A Dahl’s House

When I’m flying, all I really care about is that the air traffic controllers keep me from crashing into stuff, I don’t really care what they’re wearing…

An air-traffic controller in Oberlin was reprimanded because his aquamarine pants were “not gender appropriate.”

The dressing down came after the Federal Aviation Administration imposed a dress code for controllers, and the two now have added a fashion fight to their already strained relationship….

[Union spokeswoman Mellisa] Ott said the case of the veteran controller admonished about the color of his pants was just one of several incidents nationwide. A couple of women with knee problems hurt themselves when they were ordered – despite doctor’s orders against it – to wear dress shoes.

Another Oberlin controller was disciplined because he wore an orange shirt that a supervisor said “looked like a highway traffic cone.”

The man in the aquamarine pants was warned he would be disciplined further if he wore them again.

“He was angry. He said they were questioning his sexuality because of his pants,” Ott said. “And aren’t there laws against discriminating against someone because of sexual orientation anyway? Does that mean a woman can’t wear brown because it’s a ‘guy’ color?”

She noted that controllers work in a dark room in a secure building, far from the public. It’s rare that members of the public ever get into the building and even more rare that they would get into the area where the controllers work.

“So, who are we dressing up for?” Ott asked….

The department’s seriousness about the dress code was apparent in a speech widely distributed by union members made by FAA Vice President of Terminal Services Bruce Johnson before agency managers. Johnson said managers should not be afraid to put a controller’s “career on the line” for dress code violations.

“If you need to terminate someone, you terminate him,” Johnson said.

Among the shenanigans that angered Johnson were the male controllers who showed up to work in dresses. National Air Traffic Controllers Association spokesman Doug Church said the controllers wore dresses to point out “the silliness of a dress code.” He noted that as written, there is nothing in the rules that prohibits male controllers from wearing dresses.

Another busy weekend….

Friday night, I took part in the Trans March. I felt more comfortable than last year’s march although it’s still heavily genderqueer, which really often means heavily FTM-leaning folks with affiliations to various stripes of lesbian feminism. Now I get along fine with trans guys, but in the past I’ve felt like I’ve encountered a bit of eye-rolling in genderqueer spaces—I’m “conventionally femme,” the horror, the horror….

Maybe it’s because I got there late, missing the speeches beforehand and getting there right as the march started. Thanks to the organizers who changed the route this year to circle up through the Castro District and back around to Dolores Park, where there was a post-parade celebration.

As we reached the edge of the Castro district, the denizens of the first bar we pass looked a bit nonplussed and didn’t bother to wave, but as we got into the heart of things we were greated by applause and cheers. I’m not sure how many folks where there—because the San Francisco Chronicle didn’t deem to cover the event—but there were clearly thousands of folks stretched out over several blocks.

Afterwards, I ran into some folks we knew as, well as Teri who I knew from the Betty boards, and who was visiting from out of town. I was starving, since I hadn’t eaten, so the group of us headed off to the Mission for dinner, ending at Dosa, which specialized in the South Indian dish of the same name, which is similar to a crepe.

Saturday, I met up again with Teri, as well my friends Marla and Rachel who were in town from Sacramento, for dinner and then went out to the Hayes Valley Follies show at Marlena’s. It was a bit of a reunion that night with the original members of the “Girly Girl Show” (the HVF’s prior incarnation).

Sunday morning was another all-too-early wake-up call to get out the door in time for the Pride Parade, which draws a half-million people. Once again, I was on drag-time, so I decided to stop at the my local coffeehouse to grab a cup for the road and a bite to eat. This was a bit of a big deal, since I usually stop there every day on the way to work—but I decided I didn’t really care if outted myself to them. The kid at the counter got a little wide-eyed, so it was pretty obvious he recognized me, but otherwise was perfectly professional. Then I as turned to go, I realized two of my neighbors were in line behind me! I’m out to them, but they’d never met me en femme. I said hi and congratulated M. on her pregnancy, which they’d just announced. Hopefully, I didn’t put them on the spot too much.

With this and that, I didn’t get there until the parade had started, but was able to locate Marla, Rachel and Terry. We watched the parade for awhile and then headed over to the Pride Celebration over at the Civic Center Plaza to get lunch and then catch Lipstick Conspiracy at the Transgender Pavillion.

While it was a sunny day—and surprisingly good weather for San Francisco, the festival area was a bit of wind tunnel, so the gang went back to their car to get sweaters. Meanwhile I dropped by the Transgender San Francisco margarita booth. I’d planned to work a shift there, but unfortunately work was so hectic I wasn’t able to do the required training. I did hang out at TGSF’s booth for awhile while waiting for the gang to return.

