Is My Marriage Gay?

© 2009 JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN

Belgrade Lakes, Me.

AS many Americans know, last week Gov. John Baldacci of Maine signed a law that made this state the fifth in the nation to legalize gay marriage. It’s worth pointing out, however, that there were some legal same-sex marriages in Maine already, just as there probably are in all 50 states. These are marriages in which at least one member of the couple has changed genders since the wedding.

I’m in such a marriage myself and, quite frankly, my spouse and I forget most of the time that there is anything particularly unique about our family, even if we are — what is the phrase? — “differently married.”

Deirdre Finney and I were wed in 1988 at the National Cathedral in Washington. In 2000, I started the long and complex process of changing from male to female. Deedie stood by me, deciding that her life was better with me than without me. Maybe she was crazy for doing so; lots of people have generously offered her this unsolicited opinion over the years. But what she would tell you, were you to ask, is that the things that she loved in me have mostly remained the same, and that our marriage, in the end, is about a lot more than what genders we are, or were.

Deirdre is far from the only spouse to find herself in this situation; each week we hear from wives and husbands going through similar experiences together. Reliable statistics on transgendered people always prove elusive, but just judging from my e-mail, it seems as if there are a whole lot more transsexuals — and people who love them — in New England than say, Republicans. Or Yankees fans.

I’ve been legally female since 2002, although the definition of what makes someone “legally” male or female is part of what makes this issue so unwieldy. How do we define legal gender? By chromosomes? By genitalia? By spirit? By whether one asks directions when lost?

We accept as a basic truth the idea that everyone has the right to marry somebody. Just as fundamental is the belief that no couple should be divorced against their will.

For our part, Deirdre and I remain legally married, even though we’re both legally female. If we had divorced last month, before Governor Baldacci’s signature, I would have been allowed on the following day to marry a man only. There are states, however, that do not recognize sex changes. If I were to attempt to remarry in Ohio, for instance, I would be allowed to wed a woman only.

Gender involves a lot of gray area. And efforts to legislate a binary truth upon the wide spectrum of gender have proven only how elusive sexual identity can be. The case of J’noel Gardiner, in Kansas, provides a telling example. Ms. Gardiner, a postoperative transsexual woman, married her husband, Marshall Gardiner, in 1998. When he died in 1999, she was denied her half of his $2.5 million estate by the Kansas Supreme Court on the ground that her marriage was invalid. Thus in Kansas, any transgendered person who is anatomically female is now allowed to marry only another woman.

Similar rulings have left couples in similar situations in Florida, Ohio and Texas. A 1999 ruling in San Antonio, in Littleton v. Prange, determined that marriage could be only between people with different chromosomes. The result, of course, was that lesbian couples in that jurisdiction were then allowed to wed as long as one member of the couple had a Y chromosome, which is the case with both transgendered male-to-females and people born with conditions like androgen insensitivity syndrome. This ruling made Texas, paradoxically, one of the first states in which gay marriage was legal.

A lawyer for the transgendered plaintiff in the Littleton case noted the absurdity of the country’s gender laws as they pertain to marriage: “Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Tex., is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Tex., and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.”

Legal scholars can (and have) devoted themselves to the ultimately frustrating task of defining “male” and “female” as entities fixed and unmoving. A better use of their time, however, might be to focus on accepting the elusiveness of gender — and to celebrate it. Whether a marriage like mine is a same-sex marriage or some other kind is hardly the point. What matters is that my spouse and I love each other, and that our legal union has been a good thing — for us, for our children and for our community.

It’s my hope that people who are reluctant to embrace same-sex marriage will see that it has been with us, albeit in this one unusual circumstance, for years. Can we have a future in which we are more concerned with the love a family has than with the sometimes unanswerable questions of gender and identity? As of last week, it no longer seems so unthinkable. As we say in Maine, you can get there from here.

Jennifer Finney Boylan is a professor of English at Colby College and the author of the memoir “I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted.”

