OK, it’s not what you think. Our intrepid editor goes mano-a-mano with two hot queer girl authors for a roundtable discussion on feminitiy, gender and the sanctity of lesbian spaces.

Julia Serano is the author of the recently released Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, while Helen Boyd’s new book She’s Not the Man I Married is the follow up to her critically acclaimed My Husband Betty. A transgender lesbian feminist, Serano is a darling of San Francisco’s queer lit scene (her readings feel like mini-Butchies concerts). Boyd, who has chronicled her husband’s transition to being her wife and championed the concerns of trans partners (especially straight-to-gay spouses), is well-known feminist among the country’s alt-leaning transsexual and cross-dresser scene.

Julia, you talk about is transobjectification and transmystification. Can you define both?

Serano: Trans-objectification is when people dwell on trans people’s body parts and our physical transitions. Sadly, even people who rail against the way women are objectified in our society will often feel they have the right to ask trans people what surgeries we’ve had, comment that they could tell that we’re trans because of the size of our hands or the pitch of our voice, or to claim that we’re not “real” women or men because of the size and shape of our genitals. Such comments reduce us to the status of an object, thus allowing people to condemn, demonize, fetishize, ridicule, criticize, and/or exploit us without guilt or remorse.
Trans-mystification is when people mystify transsexuality. Often when I come out to people as trans, they will dawdle over me as though I just impressed them with a magic trick. I think what is often going on unconsciously is that people want transsexuality to be this other-worldly thing, because that way trans people’s genders inevitably seem artificial, questionable and illegitimate, in contrast to everybody else’s genders, which are presumed to be natural and unquestionable.

How do you combat the “I can't believe you were a man” type of thing?

Serano: Well, for me, after getting to know many trans people over time, I began to realize that I never really know who is trans and who is not. I was [previously]making the assumption that every person I met was cissexual (that is, non-transsexual). Cissexual assumption is a lot like heterosexual assumption, where people automatically assume that everyone they meet is straight. The way to combat [that] is to recognize that any person you meet could potentially be trans. That way, if they were to come out to you, you wouldn’t act surprised and you wouldn’t have anything invested in the gender you perceived them to be.

Boyd: That’s exactly what I’m trying to get at …that being around trans people destabilizes gender in very cool ways, so much so that I don’t assume anyone is cisgender or trans anymore. It’s a liberating, exciting thing for me, but for a lot of people that’s absolutely terrifying.

How do you define yourself? Lesbian? Queer?
Serano: I identify a number of different ways depending on what issue is being discussed. I most strongly identify as a woman and as a transsexual because in my day-to-day life those are the aspects of my person that I feel that I am most marginalized for. As an activist, I tend to refer to myself as a trans woman because being at the intersection of those two identities creates sort of synergy. After all, trans women bear the brunt of our culture’s fascination with, and demonization of, transgenderism, and that’s no coincidence. I find that most of the anti-trans sentiment that I personally experience is probably better described as misogyny.
I will also sometimes use umbrella words such as queer or transgender to describe myself. But I don’t think of them as identities per se, but rather as political affiliations-much like the term feminist. When it comes to gender expression, I’ll often call myself a femme tomboy, because in some ways I am very feminine, but in other ways I’m quite the tomboy. Dani, my wife, is a butch girlie-girl, so perhaps opposites attract after all! [She laughs] Sexual orientation-wise, I’ve been rather exclusively attracted to female-bodied people my whole life, so I identify as a dyke or a lesbian. I know lots of people have a preference for one over the other, but I don’t really.
I also want to add that I wouldn’t dare call myself a lesbian back when I was still male-bodied because I knew that would be presumptuous—I may have felt like a dyke on the inside, but the world certainly wasn’t treating me like a dyke because I was physically male. So I have to say that it bothers me that some trans guys continue to claim that identity long after physically transitioning. It strikes me as wanting to have it both ways. It also adds to trans dyke invisibility in the lesbian community—after all, if trans guys are still considered dykes, that insinuates that trans women cannot legitimately ever be dykes. (At least that’s how many lesbians seem to interpret it.)

Boyd: I don’t like bisexual only because it reinforces the binary, as if there are only two sexes, or two genders, to be attracted to. Personally, I kind of like “trans am” even though trans people tend to hate it; I think it’s important for trans people to know they’re attractive, & that they can be attractive because they’re trans. Not in a fetishizing way, if I can help it, but I really do value and am turned on by people who express or inhabit more than one gender. Trans men who insist they are only men, & not trans, are not generally my type in the first place (and likewise for trans women who are cisgender post-transition.) But otherwise I think of myself as queer: sometimes queer in a sexual orientation sense, and sometimes queer in a genderqueer sense. But I was the latter long before I met Betty.

