Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  With all her jollity, Vivian Baxter had no mercy. There was a saying in Oakland at the time which, if she didn't say it herself, explained her attitude. The saying was, “Sympathy is next to shit in the dictionary, and I can't even read.” Her temper had not diminished with the passing of time, and when a passionate nature is not eased with moments of compassion, melodrama is likely to take the stage. In each outburst of anger my mother was fair. She had the impartiality of nature, with the same lack of indulgence or clemency. Before we arrived from Arkansas, an incident took place that left the main actors in jail and in the hospital. Mother had a business partner (who may have been a little more than that) with whom she ran a restaurant-cum-gambling casino. The partner was not shouldering his portion of the responsibility, according to Mother, and when she confronted him he became haughty and domineering, and he unforgivably called her a bitch. Now, everyone knew that although she cursed as freely as she laughed, no one cursed around her, and certainly no one cursed her. Maybe for the sake of business arrangements she restrained a spontaneous reaction. She told her partner, “I'm going to be one bitch, and I've already been that one.” In a foolhardy gesture the man relieved himself of still another “bitch”—and Mother shot him. She had anticipated some trouble when she determined to speak to him and so had taken the precaution to slip a little .32 in her big skirt pocket. Shot once, the partner stumbled toward her, instead of away, and she said that since she had intended to shoot him (notice: shoot, not kill) she had no reason to run away, so she shot him a second time. It must have been a maddening situation for them. To her, each shot seemed to impel him forward, the reverse of her desire; and for him, the closer he got to her, the more she shot him. She stood her ground until he reached her and flung both arms around her neck, dragging her to the floor. She later said the police had to untwine him before he could be taken to the ambulance. And on the following day, when she was released on bail, she looked in a mirror and “had black eyes down to here.” In throwing his arms around her, he must have struck her. She bruised easily. The partner lived, though shot twice, and although the partnership was dissolved they retained admiration for each other. He had been shot, true, but in her fairness she had warned him. And he had had the strength to give her two black eyes and then live. Admirable qualities. World War II started on a Sunday afternoon when I was on my way to the movies. People in the streets shouted, “We're at war. We've declared war on Japan.”

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  One, specifically for Paul, was to set the stage to correct erroneous accusations that Paul betrayed Jesus and Judaism, invented Christianity, used weird new terms, made weird new claims, was anti-Semitic and antimarriage, proslavery and propatriarchy. Much or all of those issues stem from ignorance of the terms and claims of Roman imperial theology and of how Paul proclaimed Jesus’s vision of God’s Kingdom both as a challenge to his fellow Jews and as a confrontation between Christ and Caesar. For that two-front struggle, his language was deliberately designed to be appropriate to the provincial capitals of the Roman Empire. No betrayal of Jesus or Judaism was involved with Paul, who took Jesus’s vision out of the villages of the Jewish homeland and accurately rephrased it for the great Roman cities of the Jewish Diaspora. My other purpose was the more general one emphasizing the matrix of time, place, and situation to understand once again that biblical rhythm of affirmation-and-negation as we move from Pauline assertion in Chapter 13 to post-Pauline subversion in Chapter 14. Finally, as we saw with the historical Jesus in Chapters 9–11 and will see again with the historical Paul in Chapters 12–14, beneath that seismic conflict of Christian Judaism and Roman imperialism was the grinding collision of history’s two great tectonic plates: the normalcy of civilization’s program of peace through victory against the radicality of God’s program of peace through justice. CHAPTER 13Paul and the Radicality of ChristTo reserve for Christ the words already in use to worship . . . the deified emperors . . . [creates] a polemical parallelism between the cult of the emperor and the cult of Christ. [This] makes itself felt where ancient words . . . from the [Jewish] Septuagint . . . happen to coincide with solemn concepts of the Imperial cult. . . . [It is] a clear prophecy of the coming centuries of martyrdom. ADOLF DEISSMANN , Light from the Ancient East (1908) NERO WAS NOT YET seventeen years old when he became Roman emperor in October of 54 CE . The early honeymoon years of his reign inspired eschatological enthusiasm for a renewed Golden Age. Here, for example, is a medley from the long encomium to Nero as “the God himself” (ipse deus ) in an eclogue, or pastoral idyll, by the poet Calpurnius Siculus: Amid untroubled peace, the Golden Age springs to a second birth; at last kindly Themis [Justice] returns to earth; blissful ages attend the youthful prince. . . . While he, a very God [deus ipse ], shall rule the nations, the unholy War-Goddess shall yield and have her vanquished hands bound behind her back. . . . Fair peace shall come. . . . Peace in her fullness shall come; knowing not the drawn sword, she shall renew once more the Reign of Saturn in Latium . . . a kinder God [melior deus ] will . . . displace the age of oppression . . .

