Taking Trans on the Road

The Ferrell/Steele Documentary

I am stimulated today to write about the trans experience in America today, especially in an election year when the rights of Queer Americans are under assault, especially in states with Republican legislatures.

The stimulus is a very interesting interview in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine that David Marchese did with comedian Will Ferrell and former Saturday Night Live comedy writer, and Ferrell’s best friend friend, trans-woman Harper Steele, who transitioned at the age of 59.  My dear friend Bobby sent it to me the past weekend.

Ferrell and Steele decided to do a cross-country road trip together to see how Americans dealt with a recognizable comedian in the company of a quite clearly trans female person. The trip has been turned into a documentary – “Will and Harper,” which streams on Netflix starting September 27.

I encourage you to read the interview, because it is an open and honest accounting of the difficulties and joy they encountered on this journey through plain old American sites like bars and restaurants in some cases in territory that can foster hostility.  The trip was stressful and delightful, as I hope to see in detail in the documentary.

What I do here (at a bit more length than usual, because I let them speak a lot), is reflect on the interview. I hope my reflections, especially after you read the interview, will help build the bridge to a different understanding of where we are as a gendered society in a moment of challenge and change.

Here goes and I hope this makes some kind of sense:

The issue: dealing with curiosity versus hostility

Steele: I want to be very clear about something, though, that I get in trouble with personally. There’s a process of normalizing queer people for America, and this movie does that. It makes the trans experience more understandable. It’s in a comedy language that they know from Will and me. It’s a good project. It’s representation in a good way. However, to be honest, I’m not that interested in normalizing for people who have hated me for centuries. I want the movie to make other people be gentler and softer and caring, and maybe if you’re a father who loved “Anchorman” and you’ve got a trans kid now, maybe you’re going to open yourself up. 

Ferrell: You’re willing to sit down and have a conversation. 

Steele: That’s the work I want the movie to do. But I don’t particularly care about making myself normal to people who don’t like me.

My Comment: This makes total sense to me.  I am always ready to talk about what gender and transness mean, provided the non-trans interlocutor is genuinely curious and wants to know more and especially if they are confused. I have little interest in dialogue with hostility, anger, and fear. And I wonder how those feelings, which are very powerful, can be dealt with.  Ferrell and Steele are on the receiving end of such feelings in the documentary.

The issue: transitioning later in life versus younger

Steele: I land on the side of good fortune of being able to come to this transition when I was 59, but there’s a lot going on there. If I transitioned when I was 20, my life would have been probably different. Maybe wonderful, but probably tough.   

My comment: Oh, yes.  This is the experience of many trans people who realized their nature later in life.  I have no idea exactly how my life would have been different, but I know it would not have been the life I had. The problem is that I didn’t know about my gender fluidity when I was younger; only that part of me did not fit. So, I live with a legacy of maleness that is decades old, not something I can or wish to leave behind.  It, too, is part of me as I delve into what Jung called “the anima.” This transition is completely different today for the young people who search for and discover their gender identity at a younger age.  They are, in my mind, the pioneers here, creating a world vastly different from the one I grew up in.  I have nothing to teach them.  And it will be fascinating to see both what they encounter (all that nasty legislation) and what they change.

The issue: Dysphoria or joy in transition

Steele: I feel ecstatic. Look, there’s stressors in life: my kids, making money. There are still anxieties. But I basically wake up every morning happy, which is something I didn’t do for, mostly, 59 years. I feel amazing.

My comment: Yes, yes, and again, yes. There is possibly no greater myth about trans people than the one that says they are terribly unhappy. Unhappy they are before they transition. But the research evidence is overwhelming.  As a Cornell review of 55 different research results concluded: “51 (93%) found that gender transition improves the overall well-being of transgender people, while 4 (7%) report mixed or null findings. We found no studies concluding that gender transition causes overall harm.” I am, yes, happy, to report confirming evidence from my own experience: never felt more real, who I am, and happy than I do today. Was I deeply unhappy before?  No, not really, but I knew in some inchoate way that something was not fitting.

The issue: Appearances and “passing.”

