Weighing In

A few days ago, this op/ed article appeared and caused a sh*t storm of its own. Burkett, the author, a "journalist, a former professor of women’s studies and an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker," weighed in on Caitlyn Jenner's story. I read it that evening and after finishing it, wrote my response to it. I needed to edit it down, and then I got busy, and within two days I realized my efforts to submit a rebuttal to the NY Times was moot because everyone and their sister did it already.

What follows is a shorter, much more organized version of my intended response. 

Ahem...

Do men and women have different brains? This was the pivotal question Burkett posed in her article and the proceeded to, sort of, answer. As cheesy as Chelsea Manning's comment was about having been more emotionally inspired by Jenner's story, it didn't matter. Much of Burkett's opinions featured in this piece didn't matter because they were irrelevant to her original point of concern. What ultimately mattered to Burkett was that people insinuated that one could actually witness physical/chemical differences in male and female brains and that those differences actually have outer consequences. 

Rightfully so, Burkett reminded readers that because of perceived mental capacities, women were oppressed in many cultures for hundreds, even thousands of years. Burkett states that, "People who haven’t lived their whole lives as women...shouldn’t get to define us. That’s something men have been doing for much too long."

I get that. I totally get that. No one should ever "get" to define anyone else. Like Burkett said, "Their truth is not my truth." A-men, sister!

And herein lies the enormously hypocritical flaw in Burkett's argument. She says the following:

They haven’t traveled through the world as women and been shaped by all that this entails. They haven’t suffered through business meetings with men talking to their breasts or woken up after sex terrified they’d forgotten to take their birth control pills the day before. They haven’t had to cope with the onset of their periods in the middle of a crowded subway, the humiliation of discovering that their male work partners’ checks were far larger than theirs, or the fear of being too weak to ward off rapists.

In other words, "women" have suffered or are constantly at risk of suffering at the hands or gawking eyeballs of men... or from having a period.

Well, I guess I'm something other than a woman, because... um... I haven't suffered any of these things, except maybe for that almost bleeding through my pants in public, but I was, like 16 at the time.

Sure, men have looked at my boobs while I was talking; however, I also got intelligent verbal responses from them. Maybe my boobs weren't pretty enough or what I said far outweighed the boob allure.

In all the years I was on the pill, I was NEVER ONCE terrified that I'd forgotten to take one. Like the directions said, if you missed one, take it as soon as you realize you missed it. Perhaps I was more responsible with my pill-taking, pregnancy-preventing responsibilities than she was.

As I worked in academia for many years, WE ALL HAD CRAPPY PAYCHECKS. In fact, I earned more than most because of the unreasonable number of masters degrees I have.

The fear of rape thing? That cinches it for me. I have never once in my ENTIRE LIFE been afraid of being too weak to fight off a rapist. Never. Ever. I'm so strong that other people ask me to walk them to their cars, and I'm not referring to my physical strength (although my dad did always say I was strong as an ox).

Burkett should dismiss me right away. I have to go to the Virginia department of records or whatever and have my birth certificate changed from girl to... something else. I'm clearly not a guy. Unfortunately for Burkett, her argument that women can only call themselves such because of experience is a load of hot, stinky crap, and I am living proof of that.

To attempt a justification of this warped way of thinking, Burkett returns to the subject of brains. She says that "science" has determined that "they're in fact shaped by experience, cultural and otherwise." Yes, I've read those studies, and they also say that experience is only a part of what makes a brain function the way it does. Those same scientists DO NOT discount the actual fact (which has repeatedly been documented and proven) that there are male and female brains. Gina Rippon, that professor of neuroscience she quoted, was the ONLY science-type person to entirely dismiss the science of the effect of hormones on brain chemistry in-utero. So, of course Burkett is going to glom onto this person... who isn't actually a scientist but just a professor who makes unfounded suspicions to seminar attendees. The notion that you can't look at a brain and tell that it's a male or female brain, as stated by Rippon, is ludicrous to suggest as proof. Of course you can't. But you can look at it with machines and other scientific tools that can.

The next couple of paragraphs of Burkett's rant is blather, so I'm going to skip them.

Burkett continues, "The `I was born in the wrong body' rhetoric favored by other trans people...is...offensive, reducing us to our collective breasts and vaginas." Maybe for Burkett. Yet this comment is reminiscent of her earlier comment that one can't be a woman if one hasn't suffered like she has. Feeling that a person was born in the wrong body has far more implications than being about breasts and vaginas. Quick quiz: First, what word that starts with an H caused your body to produce those breasts and that vagina? Second, did that thing that starts with an H affect any other parts of your body or personality development? (The answers, FYI, are "Hormones," and "YES!" or "Duh!") Burkett's lack of empathy here is fantastic, painting a sparkling, clear picture of her view of "the Other." Talk about marginalizing a group of people! Not being transsexual, I can't possibly imagine what that feeling is like, but my spouse completed her transition in 2012, so I've got that as a reference. It is my understanding that the feeling of being in the wrong body can often be akin to having a wet, heavy, musty blanket all over your body that you can't get off.