I agree with you both in that the lesbian community is much more welcoming of trans men than trans women. Why is it easier for lesbians to accept a man who was raised female than a woman who was raised male?

Boyd: It’s easier because, despite everything, socialization still counts for something. we still raise boys & girls really differently from each other, & people carry some of the stuff that they learned depending on how they were socialized. But for a lot of men, who are transitioning from lesbian identities, there’s a familiarity with queer spaces. MTFs are often coming from straight worlds, and might come from very different points of view culturally, politically – you name it. They may be new to identity politics, the concept of “safe spaces” – you name it. It’s a huge cultural divide that’s about much more than the transness. But there’s also the issue of how much a kind of biology-centric ‘70s feminism (a la Carol Gilligan) influenced lesbian culture, too. So there are adjustments to be made on both sides.

Serano: The truth is that the argument that lesbian spaces should only be open to those who have been socialized female is a recent invention, one that is designed to allow trans men to stay in the community while continuing to keep away trans women. And the idea that trans women should be turned away because we “used to be men” seems rather dubious given how many trans guys who are on “T,” who identify as “he,” and who currently experience male privilege can be found in lesbian spaces these days. So we’re left with the very same question we started with: why is the lesbian community more respectful of trans guys while still showing disdain toward trans women?

In my book, I argue that, while all trans people face discrimination, trans women are more severely impacted because of the direction of our transition. In other words, in a world where femaleness and femininity are viewed as inferior to, and less legitimate than, maleness and masculinity, it is much easier to ridicule or dismiss trans women than it is trans men. One sees this all of the time in media depictions, where trans women are sexualized, sensationalized, and turned into punch-lines while trans men remain largely invisible. One can see it in psychiatry, where feminine boys are viewed as more of a problem than masculine girls, and where trans men are described as being “more stable” than trans women. Frankly, the lesbian community is not immune to this sort of trans-misogyny.

Right now, most trans dykes do not feel welcome in lesbian spaces because many lesbians are openly dismissive or hostile toward us, and that behavior is tolerated by the community at large. Many still attend events that specifically exclude trans women and think nothing of it. As a lesbian, I expect my straight allies to stand up for me in my absence—to call out other people on their homophobia, to simply not tolerate it. By the same reasoning, if someone wants to be an ally to trans women, then they have to stop coddling or defending trans-misogynistic lesbians in their community. They need to call them out on their bigotry. Period. Anything short of that is simply enabling anti-trans woman sentiment.


Because of where we live, our social structure, family
support and some things about him that privilege him (he's white,
attractive, tall), my husband had an easy transition. For us
that means that when TV producers call they're always disappointed
because there's no "problem" to fix. Do you experience a similiar
thing?

Serano: Yeah, I definitely had a similar experience, in that in the years just before my transition I was a small, long-haired femmey boy—most people assumed I was gay and occasionally I would even be ma’amed. In the book I talk about how people who have only known me since my transition are often disappointed upon seeing my before pictures. I think a part of them wants to see me looking really stereotypically male or macho, but that was never who I was. It’s that whole trans-mystification thing, wanting to see trans people go from one extreme to the other. I think the reason why TV producers are so disappointed is that they want to show transitioning as this highly artificial process, when in reality, for many of us at least, it merely confirms certain aspects of our personality that were there all along.

You say that we need to recognize femininity is innate, not
performance, but in some ways I'm really proud of "performing" my
femininity. How can I reconcile the two?

Serano: Well first off, I believe that certain aspects of femininity are highly social in origin, while others are not. Trans people transitioning in both directions will tell you that the way one experiences emotions and the ability to cry are greatly influenced by our hormones. And the fact that there are young feminine boy and masculine girl children indicates that some of these tendencies likely precede or supersede one’s socialization. So I think gender expression is a complex combination of both socialization and biology, with some specific traits being more influenced by one over the other. Obviously, femininity can be a performance, as there are a million little things that I could do to make myself appear more feminine. I know that many queer women embrace the idea that their femininity is a performance—they feel empowered by it—and I have no qualms with that. Where I draw the line (and what I strongly challenge in the book) is when people claim that femininity is entirely artificial or constructed, or when they say that “all gender is performance” (which, by the way, Judith Butler never actually said). That saying is as ridiculous as saying that all gender is genitals, all gender is chromosomes, or all gender is hormones. Gender is not any one thing. It is a complex and confusing mixture of all of these.

