River, Phoenix

Spent an enjoyable evening last night hanging out with an old friend at the inaugural Columbus Comedy Festival in Columbus, OH. The last time I saw him, he was a comedian with a different gender living with her comedian wife. The couple eventually split, and now he is River. I liked him before, but, honestly, I like the new River better. River is warmer than he was before, quicker with a hug, and a self-deprecating joke. When transpeople talk about feeling more at home in their bodies once they’ve transitioned, they’re describing exactly the person I became reacquainted with last night.

We had a good talk catching up on what’s been going on with us the last few years. Since the last time we saw each other, I turned 50, which was dramatic for me, although I suppose not as dramatic as transitioning. Fair to say, River won that particular game of “What’s new?”

Over the last few years, I’ve made friends with several transfolk. Mostly male to female but a couple, like River and my friend Parker, female to male. Having not really been exposed to any transpeople that I knew about for the first fortysomething years of my life, it’s been kind of cool getting to know these folks.

Last weekend, the sound person at the Vermont Comedy Club, Nick, had also transitioned. Not only did Nick run tech at the club, he’s also a comic and I invited him to do a guest spot on our show. He killed – a little too much, if I’m honest. Look, if I’m going to invite you to do a guest spot, try not to be funnier than me. That’s just common courtesy.

Catch River Butcher at the Vermont Comedy Club, August 8/29-31

It’s obviously unhelpful to make generalizations about anybody, but the transpeople I’ve spent time with seem happy and thoughtful and smart. They seem confident in themselves and, honestly, better adjusted than most of my other friends. I don’t know why that would be, other than my baseless speculation that going through the physical and psychological challenges of transitioning must activate some kind of compassion/maturity gene.

We hear so many stories of transpeople, in particular trans youth, being rejected by their families, by their communities, by people who don’t even know them. I don’t know any of my friends well enough to know what kind of pain they may have or may not have experienced before arriving at their authentic selves, but I imagine living through that experience must give somebody a higher emotional intelligence and maturity than somebody who hasn’t had to face those sorts of life-altering decisions.

So when I hear Republican politicians demean and diminish transfolks, I hear them diminishing my friends. These are people who have done nothing to incur the ire of anybody, at least not because of the way they live their lives. River, for example, is a Dodgers fan, which is, of course, disgusting, but his poor baseball preferences should not impact whether he has access to the healthcare he needs, or the restroom that conforms with his gender identity. I imagine one of the downsides of transitioning from female to male as a baseball fan is the annoyance of now having to wait for the male restroom at Dodgers Stadium when the female one is almost certainly less occupied.

As we caught up, he told me a little about his life these days. Still a touring comic, living in LA “single for the first time in a while,” and trying to get something going in show biz, which is harder and harder for folks no matter who you are. In other words, he’s just living his life like millions of other people.

One of my trans friends works in Democratic politics. One is a writer. A family member transitioned a few years back, and now he’s an artist living on the east coast. Boring stories. Which is the point, isn’t it? These are just regular people leading regular lives. They have regular lives and do regular stuff. So when I hear them being scapegoated as “groomers” or “predators” or “wanting special privileges,” I don’t recognize the bogeypeople they’re describing.

Have I just met the “good” transpeople? Is there a secret cabal of bad ones out there, somewhere? Or is the truth much simpler: that people living their lives in as authentic manner as possible upsets some people for reasons they themselves have a difficult time articulating. Rather than doing the work on themselves to figure out why somebody’s else’s life has anything to do with them, they instead choose to hurl their discomfort outwards, inventing scare tactics to justify their own bigotry. It's sad. Worse, it’s scary - and dangerous - for the people who being scapegoated.

And it has nothing to do with being trans. Nothing. They are no more deserving of anger and fear than the Muslims living in the States who got scapegoated after 9/11. Or Asians at the start of the pandemic. Or American Jews getting scapegoated for what Israel is doing. The fearful eye will always put the juju on some menacing exterior “other” rather than examine why they feel fearful in the first place. They will always look to outside forces for their anger, their discomfort, and fear rather than spend any time reflecting on why they are so susceptible to fear-mongering to begin with.

Look, I get it: sometimes transpeople, especially early in their transitioning, look a little unusual. That makes some people uncomfortable. But be honest: do any trans people you’ve seen look any odder than, say, Roger Stone? The human body is nothing if not an amazing template for creativity. We can sculpt it, change it, adjust it vertically and horizontally. We can change so much about ourselves, and rarely do these adjustments elicit the kind of hateful demagoguery that transitioning to another sex does.

I mean… what?

It's sad, especially when you hang out with somebody like River who seems genuinely happy. We were trying to remember the last time we saw each other. Finally, he remembered it was on a cruise we both took with the musician Johnathon Coulton, who runs an annual voyage celebrating the music of Johnathon Coulton; but he also invites tons of comedians, board gamers, authors, and musicians. It’s a great time, but on that particular trip, River spent the entire time in his cabin because he got sick. This was before he transitioned, so from my point of view, that was his pupal state. Now he has emerged, a manly butterfly, happy and beautiful and I was glad to get reacquainted.

We joked about my “Hollywood Friendship System,” which works like this. If you’re a celebrity and I have ever communicated with you in any shape or form, I consider you a dear friend. If we have spent more than five minutes together, you’re like family. Last night, River became like family. I’m begging you bigots and MAGA weirdos, please don’t come after my family. If you do, I might not be able to do much about it, but I guarantee – River could kick your ass.