The first thing that suprised me was just the number of variations in the trans community. This seems appallingly insensitive in retrospect, but I'd never thought too hard about the difference between transvestite, transexual and transgender. I'd just assumed that it was all men who were actually women, or vice versa. It's considerably more complicated than that, especially if you take into account "the gender binary" - the concept that there is male, female and nothing in between: cue phrase "breaking down gender binary" used a lot, and I thoroughly approve. To digress a moment, you can't really tell whether a man or woman is writing, painting or directing, so on a creative level the binary is ridiculous. Even in terms of topic - Atonement is a cliche girly novel, written by Ian McEwan, and Point Break is a knowingly macho movie, made by Katheryn Bigelow. This is an intensely personal thing for me - because I can name you maybe ten female directors (Ida Lupino, Jean Campion. Katheryn Bigelow, Sofia Coppola, Leni Riefenstal, Agnes Jaoui, Mira Nair, ummmmmm that's seven...), and to my mind that's very unfortunate, considering my dream career.

In any case, coming to terms with appropriate terminology took up most of the time. We first had to define the difference between sex (breasts, chromosomes, testostorone - biology in other words) and gender (modes of dressing, behaving, getting Barbies or Action Men) - the social conventions which denote masculinity or femininity; and also define "trans" as someone moving between several traditional identities. So transexual is someone who feels they are a man in a woman's body, and usually plans to have surgery at some point - transgender is more about adopting the mannerisms of the other sex, while not necessarily wanting things to be chopped about. And then transvestites/crossdressers (some debate about which is the most preferred, polite terms - like all acts of self definition, I presume you just address people by what they wish to be addressed) are people who are comfortable with sex and gender, but enjoy wearing the clothes of an opposite gender. This doesn't necessarily include fetishistic cross dressers or drag performers, which is more a performance thing than a mental, emotional one. We touched on androgyny, which even though it has a pretty simple definition, also refers to a wide range of states - identifying as man and woman, identifying as neither e.t.c. Note that none of these terms are necessarily connected to a specific sexual orientation (gay, straight, bi) - being trans is about being unhappy with the way society percieves your gender, whereas sexuality is about how and who you are attracted to.

We also had a think about "intersex" people (the term "hermaphrodite" seems to have been devalued), who are actually biologically not wholly one or other. Cisgender is hard to define without using the wholly inappropriate term "normal people" - I hope most people on my blog will accept that "normal" is a very subjective judgement. Perhaps a better definition would be "people happy with the sex and gender assigned to them at birth". And we briefly ran over gender queer, briefly because it's a very wide and complicated one and overlaps some of the others - basically, people who don't identify with the regular gender identities, whether that is by wanting a different identity, seeing yourself as both or neither gender, or just feeling left out of regular catagorisation.

I actually have some personal sympathy with this lot - as stated above, I think much of the male/female divide is artificial. Biologically, yes it cannot be denied - but socially the stereotypes are drummed into us, and it shouldn't necessarily be accepted. Your opinions, likes, dislikes can be influenced by your sex, but isn't necessarily - furthermore, isn't it more the result of being raised "as a girl" than actually being a girl? I've heard men and women who are really really into their masculinity/femininity as as much in drag as women into their masculinity, men into their femininity - and I actually like it as an idea. Because everyone dresses up to make an impression - say a woman who is applying for a job in business. She want's to be presentable, but at the same time she'll be dressing in a more harsh masculine style to prove she's serious. She won't come in with a flowery hippy dress and offer the interviewer a freshly baked cookie. But the opposite is also true - think those obsessively, defensively male American men who proudly go out shooting things at weekends. And indeed we discussed the terms butch and femme, which (though they also have sexual connotations) are also used to refer to people who go out of their way to emphasise their gender stereotype - for example, going out dressed as a deliberate Stepford wife. The same goes for the term genderfuck, which are people who deliberately disrupt the gender binary in a challenging way, poking fun at the stereotypes and being intentionally confusing, say wearing pretty pink dresses with a full beard.

