For those who think feminism should be over.

I haven't posted in five days. Sorry: five very busy days.
Yesterday night, I got into some sort of discussion on Facebook: a guy I knew in college posted a pretty unethical news story and a friend and I spend some time making jokes around it, my friend blaming journalism for all the evil in the world and me trying to justify my vocation by saying that female journalists are different. We were joking, but there was someone else who never got it: after some sort of defense of crappy journalism with cliches like "journalism is more than getting a quote," this random dude jumped onto my claim against the lack of women running newsrooms.That, I didn't find funny. He said "I know some women who are editors, and I don't think this is an issue of genre, I think it is an issue of criteria and the editorial positions predominant in each media outlet."

O.K. More than silly arguments, I hate silly arguments that actually prove the exact opposite to what they are trying to go for. He is denying sexism in the newsroom and then actually admitting it but changing its name. He is saying that some newsrooms just prefer not to hire female editors and this is their "editorial position." There are more precise ways to put it: misogynistic human resources departments prevent women to achieve powerful positions in the media industry. It is so dangerous when journalists fail at seeing reality. Where did Random Dude on Facebook go to journalism school?

This fight is not over, and here in the U.S there are blogs and columnists who make sure we don't forget that. Being the President of Chile a woman, I have to admit that I forgot about it a little bit.

Aiden has a say on this. I'm editing, and I found this clip. There is just no one with more authority than Aiden to prove my point. An important note about it, though, just so we are in the same page: Aiden, as he also says, has little or no authority to speak about how a woman feels, because he wasn't feeling things the way girls do. This is why he transitioned; he felt and perceived things like a man. He never felt 100% girl, then it's not like he can understand how we feel. BUT he looked like us: what he does know very well is about socially being seen and treated like a girl. As sexism and feminism are about socially being a woman, Aiden has an interesting insight on it. Here you can hear a word or two from an expert. Random dude on Facebook: watch this and then go read some sociology.

PS: The clip has a noise. Could you please be comprehensive with someone who is getting started on this? I'm working on  getting rid of that noise. That's actually why I found the clip.

Peter Burke, mi amor!

A couple of weeks ago, I was wondering about transgender people´s presence in literature and especially, in history. I mentioned the Victorians and I wasn´t so lost: I found this great blog in Spanish where the issue is covered.  He is pointing to plays of the XVII century in Europe, and to the carnival. The carnival, of course! I forgot about it, duh! The blog´s author is quoting a lot of Spanish literature: Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Guillén de Castro. And Boccaccio´s The Decameron!
He also says travestism during the carnival gets talked about in Peter Burke´s "Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe." I read it, but I can´t remember what he said about this topic especifically.This is a good one, folks: if you want to read history during the winter break and you like European history,this is your guy. Trust me.
OH BOY I can´t wait to be on vacation to check some of these titles out! I´m curious: was it a matter of "erotica," or something even deeper? Were there folks who would be consistently gender non-conforming?
(Wait: I read the book´s description at Amazon...ha! it says "Long neglected by historians, the concept of cultural history....blablabla." I´m into cultural history, cultural journalism, cultural-cultural everything :S)

A bit scared

Something is going on with my face, something that I can´t decipher, and I´m totally blaming this project for it: I have a muscle that feels weird. It feel like it wants to curl or something. It seems to be a stress thing: when I laugh, I start laughing with both sides of my mouth like every other human being, but then I have to relax the right side of my face because it feels like the muscle is going to get curled forever. I´m scared! It began in the editing room on Saturday, all the area sorrounding the eyes felt really, really tired. That is normal, that always happens to me during finals, the problem is that it is going a step further this time: the muscle (or whatever it is, ok!) that connects your jaw with your face feels really weird.  I am officially scared. On Sat, I had to go home early because I felt something could happen to me otherwise while driving, so I thought the sooner I drove back to Maryland, the better. Sunday morning it was still acting weird, though not as bad as on Sat. I told my dad and he said some people´s face paralyze when they are stressed out: that must not happen to me! How am I gonna interview Aiden this week with a paralyzed face! So I am working hard on relaxing, but now my face is again doing the "I´m going to curl" thing and I HAD to share it somehow! What can I do? I want to cry, this is scary!

