Thursday, May 7, 2009

She's Not There. . .


"She's Not There" is a remarkable memoir about Jennifer Finney Boylan's decision to change genders.

For HW this weekend, I would like you to read an excerpt of the book. You may also explore Boylan's website to see photos and read more. In your comments please include the usual what strikes you, etc as well as what does this piece of a memoir teach us about gender identity?

In class, I will make an important announcement about your assignment for Monday, as class will be canceled.

32 comments:

  1. At such a young age, Boylan knew that she was transgender. She had not heard about this condition before and did not know that there were others like her, so she obviously was not effected by society in the sense of her feeling like her biological sex did not match up with her gender. Boylan wanted badly to be comfortable with who she was, with how she was born, but this proved impossible. She tried to ignore her heart's desires, and tried to find cures, such as love. But nothing worked and when she realized that she must be transgender and must do something, she found herself needing to explain the situation to others, who found transgenderism difficult to understand. I think Boylan's story helps readers understand people who are transgender and their line of thought, as the excerpt went deep into her thoughts and perceptions of the world.

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  2. What struck me is that Boylan knew even when she was really young that she was a transgender, and the way that her family reacted to it. Within the first few lines of the excerpt Boylan's mother told her she would be wearing shirts like her father's, and Boylan could not understand that because she did not want to be a man. Also, she came up with many ways to try and "cure" her transgender feelings in ways such as creating games and love, but she still did not feel completely comfortable in her own skin. Boylan also pointed out that as being a transgender, she learned the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. It was interesting to here that from someone that is transgender because in society we often group people together that aren't necessarily the majority. I found reading this excerpt interesting because it was another point of view of gender identity that we hadn't read yet.

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  3. It struck me that Boylan knew that she was transgender from such a young age. Without any prior context, one might laugh at the mother's telling Boylan that s/he will soon wear shirts like the one she is ironing for her father. However, Boylan is serious and tells the reader through this incident that she is uncomfortable with being a boy and does not want to grow up to be like her father. I also found the game in the woods to be very interesting. It clues the reader in to how Boylan thinks and identifies herself. With the rocket that crashes, it is evident that she still holds on to some parts of how a boy thinks, but in playing "house" we see that she is clearly happier being a girl than a boy. This memoir teaches us about the some of the differences between the ways transgender people and normal people think. I personally found it very interesting to read this memoir because people with gender identity issues usually do not speak out about their life.

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  4. A couple of things really struck me about this chapter of "She's Not There". When we talked in class about how drastic some options were for little boys who felt like girls inside, we meant surgery, hormones and treatment. As we know, the hormones can delay puberty and other options can make the transition to another sex easier. We also know that this treatment makes patients sterile. The class, or at least I, thought that a prepubescent boy is awfully young to make a decision that would have huge consequences such as giving up the ability to reproduce. And the other concern in my head was, what if the boy is not sure? What if it would have passed like a phase? The author of this story seemed so sure. She described how everyone knows their gender. It's like waking up in bed as a guy, when you know you're a girl. When you think of it that way, i cannot imagine how wrong one must feel. And how wrong it must seem for someone to ask a question like how did they know? I also liked how the author described what gender is exactly. She said “But being gay or lesbian is about sexual orientation. Being transgendered is about identity.”

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  5. The first thing that I really noticed about this excerpt was that, even when the author was on the "big walk" to determine a solution to the problem of wanting to be female, she was referring to herself as a "she." Other than it being fairly obvious that she would end up female eventually, I don't really know why this excerpt would be picked, as most of it deals with the author's grandmother, aunt, and Ms. Watson, who don't really relate to the author that much at all.
    From the ending of the story, though, I was surprised that the author's mother seemed to have taken her transitioning very well, even giving her the ring afterwards. (Though, why get the ring of someone who isn't even related to you, but a friend of your grandmother? That's kind of strange..)

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  6. The one sentence of this entire excerpt that really jumped out at me was, "But being gay or lesbian is about sexual orientation. Being transgendered is about identity." This obviously ties into our class discussions for the past week, because it makes a clear distinction between sexual orientation and identity. This excerpt didn't focus much on the steps Boylan took to becoming a woman, and doesn't really mention whether or not she thought she was gay as a man. Like everyone else has said, she clearly knew that she was transgendered at a very young age, which I think is why she understood that she wasn't gay, but rather, just born into the wrong body.

