But this is Chico, too

Christine Jorgensen’s story has always fascinated me. As far as I know, she was the first person to publicly proclaim she felt like a woman trapped inside a man’s body.

In the early 1950s, she attracted worldwide attention after she went to Denmark to have a sex change operation.

Every time I read or hear about a transgendered person, I think about Jorgensen. Their stories are almost identical to her’s. Each of them, male or female, feels completely out of sync with the gender they were born with.

Tedra Thomsen’s request to play on a Chico Area Recreation and Park District coed softball team as a woman reminded me of the importance transgendered people attach to an identity that exists independently of their anatomy.

Thomsen, who is 6-foot, 4-inches tall and a male by birth, regards sex change surgery as drastic and expensive, but she isn’t content to play on the team as a man dressed in women’s clothes. Something about her need to be regarded as a woman runs bone-deep.

What makes this even issue even more complex is that a person’s sense of gender exists independently of their sexual orientation. In a story written by Tom Gascoyne that appeared in The Chico Beat, Thomsen said she’s attracted to women. Travel writer Jan Morris, who started his life as James Morris, stayed with his wife after having a sex change operation about 35 years ago. They’ve been together for almost 50 years. But there are also plenty of transgendered people who are attracted to people of the same birth sex.

Whenever I discuss my feelings about transgender issues, I start by saying that the essential Steve Brown is a person and that my gender doesn’t particularly matter. But the response I always get is that I feel that way because I’m comfortable with being male.

But that’s not true. My outlook and interests are completely at odds with what is called maleness. I’m not interested in sports, I couldn’t care less about how my car looks and I’m not “good with my hands.” For the most part, male conversation, with its focus on things, bores me. My favorite movies are so-called “chick flicks.” Watching movies that have a lot of shooting and chase scenes literally puts me to sleep.

When my son was a little boy, I spent a lot of time with him, but we never did “guy stuff” together. Both of us would have felt ridiculous going into the back yard and enacting the male ritual of tossing a football back and forth.

I could go on and on about why I feel at odds with maleness, but you get the idea. I believe our gender roles are largely imposed on us by a culture that places a strong emphasis on oversimplification and superficiality. I have a feeling that if we could accept the fact that the sexes are far more alike than they are different, people wouldn’t be so concerned about the validity of their birth gender.

I sense that if I were to have a sex change operation, I wouldn’t feel much different than I do now. On a “soul” level, who I am has as little to do with my gender as it does with my health, ethnicity, physical appearance and age. The essential Steve Brown transcends such categories. I believe this is true of all human beings.

I also have a suspicion that if I were to have an operation that changed me into a female, I would feel just as constrained by our culture as I do as a male. I can’t imagine having to worry about wearing makeup and showing up to work each day in a different outfit. I would hate the idea of feeling I have to justify to people why I choose to be a “working mother.” In the 21 years since my son was born, I’ve never been asked — not once — to defend my decision to be a “working father” or to explain how I’ve managed to “juggle” two careers.

Gender roles have relaxed a lot since I was growing up in the 1950s, but those of us who are unable or unwilling to get with the program are still exasperated by the rigid cultural expectations.