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2. Being a Man - Fall 2006
- University of Wisconsin Press
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Fall 2006 What’s so bad about being a man?” my wife asks me. I’ve been living in the house for months since shaving off my beard and mustache and starting to wear androgynous but femalemarketed clothing. At first, we talked compulsively, night after night, for hours at a stretch. Now, though we hardly ever discuss anything but household business, there are moments—the habits of a lifetime are hard to break—when we still find ourselves trying to talk our way across the chasm of gender. “What’s so bad about being a man?” My wife has repeated this question for months. Sometimes her tone is joking, almost lighthearted . Those are the times that hurt the most, when it seems for a moment as though our marriage is still intact, as though we can laugh together through my transsexuality the way we have laughed through every other crisis. She waits for me to go along with the joke, to clap my forehead theatrically, as though the light has just gone on, and say, “Hey, you’re right—being a man isn’t that bad” so that we can fall into each others’ arms and reunite in the joy of renouncing the terrible mistake I’m making. I hesitate, hoping she will realize that she is inviting me to laugh at my need to become what she has always been: a whole person. Then, trying to match her tone, I say, “There’s nothing so 36 2 Being a Man bad about being a man.” I try to sound like I’m joking when I add, “as long as you’re a man.” In the silence that follows, I hear her heart breaking again. It’s easier when she’s angry, when she hurls the question at me like a knife, when it isn’t a question but an attempt to gouge me into realizing that I have thrown our lives away to become a patchwork parody of a woman. “I hope you’ll be happy,” she says. “I hope you’ll be happy, knowing that you’ve destroyed four lives to walk around in a dress.” “I hope you will be happy.” That’s what thrown-over wives are supposed to say—what better mirror to hold up to a husband’s faithlessness? To her, I am sacrificing our family for a panty-hosed version of a typical male midlife crisis, abdicating relationships and responsibilities to roar off on the Harley-Davidson of transsexuality (the metaphor is hers) toward a fluffy pink Shangri-la of selfcentered gratification. But I don’t see myself in her bitter mirror, because I’m not transitioning for the sake of happiness. I have no illusions that becoming a jobless, homeless approximation of a middle-aged woman is a recipe for bliss. This isn’t a typical male midlife crisis—it’s a typical transsexual midlife crisis. That’s what’s so hard to explain. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a man—at least, I have nothing to add to the complaints women traditionally make about the opposite sex. What’s bad about being a man is that I’m not one. “I don’t walk around smiling because I’m a woman,” my wife points out, meaning, if being a woman isn’t a big deal to someone who really is a woman, why should it be a big deal to me? In our culture, men and women have almost the same options in terms of behavior and life choices. What difference does it make whether I’m living as one or the other? The answer is there when she looks in the mirror. In our small New England college town, it’s common to see middle-aged women of the housewife-and-mother variety in Levis, work shirts, sneakers or boots, and no-fuss shoulder-length hair. My wife isn’t one of them. Though she hates blow drying, she blows Being a Man 37 [18.208.172.3] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 13:19 GMT) her long, dark hair dry no matter how hot it is. Though she doesn’t wear much makeup, she spends longer putting on hers than I ever have. When she dresses up, she almost always wears dresses or skirts. Even when she wears pants and a T-shirt, the fabric and cut of her clothes—not to mention her earrings—proclaim her gender. And, like many heterosexual...