In America it not yet commonplace to find transsexuals in positions of influence, but it is no longer unheard of either. There are transsexual doctors, lawyers, scientists, and public servants, many of whom are now willing to appear openly. And like me, there are airline pilots, though we have been much less visible. America is a country that prides itself on civil rights and equal treatment under the law, but some groups have had to fight harder than others to get it. Transsexuals are among the last to have mustered support. Discrimination against us, either personal or as a class, resurfaces in any number of ways. Yet there is a distinct trend in this country to at least tolerate us, if not yet to embrace us with enthusiasm. So I think it important that any of us, in any country, who have managed to make advances to share that experience with others.
I transitioned in 1988-89 early in my career with American Airlines. Given the nature of my job, I had to do it in front of many thousands of people all across the U.S., not all of whom were keenly receptive to the idea. Doing it so publicly was not a matter of choice; it was simply that I needed to keep working to finance this very expensive process. Otherwise I would have preferred the same quiet obscurity that so many of us choose. Furthermore, I was aware that precedent already existed for me to be fired. A few years before another U.S. pilot, at Eastern Airlines, transitioned and was dismissed in a case that received widespread publicity. She sued the airline for reinstatement and was refused by the court. She was appealing her case to a higher court when she was killed in a plane crash unrelated to airline flying. The court acknowledged that women, like racial and religious minorities, were indeed protected by the law from unfair treatment. But her appeal was based not on her being a woman but a transsexual. Thus, at that time transsexuals were more or less invisible to the eyes of the law, neither man nor woman, not deemed worthy of statutory inclusion in civil rights protection specifically afforded to others.
Pilots at that time were not very sympathetic to having any kind of women in their midst. In the U.S. the first woman airline pilot was hired in 1973, and the first women entered military pilot training in 1978. By 1988 they were still a rarity, and eyes would turn to follow any woman with pilot’s stripes on her sleeve. Not all men were openly antagonistic, but neither did many of them stand up and argue with conviction that it was the right thing to do. Women in the U.S. had only recently been granted access to many jobs previously reserved exclusively to men, and then only because powerful women’s rights groups had argued their case up to the U.S. Supreme Court. So women’s presence was still political and much resented, rather as if a parent had intervened unfairly on behalf of one child in a playground fight. Not all of the resentment was unjustified. When a whole new field is opened up to any group to whom it has previously been denied, naturally it is going to be hard to find fully-qualified candidates. The job of airline pilot is highly prized, and some women clearly were hired preferentially over well-qualified men. So relations between male and female pilots were not yet easy. When a woman’s voice was heard on the radio there would be anonymous comments like “There goes another empty kitchen,” or the smacking of lips in kissing sounds. Even with men not so militantly opposed, their lack of confidence could not be disguised. When a woman was flying, a male captain might unconsciously keep his hands centimeters from the controls, ready to save the day. Nearly every flight the woman would hear “I’ve never flown with a woman before.” Or worse, there might be hours of silence, the man afraid than any comment he made would be used as evidence of discrimination against him. They were not happy times.
For the women, it was a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If they wore jewelry and makeup the men would shake their heads over this flaunting of women’s unsuitability - their menstrual cycles, their maternity leaves, their emotionality, their lack of strength, their stature too short to reach controls. If they chose to downplay their femininity with severe haircuts and lack of adornment, the men would nudge each other knowingly that they were lesbians, more men than women. Worse, the airlines, seemingly concerned that the women should convey the proper air of authority, clothed them in decidedly masculine uniforms. So with the battle lines so rigidly drawn, and both armies eyeball to eyeball with each other, the prospect of one soldier throwing down his rifle and strolling casually over to the other side was nothing less than explosive.
Of course, no one ever presented me a list of why a transsexual pilot might be objectionable. But with any transsexual people resent disruption of their stereotypes, and being a pilot is a particularly stereotypical occupation. Nowadays, most every American popular film features a strong and combative woman who holds her own among men, at least as an equal and often much superior. But that fashion had hardly begun twenty years ago. For an airline pilot to transition from male to female was about as bad as a European football hero to do so. Pilots were viewed as the embodiment of manhood: assertive, dominant, unsentimental. In flying a complex jet, where one must be decisive and emotionally contained, those are valuable characteristics. So to renounce manhood posed the indignity of shaming that proud brotherhood, but also the outrage that I should wish to continue endangering lives doing a task for which I was now plainly unqualified. That at least is my assessment of the intense reaction I faced.