Also in the hopper: I think there’s a NY Times op/ed coming from me in the next week, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Next public humilation for me will be at Harvard’s Brattle Theatre on June 9, where I’ll be reading from the “Book of Dads” with a couple other authors.  Looking forward!

More on all this at the Jenny Boylan Blog and also the Jenny Boylan home page.

Hey you all. Check out this Sunday’s New York Times (April 26) for a piece of mine entitled “The Sleepwalker”, which is an excerpt from a longer essay appearing in a new anthology called THE BOOK OF DADS, edited by Ben George. The essay will appear in the “Modern Love” column, which runs in the STYLES section of the Sunday Times.   More details here.

For the last several years I’ve been interested, increasingly, in the relationship between transwomen and their fathers. I’M LOOKING THROUGH YOU was largely an exploration of that. In this piece, there’s more of that, plus some reflections on what effect having me as a parent has had on the lives of my boys.

Assuming my hosts like the idea, I have half a mind to try a repeat performance of the “My Avatar” piece originally written for and performed at the Richard Hugo House in March in Seattle. This is a piece that combines several interrelated stories, singing some original songs on the piano and the harp. I am not sure if either of the venues at U. Maine or Yale are given to singing and dancing– but we’ll see.

If they want something less raucous, I’ll probably unveil some other new work– parts of the new young adult series, FALCON QUILL, debuting next year, or a story-in-progress, SIX GRAVES FOR SEVEN WRITERS–or some of the work forthcoming in anthologies this summer– “The Sleepwalker,” from the BOOK OF DADS, or “Trans” from the collection LOVE IS A FOUR LETTER WORD. There will be readings to support both of these anthologies, each of which contains one story of mine. The Book of Dads, a collection of essays about fatherhood, will be plugged at a reading at the Brattle Theatre, in Harvard Square, on June 9th. (I’m the only woman in the collection with a story about fatherhood.)

And LOVE IS A 4 LETTER WORD, an anthology of stories about relationships gone bad, will be featured at a reading at the 82nd Street Barnes & Noble in Manhattan, on July 30th; there’ll be a launch party the night before, also in NY. Lots of info on those upcoming events as we get nearer, here and on the superblog at There from Here: the Jennifer Finney Boylan literary blog.

I will be doing a piece I’ve never done before, presented in an unusual format for me. Instead of the usual English teacheresque reading from published work, I’ll be performing a series of pieces– singing and playing piano, reading from interconnected stories, and picking autoharp. My own take on “avatars” is to talk about imagined selves, the tension between who we believe ourselves to be and who we actually are. The stories include the account of my own duel with a porcupine, which leads immediately to two days at the National Convention for Ventriloquists. One of the other presenters, novelist Vikram Chandra, also makes an appearance in one of the stories– since Vik and I knew each other briefly back at Johns Hopkins in the mid 1980s. Put this together with a song written for the occasion, “My Other Self,” as well as an old harp ballad, “There is a Reason We Carry Our Lunches,” and you have a literary bloodbath of the very best sort in the making.

There will be some sort of party/reception thing after the Friday night performance, and while I’m unlikely to be able to hang out as much as I’d like with my friends on hand, I do hope I”ll get a chance to meet you.

There is also a smaller workshop on Saturday, “Stories that Feel Like Movies,” which is a small craft class about how to utilize cinematic technique in story.

More info on Richard Hugo House, including ticket information, is available here.

Hope to see you all there!

