The lying game
or “Transvestites: more than meets the eye”
I met her on the Internet conclusion
“Glen, there’s something I have to tell you,” said the pretty Chinese girl. She put down her chopsticks.
I looked at her. She looked at me. I looked at her again. Something wasn’t right. Then it hit me. Dear sweet Jesus, not that! Not....
“I’m not a real woman,” she said.
Damn. That’s what I thought she was going to say.
The bomb had been dropped, and its explosion was a deafening silence. She looked at me. I looked at him. He looked at me. I looked at her. Neither of us spoke.
Now, I’ve seen a few first-date faux pas in my time, but none quite so faux as abruptly changing your sex halfway through the yakisoba. The more you ponder it, the more baffling it becomes. Has this tactic worked for anybody, ever? I mean, what in the hell was he thinking?
I know what I was thinking just then. I was thinking that it was time to stop meeting women on the Internet. I was also thinking that I must have been blind. Looking at T (allegedly her real first initial) now, it was so obvious that ‘she’ was a ‘he’ in drag. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured it out sooner.
So there we were, staring at each other. I had to say something. But what? I considered playing it cool, and pretending that I knew all along. No, that would be stupid. It was a delicate moment. I had to choose my words carefully. Finally, I looked him in the eye and spoke.
“Oh,” I said.
There was another long silence.
“Um, so... um, why didn’t you tell me this before?” I inquired.
“You never asked.”
Ah. Excellent answer. Like I’m supposed to ask every woman I meet whether she’s a real woman. I’m sure that would go over real well. Call me unconventional, but it seems to me that it is the responsibility of the trans-person to disclose such details up front, so nobody gets mislead vis-à-vis the contents of each other’s pants.
Of course, it was now clear that misleading me was the whole point of this little game. T smirked with a smugness that spoke volumes—I could see he was deeply gratified that his look was good enough to fool me at close range. My surprise and bewilderment quickly turned to annoyance.
T gave me a coy look. “I hope that’s okay,” he said. No doubt about it—this chick was hilarious.
Now, I am bisexual, so I suppose I am better equipped to cope with these sorts of mid-date plot twists than a lot of guys. However, I am accustomed to knowing which side of the fence I’m really on at any given moment. Never before had I been required to reverse sexual polarity in the middle of a date. Could I? And even if I could, would I?
I looked at him again, carefully. I found her attractive as a woman—could I still be attracted to her as a he?
Definitely not. As a man, this dude looked like shit. The lipstick was completely wrong, the eye liner was unseemly, and the mascara was, at best, inappropriate. Alas, my compass d’amour was not finding any magnetism here. Unfortunately for Mr. T, I am simply not interested in trans-folk, and no amount of deception and/or rude surprises could change that.
No, this wasn’t going to work out—but what the hell. I saw no reason why the date could not continue. After all, regardless of the sex of the dipshit sitting across from me, the yakisoba on the table between us tasted just as sweet.
“I guess it’s okay,” I said. “Just don’t do it again.” He laughed, and we continued with our meal. As we finished up, he started playing footsies with me under the table. Which I did not appreciate, but endured for the sake of my art.
As we left the restaurant and said goodbye, I suggested that T might be more successful in his dating life if he advertised himself as a transvestite and dated men who like that sort of thing. “Oh Glen, that would take all the fun out of it,” he said. He blew me a kiss and walked off into the night.
As the click of his heels on the sidewalk grew ever fainter, I wondered how many poor, straight bastards had been given the shock of their lives by that childish little sociopath. I never saw him again. Well, as a woman, anyway.
So ends the tale of the time I dated a faux female who wanted to get her faux pas on me. Thanks to T the kamikaze transvestite, I learned an important lesson: when you meet a cute girl, it never hurts to double-check.
I also came away from that date with a new insight into human freakazoiditude. I have to admit, it takes balls to dress like a woman and date guys who don’t realise you’re a gay man. Big, round, hairy, stupid balls.
Wherever you are, T, I want you to know that you are as courageous as you are a repulsive liar. And for that, I salute you.
Next week: Absolutely nothing about Glen’s sex life! Be there! •
Originally published in The Peak, March 12 2001. Original title: “Transvestites: more than meets the eye”.
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Letter published in The Peak, March 26 2001:
“That’s no way to treat a lady, man”
Glen Callender’s column last week, which recounts his experience with a transgendered person, was hateful and offensive.
Glen is disrespectful to this woman, “T”, whose only transgression is her gender identity. The language Glen uses (“he looked like shit”, “childish little sociopath”) is at best, rude. These statements may be an attempt at humour, but in fact dehumanise “T”. Dehumanising another person is not funny.
Glen attempts to portray himself as more tolerant of different sexual identities by identifying himself as bisexual. However, one can be transphobic and bisexual at the same time. Being bisexual does not give one liberties to belittle another, even further marginalised person.
Furthermore, Glen’s statement that it is the responsibility of the transperson to make sure “nobody gets mislead vis-à-vis the contents of each other’s pants” is absurd. Perhaps Glen should make the size and appearance of his own genitals public knowledge so as to avoid any misunderstandings in the future.
[Peak editor’s note: For more than you wanted to know about the size and appearance of Glen Callender’s genitals, see An Open letter to Durex Condoms, May 15 2000.]
Letter published in The Peak, April 2 2001:
“Trannies don’t need special treatment”
I feel compelled to write something in response to JE’s letter of last week. JE claimed that Glen Callender’s recent column recounting his date with a transgendered person, “T”, was hateful and dehumanising.
This is a gross exaggeration. Callender was certainly poking fun at “T”, and even being somewhat rude and disrespectful (as humour often is). But Callender was not criticising “T” for being transgendered; he was criticising her for being misleading.
Obviously, transgendered people often face difficulties that the rest of us don’t have to. One among many would be: in a dating situation, when and how should you inform the other person of your transgendered status?
However, other people face similar dilemmas: in a dating situation, when and how should you inform the other person that you’re unemployed, or that you still live with your parents at the age of 30? Unwritten rules of social conduct require a certain amount of honesty and openness in these situations.
Ironically, I found JE’s words to be more belittling toward transgendered people than Callender’s. JR almost seemed to be implying that transgendered people are so helpless and delicate that they need to be treated with kid gloves and that one should never say anything negative about any of them.
I’m sure JE and Callender both agree with me that people who are transgendered should be treated with the same kind of respect that we give everyone else. However, this includes acknowledging that transgendered people have the same imperfections and foibles that the rest of us do, and that we can therefore occasionally poke fun at them the same way we poke fun at everyone else.
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