My Brother My Sister: Story of a Transformation Hardcover by Molly Haskell Page B
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Authors: Molly Haskell
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Who Has It Better, Men or Women?
that began when he was ten years old. Although Gigi married several
times, and even worked as a doctor, he was more often adrift and liv-
ing in ramshackle style. He was arrested several times for dressing as a woman in public. His father reported it was for “drug abuse,” and felt
that the scandal of Gigi’s first arrest in a Los Angeles movie theater
had killed his mother, Pauline, Hemingway’s second wife. Finally, as
Gigi’s life spiraled downward, he underwent a sex change— which
solved nothing. He, now she, wound up dead in a Miami jail, wearing
women’s clothes.
Father and son were both heterosexual, passionate lovers of
women, and yet both had a strong female side that Hemingway père
was at least able to ventriloquize in his novels. Hemingway’s theatri-
cally hypermale image and legend can be seen as a defense against
fear— fear not just of the woman in himself, but of the women in his
life, the Others whom he so needed and depended on. (There were
four wives and no gap: each wife- to- be supplanted her predecessor be-
fore the marriage was over.)
One reason Hemingway endures, like his rival, enemy, and friend
F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the palpable sense of vulnerability, a nakedness he exposes to the world. Hemingway’s brave and edgy flirtation with
the darkness of transvestism speaks to the longing and fear in all of us of losing the self in the other, of merging until we disappear.
I think of Chevey and me as children, both trying to kiss our el-
bows. Then I think of us as teenagers, each standing alone before a
mirror. (Which of us is the “real” girl?) We have as yet but the dim-
mest idea of sex or “sexual identity.” We’ve read books, watched mov-
ies, memorized certain images, and are gradually assembling the bits
and pieces of imaginary adult selves. We kiss the mirror (my lover/my
self), pose, apply makeup, try on different dresses (the same ones?),
practicing for the lovers we hope will come to tell us who we are.
. 71 .
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c h a p t e r si x
My Brother Writes a Story
“T he worst thing about it,” says my analyst friend Ethel Person, “is you discover you don’t know the person you thought you knew.” Later,
others will express a similar opinion. One man in his fifties tells me
that if his brother suddenly came to him one day with the revelation
that he was transsexual or homosexual, he’d be furious, wondering
why his sibling hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him before?
Such feelings are understandable, possibly even typical, but they
are not mine. I was perfectly content— to my shame, I guess— not to
have known of this until now. More important, I never thought I knew Chevey. In general, I’m rarely surprised when a person behaves in a
way considered “out of character.” We are a rotating cast of aspects of self that are shown to one person, or in one setting, and hidden in another. Memorial services are often jarring in this regard: friends and
relatives eulogize the deceased in such conflicting terms they might be talking of different people.
The nice boy next door turns out to be a serial killer, yet there are
usually clues which we’ve chosen to ignore. And my ruling assumption
is we can never know another person, especially if that person is close to us. It’s why I love detective stories: the revelation that the murderer was the patient secretary, the charming brother- in- law! In Law & Order wives and husbands kill each other; parents think they know their children (our daughter couldn’t be a lap dancer!) but don’t. We’re simply blinkered by proximity, and, in families, by the roles that have be-
. 73 .
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22145
My Brother My Sister
come
9780670025527_MyBrotherMyS_TX.indd 70
4/23/13 4:12 PM
22145
Who Has It Better, Men or Women?
that began when he was ten years old. Although Gigi married several
times, and even worked as a doctor, he was more often adrift and liv-
ing in ramshackle style. He was arrested several times for dressing as a woman in public. His father reported it was for “drug abuse,” and felt
that the scandal of Gigi’s first arrest in a Los Angeles movie theater
had killed his mother, Pauline, Hemingway’s second wife. Finally, as
Gigi’s life spiraled downward, he underwent a sex change— which
solved nothing. He, now she, wound up dead in a Miami jail, wearing
women’s clothes.
Father and son were both heterosexual, passionate lovers of
women, and yet both had a strong female side that Hemingway père
was at least able to ventriloquize in his novels. Hemingway’s theatri-
cally hypermale image and legend can be seen as a defense against
fear— fear not just of the woman in himself, but of the women in his
life, the Others whom he so needed and depended on. (There were
four wives and no gap: each wife- to- be supplanted her predecessor be-
fore the marriage was over.)
One reason Hemingway endures, like his rival, enemy, and friend
F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the palpable sense of vulnerability, a nakedness he exposes to the world. Hemingway’s brave and edgy flirtation with
the darkness of transvestism speaks to the longing and fear in all of us of losing the self in the other, of merging until we disappear.
I think of Chevey and me as children, both trying to kiss our el-
bows. Then I think of us as teenagers, each standing alone before a
mirror. (Which of us is the “real” girl?) We have as yet but the dim-
mest idea of sex or “sexual identity.” We’ve read books, watched mov-
ies, memorized certain images, and are gradually assembling the bits
and pieces of imaginary adult selves. We kiss the mirror (my lover/my
self), pose, apply makeup, try on different dresses (the same ones?),
practicing for the lovers we hope will come to tell us who we are.
. 71 .
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9780670025527_MyBrotherMyS_TX.indd 72
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22145
c h a p t e r si x
My Brother Writes a Story
“T he worst thing about it,” says my analyst friend Ethel Person, “is you discover you don’t know the person you thought you knew.” Later,
others will express a similar opinion. One man in his fifties tells me
that if his brother suddenly came to him one day with the revelation
that he was transsexual or homosexual, he’d be furious, wondering
why his sibling hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him before?
Such feelings are understandable, possibly even typical, but they
are not mine. I was perfectly content— to my shame, I guess— not to
have known of this until now. More important, I never thought I knew Chevey. In general, I’m rarely surprised when a person behaves in a
way considered “out of character.” We are a rotating cast of aspects of self that are shown to one person, or in one setting, and hidden in another. Memorial services are often jarring in this regard: friends and
relatives eulogize the deceased in such conflicting terms they might be talking of different people.
The nice boy next door turns out to be a serial killer, yet there are
usually clues which we’ve chosen to ignore. And my ruling assumption
is we can never know another person, especially if that person is close to us. It’s why I love detective stories: the revelation that the murderer was the patient secretary, the charming brother- in- law! In Law & Order wives and husbands kill each other; parents think they know their children (our daughter couldn’t be a lap dancer!) but don’t. We’re simply blinkered by proximity, and, in families, by the roles that have be-
. 73 .
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My Brother My Sister
come
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