Beyond the Yellow Brick Road

I went on Friday night to the midnight show of a new play being presented by Wings, a gay theater company on Christopher Street in Manhattan.

This is the plot, as recounted on the show's web site:

"Possible Nobel-Prize-winning head of the Department of Hydraulic Engineering at M.I.T. runs away from it all to build a shrine to Judy Garland because she 'knew life'. His mother, the world most renowned Freudian psychoanalyst, hunts him down pleading for him to return: 'to give up the eyelashes and go back into analysis'. Meanwhile, a religious fanatic bursts in and tries to convert them both but is set upon by the mother who uses her 'industrial strength sensitivity training' developed in her book 'Secularization for Dummies' and literally rebirths the Bible thumper on stage turning him into the 'perfectly analyzed man'. The show is best described as an outrageous Joe Orton dark satirical comedy with the Marx Brothers mixed in."

Well ... I think that's the show I saw, but I'm not certain. More on that in a moment.

I was told about this show by a friend of mine who's absolutely queer for Judy Garland. JG is a supposed gay icon -- there was even some ridiculous story about how gays rioted during the Stonewall rebellion because of Garland's death or some nonsense -- but as I told my friend, the first time I ever had a conversation abut Garland in a gay bar was when I met him about two years ago. [Actually the first time I had a conversation about the lady in a gay bar was with the straight-identified bartender at Boots and Saddle, whom I later came to refer to [with some affection] as "the malevolent munchkin". A subconscious connection I suppose. Anyway I used to enjoy the plays at the Ridiculous Theater company and thought this might be along those lines so I said "let's go!"

I don't know if my friend was hoping to see a play about Garland. This is really a play about a drag queen obsessed with Garland -- it has fun with stereotypes. The play was written by the two lead actors, Michael L Natale [pictured], who plays the drag queen, and John L. Wood, who plays his mother. [John O'Neil played the religious zealot.] I always love it when drag queens are, or at least are played by, guys who are kind of butch even when they're in drag; it's an amusing gender-bender.

We waited almost fifteen minutes for the play to start, and at first I thought that it was some kind of guerrilla theater. This is the play, I told my friend as I looked at the empty stage. Someone in front of me pointed out a table with a cocktail glass and several prescription bottles on it and said, "Look -- her last meal" a bit of black humor that I found funny but my friend did not.

Now let me confess right here that I had one cocktail and two glasses of wine with dinner. I also had another drink at the Ramrod across the street, and frankly I think if New York Times reviewers made a full disclosure of how much they imbibed before they went to the preview it might explain their opinions more fully. So take this with a grain of salt -- or a glass or two.

Now I'm not certain if this was really part of the show or not, but apparently the actor playing the mother -- with huge false boobs and a fright wig, making him resemble Mammy Yokum of Li'l Abner -- kept going off script or ad libbing. He even apologized at the end of the play, although the ad libs were always funny and added to the amusement. So, as I said, I'm not even certain if I actually saw the play as scripted, but I had fun anyway. Besides this is a farce and ad libbing is always part of the action. [Although the real drama may have occured in the dressing room after the play was over, LOL!]

At one point Natale turned to the audience and said: "So you wanna be in show business, eh? This is what always fucking happens!" Then he turned to his co-star and said "You wrote the fucking thing. Just pick out a part in the script. Any part!"

Before long the religious zealot came on and Mother made her moves on him, boobs and all, which wound up with them sort of wrestling across the floor of the stage. "No wonder I'm gay!" screamed Natale.

Okay, you've got the idea that this is not a gay version of Long Day's Journey Into Night, but it is a lot of fun, and frankly, you never know what you're gonna get. You might even see the actual play! It has one more performance at Wings [154 Christopher Street] this coming Friday, May 29th at Midnight [okay technically that's May 30th, but it's Friday night, okay?] and then Natale and company hope to take it on the road or find another home for it.

I like Natale very much as a performer. He has a natural born flair for comedy. I also got a kick out of Wood and O'Neil. The tickets are only $15 for over an hour of fun. If you wear a costume you'll get in for a measly $12 and you might even be asked to play a role in the show.

For more info and to order tickets you can go to the Wings website or the play's website.

Here's my suggestion. Have dinner at Fedora's Italian restaurant at 239 W 4th Street [212-242-9691]. They take reservations up until 9:30 PM.I recommend the chicken parmigiana, which is very tasty. They also have the best Roquefort dressing I've ever had. Very gay-friendly, nice waiters, and owner Fedora is a sweetheart. Inexpensive, too.

