I want to tell you about a stupid beauty pageant.

What?  We expected an article on reasons for protest.  Since when do protests have anything to do with beauty pageants?  Actually, they have more in common than you may think.  Let me explain.

That beauty pageant was the last event I had ever expected a recruiter to snag me into because I have virtually no interest in the stage.  Sometimes I think I’m allergic to theater, Broadway, and Hollywood.  Perhaps it’s because of my experience with many Hollywood “go-sees” as a model eons ago when I actually had the body for it.

But I just don’t care for the performing arts.  I even rejected television in my home for a couple of decades.  Some Hollywood people I had befriended over the years felt intrigued that they met up with a girl who’s oblivious about this or that big Hollywood name, doesn’t care that she doesn’t know, and refuses to faun over any of them.  So the suggestion that anyone wanted me to compete in a beauty pageant seemed at first like a mean-spirited joke.

I almost refused to compete at all.  If any recruiter approached me today, not only would I not compete in a beauty pageant, I wouldn’t bother to attend.  So why did I bother with competing in the first place?

Simply this: that pageant was a San Francisco event designed to raise awareness about transpeople in January 2000, a time before trans rights was considered “a thing” in California.  That event, held at the Pacific Design Center, would be televised; a chance to show the world what trans looks like.  It meant a chance to put a face on an idea of “transgender” and show that we’re humans and not monsters.

So someone like me who dislikes making a spectacle of herself became a spectacle for a cause, and I applied the things I learned then to the protesting I do now.  After all, if there’s ever a time to be a spectacle this is it, for a time may come when our voices may be forcibly silenced.

 

THAT TO WHICH WE CATER

I knew I wasn’t going to win anyone’s beauty pageant.  Worse yet, I hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with a title if I did.  The whole thing reeked of a parody that may appeal to the snickers of male chauvinists.  Then word came that the budget had been bleeding red ink 2 weeks before the doors were scheduled to open.  “What a waste,” I thought, only to catch myself and think of the objective that brought me into that craziness.

I didn’t want a title and decided I would make sure I didn’t have a chance.  When I was called before the judges in an interview I told the judges about my negative feelings about San Francisco because I had been raped on my first visit there.  I said, “San Francisco is 19^th century gingerbread wrapped up in a condom and dipped in nicotine.”  Despite the judges’ uproarious laughter I expected them to mark me with a big fat zero for insulting their city.

So I didn’t play to the judges when I did my talent portion, which surprisingly, the audience well received.  I danced with an “apparition” only to look around when the ghost disappears and I’m left holding a rose.  I bowed and tossed the rose to the media table, not the judge’s table.

Naturally, I was eliminated before the finals and felt relief that my part was finally over… or so I thought.

The issue was raised again, even permanently when SF Weekly published an article on the event.  The writer, Silke Tudor, spent a quarter of the article on me alone.  “I’m sure she had interviewed other girls,” I thought, for it seemed like I had reaped an inordinate amount of press.¹

Then again, what else could I expect since I played to the media when others played to the judges?  I probably did more to raise awareness than most of the other girls on the stage.

That was a lesson I would never forget.  If indeed you want to raise awareness for a cause, you have to know your audience, no matter how zany the idea may seem.

Consider that principle in terms of protest.  We currently have an administration who not only treats protests with contempt, but will go after organizers who protest.²  This administration seeks to stop protests from even happening near the White House.³  We are seeing an effort to crush all dissent, allowing freer reign for those who demonstrate in favor of the chief of state after the manner of a cult.  It’s not an administration that honors the diversity of America.  It’s an administration of religio-political railroading.  No protest will change minds within this administration, who, like stiff-necked Evangelical leaders who think to have anointed him, turn a deaf ear against anyone who thinks differently than those who serve his pet interests.

If that’s the case, what purpose can protesting serve at all?  I don’t protest because I expect to move the heart of a compassionless, arrogant, and egotistical aristocrat.  That won’t happen.  That’s like playing to the judge instead of the media, even though in predominately red Orange County, the local press ignores protests.  To whom, then, do we play if the media isn’t listening?  The answer may sound like a wild digression but it isn’t.

 

ETERNALLY PREGNANT

One instinctive, one fundamental, one existential desire may be found in any normal sentient being:  the desire to reproduce.  Typical males and females have this desire.  It’s also true of trans and intersex peoples, even eunuchs of all traditions, and anyone who thinks this isn’t true knows nothing about eunuchs.  But though a eunuch cannot produce children of his or her body, such is left with one alternative, to produce children of one’s mind, believing that every one of us is eternally pregnant.

