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6A / NEWS / WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2011 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
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To develop a presence TRANSGENDER MEN AND WOMEN SHARE THEIR OWN STORIES ONLINE
BY AVERY DAME editor@kansan.com
A guy in a YouTube video points to scars below his nipple, outlining the edge of his chest muscle as he discusses his complications in recovery. In the sidebar are screenshots of suggested videos, capturing snippets of other men.
One holds up a needle to the camera, a small vial in his other hand. Another leans back on his couch, his chest bound with bandages. Youtube links these videos together because of their tags: "trans," "tfm," "transition" and many others.
All of these images, prior to the advent of the internet, were available primarily in documentaries, news talk shows, medical documents and a few select photo collections. Rarely were they ever produced by the transgender subjects themselves, who talk about not only the positive parts of transition, but the negatives and the uncertainties.
Youtube and the vlog changed that. Taking Youtube's motto "Broadcast Yourself" to heart, vloggers used their webcams to record their life experience, both exciting and mundane. And trans-identified users began to vlog their transitions. These vloggers were publically trans not only to friends and among their local community, but to anyone who happened to search for the right terms on Youtube.
That's a long way from the first Youtube video: eighteen seconds of a guy at the zoo.
In her book "Gender Outlaw," author Kate Bornstein states that "for too many years, we transgendered people have been playing a hiding game, appearing in town one day, wearing a mask, and leaving when discovery was imminent. We would never tell anyone who we were, and so we were never really able to find one another.
In 1994, Bornstein spoke to a population in the early stages of becoming connected online. But as usenet groups, or Internet discussions systems, became increasingly accessible, trans people could see and talk to other trans-identified, English-speaking people from all over the world. These groups and later mailing lists, forums and blogs, allowed transgender people to discuss not only tips for "passing", but the meaning of the categories "transsexual" and "transgender."
--parts of myself in him", Avery said.
They could collectively organize to push back against the limitations of the gender identity disorder. They questioned medical convention that required they remain silent about their so-called "past" lives and erase their childhoods.
As Internet connections became capable of handling streaming video, anyone with an Internet connection could see what a transgender or transsexual person looked like and hear them speak about their experiences without the filter of production.
And for the questioning youth, find that they are not alone.
These changes are the foundation for my own project, I focus on trans male spectrum vloggers, asking the question, "What does it mean?" Never before have so many images of trans folk been so widely and freely available to such a large population.
But "transgender" as a broad sociopolitical identity category, as opposed to a medical diagnosis, is still fairly new. Trans people are as given to internal debate as any group; apparently you only get to join the monolith hive-mind once your adjective becomes a noun. Despite this, that they have taken off their masks and made their transness visible is a huge step forward—one that deserves recognition.
Young trans people are grappling with choosing whether to be out. They choose when and how they want to medically transition, if at all. Some of them identify as both gay and trans. And trans youth are coming out earlier and earlier, as groups like Trans Youth Family Allies step up to provide support.
IDENTITY (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
AVERY'S STORY Avery was born a woman, but has changed his appearance to live as a man
"In listening to him keep talking about himself, I started to recognize
As a high school girl, Avery had two boyfriends, or "beards" as he calls them. He uses that term now because he wasn't sexually attracted to them. He just knew that, as a girl, it was what he was supposed to do. Girls were supposed to date boys, so he went ahead and did it.
As a woman, Avery thought that he might be a lesbian because he was attracted to girls. He knew that he didn't identify with the label, but there was no other term for him that fit.
It wasn't until Avery began his freshman year at the University of Alabama in 2006 that he learned what it meant to be transgendered. He met his best friend, Laurel Sheffield, who is bisexual, that year. She introduced Avery to a new community and group of friends, including a man whom Avery soon learned was a transgendered man.
By the time he reached high school, Avery was living in Tuscaloosa, Ala. He performed solos in all-state choir every year. If he wasn't at school or staying after for choir practice, he was at home playing the video game World of Warcraft and surfing the Internet. He didn't have a lot of friends.
Avery began to read every book about gay and lesbian people his school library had — which was about 15 books. He found the term "lesbian" and understood it, so he took it for himself without ever being fully comfortable with it.
