Of Jews and Transsexuals

Well now, that’s an odd title, isn’t it? And you’re likely wondering what they have to do with each other; what they have to say to or about each other. I’ll tell you shortly, but first I’d like to register a complaint with the Internet.

Oh, don’t get me wrong…I love the Internet. For me, it’s the library that never closes. It’s the source of information to refute all the stupidity that I’m regularly bombarded with. And yet…it’s a two-edged sword because it’s also the source of much of the stupidity that I’m bombarded with. The Internet has allowed any idiot with a broadband connection to have as much of a voice as a properly-vetted, well-established, expert on a subject.

Take for example the anti-vaxxers. 20 years ago there may have been pockets of them here and there, but they would’ve been surrounded by many more people who could try to talk a little common sense into them; and they would realize that they were very much alone in their opinions. Today, those formerly-isolated nutcases can easily find others like them, and spread their dangerous misinformation far and wide, wreaking damage that they can’t begin to imagine.

I hate to say it, but it seems to me that there are too many support groups out there on the Internet. I once heard that there was a support website for bulimics…not to help them get over their problem, but to give them tips on how to hide it better. Now that just seems wrong. I was going to joke that there’s probably a support group out there somewhere for people who pick their nose and eat it…until I found out that there actually is one.

Sigh.

Which brings me back to my title.

A while back, I remember hearing a piece on NPR about how children with what is called Gender Identity Disorder being diagnosed earlier and earlier, and how there’s more support for them now; and I was a little concerned about this support. You see, I was wondering if a kid going through what might be a temporary exploratory phase might get enough “support” that they’d feel that they couldn’t change their minds without “letting people down.”

Why do I wonder this?

Because when I was a kid I wanted to be a girl.

Really, I wanted to be a girl. 50 or so years later, I couldn’t tell you why, but I wanted to be one, and pretended I was one every now and then. Now…I knew it wasn’t possible for me to really be a girl, I didn’t learn about Christine Jorgensen until I was in my teens, and by that time I had long since grown out of that phase. So knowing that it wasn’t possible, I figured I’d just play the hand that life dealt me, and be a boy. Besides, all things considered, had I known that it was really possible, would I actually make that choice? I tend to doubt it.

On the other hand, who knows? In today’s climate would my parents feel obligated to get me counseling that might “support” my desire to be a girl, rather than figuring it was just a phase I was going through? And having put my parents and all the people who were supporting me through that, would I feel able to say, “No, wait. I don’t want to do this after all?”

This is where the Jews come in.

I’ve heard it said that not only is Judaism a non-proselytizing religion, but that when a Gentile goes to a rabbi and asks to convert, the rabbi’s supposed to turn him down three times, basically saying, “What are you, crazy? Look at what we go through because we’re born into it, and you want to take it on voluntarily? Get outta here!”

I understand the desire of members of the transgendered community to make life easier for the current generation than they had it, but I also think it would be very good if the first reaction that they had to a potential newbie was similar to that of the Jews. I mean, it’s one thing to have your family and the rest of the general world suggest that you might be making a mistake, but it’s something completely different to have people in the community that you think you’re a part of tell you to go away, and ask yourself if this is just a phase you’re going through.

Now don’t get me wrong…I know my share of transsexuals, all of whom concluded definitively somewhere after the age of seven that they were in the wrong body. I understand enough about biology and brain chemistry to know that these things do happen. And I’m not saying that these people should be trapped forever in the wrong body.

What I am wondering, however, is if our current age of providing “support” for every issue a person might have is creating a few irreversible false positives.

And that’s why I think that a Jewish approach to newbie support from the transgendered community might be a good thing.

OK, let the hate mail begin!

The Little Light, It Goes On!

It’s funny how these things happen. You read something on one subject, and end up not only learning something totally different, but understanding something that made no sense to you before. In this case it was an article by Elizabeth Kiscaden, in the March issue of Computers in Libraries on the Prezi presentation tool.