It sounds like a loony idea, but it’s not.  It’s an idea reiterated philosophically in many places.  Consider what Plato said, attributing these words to Diotima of Mantinea in Symposium, words I’ve personally found illuminating:

“κυοῦσι γάρ, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες, πάντες ἄνθρωποι καὶ κατὰ τὸ σῶμα καὶ κατὰ τὴν ψυχήν, καὶ ἐπειδὰν ἔν τινι ἡλικίᾳ γένονται,”

“She (Diotima) declared, “For they are pregnant, o Socrates, all men (humans) both throughout the body and the soul (mind), especially at any exact prime of life to give birth…” ⁴

and:

“ἔστι γὰρ δὲ τῶν καλλίστων ἡ σοφία, Ἔρος δ’ ἐστὶν ἔρως περὶ τὸ καλόν,”

 “For moreover wisdom is one of the most beautiful things, Eros is a passion near to the beautiful…”⁵

So what do I mean to say that everyone is eternally pregnant?  Simply this:  everyone whether realizing it or not, has the full potential to creatively realize what’s beautiful, especially wisdom, and the visceral sensations of love is key for that to happen.  While transcendent love (represented in Symposium as Aphrodite and among Christians as agapḗ: ἀγαπή), the purpose of all erotic aspects of love is to be a vehicle between the mundane and the transcendent.

Not all erotic aspects pertain to raw sexuality either.  It pertains to all passion for other people and causes we may viscerally feel, for that ultimate transcendental love is beyond feeling and feelings always change from one day to the next.  That’s why I translated the second passage the way I did, knowing that it by no means invalidates the translations of others.

Symposium depicts Eros as a rough character, the son of Resourcefulness (Πόρος) and Poverty (Πενία).⁶  Aren’t these qualities that have shaped so many trans lives?  We transpeople often find ourselves in touch with the erotic more than anyone else, and the tragic side of this rests in where transpeople find themselves entrapped in only one aspect.  Those of us who are asexual have come to understand that difference too well.

One beloved professor of Philosophy, the late Neill L. Cooney, said this about Symposium:

“In this delightful conversation in the round and testimony to Love [Eros], Socrates, when it comes his turn to speak, recalls how a prescient woman, Diotima, brought forth from Socrates what love is.  It is to bring forth something beautiful in a person who is pregnant with truth and insight and the love of wisdom.”⁷

So if one’s mind has grown to realization of the higher aspects of Mind, giving birth is more than political or religious persuasions.  Such has given birth to that which is the most beautiful.

So if our connections with the erotic, however that may personally be, lead to transcendent love, that love also leads us to support human rights as far as possible.  It also leads us to consider truth objectively, as have over 1600 scientists who this week submitted their own petition of protest, many of whom are philosophers as well as scientists.  Some are biologists and geneticists.  Some are even Nobel prize winners.⁸  Here’s what they had to say:

“As scientists, we are compelled to write to you, our elected representatives, about the current administration’s proposal to legally define gender as a binary condition determined at birth, based on genitalia, and with plans to clarify disputes using “genetic testing”. This proposal is fundamentally inconsistent not only with science, but also with ethical practices, human rights, and basic dignity.

“The proposal is in no way “grounded in science” as the administration claims. The relationship between sex chromosomes, genitalia, and gender identity is complex, and not fully understood. There are no genetic tests that can unambiguously determine gender, or even sex. Furthermore, even if such tests existed, it would be unconscionable to use the pretext of science to enact policies that overrule the lived experience of people’s own gender identities.

“The proposed policy seeks to erase the identities of millions of Americans who identify as transgender (individuals whose gender identification differs from their assigned sex at birth) or have intersex bodies (individuals with biologically atypical patterns of male and female traits). In transgender individuals, the existence and validity of a distinct gender identity is supported by a number of neuroanatomical studies. Though scientists are just beginning to understand the biological basis of gender identity, it is clear that many factors, known and unknown, mediate the complex links between identity, genes, and anatomy.

“In intersex people, their genitalia, as well as their various secondary sexual characteristics, can differ from what clinicians would predict from their sex chromosomes. In fact, some people will live their entire lives without ever knowing that they are intersex. The proposed policy will force many intersex people to be legally classified in ways that erase their intersex status and identity, as well as lead to more medically unnecessary and risky surgeries at birth. Such non-consensual gender assignment and surgeries result in increased health risks in adulthood, and violate intersex people’s right to self-determination.

“Millions of Americans identify as transgender or gender non-conforming, or have intersex bodies, and are at increased risk of physical and mental health disorders resulting from discrimination, fear for personal safety, and family and societal rejection. Multiple standards of health care for transgender and intersex people emphasize that recognizing an individual’s self-identified gender, not their external genitalia or chromosomes, is the best practice for providing evidence-based, effective, and lifesaving care. Our best available evidence shows that affirmation of gender identity is paramount to the survival, health, and livelihood of transgender and intersex people.