Maybe this is why they ask me if I knew Aiden before doing the story...

Mixing the two important conversations I had this weekend, maybe now I know why people ask me if I knew Aiden before reporting the story. It isn´t pretty.
Manu is Colombian, I am Chilean. I´m having problems figuring out how my cultural background might affect my approach to this story, so I asked Manu for her opinion.
We spoke about how Latinos just allow themselves to discriminate. They see a gay couple and they have no problem with saying out loud "qué asco!" (how repulsive). They have no problem with looking down at African Americans. "An American just doesn´t do that," I said to Manu, "when they ´feel like´ discriminating, they work on it and stop themselves. It is socially unaccepted to discriminate, it goes against social rules." Manu said that yes, that´s true, but that we also need to consider American´s double standards. When they say one thing, but mean another. Manu said something like "maybe they say they accept it and they act like they don´t gossip about these things, but we would need to see how things go in their private space. Inside their houses. Maybe they say things just like Latinos do, but they act publicly as if they don´t, because of the double standards that rule here for everything." She has a point.

Manu: "He knows how we like it."

On Wednesday, after submitting my first cut of the project, my body completely shut down. I burned my disc at 5 pm, and then went to class: as I was sitting there, I could feel how my body was saying "Farewell, cruel world, farewell" (do people even say this in Eng? "Adiós, mundo cruel, adiós?")
Whatever: so it shut down, but before that I made sure to check out a camera. On Thursday evening, I met my friend Manu and showed her the first cut of the film. My plan is, from the reactions I get to this cut, work on the final one. I can turn in this first cut as my capstone project, that´s fine, I´m thinking beyond that: maybe the short documentary I want to have on my resume is not the same one that I´m turning in as a graduation project....aja! see where I´m going? I´m using my capstone project as a step towards the project I really want to produce.
So I showed her my capstone. Her thoughts will help me visualize where to go now. We talked for an hour and a half, but I selected the best 10 minutes.
Ladies and gentlemen: Manu´s reactions.
(BTW: Can subtitles be more annoying? Jesus! Someone should PLEASE improve Final Cut! It took me 8 hours just to subtitle this thing! and then an hour of rendering! and then, compressing! too much!)

My best recipe

"Maite, it is so hard to take you out of your own world!" he texted. Or something on the lines, but gramatically correct. My own world? Call it my recipe for happiness: lots reading, writing and editing--in that order. Caffeine, sometimes chocolate. Cuban, British, and Argentinean music in the background. That´s all I need in life. Dating you is not on the list.

I feel a 100% better now

Two days ago, I highlighted my timeline and hit "delete." Yep, I intentionally erased my whole project. I couldn´t stand the cut, I just hated it. Yesterday night, a long brainstorming night, I discovered Susannah Breslin´s amazing blog: today´s post is about how she just threw away a novel she had been working on for 2 years. I say that two strangers with the same insane reaction in a 30 hours frame is enough to declare this a normal behavior. 

This weekend is going to be an interesting one, tough: my project is due exactly six days from now. In case you were wondering, I wasn´t on drugs when I hit the delete key.

( Isn´t the pic a piece of gold? It´s from 1910, there is this great Canadian pic archive)

Well, thinking about it twice...

