Monday, November 26, 2007
Boys must be boys – for all our sakes
Our uptight, risk-averse world is denying boys the outlets they need to grow up into civilised, successful adults, writes Sue Palmer
Ryan was eight when he tried to kill himself. He saved up his Ritalin tablets until there seemed to be enough for an overdose, then knocked them back and waited to die. Later, after he had been very sick, his mum asked why he had done it. “Because I’m too naughty,” he said. “I’m just a nuisance to everyone.”
Ryan is constantly in trouble at school and at home. He has been diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), a “developmental disorder” involving problems with concentration and self-control. ADHD did not exist as a medical condition until 40 years ago but is now thought to affect about 5% of the population. The vast majority of sufferers are male.
Last year I published a book called Toxic Childhood, looking for reasons behind recorded increases in children’s behavioural and learning difficulties over the past 20 or so years. I concluded that rapid social and cultural change – junk food, poor sleeping patterns, a screen-based lifestyle, marketing pressures, family upheavals – were interfering with healthy development.
It was clear from my research that behavioural and learning difficulties hit boys hardest. Educationally, for instance, many now fall at the first fence and never recover: boys are three times as likely as girls to need extra help with reading at primary school, and by the time they reach GCSE they trail behind in almost every subject on the curriculum. Indeed, less than a century after women’s emancipation, female students significantly outnumber male ones at British universities.
Behavioural disorders such as ADHD are about four times more likely to affect boys and so are the emotional, behavioural and mental health problems that, according to the British Medical Association, now beset 10-20% of our children and teenagers. As these sorts of problems in teenage boys all too often lead to school failure, disaffection and antisocial behaviour, there are powerful reasons for trying to solve them.
So I’m now researching another book to find out why the modern world seems particularly toxic for boys. It’s already clear that the sort of behaviour we require from our offspring in an uptight, urban, risk-averse and increasingly bureaucratic society comes far less naturally to infant males than to their sisters.
Take the “naughtiness” that is wrecking life for Ryan and those around him. There have always been naughty boys, but in the past the activities of scamps, scrumpers and scallywags were usually shrugged off as high spirits. Fictional rascals, like Huck Finn and William Brown, clearly viewed themselves as heroes, not suicidal victims.
The big difference between Ryan’s miserable existence and that of youngsters in the past is that, until the end of the 20th century, much of boys’ boisterous behaviour went unnoticed and unrestrained by adults. There was time, space and freedom for lads to run off steam. Even when shades of the prison house did close around the growing boy, the time at the edges of the school or working day was still his own and the local woods and hills were his natural habitat.
This is not simply a case of “blue-remembered hills” – the tendency of adults to romanticise childhood. There have, of course, been periods in the past when children were mercilessly exploited and probably had little time or energy to play, but most historical accounts of boyhood, even recent urban ones, involve a degree of freedom to roam that seems unthinkable today. . . .
A Cover Girl Who’s Simply Himself
AROUND THE TOWN From far left: Andre J. attending a party in his honor at Runway; posing with Malik Sterling, a regular on the Manhattan social scene, at an event for Patrick McMullan’s book “Glamour Girls” in September; at a party in April.
by Guy Trebay
25 November 2007
WHAT follows is, in brief (well, not so brief), the curious tale of how a handsome black man who can also look an awful lot like a beautiful black woman, except with better legs than most and a beard, happened to end up on the November cover of French Vogue.
The time was summer 2007. The man, who goes by the name Andre J., and who was born Andre Johnson 28 years ago in Newark, and who is a sometime party promoter and former perfume salesclerk at Lord & Taylor and former publicist at Patricia Field’s boutique and current downtown personage (an “It” person, as he was termed in Paper magazine), was running out of his apartment on Thompson Street in the Village for lunch.
It was a hot day. On this particular scorcher, Andre J. had chosen to stay cool in a neon green caftan and gold gladiator sandals. His hair, which, pulled taut, measures 24 inches in length and which he usually wears in a bouffant nimbus that gives him the appearance, as a magazine stylist recently remarked, of “a big Afro-daisy,” was dressed that day in a 1970s Wet & Wild style and covered in a enormous white turban à la Nina Simone.
