http://trishbendix.tumblr.com/

You have to have some thick skin to work on the internet. The...

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:39:38 -0500

You have to have some thick skin to work on the internet. The things people might think but never have the courage to say to your face in person are somehow permitted on the web. As a writer who critiques other people’s work, whether it’s a TV show or a live concert or a book, I am open to feedback and criticism. It comes with the territory.

But it’s rare that someone takes the time to send you something like this. It reminded me of the Jennifer Livingston situation recently, and how the news anchor answered the viewer who sent her a “helpful” message about her weight on air. So in response to this email I recieved tonight, here’s an open letter I’ll be sending to kjamie1982@hotmail.com.

Dear Jamie (if that is your real name),

Props to you for still using Hotmail. I often wonder if people still do. Anyhow, I wanted to respond to you because hey, you felt you had the right to ask me such a personal question.

I don’t know you, or at least I don’t think I do, but if I did, you’d know I haven’t had any terrible situations with men. At least not any more than I have with women. In fact, I’ve been pretty blessed to not have experienced any kind of particular abuse or tragedy thus far in life, and if I had, I would like to hope it would have no affect on who I fall in love with. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t, actually. I have many male friends. I’ve always had a supportive father. I have almost entirely all male cousins. None of them have damaged me in any way.

I write this as if it were your business in the first place. It’s not, really, but considering I have opened myself up in certain ways by writing and talking about my life on the internet, I can venture as to why you though it appropriate to send me such an email. I can’t speak for Beth Ditto, but I can tell you what I gleaned from her memoir: She’s attracted to who she is attracted to. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. If she and I are attracted to similar kinds of people, that is something I’ll gladly accept. We both identify as femmes, and our partners identify as whatever they’d like to on any given day.

Speaking of my partner, Julie is a very private person. She deals with me putting our lives on blast on the regular, as I accept every Facebook friend request from AfterEllen readers and don’t really utilize any privacy controls. I have nothing to hide. She’ll probably be super psyched to know I have videos of her on YouTube. (I’m kidding, she knows they’re there. I play them all the time when I want to laugh.) But I married her not only because she’s a gorgeous butch woman, but she’s kind and smart and unintentionally hilarious. She’s also been working out lately, so I might need to encourage her to update her YouTube presence for people like you that are so interested.

While you were on my YouTube channel, I wonder if you happened to watch the clip where I read my coming out essay from Dear John, I Love Jane. It’s where I talk about growing up and not really feeling anything for anyone until I started to meet women I connected with, and how that felt to fall in love for the first time. You’ll be disappointed, I’m sure, to find out that my attraction to women had nothing to do with anything that happened with men. So thank you for telling me you’re “sorry” I had to go through something to become queer like I am, but really, there’s nothing to be sorry for. I’m not “resisting” anything but the urge to say “Go fuck yourself” instead of explaining anything further.

So you’re offended I call myself a lesbian based on the ideas you have about my relationship. We may be a butch/femme couple, but let me tell you, I am no meek and mild housewife. What are these male/female dynamics you consider to be present in my marriage anyway? Is that you, Mitt Romney? Because I am a terrible cook. Mostly I just refuse to do it. And I am fine with heavy lifting or other things you might assume that men or butch women do. I do that shit in heels.

“When you love women, you love them the way they are which means you love their femininity.” Actually, when I love someone and that someone is a woman, I love them the way they are, no matter how much femininity, masculinity or a mix of the two exists within them. Because I love the person; their heart, their mind, the way they treat you. There’s no rule book on how to be a lesbian. If there were, I’d say you hadn’t read it. What we’re fighting for as queer people, as a marginalized group in American society and the entire world, is for people like you to realize that humans fall in love with other humans, gender or sexuality be damned.

I’ll be real with you: If I wasn’t married to my babe butch wife, I’d probably be trying to find another one just like her. Like her on the inside, like her on the outside. And if one day she decided she wanted to borrow one of my dresses and get femme on me, I’d be like “Sure, but it’s probably too big for you.”

Julie does get mistaken for a dude sometimes, it’s true. And we laugh about it and tell our friends because it’s ridiculous that someone would just glance at a haircut and a T-shirt and assume someone’s gender or preferred pronoun. That’s just one of the realities of being someone who is different from what society assumes you should be or should look like. I’m constantly being assumed straight, and I’d laugh just as hard if I was with another femme woman and we got asked if we were sisters. It seems to come with the territory.

I guess what I’m trying to say, Jamie Hotmail, is there’s someone for everyone and I’m lucky to have found mine. There’s no need to worry about me and any repressed memories coming back to haunt me and change the genetic makeup of who or what I’m attracted to. Same goes for Beth Ditto, I’m sure. She seems to be doing just fine.