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  After my transition, I began to write not only about being transgendered, but about my experiences living in the world as a woman and a dyke after years of being perceived as a straight man. Not surprisingly, most of what I wrote had a definite feminist bent. It seemed impossible for me, as a trans woman, to discuss my journey from male to female without placing it in the context of the differing values our society places on maleness and femaleness, on masculinity and femininity. Unfortunately, many people tend to artificially separate feminism from transgender activism, as if they are distinct issues that are in no way related. However, I have found that much of the anti-trans discrimination that trans women come across is clearly rooted in traditional sexism. This can be seen in how the media Powers That Be systematically sensationalize, sexualize, and ridicule trans women while allowing trans men to remain largely invisible. It’s why the tranny sex and porn industries catering to straight-identified men do not fetishize folks on the FTM spectrum for their XX chromosomes or their socialization as girls. No, they objectify trans women, because our bodies and our persons are female. I have found that many female-assigned genderqueers and FTM spectrum trans people go on and on about the gender binary system, as if trans people are only ever discriminated against for breaking gender norms. That might be how it seems when the gender transgression in question is an expression of masculinity. But as someone on the MTF spectrum, I am not dismissed for merely failing to live up to binary gender norms, but for expressing my own femaleness and femininity. And personally, I don’t feel like I’m the victim of “transphobia” as much as I am the victim of trans-misogyny.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  The popular assumption that trans women deliberately transform ourselves into sexual objects also explains why we are so frequently depicted in the media as sex workers.3 The fact that trans female sex workers have reached the status of “stock characters” is of particular interest, as such depictions are at complete odds with other cissexual presumptions about transsexuality. Media representations of trans people that do not involve sex work typically go out of their way to stress the fact that transsexuality is an extraordinarily rare phenomenon, and to promote the idea that transsexuals are sexually undesirable. So it is unclear why, being as rare and undesirable as we supposedly are, we seem to make up such a significant percentage of sex workers on TV and in the movies. This inconsistency implicitly suggests that trans women must somehow specifically seek out jobs as sex workers, presumably because we so desperately wish to be sexually objectified by men. In fact, many trans women are sex workers, but generally not because they wish to be sexual objects. Like their cissexual counterparts, many trans women turn to such work because few other viable economic options are available to them. For example, in San Francisco, perhaps the most trans-friendly city in the nation, approximately 75 percent of transgender people cannot find full-time work, 57 percent have experienced employment discrimination on the job, and 96 percent live below the city’s median income.4 In other words, any realistic portrayal of transgender sex workers would necessarily have to address the issue of poverty that comes at the hands of anti-trans prejudice. This, of course, rarely happens on TV or in movies, where depictions of trans female sex workers are almost always brief and superfluous. Thus, media stereotypes of trans female sex workers not only promote the misconception that trans women transition so they can be sexualized, but they also deny the cissexual prejudice that drives many actual trans women into sex work in the first place. While there has been extensive feminist analysis examining the ways in which women are sexualized in the media, such work has typically ignored media depictions of trans women. In fact, some feminists even seem to accept at face value media stereotypes of trans women as hyperfeminine and wishing to be sexualized—a rather illogical position given their own critiques of how images of women and other sexual minorities are typically distorted and mischaracterized by a predominantly straight-male-centric media. However, it’s a mistake for cissexual women to view depictions of trans women as having little to do with themselves, as they are so obviously meant to dismiss both transsexuality and femaleness. After all, in a world where women are regularly reduced to objects of male desire, it’s no accident that trans women—the only people in our society who actively choose to become women and who actively fight for their right to be recognized as female—are almost universally depicted in a purely sexualized manner.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  For most cissexuals, the fact that they feel comfortable inhabiting their own physical sex, and that other people confirm this sense of naturalness by appropriately gendering them, allows them to develop a sense of entitlement regarding their own gender: They feel entitled to call themselves a woman or a man. This is not necessarily a bad thing. However, because many of these same cissexuals also assume that they are infallible in their ability to assign genders to other people, they can develop an overactive sense of cissexual gender entitlement. This goes beyond a sense of self-ownership regarding their own gender, and broaches territory in which they consider themselves to be the ultimate arbiters of which people are allowed to call themselves women or men. Once again, most cissexuals are unaware of their gender entitlement, because (1) the processes that enable it (i.e., gendering and cissexual assumption) are invisible to them, and (2) so long as they are cissexual and relatively gender-normative, they have likely not been inconvenienced by the gender entitlement of others. Because gender-entitled cissexuals assume that they have the ability and authority to accurately determine who is a woman and who is a man, they in effect grant a privilege—cissexual privilege—to those people whom they appropriately gender. To illustrate this point, imagine that I’m approached by someone who appears male to me (i.e., I gender them male). If they were to introduce themselves as “Mr. Jones,” I