You'll have time to kill after dinner, so walk down toward the theater and have a drink across the street at the Ramrod, which used to be called the Dug Out (but which was originally called the Ramrod). The new manager there is handsome Robert, who is also manager of Boots and Saddle and used to be a waiter at Fedora's.

And of course you can also stop at Ty's bar on Christopher Street if you can get in -- as it tends to be packed on the weekends [and full of hot guys!]

Enjoy!

Wanna Fuck Buck?

Ever since the days of Christine Jorgensen the public has been aware that there were men who got sex changes and became women. A comparatively recent phenomenon is the female-to-male transsexual, and there seem to be many of them these days. Although many of these FTM transgenders get artificial penises, apparently these do not look very convincing and in addition cost around $100,000. So some of the FTM transgenders just keep their vaginas. A case in point is the transgender porn star Buck Angel [see the comically overstated photo above], who is billed as "the man with a pussy." Buck appears in adult films targeted for the gay market and identifies himself as, you guessed it, bisexual. He has a bisexual wife (a body-piercing "weirdo" named Elayne Angel) but told one interviewer that he and other FTMs like him go to gay bars and pick up the "edgier" or "kinkier" members of gay male society. In other words, people who think it would be kinda cool to fuck a guy with a pussy (although I imagine many of them would prefer to go in through the back door, if you know what I mean). Buck says he has never been fucked in the ass, however.

We’ll get back to Buck and his ilk in a moment. First let me say that I support rights for the transgendered – including gay and straight transsexuals, gays with characteristics of the opposite sex or transvestites with opposite sex identities, the androgynous, and so on. I can’t say I identity with any of these people in any particular fashion (aside from acknowledging the fact that we’re all "queer" and discriminated against) but I do sympathize with their struggles. Today many of the transgendered have a remarkable confidence and pride -- at least when they're in a group and/or have support from loved ones -- and while you can feel sorry for them and what they have to go through in a prejudicial society, I can’t say that I find them in any way pitiable, (although perhaps at one time I did. And some, of course, may be just a teensy bit odd.)

Still, there are troubling questions, some of which center on transsexuals who identify as straight. Most of these, of course, would have been considered homosexual while they were still in their original biological bodies. After transitioning, they generally remain attracted to the same sex as before and therefore become – in a way – heterosexual. (Transsexuals feel that whatever their biological condition, they are actually male or female, as the case may be, both before and after surgery. Therefore a gay male transgender was a gay man even when he had breasts and a vagina, and other trannies insist they were always heterosexual. Boy do they insist!

And this is where the troubling aspect comes in, the borderline (and not so borderline) homophobic attitudes that have been expressed – too often for my comfort zone – by straight-identified transsexuals. External and internalized homophobia can strike every segment of the LGBT community it seems. For instance, on the LOGO TV series Transgeneration (which seemed to focus primarily on straight-identified trannies), a male to female trans named Raci gives a lecture on what it’s like to be transsexual and is asked if she’s ever had sex with another woman. Raci makes a disgusted face and says "No! Never!" as if the very idea is anathema to her. The lecture hall bursts into laughter, but whether the people there were giving in to their own homophobia, reacting to Raci’s, or simply thinking to themselves "of course she doesn’t want to have sex with a woman – she’s basically a gay man" is uncertain. Probably all three.

In the documentary film Southern Comfort, a transgendered man named Robert Eads insists over and over that he’s hetero even though the object of his affection – supposedly a male to female transsexual named Lola who lives most of the time as a man named John – comes off as nothing so much as a typical (and very likable) drag queen. They come off as a gay couple by any objective standard. Raci (although she can "pass" easier than others) also comes off as a drag queen and so does another MTF hetero trannie from Transgeneration named Gabbie, who is less successful than Rani at "passing." Watching Gabbie dining with her family and boyfriend or accepting an award from GLAAD, she seems little different from the stereotypical "queen."

Eads and the other FTM transsexuals in Southern Comfort for the most part seem very masculine, and if you weren’t clued in from the beginning you would probably take them for "ordinary" males. However, late in the film we see the dying Eads in a wheelchair and you can catch sight of the "woman" who once existed (Eads had been married and pregnant more than once) underneath the world-weary facade – Eads simply looks like a grandmother who’s pasted on a false mustache and beard so she can have fun with her grand kids on Halloween.

