The St. Louis Gender Foundation

Gazette

September-October 1996

A bimonthly newsletter for the transgendered community

The StLGF is a MAGGIE affiliate

Our Masthead

Statement of Purpose

If you have any questions please write:
StLGF,
PO Box, St. Louis, MO 63117,
or call us at
(314) 607-4163
Email the StLGF: stlgftg@netscape.net
Web Sites:
http://members.aol.com/stlgf1/

Email the Editor: Christy Kay: Christy Kay

The President's Column:

by Christy Kay for Erika Cantrell

Madam Prez begged off writing this month's President's column, and instead, asked me to welcome everyone back after the summer vacation. So... Welcome back! I hope everyone had a safe, interesting (but not too interesting) summer. Never far from my mind as I browsed all the lady's clothing catalogs that arrived at our house, "What am I going to wear in September?" These wonderful people you asked to guide the St. Louis Gender Foundation have been busy this summer, coming up with ways to make the StLGF more fun and interesting, while getting more people involved at the same time.

One of the changes involves the themes for the meetings. Formerly, this was the sole responsibility of the Vice-President, Rita Amore. This fall, however, one of the long term members will team with a newer member and plan the theme of the meeting. Rita announces the first theme in her column in this issue. Be prepared with ideas.

I've got good news and I've got bad news. In early August, the StLGF had it's very first ever summer event. The bad news is for those who missed it, you should have been there, you missed a wonderful time. We partied along side a very private, beautiful pair of lakes South of St. Louis. There was a sand beach, crystal clear water, paddle boats and a volley ball court. Seated in a shady grove of trees, situated at lake-side, we sat and visited and had a get together never to be forgotten. Facilities do include changing rooms.

Now the good news. We're going back for the September 21 meeting. Due to the overwhelming positive response, from those who went, and the large turnout, to the First Annual St. Louis Gender Foundation's Summer Picnic, we've booked the facility again. I'm certain that those who went the first time, and had such a good time , will be there again.

Pridefest from a CD Perspective

By Carmen

St. Louis Gender Foundation was well represented at Pridefest 1996. Six of us crawled into the back of Jordynne's pickup truck, Suzi, to participate in the parade (and that was no easy feat wearing a denim skirt and pantyhose). Shannon Jackson created some very pretty rainbow colored "Transgendered and Proud" banners which we taped on the sides of Suzi for the parade. Riding in the parade was alot of fun. Jordynne kept urging spectators to smile as we slowly drove by. They would always smile for her. You could pick out anyone in the crowd, smile at them and wave ÒHi!Ó, and they would always smile and wave back. The smiles were warm, friendly, and encouraging. It seemed like many of the women spectators enjoyed seeing us standing in the back of a pickup truck wearing skirts, dresses, pantyhose, tight fitting shoes, and lots of make-up. We definitely had the best dressed participants in the parade.

The parade ended at the upper Muny parking lot in Forest Park. The booths included merchandise, support organizations, church organizations, and choirs. Pridefest activities included music, dancing, food, a children's play area, and a car show. Pridefest was just like any other small County Fair (only a lot cleaner).

The StLGF members took turns working the booth or strolling around the park. Numerous people stopped by to read our displays and look at the StLGF collage.The atmosphere was very friendly and comfortable. I learned alot about the GLBT community. Rainbows are one of our symbols, and Rainbow merchandise was everywhere. I was also impressed by the family values displayed on much of the merchandise. Expressions of love were everywhere including love for those who were taken before their time by AIDS.

I was a little nervous prior to the event. I was concerned about the Police arresting me for dressing as a woman. I was concerned about which rest room to use. I was concerned about how I would be accepted and treated by everyone. I was concerned about whether my face would melt in the hot August sun. All my fears turned out to be unfounded. The Police helped out with the parade, and could care less how I dressed. Security at the event was very good. Numerous porta-potties had been brought in. Everyone was very kind, friendly, and respectful. And best of all, the StLGF members looked just as lovely at the end of the day as when the event started.

I was very proud to represent StLGF and transgendered people at Pridefest. I had a wonderful time. I hope we can get even more of us to participate next year.

Pride

by Jordynne Lobo

The above/following is an excerpt from an article Jordynne wrote and which appears in the September issue of "Kolours" magazine." For the first time in the herstory of St. Louis's Pridefests seven trans people and one of our significant others marched together with our sister and brother queers. Okay, so we T-people marched the easy way: perched on our fannies in the bed of a pickup truck.

We were thrilled to be celebrating together with everyone. But if we ever catch up with the teasing staff butch who kept prodding us: "I don't hear you singing, yet?!", we'll have to tease her back. What did she want to hear, seven babes in baritone? Maybe we could have lip-synched...but, nah, we don't do drag; for many of us these are our clothes...all of the time!

We genderqueers hold that belief precious. We welcome you to hold it, too...with Pride.

