Page 16 - BWL PipelineAprMayJun2020

by Erica Beck
Erica Spitzfaden is the Lansing Board of Water & Light’s first openly transgender woman.
I sat down with her recently over Skype for an informal chat. I have mostly been on the periphery of the trans world for many years—knowing of them, being friendly with them, even dancing with them at belly dance workshops
and shows, but never sitting down to have a conversation about, well, them. I came out of that conversation with great admiration and a burning desire to re-examine The Matrix.
The Matrix you say? That movie from 1999? Yes, that movie. The Matrix was directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski, two trans women who at the time of the film’s release, had not yet come out as trans. It was an incredibly huge success at the time of its release and I had no idea it was an allegory for what the trans experience is prior to coming out. Since then, many articles have been written on the subject. No, this is not about the film The Matrix. But it also kind of is. I’ll explain.
In the beginning of the film, Keanu Reeves character is considered an egg. An Egg is a transgender term for
a transgender person who does not yet know they are. This process can last for a few years or in Erica’s case many. It takes as long as it takes. In the film as in life, many in this
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stage may turn to the internet to experiment with different personas. Like in the film, Thomas Anderson becomes Neo online. Of course, in the film “online” and “real life”
are switched. But this gets confusing in print, so I leave it at that. The Internet has been a valuable tool in helping many try on personas real life doesn’t allow them to try. A person
can go into a chat room or a game and try on a different persona and see what it feels like. While yes, the internet can be very toxic, for many it was the only place they could be themselves, or start to feel like themselves. Bodies are, at best, a suggestion. Your brain is what really matters.
Erica describes coming out as a series of small preferences where she would choose
what society told her was appropriate. Her preference might gravitate to an article
of clothing, for example, that might read more feminine, but instead she would choose the one that was not, not wholly consciously. It was a million subtle signs. A million little cracks in the egg.
Her realization came late in
life. As she describes it, it came quite suddenly, after all those years of subtle clues. On a run, she said the words out loud. The egg exploded. Some other transitions occurred slowly. She came out at work and began to present herself as she saw herself. This comes with its own conflict. People you expected
to be accepting stop talking
to you and others you thought would have a problem barely bat an eye. How to navigate anti-discrimination laws, or if you want to even pursue those cases. Wearing certain types
of clothing that a certain jobs require may cause them to be mis-gendered. Entering one of our plants, for example, require a certain amount of protective equipment, which is not exactly feminine.
Navigating the workplace can be tricky. Women statistically make less than men, but transgender women make less than that. Half of transgender individuals earn $15,000 a
year or less, despite having post-secondary education. This may cause many to stay in jobs where the culture is unwelcoming. It might even cause them to be out of work.
Last April, Erica was hired
at the BWL as a Network Administrator in IT. Compared to the two previous places she worked, she says that here, she’s had no issues. She enjoys the job and her coworkers. Even if she does encounter problems, she shrugs them off.
She didn’t transition until she was 50, and I think this has led to her self-acceptance— something I feel we could
all learn from. One quote I
did make sure to write down, “When you know yourself, that is very powerful, and no one can stop you.”
BREAKING BARRIERS