In Defense of "Faggoty"

I just wrote this letter to the Eugene Weekly, defending my friend and colleague Sally Sheklow's use of the word "faggoty" in her essay on seeing Joan Rivers. Someone wrote to question her non-PC usage, and I thought I'd come to her defense. I'll add some more commentary later, I'm sure.

Dear Editor,

I felt compelled to write regarding Jessica Zuckerman's Letter in the 2.3.11 issue, in which she called out Sally Sheklow for using the word "faggoty" in her piece on seeing Joan Rivers. I can't personally speak for Sheklow. I also can't speak for "the LGBT community," which is incredibly diverse and not in the habit of making unilaterally agreed upon recommendations on word usage.

To me, the use of "faggoty" in Sheklow's piece made perfect sense. She clearly uses it as a term of affection: "...we were loving the conductor," she writes. "Faggoty" in this context expresses inclusion and solidarity, not exclusion or derision--it says, "We have faced similar oppression, and though we may be strangers, we are members of the same queer family." "Faggoty" also makes sense in a piece on Joan Rivers--Sheklow is borrowing a page from Rivers' book, using brash "offensive" language to convey a campy appreciation. And, as Sheklow points out, Rivers is a gay icon...and they're playing the overture from Gypsy, for crissakes! The conductor, Joan, Sally herself--they're all taking the potentially hateful "faggot" stereotype and performing, reinventing, and celebrating it as the radical and delightful identity it really is.

To answer Zuckerman's question: yes, LGBT people get to say faggot out loud, hopefully as loudly and enthusiastically as possible. Like other reclaimed slurs against marginalized people, its history is ugly and its use controversial. I'm sure not everyone, gay or straight or what have you, would agree with me. But in my experience, the people who bigots call "faggot" are among the most resilient, self-aware, daring, admirable people I have known, and I am honored to claim them as my brothers, sisters and others in faggoty faggotry.

Russell Melia
Faggot

"F" to "M" in the eyes of the State of Oregon

So, yesterday I had the gender marker on my ID changed from "F" to "M." The whole deal, like most bureaucratic experiences and bureaucratic sanctionings of experience, was pretty surreal. In Oregon, at least (and I think this is a fairly recent development,) surgery isn't required to get your ID changed (I suspect social security and birth certificate changes are a different story,) just a letter from an approved mental health professional stating that you've been on hormones for a "long enough" time.

So, firstly I must say it was strange to get an official letter in the mail signed by two therapists stating, "Russell is a female-to-male transsexual." Not that it's not true, of course--it just seems so final. With every step of this process, there are all these little (or big) milestones that seem to signify, "This is really it--no scampering back to the relative safety of a cisgendered life."

The DMV was beyond easy. As I stood in line the guy at the counter was telling one of the clerks an amusing story about how a car thief tried to steal his car on an empty tank and left it four blocks from his house. I went up to my clerk and said something along the lines of, "Hi, I lost my wallet and I need my ID replaced...and I need to change the gender marker on my ID." To which she said, "What?" To which I said, a little louder, "I need to change the gender marker," and the guy at the stall beside me got uncomfortably quiet. But the DMV ladies were just great. My picture turned out looking like a stoned tortoise as played by the guy from Eraserhead as played by Stephen Fry, but oh well. At least there's the little "M."

In tearing through all my possessions trying to find my birth certificate and social security card, I found all sorts of relics from the past: letters, postcards, pictures, journals, ridiculous diagrams I'd drawn of lovers, CDs I'd never legitimately released (incidentally, if anyone wants a copy of the Geoff McCreedy and the Massive Faggots album, I'd be happy to sell you one for a cheap donationish price.) All of this (maybe Geoff McCreedy aside) got me feeling pretty nostalgic, nostalgic and a little lost as to my place in the world now. Simple man/woman romance seems exactly that, in retrospect--so incredibly simple. I'm not too proud to admit that a part of me misses that simplicity, the ease of just being some guy's girlfriend and having a clearly defined, if mutable, social role. Of course, when I'm in that line of thought, I'm ignoring the reality of how stifled I felt as a woman and how rather right I feel as a man, or as my kind of man. And, if at times strange and ragged and lonely (I keep being reminded of this Pedro the Lion song with the line, "Is it special when you're lonely? Will you spend your whole life in a studio apartment with a cat for a wife?), being trans and gay and a domestic-minded Romantic is certainly an adventure, and it can be wildly wonderful to create new,unusual arrangements of love and beauty and good-feeling.

But this "my kind of man" thing may be another little stumbling block of the M on my ID--in some ways, I still feel like such an androgyne--a faggot, a queen, a dude at best, but not "male." Though "male" is closer to accurate ("Closer to Fine," anyone?) than "female" is, neither seems quite right.

And now, of course, I'm going to start having to personally give a shit about gay marriage legislation, when before I had a delicious loophole. Oh well. Plus, Ladies' Night discounts will no longer apply. Luckily I'm incredibly poor and having to cut into some of my surgery savings money to pay rent, so I'm cutting down on going to bars anyway. This would be a good time to throw some money in the surgery coffers. Or help me get a second job. Or a new one.