GLBT & BUDDHISM

GLBT and Buddhism

It´s expected that people browsing these prestigious magazine pages have a fair knowledge on Buddhism.   On the other hand, having a theoretical foundation on the subject and a personal “user opinion” I´ll strain the GLBT aspect which, I must presume, is the less focused term of the binomial heading.

Old wise Socrates claimed that for a dialogue to take place definitions were a must. And nowadays it seems truer than ever.  Mainly as the terms we have to deal with are of relatively recent origin and evolution. The trouble with colloquial expressions like “queer”,”fag”, “sissie”, and the like, is that besides being vulgar words, they happen to be as imprecise as most alley talk.

As a starter, for such task we count  with the invaluable assistance of “The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Ass.,Inc.” Standards of Care (SOC), revised June 98.

Resuming, for the sake of the schematic aims of this article:

TRANSGENDER is a person who invokes the conviction that his/her true gender identity is contrary to the biological, anatomical, genital, physical evidence. Once upon a time (in the 50´s) a rather poetical expression was coined and still today is vastly used: I’m referring to the famous, now happily superseded concept of “being trapped in the wrong body”.  (Nobody can be in a “wrong” body, but in his/her body, even in the case of having little to do with his/her gender identity).  So, when talking of transgenderism, just forget about blood tests and switch to the psychological environment.

TRANSEXUAL is a person who (after enough professional counselling) decides to surgically adequate his/her body in order to see appear in the mirror an image more or less corresponding to the one that has always been in his/her mind. This is properly called “Gender Reassignment Surgery” (and popularly named “sex change surgery”, which is wrong for a very good reason: it is particularly useful to remark that SEX and GENDER are separate concepts. “Sex” is a FACT, going deep into chromosomes and cannot be changed. “Gender” has to do with social roles, appearance, feelings (even fashion) and the like.  In a gross figurative way I always mention: “Sex is between your legs; gender is between your ears.”  Of course it is nor scientifically true, but it helps a lot to catch the idea. (And affords a few seconds of relax to the audience.)

These two stages of the same process have nothing to do with TRAVESTISM that is the practice of wearing clothes and accessories normally attributed to the sex opposite to that of the wearer. A deep satisfaction is derived from such a practice and may (or not) include masturbation and/or sexual intercourse. When intercourse takes place, it is almost always of the heterosexual kind. Many travesties are married people who share their whim with their couples. Others don't.

HOMOSEXUALITY has nothing (or sometimes, little) to do with all this, since LESBIANS are WOMEN interested in having sex with other WOMEN, and GAYS are MEN interested in having sex with other MEN. (No “wrong body” mischief) Homosexuals generally dislike not only to be conceptually linked to TG, TX and TV, but even avoid their institutional proximity (in associations, bars, clubs, etc.) Actually, gays and lesbians try to keep distance from one another, too.

BISEXUALITY is the attitude assumed by someone who little cares what’s trapped in the crotch of the person he/she is attracted by. (Homosexuality is involved to some degree in bisexuality and bisexuals generally dislike such subject to be raised)

GLBT is the abbreviation by initials denoting Gays, Lesbians,Bisexuals, Transgenders, Transexuals & Travesties, as a group diverse from Heterosexuals. Once pointed out as minorities, one might start to suspect whether the summing up of those letters doesn’t become a majority (particularly considering the vast numbers still in the “closet”). Which is not the point, for when it comes to Human Rights we should ignore statistics and proclaim that “all the Rights are for all the Human” (including heterosexuals, course!) But it happens to turn into a most decisive point when it comes to Marketing...

We might go on dealing with rather obscure issues like “The Categories of Transgenderism”, the “Partial (or Total) Androgen Insensivity Syndrome” (AIS) and other absorbing matters, but they fall far beyond the scope of my present task.

