Ozma

Ozma, the child empress from L. Frank Baum's Oz series, is probably the earliest example of a transgender character in literature.  Her debut The Marvelous Land of Oz is without a doubt my favorite book in the series  Like its predecessor The Wonderful Wizard, the Land of Oz is home to some great character development and represents a more modern breed of fairy tale worthy of the Brothers Grimm or Andersen.  There's a lovely texture in the landscape that reminds of Tolkein's books, come to think of it, and we get to feel the drama and struggle of it's central character Tippetarius at every turn.  Tippetarius, it turns out, was a slave boy raised by the witch Mombi and happened to be a concealed form of the rightful princes of the realm, Ozma.

     I first read the Land of Oz when I was doing research for a novel.  Before the project I don't believe I'd heard of Oz's princess, the girl who was raised a boy.  The concept immediately appealed to me.  I was delighted to find the character and her path engaging and full of development.  Her back story makes her the daughter of Oz's rightful king, Pastoria, who was deposed by the Wizard when he arrived before the first novel.  To secure his rule he abducted the infant Ozma and took her to the witch Mombi.  Unlike the famous Witch of the West in the previous installment, Mombi is more of a village witch and outcast.  The reigning regent in her portion of Oz is Locasta, the Witch of the North who forbade anyone to practice magic because of its potential danger.  As such, Mombi practices in secret with her strange bedfellow Dr. Pipt.  Mombi was instructed to keep the princess away from her throne and turned the baby into a boy.  This is something you'd be hard pressed to find in children's books today.  Mombi makes a lot of use for the unfortunate boy in the form of chores, labor and house cleaning but never reveals a shade of his rich history.

    Eventually Tippeterarius (Tip for short) steals the witch's Powder of Life and sets off on an adventure that brings him face to face with Glinda, the Witch of the South.  Glinda sets a trap for Mombi, who has been retained for a revolution against the Scarecrow, Oz's king in absence of the Wizard, and forces her to tell the truth about Tip's birthright.  The boy is transformed by Mombi's magic one last time into her true form, making her the new empress of Oz.

      There's a lot of glamour in a story like this and a lot of relevance for transgender women.  Growing up I remember telling my father stories about how I was really a girl and once indulged a tale that I was a secret princess.  This was twenty years before I ever heard the name Ozma.  And while I doubt L. Frank Baum had transgender movements in mind when he wrote The Marvelous Land of Oz I wonder how many transgender children beside my self grew up wondering if they were really under a spell?

Asking Why

I take issue with people who use transgenderism--or more specifically, their stance with surgery--to discriminate against non-op transsexuals.  I've covered my reasons in the past, on my old blog geared specifically for gender as a metaphysical topic (a black comedy of a site called "The Akashic Records").  But now that I'm a few years older I have a few new reasons.

     First of all, let me preface by saying there is nothing radically opposed to surgery or TS's who want surgery in my mindset.  It's simply a matter of context and preference.  In my previous entry I outlined a few of my reasons why.  My issue is with women who use their commitments to surgery (commitments, I understand by the way, and applaud) to harass some of us who choose otherwise or are sometimes unable to because of health.  Often times this kind of ignorance stems from undisciplined, abrasive, shallow people (the intuitevly blind) or the sort of transsexuals who are  projecting their issues onto other people.

     We're free to disagree, of course, and on the Internet there's far too much of that counter productive, blog-based squabbling which keeps my eyes rolling in perpetual motions and stops me from reading most of the Internet's TS weblogs, but my argument is based on two simple maxims:

"I do not base my entire gender identity on one part of my body."

and...

"What I do with my penis is none of your business!"

I suppose my issue is that no one asks why, why don't you people plan on having surgery?  But I suppose there's less room for debate when they hear, "I'm comfortable where I am in my transition " or "I have a health condition barring surgery" or "I can't afford it" or "I can't do this to my family right now."  

     For a while my status was a non-issue but I was reminded recently when I spoke to an older transgender woman who's surgery is approaching next year.  She was telling me about a support group she went to and the crowd of younger transsexuals she called, "cross dressers."  Apparently, everyone who isn't planning for surgery in the near future is stuck in CD mode.  She told me how a younger transsexual described herself as "full-time."  I imagine she was somewhere between 20 and 25.  

     "Bullshit," my conversationalist said. "Do you sit down wen you pee?"

     "Eh, no..."

     "Then you're not full time."

      First of all, this is an invasive, trivial question typical of the intuitevly blind.  While I'll admit there's a side of me that has to admire her passion and drive for surgery, the rest of me hangs my head in something shy of pity, pity for all the insecure, overbearing people of the world who project their insecurities onto anyone who isn't afraid or repulsed by their lack of convention.  

     But this is all beside the point.  At a certain point I realized belittling and over-illustrating your point is just as ridiculous in the greater scheme.  After a while we have to become Jesus about it and turn the other cheek, then take your turn when things cool down and voice your point of view calmly and rationally.  Hopefully it will enhance someone's point of view or at the very least engage them.  

Negative Confessions

"Sometimes I feel like being transgendered is like being a part of a Mystery Tradition,"  I told my boyfriend several months ago, "There's just so much bad information out there."  Dead ends.  Misconceptions.  Right away I'm reminded of Ancient Egypt's Negative Confession, where a dead person would stand before the goddess Maat and have their heart weighed.  According to the "Book of the Dead" they had a litany to recite, "I have not cheated in the fields...I have not caught fish in their ponds...."  I am not a dragqueen, I am not a crossdresser, I am not porn star, a prostitute or a gay man.  I do not own a copy of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

     That was half a year ago.  The other day I went to a grungy, Bohemian cafe (my favorite) and sat by myself.  I was writing a script and chewing my pen.  A girl on the other side of the hall called over from a couch, "I love your dress."  I was wearing a two-pieced vintage dress my boyfriend's mother gave me, all floral prints and buttons with fishnet stalkings, black boots and a beaded rosary.  She came over a few minutes later to compliment my fashion sense.  Halfway through the conversation I mention being transgendered.  It happened pretty organically when we were discussing hardcore feminists.  That was the first time I successfully "passed" in public.  The girl across from me flinched, shook her head and asked me to clarify.

     "You're transgendered?"  I'd like to think in some alternate dimension Past-Me heard us and smiled.  I sure did.

     But being transgendered and passing isn't the finish line.  Which brings another misconception to mind:  "Being transsexual means you save up for surgery."  This isn't necessarily true.  For me, it's a Negative Confession.  Surgery is not the final goal for this transsexual.  Legalization is, my name change is, the F on my driver's license is.  And yes, for the longest time, passing was.  It still is, and I look forward to the day I pass one-hundred percent of the time, but it's less important than it was three years ago.  When I first started transitioning, passing was one of the biggest goals for me.  So was surgery, down the line.  But as I pressed on these things lost priority.  It took a long time for me to realize where I stood on the surgery scale but when I finally realized how female my mind and body had become I had several epiphanies.  And that's why I'm blogging, to create epiphanies, to share secrets, to shift paradigms. To share my experiences as a non-op transsexual.