Being Dan

Dan told me he kept his girly clothes and that one day he might be willing to try them on again. Not necessarily happy to try them on again, mind you, but interested in what it would be like. These photographs are an experiment in visiting a life gone by in order to see what place it has in the life now present.

It wasn't easy. Not only has testosterone lowered his voice and given him chin whiskers, but it also has changed his body. Clothes don't fit the way they used to -- either physically or psychically. Answers were found to his curiosity about dressing as a woman, and the answers satisfied his interest about his bodily changes. But he was uneasy -- partly, I think, for the fact that he still has the clothes, and partly because he didn't feel he looked male enough to carry off the visual contradiction. I was struck by my own reaction to the session. I've talked with Dan a fair amount and taken hundreds of pictures of him. Despite physical evidence to the contrary, I cannot grasp that he was once a woman. I felt like we were playing cross dress up rather than looking at the things he wore as an expression of his sexuality. To me, lingerie is seduction, mini-skirts and thigh high boots are the in-your-face 'I've got it and you want me' statement. A purple gown is for tea or a soiree. The Dan I know is jeans and a t shirt, and looking at him in his female attire doesn't make a lot of sense.

Dan didn't understand himself to be lesbian, bi-sexual or heterosexual until he was nineteen. He knew himself to be female -- breasts, lovers and menstrual cycles proved that. But there were too many cross currents, and his restlessness wouldn't let them go. He might have remained female had the world he was in and the people he knew been just a little different. But they weren't and that drove him to finally settle this internal confusion over his natural gender. When he looked at the roles assigned to women, the roles they chose for themselves, the way they habitually responded to the men in their lives, he found little he could relate to. In fact, the more  women he got to know and the more deeply he got to know women, the less he found in common with them at all. There was never a single 'aha' moment, but one evening he was part of an all-girl discussion about the advantages of being a woman -- and the answers came back as small cliches. Feeling feelings, not being a threat to each other, the uniqueness of female bonding, having babies, the ability to make men stupid. All of it offended him.

Simultaneously, Dan had this revelation: he didn't want men to have sex with him anymore. It was the wrong construct. In it's place he understood he had to be the man having sex -- and it wouldn't be otherwise were he to be true to himself. So he set about assembling an exclusively male persona, cobbled together from the long list of odd attributes he found so entertaining in the men he knew. His sense of irony took the macho swagger, the boys-will-be-boys crudeness, the insensitivity they believed manly and turned them into an over-the-top character role for himself. Many couldn't adjust to the new Dan, and the changes cost him friends. He tempered the role, shifted things here and there, strengthened some parts and calmed others. He made new friends, lost many of those as he grew, made more friends and kept them as the real Dan emerged.

Testosterone requires careful dose management. Too much or too little creates mania and depression, deeply black moods, the sense that everything is more important than anyone can understand. For Dan it was like the worst part of being a teenager again, but now the highs and lows were magnified a hundred fold. He had little room for thought and none for introspection, everything had to be responded to and taken care of immediately, and every decision was final. Life was only black and white.

Properly administered, testosterone brings assurance and balance, focus, and the ability to say yes or no. It lowers the voice, grows hair, thickens the waist, and lets that be okay. And it allows Dan a singular look at gender and a more nuanced understanding of the socially engineered male/female divide.

There are many more roles available to women than men. Butch or femme or anything in between is acceptable and unremarkable. But not for men. Their roles are narrow and closed. And they have penises which make them dangerous. They are rapists, either in fact or in theory, they are violent and unemotional, constrained and a threat. Male bashing is socially approved, and a correspondent culture of victimhood flourishes. Men are in straight jackets. There is a fragility to them because acceptable means of expression are so few. But if you look and look openly, you'll find a far richer emotional life and a much more complete communication than commonly believed -- it's just in another language. Nevertheless, if a man is unable to conform to the prevailing social standards, he will be buried under more trouble than he might have imagined.

Transgenders find themselves outside this arena. Gender is less a question than a fact -- and as a fact it's not worth much. A feminine man is no more remarkable than a masculine woman. Who you sleep with is your business, and so is why you made that choice. There seems to be little that is categorically right or wrong. There's room for bias, for acceptance, and a self-expressive freedom the dominant social structure cannot allow itself. But it's not always a pretty place. There's the fright and intolerance aimed at those who are born different. There is pain and ache and self-hatred. There is a deep confusion and hostility in the social majority that makes an offer of help impossible. And that's pathetic.

Dan has lived this in all its ugliness and beauty. His sense of the absurd and his ability to laugh are central to his character. He undertakes these photographs and conversations as a way of looking in while speaking out about his carefully chosen life. My hat is off to him -- he offers himself and his experiences freely, and with nothing riding on what you might do with them.

**************

After I posted the above, Dan made these comments:

There's a couple of points that aren't *quite* accurate, but they're "true" (that is to say, they're believable and express the story, but they aren't the way things happened to me). 1. I came out as bi-sexual (to myself and anyone who would listen) at 16. I tried to be a lesbian (again, out loud) at 19, which led to the gender questioning that I was hiding as deep as I could by 21. I don't know if what I was going through could ever accurately be described as confusion (at least not about gender). 2. the "taking bits of masculine persona" from my lovers wasn't as conscious as I think it comes off in this post. I realized years later that I'd been doing it, but I'd been doing it as a woman. Once I started living as a man, I was able to let go of my ex-lovers' affectations. 3. I suppose gender is a different construct when you have to live it consciously. I think people in the transgender spectrum (who I'm never really comfortable referring to as "transgenders" - it's an adjective, not a noun) experience the same things as everyone else does. We experience some things that other people don't, but we have to live within the same society that effects everyone else AS WELL. Again, that's just my experience. I can't, shouldn't, and won't speak for all transgendered people.

***************

The words and images presented here belong solely to me -- Richard A. Chase -- and may not be copied or reproduced in any way without my written permission.

Comments

[Dan]

It's great. I really like the way you handled the dress pictures. There's a couple points that aren't *quite* accurate, but they're "true" (that is to say, they're believable and express the story, but they aren't the way things happened to me).

Rather than ask you to change them, I decided I'd rather leave a comment to clarify.

1. I came out as bisexual (to myself and anyone who would listen) at 16. I tried to be a lesbian (again, out loud) at 19, which led into the gender questioning that I was hiding as deep as I could by 21. I don't know if what I was going through could ever accurately be described as confusion. (at least, not about gender).

2. the "taking bits of masculine personas" bit from my lovers wasn't as conscious as I think it comes off in this post. I realized years later that I'd been doing it, but I'd been doing it as a woman. Once I started living as a man, I was able to let go of my ex-lovers affectations.

3. I suppose gender is a different construct when you have to live it consciously. I don't think people in the transgender spectrum (who I'm never really comfortable referring to as "transgenders" -- it's an adjective, not a noun) but I don't think that means we don't experience the same things as everyone else does. We experience some things that other people don't, but we have to live through the same society that affects everyone else AS WELL.

Again, that's just my experience. I can't, shouldn't, and won't speak for all transgendered people. But I think this is a beautiful piece, and I'm happy to have contributed to it.