A Dahl's House

This past Saturday was Transgender San Francisco’s annual Cotillion, a formal evening featuring dinner, entertainment and the contest for Ms. TGSF — who’s the public ambassador of the group. Back in December, one of the board members talked me into running. I wasn’t really eager, since this year looks to be a hectic one with work, but once I committed to do it, I did a bit of talking to various people from the different trans communities to see how I be a catalyst for some bridge-building. (Yeah, I think every Ms. TGSF candidate focuses on building bridges… but that does sort of go hand-in-hand with being a public ambassador.)

To be honest, I’m not particularly thrilled with the “beauty pagent” aspect of the Ms. TGSF contest. If it were up to me, I’d drop the “active wear” and “evening wear” segments — which if nothing else are usually booooring — and keep the pre-Cotillion interview, the final question and the entertainment segment (which at least in theory helps predict how you’ll do in front of crowd.) Then I’d use the remaining time to make the Cotillion more of a party.

The interview, held the weekend before the pagent, went well although I’m not sure I always told the judges the politic answer. But I decided I that they’d have to take me or leave me as I am. The day of the Cotillion itself was hectic. Be at the hall in South San Francisco at noon for a run-through, run home and then back again because no one told me to bring the narrations I’d written for my segments to the run-through, then go up to San Francisco to have my drag mother do my make-up and pick up wigs for the evening. Then back down to the hall again to be there for a final rehearsal just before the doors opened.

The hall was nice — comparable to a hotel conference room — with a nice buffet, although I had to grab food and then go eat backstage. So I didn’t really get much of a chance to meet and greet people, including my friends Marla and Rachel who where there was a large group from the Sacramento Gems group. Back stage, the MC, Tommi Rose who runs a store for drag queens down in Palm Springs, had brought along some jewelry that she was planning to show to some of the queens in attendance. Some of the pieces were gold-toned rhinestone necklaces/earrings/bracelets, which are really hard to find, so I took advantage of the opportunity to spend more money than I care to admit. But I was able to wear one of the sets for my evening wear segment. Once the contest started it was rushing from one costume change to another. Since I thought the active wear and evening wear bits are a bit silly, I wrote a fairly silly — and hopefully amusing — bits for the narration that’s down while you’re posing on stage. I thought I looked far more polished, than the sole other contestent, Lisa, who’s one of the TGSF board members.

For the talent segment, at my drag mother’s (mentor) suggest, I did “Rose’s Turn” from “Gypsy” (it’s the climax of the musical, where Mama Rose, the archetypal domineering stage mother, has a nervous breakdown). I was a little intimidated by the song, in which Rose alternately fantasizes about her own lit-up runway and cheering audience, wallows in self-pity and the awareness she’s driven away everyone she loves, and finally admits that the it was really her dream that she was pushing her daughters to fulfill. It’s a lot of emotion range and definitely tougher than anything I’d done before. And if I say so myself, I abso-fucking-lutely nailed it.

I did bobble the final question, although I drew a question that was a bit out of left-field: what we I do as Ms. TGSF do to help reduce the high unemployment rates among some trans people. Annoying Lisa drew a question about the ENDA debacle, an issue that’s near and dear to my heart, and one I’m sure I would’ve answer better. But still I thought I owned the stage that night and did reasonably well in the interview, so while I was ambivalent about winning, I thought I deserved to win.

But when I got handed the Ms. Congeniality trophy, I knew what was coming next — and sure enough Lisa was crowned the winner. I’ll be generous and assume Lisa must have interviewed better. But it’s the other things that happened that really pissed me off. There wasn’t the usual statement that the runner-up will fill-in for Ms. TGSF if needed, there wasn’t the usual “let’s thank our other contestants” to let me exit the stage gracefully, there was no request to join Lisa in official photos (in fact no official photo whatsoever) — and I haven’t received any sort of formal thank you from TGSF (although I was thanked by individual board members). Needless to say that’s left a bad taste in my mouth.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought I should have won — when I went to Marlena’s afterwards, there were a lot of pissed off drag queens (word of what happened apparently spread fast).

