James Green and his younger brother,
Eric, are having lunch in the courtyard of a
restaurant in Pleasanton. It is a sunny August
day, and shadows from overhanging trees dapple
the patio. Over a chicken sandwich, Eric, 45,
reminisces about their Oakland childhood.
"Jamie was just the
same all the way from day one," says Eric. "We
used to play tackle football in the front yard.
And he built a tree house in the redwood tree,
and we used to play army with the kids next
door, getting in the dirt and all that
stuff."
"Yeah, I was always the
general!" says James.
"So," continues Eric,
"Jamie's always been, um ... Jamie's been, you
know ..."
James prompts him.
"This way."
"This way. The same as
he is now, except ... no fuzz."
Eric reaches over and lightly rubs his
brother's beard. James - a 48-year-old
female-to-male transsexual - crinkles his face
in delight and laughs loudly. So does his
brother.
For decades, people have viewed those who
changed their biological sex as freaks of
nature, or as psychopaths or simply pathetic
creatures who, for whatever reason, could not
accept what nature had given them. In the 1950s,
the word "transsexual" became synonymous, in the
public mind, with media sensation Christine
Jorgensen. Like Jorgensen, most of the
transsexuals who made their transitions public -
including tennis player Renee Richards, British
writer Jan Morris and countless guests on
countless talk shows - changed their biological
sex from male to female.
In recent years, however, new voices have
emerged, as female-to-male transsexuals have
sought - and fought - to generate awareness of
their existence. While doctors formerly thought
that these FTMs, as they call themselves,
numbered far fewer than their male-to-female
counterparts, many now believe that the true
ratio is closer to even.
James Green, a longtime East Bay resident,
has been among the leaders of the effort. And he
wants people to understand one thing about
masculinity: It has more to do with a man's
inner life than with his genitals.
"Being a man is not
about how other people define it, but how you
choose to define it for yourself," he says. "If
nontranssexual men could realize that being male
isn't necessarily about having a penis, then
they'd be doing themselves and everybody else -
including women - a service."
That may sound surprising coming from someone
who dreamed for years about altering his female
genitalia. Yet it encapsulates the experience of
a great many transsexuals, for whom sex and
gender are most definitely not the same thing.
While many people use the terms interchangeably,
transsexuals view "sex" as the biological
category represented by the genitals. "Gender"
is the psychological identity that nestles
wherever a person's most intimate sense of self
resides - in the mind, or in the soul, or in the
heart. Even when James had a female body, his
gender - his conception of his place in the
world - was male.
Today, there is little about James' physical
presence to recall the woman whose body he used
to have. Oh, perhaps a slight curve of the hips
or bottom . . . but even that would be a
telltale sign only to those who knew of his
former life. His voice is deep and rich as
chocolate. His arms and upper torso are thick
and muscular. His beard is full, and his
hairline is receding. His booming laugh explodes
across the room like a grenade.
A technical writer and aspiring novelist who
received both a BA and MFA from the University
of Oregon, James lives in a ground-floor
apartment in a large bayside complex. Wobbly
stacks of papers and files populate the alcove
he has set aside as an office. Scattered about
the living rooms are magazines ranging from the
New Yorker and Men's Fitness to Transgender
Tapestry. Settling into his couch in green sweat
pants, slippers and an open- necked shirt, James
leans back and discusses his life. He and his
brother were adopted as infants, and their
parents raised them with love and
acceptance.
"It was kind of a 1950s
Leave It to Beaver childhood - except
with this twist," he says.
Though his parents let him play the tomboy at
home, they did require him, against his will, to
wear a dress to church and school. He wasn't
called James then, of course, but today he
prefers not to disclose his former name, which
he changed to the androgynous Jamison when he
was 15. Despite his female biology, people
always perceived him as a little boy - which is
precisely how he felt.
"When I saw Mary Martin
in 'Peter Pan,' I was 7 or 8," he says. "I
thought, 'Well, they let her dress up and act
like a boy. Is she a boy? Does she become a
boy?' Then I thought, 'I'm a better boy than she
is! Maybe I can grow up to be a boy, too.'"
James' mother recognized her daughter's
fascination - although not the root of it - and
sewed a Peter Pan outfit, which the young girl
wore constantly until she outgrew it.
Surgeon Gail Lebovic is sitting in her Palo
Alto office, which has a broad view of the
surrounding hills. Dr. Lebovic, who several
years ago operated on James' chest to remove
scars left after his mastectomies, is friendly
and down-to-earth as she recalls her first
meeting with a transsexual in 1990.
