[Music]
I kissed a woman for the first time in
the early 90s it happened in the parking
lot of a gay bar she was a straight girl
in the mood to party and she was dressed
like one in capri pants fuchsia flats on
a cropped sweater her eyes were the same
walnut brown as the spiral curls that
fell to her waist she was 21
her name was Karen the kiss was her idea
and it took me by surprise but I’ve
longed a dream to this moment
so I praised my good luck and moved my
curious hands to her waist I’d expected
a woman to feel soft and small and she
did I’d expected to enjoy the silkiness
of her hair but I was surprised to be
intrigued by the contour of her lower
back under the fabric of her short
blouse my finger slipped into the
unexpectedly deep groove running the
length of her spine her torso felt
nothing like a man’s it wasn’t simply a
smaller one but one ordered by foreign
rules by the trigonometry that governs
the proportions of a woman I imagined da
Vinci’s Anatomy diagrams all circles and
angles and lines as I followed the
dimples where her back man her bottom
traced the steady widening of her hips
my encounter with Karen was brief there
would be other women and more exciting
moments but I’d remember the shape of
Karen’s back more vividly than many of
these its lucky you’re attracted to
women friends often say but dear husband
here in our bed tonight you need for me
to not know the touch of a woman I come
to you with my eyes open still in love
with you ready to touch and appreciate
every inch of your body but that makes
you uncomfortable now you want me to see
you only in candlelight and to squint to
focus on your eyeliner and to overlook
your receding hairline to pull your long
hair in front of your chest and avert my
eyes from its flatness you want me to
map woman on to you to not just say but
to believe as though I am not familiar
with the curve of a woman’s back I try
to concentrate but forbidden thoughts
surface that a woman is a thing and not
an absence of a thing that a woman is a
woman in every cell of her body
too complex to fashion wholly from
something else more than hair removal
and cosmetics and lace that you are
already perfect and need not hide from
me I suppress these thoughts redouble my
efforts but the illusion is tenuous and
easily broken you move or face the light
and I see you so I do the unthinkable I
go ahead and love the you I’m not
supposed to love the one I’ve always
loved
I love the remaining stubble you’re
paying a laser salon to remove I love
the freckles you cover with foundation
the jawline you stroke disapprovingly
when you look in the mirror I close my
eyes and let my hands find the truth you
work so hard to conceal but you forbid
this kind of love
so I hide what I’m doing it wasn’t so
long ago that this bed saw
laughter play in passion but these have
been displaced by your one and only
preoccupation now there is work to do
there are roles to play I’m no longer
allowed to drink you in to just feel
instead I perform for you flatter you
censor myself and pretend I’ve learned
that you can’t be here for me anymore
then it’s my job to work around that but
what happens when I can no longer be
here for you I haven’t adjusted to being
your actress I cling instead to a desire
to just be your lover its lucky you’re
attracted to women a friend said to me
over coffee last week since your husband
is becoming your wife it’s the
conventional wisdom and it seemed true
enough at the time you’ve said it
yourself to your husband to me and to
your support group and on your blog how
lucky you are to have me a wife who is
supportive adventurous a wife who
encourages you to be yourself a wife
who’s queer
you’ve just heard a condensed excerpt
from my memoir in progress 18 months
it’s the story of how a lovely 15-year
relationship met its rapid demise when
my husband whom all called Jaime came
out as transgender on paper we
represented the best case scenario for
weathering this type of challenge I’m
liberal open-minded adventurous and I
was happy with Jaime and I was motivated
to save my marriage
but despite the tremendous amount of
effort I put into supporting Jaime love
was not enough within 18 short months my
marriage failed spectacularly
a quick word about pronouns it’s now
commonly understood that journalists
commit an unforgivable faux pas when
they describe American trans woman
Caitlyn Jenner as the athlete you may
remember as Bruce we are to remember
Caitlyn Jenner as a woman retro actively
or to say that Kaelin grew up has a
little girl and was the first woman to
win a men’s Olympic decathlon so I’m
expected to refer to Jamie with feminine
pronouns and out of respect for Jamie I
did that while we were together but I
spent 15 years with Jamie a third of my
life and I entered into that
relationship as a heterosexual one with
a man and that is how I experienced that
relationship Jamie’s personal
revelations didn’t reshape my experience
of my past so I hope you will forgive me
if I tell my story the way I remember it
and not with revisionist language that
would speak more to someone else’s truth
than to my own a couple of things about
my story one is that most people don’t
want me to tell it and the second is
that it contradicts the commonly popular
narrative on what it’s like when someone
comes out as transgender and these two
things are related
my story is inconvenient the popular
narrative says that transgender people
know their gender from
young age it says they suffer for years
and then as they come out as their true