On the good side, I really stretched as a performer and apparently impressed a number of people. Plus I got an awesome make-over from my drag mother. The first pic is down in the basement of Marlena’s after she did my make-up — it was mostly so I’ve got a reference to try to recreate it. It’s very dramatic and fabu-licious. This was my hair for the active wear and talent segments.

The second pic is my formal up-doo — taken around 3 a.m. when I got home from the Cotillion, so I was little tired at that point. It shows my formal wear and one of the new jewelry combos I bought from Tommi (that’s actually the more sedate of the two necklaces — the other is far more blingy).

So I guess that on the whole I’m glad I did it, but I’m not sure I’m interested in doing it again.

I did another outreach last night, this time to students and faculty at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. There was a good turn (I believe close to 100 people), which was the largest-to-date of the monthly series of talks and lectures that ITP has sponsored.

The format was pretty typical of the outreach events I do, with five speakers representing a range trans/intersex people. Besides myself there was the ever-fabulous James Green, an intersex activist, a trans woman and the parent of a trans man. (Incidently, it was great to see a parent represented. Too often SO and family are overlooked.) It seemingly went well. The audience seemed quite engaged, the moderator had to cut-off questions overwise we would’ve been there all night, and I had some nice informal conversations with people afterwards.

The challenge, as always, is how do you condense a life into 10-15 minutes? Particularly when I was doing double-duty as both the representive crossdresser and representative drag queen. Likewise, how do you educate people about the group(s) that you belong to in 10-15 minutes? (Aside from talking too fast.) While I’m leery of speaking for someone else — and prefer to stick to talking about my own experiences and what I’ve personally observed — given that crossdressers are the “dark matter” of the trans universe, I do feel a need to try to speak on others behalf. Because just (as James says) there’s no one way to be trans, there’s no one way to be a crossdresser or drag queen. Consequently, I want to make sure people know that while I can talk about my story in detail, it’s only one of many stories. Likewise, I also think it’s important to provide some context to my story with the occasional statistic, observation about differences/similarities among my peers, etc.

It’s a challenge…

In the middle of the annual holi-craziness. December’s usually a pretty stressful time for me. I’ve been sick during Christmas three of the last five years (although thankfully not this year), and somehow it seems like work always seems to be especially busy — and this year’s definitely no exception. Plus I’m doing five shows this month, which I definitely enjoy, but they do tend to take up the weekends. So I didn’t get the lights up this year, and still having put up the Christmas tree. So I feel like, to quote from The Waitress’ “Christmas Wrapping:”

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
But I think I’ll miss this one this year.

Most of the time the feeling passes, though with relatives staying over and then obligatory cross-country travel to visit more relatives, I’d really enjoy a quiet Christmas home alone once in a while.

It’s been nearly two years since I first started going out in public. It’s been quite a journey — from being terrified, yet exhilated, to stepping out in the backyard late on a moonless night, to being regularly out in public, even if I’m not fully out. These days it’s more of a “don’t advertise, don’t deny” situation. That’s to say, I don’t necessarily advertise my crossdressing, but if asked I’m not going to deny it either.

I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate that unlike so many crossdressers, I’ve never felt particularly guilty or shameful about my crossdressings (even if it wasn’t something I was gonna go out and tell people about). And for that I thank my Mom (as well as my late Dad) who raised me to be self-confident even I was the odd man out in a variety of ways.

No I haven’t told her, and I’m not sure I ever will. I think she’d be accepting and at times it painful to compartmentalize myself — for example, I’d love to tell her about performing. But mothers worry, and I don’t want her to worry.

So anyway… Thank you, Mom!

Non-stop work has kept from posting the last two weeks, but I’m finally getting a chance to catch up.

I’d volunteered to join Transgender San Francisco’s speakers’ bureau and I did my first outreach engagement talking to a local PFLAG group. Fortunately, I shared the podium with TGSF’s president, Allison, who has done a number of Trans 101 sessions, including for the local police departments, so I didn’t have to wing it entirely.

There were about two dozen people at PFLAG meeting, with at least a half-dozen with children or relatives who are trans, mostly on the FTM side. (Which makes sense, given that it’s not uncommon for FTMs to have spent time in the lesbian communities.) Needless to say, it was a receptive audience and Allison and I were told we gave one of the better presentations they’d had.