Rita's Oh So Rambunctious Ramblings

by Rita Amore

Dear Ones...As we are about to renew the fall dressing season (cooler weather and less daylight being a crossdresser's best friends), please note an upcoming adjustment to choosing meeting themes. Previously the responsibility of the Veep, dreaming up meeting themes will now fall into the realm of the general membership. So show us your creativity as well as your ideas of fun by accepting an assignment to plan the theme for a meeting. Don't despair my Lovelies, the Lovely One will do her part by "themeing" one meeting later this year. I've chosen my theme already, and ... drum roll, please ... it is "Trashy Divas." What is a trashy diva, you might ask. Well, I'll leave it to your imagination for now and explain more in the future. As a hint, be advised that Shannon J., Joyce, Shannon G., and Miss Bobbi Fox are poring over their wardrobes right now to select the creme de la trash.

TV SPORTS...No this is not the sports schedule in TV Guide, but merely snippets merging the sport of TG with those other, sweatier sports. Minor League Baseball is the most gimmicky professional sporting venue around. Professional wrestling can't hold a creative candle to what small-town America will do to put people in the seats at a minor league game. The Palm Springs Suns had big plans for "Nude Night," but it had to be called off when more people than could fit in the clothing-optional tent opted to go au naturel. A recent promotion of "Drag Queen Night" also got the axe when the mayor and community gays protested. The Suns PR director noted that the goal was to raise funds for AIDS research, "not fill the stands with drag queens. This is just entertainment. We didn't want people who were vulgar or distasteful." (No trashy divas, eh?) Please remember, my Lovelies, that Palm Springs is the home of former mayor Sonny Bono, famous for being the ex-spouse of that popular drag queen Cher.

The Olympics have come, gone, and are nearly forgotten; but this little snippet will surely delight. "Two transvestite volleyball stars who led a team of crossdressers to the Thailand Men's Championship were denied Olympic status, and did not make the team." Apparently wanting to be beautiful, wearing makeup and long hair, and indulging in women's clothing disqualified the two best Thai players from representing their country. The two players, who helm a team of transvestites called "Steel Women," created the furor when they claimed Thai authorities jilted them solely because they wear women's clothes and cosmetics. Does this explain why the volleyball court was not used at our club's summer picnic, or was it because Ashley forgot her power beach volley ball suit and Jamie didn't want to break a nail?

VISUAL STIMULI...Spotted out and about recently was Sherrie, Queen Mother of STLGF, at the Grey Fox Pub. She was taking in a show with a nearly packed house. It was a pleasant surprise to have Jeff W., spouse of the late and greatly missed Jennifer Richards, join us at our summer club outing. It was even more surprising to be joined by Joanne Schultz for the first time in years at the same club function. Hope to see you both again!

I spotted a Missouri vanity plate downtown at Fair St. Louis. The plate was POST-OP. Now do any of you know this person or of a way to obtain license info? I have a bet with myself to see if the owner is a gender post-op or a recovery room nurse. What do you think?

NEW NAME...All old traditions eventually die or are reinvented or invigorated by modification. It is now time for Chrissie "the Carp" to get a new name. The name Chrissie will stay, but "the Carp" has got to go. I'm initiating a contest to rename the Carpster, and the winner will get two free passes to Sea World or a six-pack of canned salmon, whichever fits better into the club's budget. Chrissie was fond of "the Carp" while it lasted, as she heard from a local drag queen that to be called "Fish" means that a queen looks like a real woman. (But remember that she earned her nickname at a fashion show when her swimsuit ensemble more closely resembled that of a real fish!) At this stage in her life, however, Chrissie is looking for a more elegant handle. Please submit all entries to the Lovely One.

LATENT IMAGE...A special feature of this issue is a listing of 48 TV/TG-themed videos available at WHIZ BAM, the alternative video rental store located on South Grand. Please keep this listing as a valuable future reference. The store is TG-friendly, the video offering is outstanding, the selection is growing, and you all now have the chance to be as hip as the Lovely One. Support this store so we'll continue to have this entertainment available to our community.

UNTIL NEXT TIME, MY LOVELIES,

Some like it hot...
When dressed,
I like it freezing.

Rita

"Are you Morg or I-Morg?"

By Steve Harris

In an episode of Star Trek Classic, a landing party beams down to a barely habitable world. There the first people they meet, calling themselves "Morg", are distinguished by being heavily bearded with scruffy clothes and unkempt hair, low voices, and servile and fearful attitudes. They first take the landing party for "I-Morg"; when the landing party denies this, the Morg advise them to beware the I-Morg, the "Givers of Pain and Delight". Soon enough, a party of I-Morg show upÑunbearded, carefully coifed and clothed, high voices, obvious breasts, with commanding and confident attitudes. They send the Morg about their way dismissively and confront the landing party. They don't know what to make of unbearded people with low voices, no breasts, and confident attitudes. "Are you Morg or I-Morg?" is the exasperated question put to them by the I-Morg leader.

Such is one of the central messages in Sandra Bem's The Lenses of Gender. (If the name Bem seems familiar to you, it should: Hers is the so-called "Bem Androgyny Test", the set of 60 questions designed to measure to what extent a person agrees with 60's-era stereotypes of femininity and of masculinity. This was the first instrument designed to measure along an F-scale and an M-scale independently of one another, instead of, as had been the custom previously, to score very answer as simultaneously + in F and - in M or vice versa. What she found was a large number of people who scored high in both F and M scales and also a large number who scored low in both F and M scales-contrary to the previous beliefs that everyone must be clearly the one or the other.) For Bem, the lenses of gender refers to assumptions made by nearly everyone in society and internalized to such a degree that we don't even notice we are making them: They are lenses through which we view the world and ourselves, without ever being aware they are in front of our eyes, shaping what we see. Her book is an attempt to help us look *at* these lenses instead of through them.

