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"Dear Mr. Hunter", read the email message.

"Please find attached our agreement for your use of “In The Flesh?”. At your convenience, please forward a countersigned copy to my attention via email..."

And in the attached agreement, these terms:

> 1. We hereby grant you the non-exclusive right to reprint a
> lyric excerpt, at your sole expense and cost, throughout the
> United States and Canada, in and as part of the publication
> hereinafter referred to, from the following musical composition:
> “In The Flesh?” (the “Composition”).
>
> 2. The publication covered shall be: The Story of Q: A
> GenderQueer Tale by Allan Hunter (the "Publication").
>
> 3. The lyrics reprinted shall be as follows: “Are there any
> queers in the theatre tonight? Get them up against the wall.
> There’s one there in the spotlight, he don’t look right to me,
> get him up against the wall.” ...
>
> The title, writer credits and copyright notice should appear on
> the acknowledgment page exactly as follows:
>
> In The Flesh? Words and Music by Roger Waters Copyright (c) 1979
> Roger Waters Music Overseas Ltd. All Rights Administered by BMG
> Rights Management (US) LLC All Rights Reserved Used by Permission
> Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

It's finally official!

I blogged previously about the backstory on obtaining this permission. Today I thought I'd write about the backstory on why I'm quoting Pink Floyd in my book in the first place.

For me, realizing that I had a different gender identity than most of the people around me wasn't a sudden all-in-one-moment burst of self-awareness, like a light bulb switching on. But it also wasn't entirely not like that either. What happened for me was that I thought more and more about how I was a lot more like a girl than I was like a boy, but I didn't know where to go with that line of thought. I'd obsess about it for a while and then I'd slam the door on those ideas, feeling very uncomfortable with it all. And then later on in the week I'd start obsessing about it all over again.

And when I wasn't obsessing about it, I continued to hold on to other perceptions of myself. So I had different notions about my identity that were in play within my mind all within the same time frame, in parallel.

I suspect that's how identity works for most people. You have inside your head your everyday image of yourself, how you've thought of yourself for some time, and you don't toss that out the window first and then consider a new one, but rather instead you entertain the new notion a bit, see how it fits, and maybe if it fits well you embrace it more and more and you think of yourself in the old terms less and less. I've heard people describe changes such as their journey from being a Christian believer brought up in the church to being an atheist (or, for that matter, vice versa) as being like that.

And for myself, I'd been through this kind of sea change once before. In elementary school and on up through the middle of junior high, I had consistently thought of myself as allied with the girls, despite being a male person in body, and one component of this shared sense of self was my belief in the authorities — teachers, parents, the adult world. The world that tended to approve of good behavior, good grades, attempts on children's part to be good citizens. Yet by the time I graduated from high school I had changed sides and was anti-establishment, a rebel-hippie, an anti-authoritarian and a social-activist wannabe. And that self-image, of myself as part of that particular mold, that self-image was largely distilled from male role models. The peace-and-love flower-child component of that model of masculinity, as well as the easy and free anti-coercive "do your own thing, do it if it feels good, don't be trying to be The Man and laying heavy head trips on folks and bossing them around", all that stuff, painted an alternative masculinity that for the first time in my life didn't strike me as toxic. And meanwhile as I'd gotten older I'd seen the feet of clay of the adult authorities I had formerly admired and emulated.

It wasn't an overnight change. I oscillated and my attitude and mood varied, but over time I set aside my faith in the establishment (and in particular my faith that the authorities would protect me from bullying and make it safe for me to be myself) and instead came to see authority and coercive enforcement as just another form of bullying. I didn't directly perceive myself as shifting my gender identity, but the flower-child hippie model of maleness did happen to include a general aura of being sexually active and having girlfriends, whereas I had no working model for how to continue to be one of the girls and also to have sexually active relationships with girlfriends.

Years later, that was all unravelling in my head, and I was increasingly conscious that for most of my early life I had thought of myself in girl terms, emulating girls, admiring girls, incorporating girls' values, seeing them as people like myself. And that others had similarly seen me as girlish and had reacted to me as such. And, furthermore, that beneath the veneer of "flower child", the countercultural male model I'd been trying to inhabit was still too immersed in aggressive and confrontational dynamics, power games, and, in particular, sexually licentious lewdness towards girls that wasn't particularly egalitarian or mutual, and which had not worked for me, just didn't fit me.

That's what had started popping into my head that season: that my attempts to become involved with girls and be sexually active and have relationships had not worked precisely because I was too much like a girl myself, and always had been, to play the expected role and be comfortable with the behavioral expectations.

But unlike the first transition (from girl-identified pro-system person to flower-child), this one wasn't leading me anywhere. Just away from.

If it were true, that I was effectively one of the girls in all the meaningful ways except my body, then I wasn't like the straight boys who have the relationships with girls, which is something I wanted. Nope, I wasn't like them, I wasn't one of them. So what did that make me??