This was not an unusual grab-a-sandwich ensemble, as Andre J. is quick to point out. “That’s me every day, honey,” Andre J. said on Friday, right before a party at a club called Runway to honor his election to the elite cover girl sorority, Gallic chapter.
“Most people are conditioned to think of a black man looking a certain way,” Andre J. went on. “They only think of the ethnic man in XXX jeans and Timberlands, and here Andre J. comes along with a pair of hot shorts and a caftan or maybe flip-flops or cowboy boots or a high, high heel.”
And so, Andre J. was running out for a sandwich and who should he bump into but Joe McKenna, the stylist who is the secret weapon behind the success of many, many very celebrated designers? Mr. McKenna was on the phone at the time. The person on the other end was Bruce Weber, the celebrated photographer of, among other things, dreamily homoerotic calendar art for Abercrombie & Fitch.
When Mr. McKenna spotted Andre J., he immediately put Mr. Weber on hold. Mr. McKenna then called out to Andre J., whom he had met before and had once suggested for a V magazine pictorial photographed by Vinoodh Matadin and Inez van Lamsweerde.
“Andre,” said Mr. McKenna, “you look amazing!”
ACTUALLY, he did not say it in quite that way. It happens that the adjective “amazing,” pronounced with a bunch of superfluous vowels, is how fashion types, and also certain urban gay men and also one or two tuned-in heterosexual copycats, lately express their approval. Amazing has replaced such locutions as “genius” and “major,” which today sound even more old-hat than “fabulous.” . . .
Becoming a man
November 20, 2007
I grew up in a rural Tanzanian village with no electricity. We couldn't go to school unless we fetched water from the river, milked cows, let them graze for the day. Our chores reminded us that we were disciplined but poor so school was a privilege. School took place in the late afternoon, children of all ages sat under a tree into the early evening learning lessons that had little if any relevance to our daily lives. My father could not afford the mandatory uniform so every year I went to school for three weeks in the semester until the teacher dismissed me.
I didn't care; well, I did but I didn't let it show. I hated poverty; I hated its limitations. Stupid me because all around were golden fields of wild savannah, the sun set against the plains.
In those days, I knew I wanted to live as a man so I walked with my shoulders hunched so my chest was hidden deep into my back. My father scolded me, thinking I was ashamed because we were so poor. He told me to take pride in what little we had so that future blessings would shower our lives in the next life, if not this one.
I was never ashamed of him, ever. I loved him deeply. He was all I cared about but there was no room to say such things to your father. Respect meant little or no eye contact; speak only when spoken to; measure your words carefully with pointed, brief answers. One side-glance from my father ensured all pretense was lost: I straightened my back, held my head high, chest forward, hoping some day he might respect me, too, maybe even love me as a man in much the same way I loved him for being one.
Then the voice of God came to me, reassuring me that I'm already a man. But by nine my chest betrayed me and, more importantly, betrayed (my) God. By 13, my whole body was in revolution. Blood came between my legs once a month; little hills spurted into huge mountains on my chest. I couldn't afford a razor so I shaved my chin with dry leaves. Still, very little hair grew and the hair that did was faint, wispy compared to the mane on my father's handsome face. My sisters -- over six feet tall and less than one hundred pounds -- were all arms and long legs with little or no hips. I looked more like my brother: short, stubby, limbs stunted by family standards with no sign of future growth besides a slight bump from a permanent potbelly. Worse: boys walked barefoot until twenty-five to make sure their sisters wore sandals, "Jesus slippers" we called them in my language because they opened at the mouth. The slippers were an aphrodisiac to showcase the streamlined beauty of a woman's feet; they made me wear them.
