Kind Hearts Do Not A Prison Make

Nor Coronets A cage

by Jenny Lovelace

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I have read Clair Cahill's article in Polare 50 and your thoughts. Here are some of my thoughts.

I am a sixty-one year old pangendered person. I am an almost exclusively heterosexual man when I am expressing myself as a man, and I am an almost exclusively trans lesbian woman when I am expressing myself as a woman. In private I always try to be neat-even when I am appearing as an "in­ between" person. Usually I appear as a man because this is how, given my chosen lifestyle, I must appear in the world. In private, however, I move as my inner tides flow, emotionally, and to some degree expressively, within the "pangendered continuum". I am always, at all times, both man, woman and what ever seems to be in between all at once however I may be expressing myself outwardly.

At last, this year I am actively moving into transition. I am not transiting from "man" to "woman", but from trapped "man" to whole person. Eventually I will be living for days, even weeks as a woman. I will be living two lives when I would like them to merge in to one whole because the world will not allow me in public to flow as I wish within my gender-continuum.

Of course, now that I am living my life within an overwhelmingly traumatic transition I am having to keep my head in a storm that is like no other I have ever encountered. I am moving from an awful suppression into a frightening and exhilarating liberated way of being, as far as my personal world and public lifestyle will permit. I am moving rapidly towards realising both my womanhood and my wholeness. Maybe, right now, I am not quite of sound mind. Time (and, no doubt, others!) will tell.

I, however, am not "bi-gendered". I don't swing from one gender extreme to the other. I flow gently from here to there, always retaining a piece of the rest of my wholeness within. Because of the restrictions the world has placed on the expression of my womanly being, I especially yearn to be the woman I am when I feel her bursting to express herself. I am the one me and all these wants-right ­now-ta-be are but part of the one whole me. Although my wonderful friend Annabelle (Seahorse, Queensland) has said "pangendered" sounds pretentious, I just don't feel a bit of this and a bit of that. I feel all that I am all at once all the time and emphases simply emerge as my tides of being flow. And "tides of being" are, surely, designed, to be enjoyed. I am pangendered and I prefer not to call myself bi-gendered.

I know the way of our many worlds makes this unrealistic, if not impossible, but bear with me for a moment, - well, metaphorically at least. Share my dream, just for a moment, while I outline the real world within me, the world within which I am constantly living. This is my dreaming.

In my world people are not fundamentally gender or sex categorised. They present themselves as, and call themselves, whatever they like, whenever they like perhaps keeping a particular name and appearance for each specific situation. They do this because it feels comfortable and they arrange things so their expression does not confuse others. Nobody else cares what they do to please themselves and how they present themselves. Other people are more interested in the content of character, relationships and discourse and in the achievement of mutually desirable outcomes. In my world (Clare) people are recognised solely as unique beings not as members of any gender or sex group. We can change how we want to appear as we wish, whenever we wish, as often as we like. To have multiple surgeries is probably unwise, but whose is the choice? We recognise each other by the uniqueness of our core being. Like our handwriting, our core characteristics remain the same irrespective of mood and style changes - unless we undergo a radical personality change.

Of course the vagina is sacred (Katherine). So is the penis. They must be sacred because the whole person - body, mind, feelings and spirit is sacred. Yes, I've been out and back so I know that I exist both within and without my body. My core is genderless, sexless, utterly holy, and indescribably ecstatic, and I am not prepared to argue with my fellow psychologically trained colleagues who have not been here and who talk rot! If I had not touched this "inner ecstasy" my sender challenges would have driven me to suicide - like so many, too many, others. Although I am well and truly cultured like the rest of us, I really prefer to try to assess people (and we all assess each other all the time!) not by who they have sex with or what physical or genetic attributes they (seem to) have. My tribe, Clare, is people - period. I also rate non-human relatives so closely that I am not sure the differences really matter - or even exist.

I hope, at risk of stirring up some not so "cool" passions, that others will write and say what they think about gender orientation, especially their own. I have so much to learn about myself, let alone others, from what others think and feel. I grasp my own unique perspectives in the mirror of, usually very different, others.

Back in the unreal world, Katherine, I totally support your editorial right to express your own signed opinions - because I hope Polare has no opinions about anything other than the promotion of support and freedom for people like us, in all our varieties. I especially want to know whose view I am critiquing when the urge comes over me! Your autobiography and other writings are marvelous. They have so inspired me, but you are not the only sabre-toothed butterfly on our block, my dear, even though you are probably far and away the most erudite! I too can be scathing, but I am learning that (my colleague's "rot" notwithstanding), courtesy and compassion need never preclude utterly straight talking anymore than dignity and self-respect can ever preclude unadulterated authenticity! (Bit preachy?)

Of course Claire's article is so "right" in so many ways - meaning I agree with, and warm to so much of what she says. Our world is moving in good directions because Clare and others are giving it a darned good push! Polare too?

Gays and lesbians are carving places for themselves in our world. Transsexual people are not far behind. It is time for pangendered people to self ­discover and then assert ourselves. With passion! Our constituency may be minute but when two or three are gathered together ... so call me.

I guess this dyed-in-the-wool (preferably sensuous and body hugging), emerging-to-Self (at long last) Anarchist is doing no more than crying - screaming - I want to be me ... please!

I have been "Jenny" since I was five. I woke up to my name some time in my teens or early twenties.

With timorous but determined love, I am.

Polare is published in Australia by The Gender Centre Inc. which is funded by the Department of Community Services under the S.A.A.P. Program and supported by the N.S.W. Health Department through the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch. Polare provides a forum for discussion and debate on gender issues. Advertisers are advised that all advertising is their responsibility under the Trade Practices Act. Unsolicited contributions are welcome, though no guarantee is made by the Editor that they will be published, nor any discussion entered into. The editor reserves the right to edit such contributions without notification. Any submission which appears in Polare may be published on our internet site. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Gender Centre Inc.I, the Department of Community Services or the N.S.W. Department of Health.