At issue is the character of Jon Osterman, a physicist who, after a radioactive mishap, becomes a glowing omniscient demigod named Dr. Manhattan, who performs most of his business buck naked.  As a result, many moviegoers have found themselves considering a fundamental philosophical question: Is a cinematic penis still obscene if it’s translucent and blue?
Dr. Ted Baehr, media critic at the Christian Film and Television Commission, has, perhaps not surprisingly, come out as anti-blue penis. On the site movieguide.org, Baehr says that the film deserves an X or an NC-17 rating, not the R that it received.  “The motion picture industry keeps changing its standards,” he says.  “No wonder the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating system confuses parents.”  And why should the rating be changed? Because, “throughout most of the whole picture, one male character walks around completely naked, with his private parts waving in the breeze.”
True enough, except that the parts in question don’t actually belong to Billy Cruddup, the actor playing the good doctor.  Apparently the blue meanie was generated by a team of computer graphics engineers.  This raises an even more complex issue for parents to wrestle with:  Is a translucent glowing blue penis still obscene if it’s not real?
Opinion, as one might imagine, is split.  There was a fission of enthusiasm in the nerd world last October when news of the CGI-penis became official.  “Three cheers for atomic blue penises!” began an article over at comicbookmovie.come.  Conservative cultural critic Debbie Schlussel, meanwhile, wrote in her blog, “If you see it yourself, you’re also probably a moron and a vapid, indecent human being.”  She has a whole host of complaints, but chief among them is Dr. Manhattan’s “swinging computer generated penis frequently in your face on-screen.”
Clearly there hasn’t been this much excitement about a penis in film since Bart Simpson bared all in 2007’s Simpsons Movie.
According to the MPAA, an R-rated movie  “contains some adult material,” and may “include adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements so that parents are counseled to take this rating very seriously.”  An NC-17, meanwhile, “simply signals that the content is appropriate only for an adult audience.  An NC-17 rating, meanwhile,  can be based on violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other element that most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children.”  The MPAA does note, however, that the rating “does not mean ‘obscene’ or ‘pornographic.’”
By my reading, the key concept separating the two ratings is the concept of “aberrational.”  By that measure,  a giant translucent demigod’s penis may be many things, but one thing it is not is an aberration, at least not on Mars.
Before taking my children—ages 15 and 12—to the Watchmen last weekend, the only R-rated movie they’d ever seen was Slumdog Millionaire.  We had a good talk in the car about the violence in Slumdog, both the physical kind done to the protagonists as well as the spiritual kind caused by the jaw-dropping poverty of Mumbai.  My boys were moved, and entertained by Slumdog, not least because it gave them occasion to think about their own relationship as brothers, and exactly what sorts of risks and sacrifices they’d be willing to make for one another.
They’d been looking forward to Watchmen for a long time, and had read Alan Moore’s original novel a year or two ago.  That novel is every bit as violent as the film, and yes, includes Dr. Manhattan’s penis.  I warned them that the film was rumored to be, a-hem, “loyal” to the book in this regard, but this didn’t dampen their enthusiasm.  (This was something of a surprise, coming from two young men who on one occasion refused to go to the Guggenheim several years ago because “there might be paintings of naked people.”  Score:  DC Comics 1, Picasso 0.)
After the film, my boys admitted that a lot of the images in Watchmen had been a little much for them.  But it wasn’t Dr. Manhattan that made them uneasy—it was the scenes of heads being whacked with meat cleavers, guys arms being bisected with circular saws; and, oh yes, the obliteration of most of Manhattan by some sort of thermonuclear device.  My older son, who claims to be a pacifist, found that deeply disturbing, “even if it is based on a cartoon.”
As for Dr. Manhattan?  My sons said, “Well, he’s slowly becoming less and less human, so clothes have just become kind of strange for him.  You can sympathize with that.”  And the blue penis that has caused all the trouble?  “Normally, it would bother me, but with Dr. Manhattan, you know, it just seems kind of natural.”
There was also some surprise—I have to put this delicately—that the Doctor’s unit itself was of a size somewhat less than cosmic.  After all, this is a guy who can change the pigmentation of his skin, teleport himself to Mars, and see the future.  Is Watchmen really trying to tell us that size doesn’t matter?   One of my boys wondered whether in days to come we might see one of those “Natural Male Enhancement” commercials on television, except that instead of “Whistling Bob” we’ll see a very satisfied looking Dr. Manhattan.
They also liked the sound track of the film, which features lots of Bob Dylan.  The use of “The Times They Are a Changin’” as background to the opening montage struck all of us as particularly moving.
Whether the times actually are changing, and we’re now about to enter a new era of translucent penises in movies remains to be seen.  In the meantime, I’m hoping that any Watchmen sequel might consider, in addition to Dylan, adding the music of Miles Davis to the soundtrack. Starting with  “Kind of Blue.”

