Wear Your Advocacy Wave 3: Transgender, Queer, Crip, and Feminist

“Nature goes to her coffer and opens it up. She has at least a million molds there, and she has very great need of them, for if she had only one form everyone would be alike that no one would ever be able to tell who was who or what their name was"

Roman de Silence
Heldris of Cornwall

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Transliterature Online Store

Transliterature Online is proud to announce new arrivals to the online store. Following an initial limited run of an assortment of button designs, including (Wave 1) "Mad for Margery," "Queer Gower," and "A Trans Middle Ages Matters," and (Wave 2) "Make the Middle Ages Accessible," "She Called Herself Eleanor" and "They Called Me the Loathly Lady Before I Was Nasty," more styles and items are finally coming. Wave 3 will continue to hit medieval crip, feminist, trans, and queer buttons, now featuring, "Medieval Disability Studies," "Medieval Transgender Studies," "Queer Medieval Studies" and "Feminist Medievalist." All proceeds from the sales will still go to funding important charities, starting with the Transgender Travel Fund run by the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship that brings trans scholars to important medieval conferences. This scholarship is important both for its symbolic and practical investment in a more inclusive future of the past.

After initial sales at the Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Michigan, we are doing a restock in order to send buttons via mail to those who were not in attendance. If sales continue to hold steady, in future conferences I will continue to try out new designs as well as some of the old, so everyone who wants to donate and get a button can. Likely, there will start to be designs exclusive to specific events, available only at the conference. Again, even if this is a temporary experiment, Transliterature is proud to be able to facilitate funding toward some great causes and working with you to build advocacy for important issues. Thank you for your investment and interest!

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Wear Your Advocacy

Wave 3

"Medieval Disability Studies" Button 

(2.5 inch single or 10 pack)

"Medieval Transgender Studies" Button 

(2.5 inch single or 10 pack)

"Feminist Medievalist" Button
(mini and 2.5 inch single or 10 pack)

"Queer Medieval Studies" Button 

(mini and 2.5 inch single or 10 pack)

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I Shouldn't Be Here, But Here I Am: A Birthday Reflection and Wish

"You asked me what I want this year

And I try to make this kind and clear

Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days"

Better Days

the Goo Goo Dolls

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In memory of Ally Steinfeld

and those who won't see another birthday.

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A Birthday

I was born premature with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. I came quickly and my mother wasn't even able to be given any pain medication when she got to the hospital. She arrived and thirty minutes later, so did I. When the doctors saw the cord and the color of my skin, they went into immediate action to get me breathing. The strangling cord was cut and I was coached into taking my first breath. I was lucky. I was lucky to be born in a hospital with doctors who knew what to do. I was lucky my mother was a nurse, practiced in delivering babies, who had the knowledge and access to the care we needed. I was lucky that the night before, my mother stopped while brushing her teeth and called to my father, "I think I am ready for this baby to be born." My father laughed because I wasn't due for weeks yet and my mother was showing no signs of labor. But late that night, things began to happen quickly. My mother woke up and told my father that the time is now. They rushed to the hospital and if traffic had been worse I would have arrived into the world in the back of a car with a cord around my neck and no doctors with sharp scalpels to give me air. I was lucky. I was privileged. I shouldn't be here, others in similar circumstances aren't here because they lacked such luck and resources like life-saving healthcare. They had just as much right to be here but aren't. But here I am.

Flash forward ten years, I am double-digits and proud of that as I sit in a doctor's office with a strange humming machine pressed against my chest. A few days earlier I was at my routine physical and the doctor checking my heart had heard an abnormality. He had another doctor come in and listen. Then my mother was told to take me in for an echocardiogram to confirm. The results are conclusive, I have a heart condition. While twenty years later, further research has showed that my condition is not fatal and that people with my diagnosis can have full rich lives, at the time the material facts and the current knowledge painted a far grimmer picture. I was warned that my life expectancy would but markedly less than my peers and that, most certainly, I would need open heart surgery by the age of thirty at the latest. The doctor could see the immense concern cringing my mothers practiced face. Both could see the color draining out of my skin. Open heart surgery is risky, even on the relatively young. Thirty-years old seems far away to a ten-year old but not nearly far enough away. The doctor assured me that he would do everything he can to prepare me and keep an eye on my condition. I was told to watch what I eat, to exercise, but also not to push myself too hard. I was given a note that would excuse me from gym class at school.

 I never used that note, however. Buying into what Eli Clare calls, "the super-crip" narrative, the moment I was told that I couldn't or shouldn't be out running the mile with my classmates, I felt the compulsion to show that I could and would. In fact, I joined the track team, literally jumping over hurdles. But pushing myself didn't change the fact that I would and still do get light-headed when a burst of heart palpitations hit my body like a punch to the chest. Nor did it allow me to enjoy coffee later in life without bringing on similar stress with a cup of full black. Nonetheless, I am turning thirty-years old this year and although I am relatively young, I still don't feel any more prepared for open heart surgery. Fortunately, that is no longer regarded as necessary. In fact, after years of regular cardiograms and doctor's visits, as well as many miles run, I am not shorter nor shorter-life spanned than those without my heart condition. My diagnosis is the same but the prognosis is good. I was told I shouldn't be here, many others with better bills of health aren't here, but here I am. Despite the panic I felt at the age of ten, I am grateful for the luck and resources I was given, for the doctor's note even if I didn't use it, and for the whole team of people who were on my side and ready in case my heart gave out. What if that attention and care was given to those other kids, regardless of having a white nurse mother and a diagnosed heart condition? How many more that aren't here would be? How many more birthdays would be celebrated?