It was widely assumed that I was gay and in denial about it or not "out yet", etc etc. I was attracted to girls and liked girls and admired girls, and yet I had once wondered if this were possible anyhow, that I was gay and lying to myself somehow, you know? But no, some experimentation had confirmed that I just don't find male people sexually attractive, and yeah I really do desire girls, I just didn't seem able to convert that attraction into things happening with them. Because, apparently, I was too much of a girl myself. So once again what did that make me, then?

I'd picked up and read books by people who identified as transsexual* (male to female in particular), and that was an eye-opener for sure. Autobiographical accounts from people born male but who said they'd always been one of the girls, that it had always been their identity — just like me! But in every case, in each of the books I could get my hands on, the author ended up seeking out and obtaining sex reassignment surgery, after which they lived their lives as female people, and they had sexual and romantic relationships with men. I didn't see my body itself as being wrong. I had always been one of the girls, just like these authors, and I had been a male-bodied person, which didn't seem any more wrong to me than being one of the girls. And I wanted sexual things to happen between me and female people, not between me and male people, that was my sexual orientation.

So it was very frustrating, obsessing about all this, because there were no solutions. I couldn't get a girlfriend because I was basically a girl. I wasn't a straight guy. I wasn't a gay guy. I wasn't a transsexual male-to-female candidate. What the hell was I, then?

My mind would go back to it and then run away from it in dismay, no answers there.

In December 1979, some people on my dorm corridor asked me to help them move a friend's furniture to a new apartment, and in exchange we would all trip acid and listen to a new Pink Floyd record, one that I'd never heard. Sounded groovy to me. So I did, and we did. The album was The Wall.

Several hours later, with me on a good couple doses of LSD, the stereo speakers were yelling at me, "Are there any queers in the theatre tonight? Get them up against the wall. There’s one there in the spotlight, he don’t look right to me, get him up against the wall." I certainly fit the description of someone who "don't look right to me", as I was white-faced and trembly with terror that someone could put so much of my life onto a record album. And I realized that yeah, this is not just a notion that has gotten lodged inside my head, this is real. I'm different in a way that can be described and identified by others, from the outside, and it isn't going away, this is who I am and this will be a central factor for me for the rest of my life.

So, forced to confront it head on, no more running away from it, I experienced the final critical transformative moment in my gender identity shift. I still didn't have a name for it but it was who I was: a person in a male body (which wasn't wrong) who was effectively one of the girls (which also wasn't wrong, I was proud of it) who was attracted to female people sexually, and it made me as different as any gay or lesbian or bisexual person, as different as any transsexual person, definitely queerly different in this specific way. And I had to come out now, it was time to be who I was and be seen for who I was, if I were ever going to form meaningful relationships in this world.

I'm curious to know who else in the LGBTQ community had a specific realization point, a game-changing moment like what I've described.

* "Transsexual" was the word in use at the time; some people find it offensive now, but it is not my intention to offend anyone.

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In my Sept 14 blogentry, I posted this teaser:

> Things have been simultaneously hectic and non-newsworthy for the
> most part in the land of STORY OF Q. That's a situation that just
> changed today, but I'm not quite prepared to write about today's
> developments (I think the relevant phrase is "waiting for the
> dust to settle"). Watch this space for more activity in days to
> come.

My next entry was on Oct 3, when I announced that the book deal with Ellora's Cave had fallen through. That wasn't the announcement I'd been expecting to make. The news I had been anticipating just before EC dropped their bombshell was that I was *finally* in negotiation with the relevant people for securing the rights to quote some Pink Floyd lyrics in my book.

Here's the backstory on THAT: I started pursuing that matter late last March; I went online, checking the BMI web site and finding out that Warner-Chappell managed the rights to that particular song, "In the Flesh" from side 2 of The Wall. In early May, I corresponded with them and was informed that their affiliate Alfred Music handles those matters.

Corresponded with one Gabriel Morgan at Alfred Music for an iteration or two, but then on May 23 he wrote to tell me that they no longer administer that catalog, that in fact Warner-Chappell no longer publishes any of Pink Floyd music. Apparently the contract expired and Roger Waters opted to sign on with someone else. No, they didn't know who that someone else was. I went back to the BMI web site. Still said Warner-Chappell.

Recontacted Gabriel Morgan and said they had to have had a contact person, an agent if not Roger Waters himself, and therefore whoever that person was should be able to inform them who the contract was with now. Nope, he said, because, well, actually the contract was with our UK affiliate, Warner-Tamerlane. So I go online to find contact info for Warner-Tamerlane in the UK.

By the third week of May, Warner-Tamerlane had informed me that those types of rights are handled by their affiliate, Faber Music, much like Alfred Music does for Warner-Chappell in the US I guess. I make repeated attempts to contact someone at Faber Music, culminating in correspondence with one Charlotte Mortimer, who cc's me on her communication with one Christine Cullen: "please let him know as soon as you have any further news on where the catalogue has gone?" Never heard from anyone at Warner-Tamerlane subsequent to that.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, I signed the publishing contract with Ellora's Cave. I would need the Pink Floyd permissions in order for the book to be published.

