Sperm integrity, Rock-Ola, lame-dancing (I mean line-dancing), karaoke, and turkwaz…

That experience taught me empathy for the humility of women in “stirrups” for exams. Me legs were put in them, and then this sheet comes toward me with a hole in it, maybe 6-8 inches in diameter. The sheet went across my torso from about mid-stomach down to my thighs, and then my stuff was pulled through that hole. Give me the Valium now, I screamed in my head. Actually, it wasn’t the entirety of the stuff that was pulled through, but just the part they would be working with, if you know what I mean. Sort of like just the Prada bag hanging out, if you will. Which was a good thing, because by then, the other accessory had headed north, farther even than it did the last time I jumped into a freezing cold swimming pool.

One would think that that would be enough humiliation for the day, but then the doctor said, “Mr. Martin, if you don’t mind, we have some interns that we’d like to allow in to watch the procedure.” Oh yeah, please sit them in the front row with a vat of popcorn and a soda the size of a horse’s leg, I thought. More Valium, please.

Okay, so let me set the stage for the conference and for this particular session. First of all, a majority of the attendees at the Gender Pac conference are transgender folks. Some straight people were there (for instance, companies and organizations sending their HR folks there to be educated), and of course some bi, gay and lesbian folks. I was there because IBM became a corporate-level sponsor of the conference this year, and as a result was awarded complimentary tickets. I met two of my IBM colleagues there, one a gay man, the other a lesbian.

This particular session was led by a panel, with one moderator sitting on the panel. The moderator is a fairly well-known civil rights activist butch lesbian. She is not transgender. She loves to dress totally in men’s clothes. That day she had on a man’s suit, complete with a tie (not a clip-on). Her hair is very short, gray, and combed back. So, she is the moderator, is a woman, but looks somewhat like a man.

Joining her on the panel is “Sissy.” Sissy is a totally straight man, and he could look no straighter. He has that ruddy complexion — like that of a drinker — thinning gray hair, no make-up — he looks totally like a “man.” However, he is wearing a quite short, pleated skirt — very much like high school cheerleaders wear — and a cute, short-sleeved frilly blouse. He is from Montana — out in the sticks. He is here at the conference because he is totally ostracized from all our communities — gay, straight, and trans — just because he feels more comfortable in a skirt and blouse. He actually dresses like that all the time at home — including at his job — from which he was fired, and with legal action, rehired. He is constantly verbally abused, and has been arrested three times, one time buying a birthday card for his daughter in a local card shop. That’s all he was doing.

Joining them on the panel is a drag-king. She is the headliner in the Great Big International Drag King Show II, which was one of the conference’s main entertainment events that you could attend. So, she is a woman who dresses up like a man for her act. At this moment though, she is dressed, and looks, like a woman.

The panel discussion begins with the moderator, the lesbian dressed like a man, calling on folks in the audience for their thoughts. The first person she calls on to comment on whether drag is in support of or against feminism is a transsexual female-to-male youth. This boy, who used to be a girl, is wearing a red baseball cap and has on a tank-top. His youth, more than anything else, makes it hard to determine if he is a boy or a girl, though. However, the moderator refers to him as a “her,” and he corrects her by saying, “I am a boy.” Unfortunately, the moderator didn’t hear this comment (the boy is half-hidden from the moderator behind a pole, which doesn’t help things). The young man makes his comment, and the discussion continues, with the moderator sweeping the room from left to right taking questions and comments.

The discussion has moved along, and Sissy (on the panel), the totally straight man dressed in the skirt and blouse, now speaks, and then takes comments and questions, starting back on the left side of the room. He calls on the same young boy (with the red cap and tank top), and in acknowledging him refers to him as a “she.” Uh oh!

The boy stands up, puts his hands on his hips, and yells (much to the entire room’s horror), “I am a trannyboy! I said I was a ‘he,’ and this is the second time I’m called a ‘she!’ I would think that this place, here of all places, people would get it right!”

Total quiet in the place.

The butch lesbian moderator says,”Hold it now! Time out! First of all, let me apologize to you. I’m one of the people who referred to you as a “she,” and I didn’t hear you correct me. I’m sorry for that. Second of all, we cannot assume that everyone here knows everything about transgender people and transgender issues; many people are here to learn just that. People are going to make mistakes. We need to learn from each other and be patient, and most of all, we all need to be respectful.”

In the meantime, Sissy, who started this whole thing, sort of has his head cocked like he is totally confused, and now he says, “Trannyboy??? I don’t even know what that is! I’m from Montana. We only have three colored people in the whole town!”

A collective breath is drawn in by the entire room. A black, lesbian standing right next to me, bends over with her hands covering her face and shaking her head, saying, “No he didn’t say colored people!”

The room was in pandemonium.

Just at this time, I looked around the room, and I thought, “My God. This is like being in the twilight zone.”