Being Emily: Third person disguised as first

"Being Emily" is a new young adult (YA) novel by Rachel Gold which tells a year in the life of a mostly pre-transition trans girl living in small town white bread Minnesota. It joins such other recent YA titles as "I Am J" by Cris Beam, and "Almost Perfect" by Brian Katcher which also dealt with the experiences of trans teens. It's being marketed with the tagline how it's the first YA novel to be told from the specific perspective of a trans woman character and, compared with "Luna," the best known work in this niche (which is completely told from the trans girl's sister's viewpoint), it's somewhat true...  but more about that later.

No Johnny come lately
Gold is a cis lesbian who has a unique connection to trans issues. She was the former girlfriend of a trans woman who was well known in 'the community' from the early 2000s... an academic named Emily Hobbie (her nom de plume) who was later briefly seen in the film "Beautiful Daughters" being interviewed by Eve Ensler. Together, Gold and Hobbie founded an online forum for younger trans women called "GenderPeace." To many trans women it was like a second home, albeit a wildly dysfunctional one which, along with the love and support, was often filled with screaming matches, hissy fits, heartbreak, sexual creepiness and middle school drama. It finally self-immolated back around 2006 and eventually morphed into a another site which was also geared towards younger trans people called "TrueSelves" (which Gold and Hobbie have no connection with). So, much like Cris Beam, she is an LGBT member, has a deep personal connection to trans issues and people and is someone who is highly motivated to help and understand trans teens... and 'get it right,' all wonderful characteristics for an ally and partner. The question being, how does this background translate into someone who can necessarily get into the first person perspective of a trans teen?

Rachel Gold with her favorite YA book

The book centers around two characters. Emily (whose assigned birthname is Chris) who's a 16-year old trans youth still completely closeted and living in boy mode, on the school swim team. Stuck living with a dad, mom and little brother, Chris/Emily's main gender outlet is playing World of Warcraft as female characters. The other central figure in the novel is Claire, Chris' cis girlfriend. She's an outsider who wears all black, is bad at doing the girl thing and is a kind of rogue Christian into the Gnostic Gospels rather than Young Life. The story accelerates when Chris can no longer keep painful trans issues to herself and confides her pain in a believably clumsy way to Claire. At first, Claire is shocked and has serious questions about whether they can stay together. She wonders what it says about her sexuality and is skeptical about ever seeing her athlete boyfriend (albeit a sensitive one) living as a convincing woman.

Reflections of a trans girl?

Geek therapy
Shortly thereafter, Chris is carted off to a rather blasé male therapist to deal with his issues of depression (but still not out to the parents). Still reeling with regrets about revealing 'the secret,' Chris doesn't trust the confidentiality of these sessions and stays clammed up. It all changes when the regular shrink has a family emergency and his colleague, a woman therapist named Dr. Mandel takes over the session. Surprise, surprise, she's a gender therapist member of WPATH. (That these two therapists would, in any way, be connected or even in the same building seemed wholly implausible, but...) Within one session, Dr. Mandel coaxes the truth of her client's situation wryly using World of Warcraft analogies to gain trust, and she will continue to see Chris as a client (inexplicably, almost immediately accompanied in these sessions by Claire).

Events further heat up when Chris (a frequent visitor to GenderPeace under the online name of Emily) links up with Natalie, a trans girl who lives in the classier northern burbs of the Twin Cities. She's living as a girl 24/7 and has been on hrt for several years. Chris drags Claire along to meet her and they're both blown away by Natalie's 'normalcy' as a teen girl and develop an ongoing friendship with her and her very accepting mom. In short order, Natalie also shares some extra 'mones with Emily who clearly idolizes her and sees in her a possible future manifested. Emily becomes motivated to make surreptitious regular forays into wardrobe building and female presentation with the assistance of Natalie, Natalie's mom and Claire, all done behind Emily's parents' back.

