Morty Diamond - From the Inside Out: Radical Gender Transformation, FTM and Beyond

Also edited by Morty Diamond

Trans/Love:

Radical Sex, Love & Relationships Beyond the Gender Binary

From the Inside Out. Copyright 2004 by Manic D Press. All rights reserved. Published by Manic D Press. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from author or publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Manic D Press, Box 410804, San Francisco, California 94141.

www.manicdpress.com

Cover design: Scott Idleman/BLINK

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

From the inside out : radical gender transformation, FTM and beyond / edited by Morty Diamond.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-916397-96-3 (trade pbk. original : alk. paper)

1. Transsexuals writings, American. 2. TranssexualsLiterary collections. 3. TranssexualismLiterary collections. 4. Gender identityLiterary collections. 5. American literature21st century.

I. Diamond, Morty, 1975

PS508.T73F76 2004

810.8092066dc22

2004018230

Breaking the Gender Mold

When I began compiling material for this book, I was going through a very emotional stage of my life. My transition began in late 1999 and for the next year I rediscovered myself as a transgendered person. Unlike many friends who began their transitions by taking testosterone, I waited a full year before taking hormones. By postponing hormone therapy I allowed myself time to develop my own thoughts about gender roles, and where I felt I stood. When I started the hormones I was just beginning to feel a sense of pride and certainty about being a gender variant person.

As a writer, I was eager to find books that reflected my views and could help me to understand other peoples experiences about their own gender explorations. I was not looking for a clinical examination of gender deviation, but rather firsthand stories representing an assortment of voices and viewpoints. To my disappointment, many books discussed transgender people in a rigid structure of female-to-male or male-to-female. This system of classification overlooked other ways in which people choose to express gender. I was taking testosterone, but never wanted to become a man. Rather, I wished to become a gender that was neither male nor female. Living in San Francisco, I was fortunate to be able to meet others in the community who wished to remain outside of the binary world of male or female. These people, along with my own feelings about being trans, reinforced my belief that our experiences deserve recognition by the LGBT and straight communities.

More importantly, I wished to create a book in which the experiences of female-to-male (FTM) transgender men could be read alongside the stories of those who also started their life as female, but identify as something else entirely. Although we all identify and express our gender differently, our struggle for this freedom is the same. This book focuses specifically on those of us who were assigned female at birth, but who do not identify as female fully or at all.

Finding contributors for this anthology was an exciting experience. To my great delight there were many gender variant persons who were willing to share their stories. I also discovered the many ways in which people transition. This diversity in experience added to the many ways the contributors identify themselves: gender variant, transgender, third gender, nongender, monster trans, mtm, genderqueer, transman, trannyboy, ftm, transsexual. Despite these differences in self-identification, background, and lifestyle, we all share a common bond of determining for ourselves what it means to live as a gender variant person.

These writers allow us a firsthand look into their own experiences with the complexities of sex and gender. From Michael Hernandez writing about sex and disclosure to Dean Spade giving us his story about pronoun usage, each of these stories gives the reader insight into how we live, and who we are. I found the poetry of Rian Fierros and Mac McCord to be very powerful words about their lives, and how they have unfolded. One of the more important aspects of this book is that it contains writing from an entire range of backgrounds including race, class, and sexual orientation. My deepest appreciation goes to all of the writers, whose work made this book a reality.

I would also like to thank to a few people without whom this book would not exist: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Blake Nemec, Lee Krist, Chelsea Starr you have all inspired me and helped me in so many countless ways. Special thanks goes to Rhani Remedes: you are a constant in a world of inconsistencies. To Kris Alexanderson, thank you endlessly for being so amazing, Im the luckiest tranny in the world to have you in my life. To all the trans pioneers that have helped pave the way for the rest of us, thanking you is not enough, we owe our lives to you. Books like this have the ability to inspire more of us to live free, join the struggle, and eradicate the repression that surrounds our lives.

It is essential that more work shed light on gender freedom in the world. I urge others to speak up, contribute, write books, paint, film, organize, talk back, and come together to dissolve the written and unwritten rules. We must continue to keep the dialogue open if we are to achieve a place in the world where gender is allowed to be expressed by an individual however they please. To all who have ever said, This doesnt work for me, and stepped out of the clutches of what society deems right; your liberation is meaningful to us all.

Morty Diamond

New York, NY

Transgressive Lust
Michael M. Hernandez

Lust is about passion. About desire. About satisfaction. Lust, for me, is an intense feeling most easily triggered by smell, materializing in the pit of my belly. The smell of a new leather jacket; the pungency and muskiness of sweat exuded during fear or intense excitement; sandalwood, sage, or a particular cologne. Smell alone can be enough to set me off. Its a purely chemical reaction to stimuli, fraught with an almost obsessive desire to taste, smell and feed the intense craving that usually manifests when I least expect it.

May 1997. Ive bellied up to the bar and Im waiting for the overworked bartender to bring back the overpriced domestic beer and Jack Daniels/Coke that I ordered ten minutes ago. Its hot. The number of bodies jammed into the room serves to choke out any measurable benefit provided by the air conditioning unit that I suspect actually works under normal circumstances. But these arent normal circumstances, as evidenced by the overwhelming aroma of testosterone and sweat blended perfectly with the unmistakable scent of leather and Crisco. Perhaps the Crisco is simply my imagination running wild. These pungent blends of fragrance are starting to make my head swim and serve to trigger a variety of memories. In my minds eye I catch short glimpses of images such as piss scenes, the sounds of fucking in the stairwells, cigars, a dance where you could cut through the feelings of lust and raw sensuality with a knife. I saw things through different eyes then and different eyes saw me.

I am brought out of my reverie by an odd sensation of being watched. Out of the corner of my eye I spy a hot-looking man staring at me. He has that look on his face and a huge grin to boot.

Anyone who has seen that look can tell you when it happens. Its sort of a cross between the wantonness of Id-jump-ya-if-I-had-half-the-chance and the coyness of Im-a-shy-kinda-guy. It has taken me quite some time to realize that I could be on the receiving end of that type of look. I have a knack for being clueless when someone is sending those telltale nonverbal signals of attraction. Thats because Im short, stocky, overwhelmingly furry, bald or balding depending on your perspective and have a tendency to channel intensity, often forgetting to smile. It is the intensity and lack of outward friendliness that has often served to discourage any potential tricks/fuckbuddies from approaching me.