Kate Bornstein Is A Queer and Pleasant Danger—this is her blog

How I Met Wendy Chapkis and Why I Love Her So

So okay, is the woman in this picture amazing, or what? 

This is Wendy Chapkis, a mentor of mine and long-time crush. When I was a baby tranny in San Francisco—a two-year old girl in 1988—I ran across a copy of Wendy's book, Beauty Secrets: Women and the Politics of Appearance.  

I was trying my best to be a woman. I was trying my best to be political. I was standing alone, scared, in the feminist aisle of a women's bookstore. I was keeping secrets, and I was obsessed with my appearance. Here was this woman writing proudly about sporting her moustache... what effect that had on her day to day life, and how she dealt with all the bullshit that comes with being a freak of beauty, a beautiful freak.  

Wow! Shivering, I thumbed through her book and I saw it's brilliant theme: women do a lot of things in secret in order to make themselves look beautiful. Things they don't want you to know about, like their moustaches. Like my year-old newly constructed vagina. Wendy Chapkis wrote about how it's time to not keep secrets any more. In 1988, this was an astonishing idea. I left the bookstore with her book in my pocketbook. I felt the beginnings of personal liberation. And I was totally crushed out on this hot, strong babe with a moustache.

I worked selling subscriptions at the San Francisco Symphony. My arts writer pay from the gay paper, The Bay Area Reporter, didn't come close to covering expenses. The SF Symphony phone room was old school—we didn't use computers back then. We called names and phone numbers written on 5x7 cardboard cards. Well, two weeks after I found Wendy's book, there I was sitting in the phone room of the SF Symphony. I was holding a 5x7 card with Wendy Chapkis' name, phone number, address, and musical preferences. Oh. My. Goddess. Score!

I dialed. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Answering machine. Damn! Phone room policy mandated we return any unanswered calls to the common pile, not keep them for calling again later. It was a good policy. It kept folks from hoarding what they thought might be easy sales. But I kept Wendy Chapkis' card with me. I brought that card back to the phone room every day for a week, and was too afraid to call. Finally, I got my courage...  It took two weeks of calling until I finally reached a live Wendy. 

Hello, Ms. Chapkis? This is Kate Bornstein calling from the San Francisco Symphony about your... say-y-y-y-y-y, wait a minute... is this Wendy Chapkis who wrote the book, Beauty Secrets?

Our friendship has grown over the past 20 years. Wendy teaches at the University of Maine. Her partner way back then and to this very day is Gabe. Gabe makes great jewelry and gives great arts and political grassroots organizing. Wendy and Gabe were and still are the outest dyke couple I've ever known. I love 'em to pieces. 

So... why'm I writing about this now? Wendy's got a new book! It's called Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine. I haven't read it yet, but... hello? What an amazing topic. Wendy's coming to New York City to read at Bluestockings Books on Monday, December 1st at 7pm. I'm going. I'll buy my signed copy—I still have that crush—and I'll set that book down on the night table next to my bed for a nightly read. If you're a New York area teen, freak or outlaw, please join me at the reading. And look for me. I'll be the tall redhead looking longingly at the author.

kiss kiss

Kate

Growing up North of Fargo on the West bank of the North River

I've.been lying about something for a little over 10 years now, and lately it's been getting me into more and more trouble, so I thought I'd set the record straight. Or less crooked anyway, Here's the tagline of a bio I use a lot:  

Kate Bornstein was born outside of Fargo, North Dakota, in a log cabin she helped her parents build. Her father was a Lutheran minister, her mother was Miss Betty Crocker 1938, and her brother tends the goats to this day. 

photo by Troy Dwyer at a Cracker Barrel restaurant outside Allentown, PA

OK... born in a log cabin I helped my parents build? I really thought that people would get it that I was joking. But no! And daddy having been a Lutheran minister... ummm, Bornstein? I really thought I was being over-the-top obvious about my lie. So I'm sorry to people who believed what I wrote and pinned something nice on me because you thought it was true I was from the Land of Nice. 

I always wished I was from there. I was born just outside Asbury Park, New Jersey. Bruce Springsteen and I dated in high school. See? That's another lie I tell that has a clue inside it. Bruce and I were both boys back then, and we both liked girls, I never met him. But it's fun to say the lie and watch people get it. Do ya think it's bad of me to tell these kinds of lies? 

