(UN)Packing Gender Conference

I just got home from spending the entire day at the downtown library for Trans Action's 1st Annual "(UN)Packing Gender Conference", which was a really refreshing and exhausting experience.

Only exhausting because at the wee hour of 7:30am (that's very, very early for me) my friend, Jay, drove by to rip me from my precious slumber like a gremlin snatching a crying baby from a crib. Well, maybe that's a bit dramatic, but it didn't feel like it at the time. Then off we went to help get things setup for the conference; a table of muffins, bagels, grapes, juice, waters. Room setup. Signs. Yada yada.

Workshop #1: Makeup!

The first workshop I attended with orange juice and a bagel in hand pertained to highlighting feminine features with the magic of makeup. I chose this one over the how-to-shave workshop going on at the same time because I can't resist my love for special FX makeup. I know how to make a bloody eye socket, zombies, werewolves, fangs and anything mutilated or melted - but beauty makeup? It couldn't possibly be more foreign to me. Eye liner? Eye shadow? What's the difference? Huhwha?

And I learned a few things! Like that applying white eye-liner under one's eye can make it look larger. Or that applying a light color to the inside eye area can help light reflect into the eye and have a bit of a popping effect. Or bringing out cheekbones with glittery light makeup.

But then the instructor got side-tracked into a conversation about removing nail polish blah blah and I couldn't resist raising my hand eventually and asking, "Could you elaborate more on makeup tips for enhancing feminine facial characteristics?"

It became clear in no time that he thought I was referring to myself and meanwhile a woman in the audience who had earlier mentioned she worked in beauty makeup stared at me. Eventually I had to clarify that I just wanted to know tips in general and not for my specific complexion or jawline.

Workshop #2: Trans n' Families!

Afterwards, I wandered over to the 11:35am Trans n' Families workshop to sit on the panel with my father and brother. The woman who had been staring at me in the makeup workshop turned out to be the mother of a trans girl who was also on the panel. She later explained to me during lunch that she had been staring at me earlier because she thought I was a cisgender guy wanting feminine makeup tips for myself. And that, while staring, she was lost in thought pondering over ways I could feminize my appearance and had concluded that this poor guy had no hope of ever passing as a cisgender woman. HA! Talk about flattering! She only later admitted this to me after the panel where she learned I was a trans feller. Awesome.

My pops and brother were adorable and touching on the panel. When asked when they first suspected their child was trans, my father responded that it had never occurred to him because how my gender expression manifested wasn't relevant to him. Feminine, masculine, whatever. To him, his role is to help me live happy and to support his sons as unique individuals. He explained that my being trans has actually been wonderful for him because he's spent his life living as a cisgender heterosexual male and, because of this, hasn't had intimate access to this "community of unbelievably amazing people" he's been exposed to by having me as a child. It was so damn cute.

My brother talked about how I'm the same brother he loves and that he's just learned something new about me. And that, to him, my gender expression or trans identity are such a small speck of dust in his overall perception of who I am (which he described as a "mountain of mannerisms, ideas, personality, interests, memories,...") that my coming out as trans wasn't a big deal to him.

It was really touching, the two of them. My poor mum would've been there also, but she later told me a sob story about how she'd gone to a movie the night prior, her phone was off, she'd forgotten, slept in, didn't turn her phone on til' later, got my text messages, the realization of what she'd forgotten hit her, called to apologize profusely, on and on.

Most Important: Lunch!

After the panel a group of us - including that makeup mum and her daughter - went to go grab lunch. While at lunch I learned from the two of them that the laws regarding name and gender change have been altered recently in Utah. First, the cost of a name change has gone from around $100 to $350. Second, having one's gender marker changed on their I.D. has become much more complicated. Oy.

The daughter also told me a story about how when she went to the DMV to have a new I.D. picture taken (since her old, pre-transition one no longer looked anything like her), because her "appearance didn't match her gender marker" (which was male at the time) - subjective criteria to be determined by employees from the DMV - they refused to take a new photo of her until her gender marker was changed to "female".

Which makes me wonder - a little later down the road here when I have the "female" gender marker and I have an abundant amount of facial hair (oh yes, I will! Any day now!) and I go in for a new I.D. vs. my old 18-year-old-doesn't-look-anything-like-me-photo I.D., will the DMV employees determine that my appearance doesn't "match" my "gender marker" and therefore deny me a new I.D. photo? What about butch women? Or cisgender women with facial hair? What the heck?

We'll see.

I'm going to make a big ol' stink if they do, that's for sure.

Moving on.

Trans Clothing Swap!

At the end of lunch I dug through a "trans clothing swap" and snagged THREE SHIRTS AND 1 PAIR OF JAMMIE BOTTOMS. Oh yeah! This is a big deal! My clothing supply is tapped out from my body constantly shifting. Clothes that fit 3 months ago have been outgrown. In fact, I should do a photo update with my old JAWS shirt featured in earlier photos to demonstrate the body mass growth. It's ridiculous. Seriously.

Workshop #3 & Keynote Address!

After lunch my brother and I attended a "transmasculinity discussion panel" that opened up oodles of discussion. At one point the facilitator asked everyone to pretend that the room was a "masculine/feminine spectrum" and that the far south side of the room represented masculine and the north side represented feminine and to sit where they felt they rested on the spectrum. I sat near the center, barely tipping on the masculine side of things and explained that I sat where I did "because it's 2009". And, "If it was the the late 1600's when masculine fashion entailed wearing powdered wigs, blush, and high-heels I'd be sitting on the more feminine end of this spectrum. Or maybe just on the more impoverished, over on the east wall of chairs."

Soon the workshop turned into a heated discussion about "patriarchy" and the "power" of being dude which I've always had a difficult time with. Prior to transitioning and being read more and more as a cisgender male every day, when I was perceived as a masculine woman my experiences were uniquely my own and not synonymous with the class of "woman". I experienced a lot of pros and cons, but my pros and cons socially were vastly different than what I presume Pamela Anderson's have been or any feminine or hyper-feminine individual's, male/female/other.

I immediately thought about how feminine AND masculine men are harmed in many ways, like how they are not taken seriously by the police as victims of domestic violence (just one example out of a gazillion I could rant and rave about - for all individuals from binary gender pressures).

Which, in contrast to the man/woman shindig, there was an amazing keynote address to end the conference where the speaker, PJ Carlisle, phrased the whole crazy kaboodle in a little nutshell way that resonated: a "masculine/feminine gender tyranny" - one that has a huge impact on cisgender AND transgender individuals as human beings who are much more diverse than the hyper-masculine/hyper-feminine box leads us to assume.

Nice.

And now I'm home, tired but about to head out to play with the family pup, Gany, who has been severely neglected today! What kind of a vegan am I? Neglect no more!