Friday, April 12, 2013

Transforming Feminism


Ever since coming out as FtM (female to male transgender) I’ve been asked in a variety of ways how I reconcile this identity with my ideals as a feminist. Whether this question was motivated by confusion, curiosity, or malice I have found myself defending the reality of these coexisting identities more than a few times. I won’t pretend that this is a new issue to me or that it isn’t something I pondered and even wrestled with before other people brought it up. However, I have come to the resolute conclusion that these two identities are in no way contradictory. I now have the privilege and challenge of redefining the way that I view feminism and learning to manifest these views in a new way.
 
            The internal battle between these two parts of myself was based on the fleeting feelings of guilt I felt when I was first questioning my gender. I felt in a way, like I was abandoning my sisters in this fight. I was also concerned with the dissonance between the ideas of being proud to be a woman or believing in the value of women and my desire not to identify that way. It wasn’t until I came to understand two key concepts in regards to my identity that these issues were reconciled.
 
1.      I am not a woman who is becoming or choosing to turn into a man. I am a man and always have been. I am now doing what I need to do in order to be seen as such by others.

2.      By transitioning and possibly gaining male privilege as I begin being seen as male by society, I am not abandoning my sisters unless I choose to. I know that I will not ever give up the fight for the equality that women deserve in the world and therefore know that I am not and will not ever abandon the people who are directly affected by this cause.

I, at that time, was also viewing my masculinity and my identity as a queer woman as ways that I lived out my feminist ideals. Learning to express these values in a new way has been a challenge as well. I have always believed that men can be feminists but it was never something I experienced firsthand. Now I am able to be an example of male feminism. I am not one to deny my past and experiences as they are a part of me and inform who I am everyday. I have had the experiences of a female in this society and it is impossible to turn my back on the lessons those experiences taught me.
 
            My knee-jerk response the first time I was asked about how I could still identify myself as a feminist was to point out that women are not the only people who should care about women’s rights and advancement. Women are not the only people negatively effected by sexism against females in our society and women are not the only ones who can benefit from equality in that regard. Other people who are not women should care about women’s rights not only because it is just but also because they too have something to gain from women’s equality.

            Another point that I often make on this topic is that I love women. This may seem irrelevant at first but I find it to be exceedingly apposite here. If I want to date a woman and say that I care about her I need to show it. I will never understand those who are romantically involved with women and then try to treat them like second-class citizens. 

            In my humble opinion, every person should be a feminist. No matter what gender you are or whom you love, you have something to gain from this movement. You will benefit from society finally giving women the respect and equality that they deserve just as much as any other human. I would also be willing to bet that there is a woman in your life that you love. Show her.
 
Kindly,
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Miles Jordan

Friday, April 5, 2013

Discovering New Things

I suppose that I am most passionate about discovering new things. I travel a fair amount, especially in the U.S., giving talks and attending conferences. One of the most delightful aspects of this roaming is the chance to learn about other places. Recently I flew into Toledo, Ohio to give an address at the University there. I have been in other Ohio cities - Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus – but never in Toledo. It was cloudless afternoon when I flew in and, because I request a window seat so I can peer down at the landscape below, I was amazed to see so many of the homes on the rural outskirts of the city with ponds in their yards. Not swimming pools but ponds. All shapes and sizes. There were large bodies of water with homes ringing their shores but there were also uncountable number of separate properties with one home on it and a back or side area featuring a pond. It made me wonder about the ecology of the region (Toledo abuts the shore of Lake Erie) and the use put to those ponds (ornamental? fishing? even swimming?) It was a question I would have to put to my hosts when I arrived.

When a guest, I am often lodged in a generic conference hotel but, if given the opportunity, I will choose a more off-the-beaten-path lodging or at least try to walk the nearby neighborhood and scout out its unique stores, homes, landmarks, inhabitants and particularities. Another place I have had opportunity to visit recently is New Orleans, where I stayed in a somewhat long-in-the-tooth but historic inn which allowed me to amble through the French Quarter each morning on my way to the conference gathering and do a tour of my own through the storied district with its layers of history: the Old Ursuline Convent, the Cathedral with its prominent tableaux of France’s King Louis, the Creole restaurant where Andrew Jackson dined and I enjoyed the mufalatta.  Each unique environment has its own history and feel, its own natural and cultural ecology, its sense of the “place.” This fascinates me.

As a teacher and a scholar I suppose the same curiosity about things I don’t know drives my work. One of my main areas of academic research is Salesian spirituality (the tradition founded in the 17th century by St. Francis de Sales) and I never tire of being asked to delve deeper into that tradition to ferret out new perspectives and ask unasked questions. More recently I have completed a study of Marian devotion in the “minority majority” archdiocese of Los Angeles, which incidentally is my home town. The research took me all over the vast southern California ecclesial environment and allowed me to speak with all sorts of people I never would otherwise have met: priests, religious, and sacristans, yes, but also members of rosary groups and sodalities of Our Lady, ordinary Catholics who taught me of their devotion to Mary in her many guises: Vietnamese, Filipino, Korean, Chinese, Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran, Polish, Lithuanian, Nigerian, and Salvadoran.

At Creighton I especially enjoy students who ask a lot of questions, not that I always know the answers, but I appreciate the restless intellectual energy that motivates the questions and delight in the play involved in turning the question over and seeing how things look when viewed through the lens of a probing inquiry. The “what do I have to know for the exam” questions, while I can appreciate the often anxious motive behind them, are not the ones that most interest me. Rather, I delight in a student who finds connections between a topic we are pursuing in Theology and something read in a Psychology text or heard in a History lecture, or some observation they have made through their own experience, or some cross cultural encounter they have had. These forays into the world of ideas are not unlike my own roaming in unfamiliar cities: ancient or recent pathways traversed with new steps, seen with new eyes and sensibilities and a zest for wonder. These are the things that give life and generate passion.                                                                  

Kindly,











Dr. Wendy M. Wright, Theology