About Lisa
I’m a trans woman in my 30s. I transitioned in my late teens and spent too many years buying into the belief that being a trans woman meant that my gender was inferior and something to be ashamed of.
My life is not unusual. I’ve had boyfriends and girlfriends, I’ve had to hunt for jobs and housing. I’ve had to struggle with the fact that I’m a lesbian and come to terms with that. I love Buffy, Firefly, Angel, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, and of all things, Life. I watch South Park and Seinfeld because they’re on after Supernatural. I play video games. I have nieces I love dearly. I have to shop at Wal-Mart because I can’t afford anything more expensive, and I do kinda hate myself because of that. I love to wear black and green. Sometimes I dye my hair. Sometimes I feel butch, and sometimes I feel femme, but I don’t really identify with either. I love school and usually hate my jobs.
I’m not an exceptional person. My life isn’t unusual or dramatic or a political statement.
For the past several years, I’ve had run-ins with radical feminists, with gay men and lesbians, with men, with women, all of whom tell me that I’m wrong, that my existence is depraved, and that my choice to transition is bad. I found under most circumstances that I wasn’t able to respond, or that I didn’t feel safe responding, or just felt that response was futile. In a lot of ways, I just didn’t really know how to frame my objections clearly. Once I read Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl, I decided that I should say something.
November 7, 2007 at 2:52 pm
what a fantastic intro. very straightforward and telling. oh, and i disagree with
I’m not an exceptional person.
everything i’ve read that you’ve written so far has told quite another story. you seem pretty awesome to me :)
ps i love buffy, watch south park, and adore wearing black and green as well.
pps why do you say you’ve struggled with being a lesbian? just curious :)
November 7, 2007 at 5:56 pm
I identified as bisexual for several years, tried to date men, but never got far because I kept wishing they were women. I felt like I was obligated to be attracted to men and didn’t accept it was okay to be a lesbian, to call myself a lesbian, until I realized that I’d let myself get caught up in what I had to tell my psych to get hormones - which was, that I was attracted to men.
November 8, 2007 at 4:35 pm
well, i’m glad you’ve finally been able to come to terms with who you are :) thanks for answering! i’ll definitely keep reading!
November 8, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Thank you. I came to terms back in 2000. :)
November 13, 2007 at 7:21 am
No life is unextraordinary.
And no story is more worth telling than learning to live our truths.
For a long time I felt I had to choose. Peoplel understood being straight or being lesbian but the idea of bisexuality was often lost.
I gave up being understood or believed and finally chocked it up to just one more thing I wasn’t going to be liked over.
Of course, where I’m deeply happy I found your blog and utterly accept you as a transwoman, I admit to being disappointed on the Seinfeld and South Park revelation. But I won’t judge. Besides, Firefly, Buffy, Angel, BSG, Heroes and Supernatural more than make up for it. If I found out you were a Stargate fan too I’d have to bump some folks off my best friend list to make room for you. Well, my “close friend” list anyway. Seinfeld and South Park is just a lot to get over. *grin*
Off to keep reading…
~X
November 13, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Yeah, the television’s about 6 feet from the computer, and I am often too lazy to just turn it off after Supernatural ends, so Seinfeld, South Park, and Frasier play behind me. I’m not proud of this, I admit that it’s because the remote somehow ends up out of arm’s reach and I’m too busy reading or writing.
I am a fan of Stargate. I got Showtime specifically to watch it when the series started, and have tried to keep up through the years - it’s been spotty, though. :( Also, Doctor Who. I didn’t mention Starget because SHUT UP, that’s why.
I should add Farscape to the list, which is pure demented genius.
My point about not being exceptional is just, well, except for being trans my life is utterly like other people’s. Or trans people’s lives in general. We have to worry about the same things, live in the same world, pay rent, deal with human beings. Being trans makes it harder, but it doesn’t change our essential humanness.
Thank you for the kind words. :)
November 18, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Hello Lisa,
The first and most important thing I want to say is Joss Whedon is a genius and anyone who is into the Whedonverse already is doing something right.
I ran across your blog by reading a comment you left on Amanda Baggs’s blog (Ballastexsistenz) and I thought I’d stop by and say hi. It’s interesting timing that I just now happen to come across your blog. I recently reconnected with a friend and…well, let me back up a bit.
I used to be a tournament table tennis player before my body betrayed me and kept me from playing. One of my favorite playing partners decided to move east with the woman he was dating, partly because she had family there and partly because the table tennis scene is a lot bigger on the east coast.
Things being what they are, we lost touch. However, not long ago I received an email letting me know he would be in town on business and wanting to know if I’d like to get together. “Of course,” I said. One thing struck me as curious, though. The email address was different than I remember, in a number of ways. I sent back an email asking about this curious email address, and the response was, “Well, I guess a picture is worth a thousand words.” My friend, who had left as a man, was now a woman.
My response? “And I thought *I* had changed since we last saw each other. :) ” She appreciated the humor and it opened a dialogue about what had transpred since we last had seen each other.
I’m still working through this a bit. For example, I still have the occasional pronoun problem (for most people you don’t have to change them midstream). However, I understand that any problems I have are *my* problems, not hers. And they’re not major. I am a little ticked that she didn’t tell me before I asked about the email address. If I hadn’t noticed that before we met it really might have been awkward.