would probably extend them cissexual privilege—that is, I would respect their male identity and extend to them all of the privileges associated with their identified sex. I might call them “sir,” grant them permission into a male-only space, find it appropriate when they tell me they’re married to a woman, etc. However, if I were gender-entitled, there might be some instances in which I’d refuse to extend them the privileges associated with their identified sex. For instance, if the person introduced themselves as “Ms. Jones,” but I chose to view the gender I’d initially perceived them as (i.e., male) to be more authentic or legitimate than their female identity, then I would be denying them cissexual privilege. Similarly, if I were to learn that “Mr. Jones” was transsexual and had been born female, and if that knowledge led me to re-gender him as female rather than male, I would again be denying him (in this case) cissexual privilege. An excellent example of how gender entitlement produces cissexual privilege, and how that privilege can be used to undermine transsexual genders, can be found in the following Germaine Greer quote: No one ever asked women if they recognized sex-change males as belonging to their sex or considered whether being obliged to accept MTF transsexuals as women was at all damaging to their identity or self-esteem.1

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Perhaps for this reason, the most commonly depicted subject on these programs is a trans woman who starts out as a seemingly masculine male. In addition to the reasons for the media’s focus on trans women rather than trans men (which I discussed in chapter 2), there are additional physical reasons to account for this phenomenon. Trans women often have more difficulties “passing” as their identified sex than trans men do, not only because of limitations of the MTF transition process in reversing some of the irreparable effects of prolonged exposure to testosterone, but because people in our culture predominantly rely on male (rather than female) cues when determining the sex of other people.2 Therefore, some trans women require more procedures if they wish to be taken seriously as their identified sex. Sex reassignment TV programs I have seen have followed trans women not only through electrolysis, hormone replacement therapy, and bottom surgery (which are all fairly common), but also somewhat less common procedures, such as top surgery to increase the size of their breasts, tracheal shaves to reduce the size of their Adam’s apples, and voice lessons to overcome their deep voices. Such shows also frequently depict trans women working with movement coaches and fashion consultants, even though it is safe to say that the overwhelming majority of trans women never engage in such a step. These programs’ concentration on trans people who undergo multiple medical procedures, or who take lessons to help them “pass” as their identified sex, tends to make invisible the many trans men and women who “pass” rather easily after hormone replacement therapy alone, or who choose not to undergo all of the procedures commonly associated with transsexuality. Focusing primarily on those trans people who undergo the most procedures during their transitions not only shows a more dramatic change—one that reinforces the idea that sex reassignment is “artificial”—but also fosters the audience’s assumption that trans people are merely mimicking or impersonating the other sex rather than expressing their natural gender identity or subconscious sex.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Then he locked the door and also every way out of the house, and left Hayemon in that yard. Hayemon thought that Sasanosuke was making ready a love meeting, and waited for some time in the court. But the snow, which had begun to fall in the early evening, was getting thicker. At first Hayemon shook the snow from his shoulders and sleeves; but soon, although he had sheltered under an old paulownia, he began to suffer greatly. In a husky voice he called to his lover: 'Sasanosuke, I shall die of this cold.' But Sasanosuke mockingly answered him from the first-floor room, where he was amusing himself with the servant: 'I am sure that you are Still sufficiently warmed by the wine that pretty page poured out for you.' Hayemon groaned: 'You are teaching me a lesson this evening. I shall be very discreet in future. I will not look at a single other pretty boy. Forgive me, Sasanosuke. 'But Sasanosuke was unyielding. 'If you are in earnest, pass me your two swords to prove it. Only so shall I believe you.' And Hayemon passed him his two swords. Then, to avenge his slighted love, Sasanosuke set about making game of Hayemon. He compelled him take off all his clothes. Then he forced the unhappy man, who Stood shivering and naked in the cold, to let his hair fall over his face; and Hayemon obeyed him. Sasanosuke threw him a triangular white paper with characters written on it, and ordered him to place it on his forehead. In burials, according to the Buddhistic rite, the corpse bears a triangular paper with an inscription on its forehead. And Hayemon obeyed. The air was frozen and the snow fell upon his naked, shuddering, trembling body. He could hardly breathe. He looked like a corpse indeed. He implored Sasanosuke to forgive and save him, raising his frozen and shivering hands to him. But Sasanosuke remained pitiless. Up in his room he sang at the top of a clear and care-free voice, to the rhythm of a drum, this passage from the famous N6 drama: 'I am delighted with your excellent prayer for the safety of my soul.' Then, after this moment's inattention, he looked back into the court. Hayemon had fallen down in pain and agony. Sasanosuke was moved and ran to the court, and tried to revive his lover with medicines and warmth. But it was too late; Hayemon had died. Sasanosuke joined him in death by Hara-kiri. In his bedroom Sasanosuke had prepared a feast for himself and his dear Hayemon. There were the most delicious meats, and two cushions were on the bed for Hayemon and himself. His garments were perfumed. He had in-tended to pardon Hayemon after punishing him severely; but he had gone too far, and had thereby killed his lover and himself.