Gone "Fishing"

"Transgenderism is at the cutting edge of contemporary debates about sex, sexuality, and gender" (Ekins, King). Transgenderism can include transvestites, transsexuals, drag queens, cross dressers both gay and straight, and anyone who doesn’t fit into the binary gender categories. After the psychiatric community abandoned the standpoint that homosexuality is a pathology in need of treatment in 1971, transgendered individuals are becoming more comfortable expressing themselves. San Francisco is renowned for its large gay community offering acceptance and tolerance. Certainly the fact that heterosexual San Franciscans live and work alongside this community bridges the gap between individuals and breeds open-mindedness. Populations of transgenders are growing; within San Francisco we have organizations dedicated to transgenders, and restaurants such as Asia SF, featuring transgender performers. Transgenderism is not a problem in need of psychoanalysis, but an issue in which members of our society should learn to understand and in turn learn to accept.

My interest began once I started at an organization in San Francisco that caters to gays, lesbians and transgenders in early October. At that time I was introduced to a transgendered male to female woman. In my brief conversation with her I realized that I had no knowledge of transgenders nor had I ever met someone who had transitioned. Over the course of my training I became very interested in the topic; I was inspired by the stories of triumph with successfully transitioned individuals. In order to better understand the transgender community, specifically male to female transitions, I requested an interview with the first woman I had met in the organization. I developed questions to ask hoping to learn her story and whatever knowledge she has about the influence in surgical sexual reassignment in transgenders. My next two interviews were again of transgendered male to female women. Fearful of offending, I found it difficult to ask for the interviews. My apprehension turned to excitement when my interviewees seemed to appreciate the chance to tell their stories.

My interviews were done in a casual setting over a cup of coffee. Each interview lasted roughly an hour. My questions geared interviewees to tell their life stories and the process by which they transitioned. I found it very helpful to have the interviews in person. I felt like I was able to develop a rapport with the women and they in turn were very open with me and disclosed much personal information. My quest to understand transgenders was greatly improved by my interviews.

My first goal was to discover the difference between pre-operation and post-operation transgenders. After my first interview I modified my goal. It became clear that the difference is mainly personal and that there is a difference in the pre and post-operation transgenders in thinking. Given that I was only able to interview post-operation transgenders I have only one perspective, that of the man who has successfully transitioned into a woman. I would like to have interviewed more people and had more stories to draw parallels to. I wish I had been able to interview transvestites and somehow incorporate their stories into my research. I also am limited because of the many facets of transgenderism; I only had the time and means to focus on one type. My research is solely on transgenders who have transitioned surgically from male to female. I focused in this manner because there are higher numbers of male to females than the reverse. Also this type of transgender is usually more apparent in the community and thus an important start to gaining understanding. Had I had more time and wanted to write a significant essay possibly of book size, I would have liked to interview a few people from each group: pre-operation male to female and female to male, post-operation male to female and female to male, cross dressers, transvestites gay and straight, and drag queens. Though I do believe through my interviews I have a well-rounded knowledge of what life is like for the average women who has transitioned male to female. Another major limitation I have in my research is that fact that I only interviewed Asians. The only perspective I hold is of an Asian male to female post-operation. This limitation is due to ease. The individuals I was able to interview were transgenders I had contact with from my volunteer work.

My three interviewees told similar stories. Respondents express knowing from a young age that they felt different. Socialization of gender is important here. Respondent A told of a special relationship with four girls pre-preschool. At that age it seemed perfectly acceptable that a little boy spend all his time with these girls. That time in her life was that best, she was happy being a little boy and she felt like herself. Once preschool began, she started feeling out of place. She was forced to participate in male activities such as sports and shunned away from his girl playmates because she was a little boy. She was constantly told that she wasn’t a girl, a phrase which also became a popular reason why she couldn’t behave the way she felt most comfortable. From this point on respondent A felt uncomfortable in her skin, she felt like she was a girl in a boy’s body. Major differences in her behavior as a boy were noticeable, she refused to play aggressively, or get dirty and was brutally teased as a "sissy" and routinely beaten up after school.

At the age of eight she began to dress in her mother’s clothing secretly. Those occasions felt right for her. After she was discovered, she was sent to a psychiatrist to fix her problem. Her psychiatric tests were inconclusive so there was no label or reason for her problematic behavior. Puberty was especially difficult for her. She was becoming more and more like a man in physique and aware of her desire to get rid of her penis. High school was a time of social isolation; she was overcome with a nagging confusion about being different and having no one to talk to about it because of fear of rejection and teasing. This stress made her academic achievement very difficult. Her poor self-esteem was coupled with her poor performance in school, creating a never ending cycle. She learned to mask her feelings and pretend like everything was fine to the outside world. She stated that everyday life felt artificial and her fantasy of being a girl felt real and normal.