I’m a transgender woman. I was born in Buenos Aires in 1945 and I’m an Ital.-Argentine citizen presently trying to survive in Caracas, Venezuela, since 1991. “For a fact of curious chances...”(Gilbert & Sullivan) English is my mother language. During the last twenty years I’ve practiced Soto Zen Buddhism. And due to some mysterious reason, for that same period I got involved with non governmental organisations, fighting for the Human Rights of the GLBT people; first with CHA in the Far South and then with several entities here in the Caribbean.

Assuming my “trans” condition I’ve adopted a first and middle name while keeping my family surname as such. My first name is Hannah, which in Hebrew stands for Grace, and Lilith as a middle one, whose meaning and connotation evokes a rather dark image of the Near Eastern folklore (imperishable recipient of remote anthropological truths) but recently redeemed by Jewish feminists. So, Hannah Lilith results in The Grace of Lilith (Some Grace!). Relating my innermost gender identity with such spiritual banners (through my adult free choice) implies for me a consolidated personality, betting my whole existence to what I feel and believe.  And no closet, course.  I’m a full time TG woman and Hannah Lilith Migliavacca is my professional identification (NOT legal, unfortunately and for the time being).  So in public and private I happen to be an impeccable feminine presence.  Carla Antonelli has just privileged me in her Web Site pinning my picture in the Transgender Beauties Gallery (At 61!)

As far as we are directly concerned Buddhism deals with human beings. Difficult not to notice it also has to do with animals, our younger brothers. After a closer watch we soon realise we are responsible for the salvation of “invisible beings”, too.

Siddharta was born in what it is today Nepal, an ethnical descent of the Aryan invaders coming into the sub-continent from the central Siberian plains, I suppose.

He never addressed his audiences (far as I can imagine) as “My people”, since his doctrine has a lot to do against the unfair discrimination among persons. A natural consequence of that attitude is that a thought that originally appeared among brown skinned people was taken to China, Tibet, Japan and contemporarily to Europe and the Americas.

When referring to animals we are not told of bad, or useful, or wild ones. When referring to invisible beings it is not specified whether the subjects are fairies, or demons, or dark powers, or highborn kinsmen.  So, I assume that the Buddhist call is intended to Life (whatever forms it takes) in the hope that once a form has exhausted its karma it will accede to Enlightenment.  Then, as a way of life, or as a philosophy to deal with this “wicked world”, or as a religion, Buddhism is a spiritual shelter for GLBT people. Particularly when they are not welcome everywhere. But that’s a different colour horse.

I was born with male genitalia. So, it must have been easy to decide: male!

When I was about nine years old at the school medical check up they noticed I had started to develop breasts and from then on, in the best spirit of the scientific positivism I was injected male hormones thrice a week. For years.

In spite of such unceasing dripping my bosom and my hips kept expanding inexorably to the elder boys in the neighbourhood delight and the desperation of the endocrinologists. In the 50´s the Androgen Insensivity Syndrome (AIS) was still a hypothesis (AIS made simple for easy understanding: The body doesn't "read" the male hormones segregated by the appointed glands or coming from outside)

In the meantime, the family scene: Through scatological threats and very concrete blows (just in case) I was systematically disintegrated, diminished, defiled and despised in infinite ways. I was constantly reproached what I would have been ("as a man!") were I not what I was. What was I? My inner, not quite conscious self-perception was that of a "second class" woman. But, on the other hand, I was dimly proud of my female budding forms, only expecting for the coming day when my mother's brassieres would fit my young girl's chest.

It's many a year now, since I learned to straiten up from that sewer of margination and worthlessness. Notwithstanding, I'm perfectly lucid and must openly admit that all the pain I have experienced in the hands of my own family first and in society's in general later on, has become the most efficient training in the process self acceptance and consequent self esteem. Particularly in the underdeveloped macho society in which we are immersed, where ignorance and superstition recommend suspecting of anything different. As if in the whole universe there were two identical individuals! Maybe now it's becoming easier for some to guess why I embraced Buddhism.

In the long run the polarity male/female will be transcended to accede to the androgyny. (Which has nothing to do with hermafroditism.) Yes, I know that's still another different colour horse.  GASSHO.