Sunday 26 November 2017

Tomboy Survival Guide



You don't have to look a certain way to be a tomboy. Don't let anyone tell you that, ever, and please don't find that here in my words. Tomboy thrums in your heart. It's in your head. It's what is holding your spine in place. It can't be hidden by a haircut. It's not about nail polish or not. It's running right now in your veins. If it is in you, you already know. Tomboy blood is so much bigger than the outside of you.
I guess I'm late to the Ivan Coyote party. Tomboy Survival Guide is their (Coyote uses the pronouns “they” and “their” to refer to themself) eleventh book, and as Coyote seems to be about my own age, they would appear to have been at the vanguard of writing about the trans person experience. I can only imagine how scary and lonely it must have been in their early career to be openly pushing for understanding and acceptance for something that most of us had no exposure to, and I do hope that Coyote's everyday experiences have been improved by the growing presence of trans persons in the news and in the entertainment industry. I think that most people read in order to learn about the lives of others (and by extension, learn about ourselves) and this book of essays about Coyote's life taught me plenty; it would be of interest to any person who cares about people; it couldn't help but spread empathy and understanding; read it.

Coyote was born in the Yukon, into what appears to have been a large and supportive family; and while some early family drama is hinted at (and may well have been described in their earlier books), they would seem to now be in a place of love and acceptance. The essays in this collection range from the first time – at five years old – that Coyote remembers feeling pride at being mistaken for a little boy, through their awkward adolescence as they tried to figure out just what they were, to early dating and workplace experiences, to their present as a respected writer, performer, and public speaker. As we are about the same age, I identified with all of the cultural references, and as a fellow Canadian, I enjoyed the recognisable geographical bits (loved the mental picture of playing softball under a midnight sun). Mostly, I appreciated the learning I gained about the non-binary experience: Coyote may have been born with female parts, but they never felt like a girl, exactly, but not like a boy either; “lesbian” would seem to be the wrong word, too, and “trans person” will need to do if I need a term:
My day-to-day struggles are not so much between me and my body. I am not trapped in the wrong body; I am trapped in a world that makes very little space for bodies like mine. I live in a world where public washrooms are a battle ground, where politicians can stand up and be applauded for putting forth an amendment barring me from choosing which gendered bathroom I belong in. I live in a world where my trans sisters are routinely murdered without consequence or justice. I live in a world where trans youth get kicked out onto the street by their parents who think their God is standing behind them as they close their front doors on their own children. Going to the beach is an act of bravery for me. None of this is a battle between me and my own flesh. For me to be free, it is the world that has to change, not trans people.
This is not an angry or political book; Coyote's tone is easy, engaging, and often humourous. However, as Coyote is a public speaker, some of these essays felt a little performative – as though written to be spoken aloud to a crowd rather than read; but that's a small complaint. The text includes charming diagrams (from how to tie useful knots to the assembly of an iron), short observations from the real world, and a few responses to the people who have written to Coyote for advice:
I promise you that you are not alone. I'm here. I'm here and I see you. I feel you. I was you, and I am you. It's not you, it's them. It really is. And those boxes, those binaries, those bathroom signs, those rigid roles, they hurt them too, they do, they carve away at their souls and secret desires and self-esteem and believable dreams and possible wardrobes and acceptable careers just like they do ours, just it's harder for them to tell it's happening on account of no one is hassling them in the bathrooms every other day about it. They somehow just fit better in those boxes, so they can't see what fitting has cost them, not like we can.
This book is a conversation, not a lecture, and I enjoyed every bit of it; learned much. (I will, however, need to think hard about whether or not baby-showers-as-gender-reveal-parties are nothing more than an attempt to hang a burdensome label on the unborn; I honestly don't see us moving into some post-gender world.) This deserves to be read widely and I wish Ivan Coyote all the best.

Ivan Coyote's TED lecture is : here.



*Won by Life on the Ground Floor. All of these books are worthy finalists, and I learned a lot, but my favourite would be Tomboy Survival Guide as the best written/most eye-opening.
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