What story do we tell?   and Why?

By Diane S. Frank

IN the past few weeks I’ve seen "I Am My Own Wife" and "Forbidden", and read "From Man to Woman, the transgender journey of Virginia Prince".

"I Am My Own Wife", tells the story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, formerly Lothar Berfelde, a transvestite, a homosexual, probably transgendered East Berlin antique dealer and museum owner. Charlotte’s life spanned the Nazi’s and the Communists. After the fall of the wall, she was hailed as a national heroine for her efforts at cultural preservation only to have her reputation tarnished by accusations that she had been an agent for the East German Secret Police (Stasi).

"Forbidden" is a play based on the true story of two women who fell in love in Germany during the Second World War. One was the wife of an army officer and the other a Jew hiding in the cracks of a society that made it impossible for a Jew to survive. This story also reaches from the war to the present.

"From Man to Woman" details the life of American crossdressing activist and living legend Virginia Prince, covering both the positions and ideas that resonate in the whole discussion about transgender in American today and the personal life that was almost always lived in contradiction to those positions and ideas. I have been working on a review of the biography, and what I’ve said thus far has been less than kind to Virginia.

Experiencing these three different works about people on the margins of society I became aware of a common theme. When you live beyond the pale, when your desires and your actions make your existence undesirable to the rest of society there is a pressure to tell your story, to make yourself acceptable. Charlotte von Mahsldorf was strikingly candid about her choice to wear women’s clothing, her delight in the gay cultural and sexual world before it was closed down by the puritanical Russians, and her love of artifacts of Germany’s first national culture between 1890 and 1900. As depicted in the play, her status as a Stasi informant remains ambiguous. The Stasi files themselves tell contradictory stories. Did she betray a friend, possibly a lover, a business partner or rival to jail? Or did she reluctantly accept his self-sacrifice in the face of the machinery of oppression. How much choice did she have when the knock on the door came in the middle of the night? According to the playwright and my own memory 1 in 3 East Germans were informants for the Stasi. The press, ever searching for a scandalous story dogged Charlotte’s step until she fled to Sweden. Every aspect of her story became suspect because she could not explain her Stasi file. If she was shading the truth on "this" what does that mean about what she said about "that"?

Standing in opposition to Charlotte is Lily, the wife of the Nazi officer who survives the death of her lover and the Second World War. Haunted by Felice’s death, she goes to Israel, attempts to convert to Judaism (without success) and learns to say Kaddish (prayer for the dead), a custom the secular Felice would have derided. Where you suspect Charlotte lies to protect herself from her guilt, you look at Lily as a woman gone overboard in grief, taking on guilt for things far beyond her control. I have to wonder if Lily’s need to be guilty isn’t just the other side of Charlotte’s need to avoid it. Both stem from the desire to be in control of our own lives...and in some ways the only thing we can attempt to control is the story we tell about ourselves.

But then, what do we make of Virginia Prince? The exponent of heterosexual crossdressing who had repeated sexual contact with men on crossdressed dates? The one who teaches how to live as a woman though a man, who does so in a life of costumed isolation, without the social connectivity? The one who claimed crossdressing wasn’t about sex, but about gender identity, but who spends even to this day a large amount of time and energy consuming certain categories of transgendered pornography? Virginia didn’t have to worry about the Nazi’s or the Communists, only the US Postal Service.

I have heard what I believe to be reliable accounts of Virginia lying awake in bed after arguments about gender at the various crossdressing or gender education forums and conventions she attended. Lying awake she is said to have repeated the discussions, explaining to herself why she was right all along, repeating and rehearsing the arguments for next time. A psychologist appears briefly on the stage of "I Am My Own Wife", and he explains to the world that Charlotte is autistic, and that her stories are neither lies nor truth, but an attempt to medicate herself against the pain and sorrow of her life. Joan Didion, in a recent interview with Terry Gross on the NPR show, "Fresh Air" describes the insanity and magical thinking that saturated her life following the unexpected death of her husband and the lingering illness and death of her daughter. The story sounds so much like Lily’s madness and grief.

The compassionate side of me wants to understand and accept this. To believe that the reconstruction of narrative is a proper healing tool, or certainly as worthy as alcoholism or drug addiction in response to the most difficult things we face in life. And part of me rebels, defies compassion and says "No, the truth is more important than pain." Charlotte spied to stay alive and sold friends down the river. Lily assumed a guilt that wasn’t hers to make sense of things. Virginia presented two faces because she didn’t have the strength to admit her own desires or truly challenge society's basic ideas.

It is obvious who the victims are of Charlotte, those who the Stasi arrested. Looking carefully at "Forbidden", it is clear that Lily’s grief caused her to shortchange if not neglect her children. Virginia’s victims are anyone who has ever had to deal with the myths she propagated about crossdressing and transgender issues in the US, but mostly the wives and significant others who were supposed to be pacified by them.

As the purpose of art is to illuminate our lives, I find there is a fourth story that I haven’t touched on. It could be mine. It could be yours or theirs. If you are reading this piece it is because you too are somehow beyond the pale. There is a part to your life that clings to the shadows. So what is the story we tell of ourselves? Do we protect ourselves, medicate ourselves, make ourselves important, control the world with our stories? Do we tell a truth as if we put ourselves under the microscope? Do we do one today and another tomorrow?

What does it mean politically? What story serves to remove the shadows and let us live in the light? Do we need Charlotte to be a perfect heroine? Charlotte spoke with pride after her award that she had shown Germany that a transvestite could work. Does not being strong enough to withstand the Stasi dismiss that message? Can we learn from the Jews of "Forbidden" who refused to condemn the "catcher" a Jew who turned in other Jews to save his or her own family from the Nazi’s? Does that mean we can forgive a Virginia Prince, whose hypocrisy, whose ideas created more shadows while purporting to enlighten?

What do we do with the stories? How do we hear their stories and hear our stories? Do we trust with hope to the power of myth? Will we remember Charlotte as the little transvestite that could? Will we find and comfort the Lily’s of the world today? Will someday, someone say "Yes, crossdresser there is a Virginia?"