TransAmerican Idol

[March 8th, 2006] Sassy Lowrey first met transsexual author Kate Bornstein at a workshop in Portland, put on by 2 Gyrlz Performative Arts' Enteractive Language Festival in 2003.

Lowrey was 19, self-identified as a queer, trans, genderqueer, femme, and had been going to the Sexual Minority Recreation Center (SMYRC) in Portland for three years.

Couch-surfing after having been kicked out of the house, Lowrey commuted to Clackamas to finish senior year of high school, and found people at the Portland rec center with similar backgrounds: no stable or safe place to live and persecution at home.

A zinester, writer, spoken-word and visual artist, Lowrey first learned about Bornstein in fall 2002 by reading the author's My Gender Workbook, a kind of how-to for those exploring gender theory.

"This book made a big impact on my life in terms of giving me connection to the idea that gender was much more complicated than a binary male or female," Lowrey says.

Now 21, Lowrey is one among the thriving transgender and genderqueer community of Portland eagerly awaiting Bornstein's return Wednesday, March 8, when the author gives one of the keynote addresses at Lewis and Clark's three-day Gender Studies Symposium.

At the 2003 Two Gyrlz workshop known as the Language of Paradox, Lowrey was among at least a dozen people who met with Bornstein to write and produce a two-hour performance at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center in North Portland.

The group grew for the second workshop in 2004 when Bornstein encouraged members about the writing process during a regular email correspondence.

"Working with Kate played a big part in my comfortableness performing in front of large crowds," says Lowrey, who'd never imagined writing work that would find life on the stage. "Ze really encouraged my spoken word and my writing" (see glossary below for definitions of terms like "Ze").

Now, in addition to having published the zines "daddy's pirate boy," "gender is a sex toy," and "life doesn't come with training wheels" and running a button-distribution company (www.assimilatethis.com), Lowrey teaches a course at Portland State University called "Gender Revolution: Explorations in Gender Transgressions."

Lowrey also was recently featured as a speaker about gender on the National Public Radio show "Philosophy Talk." Last November, Lowrey helped found a new local group called the Radical Queerleaders that's dedicated to boisterous activism against queer assimilation.

"Kate has continually questioned gender boundaries and has really helped me figure this stuff out, too," Lowrey says.

Bornstein's forthcoming book is Hello, Cruel World, an unconventional guide to staying alive that addresses anyone between the ages of 12 and 30 who feels marginalized (Bornstein calls them "invisiblized creatures").

"I travel a lot, and wherever I went I heard about folks killing themselves. I realized I knew how to stay alive in a culture that wanted me dead,'' Bornstein says. "All of us in the [Language of Paradox] program knew what it meant to approach the edges of suicide. That is what paradox does to a person."

Citing stats that list suicide as the third leading cause of death among young people, Bornstein is adamant that there is a wider cultural imperative to "really take care of the children, including the freaks, the geeks and the queers."

Sue Burns, manager of In Other Words bookstore on Northeast Killingsworth Street, recognizes Bornstein's power as a writer and advisor to trans-questioning people of all ages.

My Gender Workbook is one of the store's best sellers.

"It is definitely on Kate's agenda to give voice to trans youth,'' Burns says. "I know also that it is pretty much where every trans questioning person starts."

^A Trans/Queer Glossary

Ze/Hir: Terms used by people who don't wish to be recognized by conventional gender-specific pronouns, like he/she, his/hers.

Genderqueer: A genderqueer generally rejects heteronormativity (the traditional two-gender system). Often rejecting traditional gender roles as socially constructed (and oppressive to all), the term "genderqueer" is an evolving concept.

Queer Assimilation: The notion that queer people want to be like straight middle-class people. People who reject queer assimilation, or see it as a negative thing, generally take an anti-corporate stance.

Transgender: A broad term that describes all people who feel that their anatomical sex does not match their gender identity, and/or whose appearance and behaviors do not conform to the societal roles expected of their sex.

Transsexual: Often confused with transgender. Transsexuals are people who intend to live as a gender other than that assigned to them at birth, based on the appearance of their sex organs at birth. Many transsexuals alter their primary or secondary sex characteristics with hormone treatments, surgery, or both.

Transvestite: Also confused with transgender and transsexual. A transvestite is a person who dresses in the clothing of the other gender, and generally does not want to change their anatomical sex.