Undoubtedly the truth is that the transsexual community can be as diverse as the gay community, and there are some "transitions" that are more successful and convincing than others. Yet some times you’re given a sudden disturbing impression that reminds one of the now politically-incorrect observation that transsexuals are just gay people who can’t deal with their sexuality and would rather cross over and become heterosexual than face the facts. Of course this is pretty far-fetched – surely it’s easier to accept one’s homosexuality than to have a sex-change operation and everything that goes with it. And many transsexuals do clearly come off as the opposite gender (as opposed to merely being "effeminate" or "mannish") even before they have any surgery, making it clear – to me at least – that definite transsexuals do exist. (And I fear that young teen trannies get a hell of a lot more support than those who "come out" and transition much later in life.) But in some cases ...

The trans who merely seem like drag queens or butch lesbians may be less successful attempts at transitioning, but it begs the question if some of them are in a different classification. And the fact that some in this grouping are a bit homophobic only makes it more confusing. If prejudice is generally caused by an inferiority complex, you can understand why the transgendered can be homophobic. I’m not saying transsexuals are inferior, only that it’s no wonder many of them feel that way given the level of misunderstanding and prejudice they have to deal with, something that all other minority groups from gays to African-Americans can certainly understand. But while there may be a reason behind it that doesn’t excuse it.

Candidates for sexual realignment surgery must receive counseling, but are all psychiatrists sophisticated enough to tell a self-hating homosexual, or a dizzy queen who wants to make his fantasies of being a real lady become real, from a true transsexual? Hopefully most of them are, and don’t just react in a pc manner that says "If you say you’re transsexual you must be transsexual." Which doesn’t make any more sense that accepting that someone is straight or bisexual just because he or she says so. (As I’ve said many times, people rarely lie about being gay.) Even Buck Angel says that switching genders is becoming easy and "trendy," and that some people go underground to get hormones and wind up deeply regretting their decision.

Of course we then have to turn around and ask if many drag queens, especially those who live as women most of the time, are really gay men or are instead transsexuals. Is having a female identification the same as being female? Traditionally there are reasons why some gay men think of themselves in female terms (their attraction to men, for instance). It may also be an acknowledgment of – and even pride in – their effeminate demeanor. This may be entirely different from being transsexual, however. You occasionally hear butch gay men calling each other "Mary" or something along those lines, but this (or a variation of it) seems to happen more often amongst femmes. Some femmes identity strongly with women, and others – despite a vaguely effeminate demeanor or androgynous manner – are strictly guys, and think of themselves as same. Effeminacy and transsexualism don’t always go together. Is a drag queen who is basically female 24/7 a transsexual deep down or a type of gay man living out a "fabulous" fantasy? Ironically, some very effeminate men get very angry if you talk to them as if they’re women despite the drag, make up, mannerisms, and all that goes with it.

As for Buck Angel: Is the porn star with a pussy – as well as a beard, chest hair, and a masculine aura – a true transsexual, or a strange bi-identified lady living out one of the world’s most bizarre and complicated fetishes? Is this role-playing, acting, carried to a strange and fascinating extreme? In his "former life," Angel was supposedly a very feminine top fashion model ["I was not an ugly bulkdyke (italics mine)," he says, perhaps revealing a little more of that trans- homophobia we've been talking about.] Watching Robert Eads and and his buddy, another FTM transsexual named Max, conferring in Southern Comfort, it almost feels as if you’re watching two women giving a frantic theatrical performance, each trying to out-butch the other as the camera and the audience looks on. Observing FTM transsexuals at work and play you occasionally get the impression that some of them have an almost desperate (and understandable) need to come off as much, much butcher than any man who was actually born with a penis (a need to come off as macho? -- gee, they really are men, aren’t they?), just as drag queens want to come off as more fabulous, feminine and glamorous than any actual female. (Honest-to-goodness transgendered females seem to be less ostentatious than drag queens.) [PC advisory: these are admittedly subjective impressions, not meant to put anyone down.]

Buck Angel claims that a penis doesn't define a man, but it certainly helps. (He has to use dildoes when he wants to fuck anyone.) In one sense, of course, he's right, in that men who can't perform, have been castrated, or lost their organs due to illness or accident, are still male. But a man with a pussy (or an expensive "penis" that doesn't quite look right) must feel an awful need to be as hyper-masculine as possible to make up for it. And can this lead to a kind of macho mind-set that can be as unappealing, if not more so, in men-who-were-once-women (and "ordinary" women) as it is in men born with cocks? Judging from interviews (his porn films don't interest me, but then I've never had much interest in porn, it being a spectator sport) Buck sort of comes off in part like one of these swaggering a-holes who fuck around with other men but God forbid if you dare suggest they're gay.

