TRANSMEN IN THE MILITARY: Hua Mulan

Originally published at DODFED GLOB

Legend or history? Who can tell with Hua Mulan, but the story of this woman turned soldier is compelling enough for Disney to tackle it. If Mulan never lived, certainly her story fit hundreds of others with the desire to "fight like a man" as well as the ability, forced or preferring to don a male identity in order to fulfill the plan.

Hua Mulan 's place in history is uncertain. The oldest mentions of her come from the Northern Wall dynasty, which ruled from 386–534 CE. The original ballad (see translation below) has been lost, but there is ample evidence of its existence in the form of poetic interpretations and early Chinese scholarship. It was turned into a novel during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). It has remained a favorite story in Chna for hundreds of years and is one of the earliest examples of stories about gender equality in the Chinese language.

Who was Hua Mulan and why did she choose to take on a male identity? When the emperor called for all adult men to be conscripted into the army to fight for him, Mulan was distressed that she had no brothers, and her father, who was elderly, could not show their family's loyalty to the empire. She decided to don the identity of a man as well as the armor and fought for no less than twelve years alongside male companions. She was so brave and valiant that the Emperor wanted to reward her with a government position, but in her modesty she turned the post down, choosing instead to return home to her father. In the legend Mulan reveals that she is a biological female and she and her closest companion turn into rabbits and go away side by side as equals. Hua Mulan's story exemplifies several Chinese cultural vbalues, modesty, fillial loyalty and courage.

Ode of Mulan

(Anonymous)

Tsiek tsiek and again tsiek tsiek,
Mu-lan weaves, facing the door.
You don't hear the shuttle's sound,
You only hear Daughter's sighs.
They ask Daughter who's in her heart,
They ask Daughter who's on her mind.
"No one is on Daughter's heart,
No one is on Daughter's mind.
Last night I saw the draft posters,
The Khan is calling many troops,
The army list is in twelve scrolls,
On every scroll there's Father's name.
Father has no grown-up son,
Mu-lan has no elder brother.
I want to buy a saddle and horse,
And serve in the army in Father's place."

In the East Market she buys a spirited horse,
In the West Market she buys a saddle,
In the South Market she buys a bridle,
In the North Market she buys a long whip.
At dawn she takes leave of Father and Mother,
In the evening camps on the Yellow River's bank.
She doesn't hear the sound of Father and Mother calling,
She only hears the Yellow River's flowing water cry tsien tsien.

At dawn she takes leave of the Yellow River,
In the evening she arrives at Black Mountain.
She doesn't hear the sound of Father and Mother calling,
She only hears Mount Yen's nomad horses cry tsiu tsiu.
She goes ten thousand miles on the business of war,
She crosses passes and mountains like flying.
Northern gusts carry the rattle of army pots,
Chilly light shines on iron armor.
Generals die in a hundred battles,
Stout soldiers return after ten years.

On her return she sees the Son of Heaven,
The Son of Heaven sits in the Splendid Hall.
He gives out promotions in twelve ranks
And prizes of a hundred thousand and more.
The Khan asks her what she desires.
"Mu-lan has no use for a minister's post.
I wish to ride a swift mount
To take me back to my home."

When Father and Mother hear Daughter is coming
They go outside the wall to meet her, leaning on each other.
When Elder Sister hears Younger Sister is coming
She fixes her rouge, facing the door.
When Little Brother hears Elder Sister is coming
He whets the knife, quick quick, for pig and sheep.
"I open the door to my east chamber,
I sit on my couch in the west room,
I take off my wartime gown
And put on my old-time clothes."
Facing the window she fixes her cloudlike hair,
Hanging up a mirror she dabs on yellow flower powder
She goes out the door and sees her comrades.
Her comrades are all amazed and perplexed.
Traveling together for twelve years
They didn't know Mu-lan was a girl.
"The he-hare's feet go hop and skip,
The she-hare's eyes are muddled and fuddled.
Two hares running side by side close to the ground,
How can they tell if I am he or she?"

See calligraphy and Chinese text at http://www.chinapage.com/mulan.html

What Do You Call a Straight Man Who Stays with his Transman Partner? Jim.

You hear about straight women who stay with their transwoman partners, preferring, perhaps, the continued friendship with a woman over being single.  But how often do you hear about straight men who accept their wife's transition and stay with her?  Is it that men can't handle being partnered with another man?  Do they not want to appear gay?  Or was it just that their partnership lacked loyalty and commitment and a genuine desire for the good of the partner?  I have to conclude it is the last, since Jim Tedford, my partner of 33 years, has stayed with me even though I insist I am a man.

Did I consider this choice he would have to make when I came to the conclusion I am a transman?  Yes and no.  I was so fixated on who I am that I think I was willing, at least I thought I was, to accept whatever decision Jim made about staying with me.  Or perhaps I just thought he would stay, for whatever reasons.  I can't say that expecting him to stay was not one of the most selfish, most self-absorbed things I have ever done.  I am ashamed of myself, except that I feel I had to make the choice, or, barring that, I just did and I am beyond grateful Jim had the grace to accept what I chose.