Best,

Trish

p.s. Go fuck yourself.

K8 Hardy covers BOMB. Looks like I’ll be making a trip to...

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:57:55 -0400

K8 Hardy covers BOMB. Looks like I’ll be making a trip to Powell’s this week.

Brandi, you’re a fine girl; what a good wife you would be.

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:00:10 -0400

Brandi, you’re a fine girl; what a good wife you would be.

Hannah, you clean up quite nicely.

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:18:52 -0400

Hannah, you clean up quite nicely.

She’s judging you.

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:35:53 -0400

She’s judging you.

They can both get it.

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:57:00 -0400

They can both get it.

selfenthusiast4ev: She has been gracing the ad pages in my...

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:43:33 -0400

selfenthusiast4ev:

She has been gracing the ad pages in my Vogues and Elle for Armani. She is breathtaking!

I agree - I saw her in Vanity Fair and instantly wanted to give her a long hug.

I feel like I’m such an easy target [in the press], and people...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:22:02 -0500

I feel like I’m such an easy target [in the press], and people just love shitting on me. I don’t respond to people because it just gives them what they want—attention. Do you know how hard it is to take the high road for so long? Because of it I’ve had eczema, panic attacks, I used to even get nosebleeds …I had so much anxiety in the recent past. I just thought, “I’m not going to get into wars with these people.” These people can say anything they want, but there’ll never be any proof to anything they say. If I had done drugs in the past, I would’ve been caught by now. Especially when my every move was tracked on camera because of dating Lindsay Lohan. I’ve never been caught because I’ve never done anything!

Sam Ronson - Ladygunn

Good on ya, Rookie.

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:54:10 -0500

Good on ya, Rookie.

Probably the coolest fucking thing I’ve seen today. The...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:44:56 -0500

Probably the coolest fucking thing I’ve seen today. The whole episode of Art in the Twenty-First Centuryfeaturing Catherine Opie will air on PBS in April.

“When I invited these women to Sassafras, a lot of them...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:32:54 -0500

“When I invited these women to Sassafras, a lot of them hadn’t reconciled with wearing dresses. I had these tutus made, these promlike dresses, these ‘costumes’ of femininity, and the first day I asked them to put them on they were red-faced, hiding in the bathroom, feeling that tortured, humiliated feeling. They experienced death in a way: of the ego, of your identity. “The next year when I got there they were all already wearing them; two were hiking in their tutus! They had re-appropriated those symbols.”

I just ordered Cass Bird’s Rewilding. I pretty much need it right away.

Dawn Kasper has recreated her studio for the Whitney. This is my...

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:58:00 -0500

Dawn Kasper has recreated her studio for the Whitney. This is my favorite piece of hers, though: “This Is How I Fuck My Environment.”

I don’t know if I want to be with Lissy Trullie or be...

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:18:35 -0500

I don’t know if I want to be with Lissy Trullie or be Lissy Trullie.

Cold Summer - Love Magazine

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:13:36 -0500

Cold Summer - Love Magazine

Evan Rachel Wood, I like what you’re wearing.

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:04:09 -0500

Evan Rachel Wood, I like what you’re wearing.

Tilda Swinton, killing it at Fashion Week. That blazer is...

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:34:01 -0500

Tilda Swinton, killing it at Fashion Week. That blazer is amazer.

The Steins Collect - The New York Times

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 01:33:36 -0500

The Steins Collect - The New York Times

This Sarah Jaffe album is going to be so different from the...

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:09:14 -0500

This Sarah Jaffe album is going to be so different from the last. Can’t wait to hear it in its entirety.

Amber Valletta and Shalom Harlow: Vice Versa - Vogue

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:42:00 -0500

Amber Valletta and Shalom Harlow: Vice Versa - Vogue

Chloe Sevigny in Interview on her upcoming role as a transgender...

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:18:26 -0500

Chloe Sevigny in Interview on her upcoming role as a transgender character:

I tried to lose a lot of weight because I thought it would make me look more masculine if I were gaunt. I had to do a lot of nudity as well, so I figured if I were less curvy, that would help. I was working out a lot because my character does a lot of physical stuff as an assassin. When I got to Manchester, where we were filming, I had rehearsals with the director and writer. I wanted to play the role with this exaggerated feminine behavior that a lot of transgender male-to-females have. It’s like a learned femininity. It’s very girly. But they didn’t want that. I thought, Well, how are you going to know? How can we remind the audience who I am? So on the show there are a lot of quick glimpses of me naked, wearing a prosthetic penis, which was horrifying. But I tried to get some of my own ideas in there. We did all of these different walks. I literally spent hours just sitting and moving my hands and walking to prepare.