After training at George Washington
University Medical School and Stanford
University Medical Center, she obtained a
fellowship to study with Dr. Donald Laub, a Palo
Alto surgeon. On the first day of her
fellowship, her senior colleague asked her to
examine a patient who had arrived for
surgery.
"This was a man who was
about 55 years old, a little bit overweight,"
she says. "So I started asking routine
questions, like, 'Have you ever had surgery
before?' 'Yes,' he said, 'I've had bilateral
mastectomies and a hysterectomy.' I mean, this
was a man, who had a job in the school district.
His wife was with him. I was really confused."
Dr. Lebovic laughs at the memory. "And then I
understood. But there was no question in my mind
at all. I accepted him as a man."
Today, Dr. Lebovic and Dr. Laub perform
dozens of transsexual surgeries a year for
transitioning men and women through the Gender
Dysphoria Program in Palo Alto, which Dr. Laub
started in the 1970s. It is one of a handful of
top-quality centers in the United States where
transsexuals can obtain psychological
evaluation, hormonal treatments, help in
adjusting to life as a member of the opposite
sex, and, finally, surgery. Dr. Lebovic
estimates that at least 1,000 transsexuals
undergo surgery in the United States every
year.
Under the law, any licensed practitioner can
legally perform the procedures.
Dr. Lebovic says she focuses more on what can
be done for the person now than on the cause of
his or her condition, which no one can fully
explain. Many doctors used to believe that it
stemmed from some of the same factors they
blamed for homosexuality - childhoods steeped in
parental modeling of socially unacceptable or
unconventional gender roles. More recent
theories focus on hormonal or biological events
in utero.
As she speaks about her patients, Dr.
Lebovic's sympathy for their dilemma and her
desire to help them is palpable. She says that
performing transsexual surgery - which makes up
about 15 percent of her practice - is among the
most rewarding work she does.
"The patients are so
grateful," she says. "They're really committed,
and you're giving them something they've always
wanted. It's just a good feeling. . . . These
people have suffered so much."
Dr. Lebovic swivels in her gray leather chair
and pulls out four big folders. She flips
through them. The first book contains primarily
head shots of men who have had hormone
treatments but not yet genital surgery. Many of
them sport mustaches or beards.
"Just a regular bunch
of guys," she says. "You can see why they'd want
their bodies to match."
The second book includes photos of chest
reconstruction, and the remaining two show the
results of the various genital surgeries. As Dr.
Lebovic describes the options, her voice
percolates with enthusiasm. Most FTMs, she says,
choose to have phalloplasty, which involves the
construction of a penis using a roll of flesh
from the abdomen. The organ itself has no
sensation but covers the still-intact clitoris
and can be used for intercourse with the aid of
inserts or pumps.
It is also possible to remove a nerve from
the arm and attach it through microsurgery to
both the clitoris and the phallus. This
expensive, painful series of procedures - "a
sort of Rolls Royce phalloplasty," says Dr.
Lebovic - ensures that the penis itself has
sensation.
Then there is the metoidioplasty option, in
which the clitoris - which can grow to as long
as two inches from testosterone - is released
from the clitoral hood. Judging from photos, the
organ looks rather like a Bonsai-penis - small,
delicate and perfectly proportioned, although
not ideal for intercourse. The surgical options,
which include the construction of a scrotum, can
cost tens of thousands of dollars - which
insurance rarely covers.
"Most men have the
phalloplasty, because the penis does tend to be
sort of symbolic of the male identity," says Dr.
Lebovic. "And also, in order for them to have
what they would consider a normal sexual life,
they want to be able to have intercourse." Do
any of the patients make special requests about
how large a penis they would like? Dr. Lebovic
laughs. "Very few patients come in with demands.
Some will say I want an inch-and-a-half around,
but that's rare. To be honest, for the surgeon,
it's really what you're working with. You have
to use the tissue that's there. You don't have
much artistic leeway," she adds
dryly.
Like many FTMs, James lived for a long time
as a lesbian. He played a butch role, at one
point becoming Pacific Northwest Bell's first
female cable splicer. But the fit never felt
right. People often did not perceive him as
female, and when he used public rest rooms,
women sometimes screamed and called for the
police.
"It was a constant
struggle," he says with a sigh. "I just got
tired of the battle. I was sick of the cute,
safe, androgynous routine. I couldn't be a
woman, so my only choice was to be a man." For
years, though, he retained what he was born with
out of feminist solidarity. "I felt to some
extent I owed it to other women not to give up
that position of being female, to continue to
show that it was possible to do whatever you
want and still have a female body," he
says.
When his longtime partner gave birth to a
daughter in 1985, he ached to be known as her
father, not her other mother. When a son
followed a few years later, James felt it was
time to proceed.