authentic self they become happy but
this isn’t at all how my story goes we
hear that males who want to transition
to females have female brains but just
before Jamie came out he worked in IT he
enjoyed video games
he loved backpacking and whisky Johnny
Cash he even took pride in growing a
large hipster beard the fact is gender
identity didn’t cross Jamie’s mind until
he was 40 years old and took an interest
and what’s commonly called tranny porn
even then Jamie cross dressed for the
better part of a year and he called
himself a gender non-conforming male he
said he was happy being a man then Jamie
started frequenting queer message boards
where he saw transgender people lauded
as beautiful and brave and he saw cross
dressers disparaged as kinky or too
cowardly to transition one by one we
watched the people on those message
boards who identified as cross dressers
begin to come out as transgender and
then Jamie became one of them and it was
only after Jamie called himself
transgender and pursued transition that
he spiraled into depression he quit his
job he stopped doing work around the
house he even lost interest in hobbies
we used to love to go camping but we
couldn’t go anymore because it would
interfere with his makeup routine
Jamie spiraled into depression he
started crying every night I had to
console him through crying jags he spent
every day ruminating about his
appearance he started talking about
suicide our sex life began to suffer and
this was before Jamie went on hormones
Jamie couldn’t reconcile hating his body
with allowing me to love it and he
couldn’t reconcile hating his body with
using it for pleasure sex
came a minefield of potential offenses
and concerns and worse Jamie lost
interest in ordinary sex and became
interested only in sex games that made
him feel submissive what was once a
loving communion between the two of us
had become a soulless negotiation and
when I saw that my sex life would be
sacrificed for Jamie’s priorities that
felt like a betrayal of his commitment
to our marriage
and then our communication began to
suffer Jamie found out that some of his
views were offensive and out of favor so
he denounced them and he even dropped
friends whose views were not
ideologically pure the truth became
embarrassing to him it became
unspeakable in our home
Jamie stopped having frank conversations
with me even about matters that deeply
affected our lives like whether or not
he planned to go on hormones so we
weren’t having sex we weren’t talking we
weren’t even enjoying hobbies together
this was a barrage of assaults on our
intimacy that would render our marriage
unsalvageable my story surprises people
why because the media likes to tell only
one story when it comes to the
transgender experience that’s the story
of a particular happy healthy trans
woman who were to understand does not
merely identify as a woman but is
literally a woman even biologically for
her her life is held before transition
but it is happy afterward for her
transition is inevitable and it’s the
only legitimate response but this story
doesn’t fit Jamie at all the fact is
people aren’t getting real about this
issue as you might imagine my experience
has put me in touch with a community of
wives who are in a similar position to
mine as well as parents and other allies
and the recurring story I hear from them
is that they do not feel that they’re
allowed to tell the truth about what’s
going on
their homes and other voices are being
lost too
just last year the Philadelphia trans
health conference had scheduled two
people to speak about regretting their
transitions they wanted to talk about
alternatives to transition but they were
cancelled when activists complained
earlier last month protesters turned
violent while trying to stop a debate in
London called what is gender and baths
Paul University blocked a psychotherapy
students research into people who regret
gender reassignment surgery calling it
politically incorrect but if we want to
get real and help this community we need
to ask the hard questions is it possible
that transition is not a panacea
I watched Jamie’s condition worsen not
improve as he pursued transition is it
possible that activists are not telling
the whole story but the story that best
advances their political goals I went to
a LGBT social at my university recently
and I sat down at a table full of young
people who took turns announcing their
preferred pronouns fully 75% of the
people at my table identified as
transgender
does it seem odd that I meant three
times more trans people than all other
representatives of the rainbow combined
the number of Americans and people
across the world who are identifying as
transgender has increased sharply
recently and the referrals of children
to gender clinics has also increased by
almost 900 percent by one estimate these
clinics promote early and aggressive
medical intervention for children who
question their gender sometimes as young
as four years old but where’s the
research indicating that this is the
best approach open dialog has never been
our enemy and it is not our enemy now I
cared about Jamie and I watched him
become more and more unhappy if we want
to support
this community compassionately and
effectively we need to move beyond the
feel-good story with the ideal outcome
and we need to ask the hard questions
and we need to examine all the
information not just that which is
convenient pleasant or politically
expedient
[Applause]
[Music]
I kissed a woman for the first time in