Steele: If I walk into what I’m perceiving as a particularly male space I still am self-conscious about who I am and how I’m dressed. When I started this process, I was looking in a lot of forums and the goal was to pass as a woman. But I can’t pass. I’m also not going to change my voice. If I was breaking down my classification I would say I’m a human being and then I am a trans person and then I like to be identified as a trans woman. I think I’m trans first and I feel like that’s the thing that’s been inside me. I just am very happy to be trans. The longer I walk through the world that way, it makes me feel better, or just more myself. When you say “normal,” being trans is normal. 

My comment: there is a trans support group in Seattle called the Ingersoll Gender Center. The mantra of this group is: “there are many ways to be trans.” If I had a magic wand, this is the message for me. The diversity within the world of gender is astonishing. Some people go through hormonal and surgical treatment, some do so only partially, some, like me, do not go there at all. Some dress and appear very feminine; others do not.  We are all part of trans world. For me, the very words “trans” and “gender” are about diversity, not about a few easily distinguishable boxes.  We are all different in our sexual expression and in our gender identity, each of us.  And all of us are part of the human condition.

If there were one concept or word I would abolish it is the word “normal.” The “binary” is treated as if it were a norm, something static and unchangeable. That word separates us, stigmatizes trans (and gay/lesbian) people. In reality, there are no “norms” here; the idea of “normal” is a social construct that tries to “freeze frame” a diverse world. I much prefer the word “natural,” for trans-ness and many sexualities have existed in nature for centuries, we know, and probably for millennia.

The Issue: Words, Words, Words (as Hamlet says)
Marchese: I think I can detect a through line from the answers you just gave to the film you just made. On some level, you’re just trying to make the other guy laugh. 

Steele: Oh, for sure. 

Ferrell: Make the other girl or guy laugh.

Marchese: Yes, I’m sorry. 

Steele: No worries.

Marchese: It’s a verbal tic I have that I need to solve. I have two daughters, and I’ll say, “Come over here, guys.” I apologize. 

Steele: Please don’t worry about that. I say “guys” all the time. “Dudes,” “bros,” those are a little bit more transgressive. But “guys,” I say it to my kids, and they’re all girls. See, look what happened: Two of them are girls. One is a they-them."

It's a universal experience.

Ferrell: Yes.

Steele: Yes.

My comment: I just love this one.  Notice that Marchese uses a word that has male implications – “guys” – and is corrected, not by the trans person, but by the non-trans person, Ferrell. Notice that the trans person – Steele – continues the reassurance through the whole exchange and, herself, mis-genders one of her own children. Contrary to what Marchese calls it, this is no “verbal tic.”  Our language is evolving here and being aware of the words is part of the journey (see my earlier column on pronouns).  Trans people, in my experience, are generally very good at getting it wrong (just ask my non-binary younger adult child about when I, their trans parent, gets it wrong and is corrected, mindfully, not by them, but by their six-year old child: “Dad’s a they/them.”) Trans world knows this is hard and it is inevitable language change reflecting social change, so correcting others is usually done simply and quietly, not in anger.

The Issue: Fear of coming out  

Steele: I think a lot of my friendships, there was an element of fear. The biggest change for me is that I’m not afraid of my friends. That’s pretty huge. That was a big change for me.

My comment: There is a lot of fear about trans world.  Fear, I experience, in the non-trans world about transness that often translates into hostility and rage, as Ferrell and Steele experience during their trip.  And fear among trans people because we are not always safe.  Reactions can run the gamut, from hostility to cold shoulders to toleration to acceptance to inclusion. And we never know what one to expect. Among friends, some of them from a lifetime, the reaction is not always predictable, though in my case, I have to say, I am eternally grateful for the welcome and understanding I have encountered.  AND I know something about where I can wander safely and where I need to take care.  

What Ferrell and Steele encounter on this journey is the complexities of being out as trans in America.  It is a welcome contribution to understanding and learning.  Maybe, as Ferrell said on CBS, “people are ready for acts of civility.”  Pretty tentative, that conclusion; I certainly hope he is right.