My background was typical of airline pilots. I was an academic high achiever, an Air Force officer, placed high in my pilot training class. My military career began flying the F-4 Phantom at the end of the Viet Nam war, though too late to see combat. That is not the place one would think to look to find one of a feminine disposition. But I have known many transsexuals with military backgrounds, far more than the law of averages would dictate. Most did well there. However, demonstrating the ability to function as a man is far different from having the heart for it. It seems to me that those of us with that experience end up rejecting maleness with a vehemence far greater than others who accepted their natures from the beginning. You sometimes see corporate executives who give up the business world to become priests, or engineers who become doctors. It’s like that. For some of us, the certainty that we need to become women comes because we fail at everything else. For others, it comes when we succeed at everything we try, only to find the reward for it is emptiness.
Of course, it came as no surprise to those who knew me well. Even those who didn’t could see that I stood back from inclusion in most groups of my “peers.” I think there were at least three things that indicated a dubious masculinity even when I was making wholehearted attempts to prove otherwise. First, I had no true killer instinct, even when that was my profession. Flying fighters was a kind of ballet to me, an exercise in esthetics. There was always a mental remove from destruction or victory as being relevant considerations. Second, even in childhood people would frown that I was too gentle for a boy. That is not the same as being indecisive, but when later I found that people seemed to think so I learned to speak my mind more loudly than was my nature. And finally, I began to find I was much like the many teachers in my female ancestry. Later in my military career, when I’d given up the direct implements of war in favor of the less-distressing job of flying transports, I was made an instructor pilot. Military instructors are notorious for teaching by intimidation, and instructor pilots are little different. It was something of a standing joke that “We’re going out to perform Fear, Ridicule, and Abuse.” But yelling at someone was something I could never conceive of doing; I was too anxious to coax them along supportively. I never thought of it until later, but one of the things that distinguishes my matrilineal ancestry is a strong nurturing instinct, and that was only an early manifestation of my inheritance of it. It is still a fond memory that some of these men expressed regret at my leaving, because they said I was so different from the screamers, and they had been so comfortable with me that they learned much more.
I think that for any of us who transitions from male to female there is an uncomfortable period in which we are goaded by others, perhaps to see if they can probe behind the masquerade and get our “real” masculine natures to flare. At the very least it’s whistles and smirks, at worst it’s the threat of physical harm. When I finally did transition publicly at my airline, it was no different for me. Fortunately, from pilots it never progressed to any physical threats, but there were a few such implications from the less-educated ramp workers who would occasionally signify by gestures how much penis they had available for me. I must say that among pilots fewer than a third indicated they were disturbed to fly with me, though it was certainly newsworthy among all. Of those who were disturbed, a few were actively angry and demanded to be removed from the schedule with me. The rest were just obviously uncomfortable or indignant.
None of us can really know beforehand how we will face the real life test, or how feminine natures kept so long in check will respond to free rein. I have always had a pretty good sense of humor, and knew how much tension can be released if only you are willing to laugh at yourself a little. That was very true here. Frequently what makes people uncomfortable is not so much any questions of sexuality this raises, but the normal wish not to offend. If you can indicate that you take it lightly (even though of course we don’t), a great many people will be reassured and even won over. But not everyone has a sense of humor, and not everyone is motivated by etiquette. Some men can respond in a frankly challenging attitude. Once freed of the artificial need to respond in kind, I found that my natural way was the feminine one of side-stepping conflict, and responding with a look of deep reproach. It is a remarkable thing how often men will change with a mute appeal to their better instincts. And good old estrogen; what turbulent waters are calmed by an attitude of composure and poise, a look of serene empathy. Female is better.
But an airline captain cannot at all times be madonna-like. There must never be any question as to who’s in charge, and that is the crucial thing that gets tested with any woman. And for a transsexual woman, there is a ready audience to see if you will revert to a male stature. Few people, however, seem to realize how little different a male posture of determination is from a female one. With a man, there is a hint of snarl to it, narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw. With a commanding woman, it is a set but unruffled expression, calm rather than aggressive. In either case it is the directness of the look that conveys the authority. It is making them blink first that does it, staring down the challenger. In such cases it is advantageous not to have been socialized as a woman. For me the snarl was always posture anyway, a special effect I had to remember to add. So the test of authority has not been any particular challenge. But oddly, passing that test seems to win more admirers than anything else, both male and female. The women will root for you as one of their own, and look to you as a model for a skill they’ve been denied. And in so alpha a group of males as pilots, they seem to admire dominance in spite of themselves, even when they are the ones determined to put it to the test.
