The name of Jan Morris came up in yesterdays trans thread. For example, commenter “PA Cat” wrote this:
Jan Morris (born James Morris; served in the British Army in the last years of WWII, and was the journalist who accompanied Edmund Hillary’s 1953 Everest expedition) transitioned as an adult in 1964. He had already married and had five children by the time he became a transwoman. I read Morris’ book Conundrum, in which s/he did not try to explain why s/he transitioned, only stated, “I was three or perhaps four years old when I realized that I had been born into the wrong body, and should really be a girl. I remember the moment well, and it is the earliest memory of my life.” What struck me, however, is the section of the book in which Morris recounts returning from gender reassignment surgery in Morocco in 1972, starting to live openly as a woman, and being shocked to discover how rude and condescending many men are to women. IOW, Morris no longer appeared as a man (army officer, at that) among men, and found that she felt vulnerable in a way that she never had before.
And commenter “Art Deco” responded by quoting that next to last sentence of PA Cat’s about Morris’s shock, and added “Non ci credo” – which means something on the order of “I don’t believe it.”
I had read Morris’ book Conundrum back in 1974 when it came out, and I remember it. Not well, actually, and not in detail, but I remember the impression Morris gave back in the days when trans people were less commonly encountered and someone who had had the surgery was fairly rare. Morris became something of a celebrity because as a man – James Morris – he had already been a fairly well-known writer, and because (as PA Cat describes) he had done some stereotypically masculine things and had looked like a fairly rugged and athletic specimen of manhood. Those characteristics, in addition to the fact that the transition occurred well into adulthood – Morris was happily married and had five children at the time – made for quite a bit of media coverage when James became Jan. The adult transition and the relative ruggedness also meant that as a woman Morris didn’t “read” as especially feminine.
My recollection of Jan Morris (I had previously never heard of James) was that she was an unusually good-natured person. I’d describe her as quite jolly, in a Mrs.Doubtfire-ish sort of way. Her book revealed her to be a good writer – that was no surprise – and her transition story was similar to that of other trans people of the time in one way: it featured a very very early and unshakeable conviction of being a girl rather than a boy.
I did a little searching and discovered that she lived to be 94 and died about a year ago. I also managed to locate a relevant excerpt from her book, and refreshed my memory by reading it. It’s got none of the political message of today and none of the rancor. Morris has what I think is a unique story and a unique sensibility.
Here are some quotes:
I have tried to analyse my own childish emotions to discover what I meant when I declared myself to be a girl.
What was my reasoning? Where was my evidence? But it remains a riddle. So be it.
To me, gender is not physical at all but altogether insubstantial. It is soul, perhaps; it is how one feels, it is light and shade, it is inner music. It is the essentialness of oneself.
Transsexualism is not a sexual mode or preference. It is not an act of sex at all. It is a passionate, lifelong, ineradicable conviction.
At nine, I joined the choir school of Christ Church, Oxford. The school itself was sensible and un-hearty.
Each day, a moment of silence followed the words of the Grace.
Into that hiatus, I inserted silently every night, year after year, an appeal no less heartfelt: ‘And please God let me be a girl. Amen.’
Jan Morris speaks only for herself; her story is her story alone, and she was an unusual person in more ways than the trans part of her. For example, the impression I get from the article is that she was asexual and remained so, although love and the desire for children allowed her to have sex with her wife as a man.
So after her surgery she didn’t seem in any sense at all to have missed what had been removed.
In a passage relevant to the question of how she perceived herself to be treated as a woman, Morris wrote this, and as you read it be aware that even after her surgery Morris really didn’t look very convincing as a woman:
Fortunately, the first society into which I ventured frankly and publicly sex-changed was the profoundly civilised society of Caernarfonshire. My neighbours greeted my moment of metamorphosis with an urbane insouciance.
Some could not restrain a kind of gasp, instantly stifled. Some tactfully said how well I looked that morning. But most simply pretended not to notice.
Elsewhere in the world, the impact was more abrupt.
The very tone of voice in which I was now addressed, the very posture of the person next in the queue, the very feel in the air when I entered a room, constantly emphasised my change of status.
Thrust as I now found myself far more into the company of women, I began to find women’s conversation in general more congenial.
Men treated me more and more as a junior — my lawyer, in an unguarded moment, even called me ‘my child’.
I discovered that, even now, men prefer women to be less informed, less able, less talkative and certainly less self-centred than they are themselves.
The subtle subjection of women was catching up on me.
It was, of course, by no means all unpleasant. If the condescension of men could be infuriating, the courtesies were very welcome. And people are usually far kinder to women.
So Morris saw the reactions of others as a mixed bag, and she was well aware – and seemingly accepting – of the fact that she didn’t look all that much like a person who’d been born female. Her good nature seems to have lasted throughout her long life, although she remained as she titled her book: a conundrum.
[NOTE: Nowadays, trans people can avail themselves of more varied ways of changing their external characteristics, and cosmetic surgery is often part of it. There are trans models, for example, who look like stunning women (albeit like women who are models, hardly typical females in the first place).]
