"Making Stuff" . . . From a Distance

You know Kath,

I’ve picked up this thread because it seems we are both standing at a crossroads. Interestingly, it has us perhaps looking in equally valid yet opposing directions. As I consider the philosophical import of the choices we have made and will make, I have conceived a working title for the book:

On Being Me - a personal ethnography
‘In-Situ’ Explorations on Being Authentically Human, Female and Transsexual

Informed by Dr. Sandy Stone’s challenge (explicitly articulated in The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto and the provocation of mHB’s (Helen Boyd Cramer’s digital community of all things doctrinaire, feminist and trans - www.myhusbandbetty.com) "The Vagina Thread" has formed the fertile ground for the “re-visioning” (or is it simply “visioning”) of my own life. In all the transsexual narratives that have previously been written, “passing” is singled out as the “good-housekeeping seal of approval” of the dominant culture . . . if not by us as well. The implication is that with passing, ‘a world of stealth’ then becomes a viable option. As I consider the implications to the goal of living an authentic life, this step places each of us exactly where the dominate culture would have us – revalidating and re-invigorating the status quo of a dimorphicly ordered and binary-obsessed world. Except you and I know (or should know if we’d been paying attention to Stone’s persuasive argument) that our humanity is not reducible to so facile (and false) a system of opposites.

I would like to continue to engage you in ongoing discussion as the work begins to pick up steam. With your permission I’ll toss out thoughts, accusations (not at you of course) and random speculations on the state of our species and our fearful next steps forward in our evolution as complex beings increasingly able to apprehend and embrace the social, sexual and psychological ambiguity that is, in truth, our ‘natural habitat’.

I would be thrilled to sit on a panel with you (anywhere, anytime) to discuss this fertile area of inquiry into the ‘human animal’ but first I will need to develop a series of essays to cogently explore my responses to Stone’s challenge.

Please respond only as you like and as you’re able – long silences are anticipated, understood and certainly welcome. What would also be welcome are your suggestions as to which journals could be fertile ground for the publishing of these essays preliminary to the publishing of the book. Seems prudent me that the successful publishing of these biographical essays can establish a kind of credibility with a prospective publisher that a raw (and unleavened if you will) manuscript might not.

Lastly, as you know I am not a credentialed academic - I’m an architect. I labour in the world of patterns and types. That said, I actively seek your critical comment and guidance – for which I thank you in advance. What I am however, is a person with a story to tell and the life experiences, intellectual ability and curiosity to tell it smartly and well . . . I think.

Fond regards,

renée






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