Enough was enough. Rather than go to the edge of the village to consult with the witchdoctor -- a spiritual mediator between this world and the next -- I broke with tradition, going directly to my mother's grave for answers. I figured my body was going crazy because she was jealous that I looked nothing like her. My large chest, high-pitched voice, smooth delicate skin was her violent attempt to embarrass me into womanhood. So I waited. Nothing: stillness at her grave. So I asked my other ancestors. What did they do? Send a torrential downpour of such magnitude that I thought about wearing a dress for months. . . .
Neigbour made life a drag
June Jones
Jean Cowan
22/11/2007
A DRAG queen has told how he suffered months of abuse from a `neighbour from hell'.
June Jones repeatedly swore and shouted homophobic abuse at Martin Prescott after learning he was gay and worked as a professional female impersonator. Mr Prescott, 40, who works under the name Miss Martell, could not take any more after five months of verbal abuse and vandalism.
He complained to the council and police in Wigan, who took action against his next-door neighbour. Jones, 56, of Higher Ince, admitted `pursuing a course of conduct amounting to the harassment' of Mr Prescott between June 4 and October 3. She appeared before Wigan magistrates.
Mr Prescott urged other people suffering homophobic abuse or anti-social behaviour not to feel that they have to suffer in silence.
He said: "She is THE neighbour from hell. I have lived here for five years and the abuse started the day I moved in. She asked me if I was married and I told her I was gay.
"She immediately started shouting abuse at me and it has gone on ever since."
Lucy Ashton, prosecuting, said Jones had verbally abused Mr Prescott and made homophobic remarks to him on numerous occasions. She swore at him in the street.
The most recent incident occurred on October 2 when Mr Prescott was at home.
Abuse
He heard Jones shouting and swearing in the street outside and decided to go out in his car. But she jumped in front of the vehicle, preventing him from driving away and hurled abuse at him.
Mr Prescott called police. Jones was arrested after each incident, but each time she was interviewed by police she claimed she could not remember what she had said or done because she had been drunk.
Mr Prescott had described how he had put up with similar abuse for years but the situation got worse in recent months.
The court heard Jones had a previous conviction for making hoax 999 calls last year and had also received a conditional discharge for wasting police time.
Miss Ashton asked the court to impose a restraining order preventing her from further harassing Mr Prescott.
Mr Craig Parkinson, defending, said Jones had difficulties looking after herself and this was exacerbated by her drinking. She had been intoxicated when she committed each offence.
Sentencing was adjourned until December 6 - and Jones was remanded on conditional bail.
Mr Prescott, who has been a professional female impersonator at clubs for 20 years, said: "I ignored her at first, but she has been relentless." . . .
What it means. . .
21 November 2007
I was reading Bint Alshamsa's blog, and she said recently that “The truth is, I can't know exactly what being transgendered means unless I make more of an effort to seek out and listen to the voices of transgendered people. Otherwise, I'm just doing the same thing as those who deem it appropriate to speak on behalf of people like me without ever taking into consideration what I have to say about my experiences.."
So, to state the obvious, there’s no one meaning to being transgendered. I imagine my experiences will be rather different to, say, Lisa’s, Nix’s, Little Light’s, Nexy’s (some of those minor things like age, nationality, sexual history, sexual identity, gender). So here’s part of what it means for me to be transgendered. Now I don’t identify as transsexual. I think it’s bound up certain kinds of essentialist thinking that don’t really work for me, and I’m not so invested in notions of authenticity or naturalness. A lot of the time I fumble around for words to try to explain, because “trapped in the wrong body” is an easily understood narrative, but it just doesn’t work for me. I think Julia Serano’s notion of “gender dissonance” is much better, that idea that my subconscious gender and the one I was born with don’t match up. So I could explain by saying that I’m a genderqueer trans woman, but that’s just a way of saying that there’s something that doesn’t fit with me, a sense of tension with regard to masculinity.
But I’m not under the illusion that wearing dresses or whatever equals being a woman (I think that assumption underlies a lot of rad-fem transphobia.. oh those poor MtFs, they actually think that's what being a woman is about). Let’s just think of femaleness as having a greater range of possibilities for gendered expression that work for me. I do consider myself female, or sometimes becoming-female, but I’m not sure I can ultimately grasp any gender as being properly real (I’m not sure if that makes any sense to anyone else besides me). Femme is as solid an identity for me as I’m going to get right now, maybe that will change after a couple years of transition.
