PERPETUAL CHANGE — Christine Beatty Interview, Part 2

Last month, we presented the first part of our interview with Christine Beatty. She was one half of the band Glamazon and has since embarked on a career as a journalist and author.

We’re fortunate that Ms. Beatty took the time to do this interview in the first place, and it’s because of her thoughtful, very concise answers to our questions that we decided to run it two installments with very little editing. So, for your dining and dancing pleasure, here is Part 2 of the Christine Beatty Perpetual Change interview.

TGForum: From your TransActive column about the gender community, there’s this quote: “Cutting ourselves off from each other seems an exercise in self-defeat.” You have a very good grasp of the dichotomy of “trans elitism” versus the “passability” of some. Do you think this is a mindset the community will ever grow out of? And how much harm to the community does this type of thinking do in the long run?

Christine in 1999

Christine Beatty: As my 1995 TransSisters article on TG elitism (archived on my web site) reveals, at one point I used to look down on crossdressers, despite having been one years before. I recognize now this was my own insecurity, plain and simple, and that looking down on others did nothing to increase my security in my womanhood or to improve my passability as a GG. As Kate Bornstein has noted in several of her works, the human race falls into the “Us versus Them” all too often. I believe that it’s partly a defense mechanism: finding safety in numbers of “like” people. The downside is that even in groups of like people, you can find further lines of division-among race, sexual orientation, social class, education-until each of us is trapped in our own little boxes, separate from everybody else. However, I believe that as we find more acceptance in society that we re granted more of our human and civil rights and responsibilities then we will have less of a need for defense mechanisms that cut us off from each other and make cooperative action that much more difficult to enact.

TGF: In your column on spirituality, there’s this quote: “For transwomen such as myself, Deism strikes a balance between a long term persistent belief in some form of Divine creative force, and the many contradictions and excesses present in mainstream religions.” Okay, first off, you seem to have developed a belief system that works for you. Do you consider yourself a Deist, or a agnostic? How do you counter full-on fundamental negativity?

CB: I most definitely believe in God (or Goddess, as I call her), so that would land me squarely in the category of Deist. Beyond that, I try to keep my spiritual understanding as simple as possible. In Twelve Step programs, we have a saying: “The only thing you need to know about your Higher Power is that it isn’t you.” I do not follow a complicated set of beliefs and rituals, I do my utmost best to live my life according to the spiritual principles suggested by those Steps: honest, humility, faith, charity,and kindness. Adopting these principles gave me a strong foundation to supplant that the fears implanted in me since childhood by religious fundamentalism, which I believe sells itself by the same principle with which mouthwash is sold: fear. Only instead of not getting the girl or guy, patriarchal religion sells fear of Eternal Damnation.

I personally counter the negativity by quite prayer, “Forgive them, Mother, they know not what they do.” Socially, I try to help maintain a positive front for the LGBT/secular persuasion.
Fundamentalists have gotten so shrill and unhinged, and sadly some of them have aligned themselves so fully with the GOP on issues like global warming and pro-business, that they are hanging themselves in the court of public opinion. They have strayed so far from Jesus’ message of love and tolerance they turn away all but those who are as equally fearful and hateful.

TGF: Given the current political climate in the country, and with the possibility of some kind of ENDA legislation being passed, do you feel the overall acceptance level of the GLBT community has changed or even improved? What about the transgender community specifically?

CB: In 2000, the Knight Initiative, a.k.a. California ballot proposition 22, passed with 66% of the vote barring gay people from marriage. Only eight years later, with Proposition 8, that anti-gay statistic was down to 52% and the anti-gay forces had to tell a lot of lies to get that percentage. With the Federal Hate Crimes Act being signed into law this year and gay marriage being made legal, at least temporarily, in places like Iowa and Maine, shows that the tide is turning. I’d say that acceptance of gay people and transgender people is growing. Of course, more lies will be told to try to withhold our rights. Look for the Bathroom Issue in particular with ENDA. The opponents of trans rights tried that here in the California legislature when our anti-discrimination law was passed along straight party lines. Not one Republican voted for our right but thankfully not one Democrat voted against us. Remember that next time someone says there’s no difference between the two major parties.

TGF: One thing I noticed on your website was the photo montage. Pretty gutsy thing to do. What year was the first picture taken?

CB: That color photo of me with the beard, long hair and the extremely stoned look on my face was taken by my mom on Christmas Day, of 1976, two months before I went into the Air Force. Unfortunately, the first time I saw that photo was in basic training when our TI, training instructor, was handing out mail. they had a policy to examine photos in incoming mail to weed out nudie photos. When he saw it…shook his head, said, “…sky’s the limit, eh Beatty?,” then passed the photo to me.

With Dr. Lynn Conway in 2004 at The Vagina Monologues

TGF: You appeared in a performance of The Vagina Monologues. Is acting something you’ve also considered and if so, how seriously?