Helen, is femininity innate?

Boyd: For some people, I suppose it might be. It never was for me, and I’m absolutely sure it’s not for a lot of women. And, it is for some men. If someone wants to claim innate femininity, I’m not going to argue with them, but then I don’t want them to argue with me when I say mine isn’t. The thing is, we just don’t know, & I persist in thinking gender is some combination of nature & nurture, that things that are innate can be reinforced, or not, by our circumstances. For instance, PCOS runs in my family, which is hormonally masculinizing for women, but I also grew up with three older brothers and a mom who valued men more highly than women but simultaneously treated men like children. So who’s to say? Did my mother prefer masculinity because she had PCOS? Do I? I think there are very intricate feedback loops between biology and culture none of us really understands. But you know, I hate the terms “masculinity” and “femininity” in the first place, because they’re linguistically sloppy, used to stand in for a ton of other traits – strong, in charge, pretty, delicate, nurturing .

Helen, when you were young, you never thought you'd get married, but now you're really (for lack of a better word) wedded to the way your
marriage was. How do you reconcile who you are with you thought you'd become?

Boyd: What it was once didn’t really last for long, so sometimes that whole period – our newlywed era – feels a little like a good dream I had that I can’t remember the details of. What it feels like now is that I needed that time, maybe, to feel the validation I got from others. I mean I was always this weird tomboy punk rock grrl, and I think people were quite impressed with the “catch” Betty was in guy mode. Now, they’re not so impressed, but to me it just feels like the truth of who I really am, and always really was, has outed itself. The idea of being married to an ordinary man – or an ordinary woman – is laughable.



Some non-trans folks have a hypersensitivity to gender. Is that
innate? If they want to dwell on it, how do we keep from falling into that trap (esp. as spouses of trans people?) How do we keep from "feeling" it (like is it unsupportive for me to still see "the girl" that Jake once was?)

Boyd: You know I don’t think it’s unsupportive of you: it’s the fact of it. How long did Jake live as a woman in the world? How long did Betty live as a guy? Long enough for both of them to have picked up habits that reveal that other gender. I don’t think of that as a bad thing, myself, & would never want Betty (or any other woman) to purge herself of any masculinity, but I’m a tomboy, and I like masculinity in women. But mostly I like people who have a couple of genders, & who are able to see and interact with a couple of mine. Of course it depends on the person, but all of us, cisgender or trans, have masculine & feminine elements. For trans people to try to only be feminine, or only masculine, strikes me as a mug’s game, but I respect their need to do so in order to transition. I’m also lucky in that Betty doesn’t mind when I can see the guy in her, since she can see the guy in me, too.

Serano: I think that in recent conversations about trans people and gender, there has been way too much attention placed on how we “do” gender, and not enough on how we “see” gender. In my day-to-day life, I am unquestionably seen and treated as a woman, even though I am openly a tomboy and a dyke. But as soon as I mention to someone that I’m trans, people get this weird look in their eye, like they’re re-coding me. It’s as if they are unconsciously moving me from the female to the male categories of their brains. Often they’ll slip up my pronouns after finding out I am trans, but never beforehand. This is something that I find most people who haven’t had a transsexual experience tend not to get. Transsexuals are seen very differently than gender-variant cissexuals.

As a trans woman, I understand that it is impossible for people who knew me pre-transition to completely erase any memory of me having been male. I don’t think that it is necessarily unsupportive if they see the “male” in me, so long as they fully respect my female identity in their actions. Nevertheless, it still hurts sometimes to know people see me that way.

In our passing obsessed culture (praising gays who don't flaunt it or minorities who speak proper english as well as trans people who pass) how do we combat that and still let people be the person be who they are? For example, I was at a lesbian event recently and hung out
with a trans lesbian for a good part of the evening and as she was recounting a story I had asked when she had transitioned. She was fine but I could tell she was disappointed that I saw her as a
"trans" lesbian instead of just a lesbian. Here I was patting myself
on the back for being so trans-positive and really I had marginalized
her.

