Manternity Memoir

Once the secret was out, curious teenagers rang the doorbell of their home, wanting to stare at the “pregnant man.” (Later, they left a lullaby music box on the doorstep.) Beatie also had to improvise “manternity” clothes to cover his baby bump. With this book, he transforms his story from freak show to family circus, calmly recounting his lifelong struggle to make his exterior match his interior. “Define Normal” is the defiant title of his first chapter, and also the name of his screen-printing business in Bend. His daughter, Susan, now four months old, enters the world with two baby books on her shelf, and with a book of her own to write, should she choose to, down the line: “Define Family.”

The first male ever to give birth to a baby has written a memoir. Liesl Schllinger tells Thomas Beatie's remarkable story on the New York Times Papercuts blog. There's more here too.

Turning Up the Air Con

Went with Animah and Sham to see Air Con, Shanon Shah's first full length play at KLPAC at the weekend. Although I don't usually write about theatre on this blog, this play is very special to me because I feel part of the FIRSTWoRKS family, and because I have seen parts of the play at different stages of development at performed readings.

In the programme notes Shanon says that one of the starting points for the play was the news that a mak nyah (transvestite) had been found brutally murdered and dumped in a monsoon drain, and nobody came to claim the body:

... no family, no friends, no anybody. nobody at all seemed to care that a mak nyah had been killed. Simply because of what she was - abnormal, a misfit, an aberration.

This story connected with Shanon's memories of his school life in Kedah, and a memorable incident of a visit from a police officer who told the boys at assembly that they were absolutely forbidden to visit the sex workers who hung out at the railway station :

Apparently an adventurous hostel border had been clobbered with the stiletto of one of the mak nyah sex workers because he had refused to remunerate her for services rendered.

After a Mak Nyah sex worker is found beaten to death near the railway station in the play, the administration of a nearby boys boarding school decide to take action - a sort of reeducation camp is planned for all the boys who are a bit ... effeminate, in order to toughen them up so they don't, presumably, become mak nyahs themselves.

(This kind of round of 'em up and make long speeches about morality at 'em for hours and hours to make sure they behave exactly as we want 'em is a fairly common here. Even judges get subjected to them. Blaming victims is pretty common too.)

Having taught for three and a half years in a boys boarding school very like the one depicted in the play, I felt that Shanon's depiction of the school and teachers was very good indeed - these were convincing characters, coming to terms with their own sexuality, getting bullied, coping with personal problems, making and falling out of friendships and love. And this was a completely believable scenario.

Amerul Affendi and Zahril Adzim played senior prefects Chep and Burn, and Ryan Lee Baskaran and Nick Davis as Asif and William, the younger boys who become prefects were very good indeed. But there wasn't a single weak point in the casting.

The murdered sex worker, played by Dara Othman has no identity when the play opens, but gradually assumes a voice, and then name (Aiswarya Roberts - for a couple of very famous actresses), and then a form, becoming in the end a fully-fleshed and endearing character.

The Air Con of the title, incidentally, is a play on the word airconditioning (some units of which are being fixed in the prefects room by local contractor, Ah Kok, a character who adds humour and counterpoint to the play) and also a certain sexual practice which will probably now lead to a local shortage of Hacks.

"Did you enjoy the play?" someone asked me afterwards. Enjoy, I'm not sure is the right word. sure parts of it were very funny and I laughed along with the rest of the audience. But I also came away feeling quite traumatised. It is a powerful play and my emotions took a bit of a battering.

Sadly the run was all too short, but I do hope it gets staged again. and now that Shanon has found his feet as a playwright, he continues to take a little time out from being a famous pop star.

Congrats to all the FIRSTWoRKS crew, especially Jo, Suzie and Zalfian.

(More about the play on The Star website.)

Marriage, a Sex Change, and Now a Civil Union

Andy Mcsmith in The Independent writes about one of the most remarkable literary love stories of our time :

Nearly 60 years ago, the writer James Morris married Elizabeth Tuckniss. Their relationship endured divorce, the death of a child – and his sex change. Now they have cemented their partnership with a civil union.

I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of Jan Morris' Letters from Hav (a guidebook to a fantasy city which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize) at a PayLess book sale the other day - a find that made the journey completely worthwhile.

The Transgender Reading List

Talking about sex-change operations (le topic de jour at the moment, innit?) thought I should chuck a little fiction into the debate. After all, what have we to lose but a little of our time? What have we to gain but compassion and understanding?

I picked up this list, written by Timothy Hulsey, on Amazon and think it is as good a place to start as any.

The Marvelous Land of Oz by Frank Baum

As far as I know, this 1904 children's novel is the first in American literature to feature a transgendered protagonist. (And yes, she does undergo an "operation" of sorts near the end.)

Last Letters from Hav by Jan Morris

Transgendered travel writer Jan Morris writes about an imaginary destination where her status as woman (or "Dirleddy") is never questioned. Her memoir Conundrum is deservedly famous.

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Personally, I don't think very highly of Stone Butch Blues. But every time I let a transgendered friend borrow the novel from me, I have to buy another copy. (Funny how that works.)

Trumpet by Jackie Kay

Not nearly as good as Diane Middlebrook's biography Suits Me which covers the true events on which the novel was based.

Myra Breckinridge/Myron by Gore Vidal

Vidal is overrated as a "serious" novelist, but his comic novels can be quite good. Both Myra and Myron, though unrealistic, feature a very prominent transgendered character.

Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf

More an exploration of shifting sexuality than a "how-to" book, Virginia Woolf's Orlando is still a great transgender novel.

The only one of the above I've already read is Orlando, so I have some catching up to do. (Think I'll start with the Jackie Kay. But then hey, I love Jan Morris' travel books and didn't know she'd written fiction ...)

The novel that I would add to the list would be Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex - a girl who discovers at puberty that she is in fact a hermaphrodite, and has a tough decision about to make about which gender to choose. Really superb writing as well as an excellent story.

I know only one transexual - an American internet friend whose story has greatly moved me. His decision to become a woman was a serious and long considered one. (I quickly realised that this is not something that anyone does without the deepest conviction.) John detailed every stage of his journey to become a Jennifer, and for sure there's a book in there if she can be persuaded to write it.

Because really wouldn't all of us like to slip behind the scenes and know how it feels to belong to the other sex? Ah well, at least fiction allows us that privilege vicariously!