Dina’s Diner 3/8/21

AN UNGUARDED MOMENT OF HUMANITY

I saw a television news piece about the Governor of Utah being emotional about supporting trans students in his state. His extemporaneous remarks were in reference to a piece of legislation that would restrict participation in scholastic sports for trans athletes. Spencer Cox is a Republican governor in historically conservative Utah. The legislation targeting trans athletes is promoted as “protecting” cis-girl scholastic athletes from being unfairly pitted against “male” athletes.

Governor Cox at the press conference.

Here is an excerpt of his remarks as it was reported on the KSL.com news website on February 18, 2021: “”It is a threat to women’s sports but also, and I think this is where we have to be so, so very careful, is that if you have not spent time with transgender youth, then I would encourage you to pause on this issue,” he said. “We have so many people that are in a very, very difficult spot right now and we have very few, if any, transgender girls who are participating in sports.” For that reason, Cox said he wouldn’t sign it as written. He argued that there is still time for legislators to hash out the concerns of the “really difficult and nuanced issues” that the bill addresses. “I’m not willing to give up on this one. I think there’s still much that we can do to protect women’s sports and also send a message to trans kids that there’s a place for them and that they belong,” Cox continued, as he began to fight back tears. “These kids are — they’re just trying to stay alive. … I just think there’s a better way.””

It was later reported by KSL news on February 24, 2021 that a Utah Senate committee had tabled the version of the bill that was presented to them after the House passed it. The Governor’s objection was noted in the report about the stalled legislation.

For the record, the Governor is sympathetic to the concerns raised about trans athletes competing against cis-girls. But the human emotion in his public remarks asking for more consideration for the trans students who would be affected was something rarely seen. It represented something even more rarely seen – a genuine moment of conscience contradicting his own party members. A position of conscience. May it be the beginning of a new school of politics.

‘SONS AND ‘DOTTIRS

The Jeopardy! game show had an interesting clue in the Final Jeopardy segment on February 19, 2021. Here it is: “In 2019, for the first time, this nation allowed for non-gendered last names with the suffix –bur.”

I didn’t know the answer as I watched at home. I was surprised to see that all three contestants DID know the answer (in the form of a question, of course) as “What is Iceland?” It seemed like a pretty obscure fact to me as I obviously missed whatever announcement was made about it at the time.

Bjork Guomundsdottir

It turns out that Icelandic first names have traditionally been rigidly fixed to the gender of the individual. The last names have been an amalgamation of the father’s (or mother’s) first name with the suffix ‘son (for boys) or ‘dottir (for girls). The authority that rules on Icelandic names (yes, there is such a thing) had not allowed gender-switched names. In 2019, however, they decided to allow using the suffix “bur” as a gender neutral option. It works like this according to the IcelandReview.com website: “Take as an example a person named Alex. Instead of having to go by the name Alex Jónsdóttir (literally, ‘Alex, daughter of Jón,’) or Alex Jónsson (‘Alex, son of Jón’), this individual could elect to take the name Alex Jónsbur: Alex, Child of Jón. It’s important to note, however, that this gender neutral option will only be available to Icelanders who are officially registered as neither male not female. People registered as female will still be required to take the patro–or matronymic–dóttir and people registered as male will still have to use–son.” So-called family names (as most western societies use) are not common in Iceland and people are usually addressed by their first name rather than their last. Bjork, the singer, is not a first-name-only celebrity creation: that’s how she would be referred to–she has a ‘dottir–style last name, too.

It seems confusing as hell to me. How do you find anyone on Google or Facebook if they use only a handful of name variations? Thankfully, it’s not my problem. Besides, it’s cold in Iceland. ‘Bur.

THE (STRANGE) CASE OF THE TRANS NOVELIZATION

Over the past few years I’ve become a regular watcher of Perry Mason reruns on one of the nostalgia-themed cable channels. I’ve written before about some of the actresses who appeared on the show that ran between 1957 and 1966. Recently, an episode titled The Case of the Envious Editor (from 1961) featured actress Sara Shane as the wrongly accused murderess.

Sara Shane was a blonde with the kind of classically beautiful face you rarely see anymore. Like many of the cast members of the Mason episodes, I never heard of her before and looked her up on Google. In the detail of her Wikipedia profile I found an interesting nugget. After an acting career that spanned 16 years, she quit in 1964 (at age 36) and became an anti-establishment health care writer. The Wikipedia entry reported, “In 1974, she published a non-fiction novel, Zulma, about a Mexican pre-op trans woman’s experiences in La Mesa prison based on her visits and meetings with the woman named Zulma.”