The day ended a bit anti-climatically. Too much lack of sleep during the week was catching up to me, so I started to crash and needed to call it a day. Unfortunately, I couldn’t raise Marla, Rachel or Teri on their cellphones, and by the time they called to see where I was, I was already back at the Daly City BART station, where my car was parked. So we didn’t really get a chance to say goodbye, but hopefully we’ll see each other soon.

Standard disclaimer: Going out of the house was right for me, it may or may not be right for you. If you’ve got no desire to leave the house, that’s fine, I’m not trying to push you out the door. But for those who’ve been yearning to do so, I just want to let you the world may not be as scary a place as you think.

Snopes debunks scare-tactic claims that the Hate Crimes Prevention Act before Congress, which also contains protections for gender identity, would infringe on the freedom of speech of bigots to verbally bash homosexuals and trans people.

Thanks to Veronica, for passing it along.

(Cross-posted from Trans Group Blog.)

I’m one tired queen at the moment after yesterday’s Drag-a-thon at Marlena’s—a 12-hour drag show raising money for the Castro Valley Lions Club.

I’d heard that with that much time to fill, I could probably perform as much
material as I could get ready and I figured it was a great opportunity to try out new stuff in front of live audience and get some practice in. And… OK, I admit it… I’m a stage slut.

Admittedly, I went a bit overboard in getting ready—I put together about two dozen songs in total. But I once fronted a band in the glorious days of a misspent youth, and I’m able to memorize lyrics pretty quickly. Plus I figured it would let me pick and choose depending on the mood I was in and the mood of the crowd. The real effort was in editing the songs—probably two-thirds of them needed to be trimmed down in length, or to take out instrumental breaks (which can seem like a reeeaaallly long time when you’re up there on stage without anything to down but dance around). I’ve also learned that when in doubt, err on the side of faster tempos and shorter songs. Finally, it took bit of experimentation to figure out which songs seemed to fit best with my on-stage persona. So some of the songs may never see the stage lights.

Anyway, after a couple weeks of preparation—and two new dresses—Father’s Day finally arrived. I got up all too early—since it takes two hours from shave to shoes to get ready—and even though I don’t have much an appetite first thing in the morning I tried to force myself eat a big breakfast since I probably wouldn’t get a chance to eat for quite awhile. Despite my best attempts I still ended leaving behind schedule—having to make an emergency run to the drug for some safety pins and stick-on nails didn’t help—and ended up getting up to Marlena’s around 1 p.m. But true to drag shows everywhere, the Drag-a-thon hadn’t started on time anyway, so I only missed about a half-hour of it.

I was put on stage almost immediately and from there I usually did at least one number for each of the hour-long sets. It was fascinating to see the different styles of drag—the Drag-a-thon draws performers from the half-dozen drag shows around San Francisco, who normally don’t necessarily cross paths with each other. I do an old-school “glamour drag” style—a friend said I look “vampy not campy” which is what I’m after. Then there’s what I’d call “chaos drag” which verges on performance art and often goes in for shock. One performing group, The Bearded Ladies, were exactly what their name implied, guys in full make-up with beards. And then there’s the sort of campy queens that are what most folks think of when you mention drag queens—although some of them were faux queens (drag queens trapped in the body of women). And there was a lone drag king as well, a bit disappointing since I’d hoped to see more of them.

I brought four dresses and ended up wearing three of them including a new black dress with sequins and a gorgeous saphire blue floor-length dress with beading and sequins. It cost more than I care to admit, but Nikki Star was drooling it. Nikki also brought two wigs she thought I’d be interested in. Both are similar in style to one I mostly use, but one was blonder and one was redder—and they were such a good deal I got them both.

The sapphire dress seems more appropriate to more moderately-paced songs, so I did Dusty Springfield’s “Spooky” and The Motels’ “Change My Mind” in the next two sets. “Change My Mind” is a torchy song, probably a bit too slow for a drag show, but it was the song that first came to mind when I thought about doing drag, so dammit I was gonna do it at least once.

My friend Kew drove all the way up from San Jose and got there about 5 p.m. but I wasn’t the best of hosts—I hadn’t eaten all day and was about to topple over. (Thankfully, I’d had to foresight to wear my “sensible shoes” (only 2” heels).) So right after she showed up I headed next door to Flipper’s Gourmet Hamburgers for some food. But what to eat when you’re in full make-up? Thankfully, Flipper’s also served breakfast all day, so I had an omelette and a much-needed cup of coffee. On the way back to Marlena’s, a Japanese tourist asked me and one of the Bearded Ladies to pose for a picture. ‘Cuz after all, it’s not a trip to San Francisco without drag queens.

