have hair that is much much shorter than this. That’s all you need to know.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” he asks, staring up at me in all three feet of his pudding face grandeur, and I say “Dylan, you’ve been in this class for three years and you still don’t know if I’m a boy or a girl?” And he says “Uh-uh.” And I say “Well, at this point, I don’t really think it matters, do you?” And he says “Uhhhm, no. Can I have a push on the swing?” And this happens every day. It’s a tidal wave of kindergarten curiosity rushing straight for the rocks of me, whatever I am.

And the class, when we discuss the Milky Way galaxy, the orbit of the Sun around the Earth… or whatever. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and kids, do you know that some of the stars we see when we look up in the sky are so far away, they’ve already burned out? What do you think of that? Timmy? “Umm… my mom says that even though you got hairs that grow from your legs, and the hairs on your head grow short and poky, and that you smell really bad, like my dad, that you’re a girl.” “Thank you, Timmy.”

And so it goes. On the playground, she peers up at me from behind her pink power puff sunglasses and then asks, “Do you have a boyfriend?” And I say no, and she says “Oh, do you have a girlfriend?” And I say “No, but if by some miracle, twenty years from now, I ever finally do, then I’ll definitely bring her by to meet you. How’s that?” “Okay. Can I have a push on the swing?”

And that’s the thing. They don’t care. They don’t care. Us, on the other hand… My father sitting across the table at Christmas dinner, gritting his teeth over his still-full plate, his appetite raped away by the intrusion of my haircut, “What were you thinking? You used to be such a pretty girl!” Frat boys, drunken, screaming, leaning out of the windows of their daddys’ SUVs, “Hey! Are you a faggot or a dyke?” And I wonder what would happen if I met up with them in the middle of the night.

Then of course there’s always the somehow not-quite-bright enough fluorescent light of the public restroom, “Sir! Sir, do you realize this is the ladies’ room?” “Yes, ma’am, I do, it’s just that I didn’t feel comfortable sticking this tampon up my penis in the men’s room.”

But the best, the best is always the mother at the market, sticking up her nose while pushing aside her daughter’s wide eyes, whispering “Don’t stare, it’s rude.” And I want to say, “Listen, lady, the only rude thing I see is your paranoid parental hand pushing aside the best education on self that little girl’s ever gonna get, living with your Maybelline lipstick after hips and pedi kiwi, vanilla-smelling beauty; so why don’t you take your pinks and blues, your boy-girl rules and shove them in that car with your fucking issue of Cosmo, because tomorrow, I stop my day with twenty-eight miles and I know a hell of a lot more than you. And if I show up in a pink frilly dress, those kids won’t love me any more, or less.”

“Hey, are you a boy or a — never mind, can I have a push on the swing?” And some day, y’all, when we grow up, it’s all gonna be that simple.