Respondent A also had an experience which changed her life. While awaiting a doctor’s appointment she saw a magazine with an article about a man who had an operation to become a woman. Though she had not heard the term transgender before, she felt her story was exactly the same as the woman in the article. At age eighteen, she suddenly felt less alone because at least one other person in the world had the same problems as she. She started learning all there was to learn about transgenders. She read inspirational biographies of transgenders and longed for the reassignment surgery.

When high school ended, she didn’t have the option to go to college due to her poor grades. She joined the work force and loved the money she made. This money enabled her to move into her own apartment and buy and wear women’s clothing. It should be noted that dressing as a woman did not give her any erotic pleasure, it was a sense of inner calm. She was stuck for a few years without enough money to make the transition surgically. Even without the major cost of surgery, there were other costs like electrolysis to permanently remove facial hair. She second guessed herself and her desires to become a woman.

She started frequenting gay clubs thinking that maybe she hadn’t let herself believe she was really a gay man. She felt unfulfilled from those casual gay sexual encounters. She had expected more and in the end felt used. After deciding that she must not be a gay man, she thought maybe she was a heterosexual man. She joined the army reserves. It seemed like the ultimate way to show her macho side and prove to herself she was really a man. She became a heavy drinker in an effort to escape from her longing to become a woman.

She had failed to prove to herself that she felt like anything but a woman. At age thirty she finally told her parents how she felt and went ahead with steps to get the reassignment surgery. She changed her name and started going to work dressed as a woman. She lived as a woman for almost three years before she was recommended by her doctors to have the reassignment surgery.

Following her surgery, she was surprised by the assumption that she would be attracted to heterosexual men. Though she had never had a strong sex drive, she had always been attracted to women. She felt that her surgery enabled other women to see that desire and to be attracted to her as well. This is a difference between the respondents. Interviewees B and C both consider themselves heterosexual women attracted to men. Respondent A basically transitioned into a woman to become a lesbian. Sixty percent of male to female transgenders have sexual partners that are male (Weiss).

Respondent A shows the six stages of transitioning from a man to a woman. There are six stages of the social process: abiding anxiety, discovery, purging and delay, acceptance, surgical reassignment, and invisibility. Though not all transgenders experience every stage due to incompletion of the stages, the process always occurs in the same order. Each stage does not have a clear beginning or ending so some stages can be linked and overlap (Lewis).

The first stage of abiding anxiety shows itself in the early years usually by age seven (Lewis). In this stage transgenders are aware that something is different or uncomfortable. They have incomprehensible feelings about sexual identity and gender. Some resort to cross dressing to relieve this feeling. Transgenders identify with girls more than boys during childhood. Thoughts like, "I should have been born a girl," and "I am a biological mistake" compound the anxiety. Often transgenders experience punishment for being different leading to teasing, bullying, feelings of rejection, loneliness, and a lack of confidence. This stage usually last almost ten years before transgenders receive the first information on transgenderism. It is important to recognize that one third of transgenders were convinced they were women before they had access to any information about transgenderism. (Lewis)

Discovery is the second stage, characterized by the realization of oneself as a transgender. The stage provides an identifiable category to which they belong, so their feelings and anxiety were no longer private and peculiar. As stated above, one third of transgenders knew they wanted to be women before information was available, while half discovered this truth at the same time they received the information. In fact eighty percent first desired reassignment surgery at the same time they received information about transgenderism. This discovery however, usually begins a very long waiting period of up to thirty years before contact is made to have gender reassignment surgery. (Lewis)

The third stage of purging and delay is the most difficult to cope with. The purging is an active denial of oneself as a transgender and a forced attempt to be anything other that transgendered. At this time many transgenders try to live as men, either trying to fit into the mold of "manly" or as a gay man. Some get married and even have children. This may be done to prove once and for all that she was a man because she had married a woman.

Sadly only twenty seven percent of male to female transgenders form lasting romantic relationships (Weiss). These marriages are characterized by infrequent intercourse and some transgendered had to fantasize that they were the female partner and being penetrated. Denial of the purging behavior allows this stage to last for a great time. Major issues in this stage include appearance. The more a transgender’s own characteristics, height, weight, skin texture, hair, breast size, and nose shape conformed to the image of a woman the more positively a transgender viewed herself. Young transgenders had an easier time in this stage because they had never lived as a man whereas, older transgenders had lived as men and some even were fathers. The transition is much more difficult for these transgenders. (Lewis)