Andy Warhol told bio lies.every time a reporter asked where he was from. He'd give each reporter a differentt answer.I thought that was cool! I took that as artistic license for silly fun. But a lot of people believed the Fargo bit. My fave was a book critic reviewing Hello, Cruel World, The review read, "The warmth and heart of Kte Bornstein's Midwestern upbringing is evident on every page of her book." Awwwwww! But yikes, right? 

I've always wanted to be a girl from the Midwest. I wanted to be a Norman Rockwell painting: strawberry blonde, freckles, knee socks and pigtails, born to a sweet Lutheran daddy like maybe Garrison Keillor. Pippi Longstocking is who I wanted to be, Not the chubby little Jewish boy of Russian heritage that I was. So I made up the Fargo story. The facts are my mom was a terrible cook, and my brother, well he doesn't tend goats or do much of anything else with them that I know of. 

Still, telling that Fargo story makes me laugh.So, I'm going to leave it up, and I'm going to keep using it. But for what it's worth, now you know the truth of it. And go ahead, if the subject comes up, please free to talk about my upbringing in either of those scenarios. Whatever makes you smile. 

Oh and by the way, I'm not a blonde anymore, I'm back to redhead. I've unleashed my inner Williow. Or maybe I'm just turning into an anime girl at long last. But a lot of people have missed me at airports cuz they were looking for me being Geena Davis from The Long Kiss Goodnight. Nope, I'm a wannabe Kaylee from Firefly these days.

Alright then... Kiss Kiss from your friendly neighborhood redhead Jersey girl, that's me!

Off the Road, Lots to Tell

8:30am Tuesday the 25th November. I'm on Amtrack's regional train from Boston to NYC. Love trains. Last night I performed at Northeastern University, my last college stop for 2008. I'm giving myself December thru February to finish the first draft of my memoir. So excited at the prospect! 

I'm scheduling myself some knee replacement surgery in May, so I'll have a short spring touring season. I'm now booking dates for March and April only, so if you've been thinking about bringing me to your town to speak or perform, this would be a really good time to get in touch with me about that. The best email addy to contact me about booking engagements is: on_the_road at Earthlink dot net. Write soon! 

I saw wondrous things, met amazing people, and made many new friends over my past 2 months on the road. This photo is from a tech rehearsal for a peformance by Bent writers in Seattle, WA. Bent is a queer writers' institute, the only one of it's kind in the world. My best guess is they are the vanguard of something akin to the Beat movement of the '50s. I'll post more about Bent and my other stops over the next few weeks. And I'm aiming to have a photo blog in place sometime in December. 

So, happy pre-Thanksgiving to you USA folks. To you and to everyone else, I hope you get to eat yummy food this coming Thursday. More soon. 

Kiss Kiss from the road, Kate

May We Please Remember Abraham Biggs Today?

(as reported today by Emily Friedman on ABCNews.Com)

Nineteen year old Abraham Biggs linked himself to a website streaming live video. In front of the camera, he purposefully OD'd on prescription meds. He lived in Broward County, Florida where he wasn't man enough to live. That's what he thought. 

"I am in love with a girl and I know that I am not good enough for her," he wrote on a body-building forum. "I have come to believe that my life has all been meaningless. I keep trying and I keep failing. I have thought about and attempted suicide many times in the past." He wrote this on a body-building forum. He was trying to build his body, and this is what he wrote there. Connection?

Wendy Crane, an investigator at the Broward County Medical Examiner's office, is ABC News' source. She said, "People were egging him on and saying things like 'go ahead and do it, faggot." Faggot. Connection?

According to ABC News, Wired Magazine chimed in by reporting comments written in response to Abraham's suicidal posts—comments ranging from OMG to LOL. One commenter wrote, "hahaha hahahahha hahahahahah ahhaha." Another comment read, "Instant Darwinism ..." which was seconded by, "fucking a nicely put." And guess what... other commenters called Abraham a "coward," a "faggot" and a "dick." Connection?