Meanwhile I had managed to track down the agent directly representing Roger Waters: Mark Fenwick Management, for whom I had only a snail-mail address. I sent a registered USPS international letter which arrived June 3. I received an email on June 7 from Louisa Morris of Mark Fenwick Management: "I am currently dealing with your request and will get back to you as soon as I can".

On 8/1 I email Louisa Morris "Just checking in" having not heard anything.

Checked the BMI website which still listed Warner-Chappell as the relevant publisher for this work. Chatted with BMI support line and they said "sometimes it takes awhile before these things get updated". Yeah, I noticed.

On 8/11 called and spoke with an assistant "Hopefully an answer by end of the week". I hadn't heard anything by 8/29 so I attempted another phone call. No answer. So I sent another email which also went unanswered.

On 8/30 spoke with Louisa Morris on the phone again: "Hopefully we'll have an answer by the end of the week". Not having heard anything by 9/6, I called and spoke with someone named "Kitty" who said Louisa Morris no longer works there, so I re-explained.

Recontacted the folks at Mark Fenwick on 9/15: they're working on it, maybe they'll have something soon...

I went on the BMI web site again and lo and behold FINALLY it lists a new publisher of record: BMG Platinum Songs US

I talk with them, they have me email a copy of the manuscript, and on 9/19 I am told by one Joe Betts that it will be passed on to Roger Waters for approval.

On November 25, I receive an email: my use of the lyrics has been approved "in principle", meaning it is OK with Roger Waters that it be used in this context. All that remains is negotiating with Hal Leonard Music, their affiliate who handles this sort of thing, and they will determine the amount I should pay and all that. I have an application pending with them, but essentially I have the important OK — I may use the lyrics as long as I pay the relevant price for doing so.

Yeesh, that was bloody exhausting.

* * *

I went to a one-woman show in Manhattan a few weeks ago. She was a black butch lesbian woman who had grown up living with her mom in the Bronx. She gave an interesting reading/acting show in which she dramatized the tension between her and her mom, much of which had to do with her rejection of the life she saw around her and her determination to get out. That rejection included a rejection of the identities "black" and "woman" and all the limitations entailed within those. She became acquainted with the East Village counterculture and rock music and avant garde theatre and the alternative gender and sexual orientation culture developing there and made her home in it, the only black person in a homeopathic white-hippie social infusion.

Later, I was engaged in dialog with a roomful of artists and dancers and musicians who had been at the show, discussing what we'd seen. Several of the other viewers complained that she didn't ever "deal with" being black. I disagreed: she had explicitly "dealt with" it by explaining how she did not identify with it, rejected it socially and culturally as an identity. On some fine-grained level you could argue that what she was saying was "even though I am black, I like this rock music, and this theatre and dance, these other cultural things and these other values, and these white countercultural folks are my choice of company". But how she experienced it personally and emotionally at the time, as how she presented it, was "This was my identity; this is who I was and have been, and my mother hated that because I was rejecting her and her identity".

That was true of her gender / sexual preference identity as well. We're a bit more accustomed to that, more exposed to it; she rejected the femininity thing, the being-a-woman thing. If she were coming of age now, she might identify as transgender; in her era, she identified as a butch, a tough masculine no-frills short-haired lesbian who dressed in what was considered men's clothing.

She identified with the white countercultural people she befriended but she did not PRESENT as white; she made no attempt to make any modifications that would cause her to be taken as ancestrally caucasian. In asserting her identity she was effectively asking us to accept that here is a person who is ancestrally and ethnically black but that her identity is other than that, that she is one of the white countercultural folks of the East Village.

That's strongly akin to what I am doing with gender. I present as male and I do not expect to be perceived as female, and yet I assert an identity that is not man, that is not masculine, but is instead a girl or woman identity.

* * *

I recognize that it's not easy for everyone to wrap their minds around that. There's a social awareness of transgender people, but I'm doing something different from what most of them are doing, I'm saying something different from what most people have heard about being transgender, and it requires processing some additional ideas and concepts.

I was interviewed yesterday evening by Dick_Wound and Minimus Maximus (aka Dick and Max) for their kinky podcast, OffTheCuffs. They were interviewing me specifically as a genderqueer person and as the author of THE STORY OF Q. Dick and Max kept apologizing for using the wrong words (they kept referring to me as someone who was "female" inside or had a "female identity") and they said it was very interesting but more than a little confusing to understand a distinction between sex and gender, to understand what it means for me to be not female but a woman. To be a male woman.

It was an interesting discussion and would have been good publicity for my book. I say "would have been" for two reasons here, the first being that between the time that we first started discussing them having me on their podcast and yesterday evening when I sat before the microphones, Ellora's Cave went belly-up, so at best it would have been good publicity for my story and my ideas and for the eventual potential book that I am determined will some day be available. The second reason is that they had technical difficulties of which we were not aware at the time, but the sound file on the computer was corrupted and unusable.

They asked me to come join them February 11th for a LIVE podcast along with other guests, so stay tuned for further details as February approaches.

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