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A Reflection

When at the age of eighteen a pair of police officers drew their guns and pointed them at me, my first reaction was disbelief. I was standing in front of my condo with my partner, a friend, and my mother, working on a school project. The disbelief was not dispelled until I was pinned against a car being frisked. My initial surprise arouse from many sources but not least because we were not doing anything dangerous or illegal. Of course, years later, when I would have the police called on me yet again I wasn't doing anything dangerous or illegal either. In both cases I was being investigated by police because someone who saw me judged me to be a strange person who doesn't belong in their normative safe white community. In both cases I was with my family. Years later, it would be my children who had to watch as a police officer interrogated me to determine that I  was these children's other mother and not a pervert and child abductor as the onlooker had supposed. This time, however, it was my mother who had to watch in fear, praying that her daughter didn't get shot in front of her eyes. I recall having to tell both my mom and my children that everything would be okay, that we would talk and everything would be sorted. Of course, in reality, I had no such assurance. In the end, both sets of police soon realized that I was no threat and that they had been given bad and prejudiced information about me. Yet in the moment and afterwards, I am keenly aware of how many trans persons, youths, people with mental disabilities or illnesses, and people of color do not have such luck. I ask myself, had I been a trans person of color would the police officers have paused long enough to listen to our story? What if the prejudice of the passerby who saw me had ignited the same prejudice in the police officers, sparking the outcome which too often comes when the thought, "you shouldn't be here," takes the form of violent action?

Well before my tenth birthday I already knew about another factor of my life which I was told the prognosis of even without doctors or fancy buzzing machines: I am transgender. If open heart surgery at the tender age of thirty took the blood out of my skin, I can't imagine if I knew the statistics then about how many trans kids attempt suicide a decade before that by the age of twenty. The Youth Suicide Prevention Program says 50% of trans persons will attempt by the age of 20. The American Society for Suicide Prevention states 41%. Another widely reported figure states that if I was a trans woman of color, I may not worry so much about heart surgery at the age of thirty because my life expectancy is not that much later, with an average figure of 35 years of life. These are the numbers that further research compounds, not corrects such as in the case of my heart condition. This diagnosis, whether given by a doctor or by society, brings with it a prognosis that should make all of us sit up and pay attention. Turning thirty, these are the numbers and names that still haunt me. When I accepted who I am, affirmed that I would transition, I prepared myself for the type of life and violent death that I am more likely to face. I have been told, directly and indirectly, that as a trans woman I should not be here. But here I am. That presence would feel like a victory if not for how many trans persons (especially trans persons of color) who should be here, should have been told that they should be here, but are not. 

And this is not just a matter of luck and access to healthcare. Because the too often fatal prognosis for trans folks are not determined by fate but by people, by other human beings. As scholarship on necropolitics, precarity, and "slow death" is showing, suicide is not a matter simply of bad luck or a bad apple. Suicide is inextricably linked to systems of shaming, abandonment, isolation, marginalization, and expectations which bring on depression, anxiety, despair and death. These systems of education, care, and prejudice which divide those whose lives will be managed from those whose lives will be abandoned, are also the systems which divide cisgender from the trans, intersex, and non-binary, male from female, straight from queer, able-bodied from disabled, white from black (and all other persons of color), the Christian from the non-Christian, and the haves from those whose resources have been taken or exploited. Such systems have said to me time and again, you shouldn't be here, but here I am; not least because in other ways and times I fit the criteria of those to whom society says, you SHOULD be here. The negative and mixed messaging is enough to send too many just like me or those better, more promising, more normative than me, to their graves. But to those who hear the compounding voice made from the many intersecting utterances of "you should not be here," there are many who should be here that aren't and many who have less of a chance to be here whose persistence should be lauded all the more. I hear traces of their condemnation in the voices which condemn me and also in the voices (those white supremacist, able-bodied, educated Christian voices) which praise me in part, even if I fail to live up their demands. In being able to say, "here I am," I feel the loss (the socially engineered loss) of all those who aren't. In being able to say, "here I am," I feel the responsibility to remind everyone to consider that they are not and why they are not.

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A Wish

Over my years here in this world, I have seen many time and ways that people have been told "you shouldn't be here" and the many ways these wishes are made into reality. Recent events in the government, the United States as a whole, and even in Medieval Studies in particular, has stressed the persistence and power of dominant groups issuing the demand that marginalized peoples and persons no longer be allowed to be here. I have been told this. I see my friends told this. I see important colleagues told this. I see queer, trans, and crip graduate and undergraduate students told this. I see people of color told this. And I see the consequences. These words have power. These wishes are not silent thoughts or harmless opinions. These wishes are real and are having disastrous consequences. Yet it is not too late. The candles have not all been blown out. We might make other wishes, better wishes.

The cruelty but also the power of it is that these deaths and these messages, "you shouldn't be here," are not sentences from heaven or Nature but the judgements of humanity. This is not a matter of magic or super-natural wishes. Life is not a resource which must be hoarded for some and denied to others. Affirmation and welcome that you should be here is not something which runs out the more you say it. Indeed, the longer and more I become present here in this country and this world, the less I feel that "here" belongs to me. I am "here" but I do not possess it. There are many more who should be here, could be here, might be here if we didn't work so hard at belonging here and making here belong to us. Take for instance my role in the academy, the more I find myself, against odds, still here in the scholarly community, the greater I feel the pressing absence of all those who should be here but aren't or are here but are still told that they shouldn't be because of being outspoken, trans, queer, crip, feminine, old, young, poor, or a person of color. In an academy that is shrinking in funding and size, we need all hands on deck. In a culture grappling with transphobia, racism, sexism, ableism, xenophobia, and homophobia, we need more critical voices (especially among the oppressed) to turn the tide. In a nation which daily increases the volume and spectrum of the voices which say, "you shouldn't be here," we need more open and affirming voices, more voices of difference and dissent which respond, "but here I am," then add, "and so they should be too." It need not be survivors guilt or imposter syndrome to say, "I don't belong here," if we turn that statement into a demand on behalf of others who should be here.

On my birthday, when I say, "I shouldn't be here, but here I am," I do not wish to express self-pity. Rather, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for all who have literally said to me, word for word, the statement, "so long as I am here, you will be too." What is more, my birthday wish is that I may be able to say the same to the others who are here but pushed to the margins, those who are here but aren't certain they should be, those who are here but aren't sure for how long, those who are here but told they aren't welcome, as well as those who aren't here, won't be here, might be here, could be here, and should be here. My wish is that we say in greater frequency and clarity, responsibility and variety, "you should be here" and "so long as I am here, you will be too." This is not our gift to them because we do not belong here any more than they, "here" does not belong to us. Rather, if we make this wish, then we might receive the gift of their presence and that is something worth celebrating.

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Transgender and intersex persons are still constantly told 

by society and the law that they are not welcome here, 

in restrooms that correspond to their personal gender identity.

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Call Me Gabby: On Deadnames and Changing My Legal Name

"And the angel answering said unto him, 
I am Gabriel...
and am sent to speak unto thee, 
and to shew thee these glad tidings."

Book of Luke 1:19

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The Case Against My Deadname

As I stood in front on the locked courtroom door waiting for my hearing, I read and reread the sign that announced the cases for the next hour. Each case was numbered to indicate the order in which they would be heard once the court was in session. I was number thirteen. But there was two number thirteens. The case of my legal name change appeared twice in different forms. In the first instance, it reported to be the case of Gabrielle Mary-Willow Bychowski. In the second instance it reported to be the case of my deadname. The reason for this was that the court system did not know which one would end up being correct. If the court found in my favor, the first case would be the proper name. If the court found against me, the second case would be the legal one. As I stared looking at the screen, however, it felt like both my identity and my deadname identity were being called to court to contest who had the right to my life. In some ways, this was the last legal gasp of my deadname identity. If I won, that name would have to walk away and leave my life alone. If I lost, the court would legally lock me into a name that no longer felt livable. This conflict gives a sense of the manifold meaning of the word 'deadname' which signifies the name that is no longer alive, or active like how a virus is active. In another sense the deadname signifies the unlivable life, the living death in which too many transgender persons are forced to live for too long. Some never escape their deadname. The deadname identity fights and brings the life of the person to an end. Even in death, the deadname presides over too many transgender persons like a jailor of gender identity over the deceased. Deadnames have power and that is what makes them dangerous. If I won today, I would not totally escape the lingering ghost of my deadname in all areas of mu life but from here on out, the law would be on my side.

When the bailiff unlocked the door, I entered the court as both myself and my deadname. Only one would walk out. As I took my seat behind the divider, I watched as everyone took their places and warmed up for their roles. I had an uncanny flashback to my third grade play when my class had performed February On Trial. In this courtroom drama, the month of February stood accused of not doing its fair share of the annual work. In that play, I was tasked to play the defense attorney, summoning witnesses and delivering stirring rhetoric while my counterpart, the prosecutor pretended to sleep through the whole proceedings. I won the case by presenting overwhelming evidence; although it didn't hurt that I was dating (insofar as third graders 'date') the judge, or rather the girl that was playing the judge. That third grade defense was make believe. This was real. What struck me however was how formulaic and scripted it all was. The judge entered, few stood, they said a few words, we sat down. In short order, cases were called and lawyers jumped up to speak briefly with the judge. Many of the cases did not show. They went down the list, waited for someone to reply, then moved to the next. Quicker than expected, they called number thirteen and I stood. I was asked to approach the judge and be sworn in by raising my hand then affirming I would tell the whole truth and all that. I say "all that" both because we all know what they ask people to say in courts from TV and movies but also because I honestly didn't hear most of what she was asking me to swear. Her lips moved, I nodded, by the pounding in my ears made it hard to hear. This was a bad bad case of stage-fright. But fortunately I trained to deal with stage fright since third grade. I recognized when it was my turn to speak and I said my line, "I do." Then I looked toward the judge and the case began.

The judge confirmed my name and then hammered me with questions. The day before as I was traveling to my hometown for the court case, I was telling my mom how nervous I was and how I wished I had asked the lawyers helping me procure my legal name and gender marker changes what to say when I actually get into the courtroom. What would they ask? What would be a good response? I knew how to manage an audience, a room of students, a conference hall, even church and political crowds. But a judge was a difference audience entirely. This one person had the ability to affect the trajectory of my future for good and ill. I knew their were rules and procedures, like theatre lines and blocking, but I was not master of them. I groaned that it was now too late to call the firm working on my case. Then I remembered, two of my best friends and my brother were all lawyers. One worked for a judge, one taught law, and the other brought cases before the Supreme Court. I had people behind me that would help me find my footing. I promptly called or texted all three of them. In my heart of hearts, I knew I was also just calling to hear their voices and share the moment with them. They each calmed me down in their own ways. They each gave different elements of the same overall advice: be quiet and calm, follow the judge's lead. That's what I did. What I discovered as the judge proceeded through her questioning was that she was reading from a list and signing boxes as she went along. This was more or less scripted. For me, this was more or less going to be unadorned, drama-free high stakes theater to affirm or deny who I was in the eyes of the law.

In the end, once the court confirmed with me that I was assuming a name in order to avoid creditors or the police, the judge had me check the spelling of my name then declared I was who I said I am: Gabrielle Mary-Willow Bychowski. The judge told me how to get official copies of my court order then told me I was done. Looking back to my seat, I saw my mother standing up with a beaming smile. She had been there when the law first determined my name and gender marker. Today, she was witness to the law being corrected and she was holding back tears of excitement. Walking out of the courtroom, my mom asked me how I felt. I told her it was like I had turned a chapter in my life. I had wanted to have and originally gained a court date to legalize my name and gender marker on President Obama's last day in office. It would be a turning point for me and our country. That gets at the intensity of the moment and its repercussions. Yet beyond the significance of this day, it was less like turning a chapter and more like the editors and publishers finally printing the book under the title that author had originally wanted. It felt like the moment in which readers of a book with a gender neutral name find out that J.K. Rowling is a woman. I sometimes wonder how many readers of my work, published under the name M.W. Bychowski, are surprised to realize it was written by a woman and specifically a transgender woman. Now if they checked my legal documents, they will know my name. Now if they check the newspapers and blogs, regardless of what they say about me, they will know my name. Now if they check my wedding certificate, they will know my name beside my beloved's. Now if they one day check my tombstone, future generations will know my name.

