FEMALE LIVING AS A MALE

Vincent, N. (2006) Self Made Man New York, NY: Penguin Press

Norah Vincent is a writer and journalist who is gay. As a child she was a “tomboy” and enjoyed the company of her brother and friends. She decided to enter manhood by cleverly dressing like one and living out her life as a male. This included a short haircut, simulated stubble on her face and a faux penis.

She became Ned. She wanted to socialize, make friends, go places with other men and date straight women. She joined a bowling team and found that the males wanted to help Ned do well, but thought that he was gay. When they found out that she was a female, many males felt that they could tell their secrets to her. Men live in a cold world of saving face. Women form networks that are generally supportive and establish a social structure. Men form hierarchies and try not to lose their standing as they believe that they run society. (Women probably do so.)

She then got a lap dance at a strip club and hit the bottom of masculinity. It was redemptive for her to live in an all male monastery.

A couple of chapters are devoted to dating. She discovered that women have the ultimate power when they first meet and verbally and non-verbally say “no.” to a male. As a woman pretending to be a man and is a gay woman who continually dates gay women, she turns to straight women. The women want men to talk about feelings which men have but don’t dare express until much later in a relationship. She sees that there is not a great divide. The roles are exaggerated, but she believes that there are still two creatures here on earth with different brains.

She also took some lessons on masculinity and felt the most powerful in suit and tie. For women, the disguise is breast implants or related, short skirts, make up. For men, it is the suit.

As she became more masculine, she felt more lonely, powerful, decisive, and homophobic. Soon Ned and Nora began to compete for ultimate identity. The author had a nervous breakdown. She was admitted to a mental ward and in therapy received medications to slowly allow the gay Nora who was androgynous to return.

In the end, she played many work roles and found that selling was easier as a man. She also went to a men’s retreat. Her journalistic tradition is similar to Black Like Me (John Howard Griffin) a white man who was made up to be Black and Barbara Ehrenreich  a writer turned blue collar domestic in Nickel and Dimed.

This is all part of the “passing literature” of people who live in a world in which they do not belong. From the census, nearly 23% of white folks are Black. What can they tell Blacks? Transgender folks originally ache to be the other sex and live in that world. Much of the biology, psychology, and sociology are spelled out in this 21st century classic.  Perhaps some day, part of education will be about passing into another subculture. What is it like when the curtains are closed and the other can more truly reveal themselves. Most of us have inadvertently wondered about the forbidden worlds we do not inhabit. This book should open some doors at least for a while on the subject.