Once a transgender acknowledges that living as a woman is the only way to cope with gender confusion and starts the process of doing so, she begins the stage of acceptance. She begins taking hormones to soften her skin and develop breasts, and start living daily as a woman. Usually transgenders must live full time as females for at least two years before they can be recommended for gender reassignment surgery in the United States. However, with an increasing number of transgenders traveling to Thailand for reassignment, the qualifications are becoming simpler. Awaiting surgery recommendations and the actual surgery itself, many transgenders become involved in support groups to help cope with the new representation of themselves to the public. One area of stress is the workplace. Many transgenders choose to change jobs so no one will witness the transitions, and therefore bypass many problems. (Lewis)

Once the two year period has passed, recommendation can still be delayed. Possible contributions to this include lack of money which is compounded with some transgenders poverty, and unrealistic expectations. Some simply don’t have the capital to have the surgery. Others believe that reassignment will be the cure they need; that it will fix all anxiety and problems, such as depression, loneliness and poverty. (Lewis) Again this is only characteristic of guidelines in the United States. Thailand has become the hot spot to have the reassignment surgery. It costs much less, there is no waiting period, and if one simply has money one can have the surgery. Psychological tests are also significantly less strict.

The final stage is invisibility. Transgenders make a conscious effort to limit access to information about her recent history. They move to another city, change jobs, sever ties with past acquaintances, and reduce contact with other transgenders. This stage is called "fishing" among the transgender community. The goal of fishing is to completely blend into society and not be noticed as a transgender but just as a normal female. The intense desire to blend completely and cut ties is shown in the fact that forty three percent of male to female transgenders retain close contact with their families (Weiss).

My interview of respondent C illustrates the best example of fishing I have seen. I was unable to tell right away that she was a transgender. Her story is more uplifting in that her family was and is accepting of her and her transition was fairly easy do to her feminine physique. Her story begins in Hawaii she grew up in there with the common feelings of something being different as a child. At age four she realized that she was attracted to the opposite sex and to girlie things. Interesting is that at age four she was still a boy and yet considered other boys to be of the opposite sex. This illustrates her strong convictions of feeling like a girl. She learned as she aged to suppress those feelings of wanting to be a girl and did just so all the way until she left home.

Typical of other stories, she tried to live as a gay man for some time. She never felt accepted because she wasn’t manly enough; she was too effeminate to be a gay man. Halloween night in San Francisco at age 20 was the turning point in her life. She dressed up as a woman and walked around Castro. Her description of how she felt is "natural." Men paid a lot of attention to her which contributed to how comfortable she felt. For the first time in her life she felt attractive and comfortable in her own skin.

Later when she was 21 she moved back to Hawaii and began living a split lifestyle. She was a man during the day while she worked and a woman at night to go out. Six months of this daily life left her very confused.

The transition for her was actually very easy. Her ethnicity prevented her from growing facial hair. Her body shape was slender not muscular, and she already had hips before she began hormone therapy. Her naturally feminine appearance made her have no problem passing at a woman. Immediately with hormone therapy her body blossomed and she developed breasts, and her skin softened. She considers herself very fortunate in that she never had to have electrolysis or plastic surgery to reconstruct masculine facial features.

Pre-operation she began work as a topless dancer. After saving money through her dancing she was able to have the sexual reassignment surgery. The ease of her transition caused her to continue in the exotic dancing industry and become a stripper. She separated herself from the transgender community and began living as if she had always been a woman. She is still "fishing" today as most of her friends and coworkers don’t know about her past, even her husband didn’t know for the first eleven years of their marriage. Luckily when he did find out, he acted as if he didn’t believe the news could be true; so they are still happily married.

Respondent C has helped to pave the way for young transgenders in Hawaii. She dealt with much abuse and discrimination. Because of women like her, laws in Hawaii have changed and transgenders today have more help and opportunities. Major problems she identified today for transgenders include lack of education and money which leads to sex work. There is a huge market for transgender prostitutes, however they must be pre-operation. Like other prostitutes, these transgenders are in a high risk category for HIV/AIDS. Her desire to give back to the transgender community sent to her the same organization mentioned above which caters to Asians within that community.

I heard three different stories of transition which all paralleled each other. The similarities are striking, and all follow the Lewis model of transition. Each of these respondents always remembers a nagging feeling and that feeling was finally laid to rest after reassignment surgery in the invisible life of a woman. While the cause of this unrest is unknown these respondents are now happy and fulfilled members of society. Transition enabled them to live as they truly feel comfortable. Similarities in the stories illustrate a larger social culture that needs to be recognized and respected. Wider social acceptance will help to ease the transition these women need to feel at home in their own skin and start anew "fishing."

My questions varied for each respondent. My goal was to get as through of a life story as possible in order to compare. Here are the main ideas of my questions
When did you first feel like you were different?

                   Are you attracted to males or females now?

                   Do you consider yourself heterosexual?

                   How has your life changed now that you are a woman?

                  Was the transition an easy or difficult one? What aspects contributed to this?

                  Do you tell your partners of your past?

                  Do you live as an invisible transgender now?