Gender Bender

In case you don’t recognize us, that’s Ted McGinley on the left and yours truly on the right.  The year was 1994 and we were on the set of Married with Children.

If you can tear your gaze away from Ted’s dazzling movie star looks, take a good gander at what I’m wearing.

It’s a gray, window-pane checked man’s suit.  Made by Donna Karan.

Here’s a better look.

I wore it with a man’s shirt body stocking and black patent leather wing tips.

And note the hair in the Married photo.  (Mine- not Ted’s.  His is longer.)

The point is I was dressed as a guy.  (And thought I looked pretty, pretty good, btw.)

With all the coverage of the media tidal wave known as Caitlin Jenner drowning out any other story these days, I just have to talk about gender identity today.

Mine.

Count Leo Tolstoy said that when he was born he didn’t know if he was a boy or a girl.  But he knew he was a writer.

Me, too.

As far back as I can remember, I knew I was a writer but I never felt quite sure of my gender identity.

In fact, I always felt that I was a boy in girl’s clothing.  I kind of figured that somehow I had wandered into the wrong locker room.

(I do not hate my body or feel like I was born into the wrong one.  It was more like I had the same interests in the intellectual things that the boys liked.  The disconnect seemed to be located in my brain.)

My earliest memories were of disdaining dolls and “girly” activities like jacks and jump rope at recess.  I hated all that Brownies’ nonsense. Cooking, sewing… boring junk like that.

I wanted to join the Cub Scouts. That’s where my best friends were.

But before you start thinking Fun Home, I never had one single feeing of sexual longing for someone of my own sex.

Sure, I could admire beautiful women and swoon over them.  Catherine Deneuve in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg or Julie Christie in Darling sent me reeling in admiration.

But not desire.

And to confuse matters more, I liked getting my nails and hair done. And I loved clothes with a passion that hasn’t let up for one single moment today. (However, I do treasure my blue jeans every bit as much as my Alaïas.)

Clearly gender identity can be complex.

And I was always confused about my Dr. Jekyll and Madame Hyde nature.

But in last Sunday’s New York Times there was an article that touched on this very subject.  And naturally, it captured my attention.

It was an opinion piece by Elinor Burkett called “What Makes a Woman?”

ICYMI:  It was Caitlin (Formerly Known As Bruce) Jenner’s statement “My brain is much more female than male”  that provoked her thoughtful piece.

One woman after hearing this comment exasperatedly asked Ms. Burkett, “Is he saying that he’s bad at math, weeps during bad movies and is hard-wired for empathy?”

Burkett, a journalist, documentary film maker and former professor of women’s studies was offended and alarmed by Ms. Jenner’s claim, as well.  She wrote that “I have fought for many of my 68 years against our efforts to put women- our brains, our hearts, our bodies, even our moods- into tidy boxes, to reduce us to hoary stereotypes.”

She continued, “Brains are a good place to begin because one thing science has learned about them is that they’re shaped by experience, cultural and other wise.’

She also went on to quote Gina Rippon, a neuroscientist at Britain’s Aston University.

“You can’t pick up a brain and say ‘that’s a girl’s brain’ or that’s a boy’s brain.'”  The differences between male and female brains are caused by the “drip, drip, drip” of the gendered environment.

Ms. Burkett’s illuminating (for me at least) commentary summed it all up when she wrote “…almost all of us will be assigned genders at birth. But what we do with these genders- the roles we assign ourselves, and each other, based on them- is entirely mutable.”

Amen.  (Or should I say “A- women?”)

On a final note on gender and sexual identity issues, my hairdresser John Lanzendorf- a self-proclaimed gay man- and I once had a discussion while he was giving me that butch haircut.  It was all about who’d we sleep with if given the chance.

And more importantly, who we wouldn’t.

Various movie star and sports figure candidates were tossed out by John.  I’d deem them bed-worthy- or not- according to my idiosyncratic tastes.

But after a few rounds of this hypothetical orgy, I took an emphatic stand.

“I don’t know about so-and-so (Put Famous Name Here) but one thing is certain.  I could never, ever, EVER sleep with a woman.  Ick.  Yuck. Gross.”

“Ooooh!” John screamed and shuddered.

“Me, neither!”

Now Count Leo has just reminded me that I’ve got to get back to the reason I was born.

Writing Sunday’s blog post.

See you in the unisex locker room.

Now, while I’m hard at it, in honor of gender confusion everywhere, please enjoy some great moments in cross-dressing LGBT movie history.

Meet this great duo.

Or get to know this little lady.

Or watch as this “gal” gets a makeover.

Now this gets confusing. A guy who makes his living cross dressing has to learn to be straight for one night.

And to be just as confusing, here’s a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman.