Blog
Exclusive Interview: Stana of Femulate
|
|
I had the privilege of conducting an email interview with Stana, of the blog Femulate . I am thankful that she took the time to talk with us, and hope you enjoy her story. When we conduct interviews for our site, we aim to let the individual speak for themselves. We want Transgender stories to be told in a way that is understood by our community, not as filtered through a normal media lens. That being said, enjoy the interview!
1) So how exactly do you pronounce your name? How did you choose it?
Stana rhymes with Donna.
When I was in the closet, I did not need a female name because who was I going to talk to in the closet? But when I joined Genderline on Compuserve, I needed a female name ASAP. I did not have time to think about it because I was anxious to get online, so I did what a lot of transgenders do just out of the closet, that is, use the feminine version of their male name. In my case, I used "Staci," which in a roundabout way is the feminine version of my male name, Stanley. I never really liked the name, but everyone got to know me as Staci, so I was stuck with it.
Years ago, I became aware of the name "Stana" when I acquired a circa 1910 postcard from Eastern Europe that depicted a female impersonator named Stana Behavy. I filed the name away for the future.
About three years ago, I e-mailed some recent photos of myself en femme to a co-worker, who knows about my femulating.
She e-mailed back, "You’re so cute Stan…very lovely. Hot dress…love the color too."
Reading that response made me think: I am out to people who know me by my male name and I intend to come out to more people who know me by my male name.
Why not make it easier for them by using a female name that is similar to my male name? "Stan" and "Stana" are so interchangeable that one does not have to worry about slipping up when speaking my name? No one, certainly not I, will call them out if they say "Stan" when they intended to say "Stana" and vice versa. "Stan" can even be considered short for "Stana."
And I like the name. It is unique (I always like to be unique). And it is a good fit, that is, it simply suits me. So, I became "Stana."
2) What is your story Stana?
Growing up, I did not think I was different, but my peers and adults made it painfully clear that I was different. I was just being myself, but myself did not fit the model of an all-American boy in 1960. However, I liked myself and did not want to change something I liked, so I continued my journey aboard the good ship Lollipop and damn the torpedoes.
Around puberty, I discovered crossdressing and found it to be a good match for "myself." Thereafter, I considered myself to be "a plain vanilla crossdresser," which in retrospect, was my way of denying that I was transsexual. In the back of my mind, I thought I might be transsexual, but that scared me, whereas crossdresser was easier to accept. Go figure.
I was happiest when I crossdressed and I wanted to be happy more of the time, so I crossdressed as often as possible. In June 2009, I lived as a woman in New York City 24/7 for four-days. It was my epiphany; it was then that I realized that I am a woman. Since I have male body parts, that makes me a trans-woman, a transsexual, but that is just a technicality. In my heart and in my soul, I am a woman.
I intend to live as a woman as much as possible, but since I am married to a woman, who married a "man," I plan to honor that commitment and be a good husband to the woman I love. As a result, I live a compartmentalized life. In one compartment, I dress as a woman; in the other compartment, I crossdress as a man.
3) How do you identify?
I am a woman (technically, a no surgery, no hormone male-to-female transsexual).
4) Could you say a little bit about your site?
It is very popular. It astounds me that on average, over 5,000 people visit my blog every day to read what I write.
I invented the word "femulate" to use as the name of my site and to my amazement, even the use of that word has caught on in the trans world!
I think the blog's success is due to a number of factors:
> I post something new every day. As a result, people come back every day because they know there is something new there to see unlike some blogs that post less frequently.
> Many people have written that they read my blog because they live vicariously through me. They are closeted, can't or won't go out, so they depend on me to be en femme for them, which is something I am glad to do and glad to write about.
> My blog accentuates the positive unlike some blogs that I call the "woe is me" blogs.
> I write for a living, so I know how to write. I also have a sense of humor that I attempt to use in my writing.
5) What role do you see Femulate playing in the online Transgender world? Education? Community building?
My goal from the start was to write about my "adventures" out en femme so that it would encourage others to get out of the closet and join me in the real world. (If I could do it successfully at 6 foot 2 and 210 pounds, I figured anybody could do it.) I think I have achieved my goal because I receive e-mails all the time from my readers who say that they were encouraged by Femulate to get out of the closet and go out en femme.
I try to educate my readers on how to femulate successfully. There are so many pieces to that puzzle (makeup, clothing, speech, mannerisms, movement, etc.) that I am happy to share what works and what does not. Sometimes I don't practice what I preach (my skirts are occasionally too short), but when I follow my own advice, I usually get by.
I am an advocate of "community" especially for those who are just stepping out for the first time, after all, joining a support group is how I got out of the closet. However, the community can become a closet, too. Sooner or later, you have to expand your horizons beyond the community if you really want to live. That does not mean you have to abandon the community, but you should explore the real world beyond the community.
6) I have read about many educational events you have been involved in? Can you tell us about these and about your experiences doing them?
Originally, I had an ulterior motive for doing outreach: it gave me another opportunity to go out en femme and in addition, to talk about myself. (What could be any more attractive to a narcissistic T-girl?)
But after I did my first outreach, I realized that most people were clueless about us. They had a lot of false notions concerning transgenders. Some people thought we were freaks and some were actually afraid of us!
When I discovered how mistaken they were, I felt that I had a duty to try and educate them. If I was successful, they might spread the word and educate their friends and relatives and someday, everyone would realize we are not freaks. Rather, we are people just like them.
Besides outreach, I have done workshops with transgender youth similar. In those workshops, I try to teach the attendees how to femulate successfully. I have been femulating for nearly half a century and I am able to teach the young'uns a thing or two. Seriously, the workshops I have done were very helpful according to the critiques of the workshops that I was privy to see afterwords.
7) Do you have a piece of advice you'd like to share with the Transgender community?
Franklin D. Roosevelt was not talking about being transgender, but his words are applicable when he said, "..the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
I retreated into the closet for a very long time before I overcame my fear and advanced into the real world. I realize now that I had nothing to fear and I regret all that lost time in the closet when I could have been living the female life I was meant to live.
My advice is "don't let fear paralyze you from living the life you want to live."
Categories: Interview
Post a Comment
Oops!
The words you entered did not match the given text. Please try again.
6 Comments
Anonymous says...
This person is nothing other than the typical transvestite trying to justify their fetishism. Nothing to offer anyone and it is a shame that you pander to their desire for attention. Seek the truth, not the opinions of Snow White's wicked Queen looking in the mirror, knowing it will say only what she wants to hear.
Thank you for your point of view. We welcome debate and conversations on our site. That being said please avoid using derogatory language. Transvestite I personally find extremely offensive. It is a term that fetishizes ALL gender diverse people. Not Just Nonoperative Transsexuals.
You do however bring up some interesting points which we would love to visit further, and maybe we will examine in future blog entries. Often we in the gender diversity education arena paint our community like it is one of happy cohesiveness all the time, which is in fact not always true. We all come from as many different points of view and perspectives as there are people in our community. Also politically just as with the feminist movement our community has waves within it. We "gender liberationists" are finding that even generationally there huge differences in definitions and levels of acceptance.
In our movement we saw the ground breaker generation, the gate keeper generation, the gender outlaws, and now even the gender fucks generation. The generation I come from I historically have found it was difficult breaking away from that gate keeper mentality (which you so brashly expressed). That mentality was truly was a major crutch for me studying Gender Studies in college. So I know where you are coming from. Being someone that has wrestled with acceptance I encourage you to read some of the more current books within the gender diversity movement. One piece I personally enjoy is "The Perfect Storm" by Sam Peterson. The author does a much better job expressing the importance of acceptance as part of not only the transgender movement but also feminism as well. This piece can be found in Kate Bornstein's follow up book to Gender Outlaw, "Gender Outlaws, The Next Generation."
It is an exciting time we are in as our movement continues its momentum. The levels of acceptance and the points being pushed for all gender expression to be accepted are truly remarkable to me. I am glad that M had the opportunity to Interview Stana, even though at one time I would have been in the same boat as you in your opinion, because those brave women like Stana (and yes I see Stana as a true woman because that is who she expresses as being) have truly paved the way for the gender queer revolution. That revolution going on elsewhere on college campuses and Tumblr, and so many places truly is an exciting firestorm that I believe in the long run will only help us all understand and accept each other on character value not face value much much more. So thank you Stana, and thank you to the brave people you have inspired.
Submitted respectfully by
Jena S Lewis
Your interviewees web site is full of examples where they obsess about clothes, underwear, so on. This does not make obe a woman no matter how much one might want to delude one's self that it does. Want to feel like a woman? Forget the clothes and try doing the washing, the ironing, the cooking, the cleaning, stay at home to look after the children, try traveling on public transport late at night by yourself going out at night by yourself to see how women might feel. Sites such as Femulate - and its author - paint being a woman through very narrow focused rose colored glasses.