Gender identity is something most people sleepwalk into - I am a woman, thus I will wear dresses, thus I will coo at babies, thus I adore the colour pink, thus I have to go shopping. If nothing else the workshop has made me seriously think about how I view men, women, maleness, femaleness - and confirmed a growing suspicion that much of it is meaningless. Particularly from an artistic perspective, which is how I tend to percieve the world anyway. I wonder, how many of my decisions and opinions are coloured by me being a girl, either from a biological standpoint or a social one? Less than you'd imagine, I think.

We then did a bit of groupwork on related subjects - what are the reasons for transphobia? We decided mainly a lack of education, not necessarily malicious evil - and the fact transpeople are still widely parodied and mocked in the media. There's an obscure faux-70s song I like called "Smoke without Fire", telling that familiar comic story about an innocent guy who takes a girl home only do discover that she's not exactly as female as she appears - which is just one example. What difficulties do transpeople face? Obviously, the great mass of world religion, but also daft every day things like clothes shops and public toilets which are complicated by traditional gender stereotypes. What can we do to prevent these difficulties? I got all pessimistic at this point, because it's just time, time and acceptance.

I feel I have a lot more information now - even though I'd never have been outright rude to someone, understanding is important too. It's personal pronouns which I worry about, whether someone is expecting me to refer to them as he, she or something else entirely, particularly as I've a short memory. I've also a better appreciation of just how wide and complicated area is. The main thing I got out of it was tolerance. I mean, it's a weird world out there - and my feelings on this topic are the same as on any other, which is to say as long as no one is hurt, who am I to tell other people how to live? Transpeople are still an appallingly persecuted minority, who find it hard to hold down jobs and live comfortably with the mass of prejudice out there. And I do appreciate why, because the kneejerk reaction to a man in a dress is "ooh, that's a bit odd" - which is why I got all pessimistic, because acceptance is going to be a long, long time coming.

Hence the blog, because I feel the best contribution I can make is passing on the info from the seminar in the hope that you readers will think a little bit about gender and sexual identity, and maybe be prepared people who want to express theirs differently in real life. Wish for the day, favour for me.

After that, we had tea then watched Paris is Burning, a documentary from the late 80s and possibly the most bloody tragic thing I've ever seen, and I choked up at several points throughout just at how damn dark the world can be. Thank goodness we don't live in the past any more. The present is pretty culturally insensitive, but we're learning and I think (on the whole) people are increasingly more accepting.

The film revolves around the Balls in the New York gay/trans underground community, and encompasses a massive and complex series of identities, from straightforwardly gay men, to women saving up for their operation or plain drag performers. Broadly speaking, and to borrow parlance from the film, Houses are "street gangs for gay guys", and Balls are their equivalent of the street fight. Fascinating. For one thing, balls look like terrific fun. It's basically a mix between a fashion runway and fancy dress competition, but completely, completely serious, and packed with catagories like "military", "Dynasty" and "geek". Like any subculture, it's got its own style, vocabulary and even a dance style - voguing - which is beautiful yet aggressive, and has filtered back into the mainstream.

At the same time, it thinly disguised something very sinister when you consider the combination of black/Hispanic + poor + gay/trans x 1980s America also leaves them one of society's most unfairly marginalised groups. The Balls bring the fame, glory and glamour which these people can never hope to achieve. It's one big fantasy, and one of the things on which competitors are judged is "realness" - broadly, being able to pass for the real thing. Gay men, dressing up as straight ones. Men, trying to pass themselves off as women. In the "executive catagory", men dressed up in suits with briefcases, enacting the roles that as blacks they can never, ever hope to achieve. This was what made it so sad, because on one level it was about hope and creating your own community and joys despite society and prejudice. But at the same time - it shouldn't have to be hidden away in a basement. We've almost cracked race, I like to think. It's far from perfect, but I think we're almost there - and these days, there are plenty members of the black community who are actually in executive careers, not just dressing up and dreaming. But it's still sad to watch, and when you think that gay and trans people, even people in poverty, still have to face this type of prejudice on a regular basis - it doesn't bear thinking about. One of the interviewees described realness: "When you're undetecable, when they can walk out of that ballroom into the sunlight and onto the subway and get home, and still have all their clothes and no blood running off their bodies - those are the femme realness queens". Which says it all.

