Calliope
06-07-2008, 05:46 AM
One way to live in community without much emotional pain is to stay out of love.
~ Kat Kinkade, Is It Utopia Yet?
It didn’t take long after arriving at Twin Oaks before I heard about “Bobbi.”
Quotes are employed because the narrative didn’t belong to Bobbi, it was conveyed, individually but almost invariably uniformly, as Twin Oaks history. Precedent plays forcefully here, shaping culture and, dare I say, shared consciousness (a minor example culled from infinite possibilities: No one occupies “Name's room,” they live at “Another Name's old room”). Since Twin Oaks is rural, however egalitarianized, it figures a certain conservatism applies. Keep that in mind when hearing “Bobbi’s” story.
I believe “Bobbi was an utter asshole,” as recounted by Madge with her usual gusto, was my narrative introduction to Bobbi. This view was confirmed and enlarged upon by several other women I met in my early days at Twin Oaks. “A total chauvinist pig,” “always making with sexist remarks,” and “chasing after women just like some guy” were the central charges. “Bobbi had a lot of male energy and she just creeped out the women ~ especially after the incident.” Incident? Nothing charges up a DIY (no TV) utopia like a “drama” (in quotes because that is Twin Oaks vernacular).
I’m too much a lady to touch upon “the incident,” except to add (1) it may (or may not) be as reprehensible an escapade as you anticipate, and (2) it’s, as expected, the sort of accusation made against one person by one other person, both principals of course involved closely in one way or the other, leaving no trace of evidence or witness whatsoever. Back in the day, though, Twin Oaks, as a family of peers, was brought into the drama of the accusation of the incident. All in all, most folks agreed Bobbi was at fault and, as you might figure in a society of less than 100, Bobbi’s community standing soon went to freefall.
With his customary laconic dissent, Woody recalled only, “Bobbi was a loner.”
Kendrick: “She smoked like a chimney and cursed liked a sailor.”
At some point, it was decided, and not a minute too soon, that “Calliope isn’t Bobbi.” Stated briskly by a long term member of high standing, Paxus , this pronouncement offered a detour from the precedent-weighted former narrative that was “the only other transwomen who ever lived at Twin Oaks.” “I think you’ve unfortunately taken some heat from all the crap Bobbi pulled,” was once said to me. Whatever ~ one person’s misplaced precedent is only another’s data-starved prejudice; who better than I to (bitterly) understand that? Or, wait a minute.
One of the gals here once told me, deep in the heat of my “don’t trans me, don’t 'he' me” campaign, that I was having a smoother go of it than Bobbi. “That’s because, see, Bobbi was 6-foot-two, with really big shoulders and a very masculine walk whereas you, you’re much smaller, much more feminine.” Well, swoon. And, bringing gender roles fuller into play here, Bobbi’s labor scene happened primarily at the sawmill, where, “he’d” forever and a day, she received some grudging admiration from the other sawmill workers (men, as you might have guessed).
I had to admit Bobbi fell into line with some of my own precedent-freighted predispositions. “Are you sure Bobbi wasn’t a crossdresser?,” I asked. “Nope” the chorus responded, Bobbi was “trans.” Well, who better than a bunch of untravelled heteronormatives to make that determination, I mused. But, anyway.
Valerie, feminine but feminist, has lived at Twin Oaks for 15 years. She’s seen it all, and agreed to share some of her recollections of Bobbi:
“She was a very complicated person. I admired that, being real tall, solid, with Navy tattoos and a lot of residual masculine presence, she moved into her path in the face of her physical reality ~ it couldn’t have been an easy road. Social sensitivity is important at Twin Oaks and Bobbi had less than more; she would tell bad jokes, people wouldn’t be laughing, but she’d do it again and again. Bobbi was out of sync with Twin Oaks.
“When she first got here, she had very high ideals, then there was the crash. It was yin or yang with Bobbi, no middle road. I believe she came here on some sort of rebound ~ relationship or job, or both. I remember her saying to me, early on during the euphoria phase, 'I feel safe here.' But a bell went off in my head, sure, she’s physically safe here, but not necessarily safe socially.
