Normal

No matter what font I choose, this font happens.

I'm reading a book called Normal, by Amy Bloom, whose name is inexplicably familiar to me, though I am not certain I have read anything else by her. It's about Female-To-Male transsexuals, heterosexual male crossdressers, and finally, the intersexed, commonly known as hermaphrodites.

Endless fascination. I could do about a hundred riffs on the subject(s), but I'll try to limit myself to some hopefully cogent thoughts, as the endless toil of phone answering again beckons. I'm also still pondering a talk I went to with Rachel last night about GLBT issues and religion.

I think perhaps a good entry point, therefore, would be the conversation I had with Randi, a Male-To-Female transsexual where I work. It wasn't really even a conversation. The box office was crowded and loud, and people were sort of going back and forth shouting things, as happens occassionally. Randi was across from me at Albert's (the treasurer, my de facto boss, and another story) chair, and one of the noisy men I have trouble keeping straight was saying some noisy thing with a lot of swearing in it. And Randi, a very slim, tall, well-but-a-little-tartily dressed African American woman (ok, tartily is not quite right. I say tartily because she's thinner than I am, and there's something about her sexuality that is sharp and metallic and therefore threatening, therefore to be distrusted), Randi looks up and says something to the effect of "Don't use that language, there are Christians in here, myself among them."

Without thinking about it, I look up, and catch Randi's eyes, and smile. I know the kind of smile it is, it's a sly one, a little grin, a you-and-me-are-in-this-joke-together smile. I get good results from that smile. People like to be together, and people like to be together at the exclusion of those who are not in the together at the moment. Jokes are the best for this. Jokes, between friends, are like a clannish sort of love. I like this smile, too. I feel worldly-wise and smart when I wear it, fun, my insecurities just a jacket that this keen minded, sharp, sparkling eyed person wears from time to time. Randi, however, does not appear to like this smile.

"Why're you laughing?" she says, smiling back in an uneasy way I am not used to from her; she always seems so confident. "I am a Christian." She's laughing too, but something in our exchange has gone wrong. "Don't laugh at me, you'll hurt my feelings."

"I know," I say, or "I believe you," or something, backpedeling as fast as I can. I know there is still a sly bubble of laughter in my voice, as much protection as her smile, I now see, may be. She looks suddenly vulnerable, her eyes want my approval, but don't want to ask for it. Oh no, I think, I've done something wrong. I, who wrote my whole thesis on religion and gender-crossing, do not even have the necessary skills to have a normal social exchange with the only real gender-crosser I know. What, exactly, I wonder, is the joke? What did I assume Randi and I were sharing, that we clearly were not?

First of all, I should admit that from the beginning, Randi made me nervous. There is really nothing masculine about her, in any overt sense. Yet, before I knew her history, every time she came into the office, something inside me said, man, or at least, not a woman like you. I thought I was being ridiculous and crazy. So her voice was a little deep, this was clearly unwarranted. But I couldn't relax. I was on tinterhooks every time she was in my presence. Of course, this could partially be explained by her outspoken, politically incorrect, and, in my ever-so-careful, academically-trained mind, often incoherent opinions on everything from race to sex to the war in Iraq. (She voted, if anyone is interested, for Bush, and she indicated this by gesturing to her hard-won genitalia.) However, whether or not this was a factor in my discomfort, I have to say that I felt a good deal of relief when it was finally stated clearly that she is a transsexual. I also felt clever, and intuitive, and generally grand about my own perception, especially when I just learned that Heather, a co-worker who I think is generally on top of things, did not know she was a transsexual at all.

All right, so, my always very limited relations with post-revelation Randi were, in my mind, a bit more comfortable than those with pre-revelation Randi, and gave me fodder with which to ponder (Do you ponder with fodder? Well.) all sorts of questions of femininity, hers and mine, and where they intersected and did not intersect. Apparently to the point where I had invented, completely unconsciously, a secret understanding we could inhabit together.

I'm worried about this, though not in a terrible way. After all, I doubt that Randi has given this moment a second thought. Just yesterday she made a comment to tall young Michael (explanations later) about how nice it was to have a "real man" in the office, that women "got nervous" without one and "these two foo-foos," (meaning, I assume, Albert and short older Michael) did not count. So, while I would still hate to be offensive to her, I assume that political correctness is not high on her list of priorities.

But I want to know. What was the joke? Is it (and should I be ashamed of this, if it is so?) that she is a sexual deviant, socially speaking, and therefore occupies a transgressive space in religion. I, on the other hand, am not a sexual deviant, or not in any obvious way, and not in any obvious way a deviant at all. The church has been happy to have me. Nonetheless, I am a mental deviant, and in some ways a spiritual deviant, from some of the doctrines of the church. So, somehow, her public and visible transgression enrolled her in a transgressive Christian club, we might say, which I myself am enrolled in, though without my consent, no one need ever know. And that was the joke, which somehow she was supposed to get? I think maybe I expected her to get it because her incongruity with mainstream Christianity is so obvious, and that... well, I'm not pleased about that. I would like to not make such assumptions, even if my society does (as though that is a breezy sort of task.)

I think it's something like that. That her difference is so public, and so others (namely me) can project a shared differentness, or use her as a place to locate difference.

I'm not sure this is readable, but I do think the ideas are interesting, so ask me if you don't get it and I'll try again.

Time to post this, since it is several days after I began.