More regarding Christine Benvenuto's Guardian newspaper article
I've pretty much spent all day being a housewife and carer but I've finally been able to get round to exploring the Guardian article http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/02/my-husbands-sex-change?cat=society&type=article from my last post a bit more. And finally, now I have a free moment, I'm rereading everything.
The thing is I still stand by what I said in my previous post but there are other issues beyond the public scrape of this couple...
I've discovered that "Tom" (in the Guardian article) is actually Joy Ladin and she wrote her own book about her transition experience and an excerpt was published by the Huffington Post 03/5/12 (US or UK calendar?) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2012/03/05/transgender-woman_n_1311562.html and now, perhaps in some sort of retaliation, Christine Benvenuto writes her own account. Nothing special in any of that.
There also happens to be a full excerpt of Ms Benvenuto's book's opening pages online http://us.macmillan.com/BookCustomPage_New.aspx?isbn=9780312649500 The Guardian article - and I wonder if it was sanctioned by Ms Benvenuto? - I think reads very differently from the full excerpt which appears to be just lifted, unaltered, straight from the opening pages 'Sex Changes...'
Note: Tracey is a man's name and possibly was Joy's pre-transition name (why change it to Tom for the Guardian article?!)
Consider:
"....Overnight, it seemed, Tracey stopped smiling. He no longer took pleasure in anything. He said he was ill. He looked ill. He complained of fatigue, stomach ailments, and dizziness. He lost his appetite and began to lose weight. I saw his suffering and at first felt empathetic and concerned. I tried to understand him. Visiting an exhibition of Aztec art with my son, I was struck by a sculpture of a young male warrior staring out of a feathered suit of armor, a body-sized bird costume in which the boy was intended to go into battle. The slight figure stared out of the headdress of feathers, eyes wide with anticipation and possibly fear. This must be what it feels like to be Tracey, I thought. To inhabit a form that feels like a costume. A second skin in which he cannot be himself. In which he must do battle.
But sincere attempts to sympathize with Tracey alternated with bewilderment and rage over the close, secret relationships he’d formed with women confidantes, over his insistence that his urgent need to express his femininity outweighed every other concern.
“I have a medical condition,” he insisted. “A fatal condition that’s going to kill me unless I get treatment.”
“Who decides the treatment?” I asked.
“I do!”..."
And it goes on. I feel the Guardian article misrepresents Ms Benvenuto though I still struggle with the fact that Ms Benvenuto, throughout the very long excerpt on the mcmillan website, never acknowledges Tracey as a woman and in the Guardian article which goes on to to cover a time period post divorce Christine still refers to Tracey/Tom (Joy) as her husband.
Nonetheless there seems to be a greater attempt to try to understand what happened to the marriage if not sympathise/absolutely accept and support Tracey's circumstance.
So I come back to the Guardian article and how on earth did it get through the various checks and go to print as it was??
The Guardian article includes text that is not in the opening pages 'full excerpt' in the mcmillan site, and still when Ms Benvenuto writes of the stages when they divorced she still, as I mentioned before, does not acknowledge that Tracey is a woman.
But it is one paragraph that jars more than anything else (from the Guardian):
"It is inescapable: for me there is something slightly creepy and more than slightly sad about a man in women's clothes. Male legs in sheer stockings. The sight of Tom in an exact replica of a skirt that was once my favourite. It is creepy for one woman to copycat another, the stuff of thrillers. Creepier for a man to do the same. Creepier still if that man is your husband."
The unedited book excerpt (mcmillan site) hints that Christine gets what/who women with trans issues/histories are but Christine shows no indication that she accepts that Tracey is basically a trans woman. The Guardian article implies that Christine believes Tracey/Tom/Joy was her husband, and now remains her ex-husband, a man and possibly a 'fruitcake' to boot. Which raises further questions as to whether the Guardian article (and Ms Benvenuto) is in some way guilty of cisgenderism or transphobia? And maybe because there is so much cisgenderism and transphobia in society, Ms Benvenuto is also a victim? Shaped in some fashion by the negative aspects of society to have those same attitudes herself. I'm not sure, but I do wonder. And I also wonder if that's disingenuous of me? But I'm not going to dwell on that.
So finally in light of all if that, I am now curious to know if Christine Benvenuto creates the same portrait of herself through her book as the Guardian article (credited to her as well) portrays her to be?
But one thing I am sure of if I only examine the Guardian article. Ms Benvenuto is displaying a lot of hurt and pain and possibly resentment too. In that regard I sympathise for her - unlike my wife, Emma, who was able to transition with me even when she initially felt shocked and confused about me actually being trans/IS, Christine was unable to do the same.
Christine Benvenuto's book may well be a relevant work but the Guardian article comes across as lacking.