“She worked with me as the site manager for the Communities Conference and the Women’s Gathering for two years. Year after year, it was bad communication, she just didn’t work with me. A lot of stuff just didn’t get done ~ weird. Then she went to the sawmill, maybe she managed it, it was isolated work ~ isolated in a neutral sense. But, socially, Bobbi became real isolated ~ in a negative sense ~ watching Net Flix in her room all the time; I mean, who moves into community to be alone?
“Then, there was the incident. To be fair, the other person involved had some mental health history, she was always having dramas. She was Bobbi’s one friend at Twin Oaks. But, you have one person not getting it with boundaries ~ Twin Oaks is not a therapeutic community ~ and another person not getting it on a gender issue level, it was a perfect alignment of bad community interaction and all of Twin Oaks got sucked into an all-consuming drama.
“Between Twin Oaks’ culture and Bobbi’s behavior, it wasn’t a good fit. And Bobbi left owing Twin Oaks almost $1,000 ~ not paying back the debt was not respecting the values of the group. Bobbi was a triggering person.”
Eventually, I became curious about Bobbi. (The comment about Bobbi that really got to me, unhappily grappling at the time with the possibility Twin Oaks men wouldn’t “really” view me as a woman, was: “Bobbi did fine here until she made it known she had sexual needs, like everyone else.” Did she wolf women just to spite the guys ignoring her? I wondered ~ and so on.) No photos in the archives as it turns out, which serves me right, I’ll add, going with such a superficial inquest. So I tracked down her contact info and, within a few days, I was talking to Bobbi, presumably woman-to-woman, over the phone.
“I want to say I’m sorry to hear of your rough time joining Twin Oaks, largely due to my time there,” she offered. “Please, no,” I insisted, “you've nothing to apologize to me.” Clear the air. Then, on to her story. Bobbi first heard of Twin Oaks through her then-girlfriend’s research into Women’s Conferences around the US. Presto, right in the region, the famous annual summer Twin Oaks Women’s Gathering, as immortalized on a hundred T-shirts. Bobbi loved it, and attended the next year. (Which surprised me, made timid by all the Michigan Women’s Music Festival controversies.)
Bobbi, like so many others pressured by the corporate rat-race, fell in love with utopia ~ and joined. Without her girlfriend, I should add. Just Bobbi. “Oh, the honeymoon phase was fine,” Bobbi told me, “but, even after five years, most of those so-called liberals kept calling me 'he,' they never got it.” More tellingly, Bobbi said, “Most of my five years there were completely lonely.” No romance + no friends = no utopia. “To make it worse,” Bobbi concluded, "I had no outside assets, so I spent those years stranded, trying to figure out how to get out of Twin Oaks.”
I was curious, why did Bobbi work at the sawmill, doing, well, guy stuff? “Well, I'm big and when I was younger, I overcompensated for my gender dysphoria by taking on supermasculine tasks. I was in the Navy, even.” Déjà vu, me too. “When I got to Twin Oaks, those were the sorts of things I knew I was good at.” I thought: ??? And, if I may be so forward, how about women at Twin Oaks? “I’ve always been attracted to women, I’ve been with a girlfriend for years now.” None of that registered at all with my life, but since Bobbi wasn’t compelled to inquire anything at all about me or my experience with Twin Oaks, why mention it?
No, wait a minute, Bobbi did ask one thing about me. “When did you come out?” “Kindergarten.” Incredulous silence. It was like Conundrum meets Genderqueer. Later, out of the blue, Bobbi recommended a “good gender clinic” in Virginia should I wish to score some hormones. When I said I didn’t need any medical intervention since I already (always) was female, Bobbi pulled off a telephone lacuna that was pure shrugged shoulders. Or a question mark, or whatever. We were running out of gender chitchat, and fast. And the woman-to-woman talk was going quick with it.
So I concluded with a classic interview line. “Would you do it, live at Twin Oaks, all over again?” “No way, I wouldn’t even visit for an afternoon.” So, over and out. And, damn, I forgot to ask if Bobbi liked Britney, or not. Or Hillary, or not.
And there I was, left, ultimately unedified, with all my precedent-thinking.