Buck does his best to deny that having a pussy makes him less of a man, then turns around and says that when he's getting screwed by men in his "gay" porn films, the vagina makes the action kind of "straight" as well. He's got a point, of course, but gee, I thought he was supposed to be all-man -- how can his male on male action be considered straight? Buck does everything else -- can't he get used to taking it up the ass as well? Or is that too "gay?" Maybe he and other FTMs keep the pussy because they really prefer it over a dick, even one that came up to their -- and everyone else's -- standards. Buck says he'd get a dick if the science and surgey was up to par, but who knows? [Let's make it clear now that Buck is only one kind of FTM transgender male, and we shouldn't assume that every FTM acts like him or agrees with him. For instance, many FTMs feel a penis is quite important. And I'm sure most are not swaggering a-holes.]

I don’t know if there are as many FTM trans men cruising the back rooms of gay bars as Buck Angel suggests. Talking about Buck, friends of mine admitted they sometimes get freaked out looking around the bar and wondering which of those hot macho studs with their beards and chest hair and attitudes could be hiding a pussy under his jeans. This is not bigotry and it isn't a "fear" of the vagina; gay men tend to be into dick, after all. I find it homophobic to suggest, as some do [occasionally bi's and trans, wouldn't you know it?], that there's something wrong with a man because he doesn't find a pussy all that desirable. Most gay men may not be out and out disgusted by vaginas, women, or heterosexuality, but pussies are not exactly a big turn on, either. [On this point Buck seems to be clueless.] That's just being gay and what the hell is wrong with that?

Anyway, the next time you're in the Eagle -- in whatever city -- take a closer look at that hairy, overcompensating, hyper-macho mustachioed man busy acting up a storm before you chat him up.

Or you could be in for some Vagina Monologues.

The End of "Gay Rights"

No, there's no more Gay Rights Movement.

Now there's just the LGBT – or GLBT-- movement. (Sometimes I call it the Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Movement.)

The justification for this is obvious. By combining the numbers of gays and lesbians with the numbers of bisexuals (real or imagined) and transvestites (presumably straight as well as gay?) and transsexuals for political purposes you get a much larger minority group and this can have long-term benefits in terms of both voting and spending power. Even gay-friendly groups seem to be illogically lowering the percentage of gays in the world via various bullshit “studies” so it seems necessary to lump all the sexual minorities under one umbrella.

Still...

I consider myself a Gay Activist – not an LGBT activist. The reasons are simple. Out of the other sexual minorities under the umbrella, I identify the most with lesbians simply because they, like me, are gay. I identify with bisexuals only when they're in long-term same-sex relationships (otherwise – to be frank – I have little use for them and they for me). And I identify with transvestites (straight or gay) and transsexuals not at all. True, I have met some drag queens (the term used for gay men who are also transvestites) but I relate to them as gay men only. While I am not like the fellow who once wrote about transsexuals that they were “these sad fucks who want to change their sex,” I admit I have always been very happy being a guy and would never want to change it. I have researched transsexuals and believe there are some people who legitimately feel that they were born into the wrong biological body. “Nature” does need a little “correcting.”

The vast majority of gay men have no interest in dressing up as the opposite sex and do not in any way see themselves as being female. Yet, Gay Culture seems to be dominated by images of drag queens everywhere you look. They are featured in ads for certain gay bars that make it seem as if the place is wall to wall with cross-dressers. Naturally, some bars cater to the drag scene much more than others. You rarely if ever see drag queens (except on Halloween, when most of them are just “ordinary” gay guys in costume) in the butcher bars like Ty's, Rawhide, or the Eagle.

I have nothing against drag queens. I like most of the ones I've met and spoken to. But they're just one small segment of the gay population and our media makes it seem like they constitute 75% of the community. Those men who are very heavily into the drag scene – who basically dress and live like women most of the time – are a very different kind of animal from me. I wish them well, but I can't and won't speak for them – although I deplore any kind of patronizing or prejudicial attitude against them – nor they for me. Many of these guys might as well be women [not that there's anything wrong in that!] but for the actual sex change.

As for transsexuals, they, too, are a way different breed from the typical gay man. Someone once theorized that trannies are essentially homosexual men who are so appalled at the notion of being gay that they would rather change their sex – becoming heterosexual women instead of gay men – then come out of the closet. Well ... I admit that's a little far-fetched. I mean, coming out of the closet seems a whole lot simpler and less shocking to the family than getting a sex change operation. Although I do recall seeing a talk show in which a transgender person announced to all who would listen that she was sick of people thinking she was a fag. Lovely. And exceedingly hypocritical.