I have known for a while that Jim accepted my assertion that my brain is male.  I suspect my Aries moon would just make me rush ahead, but what should surprise me is that he still loves me.  He was baffled at first, asked questions like: "What does it mean?"  I have had various explanations to his decisions, (when I stopped to think about it) primarily that Jim just did not want to be alone and that we have all this shared history.  I called it everything to myself from petty to arrogant that I assumed that was the main reason.  I have had occasion to think more deeply more recently.

In April, possibly because I went on testosterone, I sustained a hemorrhagic stroke, a brain bleed.  Jim came home early to find me sitting on a box on the floor with our cats sitting by me watching me, perhaps guarding me.  He called the paramedics who came quickly and took me to the hospital.  An MRI showed them I had had a bleed in my caudate nucleus.  I was completely out by then, constantly drifting off to sleep, unable to communicate.  Jim sat by my side, uncertain whether I would live or die, or whether if I did live I would be compos mentis, just what he could expect to see happen to the person he had shared his life with for more than three decades.

But Jim stood up for me from the first moment.  He told the hospital I was Christopher Moss, a man.  There is nothing about me that says "man".  I have large breasts.  I have a vagina.  I have no facial hair at all.  If my face had begun to take on a more masculine appearance, no one at the hospital would have seen me before to judge.  I was silent so my lower-toned voice was unheard.  The hospital had to take Jim's word for it.  What would happen to me if I lived would be another matter.

I was unconscious, unable to speak with the respirator tubes down my throat.  My wrists were lashed to the rails of the bed to keep me from pulling out IVs and the tubes.  I was more or less incapacitated. After the doctors first tried to prepare Jim for my death, then for my being impaired, then to staying in the hospital for months, and having the respirator installed for weeks, I surprised everyone by getting better.  Within two weeks I was off the respirator and able to begin relating to people.  Jim could not tell if I recognized him at first, but then I must have.  

When I was first able to speak I insisted my name was Nan Louise Hawthorne.  Every time I was asked I stated it emphatically.  Jim was surprised, but he decided to accept whatever I came to identify myself as.  That should have told me everything that he loved me and wanted me to be whoever I was.

Then one day I answered the question about my name, "Nan Louise Hawthorne... but something tells me gender is important."   Jim told me the first time I answered the question with "Christopher Hawthorne Moss" he was pleased.  He knew I was truly returning to him.

I have already written about Evergreen Hospital and how they almost to a person respected my status as a transgender person.  Happily the days of gender segregation are over, but that in itself shows respect.  My records were correct, my doctors and nurses used the right name and pronoun, in my case "he", and no one ever questioned me as to my choice.  

I know to a huge extent I owe this to Jim.  He was loyal to a degree that is astounding.  He did not take advantage of my disability to return me to being female.  He stated emphatically that I am a man and that he was my husband.  He did it, he says, "Because I love you, whoever you are."

If I ever took that for granted I do not any  more.  I have been acutely aware of opportunities for discomfort for him, but now I  know he completely accepts me as I am.

What makes Jim so special?  Let me count the ways:

1.  He is realistic... he looks at his life with calm and perception.  He does not veer off into the realm of self-serving interpretation or coloring.
2.  He is fair.   He learned young from dysfunctional parents that their notions of what is right in the world was dead wrong.  He questioned, and being intelligent, he figured out the truth.
3.  He is intelligent, intelligent enough to know when he is bull shitting himself.
4.  He is empathetic.  He knows, and what's more, cares how others feel.  He knows when what they feel is true and right.
5.  He is fair-minded.  He doesn't judge without all the evidence or at least an intelligent stab at it.
6.  He is real.  He does not have a façade that he believes in to his own detriment.  He sees himself clearly, and that is what he presents to the world.
7.  Jim is compassionate.  He knows when I am less than fair or generous and he forgives me for it.

Is he perfect?  Of course not.  It takes a lot of effort to be all these things, and it gets to him from time to time.  He copes with it as he can.

One thing Jim said is that over the past two years since I came out he has watched me become a serene and happy person, stable, untroubled, that I don't "chew" on things any more.  He figures that has to mean I am who I am supposed to be, that the consistency of my brain and body is no longer important, that my brain is me.

And he loves me.  He is attending the Gender Odyssey conference this year with me to, as I put it to a friend, "babysit my addled brain."  I am sure he will be uncertain, uncomfortable, but a weekend with all the trannies will get him more used to what I came to accept two years ago, people just following the personality of their brains.  He will relax almost immediately.  Yeah, these folks are different... so what?  They are being enormously true to themselves.  That is, after all, what he has done by coming to accept that he loves me.

I am astounded by him, by his growth, but his deep and abiding love for me, by his sheer completeness as a person.  I have tried to return his love, his loyalty, and I am not that convinced I have achieved what I hope to attain.  He knows me well, knows how focused on myself I can be.  He sees somehow in me though the earnest person I am however childish or selfish I can be.  He knows, somehow, how much I love and appreciate him.

I just hope he feels it.  My top priority in life now is to deserve his love