Susan Stanton

I've been reading the reviews, blogs and columns on the recent documentary CNN about Susan Stantion and her transistion from the time she came out when she was the city manager for a small city in Florida to her recent job as the city manager of another city in Florida. I'll be honest to say I didn't watch the documentary, for several reasons.

First, much of these documentaries are the same, with the same life story and same career story. Susan's isn't significantly different except she chose to come out in a public forum (city council meeting) without privately consulting the members to know how they would react, let alone vote to retain then him as the city manager through her transistion. In short, she screwed herself by not doing her homework behind closed doors.

Second, she villified the transgender community during the months following her outing and then firing. Despite all the best advice from many leaders in the transcommunity, she let loose a litany of demeaning and denigrating comments in interviews separating herself as a woman from the rest of the transwomen, either in or post transistion. And yet she had just started her transistion.

Third, she sought out the publicity for her plight and transistion. She gave interviews whenever and wherever she could to tell her story of her situation as a real woman (not trans anything) and her firing. She wanted the spotlight and when she was criticized, even by the transcommunity, she continued to criticize transpeople, including calling many of them, "men in dresses". This despite the reality she was marginally passing herself.

Fourth, when she wasd fired, her contract guarranteed her a full year salary and health insurance. While trying to make the public believe she lost her job and wasn't making money anymore, and was looking for another city manager job, she was financially fine. We're talking low six figure salary with benefits too.

In addition, shortly after her firing she set herself up as a consultant for transgender issues and programs. For a modest fee, of course, she would travel to the place, give talks and promote transgender rights. All like she was suddenly an expert about and on transgender issues and people. Yes, while criticizing the very same community and people in interviews.

So it showed she was in it for the money. But then poor she wasn't. Nor humble.

And lastly, she sold her story to CNN for the price of her sex reassignment surgery. While many transwomen go in debt for their surgery - it's not commonly covered by health insurance but is covered by some employers now, she was handed a check in return for the rights to the most intimate details of her life and transistion.

Others have done this with or for documentaries, most in exchange for partial or full payment for the $15-20K surgery. But Susan had the nerve to deny the fact after she confirmed the fact. She simply lied about it to make the documentary in progress look like an honest one and her volunteering for it. As they say, yeah right.

Susan Stanton doesn't represent the ten of thousands of post-transistion women. She doesn't have the right to claim her story as one, only one as a greed, publicity seeking bitch. Yes, transwomen can be bitches too, she's a shining example. She was lucky to find a new job in the same career at about the same salary and benefits as her old one.

Except for a year of missing salary, using her savings, retirement and other investments to live, she really didn't lose when the vast majority of transwomen lose their jobs, usually their career and almost all their savings during and after their transistion. Yes, she lost her wife and children. That's the reality, very few transistion and keep them in marriage.

Some transwomen fair better with supporting employers, some resurrect their career years later, and some find new careers where they end up personally and professional better. But they're not the majority of transwomen. Susan kept her career with only a slight lose of money, with her major bills in her transistion costs paid by CNN.

She's not the example but the exception. And not by herself, but by luck she sold herself for the documentary and lucked out with getting a new job. Her story isn't the norm, but one created by her for her self-presevation defining herself as a woman and not transgender. Don't mistake her sympathies for the transcommunity or her empathies for other transwomen, it's not real.

It's all a show for the show. And she can seperate herself of the rest of transwomen and not one of them. Yeah, right. And they don't claim her either. Not unlike a bottle of wine gone bad. No one wants it and it can't disguise itself. She's not the hero, or heroine, and she's more the evil queen who can't stand the people other attribute her to in their reviews, columns and blogs on her and the documentary.

Your time is better spent with the young transwomen and their stories. They're the future, they're more honest and really need the help. People and life stories like Kimberely Reed and others. Or better yet, those in college or starting their careers trying to find acceptance to just get on with their life and career. They're worth our attention and support. Not Susan.

