books
Both Sides Now
Trans author joins his mother for a spectacular conversation about maleness and femaleness
by Glenn Scofield Williams
hat Becomes You is the best mem
oir I’ve read in a decade. It is close
to the bone, poetic without an
ounce of sentimentality, full of
humor and humanity, and excru
ciating in its self-examination.
Written by Portland writer, curator and per
former Aaron Raz Link and his mother, editor and
poet Hilda Raz, this book is what happens when
two extraordinary writers share intimate tales of
self-discovery in prose that’s both exquisite and
accessible. The first section of the book is Link’s
poignant tale of his search for self-identity and his
transition from the female the world thought him
to be, to the gay man he always knew he was. The
second section is Raz’s view of the same matters
from outside his transition, from inside her own
family history and through the eyes of a poet,
mother and modem feminist.
The result is this two-part invention: a spectacu
lar conversation on the nature of maleness and
femaleness and how these forces clash with and
inform each other. It is the story of how generations
affect the way we engage in liberalism. But most of
all, it is the story of the titanic struggle trans people
must endure, even today, for the simple right to be
who they are. Through the languages of science,
performance and poetry, Link and Raz have created
a unique look inside a family desperately trying to
understand each other and the nature of identity.
1 was privileged recently to sit down with Link to
discuss What Becomes You (University of Nebraska
Press, 2007; $24.95 hardcover). He was, in person,
as candid, funny and eloquent as he is in his bwk,
and we talked for several hours about identity, trans
sexualism, the dialogue (and lack thereof) between
men and women, sex, love and theater. Following is
a short excerpt from that conversation.
Glenn Scofield Williams: How did the dual
memoir come about?
Aaron Raz Link: I needed to understand why the
world saw what it saw when it looked at me. 1 need
ed to know why people thought I was lesbian, for
instance. Being in the world is to be in a conversa
tion: Part of it is mine and part of it is yours, and the
real story is what happens in between us. Because for
me, the world had a sex change—everyone changed
but me. But for the person looking at me, I changed
and they stayed the same. It became the central
question for my mother and me around my transi
tion. How can the same thing look so different
from different points of view?
GSW: How did your mom get on board?
ARL: She found a quote which was attributed to
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, and it says, “Whoever
can write a bcxik and does not, it is if he has lost
a child.” We were both desperate to understand,
because the official story of transsexualism makes no
sense—makes no literal sense. If you ask a doctor,
a psychiatrist, an insurance agent, a GLBT activist
and a performance coach what transsexualism is,
they will tell you not only different things, but
mutually exclusive things. 1 was told the mythology;
1 wanted to know the story.
My background is the story through science, and
my mother’s background is the story through poetry.
Our work, 1 think, informed each other a lot. And
that’s the structure of the book. My section of the
book ends with a question which her section of the
book then attempts to answer: “If being a woman is
what matters, then I want to know why."
GSW: How has writing the book affected
your relationship with your mother?
ARL: It’s been good because we continue to
work closely together. You can’t have a working
artistic collaboration unless you communicate real
ly well. Getting there can be horrible. They don’t
•
call it drama for nothing. But my teacher used to
say, “You paid for it, it’s yours." And it’s true in
respect of paying the cost of understanding each
other’s experience and point of view. And it makes
for a wonderful chance to have an adult relation
ship of peers with somebody who’s also a family
member. 1 got lucky in my family...I think statistics
are 90 percent of trans people can’t say that. So
I had that privilege. It gave me the room to write.
GSW: In your opinion, is “transsexual” a tem
porary assignment, or is it something you’ll always
have to be? And is there a “how it should be” that
we should be working toward?
ARL: 1 don’t think I should have a lifetime
major mental health diagnosis. I am mentally ill,
officially (due to the
transsexualism diag
Aaron Raz I ink & Hilda Raz
nosis!, and will be, as ’•ruil i*»
t
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gay people were until
1973, until they change the [Diagnostic and Sta
tistical Manual of Mental Disorders] or until I die.
On the other hand, I do think that I should have
had some access to medical care, but without some
kind of diagnosis, you don’t get treatment.
We have a history in America of seeing people
behaving like we don’t understand and first
deciding that it’s demonic possession, then that it’s
moral evil, then that it’s mental illness^nd then
that it’s physical illness. Right now, transsexualism
is legally categorized both as a moral deviance and
as a mental illness. So I think we could be further
down the road with that. But I’m also a gay man,
and as a gay man I can say that I’m no longer cate
gorized as mentally ill, and that was something that
happened in my lifetime.
GSW: In your book you point out that gay
men can be as harsh as straight men toward trans
sexualism. Why is that?
ARL: It’s because we’re carrying around, as gay
men, society’s prejudice that because we love men,
we must be women—which is a huge tension. If we
love men, are we more like men? If we love men, are
we more like women? We were just starting to have
this discussion in the gay male community when
AIDS hit us. Because I looked female in the '70s and
’80s, I am alive now when many of the best and
brightest men of my generation are gone. So part of
my responsibility is to make space to imagine a world
that has better things to say about men and women
and weakness and strength and sex and love than
the stories that were given to us. Our generation of
gay men need to step up to this. I’m part of restart
ing that conversation. That’s my fondest hope. ©
A aron R az L ink reads 7:30 p.m. July 3 at
Powell’s Books, 1005 W. Bumside St.; 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 25 at Kennedy School, 5736 N.E. 33rd Ave.;
and during the fifth (lender Odyssey, which will be
held from Aug. 31 to Sept. 3 in Seattle
(www. transconference . org).
“I got lucky in my family," says Aaron Raz Link (with Hilda Raz in the
1980s). “I think statistics are 90 percent of trans people can't say that.”
Aaron Raz Link uses the language of science to complement his mother’s
poetic background in the dual memoir What Becomes You.
G lenn S cofield W illiams writes poetry, prose,
plays, periodica and pom in Portland.
‘Katrina
CK h omes
ln^o@QK-koMi.cotn • 5O3-335-Q8Q8
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