I was thinking about this note I wrote the other day and well, maybe it is not so true. Sometimes I do feel everything even being behind the camera. I´m thinking about the interviews with Aiden. Yeah, definitely: when it is about people´s intimacy, people´s memories, people´s feelings, the “animal” stops. On those moments, I hide behind the camera so I can “take” what the person is saying. I mean, on normal circumstances, my face would be the one of a shocked, affected person, or maybe I would have tears in my eyes, but when I have the camera I just hide all that emotion by saying to myself “do NOT put the camera down. Keep filming. Do your job.” Actually, maybe being hidden behind the lens allows me to feel more: I am a pretty cold person. I don´t cry, I have trouble showing people what I feel. I block my emotions. Something really compelling comes to me and I close myself like an oyster. But when I am with the camera, I don´t have to do that, I can feel it all: I just make sure my eyes are on the viewfinder, and not on the person. The camera is my shell, but I am actually allowing myself to feel more than what I would under normal circumstances. Aiden, for example: sometimes I´m filming him, and he says something really, really compelling, really strong. I give myself the moment I need and then, when I´m ready, I take my eyes away from the viewfinder and look at him. In normal circumstances, you are always looking at the person, and you don´t have that moment. If you take it, if you look somewhere else, the person feels it. Not here, or not so much. It is just one moment, but a crucial one. Knowing that I have that moment makes me lower the guard and allow myself to connect and feel whatever I´m receiving while filming.

This is a disgusting post: you have been warned.

Aiden lives with 2 other guys. I assume all of them are interested in discussing gender identity and sexual orientation issues, since their house has plenty of art pieces and popular culture icons raising up gender-related questions. At their house, there are lots of intriguing pictures, films, books, posters, etc. All of them are quite confrontational, but there was one in particular that would make me feel extremly uncomfortable: in the living room, there is a fan with the word "FOAM" written in red letters. Next to it, a dirty pad. I swear.  For months, litteraly, I ignored its presence. It would make me feel uncomfortable to the point where denial was the only choice. I would just not look at it, especially when Aiden was around. I´m not showing you the footage because I´ll use it in the film, but please trust me.
What is it about menstruation that makes us so uncomfortable? I´m a pretty liberal woman of the 21st century, and still. It has always been a tabu topic-- why? I think that, when things makes us unreasonably unfomfortable is exactly when we need to stop and force ourselves to examine what is going on, what makes us react that way. Tiding things up, let´s not forget that this was one of the reasons for me to make this video: I was a supporter of gay rights, but when it was about transgender people I would draw a line. Transvestites would make me unformfortable. It wasn´t rational, it just was. Heck, effeminate gay men would make me uncomfortable back then! So, while filming I explored what was really going on in my mind and that´s how this story helped me raise the bar for myself. Hopefully, it would do something similar for viewers, too.
So, keeping the spirit, what is the deal with menstruation? What worries me is that, as a woman, I feel like I should have a good reaction when confronted to art pieces questioning the taboos around menstruation. I feel like my bad reaction (not wanting to even look at it) probably comes from some sort of internalized misogyny. When I can´t look at that stupid pad at Aiden´s house, I feel like an anti-feminist woman of the 60s´. Or 40s´.
There is this video art piece done by a great Chilean architect/artist: Juan Downey. I can´t understand it, but at least I can look at it now. It is some progress. I need to figure this out...
The interesting detail is that, even though I wouldn´t look at the video and wouldn´t examine what does it make me feel and why, I "favorited" it and saved it in my YouTube account a while ago. Maybe I wasn´t in complete denial, but just needing some time.

Qué plancha!

Publishing these notes is just so embarrassing. It makes me want to edit them a lot. I know that would be cheating, and I want to publish them as they reflect my journey while reporting on Aiden´s own journey, but still! I´m publishing the notes from September and October: a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, and I would write them so differently now! This Thursday I´ll be meeting Aiden, and he is probably going to point out to the stuff I wrote back in September, like “so, what´s up with THIS note?” just so embarrassing. I´m meeting him in less than 48 hours, and I still haven´t said anything to him about this blog. I have “evolved” quite a bit, I promise! Darwin would be proud. Aiden, and all of you, need to wait until I have posted all the notes so you can see that there WAS a learning curve. If after that you still consider that I didn´t learn anything, well, then we can discuss, argue, fight, and all that fun stuff.


It´s taking some self-control not to edit those old posts too much.

Yeah, it's confirmed

You can cross-dress if you are a hot/cute girl and you have already proved it. It will actually make you look more cute, and/or hotter. Just make sure to make it obvious that you are just playing with it. It's all good.