Six hours to go… and all of sudden the crowd picks up for a couple hours. Since Kew is there, I break out one my signature songs, Geri Halliwell’s (the former Ginger Spice) “Look At Me,” which I’d been saving up. I’d told co-workers that I expected to get bumped as some of the bigger-name drag queens showed up in the evening, but I keep getting put into rotation.

9 p.m. It’s been a looong day. The show’s host Chlamydia Killroy, is doing her best to keep the energy up, but the bar is pretty empty, so it’s a challenge to get the crowd into it. I duck over to Flipper’s for a to-go order of fried mozzarella sticks—so bad, but just what I needed to keep going. (Unfortunately none of those calories ever seem to go to my hips…) The show’s now running about an hour late, so the hourly co-hosts start combining their sets.

11 p.m. The crowd has suddenly filled up again. Don’t these people have jobs to go to in the morning? Not that I’m complaining. I do KT Tunstall’s “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree.” Sort of an unexpected as a drag song, but it rocks the house. The show is now more than an hour-and-half behind schedule, and it finally wraps up at about 1 a.m. I’ve done 10 songs in total, my feet are killing me and my face probably has slid half-down my neck. It’s sort of like doing a marathon—I’m glad to say I’ve done the whole 12-plus hours, but once is enough. Next year, I’ll drop in for a couple hours.

The good news is that we raised about $1,300 for the Lions Club, the vast majority of it from the performers’ tips, which were donated. But the best news is that queens from two shows invited me to do guest spots—which is perfect. Doing a show every week is more than I want to do, but performing a couple times a month would be ideal.

Update: Mark those calendars! I’m scheduled to make guest appareance at the Charlie Horse show at The Cinch on July 27th, as well as doing a benefit at Marlena’s on July 13th.

In case you’re interested, here’s samples of the songs I did during the show, as well as the other songs on performance list. I’d love to get feedback on which ones you think work best

Drag-a-thon set list:

• “Adouma” by Angelique Kidjo—Fabu-licious African musician.


• “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” by KT Tunstall


• “Black Velvet” by Allanah Myles


• “Change My Mind” by The Motels


• “Here” by Luscious Jackson—Never had the success they deserved, but they did some mad boundary-crossing music.


• “I Know What Boys Like” by The Waitresses—Holy New Wave flashback, Batman!


• “Look At Me” by Geri Halliwell (yes, the former Ginger Spice)—Unfortunately the actual recording has a bridge that makes you just go WTF, but a little editing got rid of it. Definitely one of my faves and suuuch a drag queen anthem.


• “Peephole Queen” by Wendie Colter—One of those great musicians who got rave reviews but who never managed to hit the big-time. Her album, “Payday” can still be found on Amazon, although sadly it replaced two what I thought where her best songs that were on an earlier version of the CD that I bought from her after a concert.


• “Right Hand Man” by Joan Osbourne—Best known as a one-hit wonder for “What if God was) One of Us,” Osbourne had some great other tunes.


• “Spooky” by Dusty Springfield – Oh yeah, we’re getting Old School.

Other songs in my set list:

• “#1 Crush” by Garbage —Not quite sure about this one. I did speed up the tempo slightly.


• “A Common Disaster” by the Cowboy Junkies. I love Margo Timmon’s sleepy seductive vocals.


• “Celebrity Skin” by Hole —Another bit of a stretch, but a chance to embrace my inner dysfunctional, drug-addled rocker chick.


• “Citysong” by Luscious Jackson


• “Danny’s All-Star Joint” by Rickie Lee Jones—One of my faves, which I’ve performed a few times.


• “El Album” by Los Aterciopelados—A Chilean rock band whose name means “The Velvety Ones”—how ab-fab is that!—they’ve got some really groovoi stuff melding various musical styles.


• “Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man” by Concrete Blonde—Great band and Johnette Napolitano voice rivals that of Chrissie Hynde’s. Much as I wanted to do more of their songs, they just were just a little too hard-edged.


• “I Need a Man” by the Eurythmics—Anne Lennox is fierce.


• “Jealous Dogs” by The Pretenders—Chrissie Hynde is a such a damn good songwriter that there’s lot of little-known gems like this one.


• “Louie Louie” by The Pretenders—No, not that “Louie Louie.”


• “Love Trap” by Susheela Raman—Thanks LinkTV’s world music program for turning me on to a variety of excellent music.


• “Luz Azul” by Los Aterciopelados


• “Message of Love” by The Pretenders—Sensing a pattern yet?


• “Misson of Mercy” by The Motels—Another underrated band.