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  7. I feel like this excerpt was very different compared to the others we have read. She is able to communicate more about how young children actually feel when they feel they are in a body they shouldn't be in, which is something that always strikes me on this subject. Since she didn't know much about transgender at the time it seems as though it's mostly biological not societal.

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  8. The same sentence that zora was talking about interested me too. Boylan made an obvious distinction about what created your gender idenity. She did not care about her biological idenity because she clearly new who she and that she did not feel her biological gender was her idenity. It was interesting that on her long walk she wanted to come up with a solution even though it seemed as if she knew her idenity. Her solution to try to figure out to be a boy was interseting. From how definet she was about her idenity and then she tries to convice herself otherwise.

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  9. I feel like in this excerpt, the author is having a lot of feelings that are similar to what we've seen so far: conviction from a young age that she is a girl, confusion over adults acting as if she is a boy, etc. However, one thing that struck me as different from other cases that we have looked at involving children is that she didn't try to make her parents see that she was a girl, or let her behave like a girl. The fact that she goes on a "big walk" by herself to figure out why she always wants to be a girl shows that she is keeping her conviction a secret from her parents. In other cases, a big problem was that the parents didn't know what to do when their kids tried to play with girl's toys or wear girl's clothing. Here, the struggle is much more internal.

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  10. I thought it was striking how the author kept all these thoughts about wanting to be a girl to herself. It seems in the other readings we have read that involved transgenders the parents saw signs at a young age. I think it is interesting to read something in which the parents didn't know.

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  11. What struck me most was that Boylan knew at such a young age that he was actually a she. She was so certain even to the point of forgetting that everyone else considered her to be a he. Like when she wondered when her parents would allow her to get her ears pierced. She honestly forgot that that probably wouldn’t happen because her parents thought she was a boy. This excerpt reinforces the idea that gender identity isn’t something people decide on, it’s something that they are born with, or know from a very young age.

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  12. This is one of the first articles that we have read where the main character does not have a desire to “fix” herself. She knows that she is supposed to be a girl and she does not try to fight her desire. What was also surprising, however, was how young she was when she realized she did not want to be a boy. This was an interesting also because we got a first hand account of what was going through this person’s mind when she decided she wanted to be a girl. We saw it from her point of view, before we had only watched the transformation occur. This piece teaches us that gender identity is different to sexual orientation as the author states. The author did not think she was gay, she knew that she wanted to be a girl.

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  13. It was interesting how Jennifer was gender conscious at a young age. At the age of 3 she knew that she was a girl trapped in a boy body. The article reinforce gender beginning biological

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  14. I think this story was very interesting. The first part was very similar to what we have been studying, the I-am-a-boy-but-I-want-to-be-a-girl want. One thing I noticed was that this boy kept telling himself that he was not a girl, and that he should get over it. However, he couldn't.
    I think the Disappearing Egg is an analogy of his thoughts going on in his head. Just as the egg will not stick to the top of the cover, and hide (it always breaks), his thoughts of wanting to be a girl will not go away and stay away, it will always come back and reveal itself. I think this excerpt had a unique example of what it is like to deal with the feelings of wanting to be a different gender.

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  15. What struck me about this story if that Jennifer knew that he was a she and didn't feel the need to as Piya put it, 'fix herself'. This story adds to my feelings that gender isn't something you suddenly decide like a light switching on, it is something that you are born with. I found this excerpt really interesting because it gave us a glimpse into a transgender child's viewpoint, which can be really different than an adults one.

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  16. Several things struck me about Jennifer's story. First of all, I was impressed with her understanding at a young that the majority of people would not accept the fact that a little boy wanted to be a girl. To quote her excerpt, she says "as I child I knew enough about my condition to know it was something I’d better keep private." In the other stories/films we have seen, the children all make it clear to everyone around them of their desire to be a different gender, but in Jennifer's case she realizes this would only cause chaos and make people worry. Another thing that struck me was that Jennifer waited until she was a middle aged adult to transition from male to female. I wonder why she didn't go through treatment earlier since she always knew that she wanted to be a woman. Lastly, I studied the pictures that Ms. Ruback put up of Jennifer/James and it really amazed me how even though Jennifer transitioned at a later age, (so she went through all the male changes at puberty,) she still clearly looked like a woman. We have read that if you don't delay puberty than the person will develop like a man: facial hair, adam's apple, broad shoulders, tall, testosterone, etc, all making it harder to resemble a woman when the person finally does transition.

