Speaking Of Nobel And Literature

Well, I've blogged about Al Gore and his potential Peace Prize as well as my dear old college friend Erika's novel about witch trials, so I might as well continue the trend with a synthesis: I see Doris Lessing has become only the 11th female ever to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.  That's wicked cool.

Yet another favorite person from my days at Colby, Jenny Boylan, gives me a moment of pause:

I remember reading “The Golden Notebook” when I was 21; I’d been given it by a good female friend, one of those people who may have had some fundamental understanding of my trans nature without our having an intimate talk about it.

But what I remember is a profound sense of sadness from Golden Notebook, and particularly a scene in which the heroine finds her flat-mate, Ronnie, in the bathroom, using her moisturizer. It’s not clear to me if Ronnie is meant to be trans, or a gay man, or some combination of both, but our fightin’ feminist heroine is, in any case, repulsed, grossed out, and contemptuous of him.

“… Anna, speaking out of her disgust, was ashamed of doing so before the words were out. Good Lord! she thought, to be born a Ronnie! to be born like that– I complain about the difficulties of being my kind of woman, but Good Lord! I might have been born a Ronnie!”

So. There you have it.

Today I will join in with other feminist women around the world in being glad for Doris Lessing, and glad for us all.

Except: I wonder if anyone, in the accolades which are sure to shower down on her in days to come, will note this cruel swipe at trans people? And feel bad about it? In just the way I felt bad about it, as a twenty-one year old feminist transwoman, looking for someone who might give voice to the things I felt in my heart, and heard, from my heroines, only disgust and shame.

I ain't got nuthin' profound to say, and besides, does anybody really need to hear what a hetero puke male has on his mind anyway? 

I'll just note that this comes right after my friends Molly and Racy Mind have blogged about sad developments regarding ENDA as I've been reading sci-fi by Suzy McKee Charnas (sorta the anti-Heinlein) that my friend (geesh, whodathunk I'd have so many friends, and not even imaginary ones?) Echidne turned me onto.  Oh, and I just had a conversation this weekend with a gay guy who couldn't really help me understand why the GLBT community usually seems to forget the T (and sometimes the B, I've found) when issues of civil rights and stuff come up.

I guess it's just a natural part of the human condition to be loyal to a narrowly-defined group and not really give a rat's ass about others in a similar situation.  Or something.

ntodd