CB: What are you talking about? I was a prostitute for God’s sake! I can act with the best of them! Seriously, my interests lie more in behind the camera in writing and producing and maybe even direction some day. Still, I rule nothing out as far as future occupational choices go. That philosophy guided me so far.

TGF: As a journalist and author, you’ve had some articles in Transgender Tapestry, Spectator, TransSisters, Chrysalis Quarterly, and TGForum. Plan to continue as a journalist? You also have published Misery Loves Company, a book of short stories and poetry. Will you continue in this vein as well? How well has this been received?

CB: I really began my writing career as a journalist and I plan to continue until nobody will print me. Journalism, at least that which isn’t bought and paid for in the corporate news business, serves a vital function in our society. Besides, my greatest literary hero, Hunter S. Thompson, was a journalist first and foremost. Short stories and poetry are not very commercially viable, especially about drugs, depravity, and transsexuals — which is what Misery… was about and is why I have sold only half of the 500 I had printed. Besides, I have too many other projects that interest me far more. I have a novel I’m outlining, another one from 1993 I want to rewrite, and immediate ideas for several more. Also, I’ve completed several screenplays and want to keep doing that.

TGF: What you’re shopping now is your autobiography, correct? Have a working title? What is your goal in writing this, and what type of an impact do you think it will have? Also, has anyone in your past feared a “tell all” book from you?

CB: Yes, my literary manager is currently shopping my autobiography to large publishers in New York and elsewhere. It’s written more for the average public than people in our community, though I believe it has potential for very wide appeal. I started it in 1988 in a Veterans Administration rehab back when I had detransitioned and couldn’t bring myself to share with my fellow patients that I had lived as a woman for 15 months and worked as a prostitute. It was the only way I had to sort out my returning gender issues, since I couldn’t even see a therapist for that in the V.A. As I retransitioned, it also helped me maintain my sobriety. I think the appeal will be not so much the gender journey, but because of the multifaceted resurrection that took place over these 25 years since my first transition.

TGF: If you had one thing to say to the transgender community as a whole, what would it be?

CB: There’s no one right and true way to express your gender, that no expression — from fetishistic crossdresser to full blown, deep stealth postop transwoman — is superior to another, and that despite our differences, we do have many common interests. It is possible to celebrate and socially clarify our differences, and at the same time do that without demonizing other groups or otherwise celebrating one over the other. We must never forget that in the Information Age, nobody is impervious to being outed and that there is strength in both numbers and diversity.

TGF: Any advice you’d care to share with either musician or aspiring writers?

CB: Don’t just talk about what you’re going to create — DO IT! Those songs, that CD, that book will not write themselves. Keep your momentum going, even if you turn out crap once in awhile. Writing, like playing an instrument, like any other art form, gets better with practice. In other words, use it or lose it.

For more information, please check out Christine’s website, her MySpace page or YouTube channel.

ALSO THIS MONTH

The Shondes Lines & Hooks + 3 EP

The Shondes (Louisa Solomon-lead vocals, bass; Elijah Oberman-violin, vocals; Temim Fruchter-drums; Frueigh-guitar) have been featured in this column several times. Last summer, we posted a review of their second album, My Dear One and an interview with Oberman. The music on Lines & Hooks is taken from the sessions for My Dear One. The disc contains the title track along with three tunes kept in the can as out takes. You can check out an MP3 of this at their record company’s site. Also, check them out on MySpace. As always, good stuff for this NYC based band.

Annie Lennox A Christmas Cornucopia

Annie Lennox has released a Christmas album called A Christmas Cornucopia. Produced by Lennox and Mike Stevens, it also features The African Children’s Choir on several tracks.

The reason I’m including this in Perpetual Change is because way back in 2000, Lennox was included as part of a two-installment article about female Elvis impersonators. For many people, Annie Lennox in drag was their initial introduction to female to male crossdressing, and Lennox managed to pull off a very credible Elvis.

Her new Christmas album is a mix of standards you’d expect to hear such as God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, The First Noel, O Little Town Of Bethlehem, and Silent Night.

What I found interesting as a reviewer are the songs that are new to me…some obviously old hymns more familiar in England than here.

“This is an album I’ve wanted to record for a long time,” Lennox said of the project. “I’ve sung these Christmas carols since I was very young. Carols tell ancient stories. They are timeless and lasting. Each one has it’s own special message encoded within the lyrics and melody lines.”

Songs such as the hymn-like, See Amid The Winter’s Snow, and In The Bleak Midwinter, while new to me, have the warmth and familiarity of a favorite old sweater.

The African Children’s Choir are the only other voices besides Lennox on the project, and they are included on seven tunes.

Lennox also plays piano, flute and a short list of other instruments including a lot of percussion throughout the project. Check out the insert for the proper musician credits.

Long time Annie Lennox fans will welcome A Christmas Cornucopia as nothing short of an early Christmas gift. Casual listeners, more familiar with her Eurhrythmics work, will still find that powerful voice as enthralling as they ever did way back when.

Category: Music, Transgender Fun & Entertainment