Transfolk? Did I nail it?

Now, I'm not going to nail Burkett on anything she reported about the trans community having a problem with using the word "vagina" for plays and things about women. There are radicals in the trans community, too. That doesn't mean, nor did they imply, that they speak for all trans women. Burkett is just complaining that the people whom she aims to label are slinging mud, too. Yeah? And? Two wrongs don't make a right, you know. 

No. Wait. I am going to nail her. Burkett has a problem with a group of people who are fighting for inclusion in abortion rights? Really? You go, Fund Texas Chioce, formerly Fund Texas Women, for understanding that anyone with a uterus might need an abortion some day. Women's colleges are probably not "contorting themselves into knots" for re-thinking how to accommodate women who are accepting who they are and asking their school to support them. Does Burkett have proof that these schools are freaking out? I'd like to see those documents, please. She singles out Wellesley College as being tormented by trans issues, but hey, let's just take a look at part of their mission statement:

Valuing Diversity 

There is no greater benefit to one’s intellectual and social development—and to the vitality of an academic community—than the forthright engagement with and exploration of unfamiliar viewpoints and experiences. Wellesley encourages students to try on new ideas, try out new courses of action, and interact authentically with others whose beliefs or choices challenge their own.

..."and interact authentically with others whose beliefs or choices challenge their own." Hmmm. I'm thinking that Burkett did not get accepted to Wellesley. I hope Columbia University's excellent reputation isn't too tarnished by Burkett's lack of "fair and balanced" reporting.

Burkett lastly offers trans women a compromise: we womenfolk will happily support your right to be whomever you want to be along the X-Y chromosomal spectrum (which Burkett says is possible because what you do with your life defines your gender) just as long as you don't call yourselves women. That is so kind, isn't she?

She doesn't speak for me. Her truth isn't my truth. We may have been born with the same type of brain (female), but because of our experiences, we have developed into vastly different types of human being. If being allowed to use the term "woman" means that I had to have suffered from fear and degradation at the hands of males, then you can have it. On the other hand, I vote to remove Burkett's ability to call herself a women for the same reasons. Women are adult females. That's my understanding, at least. I give you permission, Ms. Burkett, to continue using the word "woman" to define yourself because I'm a nice person and because my definition is broad enough to include you. I suppose that if I were to follow your lead, I could change my definition to suit my fear-based arguments, but I don't think I'll do that because I'm not afraid of anything. Dirty litter boxes: those are scary. And that dream where you have a ton of homework due but you're already late to class. That one terrifies me every time!

Oh yeah. Those people who try to marginalize others because of difference, based on a conjecture that is utterly contrary to modern science... Do men and women have different brains? Are black people or Jews equal races to white Europeans? Does factory exhaust contribute to climate change? Does fracking cause earthquakes?

Those people frighten me the most.

What Happens for a Reason

The people I love in my life strongly believe that everything happens for a reason. Science explains a ton of stuff. The sun seems like it rises and sets for the reason that the Earth is turning. That guy over there got his car smashed into that light pole and his face into the dash for the reason that he was stupid on his cell phone. I won't sit next to you or allow you in my house for the reason that you reek of cigarette smoke. Stuff like that.

I'm referring to stuff that happens which either directly or indirectly affect the course of events. Often, these happenings really suck at the time. They could be downright heartbreaking. Sometimes, they're not. Either way, these are causes that usually result in something better happening. As my faithful readers know, I'm not a believer in deities or invisible super-consciousnesses floating around. I do believe in a certain Universal Justice (thanks, Enigma, for planting that one in my head), the Force, Personal Karma. The "Eyes of Truth" that are always watching me are my own, and quite probably, my dad's mother who died when I was, like, eleven. I do believe that we tend to attract what we think we deserve and for most of us, it takes a tremendous amount of Will - that we usually forget we have - to make us think differently about ourselves. It's like when we say, "My girlfriend's a jerk. She takes advantage of me and I don't deserve that," but then eventually that relationship ends and we find another one just like it. Saying "I don't deserve this" doesn't mean we believe it.

So, because the Universe is so utterly vast and full of so much stuff that we mainly don't understand, the invisible connections between living things and the other energies in other things, stuff happens that can seem really bad at the time but then we look back at it and realize that if that hadn't happened, this other really awesome thing would not have happened.