There may be dozens of such lenses, but the three that Bem is concerned about have to do with gender-and, in her view, are the ones responsible for the relative disempowerment of women, as compared with men, in society. These are:

• 1) biological essentialism
• 2) androcentrism
• 3) gender polarity

Biological essentialism refers to the notion that one's biology-i.e., what one is born with-determines one's social or personal development; especially, that one's genitals determine one's "natural" inclinations in such matters as nurturing, competitiveness, and so on. Androcentrism refers to the practise of viewing that which pertains to the male as "normal", while that which pertains to the female is "marked", i.e., a special exception that one takes note of as one can (typical example: one calculates the number of restrooms that will be needed for the men in an arena, so that all who need to can relieve themselves during the intermissions; one then puts in the same number of women's restrooms without doing a comparable calculation). Gender polarity refers to two things: divvying all of the population into exactly two groups, called "male" and "female"; and using that division as the single most important way of organizing society.

It is the third of these lenses I wish to discuss a bit. Gender polarity is enforced in each of from earliest childhood: as soon as we are old enough to note the differences, we made very aware that there are things boys do and not girls, things girls do and not boys, and we are one or the other, immutably: Girls can be pretty-i.e., can be praised for looking delicate and eye-catching; boys cannot. Boys can be regularly rough-and-tumble; girls cannot. Girls will grow up to be mommies who (in my childhood, anyway) spend nearly all their time taking care of children and household chores; boys will grow up to be daddies who spend a great deal of their time away from home (something mysterious called "work") and hold the ultimate authority of punishment. And what distinguishes boys from girls? Why, it's their appearance: Girls wear dresses and have long hair; boys wear pants and have short hair. (These days, that's amended: Girls sometimes wear dresses and have long hair; boys never wear dresses and have short hair.) At least in a family with only boys or only girls, nothing about anatomy is even hinted at in the way one tells boys from girls, until one is at least 6 or 7, possibly older-considerably after the time one has already been made manifestly aware of importance of gender in organizing society and in knowing what is expected of one.

Eventually, we come to learn of the anatomical differences that go along with the gender divide. At first, this is nothing more than a curiosity, a small detail of little significance. Later, we learn about mysteries of sex and pregnancy, and things come a bit more into focus. Finally, we learn to redefine the locus of gender as residing in the genitals-but we still have that 4-year-old's picture of what being a boy or a girl "really" means deeply embedded in us.

What this means is that as we grow into adolescence-where the genital difference starts principle-male/female. It takes such a hold of us that for many purposes we have the sub-text, "masculine = non-feminine, feminine = non-masculine"-just because that makes it all the easier to see the entire world as falling into exactly two camps. And if, God forbid, we should find within ourselves anything smacking of a mixing of the two, we hide it in fearful shame: The intersexed, at birth, are routinely "corrected" to disambiguate their genitals; men with feminine characteristics or women with masculine characteristics are scorned for being homosexual; one who wishes to be taken sometimes as a man and sometimes as a woman is loathed and suspected of being a sexual monster; and the transsexual is a figure of deep mystery, viewed with dread or pity or anger-but always with utter bafflement. (According to Bem, the transsexual has the gender polarity lens as deeply internalized as most in society, with the exception of anchoring it to birth genitals.)

And if someone should choose to insist upon recognizing a selfhood which doesn't fit neatly down the gender-divide-to refrain from repressing those elements of personal expression that society says go with the other sex-then the society experiences a cognitive dissonance with such a person, someone who, apparently, can't make up his/her mind (in spite of the fact that the person *has* come to a conclusion). And so society goes up to the person and asks, in all exasperation, "Are you Morg or I-Morg?"

The Times, They Are A Changing!

by Christy Kay

The Times, They Are A Changing. The River Front Times, that is. In the back, in the personals. There is a new section. One that dropped our jaws when we first saw it.

The Personals still start out with "Women Seeking Men," "Men Seeking Men," "Women Seeking Women." etc. The next section is "Men Seeking Women." That covers what you would normally expect in a personals section. But wait, before you get to "Just Friends" there is a New Section. "Other." It's got personals from Transgendered people, or those interested in Transgendered people. I think Ray Hartman has really gone and put his money where his mouth is. I've not seen any radical reaction in the letter to the editor, but the editor could not be publishing any negative reactions, also.

My only quibble is the name, "Other." There has to be a better description of a section for Transgendered Folk than other. Since our creative juices are a little dry at the moment, we going to make the naming of the new section an opportunity to write-in and name it. We'll forward the selections that we think best to Mr. Hartman himself. Here's your opportunity, your title for the "Other" section just might be in the River Front times. After all, we are the authorities on Transgenderism in St. Louis.

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Last modified 12/3/96.