As part of the article, she mentioned a presentation she had created at Waldorf College on how and when to cite properly in order to avoid charges of plagiarism. This was particularly interesting to me because I had always been confused by and annoyed by it. In particular, I was bothered by how certain fields can be really anal about citations and make a potentially career-damaging claim of plagiarism for something that wouldn’t be an issue in a children’s book on the same subject.

In particular, I was still bothered about the 2002 case of the Gene Tobin, president of Hamilton College, who was forced to resign when someone noticed that he used an unattributed phrase from a review on Amazon.com in a speech he gave, thus violating the honor code that he was supposed to enforce. This sent shivers down my spine…I mean, good grief, is the well-read, reasonably informed person supposed to keep notes on everything they’ve ever read or heard so that they can cite it properly months, or even years, down the road when it percolates up from their memory and they say it themselves? If that’s the case, then we’re all guilty of plagiarism, and we’re screwed.

I found the answer to my confusion in that presentation, and it all goes back to an argument I had over 30 years ago with a friend over writing styles. You see, this friend was being trained to write as a historian and an academic, while I had been trained to write as a journalist and a “popularizer.”

According to the presentation I looked at, as a historian, researcher, or some other academic, the point is to show that from the old information you've synthesized something new, and to give the world a new voice, one that is not "authentically yours" if you don't cite correctly and/or present other people's ideas without attribution. In addition, my friend from 30 years ago would say that the point of all those anal footnotes is to leave a paper trail of sorts so that other scholars can check your facts, and maybe refer to one of your sources for their own research.

As a journalist, a blogger, or a popularizer, I don't for a moment believe that I'm adding new material or original research to the canon; nor does anyone else. What I am doing is to make the information that’s already out there accessible to an audience that it may not have reached before. I try to give the readers a few links to where they may find some of that information, but I don't have to footnote every unoriginal thought I put down. I’m simply reporting.

Of course, I could argue that as a blogger, I give the world a new voice, or at least a different one. It’s just that mine isn’t one that even pretends to live up to "academic standards," but rather, those of casual, well-informed, conversation.

Once again, as I think of those casual, well-informed, conversations, I think of how stilted they would be if we had to cite every unoriginal thought or turn of phrase that came out of our mouths. I think about things I heard or read when I was 16, whose sources are lost in the mists of time, but that over the decades become a part of me and my regular conversation. If I had to perfectly cite every one of those ideas, I’d neither open my mouth nor put metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper.

Of course, some of you might like that.

The Name Game

A few weeks ago, one of my Facebook friends posted an interesting article by Robert T Gonzalez on naming trends in the United States over the past few decades. It started out talking about how an incredible number of boys’ names end with the letter “n,” and then went on to take a look at some of those names. We’re not talking about old classics like Alan, Brian, Byron, Colin, Darren, and a host of others, including that classic among classics…John; we’re talking about names like Aiden, Braeden, Hayden, and…yes…Jayden.

In fact, he goes on to state that the number of “final n names” these days has increased simply by the number of variant spellings. Take Jayden for example; in addition to that spelling, there’s also Jaden, Jadon, Jadyn, Jaeden, Jaiden, Jaidyn, Jaydan, Jaydin, and Jaydon. Had they all shared a common spelling of Jaden, Jaiden, or any of the other variants, we’d have one name that rivaled the popularity of John, and fewer names in the pool. But because of those nine variant spellings of one pronunciation, and the same thing happening with Aiden and Braeden, we’re ending up with more “final n” names on the list, even though they’re the same to the ear.

What’s going on here? It’s not a change in how we name kids. Not at all. It’s a change in how we spell their names. Faced with a name that you really like, but that happens to be really hot at the time, rather than pick a totally different name altogether, parents are going for the more unique spelling of the one they wanted…as if that will make any difference to the ear. All of those Kaylees, Kailees, Kayleighs, and Kayleas are going to sound exactly the same when their names are called on the playground. It’s the same bloody name, and no one’s gonna hear the spelling.