Boyd: I don’t bring up someone’s transness or make any mention of it until they do, which helps. It’s not fair if I comment on it, because someone can pass with 99 percent of the world and then be completely sad because I “saw” their transness, simply because I've met thousands of trans people. Also, I try to remember people based on something other than the pre-conceived labels, like “the huge Radiohead fan” or “the one who’s always got immaculate French cuffs,” in order to undercut my own pre-conceived ideas about who they are. So many trans people have the rest of what’s interesting about them forgotten because everyone is only ever interested in their transness, and it’s nice to connect with the person who has hobbies and interests and a career they like to talk about.

Serano: I think that most discussions of trans people and passing fail to address a really important question, which is: What do trans people pass as? People will often say that I pass as a woman, but that’s not how I experience it. When one talks in terms of passing—which implies that one is hiding or actively managing other people’s perceptions of them—that’s what I did before my transition, when I was trying to survive as a male. I passed as a man, but I am a woman. If I pass as anything these days, it’s not as a woman, but as a cissexual. So in going back to your question, when you mentioned the trans lesbian who was disappointed that you recognized that she’s trans, that was probably not because she was ashamed about being trans, but rather that once people realize that she’s trans, they tend to treat her as though she isn’t a “real” woman or a “real” lesbian. I think that once people stop viewing transsexual genders as “fake” or as mere imitations of cissexual genders, then it will be a lot easier for trans folks to be able to be out as “trans” without having to worry about having their female or male identities undermined.

Boyd: I hate the word “real” when referring to gender. But I want to add, as someone who has passed as a dyke for most of my life, sometimes you’re not intending to pass. That is, sometimes passing is more like a mistake in observation, and not an active attempt at deceiving anyone. Honestly I wish we would only use the word to mean when people pass with the intent to do so.

One thing that Julia argues in her book is that non-trans people
co-opt and write about trans experiences they take them out of
context and so they erase trans lives. So folks like Helen and I
should really put down our pens and listen. Helen, have you gotten a
lot of criticism for talking for Betty? Julia, do you feel like trans
authors are given enough support to pen their own stories?

Boyd: Speak for Betty? I wouldn’t, and don’t. I speak for me, because this is my life. I’m not some kind of hanger-on to Betty’s transness, exactly because her transness has caused me to think about my own gender. But yes, I was recently told I had no right to use terms like “we” or “our” when referring to the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I don’t think most trans people agree with that critic, but some do. What’s maybe not obvious is that the defenders of trans people are often hurt or killed as a result of violence against trans people, too.

Serano: In the book, when I discuss erasing trans people's lives, I was primarily focusing on academics and other non-trans folks who position themselves as “authorities” on trans people. The same doesn’t hold true for folks like Helen, whose perspective is that of an ally, and who is sharing her own personal experiences and struggles with gender and identity as a result of being involved with a trans person.

Boyd: Which, if I can interrupt, I’m often criticized for. There are plenty of trans people who couldn’t give one whit what allies or partners think, and who don’t want to think about the repercussions their gender change has on the people around them. People alternately criticize me for “speaking for” Betty or for not talking about her or describing her take on things enough.

Serano: As to the issue of whether trans authors are given enough support to pen their own stories, I think that it’s slowly getting better. For the longest time, publishers were only interested in stereotypical “woman trapped in a man’s body” autobiographies. Then, in more recent years, feminist and queer publishers took an interest in trans people, but only if they framed their existence as undermining the gender binary in some way—a sort of compulsory genderqueerness if you will. While some trans folks see themselves that way—and they deserve to have their voices heard—many of us have very different views. A lot of us fully identify as female or male, yet nevertheless have really interesting insights into gender and fighting sexism. Our views are only now becoming heard.

Who do you think your audience is?

Boyd: People who are interested in gender, whether they’re feminists or trans or partners. Queer-identified people. Sometimes romantics. Anyone, I suppose, who’d see the cover of one of my books and be intrigued.

Serano: I would agree with Helen that most people who pick up my book will do so because they have some interest in the subject of gender. While I invite everyone to read my book, I do have a personal agenda, which is to finally bridge the gap between trans women and feminists. I believe that the societal sensationalization and demonization of trans women is rooted more in misogyny than in transphobia. Because of this, trans women absolutely need feminism to make sense of our lives and to challenge the discrimination we face. However, many trans women are suspicious of feminism, as some of the most hateful anti-trans woman rhetoric has come from feminists such as Janice Raymond, Mary Daly, Robin Morgan, Germaine Greer, and many others. So I also hope to reach feminists, to help them to understand trans women’s experiences and perspectives, and to recognize that we have more in common with each other than is generally assumed.

