(note: Sentences in bold were put in emphasis for my presentation purposes. These were my notes which I consulted as I spoke. Again, I have removed my usual arsenal of comical asides and jokes to get to the heart of the topic, which was prejudism.)

Intro

My name is Pristine. But you can call me anything you like. That’s not going to change a thing.

People have called me a transvestite but I prefer to see myself as a girl who uses all her creative powers to make a pretty frame around this Adam’s apple.

I must confess that when David asked me to come here and speak of my experiences with prejudism within the GLBT community, the first thing I thought about was DOES HE WANT ME TO TALK ABOUT:

A) Being a transvestite (the age-old gag of movie comedies), usually used in the fields of psychological studies as a clinical case of deviance, normally associated with heterosexual men. But then I openly call myself a homosexual and I have no problems with it.

B) Being an Asian individual (the last refuge of stand-up comics) in a culture that worships Abercrombie and Fitch cookiecutters, but also exotifies each race, delineating individuals into caricatures.

C) Being in the no-gay man’s land past my twenties, where a mainstream culture worships youth and a gay culture clings to the word : BOY more desperately than velvet rope fiends to Paris Hilton OR

D) The absolute worse scenario of all: being from New Jersey and being called “Bridge & Tunnel” by guys who moved to New York City from Idaho and racked up a total of three weeks in Williamsburg.

My life is a fringe within a fringe withing a fringe. Let me explain: I am often mistaken by gay guys who think I’m a Crossdresser or a CD, who are traditionally heterosexual identified (which I am not), but then I am sometimes frowned upon by CDs (some who feel I am outing their latent homosexual desires) because I am not afraid to say a cigar is sometimes not a cigar. Now comes the surgery-destined TG’s (who chose to live full time, and experience a whole new set of problems)(There is a tendency to identify oneself as legitimate only if he or she was already on a path to transitioning, hormone taking, and Sexual reassignment surgery) Unfortunately, the legitimate people sometimes look down on the illegitimate sons as people who don’t have the commitment to go all the way. In reassignment “street cred speak,” it would be said that I do not have the seriousness to obtain official status as a “true” transgender woman (which is really, just another phrase for assimilation, membership, or paradoxically, that which separates the men from the boys).

So there’s never a place to run. To complicate matters even more, gay males like men to be men. When you are a man who likes to take the traditional girl roles in and out of the bedroom, well that’s bound to receive additional flak in this day and age of straightacting friends of Dorothy. We all know that bottoms are looked down upon, as the supply far outweighs the demand.

And finally we enter the race identity issue. Where an Asian male, the last frontier of allowable stand-up comic fodder, is disreputed as an underachiever in certain departments

Well, whatever it is: One thing is clear: I need to move out of New Jersey.

Being a transplant (in more ways than one), has facilitated complete and utter alienation but a sense of empathy at the same time. Even when I read about and watch trans* identified experiences, I know, deep down, that I won’t experience the same conditions and reactions as the lives portrayed. If a trans* identified Caucasian is one step closer to acceptance, a trans* minority is an additional step behind. And that’s before gay identity even enters the discussion. It’s a multi-tiered situation. Every stove is going at once.

In a way, this has helped free me from cultural mores and tradition, because even the greatest trainer of social behavior (the media), cannot reach me as a form of peer pressure. And being on the outside of the outside of the outside, it has enabled me to notice loopholes and cross-community similarities in what would otherwise be a perfect picture.

Still for every statement I make, keep in mind there’s always an exception, a counterstatement. So please take what I say as a general impression from a personal perspective, stamped at this particularly moment in time. We are all living organisms. Change is possible at every moment of our journey through life. No sentence or individual can represent an entire community. To believe so would be to surrender to the tyranny of labeling.

1. CATEGORIZATION / CLASSIFICATION

Human beings created anthropological classification to categorize and understand other human beings. The operating mechanism to making this lexicon work among human beings is to separate. You belong here. You don’t fit these bullet points, you go over there. This one here has got two overlapping traits: We’ll tuck him under the rug for now. We have to keep in mind that categorization facilitates ease of communication. How many times have we said, She’s, you know, what you would call a _______ Then everyone nods knowingly. “Ohhhhh, I see….” It’s human nature to classify and categorize. Where we once had peer pressure and social scientists to assist us in these duties, we now have additional help from the media.

