Ben-Zeev Calling My Deadname Home

Trans Bear Diaries
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-7384528-2-8
Verlag: Muswell Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 336 Seiten

In this extraordinarily compelling trans memoir, Avi, a bearish trans man and Psychology Professor, navigates sex and dating in a phallic-centric universe of men who love men. But something is missing. To become the man he aspires to be, he needs to reconnect with Talia, his hyper-feminine straight female past, and invite her back in. Growing up in a working-class right-wing Israeli family and barely finishing high school, he became involved in pro-Palestinian activism and escaped compulsory military service by faking madness. Despite poor schooling Avi went on to attain a PhD from Yale and change his life entirely. This memoir is the story of that journey and explores what it means to come home to oneself with brutal honesty, humour, and self-compassion. Told in three episodes, early transition, later transition and Talia's story, this memoir tackles contemporary gender and social issues. At its heart is a universal theme: to become who we already are, we must integrate the past into the present

Avi Ben-Zeev is a gay transgender man, high school failure, and Yale Ph.D. A psychologist and writer, he's compelled by emotional truth. His story Angel won the UK's first transgender writing competition, and his anthology Trans Homo ... Gasp! was a Lambda Award Finalist. He lives in London

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ben-Zeev, Avi

Leseproben

0

REBIRTH0

Hey, Talia barges into my psyche uninvited. Again.

I confess. I tried killing her off, but what was I thinking? I wouldn’t be me, Avi – a gay man, psychology professor and immigrant to the United States of America – if it weren’t for Talia’s survival instincts.

“Go away; you’re interrupting my writing flow,” I bark when what I could really use is a heart-to-heart with my pre-gender-transition female past.

What are you writing about? She steps closer, brushing her long, multi-coloured hair away from her face.

For a so-called heterosexual woman, Talia’s outfit gives drag queens a run for their money – a rockabilly cherries-and-skulls dress that shows off her perky breasts, skinned poodle of a faux-fur jacket, fishnet stockings, leopard-print platform shoes and a bracelet with doll eyes that open and close as she flicks her wrist.

If you saw our photos side by side, you’d say, No way, this rugged man was once a hyperfeminine woman? And yes, Talia and I look nothing alike. I’m bald and bearded. My chest is built. But if you’d look closely, you’d see that our eyes have an identical shape and colour: our grandfather’s Jewish green with brown-and-golden specks.

You’re telling our story, right? Talia cocks her head to one side, refusing to be dismissed.

“I was going to leave you out and focus on my life as Avi,” I say out loud; to whom exactly? My empty San Francisco loft? “But I’ve been rethinking it lately. I can’t become who I am without you – the good, bad and ugly.”

Ah, Talia mutters, looking young and lost. Be kind, okay? Then, poof, she disappears, and I miss her already, and I hate her too, or maybe I hate how hard I’ve been on her, blaming her for everything bad that’s ever happened to us.

*

Talia kept clicking on Ozzie’s tribe.net profile. In 2003, this social platform was all the rage in the San Francisco Bay Area. A kind of Facebook before Facebook existed, but edgier.

This fascination with Ozzie was unlike her, or at least that’s what Talia told herself. Her usual type was angsty and tattooed, not smiley and buttoned-up. Still, despite Ozzie’s suburban, Middle-American clothing, his pics made Talia swoon. His bearishness – beard, broad shoulders and thick belly – was what the feminist scholar Camille Paglia described as more manly than the smooth, hard-bodied gay male ideal, but more Mother Earth than militaristic.

After two days of self-torment, Talia direct-messaged her new crush. Hey, I like your profile’s vibe. What say you to having coffee sometime?

The worst that could have happened would have been what – Ozzie wouldn’t have been interested? Or if he had been, he’d have turned out to be a projection? Either way, not the end of the world, right?

He replied right away. I’d love to, but my profile is somewhat misleading. My location says San Francisco, but I live in Massachusetts.

Really? Over 3,000 miles away? Talia was annoyed with Ozzie’s deception, but then, he surprised her. I’ve never been to San Francisco, but I’ve been itching to visit, maybe even move there. There was something she should know if they were to meet up, though, Ozzie cautioned.

Tell me.

Filling the computer screen were the infamous repeating three dots. Finally, there it was. I’m a trans guy.

Talia didn’t know what that meant. To be fair, at the start of the millennium, even in the progressive Bay Area, trans people, especially trans men, were an unknown.

Trans guy? Sorry, I don’t understand.

Okay, then sit down for this. When I was born, the doctor yelled, “Congrats, it’s a girl!” But I’ve always known they were wrong. Long story short, in my twenties, I transitioned into the man you see today.

Oh, Talia messaged, the rest of her words getting garbled and stuck before reaching the keyboard.

She sank into the egg-shaped armchair, chewing on her fist. How did Ozzie know that becoming a man was even possible? And if it were … Wait, was it? And wouldn’t that have meant that …? Never mind, it was too much to absorb at once.

Deal-breaker? Ozzie typed.

No, not at all, Talia replied, heat spreading across her neck and face.

Ozzie’s flight wasn’t due to arrive at the San Francisco Airport until at least another hour, but there Talia was, pacing about in Arrivals, wearing one of her favourite outfits – a silver-sequin jumpsuit from the Piedmont Boutique in Haight-Ashbury. Would her appearance be too wild for his taste? Or maybe he should be the one concerned about looking so strait-laced? Why care? It was an adventure, right?

Talia hadn’t always dressed like a hyperfeminine extravaganza. As a kid, she looked more like a savage pretty boy. She gave buzzcuts to our Barbie dolls and cut her own hair with Mom’s rusty kitchen scissors. She was constantly climbing on things, jumping off things, holding her tight fists in front of her unruly, growing chest like a feisty terrier.

People in Talia’s small Israeli town taunted her. “What are you, a boy or a girl?”

“I’m a boy,” she’d growl. How could they not have seen that?

At first, our parents thought Talia’s so-called bravado cute. Their sentiments changed after being summoned by Mrs Hamorah, Talia’s elementary school teacher, for an urgent talk. “Your daughter is sitting with her legs too wide apart for a girl,” Mrs Hamorah said. She listed other issues – like how Talia had a nasty habit of asking too many questions, and her voice, oye, and vey, was not at all suited for the school’s choir (or any choir for that matter). In the end, our parents agreed that Talia’s gendered transgressions needed fixing, and fast.

If the grownups insisted she wear skirts and dresses and talk in female conjugations (fuck Hebrew with its gendered everything), she’d become the femmiest of femmes, queeniest of queens. You’d spot her from miles away, a walking art installation, wearing heels so high they might as well be stilts, her broad shoulders accentuated by a Pepto-Bismol-pink feather boa. Happy now, Mrs Hamorah?

Ozzie strode into Arrivals, looking younger and thicker than his photos. He handed Talia an expensive-looking bouquet. “What beautiful flowers,” she said, but after one sniff, her eyes watered and she dropped them on a nearby bench. “I’m so sorry, I think...