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  17. What struck me about the article was how she knew she was a girl when she was little. Its hard to grasp how a boy could have the mindset of a girl. For kids that dont have gender identity problems there isn't really a thought process that tells us we are the gender we are. "You just know". You like playing with different toys, and boys on the playground have cooties. I cant remember ever even wondering what it would be like to be a boy when i was younger. I cant imagine what my life would be like if i had the same thoughts but was captive in a boys body.

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  18. Boylan seemed to have a similar experience as Ludo in Ma vie en rose. They both automatically think they are girls, and are confused when someone tells them otherwise. Ludo asks multiple times if he is really a boy, and Boylan is confused about why she would wear a mans shirt. What strikes me about her story is that she grew up when people really didn't know about or talk about transgendered people, and that must have been extremely difficult for her. I think her story proves even more that gender identity is just something your born with. You don't have to think about what gender you are, you just know what you are and what you identify with.
    It also further proves that someones gender identity can't really be changed. She always believed she was a girl, but she tried to live as a boy for years and to accept that gender identity, but it never happened.

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  19. I feel like Boylan gender differences are purely biolagical rather then social. she just knew that her gender was not the one that her body matched too. She knew she was one thing becuase of her body but her mind set was of the oppisite sex. This is much similar to Ludovic. When a child is born like this they have to struggle to identify themselves and that can screw with a persons head but Boylan seemed to have come out very well as a person and as a lady.

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  20. Gender identity isn't sexual orientation. Thinking that you are the wrong gender has nothing to do with liking someone of the same gender--it is, rather, the feeling that something isn't matching up inside. What struck me the most was that Jennifer managed to keep what she was feeling secret from everyone. She didn't try to put herself out as a girl when she was still a boy, and I think that's something that challenges some people's views that being transgendered is a disorder. Jennifer was aware that what she felt was different from most people, and it was her decision to continue acting like a boy. She was sensible and most of all, she wasn't confused about who she was.

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  21. What struck me the most was how she was able to cope with her desire to be a girl. She would go to the woods and play " Girl Planet" Even as a young kid, she knew she wasn't a boy. I liked how in the beginning of the excerpt she never specifies about her gender. She just talks about not wanting to wear a shirt like her father's and being confused about why her mother made comments about it. It was like her mother said things to try and instill them in her mind. She TOLD her she would wear shirts like her father someday. I was also struck by the quote: "But being gay or lesbian is about sexual orientation. Being transgendered is about identity." It's everything we've talked about put into words. Also Sally's to question I think she waited so long to transition because she knew deep down he was she. Therefore she didn't focus on her physical appearance because deep down she knew what she was no matter what others said.

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  22. Boylan's story seems, to me, to be typical of a transgender. When she was a boy, she could feel that there was an obvious problem in her life and something was wrong. Yet, like many of the transgenders we've been learning about, she felt that she wasn't supposed to have the desire to change her sex. She felt as if she had to cooperate with the so called "norm" of society. Personally, I had a hard time following how the hurricane situation tied in with Boylan's issues. However, maybe it wasn't supposed to... i don't know. But all in all, I think every transgender has some point in their life where they realize that their thinking of changing their sex is okay, and cope with it. Though they may be different from the "norm", they can still have their own opinions and desires. Some may have trouble doing this because society sometimes has a hard time dealing with those types of people that they are not used to coming across.

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  23. All the points brought up in the previous comments struck me as well. But the one quote that really jumped out at me was this:

    "This conviction had nothing to do with a desire to be feminine; but it had everything to do with being female."

    To me, that just hit home the idea that gender really isn't about behavior or taste--as Boylan said, it's not a hobby; it's identity. Gender is the conviction of who you are, inherently.

    Also, this quote reminds us that a woman doesn't necessarily have to be feminine in the way(s) that society expects her to be. Being female has nothing to do with liking the color pink, wearing frilly dresses, or instinctively knowing how to cook and clean and raise a family; these are all societal stereotypes. Being female, as Boylan points out, is something that you just know, every moment of every day, as basic as the fact that you are human, and you are alive.