"I got to the point
where the split between my gender identity and
my body was just too much for me," he says. "If
I stayed in my female body, I would be asking my
kids to hold that dichotomy, too. With the kids,
I had more responsibilities. That forced me to
grow up."
He applied to enter the Gender Dysphoria
program and was accepted. At the time, he had
just started working as a vice president at a
large corporation. He told his new boss, who
accepted the news but had difficulty referring
to him as ''he'' for more than a year - a common
situation confronted by those who transition
while on the job.
James chose the metoidioplasty option, and
was thrilled about the change. Even his widowed
mother eventually came around and accepted his
new identity. But his partner was less than
enthused, and the relationship fell apart. James
maintains a close relationship with his 12-year-
old daughter, but his former partner has not
allowed him to continue to see the younger
child.
His daughter says he is a typical dad -
mostly fun, sometimes a pain. He takes her to
McDonald's and the movies, and the two are
building a large wooden dollhouse together. She
has not told most of the kids at school about
his history, but some of the adults she
encounters know the situation. And his
visibility as a transsexual activist annoys her
on occasion, like when James took her to the
podiatrist to get her hangnail treated. The
podiatrist had recently read an interview with
James.
"She said to me, 'How
does it feel to have a famous Dad?' " says
James' daughter, rolling her eyes. "And I'm
like, 'Can you work on my toe?' "
Given his experiences, he disagrees
vehemently with those who maintain that gender
identity and behavior is based solely on
societal expectations and not on biology.
"If gender was socially
constructed, I would have turned out to be a
girl," he says. "People told me all my life I
was a girl, and I tried, I really tried. You
think this was easy? I could have saved a lot of
money and a lot of heartache if I didn't have to
do this. But it was the only way I could be who
I was."
Founded 11 years ago, FTM
International is a San Francisco- based
education and support group that has close to a
thousand members across the country. A few dozen
FTMs, along with their partners and supporters,
meet once a month in San Francisco to gossip,
listen to guest speakers and explore topics
ranging from the spiritual aspects of changing
one's body to the insurance hassles many of them
face. Like James, who is president of the group,
some of those who attend have fully
transitioned. Others have had some of their
surgeries, or are simply taking hormones. Some
are gay men, but most are heterosexual. Many are
just curious to learn more about the phenomenon,
but most are interested in understanding where
they - and their gender identity - fit in.
FTMs have a particular fondness for facial
hair, since they recognize that it is one of
society's key signifiers of maleness. At one
meeting, when several guys fuss over one man's
newly sprouting beard, he beams broadly. He
explains that when he could no longer hide his
transition from his father, he leavened his
disclosure with humor. "I told him, 'The good
news is, I'm not a lesbian,' " he says. From the
raucous laughter that follows, it is clear that
many of the guys previously lived as lesbians,
and that their parents frequently had difficulty
accepting the situation.
Toward the end of another gathering, a
handful of men strip off their shirts and flex
their muscles proudly. Others inch forward to
examine the reconstructed chests up close.
Despite the occasional scars remaining from the
surgeries, the chests are remarkably buff. It
would take a seasoned observer, in many cases,
to distinguish them from originals.
At last weekend's meeting, Larry Brinkin, who
handles discrimination complaints for the San
Francisco Human Rights Commission, discussed
what legislation there is to protect
transsexuals. While federal and state laws
generally do not specifically protect
transsexuals, he told the group, San Francisco
passed an ordinance in 1994 that bans
discrimination based on gender identity. Several
other jurisdictions - including Santa Cruz,
Seattle and the state of Minnesota - have passed
similar laws. British Columbia is about to enact
a gender identity law.
Although state law would generally prevent
complainants from suing under the local
ordinance, Brinkin explains, the city can help
broker resolutions. The most frequent complaints
involve employers' refusal to allow transsexuals
to dress in the style appropriate to their new
sex or to use the corresponding rest rooms.
Sometimes, he says, co-workers mercilessly
harass transsexuals, beat them up or insist on
using the old pronouns to refer to them.
"Before we had the law
here," Brinkin says, "it was so frustrating and
painful when people would come to me, because I
couldn't help them."
James is a man of strong opinions. Here are
some of them.
On feeling secure about his
masculinity:
"When you
think of someone who can find and hold
comfortably their masculinity while in a
female body, then being in a male body just
makes it that much easier."
On smiling:
"I had to
learn to not smile as much, because that's
something women do to let people know you're
OK, like if you bump into someone on the
street. Men don't do that with other men. One
time this guy looked like he was going to
punch me out, because he saw it as a threat
or come-on."
