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A Field Guide To Transgendered Persons

in the Gay Community

By Dallas Denny, M.A.

This article originally appeared in The News, the magazine of the Atlanta Gay Center, in July, 1991. Author's note: Sharon closely resembles a person I once knew in another Southern city. I have simply transposed her to an Atlanta setting, and changed a few facts to protect her identity. She is not a real person, nor are the others here- but there are real people out there like them.

rom the left side, Sharon is striking. From the right, she seems subtly de- formed, as if she had been born with a birth defect.

"The silicone moved," she says sorrowfully, holding a hand to her cheek. "I came in late one night, and my no-good boyfriend

Transgendered persons are, for one reason or another, uncomfortable with their present gender. In extreme cases, they wish to alter themselves to become as much as pos- sible like the opposite sex.

hit me with a beer bottle."

Sharon's body is a testament to back-room bodysculpting. She has had liquid silicone injected into her lips, chin, cheeks, fore- head, breasts, thighs, and but- tocks. "Honey, these drag-queen practitioners don't tell you what that shit does after a few years. Moves around. Comes out of your body through the nipples and pores. Gets into your knees and elbows and lungs and lymph nodes. Gets dragged down to your ankles by gravity. Takes a walk when it's hit with a beer bottle. I shouldn't have had it done. I knew it wouldn't last, but I wanted to be pretty right away, and I didn't have the money for a plastic sur- geon. All the other girls were getting silicone, and it didn't seem to be hurting them. I figured I'd play then, pay later."

Sharon is paying now, in many ways. She has had to have a breast

removed because of complica- tions from the silicone. Her joints ache. She has periods of respira- tory distress. And although she is not HIV-positive (which is mi- raculous, considering that de- spite a profusion of partners, she has never practiced safe sex), her white blood count is getting dan-

gerously low. "Sometimes I think I won't see forty," she laments.

Sharon works as a female impersonator in an Atlanta show bar. The money was never good. Now, as always, she supplements her income by prostitution. "What I'd get, it'd go right up my nose. I never was able to save. I'd have boy- friends who would promise me they would give me money for the surgery, but when it came right down to it, most of them liked what I already had. They always found an excuse when it came time to cough up. I keep telling myself I'll start saving my money and have the surgery next year, but next year never comes.'

Transgendered persons are, for one reason or another, un- comfortable with their present gender. In extreme cases, they wish to alter themselves to be- come as much as possible like the opposite sex. In popular par- lance, this is known as a "sex change." Those who strongly and consistently want to change their sex are called transsexuals.

Sharon is transsexual, a ge- netic male who has wanted the body of a woman, to live as a woman, to be a woman for as long as she can remember. She

didn't ask to be that way; it just happened. She doesn't know why

she's transgendered, but that's no surprise- neither do scien- tists. Some say it's environment, some say it's genetics. Some say tomaytoes; some say tomahtoes.

Hormones and silicone have given Sharon a feminine outward shape, but she still has trouble passing in public, for she has masculine facial features, and her dark beard is difficult to conceal. She has never found the money for electrolysis or plastic sur- gery- although she has spent thousands of dollars for the sili- cone which is now causing major health problems. She lives a sort of twilight existence, semi-ac- cepted by the gay community, seldom venturing out of Midtown. "Honey, I don't want others to do like I done. You tell them girls to get themselves straight."

Most transgendered persons are not like Sharon. Many live entirely in the straight world. Some may visit a gay bar on occa- sion, because they feel comfort- able there, but their jobs and their friends and their social lives are otherwise entirely outside of the gay community. Others live in the gay world, the same as Sharon, but the majority of those who do have more self-discipline, and avoid her problems with drugs and alcohol, prostitution, abusive boyfriends, and silicone. Many of them eventually have sex reassignment surgery, and most of those who do move out of the gay community, into straight lifestyles.

A few transgendered persons are highly sexually active. Be- cause of the high visibility of this minority, many men and women, straight and gay, assume that all

TRANSGENDERED PERSONS IN THE GAY COMMUNITY

transgendered persons are pro- miscuous. This is just not true. As a group, they are less sexually active than the general popula- tion. And their sexuality takes a variety of forms. Most are straight in their original incarnations; af- terwards they may prefer men or women- and if they prefer men, they almost invariably prefer straight men to gay men. They are not by any definition gay men, for they think of themselves as and often believe themselves to be women-except for transgen- dered females, who see them- selves as men.

Confused? Want to know just who those people are that you have been seeing crossdressed in Lavita's and at Deana's One Mo' Time? Let's just take a tour of the Cove at four in the morning and see who's hanging out.

There on the barstool is a blonde with false eyelashes and scarlet press-on nails and a Bob Mackie gown that looks as if it had been poured on. Nasty Nookie. Anyone with a name like Nasty Nookie-a name that shows

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hostility to women- is bound to be a drag queen.

And what is a drag queen? Easy. A drag queen is a gay man who dresses as a woman for pur- poses of attracting men, or to make money, or to make a politi- cal statement, or just to have a lark (so long as the lark is a male). There is no question about the maleness of a drag queen. They are not transgendered. See Nasty now, as she hitches up her skirt to move her unit from the left side to the right. She wants you to know what she has down there. Make no mistake about it; when you get her home and the clothes come off, you'll be in bed with a man, and maybe one who will want to be on top. She is making that clear to the fraternity type that she has chosen for her prey.

Drag queens can be stunning. They may shave their bodies to enhance the illusion of feminin- ity, be experts with makeup and beadwork and wig styling, and move with the grace of a high fashion model. But they always manage to shatter the illusion.

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They are as flamboyant as their names. And unquestionably male.

Of course, not all female illu- sionists are drag queens, as I have defined them- although many people in the gay commu- nity mistakenly consider any ge- netic male in a dress to be a drag queen. The defining characteris- tic of what I would call a drag queen is hostility toward women, and love of men. Transgendered persons do not display this hos- tility toward women, although they may share the drag queen's love of men.

Looking wistfully at Nasty Nookie is someone named Sylvia. Sylvia is six-foot-three and built like a linebacker, wearing a dress that would look better on her grandmother. Her wig sits askew on her bullet-shaped head, and six coats of war paint aren't hid- ing her five o'clock (or in this case, four AM) shadow. She tee- ters unsteadily on four-inch heels, her big hairy hands clutch- ing a black patent-leather purse

CONTINUED ON PAGE 56

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