Susan Stanton and "Her Name was Steven"

Many have already commented on this, but I think I should put my spin on this.

Autumn Sandeen over at Pam's House Blend review of cnn documentary her name was steven hit it on the head when she said that you could have gotten plastered playing the Trans Documentary Drinking game.  Why in the hell does just about every trans documentary show MTF's putting on makeup or FTM's lifting weights?  Is there a chapter on this at the New York Film Academy or what?  I was not impressed by those  cliched scenes.  You would think that if CNN were making a documentary about Hillary Clinton, they would not be so crass as to ask *her* to put on makeup for the cameras.

I have already commented on her very public outing here: The Stanton mess

Ms Stanton was thrust into the limelight as both an example and an advocate.  It was apparent very quickly that she was prepared for neither.  Her comments regarding the ENDA mess and siding with HRC proved to be equivalent to tap dancing in a minefield.  You could tell from her shots as the keynote speaker at Be-All that, while Steven may have been a very confident public figure, Susan was nervous and unprepared.

While transitioning is a public process in that the changes that are made are very visible, the internal process is very, very private.

Also for late bloomers, we spend most of our lives outside the main LGBT community and we have no clue as to what all the forces are when we join.  And like me, she spent a very short time from the moment of her revelation of her true nature to the time of her public appearance.  Up to that point her mind was probably as closeted as her outfits.

For the most part we are very private people.  We spend so much of our waking lives regarding this blessing-within-a-curse but very little of it is externalized.  As a result we tend to be withdrawn.  It takes much courage to open that door and know that the life you knew is at an end.  Then to have all the undeserved vitriol heaped upon her prior to her firing showed it be a great strain on her.

Her thoughts of suicide at the end of the documentary are very understandable.  Loss of family, friends, employment, hatred not only from those outside the community, but inside as well all weighed on her.  We all have had those thoughts.  Many of us have acted on them.  And too often, many of us have succeeded.

I feel that we expected too much of her.  She was not prepared to be the spokesperson for a whole people.  She was just trying to live.  And like a butterfly just out of her chrysalis, her wings were not dry, but we  expected her to fly.  Much of her angst is our doing.  And we should not hold that against her.

I hope that in her new position as city manager for Lake Worth that she now has what she was yearning for at the end of the documentary.  Going to work in the morning and staying late, saying hello to people, looking forward to Monday, enjoying the weekend and having the love of her son.

In other words, having what all of us want.

Just to live.

-Sandy