It's not about fairness

I was reading the column by someone with the Organisation Internationale des Intersexués (OII, an Intersex organization) about the International Olympic Committe (IOC) and how the IOC has never treated intersexed athletes with respect and fairness, including the recent events with Caster Semenaya of South Africa. I've expressed my view of her and noted she's not by definition intersexed, just an under developed male, and has no right to compete as female.

But the OII seems that all intersexed people should be able to compete in the sex and gender of their choice, despite any obvious or less than obvious advantages they have over non-intersexed atheletes, as the Caster case also showed (3 times the level of testosterone as female athletes). They think somehow people can just show up, announce their sex and gender, and compete accordingly.

And they expect the IOC to agree to allow it. It's about fairness in their mind. Except the OII fails to understand it's not about fairness for a small group of people and less so athletes, but the whole of the athletic community. It's a relative fairness, and as much as you want to complain about the binary sex and gender system, and intersex and transgender atheletes are discriminated against, it's what is.

And the OII fails to understand many professional organizations have rules and proceedures for transgender athletes to compete in the new sex and gender, Marianne Bagger and others have demonstrated this quite professionally by following them to compete openly and fairly. That's what the Athletic Association of South Africa should have done with Caster, make her transistion first, then compete.

That would be fair. But I suspect, when she does transistion, she won't be as dominate as she was in the Berlin competition in 2009 when the complaints were lodged against her. I won't argue the IOC mishandled her case, badly in fact. That's obvious, and they're simply trying to fixing their own problems. And they even botched that. But at least they issued rules for her for future competitions.

In the end the OII needs to take a step back, take deep breath, and see the larger picture, and then put themselves in that instead of trying to make their own picture of the world, and their view of fairness no one else agrees with. They need to get real about themselves and more understanding of others. Now that's fairness for all of us.

Enough already

Update.-- I'll forgive the new MTV show "Transform Me", or at least from the first episode. I watched it later (rerun) and thought it wasn't all that bad. Some younger transwomen, as some older ones have, want to just be like other women and it's fair for them to try and improve their looks, makeup and wardrobe. I still think it's kinda' hype, but I guess ok hype. I just wish there was a way to lose the trans label for post-transistion women, it's unnecessary and unfair.

Ok, this is rant about several things, which means you can really ignore the rest if you're not into reading my personal rants or vents at the world around, about, with transgender people and the transgender community. It's really boring, except of course as an exercise for me to yell from my corner of the world standing on my soapbox. Ok, enough explanation. Onward.

First, enough of the documentaries about people's transistions. I won't argue the recent film, "Prodigol Son", is excellent and worth seeing once. This is about the TV documentaries of individuals from childhood to post-transistion, such as the recent one by Steven/Susan Stanton. She wasn't liked by the transcommunity when she transistioned and no one wants her see or hear her again.

One reason people do this, invite the cameras into the life like that, is simple. It's to pay for the sex reassignment surgery, in part of more often entirely, as with Susan Stanton. Selling yourself to get the surgery doesn't do justice to the many who need it more and can't get insurnance which covers it (rare anyway) or pay for it out of pocket, or at least not without going in debt for $15-20K.

The other reason is the life stories doesn't change. There's too many common threads running through the life of those who transistion. There's already a wealth of books and documentaries of self-destructive people who finally got through their transistion with some sense of being. It's the sad reality of the discrimination, but also for the bad decisions by the individuals.

And lastly, with this one, Susan Stanton not just criticized the transcommunity and other transwomen, she distanced herself from it by calling herself "a woman" as opposed to "those" transwomen. In short she pissed everyone in the community off enough no one had any sympathy for her when she found herself of need of it, especially from the very community she villified.

What we need of stories of successful post-transistion women, and there are far more of them and their stories. That's what's needed, not another see where I've been through story.

Second, Logo TV channel. Enough RuPaul and his dumbass drag show. And I'll add the new "Transform Me" show looking for transwomen to become beautiful women. What happened to just being ordinary and human? Why do we have to expect transwomen be stereotypical women who only want to look pretty?

