Being at the Ball

Last Saturday, I volunteered at the Mautner Project's annual Gala Dinner and Reception.

The Mautner Project is a National Lesbian Health Organization whose goal is to serve lesbians and women who partner with women by giving information, as well as providing assistance in finding local and national health services.

I admire Mautner's attention to the intersections of gender, sexuality, and health, their work in trying to reach out to and provide services for lesbians and women who partner with women, and their efforts to educate other provides to give culturally competent health care. Not only do they speak to my feminist self, but also to my queer activist self, and of course, my basic humanity. Health care education and services need to be increased across the board, but I particularly commend Mautner, and other similar organizations, for the way in which they focus on historically under-served and overlooked populations.

It's amazing to think of the way in which The Mautner Project came into being...

The Mautner Project was founded in 1990 following the death of Mary-Helen Mautner in 1989 of breast cancer. Shortly before her death, Mary-Helen asked her partner, Susan Hester, to start an organization that could help other lesbians facing the overwhelming challenges of life-threatening illnesses.

A testament to how much change we can make happen.

In any case, in addition to wanting to support The Mautner Project, friends of mine are fans of their annual gala; I wanted to see for myself. While I couldn't quite afford the $175.00 gala ticket, I could afford to give of my time and labor, so I volunteered to help with the event. (I need to work on volunteering more consistently--there's so much work to be done, and so many who need help doing it!)

It was inspiring to see that the event drew over 600 attendees, and I hope that despite the complaints about the length of the dinner and dessert programs it was a successful fundraising event.

I felt privileged to be a part of the night's events--although at several moments of the evening I felt a bit out of sorts. (And I'm not even thinking here of the handful of moments when I was yelled at, or just not spoken to nicely in the course of being a volunteer.) More specifically, I felt out of sorts because I felt so invisible as a transman.

I can't say that I'm surprised...

...looking like this

It's true, I don't do enough to come out to people as trans, or to ask them to use male pronouns in reference to me. That all just feels so awkward. Sometimes I think that maybe I feel awkward because I don't feel trans "enough." Other times I just resent having to come out (yet again), because of the ways in which society has set up rigid dichotomies and assumptions around gender.

So, I guess I can't really expect people to be trans-sensitive if I don't come out explicitly as trans...but that just feels like such an unfair burden! (This reminds me exactly of the way in which bi-racial/multi-racial and bisexual people have to negotiate their way in the world, and of course, the fabulous book my friend Beverly Yuen Thompson, Ph.D. wrote on "bi-bi girls.")

I guess with National Coming Out Day being tomorrow, these things are weighing heavily on my mind...