I think, though, it’s mostly just a matter of acclimating myself to the change. I knew my friend as a him a lot longer than I’ve known her as a her, so I figure I can take a few beats to wrap my head around the information.
I used to write stand-up comedy, and my friend is writing an autobiography (being transgendered isn’t the only interesting thing in her life…). She’s asked me to write some material for her book. I submitted a few bits and she really liked them, so hey, maybe I’ll be published!
Anyway, long pointless story. The good news? There’s a rumor that Joss has a new series in the works starring Eliza Dushku!
Regards,
Jim
November 18, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Thank you for dropping by, Jim. :)
I’d read about the new Eliza Dushku series recently, but beyond the premise I know practically nothing.
I wish more people would get that - it’s not about them, stop making it about them, stop scapegoating trans people (or autistic people, or people of color, etc.) because of their own baggage.
And yeah, she probably could’ve told you right away, but it’s not always easy to just come out and say it, even after transition. I told my biological father a few years after my transition, and I’d communicated with him prior to that time without telling him - I should have, but there were certain pressures or expectations that made it harder for me to say anything.
November 24, 2007 at 2:57 pm
wow a mirror of myself, and im a little younger. though I would give you a toodles to a blog well done
November 29, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I can relate to the “wishing she had told me earlier” thing. My fiance, very much a stereotypical guy when we met, started dating, and got engaged, waited a year to tell me. Of course he* was scared, but I felt angry that he waited until we had planned this life together and I had not thought of him as anything but a male at all. I felt that if he had told me right away that he wanted to transition, I would have still wanted to form a relationship, and I wouldn’t have all of these “guy” things to say goodbye to later on, after I had grown to love them. But you never know. One thing I really felt was betrayal, like he was just luring me in only to pull a 180 on me, hoping my love for hom would keep me around. Well, I know it wasn’t as malicious, but it worked, either way.
*He prefers masculine pronouns for the time being, as he hasn’t transitioned very noticeably yet and is waiting for hormones (which he’ll hopefully have by the end of December when his bloodwork comes back).
November 29, 2007 at 2:37 pm
For a lot of trans people, coming out is really hard. I mean, terrifyingly so. My top three most frightening moments in my life were, from least to most:
* having panic attacks so bad I thought I was dying, and the thought that I would die amplified the panic attacks. Terrible self-reinforcing loop there.
* Performing on stage - I was so scared, I was hoping I’d drop dead so I wouldn’t have to say my lines.
* Coming out as trans. I felt like coming out and telling people would actually make the sky fall and the stars go out. It took a lot of effort to reach the point where I could tell.
I know it feels like a betrayal, and it is pretty hard on both sides. I… resolved things by avoiding relationships until transition. Admittedly, that wasn’t very long - from 17 (when I decided to transition) to nearly 19 (when I changed my name and life).
My sympathies for being on the receiving end, though. This is never an easy process for anyone involved. I know that just saying “this is scary” doesn’t help resolve your reaction, but I am glad you see it wasn’t malicious.
November 29, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Hi Lisa,
is there a way i can contact you via email?
–Jay
December 25, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Hey, I want to talk to you about co-writing a piece for our blogs - can you email me? Thanks
E. from Screw Bronze
January 5, 2008 at 6:44 am
Lisa, thanks for your well written blog. I appreciate your thoughtful writings and insights. Most importantly, thank you for opening up your world. It is only by shining light that ignorance will be banished.
March 23, 2008 at 1:27 am
I just came here from another blog which was really angry about the term ‘cis gendered’. I just wanted to say I thought your answers there were really helpful and polite and it seems strange to me that people who define themselves as against oppression are so quick to turn on others who they see as threatening in some way.
I do see a problem between the importance of highlighting (non-cis?) experiences and advocating for non cis peoples and avoiding all distinguishing language (i.e. dropping the ‘trans’ or ‘cis’).
I was really surprised by the vitriol I saw. Doesn’t gender need dismantling rather than reclaiming? I know it is complicated and that essentialising gender can be a strategic move, but I think that ultimately we’d be better off without it. Thanks for sharing your perspective.
March 23, 2008 at 1:38 am
You came from Witchy’s? Yeah, her post’s basic premise doesn’t even make sense - the idea that cis is only applied to women (cis is applied to men and women), and the idea that applying it to women somehow obliviates their femaleness. I take that to mean that they see trans as obliviating my womanhood, therefore the opposite must obliviate theirs.
I realize that asking for no distinguishing language at all isn’t realistic - or rather, it’s about as realistic as asking that I not have a word to describe people who aren’t trans that doesn’t privilege and center their experiences over mine.
And yes, it is really strange that people who are against oppression against themselves are so thoroughly okay with oppression for other people.
I think the attitude is that trans people reify gender because we choose to switch from male to female or female to male, and somehow not changing from male to female or female to male does not reify gender. If you’re fine with how you were born, then staying that way doesn’t reinforce the gender binary at all - it’s only people who transgress the borders who do.
Also, I prefer cissexual to get away from cisgender or gender, because cisgender creates a lot of sound and fury. Admittedly, cissexual does too, because apparently no one understands being defined in terms of not wanting to change their sex.
Thank you for the comment.