It's like what happened this week. I was scheduled to have a partial cornea transplant on Thursday (yep, it happened again), but on Wednesday, when the surgery center FINALLY bothered to let me know that I'd have to show up with over $1100 or I couldn't use the facility, I decided to postpone it because we don't have that kind of money lying around. So, yesterday, which was Thursday, I brought our daughter to our Optometrist to pick up her new glasses (so very, very cute!) Two weeks earlier, during her annual eye exam, we discovered that her eye pressure was up quite high and our Optometrist wanted her to come back in a couple of weeks for a recheck. So, since we had nothing else to do, I asked if they had time to recheck her. And guess what? Her pressure in both eye were WAY HIGH. Like dangerously high! LIke Glaucoma high. Our awesome Optometrist called a specialist right there and he arranged to see her this morning. This morning, he checked her and he also checked her corneas. Turns out they are very thick, which is actually a good thing. The problem is that very thick corneas cause interocular pressure readings to register higher than they really are. Now, the girl does, indeed, have higher pressure than is normal, but we gave her our son's ocular hypertension (high eye pressure) drops last night and they did help. So, she's on eye drops for the foreseeable future. No Glaucoma risk, either, unless we stop the drops. In fact, as she continues to grow (she's only six), her eyes will grow, too, which probably will reduce the eye pressure.

So, if I hadn't cancelled my surgery, the girl would still have DANGEROUSLY HIGH eye pressure in both eyes. It only takes days to trigger Glaucoma at those levels. Everything happens for a reason.

Did I marry a transsexual for a reason? Yes. I fell in love with the man who then became the woman. If I hadn't married the man, we wouldn't have made our super awesome-o kids. I wouldn't have had those first seven years of mainly total awesomeness. If I hadn't married Natasha, she would have not been with someone who would be able to support her when her subconscious mind let it all go. Natasha's transition has taught me about who I am and how strong I really am. No, I'm not thankful all this happened. Don't be silly. But stuff happened and I learned some valuable things about myself that I can now pass on to my children. I live by example.

The fact about me is that I've been through a lot of... stuff. I'm not going to list it for you, but the bottom line is that as strong as I can be for other people, I generally didn't think much of myself. I didn't understand it when the man who was Natasha wanted to be with me... because let me tell you... that man was handsome! I never considered myself more than average in the looks department. I knew I was very smart, but I never figured that it helped me much because I made silly and stupid mistakes. The stuff I've been through was not so much traumatic as much as it was a lot. It's like, throughout my life, one thing after another would happen to me or around me. They would pile up and ultimately, those things that happened were things that only I could face. They were up to me, as much as my parents or friends would want to help. My motto was, "I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop." They say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but the truth is that for lots of people, those things that don't kill them make them weaker. They get beaten down. For me, I didn't get beaten down for one simple reason: I believed that I had no choice but to press on through the mess. I felt this way because the other option was to get stuck in that mess like something sticky, smelly and heavy. Tar, maybe? I walked around, waiting for that other shoe to fall from the sky, so if I didn't get out of the current mess, that shoe would get stuck in the sticky, stinky, heavy tar and make it all that much heavier. Trust me: I tried that a few times. It's called "depression."

I can look back over my life and say that every crappy, inconvenient, heart-breaking wrench (or shoe) that came at me prepared me to be able to support Natasha through her transition. Quite possibly, I thought I deserved the shoes. I don't doubt that because I didn't think very highly of myself. But then, I also must have thought that if I could get out from the tar, the success would make me feel better about myself. It didn't. Until now.

The future of our marriage is still uncertain. But what in life is certain? If our son has anything to say about it, even death won't be certain! :-) What I know as a result of all this is that I am a very strong person who can roll with the punches and come out of it because I am capable. I also know that I am more than just a loyal friend. This goes beyond loyalty. Those who are in my heart know from these past four years that there is nothing I won't do for them. I might not like it. It might break my heart for a bit, but if it's the right thing to do, I will be there with all the strength I can muster for them.

I guess the bottom line for this post is, how do YOU come out the other side? How do you handle the shoes falling from the sky? What do you think you deserve and to what depth into your soul does it reach? Does the stuff that happens to you weigh you down or do you take it and find the right thing to do with it? Do you do things because you want others to see you as the martyr or because what you do is the right decision?