• “Missionary Man” by the Eurythmics


• “My Boyfriend” by The Cucumbers—Yes, they’re obscure. Very obscure. Not quite sure it’s right for me, but it’s a fun tune.


• “Private Life” by The Pretender—Probably too slow, but it’s Chrissie at her “don’t fuck with me fellas” best.


• “Sympathique” by Pink Martini—Probably a bit of a stretch but fun.


• “Tak Boom” by Yulduz Usmanova—I need a partner to do this as a duet, but how many queens have pop songs from Uzbekistan in their repetoire? It is goofily fun, with a surprisingly complicated beat to it.


• “The Adultress”—The Pretenders


• “Time the Avenger” by The Pretenders


• “Wrap It Up” by Romeo Void—Another great New Wave band with a powerful female vocalist who oozed “DQ ‘tude.” (Still have to figure out a way to do “Never Say Never”...)

Lemme know what you think…

Standard disclaimer: Going out of the house was right for me, it may or may not be right for you. If you’ve got no desire to leave the house, that’s fine, I’m not trying to push you out the door. But for those who’ve been yearning to do so, I just want to let you the world may not be as scary a place as you think.

The San Francisco Chronicle profiles About-Face, a local non-profit “determined to equip women and girls with the knowledge they can use to dismantle these messages that tell them they must be tall, thin, blond, tan and sexually available to have any value.”

This year, About-Face plans to sponsor four San Francisco-based action groups—two groups of teenage girls, ages 13 to 17, and two groups of women 18 and older. Each group would be responsible for brainstorming and creating a campaign against a negative message in advertising or the media.

Finally, About-Face will step in and help them execute their plans.

“We have to stop thinking about it as men doing it to us,” Berger says. “Actually we as consumers, we as shoppers, just by letting this stuff get to us, we’re complicit.”

I wish them well. Because I can relate. Crossdressers’ fondness for mirrors and photos is well-known. But I think it’s more than simple narcissism—although I’ll be the first to admit that one reason for my crossdressing is a desire to feel beautiful in a way I don’t feel like I can as a guy. But the flip-side of that is that many of us crossdressers have also bought in to the “beauty myth” and yet we’re even farther from the supposed ideal than most females. And so the mirrors and the photos (usually carefully posed to show our most flattering profiles) are attempts to reassure ourselves that, yes, we are pretty.

I’m quite flattered to have been invited to be part of the Helen Boyd’s latest venture: Trans Group Blog, which is “where a variety of voices from within the trans community gather to discuss issues, post news, and compile information.” I hope you’ll check it out and join the discussions there.

A few days ago, a crossdresser posted to the Betty boards about how she was two years into her goal of a career in stand-up comedy—as a comedian who crossdresses on stage. Part of her post was a reflection on how being out to audiences and fellow comedians had freed a part of her soul that had been trapped for years, as well as how she felt that we don’t give the straight community enough credit sometimes. It ought to been a joyous occasion—seeing someone achieving peace and self-acceptance with herself.

And yet it left, at best, a bittersweet taste in my mouth.

Why? There was a distinct dearth of kudos from the board’s many transition-tracked people (whether pre-, post- or pondering). A reminder again about how so often crossdressers and their experiences don’t seem to rate in the trans communities.

From the public shunning. For example Susan Stanton’s statement* that she was trying to make herself available to the press because “For most people, a transgender person is not something you see every day. It’s important for them to see that I’m not a freak, I’m not a pervert, I’m not a crossdresser. I’m just me.” Et tu Susan? Now in fairness I realize what Stanton was probably trying to say: this is who I am, it’s not an act. But dammit, the sort of thing hurts—like a salt-encrusted cutlass to the guts—when said by someone who’s having CNN follow her around for a year to help educate the public about trans issues. (In my own public outreach appearances I’ve started saying crossdressers are both the dark matter and the Rodney Dangerfields of the trans communities. But no, I’m not bitter…)

To the little stuff, like the lack to response to the comedian’s post. Write about how you’ve started hormones, or you’re telling your boss you’re transitioning or you’re headed off to the Thailand for surgery and (at least in the MTF world) and you’ll be met by a multitude of responses, from outright cheerleading—“You go girl!”—to congratulations that things are going well, to at least a cautious: “I hope this bring the peace of mind you’re seeking.” Many of those comments come from those of us not on the transition track. Because supportive comments like those aren’t hard to do and often mean a lot to the recipient. And at least in my world being part of community means one ought to give as well as receive. Granted the post wasn’t as obvious a “support situation” compared to the many sturm-und-angst posts I’ve seen from folks in transition, some of whom post on almost a daily basis. But it’s one of the things that makes it hard for us non-transitioning folks: there’s no public validation when one decides to accept being “just a crossdresser.”