the early 90s it happened in the parking
lot of a gay bar she was a straight girl
in the mood to party and she was dressed
like one in capri pants fuchsia flats on
a cropped sweater her eyes were the same
walnut brown as the spiral curls that
fell to her waist she was 21
her name was Karen the kiss was her idea
and it took me by surprise but I’ve
longed a dream to this moment
so I praised my good luck and moved my
curious hands to her waist I’d expected
a woman to feel soft and small and she
did I’d expected to enjoy the silkiness
of her hair but I was surprised to be
intrigued by the contour of her lower
back under the fabric of her short
blouse my finger slipped into the
unexpectedly deep groove running the
length of her spine her torso felt
nothing like a man’s it wasn’t simply a
smaller one but one ordered by foreign
rules by the trigonometry that governs
the proportions of a woman I imagined da
Vinci’s Anatomy diagrams all circles and
angles and lines as I followed the
dimples where her back man her bottom
traced the steady widening of her hips
my encounter with Karen was brief there
would be other women and more exciting
moments but I’d remember the shape of
Karen’s back more vividly than many of
these its lucky you’re attracted to
women friends often say but dear husband
here in our bed tonight you need for me
to not know the touch of a woman I come
to you with my eyes open still in love
with you ready to touch and appreciate
every inch of your body but that makes
you uncomfortable now you want me to see
you only in candlelight and to squint to
focus on your eyeliner and to overlook
your receding hairline to pull your long
hair in front of your chest and avert my
eyes from its flatness you want me to
map woman on to you to not just say but
to believe as though I am not familiar
with the curve of a woman’s back I try
to concentrate but forbidden thoughts
surface that a woman is a thing and not
an absence of a thing that a woman is a
woman in every cell of her body
too complex to fashion wholly from
something else more than hair removal
and cosmetics and lace that you are
already perfect and need not hide from
me I suppress these thoughts redouble my
efforts but the illusion is tenuous and
easily broken you move or face the light
and I see you so I do the unthinkable I
go ahead and love the you I’m not
supposed to love the one I’ve always
loved
I love the remaining stubble you’re
paying a laser salon to remove I love
the freckles you cover with foundation
the jawline you stroke disapprovingly
when you look in the mirror I close my
eyes and let my hands find the truth you
work so hard to conceal but you forbid
this kind of love
so I hide what I’m doing it wasn’t so
long ago that this bed saw
laughter play in passion but these have
been displaced by your one and only
preoccupation now there is work to do
there are roles to play I’m no longer
allowed to drink you in to just feel
instead I perform for you flatter you
censor myself and pretend I’ve learned
that you can’t be here for me anymore
then it’s my job to work around that but
what happens when I can no longer be
here for you I haven’t adjusted to being
your actress I cling instead to a desire
to just be your lover its lucky you’re
attracted to women a friend said to me
over coffee last week since your husband
is becoming your wife it’s the
conventional wisdom and it seemed true
enough at the time you’ve said it
yourself to your husband to me and to
your support group and on your blog how
lucky you are to have me a wife who is
supportive adventurous a wife who
encourages you to be yourself a wife
who’s queer
you’ve just heard a condensed excerpt
from my memoir in progress 18 months
it’s the story of how a lovely 15-year
relationship met its rapid demise when
my husband whom all called Jaime came
out as transgender on paper we
represented the best case scenario for
weathering this type of challenge I’m
liberal open-minded adventurous and I
was happy with Jaime and I was motivated
to save my marriage
but despite the tremendous amount of
effort I put into supporting Jaime love
was not enough within 18 short months my
marriage failed spectacularly
a quick word about pronouns it’s now
commonly understood that journalists
commit an unforgivable faux pas when
they describe American trans woman
Caitlyn Jenner as the athlete you may
remember as Bruce we are to remember
Caitlyn Jenner as a woman retro actively
or to say that Kaelin grew up has a
little girl and was the first woman to
win a men’s Olympic decathlon so I’m
expected to refer to Jamie with feminine
pronouns and out of respect for Jamie I
did that while we were together but I
spent 15 years with Jamie a third of my
life and I entered into that
relationship as a heterosexual one with
a man and that is how I experienced that
relationship Jamie’s personal
revelations didn’t reshape my experience
of my past so I hope you will forgive me
if I tell my story the way I remember it
and not with revisionist language that
would speak more to someone else’s truth
than to my own a couple of things about
my story one is that most people don’t
want me to tell it and the second is
that it contradicts the commonly popular
narrative on what it’s like when someone
comes out as transgender and these two
things are related
my story is inconvenient the popular
narrative says that transgender people
know their gender from
young age it says they suffer for years
and then as they come out as their true