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#TransLawHelp

What does it mean to transition my name and gender marker now? The decision to file for legal corrections to my identity documents was years in the making. I haven't used my deadname as my primary identifier in over a decade, yet there is no switch you can flip that will get everyone on board with those updates all at once. Transitioning is not just something the transgender person does but involves all the intersecting communities they are a part. For all intents and purposes, I have been Gabby M.W. Bychowski for some time but not in the eyes of the law. Coming out to my friends, family, and co-workers came first. Getting other things in line, especially medical assistance, came shortly after. This is quick to write and quicker to read but took years of stops and starts. The deadline for  a legal name change had long been either before I was legally married or before I received my doctorate. Both of those eventualities converged in 2016. I knew by early 2017, I would need to file. Then the election happened in November. At this point, it began to be all hands on deck in the transgender community to give one another support enough to get through the next day. Soon it became evident that with shifting government policies and rising tides of anti-transgender legislation, the community had to make preparations for the future tribulations. Before the final state was announced for the election, I had already begun to put into immediate motion procedures for legal name and gender marker changes that had been in holding patterns. The time was now to make sure that we had all the legal documents possible to defend who we are against the coming offenses. When the police pull us aside to check our drivers licenses, when guards at the door to rest rooms ask for proof of our gender, when TSA agents check our passports during a screening, the more of the law we can get on our side the better.

What made all the difference was that the transgender community was not alone. In the weeks after the election, #TransLawHelp began circulating around Twitter and other social media to connect transgender persons with free legal help. Firms, clinics, law schools, and individual lawyers were volunteering their services to the transgender community pro bono, meaning "for the public good." Some transgender person possess the education in legal procedures or money enough to afford assistance to go it alone. Yet most transgender persons, especially the young and most vulnerable do not have the resources needed to navigate the bureaucrat mazes alone or defend their own cases adequately if and when they are challenged. Personally, in order to fast track some of the changes that remained, I reached out to #TransLawHelp and was put in touch with a local lawyer to help me file the needed documents. The lawyer and her clinic team explained many of the tangled requirements that stood between me and the various agencies and courts I would need to manage. The lawyers guidance was indispensable in better understanding how the law and government functioned and what was the best way to position my cases. All the lawyer's advice and everything the clinic did was free. This was good because everything I did with the courts and agencies here on out would be rather expensive and strained my small budget. A hundred dollars for this and a couple hundred for that added up quickly. The expense would be worth the outcome but all of it might not happened so successfully if it was not for the free legal assistance. More than anything, knowing that I was not going into this alone gave me the emotional resources to push through the cost.

When I was finally given a court date I was ecstatic. I was surprised by how far off the day needed to be, over two months. But I finally knew on what day the law would see me for who I am. But beyond this, I was thrilled that the court date I was given was January 19th. This was the last day in office for President Barack Obama. The day felt a fitting symbol for my liberation from my deadname. The change would be one last good thing from that era. Also, this would mean that whatever the new administration did on its first day, I would be that much more prepared. Unfortunately, this would not work out so smoothly. A few weeks later, as I filed the required announcements of my name change to local newspapers, I received a letter from the courts. What made my chuckle was the name of my judge, whose last name matched the name of my home town. The letter however contain something that took away the laughter. My court date had been changed to the next week. My heart and stomach dropped nearly to the floor. The symbol and the preparation would be gone. I caught myself in time, affirming that it is better late than never, and pushed forward. I pushed back all my related plans and prayed that nothing happened in the first week of the new presidency to make my filing impossible. Fortunately, the separation of State and Federal jurisdiction worked in my favor this one time. And fortunately no move was made in these seven days to stop my from making it to court. In the end, all I lost was some time. The loss of time is not nothing. It meant one more week using IDs with a name that wasn't mine and one more time booking flights with a gender marker that wasn't me. By the time I arrived at the court, I wished I had been able to get back that time I lost and have done this much sooner.

However we arrive at monumental moments in our lives as transgender persons, our transitions all look different and take more time than we wish. No matter how much I desire there was a switch I could have flipped, the processes I had to undergo on the road of transition could not have been done any other way. For all its ups and downs, turns and bends, the road was mine to walk. Other trans persons will find themselves going along different roads. We all start from different places, experience different obstacles, and the environment is changing all the time. Also, we all have different goals and processes in determining what we want. I knew for a long while what my name was but getting the first person to see through the mist of dysphoria to the truth underneath was a goal and a struggle of its own. The legal name change is a big marker in the path but may not affect my heart as much as the first time I was called Gabby. Then there was the first time my family called me Gabby. Being called Gabby by my partner and Momma Gabby by our kids still makes my heart swell. Being called Gabrielle by the court was a big deal but the law and government are not the most important things to me. They determine the circumstance of my life and the lives of those around me. They are battles that need to be fought. But I don't desire approval from the government. I don't desire approval from strangers on the internet. I don't need to hear the opinions of random voters or politicians. I am who I am regardless. Being who I am, having my community behind me, and drawing on the power of coalitions like #TransLawHelp are the real power that move me forward. As our movement presses on, the law and government better get behind us or get out of our way.

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Call me Gabby

Why did I chose the name Gabrielle? I am asked this regularly and I have simple answers, as well as more difficult to articulate answer. The simple (but not less true) version goes like this: I had like the name Gabrielle since I first heard it as a young Catholic girl. At first, I had decided it would be the name of my next pet. Gabrielle was the name of an Arch Angel and the only Angel to appear in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scripture. It remains fairly consistent through different languages. In Latin and Polish, Gabrielle is the same as it is in English. Gabrielle (גַּבְרִיאֵל or Gavri'el) means "God is my strength." In its shortened form, Gabby in English means talkative. Likely this comes from Gabrielle and all angels being messengers. In the Book of Daniel, Gabrielle tells the prophet the meaning of his visions. In the Book of Luke, Gabrielle announced to Mary that should would have a child. In Muslim tradition, Gabrielle is the angel that conversed with Muhammad. Gabrielle is a go between that spans religions and tribes. Gabrielle's strength is in her words. As a child, I was very talkative. As an adult, I am more laconic until you get me on a topic I've done research about then sit down and get comfortable because I can go for a while. As I got older, I decided it would be the name of my first child. The name works regardless of the child's gender. Gabrielle is described in some places as a man, other places as a woman, or as a gender indeterminate being. This was the plan for some time until I decided that I would be too jealous of any pet or child I had with the name Gabrielle. When I presented myself to the world as my authentic self, I would claim the name Gabrielle as my own.

