february IS. 2000 • J o t a « . 5
E?2S3/loiit
changed many of my life plans, several of my
many points of view, none of my values or
beliefs, or my sexual orientation.
1 would like to say at this point that the use
of the term mentioned prior has caused many of
the people in the trans community to shout at
me and attempt to intimidate me. I have met, I
believe, the people that Sutree Irving men
tioned in her letter in your Dec. 17 issue.
It is my intention to state here that I do not
associate with the few angry transsexuals that
bring their male-oriented, heterosexually-
oriented perspectives to the Lesbian Communi
ty Project meetings. I personally have little tol
erance for bad manners and people who have
little or no knowledge of the subject.
When I started my transition, I knew exact
ly what I was getting into, or so I thought. I lost
most of my lesbian friends almost immediately,
after eight years of commitment to our cause, my
woman left me.
Alongside all the medical requirements, and
the vast array of physical issues, waited the psy
chological impact. I had to learn to live in a
straight world with all these straight people. The
only straight people I had known as friendly
were my parents.
But of all the traumatic occurrences that were
my “lesson plan,” one situation affected me the
most and probably always will. In that “special
way of knowing” that all of us carry just under
the surface, I have been able to identify people
who are “family.” In my past, I had been able to
“greet” my sisters in the public eye with the non
verbal communication that attracts gay people
to one another. I felt that internal signal one
afternoon after returning to town. The closer we
walked toward one another, the bigger I smiled.
As our paths crossed and I said hello, I was
looking into the face of a very angry lesbian
insulted by my eagerness. I saw the same aggres
sion I would have produced in my lesbian years.
I was suddenly reminded of what I am to this
woman, and I honored her indignation. What
she was seeing, as 1 backed off and apologized,
was some strange male being way too friendly.
Yes, I know this movie! 1 know exactly what
she was experiencing, the hurtful intentions in
her words, the reasons for her reaction to this
perceived intrusion and the hypocrisy of my
own separatism in the past. It is the saddest
thing I must do now. I feel the weight of this
estrangement regularly. I have missed the inter
actions, the greetings and the camaraderie of my
community.
But I won’t infringe on the parameters that
make up the boundaries 1 have so proudly
defended in the past. There are too many
transpersons out there who will gladly do it, and
in doing so, relive the anger and betrayal for me.
I will not apologize for them. But I will ask the
women who feel threatened by this infiltration,
please do not take the actions of a few (who for
whatever reason feel that they have the right to
be there) as the sum of all the rest of us who
honor the code.
Those people who come defiantly at you
have learned that behavior as a male coming
from a male perspective. It is my opinion that
those people have not truly experienced dis
crimination or estrangement, in the form that a
woman who becomes lesbian has. It is in these
settings that those people find rejection, and the
indignation they display rises from their earliest
teachings that a man must never be refused.
Throughout my life I have just wanted to be
all right with myself. Some days I feel hypocriti
cal about the changes I have made. I feel that
the position I hold as a heterosexual, and com
ing from the gay culture, has made me privy to
information that I would otherwise not have
access to. I have experienced both sides of the
human stereotype, both sides of the human con
dition. I do not know if this is a blessing or a
curse; but it is my life, and it is pretty good.
In closing, I would like to thank Amazon
Knightly for coming to my defense in the Jan. 7
Just Out edition o f letters to the editor. I am one
of the transpersons she has met and I felt very
welcomed by her. I wanted to let her know per
sonally, then decided to thank her here and
voice the rest of my thoughts on the matter with
the community.
I have felt the anguish of exclusion. I miss my
lesbian ways. She has been gracious in her
acknowledgment that, regardless of my exterior,
my inner self has not changed. Where people
once saw a lesbian, they now see a man. A man
with morals and values. They see a gentleman
and a father. I can walk the streets without fear
of homophobic attack; I blend with the crowd
and no longer get wild-eyed stares from parents
who fear for their child’s safety. I feel sad that this
could not have happened in my former image.
Too bad there is such pressure to conform. I
would have liked to be honest about my whole
self, and not just the one people think they see.
J esse H arris
Vancouver, Wash.
Let’s end this war now
To the E ditor :
I can’t believe the letters I’ve been reading
lately in this publication. This new bantering
back and forth about trans issues and lesbian
issues seems like some kind of war. This last let
ter I read, though, crossed the line. Morgan
LeFey’s letter in the Jan. 21 issue— telling all les
bians to keep our women-only spaces reserved to
potlucks— was disturbing.