“Given its scientific and ethical failings, we call upon the administration to withdraw this proposed policy. We also ask our elected representatives to oppose its implementation, as it would cause grave harm to transgender and intersex Americans and weaken the constitutional rights of all Americans. Transgender and intersex people deserve equal access to the rights, livelihoods, liberties, and dignity to which we are all entitled on the basis of our shared humanity.”⁹

 

This is where we should objectively look for truth concerning trans, intersex, and gender non-conforming peoples in the fuller scope of human rights.  It’s based in evidence, even if the current administration has rejected the term “evidence-based,”¹⁰ substituting faith in evidence (which in Christianity pertains to apologetics) with a mad fanaticism for dogma that not only denies evidence while relying upon wild polemics, but seeks to erase evidence from memory and the people they represent while inflicting harm upon minorities and crushing hope underfoot.

 

HISTORY AND THE “LOST GENERATION”

That’s where my protests are directed: not as an attempt to change the minds of the stiff-necked who refuse to hear, but to appeal to common people who have yet to confront the issues of human rights and of love.  It’s a beautiful thing when anyone crosses the line to a new realization for good.  Protest isn’t about an administration that turns a deaf ear to all but a special interest.  It’s about a caring generation to come who will perhaps be the greatest generation, for they will understand and undo the crimes of my own.

For while critics have called my generation the “lost generation” because of the politics it espoused in the 1960’s and 1970’s, earning the wrath of the generation of the Great Depression and World War II, that’s not why my generation deserves the title.  Instead, it deserves to be called “lost” because it has largely thrown away its original ideals to placate an arrogant clergy who worked to redefine Conservatism into the kind of vicious fanaticism it embodies today.

But new voices must arise because either the awakening of passion for a cause or the awakening of a passion for a people perceived to be beautiful demands they must arise.  The voices yet to arise need us who are trans, intersex, or gender non-conforming to live as honorably as we can, embracing the virtues to which our experiences must lead us.

So looking back at that “stupid beauty pageant,” I’m compelled to see much of what was done as poorly conceived for its appeal to individual vanity.  But at the same time, a rudimentary good could be realized from it that isn’t stupid at all:  the sense of beauty beyond the initial spectacle of what’s thought to be beautiful which, if carried to its full conclusion like my protest, can change lives forever.

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REFERENCES:

The translations of the 2 passages from The Symposium of Plato are the author’s, presented for the purpose of amplifying her point.  The author has been a student of classical languages since 1972 including Latin, Koine Greek, and Biblical Hebrew.  She has tutored individuals in this area and more recently expanded her studies to the Attic dialect.

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Featured Image:  A group in front of the Ronald Reagan Federal Building, Santa Ana, California, protesting Trump’s leaked intentions to redefine “sex”.  The policy equates “sex” with “gender” as determined by a physician’s declaration at birth and considered unchangeable, and demands of all the sex on an original birth certificate or genetic test.  It’s a policy specifically directed against the trans and intersex demographics in an attempt to redefine them out of existence, and ultimately to affect civil death of anyone believed to not comply. (image by the author)

1. Silke Tudor. “Night Crawler: At the Cotillion” SF Weekly (February 2, 2000, accessed November 2, 2018) http://www.sfweekly.com/news/night-crawler-225/.
2. Felicia Sonmez.”Trump suggests that protesting should be illegal” Washington Post (September 5, 2018, accessed November 2, 2018) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-suggests-protesting-should-be-illegal/2018/09/04/11cfd9be-b0a0-11e8-aed9-001309990777_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6a23cb58ada6; and Jenna Johnson. “A brief history of Donald Trump’s mixed messages on freedom of speech” Washington Post (September 29, 2017, accessed November 2, 2018) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-brief-history-of-donald-trumps-mixed-messages-on-freedom-of-speech/2017/09/28/dd44160c-a3b6-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html?utm_term=.1be7cbc7ee90.
3. Arthur Spitzer. “Trump Administration Seeks to Stifle Protests Near White House and on National Mall” ACLU (October 9, 2018, accessed November 2, 2018) https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/rights-protesters/trump-administration-seeks-stifle-protests-near-white-house-and.
4. Symposium 206c.
5. Ibid, 204b.
6. Ibid, 203b-d.
7. Cooney, Neill L. Introduction to Philosophy: An Invitation, 2012 textbook (self-published in 2012, containing his own translations from Attic Greek in addition to his commentary, distributed at Cypress College, Cypress CA) No ISBN, p. 16.
8. (n.a.) “Over 1,600 scientists condemn Trump transgender proposal” BBC News (November 2, 2018) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46067559.
9. Nicole Alexander Fisher. “Trump’s administrrations’s seven banned words are an attack on science” CNN( December 17, 2018, accessed November 2, 2018) https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/17/opinions/cdc-banned-words-opinion-fisher/index.html.
10. “Transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming people #WontBeErased by pseudoscience” (online petition dated October 26, 2018, accessed November 2, 2018, bold and italic portions by the petitioners) https://not-binary.org/statement/.