Obsessed, as usual

I'm a little bit obsessed with the presence and portrayal of cross-dressing and transgender folks in the media and popular culture icons. What about literature, also? I feel like I have to read all the classics again; are transsexuals always prostitutes in literature? I'm pretty sure there is more to find. Is there any big-big classic piece slightly talking about cross-dressing? I can imagine this being a topic among the Victorians. The Romans, maybe? I'm not surprised, though, at the intensity of this interest. This is really who I am: all my research as a history student was on representation, otherness, that sort of stuff. Identity construction, yes, but more on the artistic representation of "others." A lot of image-based analysis. What happens is that I ended up reading my own context through the same lens. I over analyze the PR industry, music videos, commercials, advertisement on the public transportation...
Below, two videos: Fey (so 90s!) and Gloria Trevi. In Spanish, sorry, but I'm not so sure you really need to understand the lyrics, and most of Americans can deal with some Spanish anyways. I said I'm obsessed with this, so it is for sure I'll be posting about English-based stuff soon.


Oh, wait! I'm so cool that I found it with English subtitles ;)
A word about G.Trevi: she got involved in really, really messed up stuff, and then spent several years in jail. And then, this song came. It was weird, this song to be her "comeback." I think she saw a thing or two in jail.

HIV to be spread by the legalization of gay marriage?

Seriously? These are the things that make me mad! What else are they going to come up with to ban gay marriage in DC?
We shouldn´t even worry, tough. It is an unstoppable force. It´s gonna happen, and they better be prepared to accept it. Marx comes to my mind: "Un fantasma recorre Europa..."
Don´t know the quote in Eng XD!

Stop! I found it, I found it. It would be: A spectre is haunting DC. The spectre of....GAY MARRIAGE :))))))

Can I be Mickey?

After this project, I can see myself reacting differently to some things. Some of them are stupid, some are really important, and some seem stupid but actually mean a lot.
For example, Mickey. I have always been a fan. I am also a fan of costume parties. When I turned 22 years-old, I celebrated with a costume party and dressed up as Minnie. I "conformed" with Minnie: I look back now and I see that what I really wanted to be was Mickey, but I just didn't have the guts. It wasn't even a matter of sluttiness: I wasn't "sexy Minnie" anyways. I welcomed my friends with the dress, and then put black pants under the skirt. I feel like I could be Mickey now. OR ELVIS! Instead of the Backstreet Boys, I had a pic of Elvis in my bedroom when I was 15: would LOVE to be Elvis for Halloween or something, but I really don't think I could have ever gathered the guts for that if it weren't for this project :)
All this might sound exaggerated for some, but keep in mind that I'm SHY, OK? SHY! Being Mickey or Elvis would mean a lot!

This is pretty much the conclusion of this project

From GerderFork

 BUT I would have a follow-up question for this person: if it's so overrated, why would you make it the center of your activism?  Aren´t there any other more urgent causes?

After the vigil

I imported the footage from the vigil. The sound is not as bad as I thought it would be. I wish I had a boom mic, but well, I guess I can´t do it all. I´m not a magician.


I was going through the clips and, for the first time, I feared something could happen to Aiden. Something bad, something violent, because of being trans. Just the idea of it is like, no. No. My brain just rejects it; after meeting all these people, I can´t even stand the possibility of something like that to happen to any of them, or to Aiden.

I would be guilty, too. Not only I would feel guilty, but I would be guilty if something bad were to happen to Aiden. It is his decision to go so public about being trans and he is doing it on many platforms, but he is also doing it through resources that I, as a journalist, am making available to him. So, whether I like it or not, I would be responsible, too, if something bad were to happen to him. I know most journalists would disagree. Not that I really care: too much about individual rights and too little about social compromise among journalists.

