[Magdalen] I'm confused

[Kristin Rollins]

Without getting into the rabbit hole of language too deeply, I'll answer
that I am a trans woman, having been born with anatomy that led my
parents to raise me as a boy.

And please don't feel foolish for having to ask the question. It took me
a long time to figure out the right language (in part because I don't
have much exposure to people like me), and there are still aspects of
language around gender that I am not confident about myself!

Kristin

-- 
  Kristin Rollins
  kristin at verumsolum.com
  Portsmouth, VA

On Mon, May 30, 2016, at 07:55 PM, Grace Cangialosi wrote:
> I need a little help here, and I feel foolish for having to ask, but I
> do. It relates to the terminology for transgender people. I've been
> wondering about it for awhile, and then this morning I met the trans
> neighbor of a 92-year-old parishioner who had just passed away and found
> myself feeling totally confused. Mind you, I didn't express that, but
> it's been on my mind all day. And she will be coming to the funeral on
> Saturday, so I will be meeting her again, as will all those in
> attendance. And knowing this congregation, I anticipate that there will
> be comments and questions put to me after the funeral is over, probably
> on Sunday.
> 
> What I don't know is which way the term "trans" is applied.  If a person
> was born biologically male and is now living as a female, with or without
> surgery, is she considered a trans woman or a trans man? Same question
> for the reverse situation. This woman introduced herself with a woman's
> name, and I took that at face value, but I experienced some cognitive
> dissonance because of her appearance, which was decidedly masculine, as
> was her voice. And she had shaved. But she had breasts...  Obviously this
> isn't important in deciding how I'm going to relate to her, but my
> discomfort about whether I might do or say the wrong thing  let me know
> that I need to get a handle on this. I'm sure that, just as gays and
> lesbians have come out and taken their places in society in a way that
> causes scarcely a second look, the same will be true for trans men and
> women.  But that isn't the case yet, at least not for me.
> 
> Finding myself in this confusion is a bit ironic, because the last
> patient I had as a volunteer Hospice chaplain at least 20 years ago was a
> woman with AIDS, and she was transgender, though I didn't realize it for
> a long time. She had had the reassignment surgery in the 70s and had
> worked as a platform model in New York. In addition to AIDS, she had
> scleroderma from the breast implants and was part of the class action
> suit against Dow Chemical. I never had the slightest bit of discomfort
> with her and grew very fond of her as our visits continued.
> 
> As I visited her weekly, I learned her whole story, and as she became
> sicker, I met her parents who lived in West Virginia. The tragedy in the
> situation was that they were very strict Pentecostals and had no idea how
> to deal with the fact that their child, born Jimmy, was now a grown woman
> named Christine. Her mother asked me point-blank if she was going to go
> to Hell. I assured her that I did not believe she would.
> When she died, I did her funeral and burial as she had requested, and
> then the family requested that I have no further contact with them.
> 
> So anyway, back to the original question of which way the term "trans" is
> applied.
> Thanks,
> Grace