Many lesbians spend most of our free time
having housewarming parties. I think LeFey’s
picture of lesbians checking out each other’s
“panties” at the door for undesirables is grossly
uninformed. How disturbing to refer to grown
women as wearing panties. The word panties
seems more appropriate when used to describe a
5-year-old— not to mention some of us dykes
have never worn panties in our lives.
I think that women-only spaces are vital and
important. I think that if a transgender person
identifies as female, a women-only space should
include them. If I were at a women-only space
that included nudity and saw a transgender per
son with a penis, I might feel unsafe and threat
ened. This reaction is an acceptable one for me
to have and is a valid one. Women-only spaces
will exist as long as women exist.
I have never looked down on anyone in my
life and have always tried to accept what I don’t
understand. I feel that I still don’t know as much
as I would like about transgender issues, even
though my best friend identifies as transgender
and I have spent almost every day with her for
the past six years, including sharing a romantic
relationship with her for awhile. I have never
heard a lesbian threaten or hu3t a person who
identifies as transgender, although I wouldn’t
doubt that there are women like that out there.
I don’t like it when people assume certain
things about me. People who try to push their
ideas or identities on me repel me. I want to
identify as anything and reserve the right to
change my mind at a moment’s notice. I don’t
change my speech pattern every time I hear a
new politically correct phrase or word.
I think that it’s important to recognize that if
we are adding transgender issues to our diverse
culture more openly, we can’t be destructive to
what is already there. We can add to, without
making enemies of each other.
It bothers me to think of lesbians and trans
gender people in our community hating each
other. I picture religious bigots picking up this
paper and having themselves a good laugh at us.
And as far as the terminology of “trans women”
and “nontrans women,” I’m not comfortable
calling myself a “non” anything, because that
denotes I’m lacking something.
I don’t believe that I am a more “acceptable
and true” woman because I was bom with
female anatomy. I used to notice straight women
trying to make me feel like I wasn’t a “real”
woman because I never wore dresses or tried to
make men notice me.
There is so much crap coming from every
where, isn’t there? I hope this war ends soon!
•rtte
AssoC
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Portland
n o ta b le s
SERVING
B REAKFAST
Seven Days a Week
Goodbye, Bob
Longtime Portland art collector Robert
Pitchlynn was found unresponsive and uncon
scious in his bed by a roommate at 4:50 a.m.,
Jan. 1, at his home on the 4000 block of North
east Seventh Avenue. When emergency aid
arrived minutes later, Pitchlynn was declared
dead at the scene he helped create. He was 57.
Cause of death: coronary artery disease, com
bined with pre-existing medical complications.
Boh Pitchlynn was many things. A father fig
ure. A keeper of secrets. A man who carried the
excesses of the counterculture within his own
excessive body. A jolly martyr to good times.
Many who knew Bob remember him fondly.
And you will be amazed at who knew him,
including an impressive lineup of stars from
Nico to River Phoenix to Keanu Reeves. Like
the Monks back in 1993, those who entered
Portland’s creative inner circle— that coterie
surrounding Kerr, Snellman, Monlux and Van
Sant— were inevitably proffered an irresistible
challenge: “You must meet Boh.”
Many made their way to Northeast Portland
to do just that. Not merely because Bob had the
goods (which was true in more ways than one),
but because Bob had the spirit. A Benedictine
spirit. A catholic spirit in the broad definition of
the word. A Portland spirit.
Bob provided a tolerant safe haven, a home.
And all who entered came to love Bob for his
generosity, for his devotion to bacchanal, for his
wicked sense of play, for the unbridled mess of
monkhood he had become.
In a memorable scene from My Own Private
Idaho, a film loosely based around a Falstaffian
character named Bob Pigeon, Portland director
Gus Van Sant staged a celebration around the
death of his antihero. Fiction mirrors reality. On
the afternoon of Sunday, Jan. 30, a party was
held at O ’Connor’s in downtown Portland to
mark the passing of the real-life Bob Pitchlynn.
Hell hank notes were burned, poet Walt Curtis
ranted and raved, Michael Menace juggled, and
local prop master Greg McMickle read from the
diaries of Chief Peter Pitchlynn, a Choctaw
Indian from whom Bob descended and whose
birthday it was that very day.
With the sharing of drumsticks, alcohol and
a few dozen of Bob’s infamous Polaroid snap
shots, it was an event the legendary party animal
would surely have savored.
■ Written by JlM CROmr, editor of the alternative
travel Internet site www.monk.com, where the
Monies’ interview with Bob Pitchlynn can be read.
M onday through F rid ay :
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S a tu rd a y : 7:00am to 11:30am
S u n d ay :7 :0 0 am to 12:30pm
>736 \ l . 3 3 rd • P o rtla n d , O re g o n
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