It´s interesting how these feelings came when I was editing, but not when I was filming. Is it because of the repetition? Because I look 20 times to the same 20 seconds of footage? Is it because I´m alone in the editing room, and it´s late at night? Or is it because, when you are filming, you hide behind the viewfinder and “filter” whatever is going on? It´s funny because, when you watch a documentary you are like “oh, my God, look what he had a chance to witness; it must have been so hard to be there,” but that´s not how the filmmaker experiences what he films. I am learning about it now. It´s like not being there. During the vigil, every once in a while I would put my camera down so I could connect with what was happening. But during the actual filming, I feel more like an animal. A machine, a beast, you name it. I only begin to process things in the editing room.

They say this is dangerous. Think about war reporters: you just get closer and closer to the action, because you are not feeling it is real. Heck! What am I talking about! I´m CHILEAN! We know about this: Henrichsen. This foreign reporter filmed his own death during Chile´s dark days. He got trapped in his filmmaking and, well, the Chilean military men of the 80´s know nothing about limits …
 

Follow up on HIV/AIDS

Confirmed.  I goggled and did my homework. The main issue is invisibility: transgender people are not always targeted by the studies and statistics regarding HIV.  Sometimes, M to F folks are just treated as MSM (MEN who have sex with men!) because the statistics don´t include gender identity as something different from sex. Alternatives had been proposed regarding data-collecting methodology. M to F individuals tend to work as prostitutes and engage in risky behaviors. F to M individuals tend to engage in high-risk sexual behavior, too, even though, so far, the disease isn´t badly spread among them. I found this very nice article at The Body, from where I´m quoting (bolds are mine):

Inclusion of FTMs in studies is not as common. The limited data shows that, compared to MTFs, HIV-infection levels among FTMs are low (e.g., 2% in San Francisco and 3% in Washington, D.C.). The available data on HIV risk, though, gives cause for concern. For example, a colleague and I analyzed data from two needs assessment studies in Philadelphia and Chicago, which included FTMs, to compare risk for HIV infection between MTFs and FTMs. We found that compared to MTFs, FTMs were significantly less likely to have used protection the last time they had sex and significantly more likely to have engaged in recent high-risk sexual activity.

Where do we begin to fix this mess?

The things a journalist has to do...

What he doesn't know is that I hate-hate pictures. It doesn't matter whether I look good or not, I just really don't like them. There are about 4 years in my life in which no photograph of me was taken, because I hate them so much. How did I look like when I was, let's say, 14? No way to know. My boyfriends never have pictures of the "happy couple" either. But here I am, voluntarily in front of the lens so he can test his settings!

HIV/AIDS

Now that I´m about to finish this project and my whole journalism program, I´m tiding things up. I had a class in which we reported on HIV/AIDS in DC and I was very into it, did lots of extra research on my own. I might launch a project on HIV once I get back home in Chile.

Whatever, the thing is that I have been thinking about how transgender man can protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. Let’s be serious, but honest: the body of a transgender man is different from the one of a genetic male. I don´t think there are condoms for a transgender man. Then, how do they protect themselves? They have penetrative sex, so they are at risk. Should they rely on their partners’ responsibility? Bad idea. Just go and ask African-American women and Latinas about trusting their partners and the HIV/AIDS rates they have been getting lately. If I learned something during my class is that, if you want to stay away from the virus, you need to take care of your own business. Yep, that means being a girl who carries condoms in her purse.

Back to transgender men: how do they protect themselves? And if you are a girl dating a transgender man, how do you protect yourself? Do you assume that, because he is trans, he doesn´t get much action and therefore you are safe? Sounds risky to me. Also sounds like looking down at him.

S.O.S!!! Susan, WHERE ARE YOU?!