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Unfortunately, I have found that many women fail to appreciate effemimania as a very real and pervasive form of traditional sexism, one that oppressively restricts and undermines feminine gender expression in male-bodied people. During a question and answer session at a gender-themed event I participated in, a trans woman brought up the intense ridicule a man can face for the simple act of wearing a pink tie. The audience, who was made up predominantly of people who were socialized female, laughed at this remark in what seemed to me to be a highly unsympathetic way, as though they believed that the hypothetical man in question suffered from some irrational form of male paranoia. This sort of thinking not only makes invisible the role that women often play in employing and propagating effemimania (in fact, all of the effemimanic remarks I described in the previous paragraph were made by women), but entirely dismisses the severity of this form of sexism. In my five years of living as a woman—one who very rarely wears makeup, who regularly dresses like a tomboy, who often goes long periods of time without shaving her legs or armpits, who sometimes curses like a sailor, who is sometimes very physically active, and who is unafraid to take on supposedly masculine tasks such as using tools, lifting heavy boxes, etc.—I have not experienced a single gender-anxious comment or critique regarding my masculine gender expression that has even come close to the level of intensity or condescension that I regularly received for my feminine expressions back when I was perceived as male. Effemimania is not merely a phenomenon that affects adults, but rather one that begins early in childhood; this is highlighted by a recent study carried out by Emily Kane, who examined parental responses to gender nonconformity in their preschool children.1 Kane found that the parents she studied often encouraged gender nonconformity in their female children and few offered negative responses when they engaged in stereotypically masculine activities. On the other hand, while the parents sometimes reacted positively when their male children engaged in certain stereotypically feminine activities—specifically those related to domestic skills, nurturing, and empathy—other activities related to what Kane called “icons of femininity,” such as wearing pink or girl-specific clothing, wanting to wear nail polish, and expressing interest in dance, ballet, or Barbie dolls, were generally greeted with negative reactions by both fathers and mothers, and in parents of varying race, economic class, and sexual orientation.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  These days, whenever people ask me lots of questions about my previous male life and the medical procedures that helped facilitate my transition to female, I realize that they are making a desperate and concerted effort to preserve their own assumptions and stereotypes about gender, rather than opening their minds up to the possibility that women and men do not represent mutually exclusive categories. When they request to see my “before” photos or ask me what my former name was, it is because they are trying to visualize me as male in order to anchor my existence in my assigned sex. And when they focus on my physical transition, it is so they can imagine my femaleness as a product of medical science rather than something that is authentic, that comes from inside me. I know that many in the trans community believe that these TV shows and documentaries following transsexuals through the transition process serve a purpose, offering us a bit of visibility and the rare chance to be depicted on TV as something other than a joke. But in actuality, they accomplish little more than reducing us to our physical transitions and our anatomically “altered” bodies. In other words, these programs objectify us. And while it has become somewhat customary for trans people to allow the media to use our “before” pictures whenever we appear on TV, this only enables the cissexual public to continue privileging our assigned sex over our subconscious sex and gender identity. If we truly want to be taken seriously in our identified sex, then we must not only refuse to indulge cissexual people’s compulsion to pigeonhole us in our assigned sex, but call them out on the way that they continuously objectify our bodies while refusing to take our minds, our persons, and our identities seriously. 4 Boygasms and Girlgasms: A Frank Discussion About Hormones and Gender Differences THOUGH I AM OFTEN RELUCTANT to indulge people’s fascination with the details of my physical transition from male to female, I will often make an exception regarding the psychological changes I experienced due to hormones. The reason for this is quite simple: Sex hormones have become horribly politicized in our culture, evident in the way that people blatantly blame testosterone for nearly all instances of male aggression and violence, or the way that women who become legitimately angry or upset often have their opinions dismissed as mere symptoms of their body chemistry. Such hormonal folklore has strongly influenced medicine, as evidenced by the countless shoddy, pseudoscientific studies claiming to verify popular assumptions about testosterone and estrogen. Of course, such overt politicization has created a significant backlash of people who now play down the role of hormones in human behavior, who argue that most of their presumed effects (making men overly aggressive and women overly emotional) are better explained by socialization—after all, young boys are encouraged to be aggressive and discouraged from showing emotions, and vice versa for girls.