For example, if you were to believe what your television programs tell you, you would imagine that all gay men can color match drapes, accessorize properly, are either a fey feminine miss thing, or the incredible hulk. What about all the folks who fall in between? I’ve never seen any portrayals or reality shows about trailer park homosexuals who can hand tune a six pack holly carb on a 68 cuda without a torque wrench, have you? Well they exist. Heaven only knows how they cope with zero representation. Do they make up the rules as they go along?

I think the danger with the information age, is that we tend to function less on our gut instinct, and instead, we have invested too much in the absolutism of words.

People who argue about personal politics are constantly harping over the excruciating minutiae of each word. Online discussion groups and communities quote each other down to the last syllable to make a case for arguing a two hundred post long thread.

Even at the most basic level of categorization, the trans(asterisk) group, which was created as an umbrella, a catchall to represent the variety of transfolk underneath it, is so complex that I’ve more often than not, found gay men HAGGLING with me over what I am and what I am not. Make no mistake about it. It’s a shopping mall of gender labeling. Gay people, as well as trans folk are very confused about the terminologies. I can’t go into a chat room or a bar without having to explain myself. There is the cd, tv, ts, tg, post-op, pre-op, draq queens, drag kings , she-males, ftm, mtf, bois, genderqueer, genderfuck. I obviously can’t speak on behalf of all these different groups. So I’ll just talk about myself. Being that we are all under the umbrella, I’ve found that there are many overlapping characteristics and similar problems we experience. ULTIMATELY, IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT NO MATTER WHAT CATEGORY YOU SEE AND CHOSE TO ALIGN YOURSELF IN, when prejudism strikes, it does not discriminate in it’s ignorance. THAT’S THE WHOLE ESSENCE OF BIGOTRY.

Paradoxically, bigotry, as an approach, isn’t smart enough to continually subcategorize down to the granular level of an individual.

Have you ever wondered why male-to-female trans people tend to wear skirts? I have. I’ve asked why. And I think it’s that clear and comfortable demarcation between man and woman, black and white. (Even though most girls I know consider wearing a skirt an event these days) It’s clear cut, a classification helper. If I walked into a trans-bar and I wore pants, none of the admirers (or trannychasers would even look at me) My problem is that no matter what I do, there’s still this gigantic apple stuck in my throat. So I’m in that dream race where I never quite reach the finishing line. A friend versed in statistics called me an outlying factor. That means I am that .01 percent that keeps statisticians in the office on a Friday evening. You see my problem here: I can’t even get a date with a math geek.

Much of the prejudice stems from other groups making assumptions and attempting to pigeonhole people into neat categories. Folks under the transgender umbrella are certainly not free from the guilty parties when it comes to categorization and labeling amongst themselves. In fact there is such a thing as transphobia among transgender people. It’s almost a self-inflicted hate and shame. The irony of the asterisk in the umbrella, is that what was originally created to be an inclusive term, backfired, and became a broad generalization that enabled small minds to flatten diversity into a one dimensional identity.

Try to think of a world without labels. Now think about people without clothes. How would we categorize them. More difficult isn’t it?

It all starts from the need to be accepted. I won’t be bashful here so I’ll say this: Acceptance and getting sex are two big reasons for people doing what they do.

To a great degree, the idea of success, no matter how much people may deny it, is assimilation

2. ASSIMILATION: The Stanford Prison Experiment

The exchange of information, data, biographies, experiences have combined to create a fresh understanding of the subject while it is still changing. Because of the advancements in technology, the rate of groups evolving has accelerated, and what once took many decades to be noticed, such as the realization of the feminine mystique, the women’s liberation movement, and desegregation) we are now able to see communities evolve within the recent memory of newly mainstream groups, with the help and speed of modern communications.

So in light of this, there’s an unsettling atmosphere where recently accepted groups adopt the attitudes and roles of their recent oppressors and apply it to the next fringe group in line. (The famous Stanford Prison Experiment (of people randomly picked to become prisoners and guards. Philip Zimbardo) 1971 showed that the moment people were placed in a position of authority to make and enforce rules, they immediately assumed authority. Why? Because the essence of belonging is defined as much by what does NOT belong as what does.

If you drew a geometrical shape in white on a piece of white paper, it would be difficult to make out where the border was. But were you to shade the regions around that shape, or as artists would call, the negative space, you would immediately see the shape, even without having to draw it. Without an outer circle, there wouldn’t exist an inner circle.

Let’s talk of a time before the label transgender became official. I think it would be safe to say that very few people would want to police the exclusivity of an unpopular club. But the moment the category was created and a group gains prominence, The type-A personalities immediately drew the line, snatched ownership and said Mine! Mine! Mine! I belong, you don’t!