The complicated answer depends more on the revelation of experience and less on clear logical deduction. Gabby is my name. I knew by programming to respond to my name like I knew what to do when someone waved at me. I was alerted to someone speaking at me and wanting my attention. But my deadname never felt like my name. It marked me but did not reflect me. The deadname echoed with what my community assigned me to be. My deadname meant getting good marks and grades in school. My deadname meant marking pages while reading and making pages as I write. My deadname was metalanguage for marks, signs, words in general. My deadname marked anything and nothing. My deadname was a dead or empty sign. That is how I felt.  My deadname was a title for a job I did not want. My deadname was either a vacancy sign or else a generic placeholder awaiting the official title to arrive. My dead middle name was not much better. It meant willpower and choice but not my will or choice. It meant the will of society to determine my gender for me. It was a declaration rather than a question. It said, "you will do and be this," when it should have asked, "what will you do and be?" According to stories from my parents, my deadname was in honor of a doctor my mother knew and my middle deadname was in honor of my grandfather. But these were their names. They were not my names. When I first began to shed them, I found that being called M. was better than being called by my deadname. M. could mean me. M. is a famous transgender woman. In Marvel Comics, M. is a Muslim woman with mutant abilities of super strength, flight, healing, super-intellect and other powers of the mind. M. also matched me with my friend Em. Because we were so often together, folks at work would call us M. and Em. To this day, as a neutral alternative to full names, M. and M.W. still describe me in writing, work, and even among my children who say with the candor of a seven year old, "it is easier to spell!"

When I would come to claim my own name, both of the persons my deadname and middle deadname signified would be still be honored but in a way that was authentic to me. When I went into the courtroom, the middle name I claimed, "Mary-Willow," enfolded the first three letters of my deadname and the first three letters of my middle deadname into the two parts. The middle name also matched my gender neutral academic and writing name, M.W., which I had chosen in honor of all of the other women and men I respected who had done the same; not least of all J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and G.K. Chesterton. As whole names, Mary signified the many Mary's of scripture, the Virgin Mother and Mary Madeline. I would honor my family's history but also my heroes. The name Mary was big enough to contain all their meanings and still most of all mean me. Willow has less human origins and meanings. True, it means the TV character from the show Buffy with whom I most identified. But the name also signified a tree with which I felt a great deal of kinship. Despite my allergies, as a girl I often preferred to be around trees than people. The trees did not treat me like a boy or anyone I wasn't. I could be me with the trees. I would imagine I was playing with the elves among the willows. They would listen and keep my secret. No one asks trees if they know anyones secrets. But they do. Among trees, willows are one of my favorites. Willows have long draping leaves that cover them from sight. I often like to wear my hair like a willow. Willows look sad, like they are crying or mourning over the world. I get that. I feel that. The word "willow" means "a turning." Willows turn in toward their own thoughts and turn to listen. Willows look wise, like their heads are bent in thought and listening. Like I said, willows keep secrets. Willows hide themselves and others, keep them safe. A willow is a wise old woman friend of Pocahontas in the disney animated film. A willow is a grumpy sentient tree in Lord of the Rings. Willows know much and have seen much.

The answer, call me Gabby because that means me is complex in its simplicity. In the end, I claimed Gabby as my name because that was my name. When people say Gabby, I don't just look up out of some conditioned response. I look up because Gabby means me. Gabby isn't just a word from the outside, signifying some expectation in the world. Gabby resonates with something inside me. The Bible is full of references to God knowing a persons name before they were spoken into creation. In scripture, God calls someone by their name and they respond, "speak, Lord, your servant is listening." I am Gabby because I am called Gabby. That names calls to me because it connects what is inside me with the world beyond. Gabby is not just a name that makes me more comfortable, it is more accurate. Call me Gabby because that is factually who I am. Call me Gabby because that is legally who I am. Call me Gabby because that is what wakes me up from the slumber of this world and invites me to say to you, "speak, I am listening." And I will be listening. Call me Gabby so I can share with you some of the things I have heard. Call me Gabby so we can learn how to listen. The ability for any of us to claim our own names is a blessing that should not be underestimated. There is an affirmation of self that I have been able to make in changing my legal name that too few are able. Transgender students are not called their names in school or on their report cards. Called by another name, their authority over the details of their own lives are ignored. Deadnaming becomes a way of not seeing the transgender youths. Too often, because their communities refuse to see them, they disappear. We give them strength when we call them by their name. We give them strength when we give them language to deliver their messages. We give them strength when we listen to the revelations they have for us. On this day, I am honored to be able to receive my hearing and long for the day in which I can share the glad tidings of others struggling to be heard. Call me Gabby but don't stop listening for the lives that are yet to be incarnated and yet to be named.

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The Court Date is Set

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The Court Case is Won

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What the Women's March Means For a Transgender Medievalist

"Cheseth youreself
which may be moost plesance"

The Wife of Bath's Tale

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The Trans Medievalist's Armor

As a transgender woman in the public eye, I often do not comprehend what my presence means to those around me. This ignorance is inevitable, because I can't read minds, but also a self-defense mechanisms. I am inundated on a daily basis with stares, offensive comments, and sometimes physical assault that whether or not I want to know what others think of me I have the abusive answer forced on me. In what I am aware is classic conditioning, I have been trained by society to assume that most people around me don't like me and don't want me around. That is the ingrained lesson deep in my brain and muscles, everywhere where scar tissue exists and remembers. Yet I am rationale and work to protect myself, so I built an armor of indifference. Actively, I can take it off and receive compliments (often not knowing how to take them) but passively I have affixed to my mind and heart the statement, "you don't know what others think of you and you don't need to know." It's true, I don't and I don't. It is better to shut down the question than constantly be receiving the logical answer to the stares, shoving, and insults. I don't know what they think of me. They really don't know me. Their violent reaction to me is as ingrained as my defense against them. When I can be charitable, which is often enough, I tell myself that however badly they might have reacted against me, they will go home and have to ask themselves what they think about me. It is more important that they ask that question of themselves than me to ask that question of them. They need that question. I don't. So I try not to ask. The benefit of this armor is that it helps me in other areas of my life, like being a woman and a medievalist. The armor of unknowing helps me process sexist and objectifying comments from men and second readers of my articles. Don't get me wrong, the words still hurt but my trained reaction is to separate the comments from the person. I can hate what they said without hating the person. Hating people, even people that hate me, is too exhausting and soul-destroying. It is better then that I focus on the words. That is part of why I study literature and rhetoric. 