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  When the principal came back to the dais, however, his voice had changed. Sounds always affected me profoundly and the principal's voice was one of my favorites. During assembly it melted and lowed weakly into the audience. It had not been in my plan to listen to him, but my curiosity was piqued and I straightened up to give him my attention. He was talking about Booker T. Washington, our “late great leader,” who said we can be as close as the fingers on the hand, etc. ... Then he said a few vague things about friendship and the friendship of kindly people to those less fortunate than themselves. With that his voice nearly faded, thin, away. Like a river diminishing to a stream and then to a trickle. But he cleared his throat and said, “Our speaker tonight, who is also our friend, came from Texarkana to deliver the commencement address, but due to the irregularity of the train schedule, he's going to, as they say, ‘speak and run.’” He said that we understood and wanted the man to know that we were most grateful for the time he was able to give us and then something about how we were willing always to adjust to another's program, and without more ado—“I give you Mr. Edward Donleavy.” Not one but two white men came through the door offstage. The shorter one walked to the speaker's platform, and the tall one moved over to the center seat and sat down. But that was our principal's seat, and already occupied. The dislodged gentleman bounced around for a long breath or two before the Baptist minister gave him his chair, then with more dignity than the situation deserved, the minister walked off the stage. Donleavy looked at the audience once (on reflection, I'm sure that he wanted only to reassure himself that we were really there), adjusted his glasses and began to read from a sheaf of papers. He was glad “to be here and to see the work going on just as it was in the other schools.” At the first “Amen” from the audience I willed the offender to immediate death by choking on the word. But Amens and Yes, sir's began to fall around the room like rain through a ragged umbrella. He told us of the wonderful changes we children in Stamps had in store. The Central School (naturally, the white school was Central) had already been granted improvements that would be in use in the fall. A well-known artist was coming from Little Rock to teach art to them. They were going to have the newest microscopes and chemistry equipment for their laboratory. Mr. Donleavy didn't leave us long in the dark over who made these improvements available to Central High. Nor were we to be ignored in the general betterment scheme he had in mind.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  This, of course, is the major problem with most medical, psychiatric, and sexological research into transgenderism. While generally presented under the guise of objective science, the body of research compiled by the gatekeepers has been so undermined by their own biases that their results are nothing more than a research artifact. The gatekeepers consistently claimed that transsexuality was a “rare” phenomenon without acknowledging that they themselves played an active role in restricting the number of trans people who would be allowed to transition; they believed that crossdressing and transsexuality primarily “afflicted” those assigned a male sex at birth without realizing that their own effemimania rendered FTM spectrum individuals invisible. Indeed, the majority of research on transgenderism and transsexuality they produced clearly fit the criteria for “pathological science,” a term used to describe work that initially conforms to the scientific method, but then unconsciously veers from that method and begins a pathological process of wishful data interpretation.49 Critiquing the Critics Sexologists have greatly shaped the way the public at large views transsexuals (as well as the way many transsexuals come to view themselves), but they are not the only group to position themselves as “authorities” on transsexuality. Over the years, many academics in the social sciences and in gender studies have also written extensively on the subject. Unlike the gatekeepers, who have often expressed consternation and condemnation for those transsexuals who fail to live up to society’s traditional and oppositional sexist expectations regarding gender, many academics have had the reciprocal concern—namely, that transsexuals work too hard to achieve gender normalcy. This concern typically arises from the assumption (embraced by many in the humanities) that transsexuality is a modern construction, something that would not exist if it were not for medical technology, psychological pathology, patriarchy, heterosexism, capitalism, and/or our culture’s rigid binary gender norms. Because academics in the fields of sociology and gender studies have been disposed toward seeking out the societal causes of transsexuality, they have tended to overlook or dismiss the possibility that intrinsic inclinations (i.e., subconscious sex) drive trans people toward transitioning. Framing the issue this way has ensured that transsexuality can only be understood as a form of “false consciousness” and that transsexuals themselves can only be conceptualized in one of two ways: as “dupes” (who are misled into transitioning by gatekeepers) or as “fakes” (who are so distressed by their own exceptional gender expressions and/or sexual orientations that they are willing to go to the extreme lengths of surgically altering their bodies and unquestioningly embracing sexist ideals in order to fit into straight mainstream society).

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Mass media images of “biological males” dressing and acting in a feminine manner could potentially challenge mainstream notions of gender, but the way they are generally presented in these feminization scenes ensures that this never happens. The media neutralizes the potential threat that trans femininities pose to the category of “woman” by playing to the audience’s subconscious belief that femininity itself is artificial. After all, while most people assume that women are naturally feminine, they also (rather hypocritically) require them to spend an hour or two each day putting on their faces and getting all dressed up in order to meet societal standards for femininity (unlike men, whose masculinity is presumed to come directly from who he is and what he does). In fact, it’s the assumption that femininity is inherently “contrived,” “frivolous,” and “manipulative” that allows masculinity to always come off as “natural,” “practical,” and “sincere” by comparison. Thus, the media is able to depict trans women donning feminine attire and accessories without ever giving the impression that they achieve “true” femaleness in the process. Further, by focusing on the most feminine of artifices, the media evokes the idea that trans women are living out some sort of sexual fetish. This sexualization of trans women’s motives for transitioning not only belittles trans women’s female identities, but encourages the objectification of women as a whole. Of course, what always goes unseen are the great lengths to which producers will go to depict lurid and superficial scenes in which trans women get all dolled up in pretty clothes and cosmetics. Shawna Virago, a San Francisco trans activist, musician, and director of the