Last week, one of my best CD friends, Erica, came out the visit. Even though things were really crazed, I took the time to go meet her for dinner up in SF. (You can read her account of things.) Aside from it always being lovely to spend time with Erica, it was also a good mental break from work as well.

Thankfully, I’ve handed off the project (mostly — since I suspect there will be revisions in the offing) and headed off to Vegas (yeah, baby Vegas!) for a few days of play and a few days of attending a conference. I won’t be going out in femme. Mostly, I’m just a bit worn down and don’t feel like it. But also it’s one of the trade-offs of going in-house. Running my own consultancy, I was prepared to deal with the consequences if I was spotted en femme, but since I’m now “representing” my employer among my professional peers that changes things. But maybe some other trip.

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.

Had a nice weekend going down to visit my Mom for her birthday. While I was there, we saw an excellent exhibition of Ansel Adams’ photos, which I highly recommend seeing if you’re in the Orange County area this spring.

On the flight home, I was reading the wonderful “Butch is a Noun,” which caught the eye of the woman sitting next to me. Turns out she was a med student who’s planning to go into psychiatry, so she was interested in learning about a variety of people’s experiences. Which in turn led me to also recommend “She’s Not the Man I Married,” and in turn to mention that I crossdress and do some Trans 101. We had a nice discussion and I could see the lightbulbs going on in her head. An added bonus was that it turned out she hates flying, so our talk took her mind off that.

So hopefully it’ll lead to one more person in the psychiatric community who’s got a more realistic picture of what trans people are like.

So went out for my usual Sunday brunch again and while I was waiting, Maria came up, gave me a big hug and said, “You’ll forgive me, won’t you?” I told her that I was sorry for putting her on the spot. “But you’ll promise, you’ll forgive me, won’t you?” she replied. I told her yes, I did forgive her.

The restaurant was unusually busy, so afterwards we had only brief bits of conversation. Eventually she left me a note with her phone number, which said she was ashamed of herself and asked me to give her a call. I thanked her again and by the time I’d finished brunch, we both seemed to be putting it behind us.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to call her this evening since I went up to San Francisco and got caught in massive traffic jam. (Seemingly there was some big event at Pier 39 and Embarcadero was shut down, not a pretty combination.), So I didn’t get home until too late. (It was too important to do on the cell while I sat in traffic.) I’ll try to catch her tomorrow.

One my guilty pleasures is the TV show, “How It’s Made,” where “we discover how products in our everyday lives are made, such as: toothpicks, compact discs, cereal, fibre optics, potato chips, airplanes, etc.”

There is a beauty to the whole robotic ballet of the assembly lines (of course it helps to have a perky musical score rather than the actual factory noise) that makes me understand the rhapsody of the Futurists.

So this morning, I went back to my favorite restaurant for my usual Sunday brunch determined to follow Tink’s advice and just act completely normal. The manager greeted me with his usual over-exuberance. Maria was working another section, but I caught her eye as she passed and let her know that I had the coupons for her as per usual. She took them with her usual abundant thank you’s.

Chalk one up to “commerical courtesy” I thought. But then….

I was head-down in the newspaper when, as she was passing by, Maria gave my hand a tap and gave me a big smile when I looked up. Then as was leaving, she gave me a friendly pat/rub on the back in the same sort of way she’s done previously.

What’s it all mean? I’m not really sure…

Obviously she wasn’t avoiding me. It seems like she was treating me with the same familiarity as before. Maybe she’s realized that even though she now knows something about me that freaked her out, I’m still me. Maybe realizing that I probably overheard her comments about me caused her to do some self-reflection. I dunno. At this point, I’ll leave it at “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Sure enough, thanks to the closed-toe shoes I wore, I ended up with a nasty smudge to last week’s pedicure, so I went back to the salon to get it fixed. As I was going in, I ran into one of the hair stylists who wanted to know how come I wasn’t en femme again. I said I was just in for a touch-up and besides I felt like being a boy today. “Well I think you look hot either way,” she said. Cue blushing and mumbled thanks.

‘Course she probably assumes I’m gay — she’s seen me en femme and seen my pictures, but haven’t been there when I’ve talked to the nail techs about my dressing. But it was nice all the same. Especially because feeling not as attractive en homme is probably one of the reasons I started crossdressing as a boy.