So how about that big blue penis? According to a few of my children’s friends, the Watchmen movie gives new meaning to the phrase “weekend gross”.

At issue is the character of Jon Osterman, a physicist who, after a radioactive mishap, becomes a glowing omniscient demigod named Dr. Manhattan, who performs most of his business buck naked. As a result, many moviegoers have found themselves considering a fundamental philosophical question: Is a cinematic penis still obscene if it’s translucent and blue?

Dr. Ted Baehr, media critic at the Christian Film and Television Commission, has, perhaps not surprisingly, come out as anti-blue penis. On the site movieguide.org, Baehr says that the film deserves an X or an NC-17 rating, not the R that it received. “The motion picture industry keeps changing its standards,” he says. “No wonder the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating system confuses parents.” And why should the rating be changed? Because, “throughout most of the whole picture, one male character walks around completely naked, with his private parts waving in the breeze.”

True enough, except that the parts in question don’t actually belong to Billy Cruddup, the actor playing the good doctor. Apparently the blue meanie was generated by a team of computer graphics engineers. This raises an even more complex issue for parents to wrestle with: Is a translucent glowing blue penis still obscene if it’s not real?
Opinion, as one might imagine, is split. There was a fission of enthusiasm in the nerd world last October when news of the CGI-penis became official. “Three cheers for atomic blue penises!” began an article over at comicbookmovie.come. Conservative cultural critic Debbie Schlussel, meanwhile, wrote in her blog, “If you see it yourself, you’re also probably a moron and a vapid, indecent human being.” She has a whole host of complaints, but chief among them is Dr. Manhattan’s “swinging computer generated penis frequently in your face on-screen.”

Clearly there hasn’t been this much excitement about a penis in film since Bart Simpson bared all in 2007’s Simpsons Movie.

According to the MPAA, an R-rated movie “contains some adult material,” and may “include adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements so that parents are counseled to take this rating very seriously.” An NC-17, meanwhile, “simply signals that the content is appropriate only for an adult audience. An NC-17 rating, meanwhile, can be based on violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other element that most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children.” The MPAA does note, however, that the rating “does not mean ‘obscene’ or ‘pornographic.’”
By my reading, the key concept separating the two ratings is the concept of “aberrational.” By that measure, a giant translucent demigod’s penis may be many things, but one thing it is not is an aberration, at least not on Mars.

Before taking my children—ages 15 and 12—to the Watchmen last weekend, the only R-rated movie they’d ever seen was Slumdog Millionaire. We had a good talk in the car about the violence in Slumdog, both the physical kind done to the protagonists as well as the spiritual kind caused by the jaw-dropping poverty of Mumbai. My boys were moved, and entertained by Slumdog, not least because it gave them occasion to think about their own relationship as brothers, and exactly what sorts of risks and sacrifices they’d be willing to make for one another.

They’d been looking forward to Watchmen for a long time, and had read Alan Moore’s original novel a year or two ago. That novel is every bit as violent as the film, and yes, includes Dr. Manhattan’s penis. I warned them that the film was rumored to be, a-hem, “loyal” to the book in this regard, but this didn’t dampen their enthusiasm. (This was something of a surprise, coming from two young men who on one occasion refused to go to the Guggenheim several years ago because “there might be paintings of naked people.” Score: DC Comics 1, Picasso 0.)

