Chicago
— Dhillon Khosla wants to have things both ways.
His personal publicist (Levine Communications) bills his
new book, Both Sides Now, as “a rare glimpse
in to what it is like to live as both a woman and
(currently) as a man—and offers extraordinary
insight and perspective into the sexes.” Yet in the
concluding chapters of the memoir he writes, “If
there ever was a time when I thought I had some special
insight into the minds of women, that time was now
past.”
Khosla declined to be
interviewed for this article. In a recent appearance on
The View <http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/5/prweb381639.htm>
—explaining his discomfort at the term
transgender—Khosla says that after 15 surgeries, he
feels “to use any other label but man feels like a
betrayal to those efforts.” Elsewhere, he’s
noted that he feels more accepted in blue-collar bars
than the LGBT community. Neither sentiment however,
precludes an interest in queer money, and Levine
Communications is actively courting the LGBT press and
marketing Both Sides Now directly to LGBT readers.
The East Indian-German
first-generation American (who recently left his post as
a staff attorney to California and federal judges to join
the lecture circuit) insists that “warmth and
openness” is his natural state, but nearly every
chapter in Both Sides Now references his “murderous,
overwhelming rage,” which he describes as
“simply a reaction to my
circumstances.”
That fury is directed at
doctors; his mother; fellow spiritual students (one of
whom says “I hate the kind of masculinity you have
come to embrace”) ; people on the street who
mistakenly call him ma’am in the early stages of his
transition; and lesbians. Angry that a woman he’s
interested in won’t date him because he’s now a
man, Khosla—who once identified as a
lesbian—fumes in Both Sides Now: “Fuck
lesbians. Fuck all of you. When I was in a different
body, you all wanted me—drooled over me. And now
it’s different? Well, you’re all hypocrites
because I’m the same person.”
Each chapter in
Khosla’s memoir opens with a dream sequence and then
describes his transition from late 1997 to early 1999.
Primarily focused on his push for hormone treatment and
sex-reassignment surgery, Both Sides Now is like a mythic
quest for the Holy Grail—which, in Khosla’s
case, is an attractive, fully functioning penis.
Without genital surgery,
Khosla believes he will never be completely accepted as a
man. Like protagonists in most mythic journeys, Kholsla
faces numerous obstacles—surgical complications and
the expense of nearly fifty thousand dollars. In the end,
he successfully achieves the penis of his dreams.
Although written well
enough, Both Sides Now fails to live up to its
promise—particularly that of exposing essential
differences between men and women. Fortunately the memoir
of another former lesbian succeeds commendably in
reaching that goal.
In this summer’s The
Testosterone Files ( Seal Press) , Max Wolf Valerio
describes how hormone treatment fundamentally altered
both himself and the way he perceived men and women.
An American Indian-Latino
Sephardic poet—whose pre-transition prose was
included in the essential feminist of color tome This
Bridge Called My Back—Valerio began hormone
treatment nearly two decades ago. His story inspired
Monika Treut’s short film, Max and her feature
Gendernauts (recently released on DVD from First Run
Pictures). Testosterone Files focuses on the first five
years of that transition, providing engaging and vivid
imagery of the punk lesbian-feminist who was Anita; and
the chemically, physically and emotionally changed man he
became on testosterone.
“The testimony of
The Testosterone Files should be compelling,”
Valerio argues, “because I was a lesbian feminist
and didn’t believe that these changes could be due
to hormones alone. I also believed that all differences
between the sexes were mostly cultural or socially
constructed. I found out that I was wrong.”
Risking the wrath of
feminists everywhere, Valerio boldly asserts that there
are fundamental differences between the sexes, and that
those differences are rooted primarily in hormonal
influences rather than socialization. Doing so, Valerio
elicited some pointed criticism from feminist sources.
“I understand,”
he claims. “I would have had the same reaction
before I began hormone treatment. However, I stand by my
assertions that testosterone—and estrogen—have
powerful effects on more than simply beard growth and
muscle mass.”
Valerio’s not put
off by controversy. “It’s the job of the writer
and artist to bring people into challenging experiences,
to stretch their boundaries and disturb them,” he
says.
Despite some negative
reactions, others have lauded Testosterone Files,
including feminist biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling.
“There are obviously
people who tend to lean toward a reading of sex roles, or
even sexual differentiation, as being very socially
constructed and who can read The Testosterone Files with
some nuance and appreciation for its contribution,”
Valerio says.
Valerio penned the
majority of the manuscript in the mid-’90s. In
subsequent years, he says he’s also come to
recognize that it’s not just testosterone that plays
a part in transitioning to male—socialization has
its place too.
“ [ Male
socialization ] can help you to become a more mature
man: more developed, more loving and kind. Socialization
[ does ] affect us as transsexual men. But, not
in so far as the changes I so dramatically describe in
the memoir. What I do with these changes, which were so
basic and raw, so quick to appear after I injected
testosterone, is another matter. This is where culture
and, therefore, socialization kick in.”