Me and Bobbi, nothing in common. And I go with Bobbi’s description of herself: transgendered. I’m a woman with too much testosterone. (But Bobbi’s got way more than I ~ so much more hormones become mandatory. That’s a difference between us.) I knew Bobbi’s narrative real well because it played like a million forum entries I’ve seen over the years {never once sharing recipes, I might add}. Me, I’m not transanything. I couldn’t “overcompensate” to save my life (so I deserted the Navy). And, chasing women ~ nothing I could ever pull off ~ seems, at this point in my liberation, ludicrous.* I’m not queeranything. I’m actually fairly reactionary ~ I used to think “if ya need hormones to become a woman, maybe you’re not,” now I guess if ya need ’em, you’re trans ~ thinking just like any straight old broad out of my generational timezone.**
* I’m not entirely above chasing men when the mood overcomes me. Last week was Buddy’s birthday, he’s a sensitive version of the Marlboro Man. So, before the party began (read: while I was still sober) I wrote inside a matchbook , happy b-day Buddy, Calliope” and presented it to him later that eve. Buddy didn’t mention anything for a couple of days, so I asked, “Did you read the message?” Blushing, he said yes, with more blushing. I quickly informed him, “No hurt feelings, your birthday present is simply being flattered, it’s cool” ~ no weirdness. Buddy’s been comfortable enough around me since. I’m a chaste chaser. Discreet. And no hurt feelings, really; not much left here [I]to hurt.
** Only, I’m not quite “just like.” Sometimes my unique situation, at Twin Oaks or even on transgender forums, reminds me of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Birthright (Part 1)” in which the android character Data, surprised to be having dreams, laments his lack of a culture in which to interpret them. This prompts the ship’s captain, Picard, to suggest to Data that Data indeed possesses a culture ~ a “culture of one.” I’m such a gnarly girl, scrapes on my legs, full of opinions, I scare away the boys ~ and the tomboys, too. So what I got is my very own ungendered culture, a limbo land, a lack of nookie, postmenopausal mojo just like a million other old babes ... sorta.
And, lonely? Waiting for romance? There’s few women my age still silly enough for that.
When Valerie concluded her recollections, I spoke a bit about this essay, and Valerie noticed I referred to Bobbi once as “he.” I was stunned, I had not noticed doing so at all, but I had to admit, there it was, my bias. I found myself in tune with Twin Oaks’ narrative of Bobbi (quotes presently shed). So all that’s left is me trying to get used to the most peculiar sight of all these hippie guys wearing skirts, urm.
calliopeharmony.blogspot.com
Recent photos
~ Kat Kinkade, Is It Utopia Yet?
It didn’t take long after arriving at Twin Oaks before I heard about “Bobbi.”
Quotes are employed because the narrative didn’t belong to Bobbi, it was conveyed, individually but almost invariably uniformly, as Twin Oaks history. Precedent plays forcefully here, shaping culture and, dare I say, shared consciousness (a minor example culled from infinite possibilities: No one occupies “Name's room,” they live at “Another Name's old room”). Since Twin Oaks is rural, however egalitarianized, it figures a certain conservatism applies. Keep that in mind when hearing “Bobbi’s” story.
I believe “Bobbi was an utter asshole,” as recounted by Madge with her usual gusto, was my narrative introduction to Bobbi. This view was confirmed and enlarged upon by several other women I met in my early days at Twin Oaks. “A total chauvinist pig,” “always making with sexist remarks,” and “chasing after women just like some guy” were the central charges. “Bobbi had a lot of male energy and she just creeped out the women ~ especially after the incident.” Incident? Nothing charges up a DIY (no TV) utopia like a “drama” (in quotes because that is Twin Oaks vernacular).
I’m too much a lady to touch upon “the incident,” except to add (1) it may (or may not) be as reprehensible an escapade as you anticipate, and (2) it’s, as expected, the sort of accusation made against one person by one other person, both principals of course involved closely in one way or the other, leaving no trace of evidence or witness whatsoever. Back in the day, though, Twin Oaks, as a family of peers, was brought into the drama of the accusation of the incident. All in all, most folks agreed Bobbi was at fault and, as you might figure in a society of less than 100, Bobbi’s community standing soon went to freefall.
With his customary laconic dissent, Woody recalled only, “Bobbi was a loner.”
Kendrick: “She smoked like a chimney and cursed liked a sailor.”
At some point, it was decided, and not a minute too soon, that “Calliope isn’t Bobbi.” Stated briskly by a long term member of high standing, Paxus , this pronouncement offered a detour from the precedent-weighted former narrative that was “the only other transwomen who ever lived at Twin Oaks.” “I think you’ve unfortunately taken some heat from all the crap Bobbi pulled,” was once said to me. Whatever ~ one person’s misplaced precedent is only another’s data-starved prejudice; who better than I to (bitterly) understand that? Or, wait a minute.
One of the gals here once told me, deep in the heat of my “don’t trans me, don’t 'he' me” campaign, that I was having a smoother go of it than Bobbi. “That’s because, see, Bobbi was 6-foot-two, with really big shoulders and a very masculine walk whereas you, you’re much smaller, much more feminine.” Well, swoon. And, bringing gender roles fuller into play here, Bobbi’s labor scene happened primarily at the sawmill, where, “he’d” forever and a day, she received some grudging admiration from the other sawmill workers (men, as you might have guessed).
I had to admit Bobbi fell into line with some of my own precedent-freighted predispositions. “Are you sure Bobbi wasn’t a crossdresser?,” I asked. “Nope” the chorus responded, Bobbi was “trans.” Well, who better than a bunch of untravelled heteronormatives to make that determination, I mused. But, anyway.
Valerie, feminine but feminist, has lived at Twin Oaks for 15 years. She’s seen it all, and agreed to share some of her recollections of Bobbi:
“She was a very complicated person. I admired that, being real tall, solid, with Navy tattoos and a lot of residual masculine presence, she moved into her path in the face of her physical reality ~ it couldn’t have been an easy road. Social sensitivity is important at Twin Oaks and Bobbi had less than more; she would tell bad jokes, people wouldn’t be laughing, but she’d do it again and again. Bobbi was out of sync with Twin Oaks.
“When she first got here, she had very high ideals, then there was the crash. It was yin or yang with Bobbi, no middle road. I believe she came here on some sort of rebound ~ relationship or job, or both. I remember her saying to me, early on during the euphoria phase, 'I feel safe here.' But a bell went off in my head, sure, she’s physically safe here, but not necessarily safe socially.
“She worked with me as the site manager for the Communities Conference and the Women’s Gathering for two years. Year after year, it was bad communication, she just didn’t work with me. A lot of stuff just didn’t get done ~ weird. Then she went to the sawmill, maybe she managed it, it was isolated work ~ isolated in a neutral sense. But, socially, Bobbi became real isolated ~ in a negative sense ~ watching Net Flix in her room all the time; I mean, who moves into community to be alone?
“Then, there was the incident. To be fair, the other person involved had some mental health history, she was always having dramas. She was Bobbi’s one friend at Twin Oaks. But, you have one person not getting it with boundaries ~ Twin Oaks is not a therapeutic community ~ and another person not getting it on a gender issue level, it was a perfect alignment of bad community interaction and all of Twin Oaks got sucked into an all-consuming drama.
“Between Twin Oaks’ culture and Bobbi’s behavior, it wasn’t a good fit. And Bobbi left owing Twin Oaks almost $1,000 ~ not paying back the debt was not respecting the values of the group. Bobbi was a triggering person.”
Eventually, I became curious about Bobbi. (The comment about Bobbi that really got to me, unhappily grappling at the time with the possibility Twin Oaks men wouldn’t “really” view me as a woman, was: “Bobbi did fine here until she made it known she had sexual needs, like everyone else.” Did she wolf women just to spite the guys ignoring her? I wondered ~ and so on.) No photos in the archives as it turns out, which serves me right, I’ll add, going with such a superficial inquest. So I tracked down her contact info and, within a few days, I was talking to Bobbi, presumably woman-to-woman, over the phone.
“I want to say I’m sorry to hear of your rough time joining Twin Oaks, largely due to my time there,” she offered. “Please, no,” I insisted, “you've nothing to apologize to me.” Clear the air. Then, on to her story. Bobbi first heard of Twin Oaks through her then-girlfriend’s research into Women’s Conferences around the US. Presto, right in the region, the famous annual summer Twin Oaks Women’s Gathering, as immortalized on a hundred T-shirts. Bobbi loved it, and attended the next year. (Which surprised me, made timid by all the Michigan Women’s Music Festival controversies.)