Tranny Fest film festival, has experienced several such incidents with local news producers. For instance, when Virago was organizing a forum to facilitate communication between police and the trans community, a newspaper reporter approached her and other transgender activists to write an article about them. However, the paper was interested not in their politics but in their transitions. “They wanted each of us to include ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures,” Shawna said. “This pissed me off, and I tried to explain to the writer that the before-and-after stuff had nothing to do with police abuse and other issues, like trans women and HIV, but he didn’t get it. So I was cut from the piece.” A few years later, someone from another paper contacted Virago and asked to photograph her “getting ready” to go out: “I told him I didn’t think having a picture of me rolling out of bed and hustling to catch [the bus] would make for a compelling photo. He said, ‘You know, getting pretty, putting on makeup.’ I refused, but they did get a trans woman who complied, and there she was, putting on mascara and lipstick and a pretty dress, none of which had anything to do with the article, which was purportedly about political and social challenges the trans community faced.”3

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Then Hayemon in fury seized a bamboo cane and drove the woman away, crying: 'Get out of here, you vile female! You witch, you very poisoner, begone! 'When the terrified woman had run away, he purified the place with salt and clean sand. It is an ancient Japanese custom to spread salt and sand to purify a place which has been polluted. Without doubt there was never in all the great town of Yedo a fiercer enemy of women.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Then they were moving out of the yard, on their way to town. They bobbed their heads and shook their slack behinds and turned, one at a time: “ 'Bye, Annie.” “ 'Bye, Annie.” “ 'Bye, Annie.” Momma never turned her head or unfolded her arms, but she stopped singing and said, “ 'Bye, Miz Helen, 'bye, Miz Ruth, 'bye, Miz Eloise.” I burst. A firecracker July-the-Fourth burst. How could Momma call them Miz? The mean nasty things. Why couldn't she have come inside the sweet, cool store when we saw them breasting the hill? What did she prove? And then if they were dirty, mean and impudent, why did Momma have to call them Miz? She stood another whole song through and then opened the screen door to look down on me crying in rage. She looked until I looked up. Her face was a brown moon that shone on me. She was beautiful. Something had happened out there, which I couldn't completely understand, but I could see that she was happy. Then she bent down and touched me as mothers of the church “lay hands on the sick and afflicted” and I quieted. “Go wash your face, Sister.” And she went behind the candy counter and hummed, “Glory, glory, hallelujah, when I lay my burden down.” I threw the well water on my face and used the weekday handkerchief to blow my nose. Whatever the contest had been out front, I knew Momma had won. I took the rake back to the front yard. The smudged footprints were easy to erase. I worked for a long time on my new design and laid the rake behind the wash pot. When I came back in the Store, I took Momma's hand and we both walked outside to look at the pattern. It was a large heart with lots of hearts growing smaller inside, and piercing from the outside rim to the smallest heart was an arrow. Momma said, “Sister, that's right pretty.” Then she turned back to the Store and resumed, “Glory, glory, hallelujah, when I lay my burden down.” 6Reverend Howard Thomas was the presiding elder over a district in Arkansas that included Stamps. Every three months he visited our church, stayed at Momma's over the Saturday night and preached a loud passionate sermon on Sunday. He collected the money that had been taken in over the preceding months, heard reports from all the church groups and shook hands with the adults and kissed all small children. Then he went away. (I used to think that he went west to heaven, but Momma straightened me out. He just went to Texarkana.)

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Bailey grabbed up the lumpy pillowcase and pushed by me for the stairs. As the front door slammed, the record player downstairs mastered the house and Nat King Cole warned the world to “straighten up and fly right.” As if they could, as if human beings could make a choice. Mother's eyes were red, and her face puffy, the next morning, but she smiled her “everything is everything” smile and turned in tight little moons, making breakfast, talking business and brightening the corner where she was. No one mentioned Bailey's absence as if things were as they should be and always were. The house was smudged with unspoken thoughts and it was necessary to go to my room to breathe. I believed I knew where he headed the night before, and made up my mind to find him and offer him my support. In the afternoon I went to a bay-windowed house which boasted ROOMS, in green and orange letters, through the glass. A woman of any age past thirty answered my ring and said Bailey Johnson was at the top of the stairs. His eyes were as red as Mother's had been, but his face had loosened a little from the tightness of the night before. In an almost formal manner I was invited into a room with a clean chenille-covered bed, an easy chair, a gas fireplace and a table. He began to talk, covering up the unusual situation that we found ourselves in. “Nice room, isn't it? You know it's very hard to find rooms now. The war and all … Betty lives here [she was the white prostitute] and she got this place for me … Maya, you know, it's better this way … I mean, I'm a man, and I have to be on my own …” I was furious that he didn't curse and abuse the Fates or Mother or at least act put upon. “Well”—I thought to start it—“If Mother was really a mother, she wouldn't have—” He stopped me, his little black hand held up as if I were to read his palm. “Wait, Maya, she was right. There is a tide and time in every man's life—” “Bailey, you're sixteen.” “Chronologically, yes, but I haven't been sixteen for years. Anyway, there comes a time when a man must cut the apron strings and face life on his own … As I was saying to Mother Dear, I've come to—” “When were you talking to Mother …?” “This morning, I said to Mother Dear—” “Did you phone her?”