Arriving at the Women's March on Washington, one becomes aware of how many others feel very similar. These queer, trans, straight, cis, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, non-believer immigrant, citizen women of color know what it means to be the targets of hate in ways that overlap like a venn diagram, intersecting in parts and extending some extra more in others. Entering into this crowd of hundreds of thousands, I still had up my armor. But I could read the armor of others as well. Some wore their armor in the layers they wore. Some wore army or police uniforms. Others wore suits. My partner wore her collar marking her as a member of the clergy. I had asked her before we left, "what is my medievalist uniform?" She laughed when I asked and then laughed harder when I came down the stairs. "You did it!" she said, looking me over. "You are certainly wearing your medievalist uniform." For me, these were my teaching / conference clothes but she agreed that I represented my work well. Others at the march wore their armor in the clothes they didn't wear. Mothers nursed their children. Young women bore their breasts openly in the January air with little strips of black tape over the nipples. Some augmented their bodies with face and body paint. Venus's mirror, a common symbol of womanhood, was drawn around people's eyes. Nasty woman was written on arms and cheeks. Then again, buttons, t-shirts, and signs were everywhere. The march was an overload in rhetoric and language. Some signs were funny. Some were angry. Some said a lot, listing the many immediate issues that need to be addressed by the government on six-foot signs in tiny lettering. Others indicated there was too much to say, with one woman holding a sign saying just that, "there is just too much..." For our part, the family brought with our flags that we hang in the front room of our apartment: a transgender pride flag, a rainbow LGBT pride flag, and a Black Lives Matter flag. Throughout the day, as we wore the flags around us or extended the flags between us, folks would come by and say a few words to us or take a picture of us. We met others who had similar ideas. The biggest advantage of the flags was that they could be seen by those who were not at the march. They would be visible in media and social media pictures as well as video. Those describing the event would likely include mention of these recognizable symbols. In a crowd with so much to say, we wanted to keep our statements simple but important, and leave it to others to say all the rest.

What mattered most to us was to speak with our presence. Like the hundreds of thousands around us, we were asserting our voice and power in the most peaceful way we knew, by silently standing together in a crowd. Images of the march had trouble capturing and comprehending how many of us were present. Estimates of all U.S. cities suggest that around 3 million people, mostly women, walked in protest this day. Aziz Ansari commented on Saturday Night Live that evening how Trump and his campaign/administration must have recognized that they did something wrong to piss off an entire gender. 3 million marchers do not represent the entirety of women or even just one gender but the massiveness of our presence made a statement. It was a statement that no one of us marching or those who saw the march could control. What does it mean when so many women, feminists, allies, and Trump protesters collect together? What does the Women's March have to say? What do women want? The question had many answers - some certainly better than others - but overall the massiveness of the march asserted how important the question was regardless of the answer. The Women's March stated that we were a force to be reckoned with and reckoned we will be. Immediately the news and politicians began spinning, trying to control what the Women's March meant. But no one description does justice. The March was too big to be contained by fences, roads, police barricades or by hashtags, news bulletins, or governmental pandering. The Women's March cannot be contained not only because it is so big but because it is made up of so many parts. The population of the march cut across race, religion, sexuality, disability, political party, class, and gender. The Women's March asked a big question but did not speak just in one voice but in many voices each with their own language, experience, dialects, and subquestions. What the Women's March means is an important question to ask but is inextricable from the question, what does it mean that a transgender medievalist and her family marched?

Answering the question of what the March meant to me will be a task that will take a long time to ponder, but what it meant to others with whom we marched is surprisingly easier to articulate. As soon as we began walking onto the National Mall, stopping by the fountain in front of Congress so the children could rest, I began to be approached by people. One women walked over just to tell me, "you are so beautiful!" This caught me by surprise because covered in my winter gear, medieval uniform and mom-equipment (for our hungry, tired kids) I didn't think I looked at my most attractive. Functional, competent, matronly, yes. But not beautiful. This also caught me by surprise largely because of my defense mechanism that insists I don't wonder what others think of me. If I ask, "does she think I'm beautiful?" I am prone to also ask, "does he think I'm ugly?" Often it is easier just not to ask either. But when someone comes up to me and tells me what they think, it is a surprise. I don't want the armor to deflect it but I can fumble - and did - as I had to take down these defenses and try to catch the compliment. I tried to switch the befuddled look on my face into one of gratitude. It is easier to shift into thanking them for the kind words. Again, focusing on the rhetoric and language is easier than assuming I know what was the personal intention behind them. Yet as the Women's March continued and others kept coming up to me to share their thoughts and experiences, pieces of the armor began to fall off. More and more I was able to release myself from trying to understand the meanings of their words and just receive their presence. In turn, I did feel more vulnerable. Because not only were they being present with me but I became more present with them. My meaning met and joined with the meaning of others. What does it mean for a transgender medievalists to be present at the Women's March on Washington? How does that feel? To consider this question, one must think like a transgender medievalist and that means considering the Wife of Bath for a moment.

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The Wife of Bath's Feminism

On twitter, Chaucer Doth Tweet announced that he would be at the Women's March, provoking the question whether the Wife of Bath would be there as well. Modern feminists have much to admire about the Wife of Bath's liberty, strength and strategy. Too often medievalists have to correct students when they call her a "proto-feminist" or a "modern woman" because they want to declare her an honorary woman of their age. This impulse comes from a place of love and a recognition that if the Wife of Bath were walking among us today, she would likely be marching with us as well. But what such claims can elide, what we can pass over too quickly in our declaration of her modernity, is how her fight for women is so very medieval. She fought for herself and became a model for women in the fourteenth century. Most women and feminist medievalists won't be able to miss how patriarchal and subordinating of women the Middle Ages were. Indeed, as the revelation of "FemFog" last year made clear, the patriarchy and the subordination of women continues in the study of the Middle Ages as well. We share experiences and battles for sexual liberation with the Wife. Our oppression is linked over centuries to her oppression. The one came from the other. Yet the distinction of the Wife of Bath as a medieval woman (or medieval feminist, if you will) is as important as other intersectional identities. A woman of color (WoC) is affected not only by being a woman but being of color. Often it is hard to distinguish which element is at play more in any given act of prejudice, but reading the narratives of women of color demonstrates differences as well as similarities exist with WoC and white women. Likewise, 9/10s of the experience of being a transgender woman may overlap with cisgender women but the 1/10 that is specifically transgender and the way that 1/10 colors the rest is critical. In this way, the Wife of Bath being a medieval woman matters. Her medieval world and language affects how she understands and expresses her acts of resistance. Being a medieval woman affects how she would understand us, transgender women, and the Women's March. 