For example, under the
influence of testosterone, Valerio says he found that
“Sexual desire and fantasy can often feel
overpowering, and you need to keep your head on straight.
What I’ve discovered with time is that one
doesn’t have to do anything at all about these
feelings; if you do nothing, they pass, like all feelings
do…I have grown into my new sexuality, and the
heightened drive is just another part of who I am
now.”
Valerio says that his
frank discussions about sex and violence have been seen
as the most controversial aspect of his book.
“I’ve heard of
women actually crying after I read the chapter,
‘Cock in my Pocket,’ which is graphic about the
heightened sex drive and takes on the issue of rape and
violence against women. Because of the intensity of the
writing and the fact that I don’t pull my punches
when describing intense feelings and impulses, people are
often shaken.”
Arguing that violence
seems “a part of the male inheritance,” Valerio
says he’s gained a “darker understanding”
of how testosterone activates aggression.
To deal with that
increased hostility, Valerio says he turned to biological
males to learn ways to safely interact with other
men.
“You just learn new
ways to cope with certain feelings,” he said.
“I had a genetic guy tell me this, early into the
testosterone: that one has to learn to control one’s
temper or irritability, that this is just part of growing
up as a man.”
He says he’s also
had to learn new boundaries around women: “I have
more power, and some of that power is the power to
frighten and intimidate, and that is not a welcome thing.
It’s like waking up and realizing that you are a
hulking beast that terrifies people.”
Willing to address even
the most controversial issues Valerio says, “I known
FTMs [ female-to-male transsexuals ] who tell me
that their sex fantasies became more violent or
aggressive.” He admits that his own sexual impulses
have become “colored by an intense and sometimes
edgy desire, a sudden desire to take, or even
overpower.”
But, he says, these are
simply feelings or fantasies and he’s learned how to
express their energies in nonviolent and nonsexual ways.
He cautions, “You don’t act out your stuff on
other people, certainly not without their consent.
That’s just not ethical. It’s part of maturing
as male.”
In many ways,
Testosterone Files is a celebration of masculinity.
“I didn’t want to be an apologetic male,”
Valerio says. “So, I wanted my memoir to reflect
this exuberance; there is a beauty to what I experience
as male energy, it can be creative as well as
destructive.”
As a trans person with
Native American heritage, Valerio finds that others
falsely presume his coming out was easy or that the tribe
celebrated his transsexuality. Explaining this, he said,
“My mother is American Indian from a reserve in
Canada. She is from the Blood [ Kainai ] band of
the Blackfoot Confederacy. Although it is true that in
the old days, people would live as the sex opposite their
birth sex, it is also true that now, much of the memory
of this alternative living has been lost. It’s
actually a silly and romantic idea about Indians that
fuels this fantasy—and it is a fantasy—that we
are all received as shamans or accepted as two spirits or
what have you. The reality is often far less romantic. My
mother never wanted me to set foot on her reserve again
and…I haven’t gone back yet. But, I will.”
Valerio argues that
he’s not a two-spirit, anyway. He’s a
transsexual man. He clarifies, “Two-spirits
aren’t exactly the same as transsexuals of the 20th
and 21st centuries, anyway. Most transsexuals don’t
want to be, or feel themselves to be, of two
spirits.” Instead, he says, transsexuals feel
strongly that they are of the sex opposite to their birth
sex and they “take medical means to alter ourselves
to a proximity of that perception, that deeply held
belief.”
He’s also now come
to anticipate that feminists will view him in that
light—unless they’ve had the chance to know him
personally—especially as The Testosterone
Files’ testimony about biological differences may at
first appear as sexist conclusions.
Valerio says he’s
been taken to task because he’s not actively trying
to dismantle the binary gender system. He sees his very
existence as a transsexual as rebuking a rigid binary.
But argues, “it’s not our job to live out
anyone’s idea of a gender revolution.”
“I like being a
man,” Valerio says. “Male guilt does not
empower women. You can be more far more helpful to women
if you take on your manhood with dignity and
responsibility, if you do not shirk the consequences of
your choice to embody manhood.”
Being a heterosexual man
who’s largely gender role-congruent casts suspicion
upon him, Valerio says, because some feminists believe
all heterosexual men are inherently misogynist.
“I enjoy women who
like being women in a traditionally feminine way.
I’m attracted to…femmes. As a man, this makes
me appear more traditionally heterosexual [ and ]
many feminists seem to think that male heterosexuality is
automatically anti-feminist. I believe
otherwise.”
Furthermore, Valerio
insists, “I do not believe that having a virile
heterosexual male sensibility and finding women desirable
makes one a misogynist…lust is not
hostility.”