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  24. It is interesting that although she knew so early on that he was a she, she didn't act on it. She seemed to be more easy going. After the long walk she seemed to come to terms with her self and decide that he is a she but she still didn't seem to do anything about it. She just accepted her self and moved on. It's just amazing to me that even though she realized her true gender early on, she didn't act on it until much later in life.

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  25. What really touched me about this story was how the author was talking about how being transgendered was not a lifestyle or something he could choose, it was just a word describing a sense of wrongness that she had felt for most of his life. Another one of the stories most interesting points is that the story clearly divides being female from the traditional female stereotype. Gammie really helps accent the story, by reading her lines it seems clear that she would seem rather masculine, boasting about sex, drinking, and generally being stubborn. But Gammie asserts herself as a woman when she offers herself as a cadaver. She is clearly not ashamed of her body, even in old age. Though this story is short and only has a few scenes from a woman's life in my opinion it has much more information about being transgendered and more ideas about what gender is than "my life as an intersexual".

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  26. I was struck by the author’s question to some of her female friends: “Don’t you ever wake up and just know you’re a girl?” And I was thinking about this and what my answer to the question would be and I realized that if I did ever have this sense of being a girl, I wouldn’t have noticed it, because everything I’ve always been told I’m a girl. I guess if what someone felt and what someone was told didn’t match up, they would be bothered by that sense that didn’t match up with what they were told. But everyone forgets the things that don’t bother me, so no, I don’t know the difference between feeling biologically female and mentally female.
    I liked reading this story as an excerpt from a memoir, because the words were so carefully chosen, and this woman is a professional at storytelling, so I felt I could really understand what she was trying to say better than many of the interviews we read when people are answering quickly or in a conversation.

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  27. Yeah, I'd have to say I agree with the above statement. I thought that as well when I read that part; the part about waking up and "knowing" you're a girl. I don't think I ever had that revelation; I just always accepted that I was a girl and that's that. It is what it is. It never bothered me, you know? But I suppose that illustrates just how integral feeling like you're assigned the correct gender identity is. I never think about my gender all that much; because I feel at peace with being a female, but after reading that and thinking about it, I've come to realize that it does play a hugely important role in one's thought process--especially as a little kid.

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  28. She seems so fixated in being a female. When she asked "Don't you wake up and think that you are a girl?" and state blunt sentences such as "I never got over it" (getting over being a girl).

    However, her being so innocent is kind of interesting. She said that she never knew the word transgeder/transexual and only something like trans-something (the one with the bug). And to me, most children likes to explore and "be'' many things, however most tends to avoid being a "bad" thing. So for her to not know the transgender terms and only the one about the bug and yet still feel strongly about being a girl is interesting and opens a new side of transgender.

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  29. What stood out to me was the section of the chapter where she decides to do something about 'this problem.' She knew that she can not change her identity, but she was willing to try anything to correct it. She believed that through complete social acceptance she would forget or gradually abandon the wish to be a female. Also, she demonstrated that gender is something that defies natural logic, but is still true. She knew her whole life that it did not make sense, but she also knew that what she felt about her identity was completely true.

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  30. It struck me how easy it can be to confuse gay or lesbian with transgender or transexual. In particular, I found her comment that being transgender or transexual is a matter of identity, to be interesting. I appreciated that comment because it really made it more clear to me how she felt.

    This biography proves a point similar to that of many other stories we have heard about in class. It shows that gender identity is apparently more a function of nature than nurture because people seem to know at a very young age what gender they self-identify with. I don't think that when kids are that young, they were really influenced by some factor in their environment to suddenly be very sure that they are a different gender than their biological sex. It seems to be some inner understanding of one's self that people are born with.

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  31. I think it was really interesting that boylan knew, from an early age on, that she was transgender. I think its pretty unusual to know it at such an age. At the same time it was, or actually still is not really that well known in society, which made it harder to understand what is going on.
    At the same time the author says that transgender isnt anything that is to be chosen. Its not something you think you are, you just know you are it. I think thats really interesting, since transgender usually gets tied up with homosexuality (i think i commit this mistake often enough) but is totally different. Transgender is a form of identity, not sexuality. And you just know it... subconsciously, i guess.

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  32. I thought it was very interesting how she portrayed conversation within her thoughts, and the back-and-forth-ness of whether or not she was a girl or a boy. What should really be taken from this piece of her memoir, is that gender identity is not as simple as being a girl or a boy. And the fact that society sees it that way makes identifying yourself that much more difficult.

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