Now, before you start talking about the pot and the kettle, I know. I know, I know, I know. I’m guilty of this myself. When our first daughter was born, I liked the name Sarah, but I also knew too many of them. As a teacher, I had six of them, in two different grades, at the same time. Some were spelled Sarah and some were spelled Sara. Not only did I already know too many of them at school, but at the time there were other kids that she would be around with the same name. Being one of a bunch of Keiths born in the mid-50s, I knew what that was like. I didn’t want her to have the same name as anyone she’d spend a lot of time around, I didn’t want her to have to deal with that confusion; so we decided on Devra, a decidedly unusual name.

Nine years later, our second daughter is born, and according to the deal we made, Cheryl got to name this one. She had her heart set on the name Sophia, because it meant “wisdom” in Greek. I, being the geek that I am, looked up the name in the charts, saw that it was in the top 50, and moving up every year. I begged her not to do this. I begged her for the sake of the kid, not to do this, not to saddle her with a name that every other girl her age would have. I begged her to pick something below 100…like Elisa. But she wouldn’t have it. She was adamant; the girl’s name would be Sophia. Fine, but I asked that if she was going to have the same name as half her classmates, could we at least spell it differently…could we spell it with an “f” instead of with the “ph?” She conceded on that.

As if it makes any difference when someone calls for Sophie at a soccer game. The heads of four players, and who knows how many spectators turn, no matter how it’s spelled. And I’ve added to the confusion of every teacher she’ll ever have…something that I should’ve known better than to do…all because I wanted her very common name to stand out.

And so I beg all of you who are in the position of choosing a name for a child to think carefully about this. If the name you absolutely love is also really trendy, either just suck it up and choose a different one, or keep it and use the common spelling. Don’t make up a new spelling so that it will look unique; it won’t matter on the playground or in the classroom, and will just confuse everyone who has to spell it.

Now what about my Sofia? Well, years later, after seeing just how many other Sophias and Sofias there are out there, Cheryl has conceded that I was right, and that she should’ve picked something else; but she also said that she was under hormone-induced madness at the time. And Sofie has her own opinion on this. One day she went to Cheryl in a very frustrated voice and said, “Mama, why did you have to give me a name that everyone else has? Why couldn’t you give me one that no one else has…like Susan!”

Freedom’s Just Another Word for Being Afraid to Give…

We were listening to part 2 of the Freakonomics podcast on marriage, and listening to all the reasons why people choose not to get married. They mostly all boil down to wanting to keep their freedom, or having the option to leave, not wanting to feel “trapped,” etc. Let's face it, in a culture where people can’t stand being locked into a two-year cell phone contract, because something better might come along after six months, that’s almost understandable.

And then there are people like the Gatlings here, who like to keep something and use it almost until it falls apart. We drive our cars to death. When I ran out of disk space on my laptop I bought a new drive for $100 rather than a new machine for $1200…and then I put the old drive in Cheryl’s machine, and her old drive in Sofie’s, so that everyone made out. We don't care that a new model iPad or iPod Touch came out, as long as our old one still does what we need it to do. We don't need the freedom to jump ship and get the new latest and greatest thing as long as the old one is still doing its job.

But my real point, and I do have one, is one that writer Ann Patchett made about finally getting married after 11 years of seeing this one guy and having separate apartments (so that one of them could always leave and they wouldn't feel trapped). There's a certain bonus to being in a committed relationship of some kind, a relationship where you’re reasonably sure that the other person isn’t going to just up and leave because they’re tired, bored, or saw a better model. But rather than talk about what she said, let me just give you her words from the recent NPR piece about her.

…after we got married, Karl loved me more and that was amazing. There was something about getting married that allowed Karl to say, “OK…I’ve been holding out on you. There’s like a secret storeroom of extra love, but because we weren’t married I was always afraid that you were going to leave.” And so that was a wonderful bonus. He was just relaxed because he always really wanted to get married.

I understand this totally. It makes absolutely perfect sense to me. You don’t want to invest your entire heart and soul into something that has a high probability of not lasting. And when you’re dealing with someone who’s always got their eyes on the “Exit” signs, we’re talking about a very risky investment. But once he was finally in that relationship, the relationship where the point was to try to be there for each other, no matter what; and to try to talk things through, rather than stomping off with their toys to their separate homes when things got disagreeable; he was free in a way that the people with their eyes on the “Exit” signs don’t understand. He wasn’t free to leave whenever he wanted; instead, he was free to give more and to love more.