The mall rat blues
In the best scene in the book, Emily, presenting as female (including a wig she was gifted by Natalie's mom), goes by herself to a mall in another town and walks around empowered by her seeming ability to pass. This explodes when she is caught going into a woman's restroom and is harassed by a neanderthal security guard. For me it was the scene which most captured the vividness, sometime absurdity, potential humiliation and heightened awareness of transition and one's awkward first steps out. It very nearly reads as a separate short story within the larger novel.

Boo hoo, Kristy McNicol, where are you?
Not to give too much away, but once Emily's transness is inadvertently revealed to her parents, one parental unit is fairly neutral while the other goes ballistic. Emily's life is immediately under clamp-down. Her ties to Dr. Mandel are severed and she's given over to her initial shrink who is revealed to basically be a clueless reparative therapist. At no point does the book fall down the "Emily runs away to Minneapolis, becomes a street kid and starts turning tricks" hole, nor is there a heart-warming school assembly where she gets a standing ovation ala ABC Afterschool Specials or gets voted prom queen (as a trans girl in Canada just did). Being Emily mostly takes a very "wait, be patient, listen to the therapists, plan ahead" kind of mindset to literary transition.

So is Being Emily an convincing portrait of being a trans teen? I give it mixed marks. Gold, for all her love of gaming culture, doesn't really seem able to capture the teen brain nor voice. It feels as if it's written by an adult and one who hasn't been around the online trans community for quite a while (Gold has stated in an interview that the bulk of the book was written around 2004). There were numerous speeches which read as coming from grown up people, not teens. Claire, who while a highly intelligent and thoughtful teen girl, at one point has a theological discussion with herself about being trans which, I felt, totally dropped any pretension at portraying a young person and sounded like something a theological post grad would write. There are bizarre dumps of Trans 101 exposition and references in the book which sounding more like statements a middle-aged transitioner would say (referencing Joan Roughgarden??) The teen's speech, other than some stiff World of Warcraft mentions, has little reference to other teen cultural phenomena and, in this, feels generic and even stilted in a way which did remind me of AfterSchool Specials.

Whoopsie, my bad!
Perhaps more bizarrely is how many trans faux pas were in the book. At several points the teens talk about 'sex changes' and refer to trans women as "T-Girls" (a term I've never heard a trans teen girl use to refer to herself). The word 'transgender' much less 'trans' or 'trans*' is never mentioned... it's always transsexual. Rather hilariously, Emily meets a trans woman group facilitator who "transitioned 20+ years ago" and "went to Europe for 'the surgery.'" Whoa, this is speech directly from the post-Christine Jorgensen era nor is it at all factually likely. The endocrinologist reads a letter from Dr. Mandel and right off the bat proscribes both Spiro and Premarin to Emily (an hrt which is virtually never prescribed anymore). No mention is made of blockers nor of putting her on anti-androgens first. I can't believe this manuscript was actually reviewed by anyone knowledgable about transitioning in 2012 as a young person and often felt like a twisted time travel back to 2002-2003. An awful lot has changed since then, even in small town Minnesota.

Warning: possible spoilers

There are bizarre lapses in the story... at one point teenager Claire makes and pays for a therapy appointment for Emily with Dr. Mandel. Claire is even brought into Emily's earliest therapy sessions—which is just absurd... that a therapist is going to trust another teen with confidential highly sensitive matters about their client was a jolt of unreality, the kind that teen readers notice in a second. The right-wing security guard believing or caring that Emily was in the women's room of the mall as a "swim team prank" and that parents weren't notified is likewise completely unbelievable. These and other unfortunate events were a distraction.

As to the book actually portraying a first person account of a trans girl, I'm afraid Being Emily didn't quite work for me either. I never felt Emily's voice truly expressed the profound highs and especially low lows of what it's like to be a transgirl teen in the midst of male puberty. I can recall a number of moving posts on GenderPeace from such girls which, in several paragraphs, contained more anguish, obsessive detail, small joys, euphoria, sexual frustration and raw power than I read in all of Being Emily. Moreover, while I understand Gold is coming from her viewpoint as a partner and friend to trans women, there is, IMO all too much of Claire in the book.