Boyd: I’m with you on this, Julia. It’s essential for feminists to speak out against the kind of transphobic writing coming from some feminists, so I did. While that wasn’t the most comfortable decision I've ever had to make in publishing a book, I felt it was necessary. On a personal note, I didn’t want to look at my feelings about femininity much at all, but being with Betty forced me to come to terms with why I prefer masculinity – which is at least partially a self-defense against the sexism & misogyny of the world.

Julia talks about those hundreds of little moments where you're interpreted differently bc of your perceived change in sex (people smiling, standing closer). That's been so true for Jake. He's suddenly authoritative, confrontational, commanding, scary--it's so strange for me to be in a relationship with that sudden change. Helen, are you seeing a similar shift with Betty? What can this teach all of us?

Boyd: I’ll be honest: Betty registered more as “honorary gay guy” a lot even before presenting as female a lot of the time, so her switch wasn’t quite so drastic. She was “safe” to other women long before presenting as one, but used some of her male privilege to argue in their favor. She was one of those rare male feminists, and something about her – her charisma, maybe, or her lack of “predatory male” vibe – meant she was at least always considered the nicest guy at the party.

Serano: For me, the changes in the way that women interacted with me changed slightly, but not nearly as much as it did with men. Of course, there were sexual innuendos and intimidation from strange men on the street. But even in more civil situations, I found that men would sometimes talk over me or speak down to me—often in patronizing voices that I hadn’t heard since I was a child. I should stress that this certainly wasn’t all men, but some. I think that what it teaches us is that all those people who believe that we’ve moved into some kind of post-sexism world are completely full of it.

Boyd: Interestingly, Betty gets talked over or down to whether they think of her as female and sometimes when she’s read as trans or effeminate. Occasionally she’ll get talked over if she’s read as female and not trans, but if they know she’s trans, it’s like they talk to the “guy,” and so listen to her opinions about tech or music in ways they don’t otherwise, though in slightly more conditional ways than when she presented as male. Others are more rude to her if they know she’s trans than when they read her as cisgender female.

Jake and I tend to exploit the change in people's perception but I worry that's fun now but in the long run not contributing to
anything but perpetuating the sort of sexism that (in our case) may underscore it. What do you two think?

Boyd: Confirming people’s gender stereotypes does perpetuate sexism, and it is important to do things to dismantle that sexism, but I also think a couple who’ve made it through transition deserve to take what fun they can. I’m sure you’ll be back to messing with people’s heads in new ways soon enough.

Serano: Obviously, Jake didn’t transition so that the two of you could obtain heterosexual privilege, right? So therefore, I think it’s illegitimate for anyone to accuse the two of you of perpetuating sexism. The simple fact is that if other people are treating you different now because you appear to be a straight couple, then that’s their sexism not yours.

I think that the idea that some people perpetuate sexism or reinforce the binary through their behaviors is highly problematic. It is the root of so much infighting within the queer community: it has been used to dismiss butches and femmes, bisexuals, trans people and our significant others. I wish that we all would recognize that all sexisms are propagated, not by the way we as individuals do our own genders (because we don’t always have a choice in that), but rather when we treat other people differently based on the genders and sexualities we perceive them to be.


One thing for us that was different is our relationship to
children. I used to love the Pinkie's Palace set (it's a french kitty bedroom set that's sassy and sexy but really made for tween girls) so we had it in our bedrom, on our bedspread, etc. but one day a couple came over to buy our futon and took one look at Jake and it and got seriously creeped out. I realized the fear over men and children is really very strongly held. Julia, did you experience the opposite? What might we learn from these experiences?

Serano: That culturally, we believe that the only way a man can like children is perverse, and sexual. That a lot of stereotypes about men perpetuate the sexism in the world. But at the same time, men are predators more often than women. But some of the problem is the way we raise boys, encouraging young men to be sexual without being emotional, so much so that sexuality can become their own means of expression, that caring for others, including children, makes them “soft.” Masculinity needs an overhaul, and my hope is that some trans men (and some crossdressers) can contribute to that overhaul in really productive ways. But as women, I think we have a responsibility, too, not to belittle men who don’t conform to models of masculinity that are bad for men, and women, and children.

Before my transition, I was a very small and androgynous looking guy, yet I still often got those suspicious looks. In grocery store check-out lines, when young children in the shopping cart ahead of me tried to interact with me, I would often look away because if I smiled or talked to the child, their mothers would always give me dirty looks. Now that I’m perceived female, I can interact with the child and the mother just smiles approvingly.