Don’t get me wrong here. I know that not all marriages work out, but most do. Yes, you saw that right. That old statistic about 50% of all marriages ending in divorce is wrong, and I’ve talked about that before. A good 80% of all first marriages go the distance. But in order to do so, it requires a level of selflessness, self-sacrifice, and putting the other person first that the generation that won’t sign a two-year cell phone contract can’t hack.

But once you sign that contract, rather than being free to walk away at any time, you’re free to enjoy that phone in ways that you weren’t able to before.

Just ask Karl.

Let "Alright" be All Right

I have a book of piano transcriptions of Beethoven symphonies by Franz Lizst, and in the introduction it talks about a change that Lizst made to one of the pieces. In the piece, as written for orchestra, there is a fleeting dischord that is quickly resolved. However, in transcribing these works for piano, Lizst changed that one dischord. Why? Because people would think that he had made a mistake while playing, and no one should ever think that the great Franz Lizst made a mistake at the piano. So even though the note may have been right, he changed it.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, it seems that part of the great debate over alright vs all right has to do with not wanting people to think that you’ve made a mistake. But more on that shortly.

I was first introduced to this debate in about eighth grade, when I wrote “alright” to indicate that something was OK (or should that be “okay”). That was immediately marked as being wrong, because “alright” was “not a word,” and what I meant to write was “all right.”

Actually, I most definitely did not mean to write “all right,” because I wasn’t saying that everything was right, I was saying that it was OK. To me “all right” meant “all correct” and “alright” meant that something was “just fine.” In other words, you can do alright on a quiz without getting the answers all right. Logically speaking, they were two different ideas, two different pronunciations, and therefore, two different spellings.

My teacher didn’t agree, and I caved for the moment, although I maintained for years…decades even…that it made no sense, and that we were unnecessarily confusing things by using the same spelling for two terms that mean totally different things.

And what is this “not a word” thing anyway? If you can spell it, and say it, and people agree on what it means, then not only is it a word, but it’s a perfectly cromulent one at that. Selfie is a word, so why isn’t alright considered one?

The answer has to do with our friend Franz Lizst. It’s not so much that it’s not a word, but that certain people in the language world will consider it to be a misspelling of all right, or worse, a misspelling that we’ve sadly allowed to finally have some legitimacy. Already (as opposed to all “all ready”) it’s considered a legitimate word in the game Words With Friends, and in the spell check function of Microsoft Word. Some language mavens say that it is a perfectly acceptable word for the circumstances I’ve mentioned, and is gaining more currency, but one should avoid using it so as not to upset those who still insist that it’s wrong, and have them sneer at us.

In other words, we are to be Franz Liszt, and change what is actually a correct note, so that people won’t think that we’re wrong.

But wait, something new has been added. In scouting the Internet for information on the Alright/All Right wars, I came across a page with an interesting question: Is it “alright” or “allright?” Aha! Maybe we’re onto something here, and this is where the real debate lies. Perhaps it’s not between the very different alright and all right, but between the easily confused alright, allright, and all right. In fact the answer on this page states that alright is an alternative spelling of all right, and allright is a common misspelling of both…sort of as if you couldn’t make up your mind which way you wanted to write it.

There are two types of lexicographers in the world (and I’m gonna make you look that word up): descriptive and prescriptive. Descriptive lexicographers describe the language as it is, making note of changes as they happen, and accepting them easily once they reach a certain critical mass. Prescriptive lexicographers are the ones who are always fighting the battle of defending the Queen’s English against the encroachments of ungainly terms that people have been using for 100 years, but just not the “right people.”

Three guesses which type of lexicographer I am.

What would settle this issue once and for all would be if one of the “authorities” of language in this country…say The New York Times…would stop playing to the Franz Liszt crowd, and simply say in the manual of style what the rest of us descriptives already know: That alright and all right are two totally different terms, and both spellings are kosher when used properly.

Now…if we could just deal with the abhorrent practice of using women as an adjective, when it really should be female.