Claire: theologian, black wearer, outcast, girlfriend

Move over rover, let the cis girl take over
As with so many other trans books written by non-trans authors, there always seems to be a need for that cis person character who's fighting the trans person's battles and interpreting what being trans means. One who's ultimately more articulate about trans issues, stronger and more mature than the trans person. So by this, we're basically saying how non-trans readers, at heart, really can't connect directly with a trans experience and require a 'folks like us' character to relate to. Moreover, the cis Claire is given more of a real and full-blooded persona than the trans Emily whose personality can be largely summed up as "a boy who wants to be a girl." 'There is no there there' (thank you Gertrude Stein). This is where I found Brian Katcher's book, "Almost Perfect" a better written, rounded and, ultimately more perceptive and gripping view of a trans girl's life (even if she isn't the main character). Go figure, and it was written by a cis, straight man who didn't even run a trans forum!

Opening a door
Does that mean Being Emily shouldn't be included in the library shelf (or e-reader) with the growing list of YA trans-themed titles... absolutely not. It's still an important addition to school and public libraries as a possible open door to the subject matter for those trans, trans-curious and wannabe allies who don't like their YA fiction too down and dirty. A fast flowing read, it's ultimately a much more optimistic work than the harrowing, intense (and more literary) "Almost Perfect" or "I Am J" where trans kids are tossed into mental health facilities or homeless shelters. There is an important place for books which make transition not seem like a living hell, and viewed as something which is attainable and can ultimately save lives and bring true groundedness and humanity. Ultimately, as I've concluded in far too many other reviews in this blog, Being Emily is yet another earnest yet somewhat misfired attempt to represent a trans life but it doesn't compare to trans people, especially youth, speaking out themselves. For those wanting to learn about trans issues first hand, you'd do better off looking through the hundreds of trans teen videos which proliferate on YouTube. In all their messiness, sometime bitchiness, youthful narcissism, insecurities, joys and trans OCD, it's first person trans girl real style not cis style.

http://beingemily.com/

The Road Less Traveled

  

Gun Hill Road, the new Bronx-based family saga directed by Rashaad Ernesto Green both breaks new ground and gets stuck in some very old muck as well. Its 'road less traveled' is casting the role of a young trans Latina using *gasp* an actual young trans Latina, Harmony Santana. And she's in no way presented as a cartoon character, sexworker or drag queen. Green met Ms. Santana while she was volunteering at an information booth at a community event, which led to her audition and her very real triumph in the role of the family's sensitive son Michael who increasingly IDs as Vanessa. Her parents are played by veterans Esai Morales who played ex-convict dad Enrique (Morales goes all the way back as the hunky, troubled brother in 'La Bamba') and sympathetic mom Angela, Judy Reyes (well known both on TV in 'Scrubs,' numerous cop shows and as a theater actress).

Director Green... an NYU film
school grad and Spike Lee
protege

The film begins with dad still in prison and being put in solitary for an attack on another prisoner (who, of course, reappears later in the film). While dad is in the hole, mom Angela and Michael live in their Gun Hill Road apartment while mom works and is involved with another more accepting and together guy in her husband's absence. We skip to a few years forward and Enrique is getting out of the slammer and being warned by his parole officer to "keep his nose clean" (yes, some of the dialogue does reach this level of cliche).  Green pretty much makes it clear from the get go that Enrique's chances of being back in prison are huge.

 

Vanessa trying to be born

Enrique comes home to find his only child isn't the baseball-loving scamp he once was. His assumption is that Michael is now a fairy and his time being raised by mom made him that way. Almost instantly, it's clear Enrique and Michael are not going to click (although, according to the film's timeline, they suggest Enrique was only in prison for 3 years, yet the script makes it sound as if he never grew up with his bio dad). Also, how many very feminine boys suddenly become that way in a 3-year period? Not too believable. I've never known a femme boy (much less a femme trans girl) who didn't very obviously read that way from a young age.