authentic self they become happy but
this isn’t at all how my story goes we
hear that males who want to transition
to females have female brains but just
before Jamie came out he worked in IT he
enjoyed video games
he loved backpacking and whisky Johnny
Cash he even took pride in growing a
large hipster beard the fact is gender
identity didn’t cross Jamie’s mind until
he was 40 years old and took an interest
and what’s commonly called tranny porn
even then Jamie cross dressed for the
better part of a year and he called
himself a gender non-conforming male he
said he was happy being a man then Jamie
started frequenting queer message boards
where he saw transgender people lauded
as beautiful and brave and he saw cross
dressers disparaged as kinky or too
cowardly to transition one by one we
watched the people on those message
boards who identified as cross dressers
begin to come out as transgender and
then Jamie became one of them and it was
only after Jamie called himself
transgender and pursued transition that
he spiraled into depression he quit his
job he stopped doing work around the
house he even lost interest in hobbies
we used to love to go camping but we
couldn’t go anymore because it would
interfere with his makeup routine
Jamie spiraled into depression he
started crying every night I had to
console him through crying jags he spent
every day ruminating about his
appearance he started talking about
suicide our sex life began to suffer and
this was before Jamie went on hormones
Jamie couldn’t reconcile hating his body
with allowing me to love it and he
couldn’t reconcile hating his body with
using it for pleasure sex
came a minefield of potential offenses
and concerns and worse Jamie lost
interest in ordinary sex and became
interested only in sex games that made
him feel submissive what was once a
loving communion between the two of us
had become a soulless negotiation and
when I saw that my sex life would be
sacrificed for Jamie’s priorities that
felt like a betrayal of his commitment
to our marriage
and then our communication began to
suffer Jamie found out that some of his
views were offensive and out of favor so
he denounced them and he even dropped
friends whose views were not
ideologically pure the truth became
embarrassing to him it became
unspeakable in our home
Jamie stopped having frank conversations
with me even about matters that deeply
affected our lives like whether or not
he planned to go on hormones so we
weren’t having sex we weren’t talking we
weren’t even enjoying hobbies together
this was a barrage of assaults on our
intimacy that would render our marriage
unsalvageable my story surprises people
why because the media likes to tell only
one story when it comes to the
transgender experience that’s the story
of a particular happy healthy trans
woman who were to understand does not
merely identify as a woman but is
literally a woman even biologically for
her her life is held before transition
but it is happy afterward for her
transition is inevitable and it’s the
only legitimate response but this story
doesn’t fit Jamie at all the fact is
people aren’t getting real about this
issue as you might imagine my experience
has put me in touch with a community of
wives who are in a similar position to
mine as well as parents and other allies
and the recurring story I hear from them
is that they do not feel that they’re
allowed to tell the truth about what’s
going on
their homes and other voices are being
lost too
just last year the Philadelphia trans
health conference had scheduled two
people to speak about regretting their
transitions they wanted to talk about
alternatives to transition but they were
cancelled when activists complained
earlier last month protesters turned
violent while trying to stop a debate in
London called what is gender and baths
Paul University blocked a psychotherapy
students research into people who regret
gender reassignment surgery calling it
politically incorrect but if we want to
get real and help this community we need
to ask the hard questions is it possible
that transition is not a panacea
I watched Jamie’s condition worsen not
improve as he pursued transition is it
possible that activists are not telling
the whole story but the story that best
advances their political goals I went to
a LGBT social at my university recently
and I sat down at a table full of young
people who took turns announcing their
preferred pronouns fully 75% of the
people at my table identified as
transgender
does it seem odd that I meant three
times more trans people than all other
representatives of the rainbow combined
the number of Americans and people
across the world who are identifying as
transgender has increased sharply
recently and the referrals of children
to gender clinics has also increased by
almost 900 percent by one estimate these
clinics promote early and aggressive
medical intervention for children who
question their gender sometimes as young
as four years old but where’s the
research indicating that this is the
best approach open dialog has never been
our enemy and it is not our enemy now I
cared about Jamie and I watched him
become more and more unhappy if we want
to support
this community compassionately and
effectively we need to move beyond the
feel-good story with the ideal outcome
and we need to ask the hard questions
and we need to examine all the
information not just that which is
convenient pleasant or politically
expedient
[Applause]
[Music]
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