Not that admiration became universal overnight. Indeed, it was quite a few years before I could go to work without steeling myself to the possibility of another round of hostility or freakish curiosity. But people do forget even so major a change over time, and if one is a good person people will warm to you eventually no matter what you look like. In the mid-1980’s, however, there were no such assurances. When I finally reached the point that I could resist the change no longer, I went to our company doctor with every expectation of being treated like the Eastern pilot of a few years before. To my very great surprise, the doctor was sanguine and even jovial. He additionally held the rank of two-star general in the Air Force Reserve, so I had expected that his attitude would be the official Air Force policy to expel transsexuals immediately. But it wasn’t. He also belonged to an organization called the Confederate Air Force; this was not a real Air Force but a group dedicated to preserving World War II aircraft. Its members were largely of that vintage themselves, often wealthy, often very conservative. One such member, however, had undergone gender reassignment several years before. This action was by no means popular with her fellow hobbyists, but it intrigued Dr. Wick. He became friendly with her and asked her many questions, and in time set his mind thoroughly at ease regarding the matter. So by the time I worked up the courage to go and see him, his reaction was little more than to shrug. In fact, to my even greater surprise he told me that American already had another transsexual pilot.
So no official bars were ever placed in my way. It’s hard to say why American Airlines was so different from Eastern. It may have been that a two-star general is an influential man, and no one was willing to challenge Dr. Wick’s judgment. Or perhaps American’s long-standing advocacy of diversity was heartfelt, and two transsexuals hardly registered among the many women, minorities, and gays the company was struggling to treat fairly. But one factor I think was that American had simply grown too big. In the distant past, pilots were allowed to be colorful and idiosyncratic. But nowadays it is not unusual to show up to fly with someone you have never seen before, and with eleven thousand pilots to choose from will never see again. So it has become imperative that training and procedures are standardized, so that when you fly with a stranger each knows exactly what to expect from the other. That also means that there is little sympathy for acceding to personal preferences when scheduling is necessarily relegated to a computer. So given the money that had been invested in my training, and providing that my flying skills did not suddenly deteriorate, the financial bottom line overrode anyone’s personal sense of moral indignation.
However, this was not the situation elsewhere. A couple of years after my transition, there was another fairly public firing of a transsexual pilot at another airline (not the now-defunct Eastern.) She was dismissed as soon as she transitioned for the usual reasons; a transsexual in the cockpit posed a threat to safety either because of the likelihood of mental instability or because working relations between pilots would be strained. Someone mentioned to me having seen her on a national television show, and I contacted her and her lawyer. I was able to offer a deposition to the court stating that neither of those alleged justifications had been borne out at my airline, and in the face of that she was rehired. Since then I have heard of a few other cases, in which there have been mixed results. A couple are tolerated by their airlines reluctantly, and it is continually made clear to them that they are not welcome. At least two others have either backed out of reassignment or quit their jobs due to the pressure they felt. One retired early for the same reason. But one or two others have succeeded without trouble, whether due to careful planning on their part or sufficiently strong personalities.
I can honestly say that it’s not been an issue for me for a long time. I am still more well-known than I’d like to be, but the interest is invariably friendly. I flew in and out of the Caribbean and South America for a while, where gringa captains, especially 190 cm redheads, are a decided rarity. There, when a mechanic came into the cockpit and saw a man in the right seat and a woman in the left, he would almost always turn to talk to the man. In those cases I would have to grab his arm and turn him to face the captain’s seat, and even put a bit of the old snarl in the steely look. But it was more confusion on their part than disrespect. Crazy yanquis, what will they come up with next? But the local women workers, whose jobs were just to clean the cabin, did notice. They would smile and often come up to shake my hand, a gesture I found to be touching. And whole airports in South America will notice a Nordic-looking woman in uniform who is a head taller than anyone else. I particularly remember a boisterous soccer team, fresh from victory, who saw me and fell into a hush. This was followed by nudges and whispers behind hands to one another. So I walked over and looked each of them in the eye, one by one. Then I smiled at them, tipped my hat, and in my little Spanish wished them congratulations for their victory. But tipped my hat so the braid of command showed.
So we do make progress, a tiny step at a time. I have occasionally been called a pioneer, but I think my contributions are more modest. I prefer to think of myself as an early chronicler. The real pioneers were the lady in the Confederate Air Force who had no idea she would smooth the way for any of us in the airlines, or the Eastern pilot who fought injustice in court, literally to the death. And especially the genetic women who finally arrived in such numbers as to make us one or two slight variations hardly worthy of notice. Today there are no more comments about empty kitchens, and no one points upon seeing one or even two females in the cockpit. No female pilot worries about whether to wear makeup, or male one about whether his captain is having her period. Nowadays pilots flirt, and frequently marry. None of us had more than a vague idea that it might be better someday, but now as we look around, we see with some surprise that it is. Each of us did matter. This is intended for readers outside the US where there are few women pilots and probably no transsexual ones. There will be; you are the ones who will change it. You do matter. Good luck.