One last thing: The reason why I chose to write this particular post is because I've been thinking about a teenage transperson whose parents are not at all supportive of her desire to transition. What I've wondered, as a parent, is how do they sleep at night, knowing that the child they brought into the world, supposedly as a joint effort created by love, is hurting and alone and scared because of them? They are driving this young person away... out of STATE... for a reason. They will lose her as a child for a reason. It's not a reason borne from the right decisions, even if they, somehow, think they are. They probably didn't even subconsciously think they deserved a trans child, but again, that's science. They do, however, probably somehow think they don't deserve love from their god or something (they are very religious) and so they are doing whatever they can to win his love by shunning their unholy child who was clearly not made in "his" image. I've also been thinking about my own brother, who is a total jerk (I've written about him in the past). He thinks he deserves unconditional devotion in the face of immense fear. How his three sons (and forthcoming son or daughter) treat him when they are adults will be direct effects of their insulated upbringing.

I don't see a ton of happiness in my brother's future. Just more fear. And the thing here is that much of his world is highly orchestrated. Whereas for most of us the stuff that happens comes from our interactions with external forces, for my brother, his Personal Karma touches everything. As religious as he is, every single bit of stuff that happens to him is a direct effect of his own conscious choice. Every "reason" behind what happens to him, his wife, and his kids is him.

Pagans

So, I've been studying Celtic history and mythology since I was... 19? Yeah, that's about right... a long time. In fact, I was recently asked to participate in an audio ebook about Irish folk legends as an "expert"! Can you imagine? Anyway, the thing is, I also studied paganism in general (a story for another day) and from all of this I took away a very basic philosophy that I truly believe today and struggle to live by.

The Celts (a branch of people who originated in what is now (generally) western Russia way before the Hebrews and worked their way across Europe to Ireland. They, of course, left cultural influences along the way, including pantheons of god and goddesses who are all the same but with different names. At the core of their belief system was the idea that the physical, spiritual. and mental aspects of humans ultimately did not function at peak levels unless all three were equally balanced. Much like other "aboriginal" cultures, Celts saw these three worlds overlapping: the spiritual in the physical, the mental in the physical, etc. For peoples such as the Celts, enlightenment occurred not when a person overcame the physical, as it is in many eastern philosophies, and not when one gave their destiny over to a higher power, as it is in most western philosophies. The Celts found perfection in the balance. So you had to acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses in all three worlds within yourself and work to improve weaknesses in all three to make yourself a more perfect human being, living a life that would end one day where your body would return to the cycle of life, your mind would go in the form of memories to the living, and your spirit would continue as it was, in its world with other spirits, remaining connected to other spirits regardless of whether or not they were bound to the physical.

Short lesson in Celtic philosophy.

So, this is how I tend to see the world, although I'm still on the long road to finding that perfect balance.

I was thinking about my relationship with Natasha this morning and how I might go about explaining the changes in different terms. That's when the Celts popped into my head. I was thinking about love in particular and how I could explain to a child the nature of love. Our kids, for example, love just about everybody who isn't a bad guy, our son is just starting to get that you can love your sister, for example, but you don't marry her. So that's a start.

The point: We are not perfect beings and according to the Celts, even when we are, we acknowledge the physical as much as the spiritual and mental. I read about lots of spouses who stay with their trans partner because they are past the sexual peak of their lives and all they really want in life is to be with their best friend forever. That's wonderful! I also hear of TONS of spouses who leave at the start because they need a man (or a woman) and now that the proper sexual organ is going away, so am I.  That's okay, too, I guess, but if you think of the latter example, there's no mental or spiritual consideration. It's purely physical and the Celts would be unhappy.

When I married J, there was definitely a spiritual component to it, as there continues to be with Natasha to this very moment. When J became Natasha, the physical changed and, trust me, I have been working hard to reconcile that with my physical self. I'm still working on it and I'm far from being done figuring things out. However.... I acknowledge that the physical side of why I fell in love with J is not present in Natasha. I am out of balance in my relationship with her.

Again, I stress that I am not done figuring this out. I struggle to listen to the three worlds inside me to find the balance, and what I want is for that balance to include her. I honestly don't know what that will look like, although I can say for 100% certain that she is forever my soul mate and best friend.

I'm sharing this because more spouses are coming to me for help and I thought that, no matter what your beliefs are, if you try to take a little advice from the Celts, you might find the right balance for you. But it's very hard. It's often painful. We should be doing this anyway, frankly. In the end, we know ourselves better than we ever imagined and we feel stronger.

Heck, I advise the transfolk do it, too. That side of the conversation isn't always that perfect, either. :-)

Acknowledge what you feel and then analyze it on all three levels. To focus on one and not the other two is to ignore your own true self and, consequently, make decisions that are not necessarily best for all involved.

I don't know if this helps any, but I felt the urge to share.