dude looks like a lady

i guess transgender is a fairly new word. the dictionary indicates it was coined sometime in the early 90′s. when i was a kid you referred to a transgendered person as a ‘transvestite’ (which i think has a wierd, evil sound, sort of vampiric – not to mention it is an incorrect use of the word) or as someone ‘wanting a sex change’. i think it was my mother who mentioned christine jorgenson, the first really famous transgendered person. are you still considered transgendered if you have the full surgery and change sexes entirely? at that point, aren’t you just…a woman? i don’t really know, but i was fascinated by christine jorgenson and the whole situation. not fascinated because i felt like i was in the same boat, but because i couldn’t comprehend feeling that way at all – i still can’t. i’m sure i was also fascinated because it involved the word sex, though i now know it has less to do with having sex than with sexual identity. what can i say, i was in 7th grade.

i was thinking of this after my trip to new york a few weeks ago. a friend and i spent a rainy sunday morning inside the 26th street flea market. we were in a booth looking at some very cool vintage clothes when i peered over the top of the rack and saw her. actually, not quite her, but…a person. maybe 6 feet tall, skinny as a rail, age somewhat indeterminate but probably early 60′s. bald on top of the head but the sides had been grown into a long, greying ponytail that trailed down the back – an attempt at femininity, but as ineffective as a combover. a skin-tight pink tank top, extremely tight nylon shorts with a zany, neon-bright print, and white high-top leather adidas tennis shoes. very large and loud floral clip earrings and those bright red heart-shaped sunglasses that were so popular in the 80′s – though the dark lenses had been replaced with clear glass. the overall effect was like some kind of refugee from a jane fonda workout class, circa 1983.

i was shocked – not because of the outfit, but because of the bizarre fact i had seen this person not once, but twice when i was in the city last april. i looked across the platform in the 57th street train station to see someone in hot pink spandex tights, electric yellow windbreaker and a neon tank top sporting a print i can only call psychedelic lightning. a couple of days later i spied him walking past union square in an equally vivid outfit. at that time i figured he was an eccentric older man, maybe a theatre person, definitely a real character. its not unusual to see these types in manhattan. however, during our up close encounter at the flea market, i could see the intent was definitely “female”. what i loved most – aside from the fact not one single person in the crowd seemed to notice – was that all the outfits had been clearly thought out and planned. completely over-the-top in a neon-drenched 80′s aerobics class way – clinging to the body of a very, very skinny but clearly fit man with a bald head and long ponytail.

what confuses me is this: if you feel like a woman trapped desperately in the body of a man, don’t you try harder to look like a woman? i mean, these outfits were clearly planned and nowhere near anything you’d call subtle. so does that mean it’s all about deciding what clothes satisfy your need to feel womanly and it doesn’t matter how it appears to the rest of the world? is going the full glamour route just too much work? is there no way you’re going to succeed at looking feminine, so don’t bother trying? i was dying to strike up a conversation to try to get more information right from the source, but lets face it, you don’t walk up to a total stranger and start asking those kind of questions. well, you can, it’s just a really, really bad idea. i do know that when i am going somewhere, i almost always plan every detail of what i’m going to wear – at some point i realized i’ve done this pretty much my whole life – and when i do, i always feel more together, a little more upbeat, and hopefully a tiny bit stylish. but who knows? maybe to the rest of the world i look like a plain ole regular guy who got dressed in the dark. the point is, i pick out clothes that i feel good in, and if other people notice me, i hope they’ll appreciate it on some level. i guess mr/ms neon is no different – choosing an outfit that makes him/her feel the way he/she wants to feel, and if everyone else gets it, well…great. if not…so what.

when i left the flea market, i kept thinking how i sometimes stand at the mirror and debate over the tiniest details: should i unbutton my shirt an extra button or is that too much? do my shoes make my feet look ridiculously big? should i roll my sleeves up an extra couple inches or will that make my arms look out of proportion? meanwhile, halfway across the country, ms. neon has pulled on the hot pink spandex, the electric yellow windbreaker, tied back her pony tail and bounced down 14th street without a care in the world. maybe i should have been brave and asked her all those questions. i might have learned something.

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