 

Harmony Santana... a star turn but
still stuck in youth housing.

The family drama happens when Enrique not only can't accept his offspring for who they are, but messes up on his kitchen job, and ends up robbing and attacking Angela's 'jail-time' boyfriend who she still loves. The drama comes to a head when Michael, now often presenting as Vanessa, goes out into the world doing slam poetry performance, getting involved with a creepy down-low homey from the hood (who gives her money to get street-bought hormone shots and her butt injected with silicone) but is only in it for the sex. Dad finds out about his daughter and, in a horrific and violent scene, forces her to cut her hair and goes deeper and deeper into alienating all the people he loves. What does work in Gun Hill Road is the painful emotional dynamic between those in the family who are capable of love and acceptance towards a trans child and those whose love of their child can't transcend their own profound insecurities.

Momi and Papi... not clicking
but why are they still together?

Which is also kind of where the story falls apart. Angela, who seems like a not-terribly traditional and quite independent woman with a sister and mom as a close support system, continues to want to be together with her jaybird husband no matter how intolerable he is. She knows he's involved with robberies despite being on parole, yet continues to allow him in her bed. Why? She already has the love of another man who is more responsible than Enrique, and more accepting of her son, has gotten by financially for the years her husband was in the clink. Why would she want him back to create almost instant chaos with her child, especially when she's still in love with another man? The logic doesn't click and, yes, while people's motives and needs are complex, for this character as written in Gun Hill Road, the motivation seems jumbled. The script seems to have a somewhat limited grasp on the female characters and gets stuck in the "I'm standing by my man no matter what" trope without taking into account her maturity, situation and self-reliance.

A further sub-plot involves Enrique's revenge against the prisoner who supposedly raped him in prison. Not only does it seem gratuitously violent, but feels like a poorly-thought-through explanation of his homo/trans phobia—as if the director is afraid to say his attitudes don't just don't happen without extreme provocation?? He grew up in a traditional, Catholic, Latino, old country section of the Bronx— does he really need to be raped to 'explain' why he has the attitudes he does? It becomes a too-pat Freudian plot construction rather than compelling drama. Without giving away too much of the plot, Enrique does attempt to come to peace with who Michael is (although the same can't be said of Vanessa).

As Vanessa (and Michael), Harmony Santana adds a depth and feeling to the role that I can pretty much be certain would not be there had a non-trans actress (much less actor) been cast. She very quickly becomes the center of the film and, sometimes, you wish the rest of the ex-con story would fall away so it could focus on her. I did, however, have some qualms about the character as written. She's portrayed as being extremely passive and lacking some of the fight and fire I've seen in trans women who've transitioned young from environments such as this. Other than her silicone pumper, she never really connects with other trans Latinas in the Bronx or Harlem and stays very much stuck in the world of gay boys. As so often happens in films about trans women directed by gay men, they have a tendency to project their own issues as gay teens onto stories of young trans women and it reads false. By the end of the film, Vanessa is pretty much gone (even though the father is mostly out of her life) and she is back living as Michael. Yes, people do de-transition or have periods of gender-fluidity even if they eventually transition, but I didn't believe it with this character. She was already having a sex life very specifically as woman and that's not something you give up easily. Again, I felt the director's own youth was encroaching on Vanessa's story and making it something which seemed fake.

Reyes, Morales and Santana.

Is Gun Hill Road worth seeing? Yes, for the performances which are universally excellent. Though much of Morales' dialog seemed hackneyed and stiff he's still a very charismatic performer and Reyes is always moving. I also thought the film portrayed Vanessa's sad down-low relationship quite well... where inexperienced trans women become so desperate for confirmation of their womenhood they will settle for amazingly little from their 'boyfriends.' Ouch!