Even the notion of "houses", with every house having a mother, and all the members (or "children") taking on the last name of the house has this dark duality. On the one hand, great - they have a tight community. But it makes you think that so many of these people would have been rejected by their biological families, or natural communities, which is just tragic. They're providing the support and guidance that their real families have refused to give. I appreciate that these things can be so, so hard for parents - but if and when I have kids, if and when they decide to come out, I really hope I can be a supportive mum.

And the hope of these people was phenomenal. It makes me ashamed to think that I've already given up on my dream of directing by virtue of being a gal, when I have so many more oppertunities in comparison. They all knew they could be models, actresses, household names, every single one of them - and they were going to go out there and get it. And again, taking into account their race, class and sexuality/gender - well, the gap between their dreams and reality could not have been larger was just terribly upsetting. They'd been failed by society on every single level. The sad thing is, many of these women would have been in with a chance were they actually women in a biological sense. Particularly Octavia Xtravanza, who not only made a very convincing female but was actually a stunningly gorgeous one into the bargain.

I wonder where they all are now? One of the women interviewed throughout the 7 year period, who wanted to be a "spoilt, rich white girl" and described how she wanted to be wedded in white, gets found strangled in a hotel room after lying there for 4 days - and her "mother", though on one level being devastated, on another shrugs it off and tells the camera that it's just part of life for a transperson in New York. Part of fucking life? Wikipedia tells me Pepper is namedropped in a pop song, and dies of diebeties, Dorian dies of AIDS and is found with a mummified corpse in her room, Willi Ninja actually did OK in the fashion/music industry, before dying of an AIDS-related heart attack. Octavia's only credit, tragically, is in another ball-related documentary, not suuperstardom - and Anji Xtravaganza also died after the film's completion, aged 27, of AIDS-related liver failure.

Jesus.

Spirita and I both noticed links to "bling" culture too, both in their universal desire for luxury and wealth, and the over-exaggerated depiction of how this wealth would be. Anyway, we all went to the pub after this, but I couldn't help but brood a bit because the topic is quite an upsetting one in terms of prejudice, shame and social conformity. I do honestly believe myself to be a very open, accepting person, so being reminded that I'm in a small minority always comes as a nasty shock. Pub was nice, we talked feminism and politics and the like, and headed back via Sainsburies for smoothie stocks. Today, the recipie was box of rasberries, half box of blueberries and a carton of pineapple juice - which comes out tasting like Innocent smoothie and is highly recommended. We bumped into Vapilla and Sustenus there and all trekked back to the Halls of the Dude for late, late night chatting.

Um. That was it. Further to my previous post about comics (and due to the paradox of blogging, you will actually read in the future as it's only half finished) I returned to Book and Comic Exchange and treated myself. It's been a stressful week and is only getting worse: I managed to find four more "Crises on Infinite Earths", which means I now have 5 of a series of 12. I hope to read them in order sometime soon. It's a DC miniseries and excercise in retconning - the powers that be decided the number of paralell universes which had evolved in the comics was too complicated, so they had this massive crossover story in which all but five were destroyed in the first issue and the surviving superheroes across the continuums have to band together to save reality. That's how I understand it. True, I could just get the trade paperback. But I like the actual comic books dammit!

Gotham by Gaslight was there, which I mentioned in the previous post which you haven't read yet. Also The Question - I'm sad to admit that Calypso spotted instantly why I'd picked it up, but I honestly swear I did not see "The Question: vol 1" and read "Rorschach: vol 1". The thing is, Watchmen was originally designed with real DC superheroes - but the company kinda got cold feet when they realised that their characters were all going to end up mentally ill or dead, so asked Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons to come up with their own. The Question, the blank faced morally troubled detective avenger in a trenchcoat and fedora, originally played the Rorschach role - so you can see why I'm interested, but I intend to enjoy it for its own merits too: for now, it'll make do for the Hellblazer-shaped hole in my life. To make things even more meta, #17 has The Question reading a copy of Watchmen and deciding Rorschach is really really cool, and decides to emulate him for an issue. Doesn't work out too well, but the concept of bringing the two together is amusing. That's an issue I'm going to have to track down...

Finally, unintentionally hilarious news of the day: Josef Fritzl quoted saying "I did not realise how cruel I had been". Ah, that's OK mate - no hard feelings, and no harm done. Accidentally locking your daughter in the cellar for 24 years then raping her, y'know, twice or 3000 times is a mistake anyone can make.