To be honest, I have very mixed feelings about this issue. On one hand, it makes me angry that men are always assumed to be predators—I think many non-trans women don’t get how oppressive it can be to have people project that assumption onto you. At the same time, since transitioning, I’ve had to deal with so much harassment from strange men that I honestly don’t feel that it is safe for me to automatically trust men that I don’t know. It’s an issue that I feel very conflicted about and I am not sure that there is any easy or immediate fix to it.

One thing Helen said that I love is that sometimes when Betty
talks of her innate womanness it makes you wonder if you're a woman at all. I think that's very common to hear, especially from lesbians. Because so often the trans narrative about how so and so knew she was a woman includes things that a lot of lesbians never did (like play with dolls, dress up, makeup, etc). Julia, what’s your take on this?

Serano: I think that part of the problem here is that culturally we are raised to believe that femaleness and femininity are one in the same. For many lesbians, that means that they were socialized to be feminine because they are female. This may conflict with their own inclinations to be more androgynous or masculine. As a result, they may be accused of not being “real” women, and they may grow up to question the very idea of womanness, even though the real issue for them is femininity (not femaleness).

For trans women, it tends to be the other way around. We grow up with a profound, persistent, subconscious understanding that we should be female. Like women in general, some of us are feminine, some masculine, some a little of both. But more often than not, what drives us to transition is not our desire to express femininity, but rather our sense of femaleness. So in a sense, the assumption that femaleness and femininity are the same thing confuses the dialogue. We are using the same words to describe very different things.

Boyd: What you’re talking about is the difference between sex (female/male) and gender (femininity/masculinity), no?

Serano: Well, sort of, but not quite. I think that for many trans people, such as myself, it is about physical sex and the relationship that we have with our own bodies. In my case, my sense of being socially female only solidified after my physical transition, as I gained life experiences living as a woman. But other trans women choose to live as women before or without physically transitioning. For them, perhaps it’s more about a social sense of femaleness, one that I don’t think can be easily distilled down to femininity or conforming to gender norms.

There are all of these definitions for gender out there. Many transsexuals use gender as shorthand for gender identity—whether they identify as female or male. Other people use the word as shorthand for femininity/masculinity. Still others use it to mean sex, or societal norms based on one’s sex. I think that gender is all of these things. It’s this really holistic thing that each of us experiences somewhat differently.

Julia says in her book that non-trans folks like us feel entitled
to our gender. Helen, do you agree? Do you feel like having a trans partner threatens that?

Boyd: Honestly, this is the part of it that causes the divide between gender variant folks and trans folks. I still find it baffling – I don’t see any lack of alignment between “masculine” and “woman” yet that’s exactly what some trans people argue – that because they’re innately masculine they’re men. The funny thing is, I think it’s just a lousy way of explaining things. My feeling is that they’re trans, for reasons that have nothing to do with their masculinity or femininity; they’re just men who happen to have women’s bodies and need to change that. We wouldn’t have feminine gay men who only become so post-transition if that weren’t the case, right? & There are butch-identified trans women, too.

I don’t envy trans people mostly because transness seems so irrational to people who aren’t trans, including me. Having a trans partner has certainly made me thankful I’m not trans, and that I live in a time and place where being a masculine woman might still be unusual but isn’t impossible, but I did have to go through not feeling entitled to my own gender as a result of Betty; I felt a lot of pressure to perform “feminine” and then, subsequently, “butch.” Being with her made me examine why I don’t trust femininity in women, which was really useful to me, both politically & personally. There were days I felt exhausted, and just wanted to let the sleeping dog lie, but ultimately I found it really empowering not to feel quite as entitled to my sex or gender as I once had.

Serano: I think that lots of people—perhaps everyone—struggles with gender to some extent. In the book, when I talk about non-trans folks feeling entitled to their gender, I am more referring to their sense of femaleness or maleness, rather than femininity or masculinity.

A lot of trans and non-trans people are obsessed with passing. I
have such conflicted feelings about it myself. For the first six
months after Jake began to live as a man full time I told everyone (including the grocery store bagger and the clerk at the DMV) that my husband used to be my wife and I'm still a lesbian. I was concerned about losing my visibility as a dyke that I overcompensated. But even Jake makes sure to call himself my transgender husband vs. just husband because he doesn't want to be perceived as straight. Helen, you're in the
opposite situation. Does your feeling about passing change? Is it in flux based on what you and Betty are experiencing at the time or is it pretty fixed?