After the film, my boys admitted that a lot of the images in Watchmen had been a little much for them. But it wasn’t Dr. Manhattan that made them uneasy—it was the scenes of heads being whacked with meat cleavers, guys arms being bisected with circular saws; and, oh yes, the obliteration of most of Manhattan by some sort of thermonuclear device. My older son, who claims to be a pacifist, found that deeply disturbing, “even if it is based on a cartoon.”

As for Dr. Manhattan? My sons said, “Well, he’s slowly becoming less and less human, so clothes have just become kind of strange for him. You can sympathize with that.” And the blue penis that has caused all the trouble? “Normally, it would bother me, but with Dr. Manhattan, you know, it just seems kind of natural.”

There was also some surprise—I have to put this delicately—that the Doctor’s unit itself was of a size somewhat less than cosmic. After all, this is a guy who can change the pigmentation of his skin, teleport himself to Mars, and see the future. Is Watchmen really trying to tell us that size doesn’t matter? One of my boys wondered whether in days to come we might see one of those “Natural Male Enhancement” commercials on television, except that instead of “Whistling Bob” we’ll see a very satisfied looking Dr. Manhattan.

They also liked the sound track of the film, which features lots of Bob Dylan. The use of “The Times They Are a Changin’” as background to the opening montage struck all of us as particularly moving.
Whether the times actually are changing, and we’re now about to enter a new era of translucent penises in movies remains to be seen. In the meantime, I’m hoping that any Watchmen sequel might consider, in addition to Dylan, adding the music of Miles Davis to the soundtrack. Starting with “Kind of Blue.”

– Jennifer Finney Boylan

P.S. What are you doing reading the blog here, for heavens sakes, when everyone knows the cool place to be is http://jenniferboylan.blogspot.com/

The reading is at 7 PM, in something called Bomberger Auditorium.  The presentation will be akin to my standard reading, which means about an hour of excerpts split about equally between I’m Looking Through You, She’s Not There, as well as a little Trans 101 to start the evening off with (briefly), and some tired old jokes, some of which I have been using since mid 2003.  I will also, I think, be unveiling at this reading, for the first time, some of the material for the new and upcoming FALCON QUINN AND THE BLACK MIRROR, which will be published about one year from right now, a young adult series about “monsters.”  This sneak-peek will just be a quickie, though, and might not involve anything more than my singing a song entitled “I Wish They All Could Be Zombie Mutant Girls.”  and possibly reading a poem written by a teenage Frankenstein called “Monster a Person,” the first 2 lines of which are,

Monster a person though monster not human.
Monster like music. Like Wagner!  Like Schumann!

Following this, there’ll be Q’s and A’s and then a book signing.  I think there is a reception after THAT, but we’ll just have to see won’t we.

I probably will NOT be able to hang out with people after the reception, because I expect to be tired and enfeebled, but I do hope anybody interested in my stuff in the Philly area will feel invited.

There will be two other readings this spring (I’m trying to keep appearances to a minimum after last year’s all-book-tour–all-the-time experience).   In mid March I”ll be at the Town Hall in Seattle; and in mid-April I”ll be at the Yale University LIbrary.  HOpe to see you there.

JB

There is more information on this, and other JB stuff on the new blog, which you can get to by clicking right here.

I’m testing a new blog this week, which you can take a look at right here.

This is a Blogger blog, as opposed to this one, which uses the WordPress software. I like the versatility of the Blogger software, which allows me to hock all sorts of stuff up on the page without having to constantly pester my webmistress Betty to put it all into place for me. Plus the Blogger blog enables me to do social networking, especially to let people “follow” me if they wish. Betty tells me that WordPress can do this too, but I haven’t quite figured out how to do it.

ONly problem so far is that the Blogger blog is not in the same fine design style that Betty painstaking designed for this site. But it’s also true that this site is based around I’M LOOKING THROUGH YOU, and as that book now slides toward the backlist, we’ll probably be doing a do-over on JenniferBoylan.net in the not so distant future.

Anyhow, maybe I’ll replace this blog with the Blogger one– in the meantime, maybe you’d like to check it out and tell me if you like it better than this one.