The older brother of a childhood friend of mine changed into a woman at the ripe old age of sixty. On one hand, I thought it incredible that he would go through such a major life change at such an age, but he probably figured it's either now or never. How he must have wrestled with the disparity between his inner mind and outer body for all of his life. Since he was apparently always a woman even before he had the operation, I suppose you can't say he was ever really homosexual even if he was primarily attracted to males. If his primary attraction was to females, I suppose he was and is a lesbian. Who knows? I hope he's happy as I remember him as being a nice guy.

20/20 did a show on transsexuals who were aware at a surprisingly early age that they were trapped in the wrong body. I was bothered by the fact that the mother of one young boy-who-should-have-been-a girl wondered if his opposite sex characteristics meant he was gay instead of transsexual (the poor kid wanted to cut off his penis; I don't think he was gay.). It bothered me because I got the feeling that the woman was one of these parents who feel that if their son can throw a football he couldn't possibly be gay.

I'm glad I watched the 20/20 report however because it also introduced us to a young “woman” who was convinced that she was really a man. There was absolutely nothing "freakish" about her – she simply seemed like a nice, rather manly young fellow. Not "mannish" like a stereotypical lesbian (not to say they are in any way "freakish"), but manly. I had a very positive reaction to him which made me feel much better after the negative reaction I had to a photo in an ad for a recent leather “black party” in which gay guys -- bears -- are encouraged to spend a marathon of hours dancing and partying. The big guest and main image of the party was a female-to-male transsexual who had a mustache and all the usual regalia associated with the leather scene. I thought it odd that the symbol of this supposedly hyper-macho event was a woman, although I reminded myself that he really wasn't a woman anymore if he ever had been. Still, my mind shrieked out “what a freak!” when I saw his picture and I immediately felt guilty for thinking it. I admit it may be terrible that I think this way, but I would rather not meet a person in, say, a leather bar and go home with them, only to discover they were once a biological female. And what on earth would the “penis” look like? On the other hand, I am well aware that this gentleman is a human being as worthy of respect as any other. [And I'm probably not his type, either!] He probably has a tough enough time living day to day without any LGBTers making it worse for him, so if he's been embraced by this community -- if no other -- I say fine. Still, I just can't think of him as a gay guy like me. Sorry. (I assume he was attracted to men both before and after the sex change. But gee -- maybe he's straight. Although he's more likely to get a date with a gay guy than a straight woman -- but who the hell knows?)

Part of the problem is that male to female transvestites and transsexuals have become "commonplace" -- for lack of a better word -- while the opposite is comparatively rare. Or at least it seems that way. (Perhaps they get less publicity. And lesbian drag kings -- I have no idea how many there are -- haven't developed this huge cultural image or interest the way that gay drag queens have.) For better or worse, sex change operations -- while nothing new -- are still a little "out there" for most people. Which perhaps makes the people who get them a bit braver and tougher or just more desperate, in the sense that they must live as a man -- or woman -- or literally die.

But I think this underlines the fact that while gays and transgenders may both be sexual minorities (far fewer trannies than gays, let's face it) they are really totally different in a thousand ways. Gays and Lesbians are gay brothers and sisters. And bisexuals? ... we'll tackle them in another post or two.

Let me make it clear that I am decidedly against discrimination against any of the groups under the LGBT umbrella. My attitudes about some groups may be politically incorrect at times but that doesn't mean I "hate" anybody. But I can't in good conscience speak out about the specific issues affecting, say, the transgender community when they are simply not issues that affect me in any great way nor which I have any special familiarity with. (It goes without saying that I am aware that all the different LGBT factions suffer from some degree of discrimination and this has created a kind of bond that is perhaps more informal and tacit than actual.) The Gay community alone has important issues that need to be dealt with and there are any number of Bi and Transgender activists who can address the issues affecting those particular communities.

The Gay Activist Alliance became a single issue civil rights organization after the Gay Liberation Front fell apart because its members were always running off to one meeting or action after another for various causes and political issues; the struggle for Gay Rights was lost in a sea of general activism. It was decided that GAA would concentrate strictly on Gay Rights. The group could certainly issue statements of support for other civil rights organizations and individual members could attend any protest meeting or conference etc. that they wanted to. But the main focus was always Gay Rights.

GAA may be long gone, and I may not be officially affiliated with any organization, but I'm still proud to be a GAY activist.