GOETSCH: There was no community, you know, in my pocket of trans culture.
Even the word trans culture, you know, that would have been ridiculous to even say that. So, you know, we can only see so much or express so much depending on what pocket of, you know, trans culture we were in. I mean, what was this, junior high? You know, there were whole, you know, menus of terms that we used, and none of them felt accurate. Maybe the most embarrassing one was GG for genetic girl. And then we said TV, like, you know, transvestite or CD or, you know, we tried to create lingo. So people said transsexual, but we said TS.
I knew that they were, you know, rough approximations. I mean, as a poet, you know, talking to people I knew who were cross-dressers, who were out, you know, on a Friday or Saturday night, I cringed a little at the language we were using - maybe they didn't, but I did as a poet. Even back then, it felt shameful to refer to ourselves. GOETSCH: Most of the words we had from today's perspective were fairly laced in shame. As you try to make sense of your identity and your gender identity and sexual orientation, what was language like for you before we had the words today, like gender non-conforming or queer or transsexual? Like, what words did you have access to that could help you describe who you were? And what were the words that other people used to describe who they thought you were? Since you are a poet and you've taught writing just about your entire adult life, let's start with language. She's received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and was the Grace Paley teaching fellow at The New School in New York. She taught English at Stuyvesant High School in New York for 14 years, then spent six years running a creative writing program for incarcerated youth in the Bronx. Goetsch also writes about her decision to transition relatively late in life. Now Goetsch has a new memoir called "This Body I Wore," about what it was like coming of age and into adulthood in an earlier era, when she didn't have the language or knowledge to understand what it meant to be trans. The blog was published on The American Scholar site. GROSS: That's my guest, Diana Goetsch, reading from her blog, Life In Transition, that she kept during her period transitioning to life as a woman. One other thing - I longed daily to be a woman. At the same time, I was depressed and had been for decades with no family, no partner, going through life alone. Previously, I'd been a concert jazz dancer, a restaurant cook, a varsity athlete. I seem to be a well-functioning man named Douglas Goetsch, a teacher who taught at Stuyvesant High School and various universities, a poet with award-winning collections, a dedicated meditation practitioner and instructor. In 2015, my guest wrote this.ĭIANA GOETSCH: (Reading) My life broke down two years ago at age 50, though it was broken all along.