"I remember bits and snippets of my childhood and high school, but they come in flashes," Avery said. "I so much didn't like the person that I was, and this was before I had any conception of myself as trans. When I really think about it, it just seems like it happened to a different person now."
"I was identifying with a need to have a community or to have people like me," Avery said.
Avery Dame, 23, is about 5 feet 6 inches tall with short, clean-cut brown hair and dark brown eyes. He has little bits of facial hair that have sprouted up since shaving yesterday. His voice, tinged with a southern accent, is getting lower. Five months into testosterone shots, Avery looks like, talks like, even acts like an ordinary man. But Avery was born a woman and, until four years ago, had been living by a name and persona that never felt quite right.
He grew up an only child and describes himself as quiet and kind of nerdy. Avery didn't get along well with his mother. He remembers being emotionally abused by her, but he doesn't remember, or want to talk about, specifics.
Avery didn't always know he wanted to be a boy. He didn't grow up in his suburban house in Plano, Texas, trying to pee standing up or running around the neighborhood without a shirt on. He didn't dress like a boy or act like one.
Laurel arrives and Avery tells her. This is the first time he has verbalized that he is a trans man. Now he thinks: What does this mean?
Avery realized over the course of the school year that he was transgendered too, but it would take until May 2007 for him to share that with anyone.
Avery had a different name when he was a girl. That name is a representation of who he used to be
Avery sits in his dorm room at Alabama. It's finals week and, to add to the stress of tests, he's about to tell his best friend that he's a transgender man. He called Laurel earlier, urging her to come over. He's been freaking out, and anxiety is setting in. Avery has been searching within himself, peeling back layers of his life like an onion to get to the tiny core that no one, including himself, has seen before.
--some time with friends, and it's time to make it permanent. He tells Laurel one night as they sit in a car. His former name is mentioned.
He won't even tell anyone that name anymore.
A year after coming out as a transgender man, he decides to change his legal name. He has been going by Avery for
Avery takes on his new name and by the time he is a senior he has made it clear to all of his professors that they should use male pronouns when referring to him. Life is starting to look up. He's slowly becoming more comfortable in his own skin. For the first time in his life, he feels that his brain is working.
"You think of your brain as an image of a head with gears in it," Avery said. "All of these gears are supposed to be turning at the same time. It's like I had one or two gears that were turning at the same time, but the third one was off. I had a frame by which to understand myself that allowed me to make sense of myself. It made that gear turn at the same time as the others."
But his new understanding of himself as a man often wasn't easy for others to accept.
"I don't even know who that person is anymore." Laurel says. "That person doesn't exist to me."
The school cafeteria is packed with students. Avery gets in line to give his ID card to the lady who swipes people through to allow them inside for food. He gets to the front and gives the lady his card. She looks at the card and stops. She studies Avery's face, looks back at the card and then looks at Avery again. Avery's picture was taken when he was still identifying as a female. He has long hair in the
"I was identifying with a need to have a community or to have people like me."
picture, but his current hairstyle is cut short like a man's.
"Why would you ever do that to yourself?" the lady asks loud enough for others to hear.
for others to heal.
A line has formed, and anxious people are staring at Avery and the lady. Feeling nervous, he wishes she would just give his card back and let him eat. Avery doesn't respond. He stands quietly waiting for his card.
AVERY DAME
Instead of returning it, the woman laughs, calls over the woman working the next line, points to the card and then to Avery. Anxiety sets in. She eventually gives his card back, and he gets his food quickly and looks for an escape. He is mortified.
--friends.
During the next two years Avery transforms even more from herself to himself. On occasion, people are not sure of his sex and make it a point to let him know. He finds safety and avoids danger by keeping with a carefully chosen, tight-knit group of
"I've always been very self-selective with the people I interact with and the places I go," Avery said. "So I tend to avoid as many conflicts as possible just automatically. I tend to run in circles of people who I know are safe"
His choice of friends and his progress in adjusting to his body have made him happier and the people around him have noticed.
"When I was friends with Avery before he came out, he was always a little bit twitchy". Laurel said. "He was weary of being touched — closed in. When he started getting used to the idea that his body could eventually be something he could be safe and happy in, he started being a lot better with contact and being touched. He is so much steadier in himself."