It's stupid. It's ok to look good, and some of these shows are ok to see people transformed, but it's not the norm of women. Just sit at a local mall and watch women. How many dress up with clothes and makeup in public? Let's get real. Some shows do and are real about their transformation, but most push wanting to look beautiful.

Third, stop the confusing ideas of what's transgender and who's transgender. It's not right or fair to the many post-transistion and the many in transistion to be thought in the same way as drag queens, cross-dressers and other pseudo-transgender (neither of these are in the truest sense of the DSM) people.

There are significant and clear differences between those transistioning and especially those who have transistioned. They don't need or deserve the label the pseudo-transpeople claim as transgender and forget to distinguish. There is a clear and obvious difference and distinction between those being and living as women and those pretending to be women.

Clothes don't make you a woman, being does. Pretending and playing dressup doesn't make you a woman, living as one does. Dressup is fine when it's for the occasion as women do, but not when men want to wear the clothes for fun. The former take the clothes off and they're still women, the latter resume their life as men. Big difference.

It's the very reason the vast majority of post-transistion women walk away from the transcommunity and forget their past. It's not them and not what they want to go back to. And it's not what we need to see, especially in the life documentaries and in the shows. It's about being real and human versus pretending. Don't confuse the latter with the former.

Ok, I feel better.

Transistion Advice

I read a non-public forum (can't directly link to the post) where someone posted their advice for a transistion, and unfortunately, after reading it, I couldn't disagree more. Their advice is well-founded and good, but my criticism is that it is entirely based on the individual in the transcommunity. To which I responded with the following.

I would only counter having one or two close friends who are trans or understand transpeople, and then avoid the transcommunity altogether. The peole in the transcommunity generally are either be dismissive (the cliquish attitude) or overly positive (unrealistic). Develop your friends and contacts among the rest of the world because that's where you'll live post-transistion, not with the commuity - unless you're a public figure who wants to be there or has little choice.

There a many transpeople who transistion without the transcommunity and use the wealth of professional and personal resources to get through and beyond their transistion. Many of the medical and other professionals provide the complete suite of services you need (physicians, surgeons, therapists, appearance, etc.) outside of community. They may support the community but they work with the clients individually, and not through the community.

I would say to find a good physician, therapist, and appearance specialists (face, wardrobe, etc.). They'll be more honest, understanding and supportive of you and your transistion to succeed than other transpeople being cheerleaders, or the opposite.

Don't think you need other transpeople or the transcommunity, and only support it, if you want, for the issues you care about. This is important if you don't want to develop the thick skin approach or don't want to live with the inbred attitudes often found in the community.

And realize most importantly, you can't put yourself back in the closet. So be very careful not only how you come out, but when. Coming out early has its pitfalls and puts undue stress on you and your appearance to meet expectations. You can actually get most of the way through your transistion to coming out just before going fulltime, and after you've learned what it takes and are ready.

I would go so far as to say, only do so when it's clearly obvious to others what you're doing, and even then do it cautiously and carefully. Waiting helps the understanding and acceptance by others as they've seen you change and are less surprised. This is important with your professional life and career where you want to stay without any significant impact. This is unlikely but less so when they value you and your work.

Anyway, that's what I wrote.

The Mobius Strip

I've read over and over people describing gender as a spectrum. I've even used it myself. But since then, I've come to the idea that gender is more a Mobius Strip with male on one side and female on the other where any point on the strip has both and any direction leads to the other. To show this I use a demonstration.

Take a strip of paper, say a half-inch wide and 8-9 inches long. Write male on one side and female on the other side. In the middle on each side draw a line and 50%. On each end write 99% on each side (since no sex is 100% except a few rare girls) and 1% on both sides of the other end. Then twist the strip and connect the ends where the 1% on one side overlaps the 99% on the other. That's my idea of the Mobius strip of gender. It's the continuous spectrum and show anywhere you are you're both male and female.

If you follow the strip from one 99%/1% side around through the 50%/50% point, you'll end up at the other 99%/1% side. It's an endless, continuous spectrum. We're somewhere on the strip, and free and fluid to move any direction we are and want to be. We're fluid in our journey on the gender spectrum.