I want to ask Susan so many questions. She is a great documentary filmmaker who gave a class in my program during the Spring. I think she is the only filmmaker I have had as a professor, and now that I'm going through this project I want to ask her so many things.
How is that documentary filmmakers hire editors? I think I could never do that. I mean, that's to give someone else SO much power over your story! Does Susan edit her pieces? Does she hire someone, build a strong relationship, and then that person is always the editor for her movies?
I think I would like to be a documentary filmmaker who gets her hands dirty and just edits her own pieces. At least, I would like to be the one selecting the clips and, of course, building the structure of the piece. I can hire someone to do the color correction (oh,yeah!!!!!) but not for the editing itself. But it's pretty obvious that there is something that I'm missing here, since you can see editors other than the director in the credits of each and every respectable doc.
I think I'll try to attend one of Susan classes before I leave the country, since she's running again the class I took. I mean, this question is just the (how do they say it here?) top/tip/point of the iceberg. I need her advice on the relationship you establish with your subject, and she is THE ONE to ask about this, because she worked on the same subject for 8 years. She is a really warm, nice, sensitive person and I'm pretty sure she gets really attached to her subjects. Susan, come and SAVE FROM MYSELF!

This is Susan's doc trailer

No dummies

Why do sources think we are stupid? Why do they think they can hide stuff from us? Why do they think they are smarter than us, therefore, that they can make some things unnoticeable for us? GUESS WHAT: we DO see those things, it´s just that we go home, then EVALUATE if it´s relevant or not for us to ask about them. Sometimes, the conclusion we reach is that if you are hiding stuff from us is because it would do great damage to you if those things were to be published. And we might decide to protect you and not even touch the issue. Sometimes, we find that we would impact the current relationships in your life if we were to ask. Those times, after a lot of thinking, we might decide to play dumb, not to ask you about it, not to impact your life too much with our story. But we see what you try to hide. We are TRAINED to see things, ok? YOU SMART.

What about us?

We should be protected, too. We, as journalists, should be taught how to emotionally protect ourselves from our sources. It´s all about how do we, journalists, protect them, sources, from emotional damage. Well, who takes care of us? We make sure they understand that we are not their friends, even though we would go to jail in order to keep their off-the-record confidences. We are also all about making sure our intervention in their lives does not impact them too deeply. We make sure our presence doesn´t reshape any previously built relationships they may have. We even “prepare” them for the moment in which we will be gone. That´s all fine and good but who, please who! protects us from the emotional damage that they may cause in us? and from getting too involved? We help them to digest the experience of being featured; who protects us from the impact of their stories? What about their presence in our lives and the impact of that presence?

Who protects me when I´m trying to go back home and tears won´t let me drive safely?

War reporters get help, but war is not the only place where stories can be too much to handle and people too hard to leave behind.

Body language

I was editing today, sort of, and noticed something interesting: Aiden´s body language has been evolving since we began filming. His posture and his gestures during our first and second interview are so different to the way he behaves on camera now! Looking back, I can see him totally playing the “I´m being interviewed” role. Adorable. He looks so serious and put together. There is some magic in being able to go back in time a bit and see how he was behaving at the beginning of the project, and how that has changed. He is all laughs and jokes now, especially when I´m still setting up the equipment but the camera is already recording.

There is something deeper about this, tough: I get the feeling that, during our first interview, not only was he trying hard to be coherent and articulated, but he was also paying a lot of attention to details in order to confirm his masculinity to me. Or to the camera. It´s really amazing: he is wearing a brown, very masculine shirt (he wears whatever now, I think) and every once in a while he would just re-accommodate himself in the couch, like, making sure his posture, shoulders, and hands were ok. It´s hard to explain, I could act it but I can´t describe it in Eng: after a long answer, or while I´m trying to frame a question, he would look at himself and sort of “revise” his posture and his shoulders. Sometimes he does it when he is in the “ummms” and “likes” that Americans use to decorate everything they say. After doing this short, barely noticeable check on himself, he would be back to his answers.

He doesn´t care that much now. It´s just Aiden now. Well, “Aiden for the press,” I guess, not that I know the real Aiden. I´ll try not to use that first interview, because his smile is…just...Aiden´s best feature. And his eyes. During that first interview, he is so self-conscious about his body and gestures that the camera misses his face lighting up when he is talking. By the second half of the interview things begin to get better, he laughs a bit, but it´s interesting to see how every once in a while he would “remember” to keep a posture, a masculine posture, and would make a very slight, almost unnoticeable gesture that would make him look masculine and put together. The problem is that he gives me good stuff in that interview, so maybe I should use it anyways…we´ll see.