I have read the arguments that identify the Wife of Bath as being like a transgender woman but feel that a critical trans reading of her Prologue and Tale points us elsewhere. True, she is a strong woman and transgender women are strong. This may be understood as masculinity in the same way that feminists in the early 20th century were called "shemales" by way of an insult; as if being transgender or intersex was an insult. But I do not think a woman needs to be transgender or intersexual to be strong, even in the Middle Ages. I don't discourage anyone who wishes to read the Wife of Bath as sort of trans. I welcome her into the trans sisterhood. I would gladly march beside her because many of our struggles are the same. This reading of the language and rhetoric others (including the narrator) use to describe her is not wrong but does not interest me as much as other things that the Wife of Bath says her self. My interest in the Wife of Bath is in her Tale. The Tale as a whole offers excellent analogies by which we can better understand the Wife's medieval moment and our own. The premise of the Tale describes a maiden who is raped by a man of the governing class. Many of us in the march have been raped, abused, or traumatized by the current governing class of men in the United States. In response to the transgression, a court of women collect in order to assert their power and offer judgement on the man. While the march was not able to enact the same force of law, matriarchs and women present at the march certainly passed down judgements on a man of many transgressions. The take away of the women's court was the command that the rapist patriarch (a stand in for the patriarchy) must come to understand on question: what do women want? Any man or watcher of the Women's March that does not turn away considering the same issue, what women want, have not read closely. The question is apparent but the answers are manifold. The knight is told in turn that women want: "richesse" (riches), "honour" (honor), "joylenesse" (fun), "lust abedde" (sex), "rich array" (clothing), "oftetyme to be wydwe and wedde" (often to be widowed and wedded), and "flaterye" (flattery). The signs and speeches of the Women's March made similar demands for the funding of women's healthcare, dignity, roles in entertainment, sexual freedom, freedom of expression, freedom to marry and divorce, and to be considered a constituency that the government cannot neglect.

All of these demands are true in the Middle Ages as today but the riddle of the Tale is not complete until the answer is given by the figure I most identify as trans in the Wife of Bath's texts: the shapeshifting "elf-queene" (elf-queen) and "fayerye" (fairy) who the patriarch must marry and the court must accept. The knight encounters the woman as she is dancing in the privacy of her fellow fairies, as a man might see a trans woman in a club surrounded by her queer and straight allies. The man desires her and pursues her but when he gets her alone, outside of the fairy/club atmosphere and dress, she is not what he thought she was. The knight in the Tale sees her as "a fouler wight" (a foul creature) that is often identified as an old woman but connect more broadly to the "loathly woman" trope in medieval storytelling. The commentary on age and youth is still useful because it draws attention to how women's beauty is often associated with their ability to sexually reproduce, ergo a young or cisgender woman is more beautiful than an old or transgender women who the man cannot impregnate. Yet beyond the question of age, the main conclusion is that this woman is not the standard of beauty and womanhood the patriarchy desires. The modern anti-transgender slur for this could be a "trap." Some use this term to describe beautiful (trans) women who trick (i.e. trap) men into sex by passing as cisgender women. Of course, in most likelihood transgender women or this elf-queen were not trying to trick anyone but were just having fun with their friends when the man broke into the queer space of his own choice. The shameful descriptions of her appearance reflect the reactive patriarchy that must dismiss the trans person they once desired for fear it might comment on their own desires. And indeed, the trans figure holds the answer to the patriarch's problem with women - as trans folk might who have been forced by society and body to see the world on either side of the gender divides. The answer she gives is that which a medieval feminist or a medieval trans feminist might give: "Wommen desiren to have sovereynetee" (women desire to have liberty).

Yet the Wife of Bath's elf queen is not done with the patriarchy, because she is not only a woman but a trans woman. It is not enough that trans persons are used to promote feminism for all women, they must be allowed to speak to the specific needs of trans women. After giving the knight the answer, the elf-queen demands he marry her. If one is to work with transgender people, one must be prepared to stick by them in solidarity and not abandon them after they cease being useful. This marriage also serves to introduce a sub-problem and question for the knight. The trans wife asks the patriarch:  "Chese now," quod she, "oon of thise thynges tweye: To han me foul and old til that I deye, And be to yow a trewe, humble wyf, And nevere yow displese in al my lyf, Or elles ye wol han me yong and fair, And take youre aventure of the repair That shal be to youre hous by cause of me, Or in som oother place, may wel be" ("Choose now," she said, "one of these two things: To have me ugly and old until I die, And be to you a true, humble wife, And never displease you in all my life, Or else you will have me young and fair, And take your chances of the crowd That shall be at your house because of me, Or in some other place, as it may well be"). Within the Tale, the trans figure asks him to choose whether she will be ugly but subordinate or beautiful but insubordinate. Outside of the Tale, we might understand the choice as a trans person saying, "I can be openly transgender but can keep silent on the need for liberation or I can pass as a cisgender woman but then will need to fight for liberation." Such a question for the knight is supposed to be a riddle for the reader, "what would you chose?" By way of making a point, the Wife of Bath has the patriarch make the best decision. He says, "Cheseth youreself which may be moost plesance" (chose yourself what you most want). This is a lesson for the medieval patriarch as well as the modern feminist. If you want trans persons to fight for your liberty and the liberty of all women, you need to let trans people be trans people. In the end, it is best for all. The knight magically gets a woman who is beautiful and free. Feminism gets trans women who fight for women and the trans community. The Wife of Bath's feminism is not just transhistorical, it is intersectional.