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Shyuzen and Shyusaï were consumed with rage. They determined to kill Ukyo that same night, and then to run away. They could not endure the insult and humiliation which Ukyo had inflicted upon them, and made ready for their vicious deed. But Ukyo was warned of their plot and decided to kill them both before they Comrade-Love of the Samurai could attack him. He thought of speaking to Uneme about it, but, on reflection, told himself that it was unworthy of a samurai to speak about his business to his lover with the sole object of obtaining his help. Besides, he did not want to make Uneme his accomplice. So he decided to execute his plan by himself. It was the month of May and very wet. It rained heavily on that night. It was the seven-teenth day of the moon in the seventeenth year of Kanyei (a. d. 1641). All the samurai of the guard were in a State of deep fatigue, and were sleeping. Ukyo put on a thin silk garment as white as snow, with a splendid skirt. He perfumed himself more than ordinarily so as to be pure, for he had determined to die after having killed his two enemies. He put two swords in the girdle which encircled his hips, and crossed through the halls of the palace. Since he was in the habit of doing this every evening, the guards let him pass without questioning. Shyuzen was on guard that night in one of the rooms. He was leaning against a screen pictured with hawks, and was looking at his fan. Ukyo rushed upon him and thrust his sword deep into his right shoulder as far as his breast. But Shyuzen was a brave and Strong man. With his left hand he seized his own sword and defended himself bravely. Yet he was losing blood and getting weak, and finally he fell, cursing Ukyo. Ukyo finished him with two more sword thrusts; then he went in search of Shyusaï. But the guards had been aroused by the noise of the Struggle, and had lit lamps in the rooms. They arrested Ukyo, and their captain led him before the Lord, who was much disturbed and very angry. He spoke harshly to Ukyo and said to him: 'What reason had you for killing Shyuzen? You deserve severe punishment for having thus troubled my palace in the night with your crime. Confess your reason for having killed him.' But Ukyo kept silent. He was brought before the Chief Judge, Tonomo Tokumatsu, who examined him; and Ukyo confessed. When the Lord was informed of this, he grew calm and ordered Ukyo to be kept in a room in the palace, where he was treated with respect.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Also because the play must end somewhere. I went further than forgiving the clerk, I accepted her as a fellow victim of the same puppeteer. On the streetcar, I put my fare into the box and the conductorette looked at me with the usual hard eyes of white contempt. “Move into the car, please move on in the car.” She patted her money changer. Her Southern nasal accent sliced my meditation and I looked deep into my thoughts. All lies, all comfortable lies. The receptionist was not innocent and neither was I. The whole charade we had played out in that crummy waiting room had directly to do with me, Black, and her, white. I wouldn't move into the streetcar but stood on the ledge over the conductor, glaring. My mind shouted so energetically that the announcement made my veins stand out, and my mouth tighten into a prune. I WOULD HAVE THE JOB. I WOULD BE A CONDUCTORETTE AND SLING A FULL MONEY CHANGER FROM MY BELT. I WOULD. The next three weeks were a honeycomb of determination with apertures for the days to go in and out. The Negro organizations to whom I appealed for support bounced me back and forth like a shuttlecock on a badminton court. Why did I insist on that particular job? Openings were going begging that paid nearly twice the money. The minor officials with whom I was able to win an audience thought me mad. Possibly I was. Downtown San Francisco became alien and cold, and the streets I had loved in a personal familiarity were unknown lanes that twisted with malicious intent. Old buildings, whose gray rococo façades housed my memories of the Forty-Niners, and Diamond Lil, Robert Service, Sutter and Jack London, were then imposing structures viciously joined to keep me out. My trips to the streetcar office were of the frequency of a person on salary. The struggle expanded. I was no longer in conflict only with the Market Street Railway but with the marble lobby of the building which housed its offices, and elevators and their operators. During this period of strain Mother and I began our first steps on the long path toward mutual adult admiration. She never asked for reports and I didn't offer any details. But every morning she made breakfast, gave me carfare and lunch money, as if I were going to work. She comprehended the perversity of life, that in the struggle lies the joy. That I was no glory seeker was obvious to her, and that I had to exhaust every possibility before giving in was also clear. On my way out of the house one morning she said, “Life is going to give you just what you put in it. Put your whole heart in everything you do, and pray, then you can wait.” Another time she reminded me that “God helps those who help themselves.” She had a store of aphorisms which she dished out as the occasion demanded.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  While deconstructive feminism differs from unilateral feminism in many ways, it shares its predecessor’s tendency to artificialize gender expression. This is often accomplished via gender performativity, a concept developed by Judith Butler to describe the way in which built-in expectations about maleness and femaleness, straightness and queerness, are constantly imposed on all of us. Butler uses the term “performativity” to highlight how feminine and masculine norms must constantly be cited. She uses the example of the child who becomes “girled” by others at birth: She is given a female name, referred to with female pronouns, given girl toys, and will, throughout her life, have her “girlness” cited by others in society.14 Butler argues that this sort of reiteration “produces” gender, making it appear “natural.” However, many other deconstructive feminists have interpreted Butler’s writings to mean that one’s gender is merely a “performance.” According to this latter view, if gender itself is merely a “performance,” then one can challenge sexism by simply “performing” one’s gender in ways that call the binary gender system into question; the most often cited example of this is a drag queen