I found a couple of entries about the Zulma book but no copies for sale. The book was written under Sara’s real name Elaine Hollingsworth. Elaine’s website has a link about the book. Here is the introduction: “Zulma (nee Miguel) is the brief and brutal history of a young man who desperately wanted to be a woman, and went to Tijuana for a cut-rate sex change operation. Instead, he ended up in the infamous La Mesa Penitentiary, where he endured all manner of brutalization, sexual and otherwise.” Although the novelization of Zulma’s story seems serious, one reader commented that it was a “camp classic” that he actually had re-bound to preserve it.

Sara Shane when she was an actress.

Elaine Hollingsworth (the former Sara Shane) now in her 80s, lives in Australia and has a number of exposè style books about the medical profession and self-care on her website. There can’t have been very many books written about trans persons in the early 1970s. Myra Breckinridge was published in 1968 and was a sensation because of its scandalous subject matter. Who would have guessed that a striking blonde actress would choose the story of a transwoman to write about decades before such subject matter became more commonplace?

HOW’S THE AIR UP THERE?

I came across an article headlined Attack of the Six-Foot Woman in an online magazine Catapult. The author of the piece was Hannah Walhout who used the 1950s sci-fi film Attack of the 50 Foot Woman as the jumping off point to discuss the place of tall women in society.

Ms. Walhout’s article is quite long and it covers the real life issues facing tall women interspersed with the underlying theme of the movie – the threat posed by a strong, indeed giant, woman. (Quick aside here: the star in the role of the 50 foot woman was Allison Hayes – a frequent guest star in the Perry Mason series.) According to the article, the average height of American women is five-foot four. For girls growing up quickly and surpassing that height, life can be tough. In the post-war years, it was not unusual for medical people to inject tall girls with synthetic estrogen to arrest growth. Being an unusually tall young woman often leads to self-esteem issues, poor posture (slouching to appear smaller), lack of dating opportunities, etc.

Among the many other challenges facing crossdressers in presenting as women is the height problem for most of us. Even average height men become Amazons in a coiffed-up wig and even moderate heels. For those hoping to pass in public it makes it very difficult unless one goes out of their way to dress (literally) down so as to draw the minimum of attention. The flip side of this is the fun and frivolity associated with larger-than-life drag queens like RuPaul, Lady Bunny, and others who use their size disparity to defuse serious gender issues. There’s a difference being a six-foot transwoman or crossdresser at the supermarket and a six-foot-plus drag queen decked out to get maximum attention. One often wishes we could deflate ourselves by a several inches of height and girth to make a more “normal” feminine self.

Hannah Walhout closes the article by mentioning the moment when she hit the six-foot mark. She says most tall women acknowledge that it takes years for them to come to terms with being noticeably tall and the idea of “growing into this body” as one tall woman put it. For crossdressers who love their big wigs and high heels, we may never NOT be noticeable if we go out. But that’s not so much about height as all the other buttons we’re pushing.

YEAH, I REMEMBER PANTYHOSE

I saw a letter to the fashion editors at the New York Times about wearing pantyhose published under the headline Does Anyone Wear Pantyhose Anymore? The item was published on February 26, 2021. The advice-seeker said she was preparing for her daughter’s wedding. In the course of the plans, her daughter said she would be without hose beneath her wedding gown and was “horrified” that her mother was considering pantyhose for her own outfit.

Unbeknownst to me, pantyhose is now looked upon as a symbol of oppression in some feminist quarters. The Times reported that many women feel “[pantyhose] are a symbol of old-fashioned female repression and outmoded gender rules. They’re not exactly a girdle or a crinoline, but they are a descendant of that genetic line: undergarments foisted on women to cover their bodies and make them “acceptable” to outsiders.” The fashion editors recounted the disappointment some women felt when they saw modern Duchess Meghan Markle wearing pantyhose at one of her early royal events “seeing in the tights a sign that she was being stifled, just as her legs were stifled.”

At some point – maybe in the ‘90s? – women began to go largely bare-legged under skirts and dresses where once pantyhose sheathed their glorious gams. The common pairing of pantyhose with open toed or even strappy sandals in the 1970s and ’80s seems as quaint now as a beehive hairdo. By the mid-2010s I knew only one woman at work who regularly wore pantyhose to the office. The Times points out that the pandemic’s work-from-home dynamic is further crushing the professional need for pantyhose for working women.

If you’re like me, you miss the sheen of pantyhose on calf, thigh, or ankle. And trends being what they are, don’t be surprised to see the “return” of pantyhose when some celebrity or designer decides to bring them out of mothballs and re-popularize them. Until then, hold on to your pantyhose, fellas. They will never go out of style for us.

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Tags: featured, opinion

Category: crossdressing, Transgender Opinion