I suppose that’s in part because there can be comparatively few milestones. Sure for those of us who go out in public, there’s the terror and exhilaration of stepping out the house for the first time—like I did a little over two years ago. Likewise, for those who do so, the act of coming out for the first time—like I did a year ago. (And in fairness, posts about these sorts of things do get supportive responses.) But truly meanful milestones are often passed without notice. It wasn’t until I recently also started performing as a drag queen and told co-workers about an upcoming performance that I realized I’d embraced being a crossdresser as part of who I am, and that I’m comfortable with others knowing about that part of me. (OK, maybe not everyone—for me it’s still a “don’t advertise, don’t deny” situation—but the key thing for me is that if everyone did know, I could live with it.)

But you realize this only in retrospect and there’s no clear before-and-after that way there often is with transition-track milestones. There’s nothing to say you’ve “arrived.” As Helen once said, it’s the sound of the other shoe not dropping. (Which is one of the sources of anxiety for partners. All they’ve got is one’s word that you’re happy where you are on the trans spectrum.)

Which is why I was thrilled when Helen talked about how Reid’s new book tried to reframe “transition” to express the moment when someone trans stops taking gender for granted and starts to deal with their gender variance, in one way or another. Because Reid rightly points out that changing one’s gender presentation and/or surgery aren’t the sole kinds of “transitions” that one can have in life. It was because I had such high hopes that I was quite disappointed when I read Reid’s book and found it was still very much about the context of those considering physical transformations (even if some of those folks decided they don’t need that). Don’t get me wrong, I think “Transition and Beyond” is an excellent and much-needed book, and there’s much that crossdressers like myself can extrapolate to help them in their efforts to come to terms with and even embrace their crossdressing. In fairness to Reid, the vast majority of his clients are trans people considering social and/or surgical transitions – folks like me just aren’t that likely to seek out a gender therapist—so it’s hard for him to talk to our situations. Which is a shame, because there’s so many crossdressers who could use help getting to self-acceptance and so little literature for therapists that’s focused on our situations.

Such as how to mark – and celebrate – our own “transitions.” As Margaret Cho said, where’s my parade? Maybe we need to throw ourselves a “coming out” party, much like the (at least mythical) “singlehood celebrations” thrown by happy singletons. After all, most crossdressers would love a chance to wear an elegant party dress.

• Update: I’m now told that reportedly Stanton was misquoted (although there’s no word on what she actually said). But regardless of what Stanton did/didn’t say, I’ve heard too many other trans folks publicly throw crossdressers under the proverbial train.

(Cross-posted from Trans Group Blog.)

Took part in a panel discussion on “How to be a Fabulous Trans Ally” as part of Sha’ar Zahav Congregation’s “Trans Celebration Shabbat.” Kudos to the synagogue for doing the day-long series of workshops and thanks to Sam Davis of United Genders for inviting me.

There were five of us. including two trans woman, a trans guy and Sam, who identifies as gender queer—so there was a good representation of the trans spectrum. Unfortunately, by the time everyone did a brief introduction about themselves, there wasn’t that much time left to actually talk about how to be a trans ally.

But if I had to sum it up in a few sentences:

• Don’t make assumptions— about someone’s gender based on their appearance or about their sexual orientation (sexual orientiation is about who you’re attracted to, gender identity is about who you see yourself as).


• Don’t ask personal questions that you’d never dream of asking someone else—for example, whether they’ve had surgery, taking hormones, etc.


• Do respect someone’s confidentiality if they ask you to. Trans people can and do get fired after being outted.


• Don’t tolerate trans-phobic jokes or comments, nor trans-related bullying.


• Do be aware that not everyone agrees on what language to use to refer to the transgender communities, and that language is evolving. There are useful glossaries from GLAAD, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and United Genders—but when in doubt, just ask someone what terms they prefer. For example, some folks will find “tranny” offensive, some use it as re-appropriated term of pride (ala “queer”) and for many folks whether it’s offensive depends on who’s using it and with what intent.

One point Sam made I thought was particularly useful is how “passing” has very different meanings in the trans community vs. the GLB communities. In the latter it often has perjorative overtones of “hiding,” as in “straight-acting gays,” whereas in the trans communities, it simply means blending in as your desired gender.

Standard disclaimer: Going out of the house was right for me, it may or may not be right for you. If you’ve got no desire to leave the house, that’s fine, I’m not trying to push you out the door. But for those who’ve been yearning to do so, I just want to let you the world may not be as scary a place as you think.