The connection is the bipolar gender system—the simplistic belief that there are men and there are women, and everyone else deserves to die. The bipolar gender/sexuality matrix kills a lot of people, that's what I want to say. Whether we kill ourselves, or people kill us because we're not real mean or real women... we end up dead, damn it. So are we allowed to mourn Abraham Biggs today, on Transgender Day of Remembrance? I am. Bless your heart, Abraham. I am so sorry you thought you weren't good enough. 

I am so sorry that we as a culture haven't yet figured out how to deal with gender as a hierarchal system of oppression that kills kids like Abraham, as clearly as race kills kids, class kills kids, and sexuality kills kids. Gender as an oppressive system is as deadly as looks, ability, religion, age and citizenship—all hierarchal systems of oppression. Can we please remember that on this Transgender Day of Remembrance? 

Okay, I'm gonna go cry now. 

Kate

Okay... Overturn Prop 8, but F*ck Marriage Anyway

Caveat: this blog is seriously high on my crone/curmudgeon scale of crankiness.

I have problems with these Prop 8 protests. If you don't already know about the Proposition 8 mess going on in California and nation-wide, here's a wiki-summary. Yeah, if I'm not working, I plan to join the protest. But no, I won't be protesting a ban on marriage equality. I'll be protesting because I care about the legal ramifications and precedents set with passing Prop 8.

The brouhaha concerning marriage equality is generated by people who say they're speaking for all LGBTQ people everywhere in this country. Omigod, yes there are TONS of supporters of marriage equality within the LGBTQ world. But not all of us agree with you. Some of us think we should abolish marriage altogether. I'm speaking as part of that minority. We're mostly radical queers, dyed-in-the-wool feminists, old lefties, socialists and other bogey people whose only desire is purported to be tearing down both church and state, and making everyone's life a living hell. Some of us think that triage-wise, marriage falls pretty far down the list of priorities of political focus for the LGBTQ world.

I don't care about a ban on marriage equality. Fuck it. What I care about is the violence done to queer kids. I care about LGBTQ and any freaky kids who get thrown out of their homes for following their heart's harmless desires. Prioritizing marriage equality is dangerous to the health of those kids. So I ask myself: what's so important about marriage to the vocal and visible (and probably even majority) of LGBTQ people?

Whoops.... I'm Healthy!

My friend, Helen Boyd just now pointed out the embarrassing fact that I've not posted a follow-up blog to the announcement of my surgery this past summer and some people are worried about me. SORRY! I'M JUST FINE! See, this is a picture of sassy, healthy me! (photo by Jamie Ann, a new friend of mine in Minneapolis.)

The surgery went GREAT! My surgeon calls me his poster girl for success. Honest, he said that right in his crowded waiting room. I love my surgeon. He embraced the New Age affirmations I got from the book, Prepare For Surgery, Heal Faster. He credits the book for my fast, successful recovery. He's even recommending it to other patients now (the ones he thinks can deal with it).

The hospital staff, doctors, nurses, physician assistants, everyone at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York—with one or two inevitable exceptions (shit happens)—were kind to me. I gave out about two dozen copies of the (downloadable) comic book I'd prepared ahead of time, and it made people laugh.

Beth Israel Medical Center has a policy to give trannies a private room for post-surgical care. After I got over my paranoia of ghettoization, I begrudgingly enjoyed my at-no-extra-charge private room!

I'm eating well now... anything I want to eat!! No more worries about food restrictions. And my energy level is nearly back to FULL. So, I'm sorry I didn't post this earlier. I'm doing fine. Thank you to everyone who's been concerned.

Kisses

Kate

Sign of the Transgender Times

I'm at the University of Vermont, attending the 7th Annual Translating Identities Conference. Highest ever attendance: 700 queers and allies. The school was also hosting a day for prospective students and their families on the same day, in the same building. We were all treated to this signage. What joy!

UVM isn't the only school to have instituted gender neutral bathrooms. Far from it. But this sign is the most out loud and proud reflection I've seen of the progress we're making. Queer students, staff, faculty and administrators around the USA have been working together to make life easier for the in increasingly large campus population of transfolk.

If you've got a picture of gender neutral signage on your campus or in your company, please post a link in the comments section, or let me know you've got one and I'll post it here. Yay UVM queers and allies!!

Kisses from the road,

Kate

Hello, World. The GOOD USA is Coming Back.