Is this the cake we didn´t make?

We were (ok, they were) supposed to make a cake with a bunch of colors. People from Miqa were supposed to go to Aiden´s house and bake a cake with butter and the rainbow colors, but it had to be cancelled because of this stupid rain that is about to inundate the city!
I REALLY wanted that footage! :(
And I actually wanted to learn how to make this cake!
Picture stolen from here

Soccer field

Here is Aiden explaining to his model what the series is about. It was so, so much fun to look at him just entering the field with his camera. Hilarious photo session.

Lady Gaga

One of the things that surprised me during the march was the strong connection that Lady Gaga has with the LGBT community. They love her. We were there, just listening to the speakers, and all of a sudden people started to stand up, move, you know, something was going on. Then I heard a guy asking: "Lady Gaga time?" and he stood up. She entered the stage and the crowd went wild-wild. I was surprised, I had no idea! I mean, it is Lady Gaga, it is just pop music, really mainstream, and somehow I thought that they wouldn't be into something like that. I know, that's such a stereotype, a simplification, but it is the truth: I thought as a community they would be into more alternative artists. But then I was "informed:" it seems to be that this girl is bi, and she is not afraid to speak supporting the LGBT community and their struggle. She stood there and gave an awesome speech. Never to be forgotten: "Obama, I know you are listening. ARE YOU LISTENIIIING!"
Now I'm interested. And listening. Now I like Lady Gaga.

PS: I have my own footage of the speakers ;) just wait.

Remember Thomas Beatie?

This is the story that inspired Aiden´s project on pregnant men. Well, this is one of the inspirations, since the project also touches onmen´s bodies and the media interfering on people´s family size.




Aiden made a comment or two about how the picture of this guy had been softened, and about how effeminate they make him look.

Dominant girls.

He likes “dominant” girls? That´s the expression he used. Dominant girls. I assumed he liked hyper-girly girls, because those would affirm his masculinity, but no, he likes “dominant girls.” What does that mean? Masculine girls? But most of those are lesbians! He is going to have real trouble finding a straight girl who is also masculine. I mean, it looks like he likes the same girls he used to like before transitioning; the problem that I see is that most of those girls are lesbians. He is a man now, so these girls shouldn´t even look at him. I mean, if I were Aiden, I would be pretty offended if a masculine girl who lives out as a lesbian were to put her eyes on me, because she would be openly questioning my masculinity.


Bisexuality can make things even trickier: it could be used as a cover by a girl who likes girls, wants to sleep with Aiden, but doesn´t want Aiden to find out that she doesn´t consider him to be a complete man. It can be a nice shortcut: “Oh, Aiden, I have always been a lesbian, but just and only because of you I consider myself to be bisexual now.” Yeah, right: sorry, but I think that a lesbian who switches to bisexuality when facing Aiden is just a lesbian who doesn´t consider Aiden to be a man.

Just email, my dear

Everybody, I mean EVERYBODY I tell about the project asks me the same questions: "where did you meet him? Did you know him before thinking about your project?" Of course not! I´m not THAT lazy! Am I lazy? Yes; do I wait until the last minute to get things done, in a typical Latino fashion? Yes, but it´s not such a CHRONIC condition of laziness!
I learned about him because I read this article at Metro Weekly. Then I emailed him. TA-DA!!

The image is from Metro Weekly´s website, of course.