Passing for example, in the trans* world is the most utilized euphemism for assimilation. Passing is when a trans* individual can go out in public and not be read, clocked, or found out. As an Asian person, I see many parallels between passing as a girl to passing for what is considered “hot” in the mainstream gay community. Ultimately, they are all varying degrees of surrendering to peer pressure. It is all fine and well to be a fey naked civil servant in Chelsea, but at the end of the day, one will end up returning to an empty bed.

A day will come when all out acceptence is achieved, and there is next to no prejudices against trans people. Personally I will miss some of these edgy times, because I think in the presence of adversity, we sometimes excel and give our best. So enjoy these days.

3. Prejudism From Trans People

I think being a transvestite, despite of what our admirers say to us (only in private) as being the best of both worlds, is actually the worst of three worlds. The heterosexual, the homosexual, and the transgender.

Hormones change your physique, but it doesn’t change time, nor mental processes, nor values. I have met people who just want to be happy with their self-image, as well as people who have their self-image apparently mixed up with Jessica Alba’s self-image. Hormones isn’t a magic pill that turns anyone into an O.C. hottie. Therefore I think there’s been a movement from the younger generation of trans-identified people to transition while time is still on their side. Another generation of post-op people who transitioned later on in life, on the other hand, may feel lonely with the decisions they may have had to make. One way or another, it’s not always a bed of roses: Being a woman in a partriachal society is a difficult thing to begin with. As a result, those of us who have chosen to have one foot in the water and another in heels have sometimes gotten frowned upon. We are seen as not having earned our legitimacy and thus, been officially validated. I feel that in my case, if there’s no gender dysphoria from within, why fix something that ain’t broke? I love my factory originals, they seem to be working fine.

There seems to be a prevailing attitude that prejudism is non-transferrable. It goes something like this: Well, my people have already earned our badge of courage by enduring abuse from the mainstream. It would be impossible for us to do the same to the next group in line. But I have seen learned bad behavior monkeyed by those who have ascended. One sees this from different races, sexual orientation, and even in the form of transphobia from transgender people. The attitude is If we have gone through all that transitioning and surgery to belong and be assimilated, why should we be outed by someone who visibly does not belong? Put simply, the newly inducted member of the country club will always be the first to lose composure when a guest member of his kind makes a faux pas. Why? His credibility has been drained by association. So it’s not unheard of for transitioned people to sometimes disappear or mock the ones who didn’t have the ambition (or financial resources) to go all the way. (Or, as an acquaintance once put it gently: “WHAT? DOESN’T HE HAVE THE BALLS TO BE A REAL GIRL?”) One seeks legitimacy by entering the inner circle.

4. EDUCATION:

I think the way we process information has always been critical to how we view the world. Anthropologists may have done empirical research, but how we process their conclusions may still end up making all the difference between a prejudiced view and one of empathy.

Wherever I go, people will ask me about my trans state, much like they ask about where I came from. (There’s many similarities between racial prejudism and gender prejudism, if one were to inspect it carefully). The people who don’t want to know, will stay away, but the ones who are curious will ask. But they’ll always ask the same thing. And In the meantime, everyone else gets to talk about the bad day they are having. And here I am, perpetually having to educate everyone, even when I’m trying to wash my hands in the bathroom, or dance at a club. I think it’s a syllogistic mistake to assume that once people are educated , they will cease to be prejudiced. I assure you there are many educated people who remain bigoted. However, I will say education is the best tool we presently have for eradicating bigotry and prejudism. And that’s not just book education. Being educated to me means knowing other conditions that are dissimilar to mine exists. Being educated means having empathy. Being educated also means being experienced.

CONCLUSION

When one travels to another country, it’s often an illuminating experience to want to express your thoughts to newfound friends. Despite this yearning, this richness, and complexity within you, you just can’t find the words to convey it. Well, when I return back to my own country, I sometimes watch transplants from other countries, using simple words in their adopted language. Despite all the yearning, richness, and complexity that may very well be within them, the few words we recognize are the only building blocks they have, as a gateway to the vast universe behind their lips. I think prejudism is a sort of misunderstanding, an oversight, of the existence of this universe. Prejudism flattens and delineates.

In sticking with a few familiar words, you give up discovering the world.

Thank You and Good Night.

© 2005 Pristine Ann Gee No part of this piece may be reproduced or used without permission from the author.

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