But some of the depiction of Bronx reminded me too much of how 'Hill Street Blues' used to present the 'gritty-real' New York... in other words—High School of the Performing Arts meets New York Shakespeare Festival actors making some dime playing "street." Without Santana the film would go nowhere. With her participation, she brings some of her own reality as a transitioning teen to the role—it's hard not to feel love and protectiveness for her character(s). Even with all the great reviews for her performance and being feted at Sundance, she's still living in trans/queer youth housing and seems to have been very mostly rejected by her family. Sadly, that's a gritty and heartbreaking reality no film about trans youth can ever hope to match.

Susi Graf's Lost in the Crowd

Kimy (l) and Nicole (r) lament their tough roads

Lost in the Crowd is Susi Graf's often heartbreaking documentary about homeless queer and trans youth in New York City. It was filmed over a 7-year period starting in 2003. Because her film's subjects were on the street, in and out of housing facilities and often transient, it took incredible patience for Ms. Graf to maintain trust and contact with these young people who've often been abused, rejected and exploited by adults. As she explained in the Q&A after the film, she was unable to even keep or pay a cinematographer because of the long hours often required to locate and follow the young people (ranging in age from 18 to their early 20s) to maintain continuity in their narratives. Graf was both interviewer, and camera op. This showing at San Francisco's Frameline Festival was the film's official debut although its actual first showing was at a preview in New York a few months ago.

An interesting interview by Samara Rivera of Susi Graf and Gisele at the New York premiere.

Privilege leading to... homelessness

At the center of the film is Kimy, a tall, long-raven-haired trans-identified 18-year old. A well-educated, talented artist and budding fashion designer, he (I'm only using male pronouns because of his final gender identity in the film) was abused by his step-father, and unable to deal with his repressive family situation in Utah. He relates how he exchanged sex to get a ride most of the way to New York. Explaining in humiliated tones how he's done a combination of repellant sex work and not-too-successful thievery to live (including multiple stints in jail), a chilling moment in the film comes when he says in a bitter voice, "I hate men, I hate everything about them." But admits he's still attracted to them.

All God's children

There is Adrian, a sensitive African-American HIV-positive New Yorker who, at various times, seems to be thinking about transition, but mostly presents as a femme male and does sexwork to survive. Adrian is from a family of 14 kids. His foster mom, a highly religious woman, can't deal with Adrian's femme gay/trans identity nor his drug use and kicks him out of the house. By the time we first see him at 21, his youth is starting to leave him. He explains how, when younger, he was seduced by a 42-year old man who was the one who gave him AIDs. We later find out he was also abused for 7 years by his family's preacher. Sometimes Adrian wears $200 fuschia heels a john bought him and $50 decorated acrylic nails; other times he's on the street looking impoverished, scared and vulnerable.

Adrian, scared on the street

Passing out of the scene

Jazmine is a young trans Latina who spent time on the street, in the ballroom scene and in prostitution but has gotten housing, seems farther along with her transition than the others and is attending school. She provides a hopeful glimpse of the possibility of future stability, but even later in the film, getting her MSW degree and in a straight relationship with a cop, she retains her deep-rooted insecurities about her trans history and anxieties of a future of being clocked.

Jasmine keeping it real and stealth

Other interviewees come and go, appearing in the film whenever the tenacious Graf can find them. Nicole, a young trans woman friend of Kimy's who was brutalized while doing sex work as a young teen vanishes in 2003. Serenity, somewhere between a femme male and an untransitioned trans girl does sexwork, sadly explaining at her advanced age (early 20s) no one wants her as a woman any more but she's very popular as a young femme queer. Clayton is a slightly older HIV+ femme gay man who has finally obtained stable medical treatment and is working part-time doing outreach. The most glam participant is Gisele, a well-known trans-Latina beauty from the New York Ballroom scene (and member of the House of Xtravaganza) who has parlayed her ballroom renown into modeling and acting in mainstream film projects.

