y2gender

A few transgender characters have recently appeared in Prairie Home Companion skits, I haven’t found these characterizations very flattering to transpeople. You can hear the shows I cite (and read scripts) at their online archive, search by date to find them. I don’t know if they’ll publish my letter, so I’m sharing it here.

Dear Mr Keillor,

I was listening to the April 25, 2009 broadcast of Prairie Home Companion yesterday. A transsexual character appeared briefly during the Guy Noir segment. It was mentioned that she happened to have transitioned twice, first from male to female, and then back to male again. Her reason, bad timing becoming a woman just in time for menopause. I often enjoy the show, however I’m sorry to say that I didn’t find this depiction of a transgender woman to be positive or respectful to transgender people. It minimized what transgender people go through to transition.

This reminded me of hearing the Feb 21, 2009 show on which there was a sketch titled “Adventurers” including a character named Gene who suffered from “chronic androgyny". In my opinion, the androgynous character seemed to embody the least desirable traits of either binary gender, in an attempt to elicit laughs. I meant to write about this previously but didn’t get to it. I’ve just listened to this sketch again to see if I might perceive it differently. My opinion hasn’t changed since hearing this a few months ago, so I’m writing about it now.

Transgender people are among the most marginalized in our society. Often when a person re-transitions, it isn’t due to not having been transsexual, but because of extenuating circumstances when they transitioned such as loss of family, friends, marriage, employment, career, housing, etc. In addition, transgender people are too often victims of violent hate crimes or murder because of living openly. Among the transgender community, there are some people who identify as androgyne. Some androgynes consider themselves to be a mix of male and female, others, such as myself, feel ourselves to be neither binary gender.

I transitioned male to female, and after a year living in my preferred gender, re-transitioned. Not back to male, but to a gender space somewhere between. Perhaps my experiences and sensitivity to transgender issues is why I didn’t find these two segments funny, and even found them bordering on offensive to an oppressed minority. I believe your show can do better than this. You have an opportunity to present transgender people in a way that is both humorous and educational to an audience who would be receptive to learning more about us.

If you wish to know more about transsexuals who re-transition and also people who identify as androgyne, I invite you to read the following three articles about these topics posted on my blog:

What is an androgyne anyway?
Re-transition
Stigma of de-transition

Thanks for listening. I look forward to hearing future depictions of transgender and androgyne people on Prairie Home Companion that celebrate who we are in a positive manner.

Zythyra