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Intersections with the Past

Standing in the National Mall, straining to hear the speakers in front of the Washington Monument, I was approached by a youth. They came up to compliment my flag and affirm their gratitude that other transgender persons were present at the March. They were done up in their protest apparel and buttons. What struck me most about them was how young they looked. In their eagerness for community, I saw how many of our trans youths are hungry to see themselves in the world. Too often, the world fails to present an image (Imago Mundi), a history, or a future that includes transgender. They didn't stick around for long. They were nervous and flew off to be with their friends. I don't think they would have braved those nerves for anyone and that they did mattered to me. Their presence here mattered to me. Their hunger mattered to me. For that moment, I was at the Women's March for them. Later, the exchange repeated itself as another community member in a transgender flag came over to introduce themselves. They were older and a little braver. I introduced them to my family. They seemed particularly happy to see that we brought our kids. Beyond this, I cannot say what our meeting meant to them but they did ask to commemorate it with a picture. I got one too. Funny enough, we had to same rose-gold pink camera phone. These words and pictures will stay with me for some time. Their meaning will grow as new words and associations build on them. Being present for one another allowed for dialogs to be generated and continued between us and between those witnessing our community-making. Because Marches are where many different lines of flight cross, tangle, and rub up against each other so that at a common intersection our struggles and lives mix. Our meanings, lives, and liberations are no longer our own. They join the collective discourse going on around us. Our voices joined the invited speakers in Washington DC and around the country. Some I heard at the March and others I heard through videos later as their trajectories criss-crossed online.

One of the speakers we were present for at the Women's March in Washington DC was Janet Mock, a transgender woman of color, whose speech insisted that feminist liberation must be intersectional. "It will find us struggling together and struggling with one another," Mock admits in her remarks. "Just because we are oppressed does not mean that we ourselves do not fall victim to the same unconscious policing, shaming, and erasing. We must return to one another." This idea of return sticks with me as a trans activist and a medievalist. So much of being transgender is fighting for the ability to put our lives back together after gender divisions and assignments have pulled us apart from our communities, stories, and embodiments. Trans activism then becomes the way in which we collectively fight to put our shared lives back together, bringing one another back from the isolating margins and into life giving community discourse. Medieval studies too is the work of going into the archives and bringing dead stories to life or bringing dead elements of those stories out from historical silence. In each of these works, we may individually become the enforcers of divides as we struggle to put things together. This is why it is important that we interrupt each other. A youth stepping into a conversation with my partner brings me out of my shell and reminds me of the stakes of being present. A photograph with a young adult returns me from family time to consider how my family may serve to grow the community and carry on discourse. Janet Mock standing on the National Mall declaring the place of trans women of color in the Women's March calls us all to step out of our individual feminisms and stand together, march together, and speak together. Silences can exist between those we are standing next to as they can in historical archives. The Wife of Bath may need to interrupt a conversation as much as my wife may need to interrupt me to point out someone trying to talk to us. We don't do as much or as well alone. Together we are able to continually call one another to return to the work and return to the work of co-liberation.

What the Women's March sent me home with was a renewed purpose to keep on fighting and to continue to be present. For me, this also meant connecting with the other marches once I left DC. In the Women's March in Maine, Jacie Leopold spoke on inclusion while an American Sign Language translator interpreted her words for the audience. "I was asked to represent the transgender community," she said as she told her story of becoming a victim of assault and overcoming this victimization. "I came to a place where I could flourish, do all the things in life a person should do without the having the word transgender define who I am and limit my opportunities." It is important for Leopold that others not tell her what her life means. Others cannot tell her what the March means to her. Yet the trans woman's presence can raise the question and get people talking. "You can create the dialog that gets people discussing, learning, and growing," she told the crowd. By asking the question of what transgender means, its meaning can grow. Yet this growth and dialog must keep moving if it is to stay alive. Like the movement of the March, if we are to liberate ourselves and reclaim the meaning of our lives, we need to keep opening ourselves up to others. Leopold then turned from her story to the stories of other transgender women, naming how transgender women of color face the greatest number of assaults and murders. She confessed how her experience brought her closer to understanding of mutual struggles with them without fully comprehending their struggles. In the wake of these struggles, male assaulters are often let off with minimal sentencing. This is in part allowed because the law sees these transgender women as men, reclassifying the assaults as men assaulting men. The logic of these excuses demonstrates how the patriarchy not only hurts transgender persons, women, but also men. Man on man violence is more acceptable so it is used to excuse violence against trans women. In this system, everyone is victims. The law itself demonstrates how it is victim to sexism patriarchal biases that delegitimize the law as law. By opening up what womanhood means, we give life to one another, including transgender women. By redefining what violence is, we give protection to one another, including men. By entering into dialog with others, we create roads where we might meet each other at the intersections of gender, race, suffering, life, and liberation.

For a transgender medievalist, this intersectionality must also apply to history and difference in historical periods. The Middle Ages are transgender. The Middle Ages marched. The elf-queen marched on Camelot. The Wife of Bath marched on Canterbury. Eleanor Rykener marched on Cheapeside. Saint Joan of Arc marched on Orleans. Narcissus marched on the woodlands. Hermaphrodites and Amazons marched on islands. Saint Marinos marched on the monastery. The trans Middle Ages marched and so trans medievalists marched. We marched because we know our history and carry on our history into the streets. We carry on their lives. We carry on their resistance. We carry on their liberation. We carry on the good. And unfortunately we too often carry on the bad. We march to move forward. We march to bring those along behind us. At the intersection of the past and the future, we find ourselves marching. In many ways, I am less certain of the future than I am of the past. That is the gift of being a medievalist. I know about manuscripts and relics, memories and fragments. I know about persisting through time. I know about change over time, how things transform by being different in some ways and the same in others. The trans-exclusive patriarchy in the fourteenth century experienced by the Wife of Bath is not the same as the patriarchy we know today but ours is a cultural descendent. In the face of today's patriarchy we can see the whole genealogy: in the rhetoric of a man who "caughte hire by the queynte" (grabbed her by the pussy, the Miller's Tale); in the rhetoric of a man who calls someone a "hogges toord" (nasty, the Pardoner's Tale), or in the man who rapes women and then goes to women looking for their support (the Wife of Bath's Tale). Our struggles are not only our own and that is why we march. That is why we may ourselves present and open ourselves to interruption, to compliments, to debate, and to liberation. Because the patriarchy works to make us feel alone, and small, and momentary. Because the patriarchy works to cut us off from each other and our past. Because after each failure, we turn and return to one another.

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For more about transgender intersections

in the Middle Ages

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