He is giving me homework

So Aiden sent me some links to other videos and docs about transgender people. And about genderqueer people, which is something absolutely new to me. "Genderqueer" means that you don´t conform either with being a girl or a boy, so you choose to be both. Uh?
I don´t know how I feel about this. Maybe it is a bit too much. At least, this is how I felt before watching the videos.
Afterwards, yeah, it is still a bit awkward, but there is one aspect of being genderqueer that I really liked. One of the subjects featured said something on the lines of "I disagree with the sex I was born into, so I am challenging that." Challenging. The series are called "Gender Rebel." That means, it is a matter of being critical thinkers, a matter of looking at what was given to them and questioning it. Analizing it. Then rebeling against it. I like that! They dare to question and challenge the notion of "nature" and, considering the incredible amount of nonsense that gets justified in the name of "nature" I think that to question nature is something we need to do. I feel like being genderqueer is like being an anarchist, but regarding gender instead of politics. Nice move.
Now that I think about it, I can see this becoming a trend among anarchists in South America. "Cuestiónalo todo" ("question everything") they say: I can see them adopting a gender-fluid appearence because of the implied statement: gender should be looked at with a critical eye. The current understanding of gender as a static notion justified in the name of nature needs to be challenged.
Can´t wait to be back home and see if I can find any anarchists who have already made the connection.

Email

I just emailed Aiden thanking him for his help with this project. I´m just so excited, and so happy, and a bit scared. I mean, now THIS will be to work in English. Interviewing in English several times. What about rapport and all that stuff? There is just no chance to screw up here. I just can´t screw up, it´s out of the question.
I´m not quite sure he will be good on camera, but I don´t care anymore. There is this one thing I saw in him that I love: he is a bit shy, he is a bit insecure, but he seems to be one of those people who fights it. Someone who says "Ok, so I´m shy. Being shy forces you to stay focused on yourself, and makes it difficult to connect with people. Pretty stupid: then I don´t want to be shy." What follows is a daily struggle against one´s insecurities. I can relate to that. I am the same way. I can relate to this guy. This is enough for me to like him. My subject is great :))
I am going to make of this project whatever it is that I want it to be. No more struggling. I deserve to enjoy this. So I emailed him about that.

He said, among many other things, that I was very "honest." Gulp. I know why he said that: when we met at the cafeteria, he asked what did I think about trans people before reading his interview at Metro Weekly. I responded something on the lines of  "Well, I have always considered myself to be on gays side when it comes to marriage and adoption rights, but changing one´s sex? I just thought that was in the bag of the crazy things that happen in this crazy world." Jesus Christ teach me to shut up!

I AM SOOO EXCITED. AND SCARED

I hope he´s good on camera. If he´s too shy, I´ll be in trouble. But I like shy people. Specifically shy guys; they are a challenge. We are meeting next Thursday to film for the first time, and I´m bringing lunch. I don´t think there is an ethical-whatever with that, we have plenty of time for the subject-interviewer relationship, and I´m trying to break the ice here!

I have a subject :))

He said yes! He said yes: I HAVE A CAPSTONE PROJECT THANK YOU DEAR GOD IF YOU ARE ACTUALLY OUT THERE!
So we met at a public place, we talked about the project and he said YES. I would have been in a considerable amount of trouble otherwise; ´cause the project I presented to my advisor is sort of “designed” for this guy´s story!!

But there is one thing: he was like “yes,” “yeah, that sounds fine,” “sure, we could do that.” I mean, almost no questioning of my motives, my resumé, my persona. And I was prepared to “fight back” and sort of “win” his trust as a subject so he would let me do the video. This piece is about really personal stuff: It´s about body issues, gender, sexuality, coming out... I´m sure he understood that, I made it very clear that I will ask all sorts of questions and that this is not a one-time interview, that I´ll be following him a lot and stuff. So his reaction is weird. Maybe he´ll become trickier later, once we are in the middle of an interview. Maybe he doesn´t care about the project at all and that´s why he´s like “oh, yeah, that sounds fine.” If that´s the case, I´m screwed: the interviews will go nowhere and I´ll get no intimacy. But that can´t be! Seriously, we are talking about a hormonal process that changed his life!

So, how is he? Well, I told him I was going to wear a pink scarf so he could recognize me. I sat in some sort of bar (cafeteria, of course no alcohol) and waited for him. He didn´t see me; I recognized him instantly and I turned around. I can´t describe the moment really, but it was a bit awkward.