It isn't all about the clothes - unless you are merely a transvestite. And if you are then be honest and accept it. If you are truly transsexual you won't be so obsessed with just the clothes. Clothes may maketh the man but they don't make a woman out of a man.
I am curious as to the swearing that is claimed. Although it is true that I do have a bit of a sailor's mouth when in close company such as friends and some family. I scoured my response to your statement and did not see any swearing.
The only thing I can remotely find that may be interpreted as such is the use of the term "gender fuck" (GF) which is a self described term used by people that truly blur and purposely mess with the hegemonic binary gender ideals. Although I am not part of this GF movement, I do applaud them for their outside the box mentality and their braveness in pushing the envelope. That said there is a strong difference between a SELF described label and one thrust upon a large group of people. The empowerment that the GF section of our community claims is vastly different then the pathologized label that was once pushed upon ALL of us causing us to be forced to live in insane asylums historically.
The psychological history of the word transvestite has caused it to have a socially derogatory meaning. Again it implies mental illness at best, and fetishizes at its worst. Does the word have opportunity to be reclaimed sometime in the future the way "Queer" has been by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, and Lauren Berlant and those of us that study Queer theory? Sure it does. But the fact is at this time in our society transvestite has not been reclaimed and so therefore remains derogatory.
I find it interesting that you apply so many of those hegemonic expectations of women to your description of what it means to be a woman. I personally know several cisgender women that do not fit the description of a woman you painted for us. Are you implying that those women are also less than? Your comment also implies that we as women must live in fear or else we are not truly women. If that is what you were meaning perhaps joining the rest of us within feminist movement will be extremely liberating for you. The myth of the bad man jumping out of the bushes, or attacking you on the bus is just that. It happens occasionally, but statistically speaking you are more likely to be harmed by your brother, preacher, neighbor or close friend than any mysterious assailant. I for one refuse to live my life in fear, I am 5'2" not the biggest or strongest woman in the world, yet I have no fear using Grand Rapids' public transportation, Chicago's, or even walking home from the local gay bar at night.
Part of that courage I carry comes not from me however, it comes from the fact that there are those that although they are not exactly like me, they do help push social expectations of gender roles and the idea of gender itself. Just as we would agree gender is not what is between our legs, gender is also not what duties we are assigned to or chose to complete. Gender is a mental state of mind. I did not start being a women the day the state assigned my birth certificate change as being valid any more than I did the day I woke up in Thailand post surgery. I did not start being a woman the on the day I went full time. I was a women and knew I was a woman as soon as I knew gender separations were present in our society and where I lay in those categories mentality (about 2 or 3yo for me).
I feel it was his holiness the Dalai Lama that said it best when he encourages us all to not judge the steps that others take on their path, for their journey is not ours and their steps are not our steps, but we need to encourage and celebrate those on their journey for they have the courage to take those steps at all. I may not be in the same sub category or Stana within our community. I may be anxious that the GF movement may eventually cause some backlash that effects the levels of liberation we have so far obtained. But it is not my place to punish, judge, or even act as a gate keeper for those different than me; it is for me to see them as shining examples of what open minds can do if they just have the courage to do it.
As we move forward in our interconnected community, I can say thank you to the GF movement, I can appreciate Stana's point of view, and yet say, I am not them, but I am grateful to them for the work that they do.
Respectfully submitted by
Jena S Lewis
I take your point that one ought not judge others but one does need to review things with a critical mind. I could claim to be a martian, that does not make me one. Likewise those who claim to be of the opposite sex but without any appreciable evidence to support their beliefs should have their opinions considered with some caution. Even more so when there is ample evidence to the contrary.
I notice that a comment on the author's site claims I know nothing, am a a hater (no such word in the English language) and suggests I should be stripped of internet access to teach me some manners. It's rather lamentable that those who demand acceptance and toleration are so frequently the same ones who show neither to those with differing opinions. I'll lose no sleep over their comments.
FYI, I have been there, done that, and now live more contentedly through knowing where I belong in the world, after having found that being honest with myself is the best place to start. There's far too much over-analyzing taking place for some people to ever find acceptance within themselves-let alone others. In my opinion, the views expressed in the interview above are little other than dreams. In ten, twenty or thirty years time they will still be dreaming, having missed the opportunity to live as themselves rather than fantasize about what might have been in some self- deludng impossible daydream.
I'll leave you to have the final word. As they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
Oops!
Oops, you forgot something.