Serenity ponders the transience of beauty

Some mothers know best

A key scene in the film is when Graf visits Adrian's mother. Earlier on, he achingly wishes he could just go back to his family. He clearly misses the love and companionship he had at home even when his place in the family was precarious. When mother and child are sitting next to one another, it's not hard to see why he's out on the street. She cares about him, but not to the extent where her extreme fundamentalist faith can excuse who he is. By contrast, Graf visits the home of Gisele's mother in East Harlem and mom, religious though she is, wholly embraces her child as a daughter and provides a solid base of support for her transition and endeavors. The comparison between the two situations is painful to watch.

Willi Ninja 1961-2006

You better work

The other main component of the film is a glimpse into the ballroom scene in which many of the film's subjects were participants. Graf has some of the last interviews with the late, great Willi Ninja, who was featured prominently in the film Paris is Burning, choreographed and performed in many music videos, coached runway supermodels and famously founded his own Ballroom House (of which Adrian is a member). Ninja, who died of AIDs-related heart failure in 2006, serves as inspiration for the often marginalized youth in the ballroom scene as to how they can leverage their talent and creativity into other (more remunerative and mainstream) pursuits. Graf also features some wonderful footage of Gisele and Jazmine doing Ballroom runway (a scene which also produced Isis King, who was also homeless around the same time yet went on to appear on America's Next Top Model).

Kimy with bear

Without giving away the end of the film, needless to say, some of these young people die, some end up incarcerated and some drift away from the scene while others seemingly outgrow it. It's interesting to note how the two subjects who seemed to thrive the best were the most "passable" and binary-identified. Others who live between genders or flit back and forth with transition seem to have greater issues being marginalized. Is this a function of having the opportunity and support to transition or whether it's just easier to live as a binary (and attractive) trans woman in the world isn't clear. While I doubt this was an intentional message of Graf's, as a trans woman viewing the film, it's hard to not be struck by the contrast. Several of the participants in the film, while still experiencing profound issues around being trans, push transition away as a likely (and unaffordable) option or for safety reasons, preferring to live queer-bodied.

Shelters neither respectful or safe

In the Q&A after the film, Graf explained how most of these young people had problems with homeless facilities like Covenant House (which, in Houston, was recently accused of not accepting LGBT kids nor creating a safe space for them). Graf noted it was much the same in NYC where straight homeless kids would intimidate the trans and gender-variant youth. A care provider in the film explains how most homeless trans youth would rather try and sleep in the subway system all night than go to adult/straight shelters. Many preferred to be on the street (or as one of the subjects states, in jail) than the intimidation and physical danger they face in the adult shelter system or even their families.

Will it sell at the GLAAD Media Awards?

Every few decades the issues of homeless youth seem to be covered by films like 1984's award-winning Streetwise about dumpster-diving street kids in Seattle (or 1990's Paris is Burning, with Venus Xtravaganza, who is murdered before the film was finished filming). Sadly, the organizations which assist these kids continue to be some of the first to get their meager budgets slashed. It's my hope that films like Lost in the Crowd can encourage LGBT organizations to actually prioritize focusing on homeless and at-risk queer youth (especially those of color)... but I doubt it. While millions are spent fighting issues like marriage equality, street kids are considered non-contributors to large political organizations and therefore, persona non grata. Moreover, the very people who desperately need to be exposed to this film— schools, support organizations and, especially, the parents of non-gender-conforming children, will likely not see it.

Which is tragic, because Lost in the Crowd (shamefully sparsely attended being shown on the night before SF Pride when many people were out partying) has much to tell us all about what familial and social responsibility means and what love really looks like. A family which doesn't put the needs of its children first can have no Pride.

Lost in the Crowd's website

For more interviews and information on the creative personalities who've survived and thrived in the Ballroom scene, I highly recommend The Luna Show on YouTube.