Adventures In Genderland: Part Three
Part Three: Off With Her Head!
by Cathy Platine
Spring of 1997 saw many many changes in my life. Sarah
Fox and I had started to become real players in the politics of
gender thanks in part to our new exposure as out officers of the
Crystal Club. We both decided to go to Washington DC that year
for GenderPAC's Lobby days. This was something we both
had hoped to interest others in the club in to no avail.
Because of the messages of the fear of our activism, I started
making sure that every issue, starting in March and continuing
through most of the rest of the year, had a statement that the
Crystal Club would remain a safe place where no one had to be more
out or active than their own comfort level dictated. This was a
part of almost every single "Cathy's Corner" from that time
on and in fact I had made the statement for the first time in the
newsletter back in December of 1996! Ironically, ever since
then to this very day I have been accused of politicizing the club
based solely on my own activism and my own ongoing insistence that
the club remain a politic free, safe place ignored. Sarah and I
both repeatedly mentioned founding a new group to be dedicated to
activism My "open activism" up to this point was
limited to a couple of speaking engagements and announcements of the
upcoming Lobby Days, not exactly standing on street corners shouting
I was part of the Crystal Club! Criticism came from mainly
three folks. Two of these individuals were crossdressers
and members of a group that can be found in any organization, the
chronic bitchers who never seem willing to do anything constructive
but have a never-ending flow of criticism for those who are trying to
accomplish something. The third was Kori. Kori was
one of those rare and strange transsexuals who maintained a major
dose of homophobia along with transsexuality. Personally, I
cannot figure out someone can hold the two conditions without their
brain exploding from the conflict! Think about it, regardless
of the orientation of a transsexual, if they transition at some point
they can be considered, at the very least, a homosexual if they are
not completely asexual.
At the 1997 GenderPAC Lobby Days I got my first major dose of political reality. It was surprisingly easy for me to just walk into a congressional office and announce I was a transsexual woman and I would like some civil rights, I suppose my own comfort level with myself was quite good. At Rep. Deb Pryce's office we had our political eyes opened. I listened in stunned surprise to legislative aide, Stephen Weaver, tell us of a "pre-lobby" visit by HRC representatives warning them not to pay any attention to our requests to be added in the pending employment non discrimination legislation called ENDA. We were later to learn that our alleged trans-leaders themselves tagged along on many of these visits! Stephen Weaver offered to help us to even the extent of drafting a letter to the Justice Department regarding reporting hate crimes statistics against transgendered people. When we told our leaders, Riki and Dana about this they not only didn't act pleased, they acted somewhat distressed. The next day I accompanied Dana back to talk to Steven Weaver and she proceeded to verbally brow beat him. Result? The letter offered came a year later and Deb Pryce's office never even signed on supporting it.
Sarah continued to try to interest club members in becoming more visible while I repeated that no one need be more out than they were comfortable with. We met with several others and set the wheels in motion to found It's Time Ohio! as a chapter of It's Time America. At last Ohio was going to have a political organization dedicated to pursuing civil rights for transgendered people! That spring also saw me going "full time" or starting my Real Life Test, however you wish to see it. I made the announcement in the Chronicle. My spouse announced that she had no intentions of staying with me now that I was transitioned (sometime that supposedly we were to discuss later) and thus my marriage of almost 25 years at that point was pretty much over. I had foolishly thought that we could work something out, I was wrong and should have known better when she took my name off our joint banking account earlier in the spring in reaction to my changing my name. My business failing, I started selling off all the assets I'd worked a lifetime to acquire. Our house was put on the market. While all this was going on, I discovered that Luanne, our screening officer and Cait Ball, a local transwoman who ran a transformation service used by many of the crossdressers attending the meetings, were telling all those with more serious gender issues that Ms. Crane's program was the only path to hormones and surgery possible in Ohio! Even after repeated requests, they both continued this, sometimes within my earshot! Even knowing that it was patently untrue and my own case was proof of that. At one of the hardest points in my life I found myself largely alone to deal with the complete dismantling of my former life. Other than Sarah Fox, I got almost no support or even comfort from the "support group" I was the president of. I started attending a group in Cleveland that was un-named at the time but since has become Transfamily of Cleveland. How ironic that I, president of a support group, had to drive hours and hours to get some of the support I needed.
Our first real meeting of It's Time Ohio took place the beginning of July of that year. I announced at the beginning of the meeting that I was not going to play a leadership role in the group. By the end of the meeting I had been elected chairwoman. Saying no was always one of my problems. The organization began with a cast of familiar characters. Sarah Fox, Cait Ball, "MaryAnn" Horton, Carey Schaeffers, James Rusk and Ben Simpson and myself. I never saw James or Ben again after that first meeting.
That fall our house was up for sale, my business was in ruins and my marriage was over. How could you top this? Well, one of the club members made arrangements for the yearly weekend trip to Deer Park where the club rented a couple of cabins, had a large dinner in the main hall and went out for a shopping expedition to a major discount mall nearby. Because of complaints in prior years about "men" in the ladies room of the main hall, the management asked that the crossdressers use the men's room. This club member agreed on behalf of the entire club! Bear in mind, I was already transitioned and my id was all now in my proper name.
I wrote a newsletter article on the subject and gained a enemy that harassed and hounded me for years afterwards as a result. "Kelly" Davidson, a former founding crossdresser member of the club, took the all to common position, that a transsexual's basic rights ended the second a "real" woman objected, in this case, his wife. Ironically enough, in all the years since "Kelly" Davidson and "MaryAnn" Horton were the only ones to call into question my "right" to use a ladies restroom! When I found there was virtually no support for my position among the mostly crossdresser membership and given the fact that not a single club member would help me in my move following the sale of my house, breakup of my marriage and end of my business, I resigned both the presidency and membership in the club.
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