Colette Arrand, a PhD student in creative writing from Dearborn, Michigan, poses for a series of portraits at the University of Georgia’s main library on Sunday, November 8, 2015. Colette and I first met at The Klatch, a monthly meeting for feminists and folks who identify outside the gender binary.
We made photos on a rainy Sunday afternoon at one of Colette’s favorite spaces on campus, the Mad Men-esque third floor reading room, and chatted about pro wrestling, why Caitlyn Jenner can’t be our trans savior and Athens as a trans-inclusive community.
When did you move to Athens?
I've been living in Georgia for two and a half years. I came down for the degree. I had never been here before, but it was one of those things...I've always been really into music so I always had an impression of Athens.
What do you primarily focus on in your work?
Right now I’m working on a couple of different essay projects...I’m writing a series of essays for all 151 of the original Pokemon. They’re all very short, very brief. I have about 30 so far, which is a lot. I’m writing a pretty regular series of essays about music videos on the Internet and also I tend to write pretty frequently about pro wrestling because that was what I was pretty into as a child and what I’m still into.
Who’s your favorite pro wrestler?
Of all time? Probably Macho Man Randy Savage. Currently? I don’t know. Probably Sasha Banks...She’s pretty amazing. She’s got this great sense of style and is a pretty amazingly put-together character, which is really, really rare on mainstream television.
When it comes to women characters, at least for a long time, it was always the bubbly girl next door or the centerfold model. Those were the two characters–– or like the nice girl and the bitch. That was it. But Sasha Banks is completely different and other characters who are also in the same realm as her are totally different too. It’s changing. It’s a slow maturation process that should’ve happened 20 years ago but, you know, better late than never.
You only recently came out as trans, is that correct?
About six months ago.
Is there anything you're willing to share with folks who would read the blog about that experience?
The coming out process was surprisingly good. When you start doing this, I think the assumption and the general perspective that people have of it is "This is going to be a disaster. My friends aren't gonna get it, my family is gonna disown me. I'll be starting all over again." But at the same time, the alternative is to just be kind of miserable...I was having a lot of trouble sleeping at night. It was terrible. Psychologically, it was just miserable pre-coming out. Everyone that I told up until I started telling my family were really accepting. The second or third person I told was a professor here and she was totally cool with it. She invited me over to dinner––it was nice. That's generally been how that aspect of it has been. At this point, whenever there's somebody who doesn't know or didn't see when I came out, they're always like, "I mean, why didn't you tell me?" Well, it gets kind of tiresome. You know 400 people or whatever. Can you imagine telling 400 people the same thing over and over again? No, that's a terrible experience.
Here it's been great for the most part. My family, I think, kind of gets it or is trying to get it. It's an adjustment because they knew me as one thing every day for 27 years and all of a sudden I'm telling them, "Hey, everything you knew about that is different in this one way." But perception of gender in society is such that even something that to me is as small as, "Hey, I've experienced all of this as a woman and I want people to know that," taken the other way and kind of looked at from my mom's point of view or my sister's point of view or anyone in my family or even long-time friends, that's like, "My entire experience of this person has changed in some fundamental way."
Do you think Athens has been an inclusive community or have you had negative experiences?
I think it's been inclusive for the most part. I haven't had that many negative experiences outside of a couple of times when I've gone out in public and strangers have been weird. But that's part of the narrative. It sucks, but how do you get used to that? The same way that people get immune to poison, I guess. Just experience it over and over again until it's just another thing. For a long time it was one of those things where every time I would go out in a dress or anything, it was a long production that went into it. I had to get ready for it and then experience the day and then spend the rest of the day decompressing. Even if I was just at a friends house because you never know––you never know what's going to happen. There's a big, vast space between safe space and safe space but, you know, the community is good. It's weird, I always have this perception of the queer community in Athens is one that's kind of big but also kind of underground. It's there but it's invisible.
What do you think of trans folks who are popular in media right now?
I think it's really great. I also think that the importance of some of them is somewhat overstated. A question that I'm frequently asked kind of along the lines of that is, "Does Caitlyn Jenner make it easier?" Well, no. Caitlyn Jenner doesn't make it easier. To some extent, women like Janet Mock don't make it easier. They do in the sense that Janet Mock is an absolutely brilliant woman who's out there educating people publicly and certainly lives up to a cis-normative beauty standard and at the same time speaks out against it. That's incredibly valuable.
But as important as representation is, there's also the other reality, which is that trans women have never been more visible but we've also never been more aware of how much violence is committed against trans women.
So it's scary that people can mark you like that and respond like that. I have undeniable privilege as a white trans woman where I am much less likely to run into that and as far as that goes, that's great...for me. That's great for me. But I still have to be aware of that and aware of regardless of shows like “Transparent” or “Sense8” or “Orange is the New Black” or anything like that, that representation is a symptom of change, not the end result. So how do we move forward from being happy that there's four transgender actors and actresses out there? That's kind of the next thing.
What makes you feel like an independent woman or like a boss bitch?
I was actually talking to my next-door neighbor yesterday and she said this in a really nice way...because I've heard it in less positive ways too, but she said, "You know the thing that you're giving up is male privilege," which is true in a sense. I certainly am.
And I think that's, if not a radical act, then [it’s] a way that I at least feel in a sense that I am fitting into my idea of womanhood as this thing that I've experienced for most of my life...I've been pretty turned on in terms of feminism my whole life so I've been aware of that privilege and hated that privilege and have done my best to work against it. I think that completely shirking it in some sense is how I would probably call myself a boss bitch right now. It's a pretty radical thing to actually do that, especially thinking about the narrative of transitioning that's out in public, like in the public eye right now. Somebody announces that they're trans and then they disappear for a little while and return as this absolutely beautiful bombshell, 1950s femme woman, which is amazing. I think that transformation is absolutely nuts but that was never the type of girl that I saw myself being growing up. So really just kind of realizing and accepting that the body and the way it's perceived is always going to be in this state of chaos and change and harnessing that––that's what it is to me, I think.
My interview with Colette has been shortened for clarity and brevity.
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