Plus, he argues, being a
transsexual man, “makes me automatically some kind
of queer. It’s a paradox. I’m arriving at a
normative place through radical means.”
Valerio says he’s
also been accused of being macho. He thinks that
perception may be based on class difference, and says
feminist author Viviane Namaste once told him, “Max,
they think you are macho—and therefore
sexist—because you are not a white, middle-class,
queer-identified academic.”
“I was brought up
very working-class,” Valerio explains. “ [
I was ] around enlisted Army men; Indian and white
cowboys; and men in working class trades, [ and ]
I think that my masculinity is marked by
this.”
Valerio says that
although he still firmly believes in feminist tenets, his
feminism is now mediated by his experience of manhood.
“I’m now more empathetic to men’s lives
and experiences. I see that guys have it rougher than
I’d imagined before. Men are actually often kinder
and nicer people than I would have thought before I
became one. I think the average guy is trying to do the
right thing.”
Valerio says, “We
must take responsibility for our gender.” Transmen,
he argues, can’t identify as male when it suits
them, and then be “special because we’re
socialized female,” when their maleness is
inconvenient. “Being an ally to women means taking
responsibility for being a man now,” he says.
Unlike some men
(including Khosla) who claim—after they come out as
transsexual—that they were never truly female,
Valerio says, “I know that I was female at one time,
even if that was hard to accept.”
During the period of his
life detailed in The Testosterone Files, Valerio
primarily dated heterosexual women and, in fact, he says,
“All of the women I’ve dated actually for over
20 years have been heterosexual.” Partly because of
that, he hadn’t been involved in the dyke community
since the early days of his transition. That all changed
three years ago when he met Amy—a femme dyke—at
a trans-dyke event.
Dating a lesbian has been
an interesting experience for both of them, Valerio says.
“She’s had to
deal with conflicts in her identity: negotiating her
identity with friends and with herself. I’ve been
escorted back into dyke spaces by her, and into spaces
for transmen and dykes that are appearing more and more
in San Francisco.”
Valerio sees his
partnership with Amy as “part of a new attempt by
the dyke world to accommodate transmen and their dyke
partners,” and says, “It is really an
experiment, and I am not sure where it will
lead.”
As happy as he’s
been to find a place for himself in lesbian culture,
Valerio says he wishes more efforts were being made to
welcome transwomen into dyke spaces.
“Transwomen are,
after all, the women in the equation and they should be
the ones going in before we do,” he argues. “I
actually can’t emphasize this enough. Transwomen
should be allowed to be in women’s spaces, not
transmen!”
Valerio says that he and
Amy have also found a place for themselves in the
queerish straight community of San Francisco, which he
calls “pretty damn kinky and different.”
“ [ Amy ]
has many bisexual or queer identified girlfriends who
date men, or have husbands and date women also. She still
identifies as a femme, and as a lesbian-dyke and
that’s her business. We like to say that we’re
in a queer heterosexual relationship because it’s
certainly not a lesbian or dyke relationship—it is a
relationship between a man and a woman—yet
we’re not the everyday het couple either.”
Valerio is currently at
work on two projects: a nonfiction compilation that will
include analysis of films and books, and essays
addressing masculinity, transsexuality and sexual
politics; and a book of short stories that may evolve
into a novel. In the meantime, he continues his poetry, a
medium he’s excelled at for more than two decades
and which he says is the work most exemplary of who he
is. He sees his non-fiction work as bringing to light the
real life experiences of transsexuals that have been
ignored by academics and queer theory.
“We’ve been
heard incompletely and through the lens of theories,
which most of us don’t care about or identify
with,” he said. “I think the majority of
transsexuals do not identify with queer theory.
They’re not all that interested in transgressing
gender; they are interested in having and living their
lives as men and women.
Like Khosla, Valerio sees
his journey as a transformative adventure, but unlike
Khosla’s hunt for a magic talisman, Valerio
describes his quest as “a search for my authentic
self, as well as a very potent medicine—that I
ingested without fully grasping just how much it would
impact my life. It was world shattering in terms of my
psyche, even as I grew into a place where I was
ultimately more comfortable.”
The edgy and
thought-provoking Testosterone Files introduces us to the
first leg of Valerio’s journey, one in which the
traveler is influenced by sex, drugs and punk rock, and
in which he explores the dark side of maleness, and
returns a changed man—one who is so hopeful that we
can’t help but be buoyed by his enthusiasm. The only
disappointment is that the story concludes nearly a
decade in the past, before many of Valerio’s
greatest insights have had a chance to develop.
Here’s hoping he’ll bring us up do
date—and soon.
Trans writer Jacob
Anderson-Minshall writes the nationally syndicated column
TransNation <http://www.sfbaytimes.com/index.php?section_id=58&sec=tpl>
and is a frequent contributor to Bitch magazine. He can
be reached at jake@trans-nation.org .
