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The
artist formerly known as gyrl...
It really shouldn't be the case, but meeting a
transgendered person is a novelty. That's the
initial thought and initial fact that actually
makes a mockery of the transgendered's whole
mission - to get into the gender that's right for
them and fit in there, enjoy a happy life there.
I heard about Charl on an online lesbian forum,
which is ironic when you realize that he's an
F2M, self described as being only 'technically a
lesbian,' as he is pre-operative. The last place
a woman becoming a man should feel at home is a
place full of women who love women, but he does
and I think that's a joyous fact. I didn't speak
to Charl online, but became aware of him from
reading forum threads, and was interested in
meeting him. I finally did at a real-time
gathering of forum participants and to be honest,
we didn't take much notice of each other until
the next gathering I attended when, fuelled by
philosophy, we found common ground
and became friends.
From the start, I'm afraid I leapt aboard my
customary soapbox and begged Charl to tell his
story online. He bravely agreed and even got
excited by the notion, a decision which I see as
all the more courageous considering he doesn't
see himself as transgendered so much as male. I
suppose I had assumed that a pre-op transgendered
would be in some form of gender-identity-limbo.
He must get truly fed up with assumptions like
that. As my friendship with Charl strengthens,
the whole transgender issue recedes, but it's
still there somewhere and I still firmly believe
that his story needs to be heard. Silence =
death, right?
This journey he's on - biological, emotional,
psychological, social etc may be more spectacular
than many journeys, but at the end of the day I'd
hazard a guess that he only wants the same as the
rest of the world - to feel comfortable in his
own skin.
Ulla Kelly 6.6.2000
While thinking about this and what I needed to
say as an appropriate introduction to a topic
that, though not yet on everybody's lips, is not
so much in the closet as even ten or five years
ago, an old cliché kept coming to mind. "A
rose by any other name..."
I don't for one minute think I am a rose (I don't
smell half as sweet), but I do know my name. It
might not be the same name I was given at birth,
but that is exactly the point. I have changed my
name. I want to (physically) change my gender. I
do not want to change the basic person I am. And
I haven't. What you see is what you get - what
you would have gotten if my gender had not been
screwed up somewhere along the line. What my
family saw from birth until the day I changed my
name, is still what they see now.
A transgendered person would be someone who is a
"male living in a female body". A
transsexual would be that same person who has
started gender-reassignment proceedings. So, I
suppose to the world at large who can only feel
comfortable with people they are able to label, I
am both.
But I am a man - in all but
one sense of the word.C.
Marais 1/07/2000
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