Avery graduated from Alabama with a bachelor's degree in English and minors in journalism and Asian studies in May 2010. He came to the University of Kansas in fall 2010, where he is seeking his masters in American studies. His thesis is based on researching the online transgender community.
Doing work in
a field of study
that directly
reflects his identity
has helped
Avery discern
his own feeling;
and development.
One of his
Not having the traditional transgender narrative makes it difficult for Avery to convince others, including therapists, that he is truly transgender. A transgender person seeking to medically transition must first meet with a therapist and receive support for proceeding with hormones and sexual reassignment surgery. Avery began seeing a therapist at the Counseling and Psychological Services last semester.
"I was very lucky," Avery said about the therapist he consulted. The therapist realized that Avery feared he wouldn't accept his story. He did. And Avery felt comfortable enough to tell him the truth of his story rather than making up the standard narrative. He received permission to go ahead and start taking testosterone. Now he had one more obstacle to overcome
before he could proceed with his transformation. It was time to talk to his parents about his identity.
One of his main difficulties had to do with what he calls his transgender narrative or life story, which differs from the one most transgendered people experience. Unlike them, he didn't grow up always thinking he was a little boy trapped in a girl's body. It was a transformation that occurred over time, and only when he was in college did he discover his true identity.
"Your entire story becomes when you were two or three, you wanted to pee standing up," Avery said about the standard trans narrative. "Your entire essence gets boiled down to these ideas that you can locate it in childhood, and I'm not so sure you can."
图 10
"Why do you need to do it?" Avery's mom yells and slams her fists onto the table repeatedly.
"The essence of me never changes but the container I'm in is what changes."
Avery told his parents that he was going to start taking testosterone so that they wouldn't be surprised once he began changing physically. He knew this was how it was going to be. His dad doesn't say much. His mom screams and makes him feel bad.
She's barragged him with questions for the past hour, but it's that one question that makes Avery think his mother will never understand him. He can't answer that "Why?" question for her. He can't tell her why her daughter wants to become a man.
She wants answers. She wants to know if Avery was sexually molested when he was younger. Definitely not. She wants to locate the exact time and place the decision happened. Avery can't do that. Even though he didn't expect their approval, he is disappointed and frustrated with their reaction. He's left with little hope that his parents would understand him.
Avery feels awkward at the doctor's office. He packed, meaning he stuffed a sock to fill out his pants like a man's penis. He's about to get his first testosterone shot on that forgettable day - Dec. 1, 2010. The nurse who is injecting him is a sweet, middle-age woman, and Avery listens carefully to all of the instructions she gives him so he can inject himself from here on. Despite the embarrassment, he feels a sense of pride.
“It's kind of like you're sticking the man juice in you, in a Freudian sense,” Avery said. “There's this phallic object of injection. It contains a lot of what you want, a lot of your aspirations. It's very momentous.”
Much has changed for Avery in the past five months since he's been taking testosterone, particularly physically. He now injects himself with 150 milligrams every two weeks. At first his voice cracked a lot, but now it is gradually dropping that Avery barely notices
AVERY DAME
图
the change. He's developed hair in strange new places, such as his upper arms. He has started to shave his face for the first time in his life. His body fat has shifted, giving him a more masculine shape. He realizes he is going through a 12-year-old boy's puberty and a woman's menopause at the same time as his menstruation cycle ends with the onset of testosterone. He measures his changes by looking in the mirror.
"I see the man I want to be staring back at me," he said.
But the transformation isn't over. Avery hopes to get surgery in the future. He's not exactly sure when, but it depends on finishing graduate school and saving enough money. Insurance won't cover sexual reassignment surgery and costs can range from $3,000 to $7,000. Avery knows he will have a mastectomy, but he's undecided about having a hysterectomy.
Transgender men also have the option of a phalloplasty surgery, which harvests tissues from other parts of the body and reconstructs that tissue into a penis. Another option is metoidioplasty, which enlarges the clitoris, and reroutes the urethra through it. For now, Avery is not interested in either of these procedures.
"It's horrendously expensive," Avery says. "It doesn't look very realistic and it is not always that functional. I'm not terribly concerned."
Despite his physical transformation, Avery says he is the same person inside his changing body. The difference is that the inside and outside match.
"The essence of me never changes," he says, "but the container I'm in is what changes."