Bertie's Big Voyage from He to She
"So, what would you like to know this morning about being an old trans woman?"
I first met Bertie on a cruise on Lake Powell five years ago. She sat next to me while I was reading and after a few minutes asked if I knew what ‘transgender' meant. I told her I had read about it. We have been friends ever since.
LOU: Well, let’s start at the beginning – did you always know you were a woman?
Bertie: I remember thinking at a very early age that not only do girls smell better, they’re smarter, they’re not as rough and tumble, and they don’t like dirt quite like boys do. I remember thinking ‘who are these creatures that seem to live a better life than boys do?’ So at five or six I started to think I’d like to live like that - why wouldn’t I want to live where you smell better, you stay cleaner, you’re smarter, you play nicer games and you’re better to other people?
L: What was transitioning like for you?
B: Do you know about Br’er Rabbit, when he jumped in the briar patch? It was just like that. I did it just the once but it was a very scary thing, I did not know what to expect. I did not know what I would lose. It was as if you went to live in Prague and didn't know anyone, or you move to Nairobi and once you move there you can’t move back.
L: What advice would you give someone whose transitioning?
B: Very simply, you are going to make a lot of mistakes, you are going to waste a lot of money and go up a lot of dead end streets. My advice is ‘don’t be too hard on yourself’. The eyes of the world are not on you, you’re going to get do-overs, and you will eventually get to a place where you are happy with yourself.
L: What did you do during your transition?
B: I did some stand-up comedy. It was good for my self esteem, my ego, I used to go to this place in San Francisco called The Brain Wash. I would say, ‘Hello I’m Bertie, I just wanted you to know that the same year I got this iPhone, I got a vagina’. Now that would make them laugh. And then I would say, ‘but the iPhone has a great more apps than my other does’, so I would tell them a little about the experience, I would tell them the problems with zippers, and question why on earth there were buttons on the side? I would talk to them about restroom etiquette.
L: Do you think that trans people have a place within the LGBTQ+ community and how is your experience different?
B: We of the ‘t’ are different from all the other letters. The others all deal with sexual orientation, where as we are dealing with identity. We want to appear to the rest of the world as female or male because we think we are. You know, trans women and trans men struggle with passing. Passing is someone not knowing that you are a different gender at birth.
L: You had gender affirmation surgery, how was that process for you?
B: Well most people have their testicles taken off because that's where the testosterone comes from but some trans woman like to keep their penis. I thought that was kind of like being half pregnant, if you're in for a penny you are in for a pound...no? They re-use all body parts. I asked the surgeon if he would let met keep my testicles after he cut them off but he said you can’t leave the hospital with body parts.
L: You wanted to keep your testicles?
B: I did. I wanted to have them on the fireplace mantel.
L: No you did not!!
B: Yes I did, and when people would walk over, they would ask what are those? I would say those are my testicles.
L: I mean it’s a conversation piece.
B: You know, I was told early on that no one knows what’s between your legs. I mean duct tape goes a long way, you could have a penis, you could have a vagina, you could have some combination there-of, but I would tell you nothing makes me feel more like a woman than having a vagina.
L: Yeah I guess that’s logical.
B: I mean I always thought it was a much better design than having that funny piece of skin that hangs down with things around it - it’s a really bad design. I mean, its functional but if you take the crotch area of a women and a man, anybody would tell you the female is a much better design.
L: What kind of surgery did you get?
B- I had upper body remodeling and then lower body remodeling, now some people have the lower and then have the upper. There are good looking trans women that have no surgery.
L: Why did you have the upper before lower?
B: I was under the impression that the upper was more important than the lower, in fact it cost more than the lower.This surgeon kind of broke apart and put back together my face.
L: Wow, that must have been painful.
B: Males have a rather square jaw, female’s is much more swollen, more of a v. When females smile, you see less of their teeth, males typically have a longer upper lip. Males have bigger noses, males have all this facial hair. So I got that done and then I got 'my girls,' I got 'my twins' and I went back and I said ‘they’re not identical!’, and my surgeon said ‘no they are fraternal twins’. Who knew?
L: Are you dating anyone and do you have any advice?
B: You know, I dated as a male and in a moment of weakness I thought maybe I would try Ok Cupid or one of the dating sites. Now when do you tell the women looking for women that you are transgender? When would you say ‘Hi, I am Bertie, I am transgender’?
L: I would guess first date, no?
B: I mean we never got to that, I told her and she jumped all over me because she said ‘you should have told me you were transgender!’.
L: During the pandemic, Trump erased transgender civil rights protection in health care, meaning transgender people could be turned away from Covid-19 tests, do you have hope for trans people in the next US presidential election?
B: In the USA our Constitution civil rights are every citizen’s rights - be they white, brown, black, straight, gay and yes ... transgender! Our 1960’s civil right acts affirmed this fact. As a transperson to be denied any right afforded another US citizen is against the law; our US Constitution. Trump’s modus operandi is to incite anger, spread fear and divide and conquer. His being re-elected would be a monumental tragedy of immense harm - and serious attack on our hard fought and highly valued human rights. He must leave our highest office!
L: What is a common misinterpretation that people have on trans people?
B: Now, here is a very simple concept that most people do not understand: do not confuse gender identity with sexual orientation. Gender identity is what you think your gender is. I think gender is between your ears but don’t confuse it with orientation. Identity is who you want to look like, orientation is who you are attracted to. I did not change my gender because I wanted to be able to date women, I’ve always loved women. I changed because I was born in a man’s body when I was a woman.
L: Recently, drag has become more and more popular especially in the LGBTQ+ community and especially for non-binary and trans people, performance drag can help them express themselves fully and unashamedly. Do you think drag is a useful form of expressionism?
B: Drag does not promote being transgender. I look at drag as giving transgender people a false name. Not necessarily a bad name but people think if you were assigned male at birth and now try to dress up as a female and are wearing mostly female clothes, they think you're just a closet drag queen. I’m not. I go to drag shows, but trans women are just not drag queens, they are just not.
L: Do you consider yourself a feminist?
B: I am not in a traditional sense a feminist. Do I think women should have equal opportunity? Absolutely. I have lost opportunity now that I have changed my gender. I don’t really understand how women have been oppressed for so long. Did women let themselves be oppressed or could they just do nothing about it? Is it because men are stronger? They are certainly not smarter. I am not a feminist, in that I do not have a lot of credibility, I have not been female that long. Give me ten more years.
L: What can we do to support trans people?
Go to your laptop, your desktop, your smartphone and I want you to google transgender. I want you to do a little reading and a little studying. I want you to understand what it means to be transgender. It’s probably not what they think it means. Most people have all these misconceptions about why someone would want to change their gender.