Bobbi, like so many others pressured by the corporate rat-race, fell in love with utopia ~ and joined. Without her girlfriend, I should add. Just Bobbi. “Oh, the honeymoon phase was fine,” Bobbi told me, “but, even after five years, most of those so-called liberals kept calling me 'he,' they never got it.” More tellingly, Bobbi said, “Most of my five years there were completely lonely.” No romance + no friends = no utopia. “To make it worse,” Bobbi concluded, "I had no outside assets, so I spent those years stranded, trying to figure out how to get out of Twin Oaks.”
I was curious, why did Bobbi work at the sawmill, doing, well, guy stuff? “Well, I'm big and when I was younger, I overcompensated for my gender dysphoria by taking on supermasculine tasks. I was in the Navy, even.” Déjà vu, me too. “When I got to Twin Oaks, those were the sorts of things I knew I was good at.” I thought: ??? And, if I may be so forward, how about women at Twin Oaks? “I’ve always been attracted to women, I’ve been with a girlfriend for years now.” None of that registered at all with my life, but since Bobbi wasn’t compelled to inquire anything at all about me or my experience with Twin Oaks, why mention it?
No, wait a minute, Bobbi did ask one thing about me. “When did you come out?” “Kindergarten.” Incredulous silence. It was like Conundrum meets Genderqueer. Later, out of the blue, Bobbi recommended a “good gender clinic” in Virginia should I wish to score some hormones. When I said I didn’t need any medical intervention since I already (always) was female, Bobbi pulled off a telephone lacuna that was pure shrugged shoulders. Or a question mark, or whatever. We were running out of gender chitchat, and fast. And the woman-to-woman talk was going quick with it.
So I concluded with a classic interview line. “Would you do it, live at Twin Oaks, all over again?” “No way, I wouldn’t even visit for an afternoon.” So, over and out. And, damn, I forgot to ask if Bobbi liked Britney, or not. Or Hillary, or not.
And there I was, left, ultimately unedified, with all my precedent-thinking.
Me and Bobbi, nothing in common. And I go with Bobbi’s description of herself: transgendered. I’m a woman with too much testosterone. (But Bobbi’s got way more than I ~ so much more hormones become mandatory. That’s a difference between us.) I knew Bobbi’s narrative real well because it played like a million forum entries I’ve seen over the years {never once sharing recipes, I might add}. Me, I’m not transanything. I couldn’t “overcompensate” to save my life (so I deserted the Navy). And, chasing women ~ nothing I could ever pull off ~ seems, at this point in my liberation, ludicrous.* I’m not queeranything. I’m actually fairly reactionary ~ I used to think “if ya need hormones to become a woman, maybe you’re not,” now I guess if ya need ’em, you’re trans ~ thinking just like any straight old broad out of my generational timezone.**
* I’m not entirely above chasing men when the mood overcomes me. Last week was Buddy’s birthday, he’s a sensitive version of the Marlboro Man. So, before the party began (read: while I was still sober) I wrote inside a matchbook , happy b-day Buddy, Calliope” and presented it to him later that eve. Buddy didn’t mention anything for a couple of days, so I asked, “Did you read the message?” Blushing, he said yes, with more blushing. I quickly informed him, “No hurt feelings, your birthday present is simply being flattered, it’s cool” ~ no weirdness. Buddy’s been comfortable enough around me since. I’m a chaste chaser. Discreet. And no hurt feelings, really; not much left here [I]to hurt.
** Only, I’m not quite “just like.” Sometimes my unique situation, at Twin Oaks or even on transgender forums, reminds me of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Birthright (Part 1)” in which the android character Data, surprised to be having dreams, laments his lack of a culture in which to interpret them. This prompts the ship’s captain, Picard, to suggest to Data that Data indeed possesses a culture ~ a “culture of one.” I’m such a gnarly girl, scrapes on my legs, full of opinions, I scare away the boys ~ and the tomboys, too. So what I got is my very own ungendered culture, a limbo land, a lack of nookie, postmenopausal mojo just like a million other old babes ... sorta.
And, lonely? Waiting for romance? There’s few women my age still silly enough for that.
When Valerie concluded her recollections, I spoke a bit about this essay, and Valerie noticed I referred to Bobbi once as “he.” I was stunned, I had not noticed doing so at all, but I had to admit, there it was, my bias. I found myself in tune with Twin Oaks’ narrative of Bobbi (quotes presently shed). So all that’s left is me trying to get used to the most peculiar sight of all these hippie guys wearing skirts, urm.
calliopeharmony.blogspot.com
Recent photos