On how his change has altered his
relationships with women:
"I don't
express my anger any differently now, but
women are much more frightened of me. Before,
they always felt they could stand up to me.
If I get angry now, my voice is louder, my
body is stronger, and my anger is more likely
to be called abuse or a threat. It really
makes me sad."
On the war between the sexes:
"I want to be
perceived as a man, but I don't want men to
be perceived as villains all the time just
because they're men. I tell guys things that
lots of women have told me - that what women
want is to be paid attention to - because
I've been in a position to hear things from
women that many men haven't."
On bathroom etiquette:
"I don't leave
the toilet seat up. When the man does that,
it's as if he's the only one in the
house."
On the effects of testosterone:
"First was an
increase in libido. In four weeks, my voice
started to break, and in eight weeks, my
menstruation had stopped. And I felt calm,
centered, grounded. I thought, 'This must be
what normal feels like.' This was something
my body was ready for."
Marcy Sheiner is an East Bay writer and
critic. Funny and feisty, she is the mother of
two grown children, and over the years she has
been involved romantically and sexually with
both women and men. She and James began dating
in 1990, although their relationship has
undergone some painful changes in the past
year.
The two first met when Marcy researched an
article about FTMs for a lesbian magazine. At
the time, she was steeped in traditional
feminist rhetoric about transsexuality: when it
came to sex roles and stereotypical gender
behavior, Marcy always gave more weight to
social conditioning than to genetic or hormonal
influences. But James' obvious comfort in his
masculinity - along with his apparent ability to
discuss emotions and issues in a way not common
among heterosexual men - forced her to
reconsider her notions.
"I was really nervous
before we met, because I was expecting a freaky,
weird, really whacked-out guy, and Jamie walked
in looking like a banker in his suit and tie,"
she recalls. "I was immediately taken aback. I
started interviewing him, and the interview
lasted about five hours. By the second hour, I
started to get really intrigued and attracted.
When he left, I felt suddenly like my apartment
was really empty. I missed him
already."
The couple fell in love, and Marcy believed,
at first, that she had at last found the man she
could build a life with. She found agreement in
surprising quarters.
"For instance, (he) has
turned out to be, in my mother's eyes, the most
presentable man I've ever been involved with,"
she wrote in an article about their
relationship. "After years of enduring - or,
rather, ignoring - a parade of long-haired
androgynous hippies, struggling musicians, and
several women, she was delighted when I showed
her my new boyfriend's photo and triumphantly
circulated it among relatives in Florida as
evidence that I'd rejoined
civilization."
But the relationship has foundered in the
past year or two on issues far from unknown to
those engaged in standard heterosexual
relationships: commitment and communication.
Marcy is disenchanted because James'
dedicated activism means that he has too little
time to spend with her. He has become, she says,
"the FTM poster boy." She also feels that though
his years in the lesbian community apparently
helped him to learn how to discuss emotions, he
is sometimes far more interested in his own
perspective than in what she has to say. She has
discovered, in other words, that he really is a
man.
"Sometimes she says to
me, 'I can't believe you were ever a woman!' "
says James with a sheepish grin.
A year ago, the pair planned to get married
this month and booked a honeymoon in Hawaii. But
several months ago, they called the wedding off
and entered couples counseling. They hold hands
affectionately on the way to dinner at a San
Francisco restaurant. But over pumpkin ravioli
and pasta with prawns, they banter openly about
the changing nature of their relationship.
"We're in a
nonmonogamous, nonprimary relationship," says
James. "That's the current status. Though
neither of us is seeing anyone else right
now."
"Still, we torture each
other about it," she says. "But we won't see
anyone else before we go to Hawaii, because I
don't want my vacation ruined," he
says.
They clearly enjoy their tart repartee,
although the underlying tension is apparent. "My
son sometimes calls us Lucy and Ricky," she
concedes. They are leaving this week on the
Hawaii vacation, and the renegotiation of the
relationship continues.
Though James was raised in the Presbyterian
church, he no longer accepts the traditional
notion of the deity. He understands that many
people would feel he has violated the laws of
God and nature with the decisions he has made.
Yet in his own way, he views his life as a
spiritual journey that has brought him a gift
that few people receive.
"As a transsexual, you
get to observe things through a lens to which
others don't have access," he says. "Once you go
through this and you make yourself as vulnerable
as we make ourselves, and as strong as we make
ourselves, you really learn to accept people for
who they are. People have said to me that God
doesn't make mistakes, and I agree with that,"
he adds. "I think I was made this way so I could
be given the opportunity to go through this
adventure. When you find out what a pariah you
can be, you learn not to take acceptance for
granted."
