A Man’s World

Michael is an artist and the father of three adult children. Stephen is a member of the San Francisco Police Department. Loren is a photographer and bodybuilder who calls himself a “queer heterosexual.” The screen time these men share in Bester Cram’s documentary You Don’t Know Dick, playing at the Lesbian and Gay Community Center this Wednesday, isn’t the only thing they have in common. Michael, Stephen and Loren were all born female.

Female-to-male transsexuals make up a smaller group than their fellow gender outlaws, male-to-female transsexuals. Michelle Kelley, a local psychologist who will facilitate a post-screening discussion, began making the transition from male to female five years ago. She says the two groups tell the same stories — only the props are different.

“The basic feelings and mechanics of transition are very similar,” she says. She notes, however, that the two groups’ childhood likes and dislikes were polar opposites. “I know a [female-to-male] psychologist in St. Louis who says, ‘All I wanted to do was play softball with the boys.’ And there I was playing softball and saying, ‘All I want to do is play hopscotch with the girls.'”

You Don’t Know Dick is a talking-heads-style documentary with brief cuts to such scenes as Michael’s discussion with his kids about his transition and examples of Loren’s self-portraits. But the movie focuses more on the internal than the external, offering a psychological perspective rather than a political approach. Kelley says the subjects make a political statement in their willingness to be interviewed on film.

For transsexuals, she says, “there’s a controversy about the relative merits of being out versus stealth. And I understand both sides. I don’t witness on street corners, but I don’t hide it either. It’s nice to be treated as a public woman without anyone knowing the whole story.”