So being transgendered means for me, I think, to be radically disconnected in a number of ways. If there’s always a thread of gender non-normativity or dysphoria, when I look back at my earlier life as a boy it seems strangely disconnected from the present. I am very early in my transition physically, but have been out for a number of years. And gender is cut across interestingly with sexuality with me—I have identified variously as a heterosexual boy (if a rubbish one), a bisexual boy, a mostly male-desiring queer boy, a queer third gender, and finally a queer girl who predominantly desires women. All of that has had an important impact on how I—and even more so, other people—see myself and my gender presentation. A lot of people seemed to think that I am transitioning so that I could be a straight woman, as though it were a natural extension of my queer sexuality (heterosexist logic, that). When yeah, I don’t like straight blokes AT ALL.
Then there’s the bodily disconnection. I don’t like talking about it much cos it’s such a trans cliché, but sometimes the sheer maleness of the body I was born with makes me sick to my stomach. Most of the time it’s not so bad, it just feels wrong. I don’t hate my body, I just want it to be different. But yeah, every so often. Not so blasé.
And yeah, obviously the social disconnection. Your relationships with family and friends get more fraught. I have been lucky enough that my family hasn’t disowned me, and some extended family have been supportive, but it’s… tense… with my parents. And it’s amazing that some liberal (feminist, queer) friends who were quite fine with my being not-male suddenly got weird about me transitioning. Clearly being genderqueer equated to “unorthodox queer man” in their heads.
Then there’s the day-to-day minefield of social interaction. Ignoring the whole shitty general public for this post (I’m sick of talking about what bastards random strangers are to me), there’s a disconnection with people you know. When people who’ve known forever call me by my male name or by male pronouns, I don’t like it. I don’t make a big deal about it, because I know how hard it is to change that instinctive naming and gendering people do in their heads, but it’s not fun. And some people, even people who think they’re being supportive, just don’t even try, and that hurts.
And the thing is, with all this talk of disconnection, I think transitioning for me is about connection. It’s not some humanist project of becoming a whole person or whatever (is anyone? Is that even possible?), but it is about making some of the bits fit together better.
Ok that’s enough for now, I might write some more on this topic some other time.
Eunuch creating AIDS awareness within her community
Nov 26, 2007
New Delhi: According to the latest UN figures, nearly 2.5 million men and women in India are HIV+. But these figures have overlooked transgender people.
"When I walk on the road, I don't want to be seen just as a eunuch. But I want an identity of my own," says Muskaan.
A 24-year-old transgender and a graduate in Economics, Muskaan like many others of her samaj always leads a life in isolation.
"We can't live everywhere because the society doesn't let us. What can we do? And we even if we are literate, we don’t get jobs," she says.
But the last few months have been different. Muskaan has been roped in to work with Naaz foundation to create awareness about HIV and AIDS in her community.
"In my community not everybody is aware. So through this project I am trying to spread awareness so that nobody gets affected," says she.
Today, 2.5 million Indians are reported to be affected with HIV or AIDS, but experts feel that the numbers that go unreported are far more.
"There is no count as such that so many number of transgender people are effected and so many from other communities but its prevalent everywhere so they are at risk,” says Project Manager, Naaz, Sumit Dutta.
Muskaan is now training to make a film to promote the use of condoms. While the project is going to last another month or two, she hopes to achieve much more.
"What I really want to do is try and bridge the gap. I'd ask people to talk to us frankly and we'll talk frankly too. We are not bad people. Please don't force us. We want to co exist in the society. So please help us," says Muskaan.
With people like Muskaan coming forward to bridge the gap and create awareness, there's no reason why we shouldn't do the same. And if you find it difficult to fight the apprehensions, just ask yourself does the virus know how to differentiate when it strikes? The answer would be not really. . . .