whose “performance” supposedly reveals the way in which femaleness and femininity are merely a “performance.”15 While unilateral feminists typically view femininity in exclusively negative terms, deconstructive feminists believe that femininity is context-dependent: It can be “good” (when it is used to subvert the binary gender system) or “bad” (when used to naturalize that system).16 In other words, deconstructive feminism only empowers and embraces queer expressions of femininity, while straight expressions of femininity are typically portrayed as reinforcing a sexist binary gender system. Thus, both deconstructive and unilateral feminism share the belief that (1) femininity is not a natural form of expression, but rather one that is socially imposed; (2) most women are “duped” into believing that their femininity arises intrinsically rather than due to extrinsic forces such as socialization or social constructs; (3) people who are “in the know” recognize that gender expression is artificial and easily malleable, and thus they can purposefully adopt a more radical, antisexist gender expression (e.g., androgyny, drag, etc.); and (4) because feminine women choose not to adopt these supposedly radical, antisexist gender expressions, they may be seen as enabling sexism and thus collaborating in their own oppression. The Ramifications of Artificializing Femininity

• From How God Became King (2012)

  And of course this is just the tip of the iceberg. Think about Jesus’s constant emphasis on the reversal of power and prestige in which the first would become last and the last would become first. Sometimes this flickers out, a little hint on the edge of something else. At other times it is a substantial statement, firmly rooted in the specifics of Jesus’s own public career, but equally firmly relevant, as far as the evangelists are concerned, to the life of the early Christian community: James and John, Zebedee’s sons, came up to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to grant us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” asked Jesus. “Grant us,” they said, “that when you’re there in all your glory, one of us will sit at your right, and the other at your left.” “You don’t know what you’re asking for!” Jesus replied. “Can you drink the cup I’m going to drink? Can you receive the baptism I’m going to receive?” “Yes,” they said, “we can.” “Well,” said Jesus, “you will drink the cup I drink; you will receive the baptism I receive. But sitting at my right hand or my left—that’s not up to me. It’s been assigned already.” When the other ten disciples heard, they were angry with James and John. Jesus called them to him. “You know how it is in the pagan nations,” he said. “Think how their so-called rulers act. They lord it over their subjects. The high and mighty ones boss the rest around. But that’s not how it’s going to be with you. Anyone who wants to be great among you must become your servant. Anyone who wants to be first must be everyone’s slave. Don’t you see? The son of man didn’t come to be waited on. He came to be the servant, to give his life ‘as a ransom for many.’” (Mark 10:35–45) Think, then, about the other challenges Jesus gave to his followers, not least in the Sermon on the Mount, and consider the process by which what started off as Jesus’s challenge to his contemporaries to live as the true Israel (“the light of the world,” “the salt of the earth,” “a city on top of a hill,” 5:13–16) was transformed, by Jesus himself, into the agenda he would act out in person and then bequeath to his followers. Think, in particular, about the challenge of forgiveness and the way in which the little groups of Jesus followers that sprang up in the towns and villages he visited and that became the nucleus of the early Palestinian church had to wrestle in a new way with questions of corporate family life and discipline. Imagine how they would have read passages like this:

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  He said, “My, what did she give you?” He had seen the books, but I held the paper sack with his cookies in my arms shielded by the poems. Momma said, “Sister, I know you acted like a little lady. That do my heart good to see settled people take to you all. I'm trying my best, the Lord knows, but these days ...” Her voice trailed off. “Go on in and change your dress.” In the bedroom it was going to be a joy to see Bailey receive his cookies. I said, “By the way, Bailey, Mrs. Flowers sent you some tea cookies—” Momma shouted, “What did you say, Sister? You, Sister, what did you say?” Hot anger was crackling in her voice. Bailey said, “She said Mrs. Flowers sent me some—” “I ain't talking to you, Ju.” I heard the heavy feet walk across the floor toward our bedroom. “Sister, you heard me. What's that you said?” She swelled to fill the doorway. Bailey said, “Momma.” His pacifying voice—“Momma, she—” “You shut up, Ju. I'm talking to your sister.” I didn't know what sacred cow I had bumped, but it was better to find out than to hang like a thread over an open fire. I repeated, “I said, ‘Bailey by the way, Mrs. Flowers sent you—’” “That's what I thought you said. Go on and take off your dress. I'm going to get a switch.” At first I thought she was playing. Maybe some heavy joke that would end with “You sure she didn't send me something?” but in a minute she was back in the room with a long, ropy, peach-tree switch, the juice smelling bitter at having been torn loose. She said, “Get down on your knees. Bailey, Junior, you come on, too.” The three of us knelt as she began, “Our Father, you know the tribulations of your humble servant. I have with your help raised two grown boys. Many's the day I thought I wouldn't be able to go on, but you gave me the strength to see my way clear. Now, Lord, look down on this heavy heart today. I'm trying to raise my son's children in the way they should go, but, oh, Lord, the Devil try to hinder me on every hand. I never thought I'd live to hear cursing under this roof, what I try to keep dedicated to the glorification of God. And cursing out of the mouths of babes. But you said, in the last days brother would turn against brother, and children against their parents. That there would be a gnashing of teeth and a rendering of flesh. Father, forgive this child, I beg you, on bended knee.” I was crying loudly now. Momma's voice had risen to a shouting pitch, and I knew that whatever wrong I had committed was extremely serious. She had even left the Store untended to take up my case with God. When she finished we were all crying.