Boyd: For a while I probably mentioned my heterosexuality a little too much, but that was mostly at the local LGBT center & in queer spaces, where I was trying to make some room for partners like me who weren’t as used to queer spaces. Now I find myself doing it in the most “radical queer” places, because I’m a punk at heart & can’t help myself; I like to challenge people, & sometimes it amuses me to see how scornful people can get when I mention I’m heterosexual. It’s pretty damn disappointing. I didn’t choose my sexual orientation as much as anyone didn’t – I thought we all knew that. But it is interesting to me that in some spaces you’d be cheered on for bringing your dyke identity forward, while at the same time I’d be considered homophobic for mentioning my heterosexuality. When we do pass as a lesbian couple I feel very uncomfortable claiming an identity that’s not accurate. We don’t like stepping on toes. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t, which is why we end up using queer, as the term is a little less policed than “heterosexual” or “lesbian.” But as much as we can, we try to deemphasize anyone as seeing us as anything in particular, because we don’t fit tidily into any of the pre-existing identities. Some days that gives us way more room to invent ourselves, and other days it’s exhausting.

Serano: Ironically, my partner Dani dealt with these issues more before my transition than after. She had identified as a dyke for most of her adult life, and she met me as she was rediscovering an appreciation for men. When we were first going out, she would often talk about how weird it was for her to be in a relationship that most people read as straight. So when I transitioned, while it was difficult for her in certain ways, she didn’t have to struggle with drastic changes in identity or privilege in the way that many partners do.


It's interesting that as you lose privilege I'm gaining it, almost
overnight. It's so overwhelming to me and for the first time makes me
realize how much of it lesbians don't have and we don't even realize
it becuase we've never had it. But you're losing it and you're really
aware of it. How much does that affect your feelings about your
relationship? Your sexuality? Your political identity?

Boyd: It doesn’t affect my feelings about my relationship per se, since where we wound up is hardly Betty’s fault. We could pass as straight female friends if I didn’t register as a dyke. It hasn’t so much changed my sexuality, either; I’m kind of a top-by-default because I’m such a control freak, and I always was, no matter the gender of my partner. Yes, I still find men attractive, but I find women attractive too, but ultimately I’m monogamous, which means everyone but Betty is of the gender I don’t prefer! So no trouble there; jokingly I sometimes describe myself as “Bettysexual” since that’s all it’s about these days. Politically? I’m a social justice type, no matter the issue, & always have been.

But I will say: it is absolutely astonishing to move from being an ally of LGBT people to being perceived as LGBT myself. I thought I had a clue; I didn’t. My guess is that most allies are similarly clueless, even if their empathy is valuable, too.

You know feel limited to certain cities and have trouble holding
hands without stares. Do you get criticism from other LGB people
when you complain about that kind of loss?

Boyd: Not so much, but I might be lucky, or maybe they don’t say it to my face. I think I get something of a pass because the loss I've experienced has made me more political, more visible, and more out. This 2nd class citizenship really pisses me off. I’m also lucky enough to be able to tell allies that they really have no idea what it’s like, and because I've been an ally, people might listen in a way they might not to LGBT people.

Like you I'm not fond of ze or hir. Do you think that means we're
sort of perpetuating the gender binary instead of dismantling it?

Boyd: No. I decided to use alternating pronouns to talk about Betty in the new book, instead. As a writer ze & hir turn me off, since most people don’t know grammar & will use hir when ze is needed. So unless we’re going to start teaching what subjects and objects are in school again, I’m not sure it’ll be easy to integrate these new terms, and with language, it’s got to be easy to use. Obviously the caveat is that I certainly respect anyone who uses them for hirself.

Serano: I agree with both of you about ze and hir. Whenever I have tried to use them in my gender activism, I find that people get so hung up on the pronouns themselves that they altogether miss the point I was trying to make. Also, they are almost only ever used when discussing gender-variant folks, which might be fine for those who are genderqueer and see themselves that way. But may transsexual and intersex people I’ve spoken with strongly identify as female or male, and they feel that they are being non-consensually third-sexed by people when they are addressed as ze or hir. That’s why, when I don’t know how a person identifies, I try to use they/them, which sounds a lot more natural to people as it already exists in the language.

Do you feel like you've transitioned as a couple? Do you feel like you're being dragged on this journey or is your feeling ever-evolving about Betty's transition?

Boyd: I don’t drag easily, which is something Betty learned early on. I come & I go about Betty’s gender, as does she. We did decide a while back to do this together, to make decisions together, and that came out of my need to know I could keep up, & out of Betty’s to not let transness rule her life. There are days I still look back with longing on being married to a crossdresser, which I enjoyed, but love is love, and will take you to uncomfortable places when you let it. I let it. If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be.


Helen, one thing you say is that you love "her for his sake." I know
Betty is very supportive but do you get criticism from other trans women or men who say that you're compartmentalizing or aren't supportive enough? What don't they get about you two?

Boyd: First off, I only listen to people who’ve made it through transition with a partner. It’s all well & good for trans people to tell Betty what she should do, but when their life is in ruins, well, it gives a person pause. Likewise with people who think they know what I should do, who don’t. I’m kind of stubborn that way. What people don’t get about us is that we’re happy with each other, great friends, & committed to our marriage. We’re both well aware of the sacrifices and compromises the other person is making, and try to pay attention to any building resentment that’s might come out of it. But mostly we just feel lucky to have met each other, still. We’re coming up on a decade and sometimes feel like we’re just barely beginning to know each other, and that’s a really exciting feeling, to have this kind of stability but also a sense of newness.


I know many couples split up at transition and you and Betty have talked. How does it feel to be in that "i don't know what will happen" mode for so long? It seems like it must be so frustrating and saddening for both of you.

Boyd: You get kind of Buddhist about it; honestly, none of us knows what’s going to happen, not really. Life makes sudden abrupt turns for lots of people. The only difference for us is that we’ve gotten a preview of something that has the potential to split us up, but still: most couples have something like that, if they’re paying attention, whether it’s money or ambition or what religion to raise the children in. The central conflict of a relationship doesn’t change, in my opinion, so you tend to learn where the fault lines are & communicate as gently as possible with each other when that subject comes up. That’s what we do, at least. We also try to work the “this is out to get us” angle, and so feel like we’re fighting a dragon together, which helps.

Helen, one thing you said is that now that you're two women you don't know who's on top, who pays the cab driver, etc. It made me chuckle. I gotta tell you, Helen, that's never changed for me; I'm always on top. Why do you think it would have to change now that you're two women together?

Boyd: It’s not so much because we’re two women, but because Betty’s gender exploration lead her to realize she’s way more submissive than she was ever pretending to be as a guy. (& Honestly, she really sucked at playing the top, for the brief moment she did.) I like both, depending on my mood and inclination, so I just didn’t want to feel locked into always being the top. But always being the bottom horrifies me even more, really! I’m still hoping she’ll evolve into a switch, since her exploration is ongoing. Right now at least she’s willing to play the part when I need her to, which is great.

Not a question but have to say that reading "gender demented" and Everybody Loves Raymond in the same sentence did make me chuckle.

Boyd: You know, every time I watch that show I think, “That’s be damned funny if he didn’t gender it.” Because I’m the high libido person, like him, but he always talks about it as if just “us guys” know what that’s like. Well, I hate to break it to him, but a ton of women watching know exactly what he means.

Julia, I'm afraid I may contribute to what you call transobjectification. For
example, when I'm trying to quickly explain the situation to folks like my little sister I say "sex change" instead of "reassignment" just to get them to that point quickly. Am I setting back trans visibility by doing that?

Serano: I wouldn’t call that trans-objectification necessarily. That sounds more like a trans 101 moment. A lot of people who are new to the subject are totally resistant to discussing the issue on terms that they feel uncomfortable with. Sometimes you often have to speak to them on their level before you can introduce new terms that are unfamiliar to them.

I think that the language we use to describe transsexuality is really crucial in order to challenge the way society views trans people. But I also understand that this will be a gradual process. First activists begin using certain words, then allies and acquaintances start using them, then everyone else. It’s a slow process to be sure, but an important one.


Julia, I have to say that I loved the book but was honestly frustrated
that it wasn't an autobiography. I wanted to hear more about your
experiences. Is that awful to admit?

Serano: Actually, when I first started writing and performing spoken word, I really wanted to do a one person show that was more autobiographical about my experiences coming to terms with my own trans-ness. I even began working on it. But as I began to perform individual pieces from it, I found that most people tended to interpret what I had to say in ways that I didn’t intend. The problem was that they had these stereotypes in their head of what a transsexual woman is supposed to be, and they were just projecting those onto me no matter what I said. So I started working on ways to challenge those stereotypes and to change the language that restricts the way in which people perceive trans folks, and that eventually evolved into this book.

Anyway, I do hope to finish that one person show at some point, so you may get your wish then!

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