Echo...November 9, 1994
[Reprinted by permission of the author]
Doctor Robyn and Her Observations
An interview by Alex Kienlen (@Elvis)
[Reprinted with minimal comment]
Robyn Serven is a mathematics professor at UCA.
Robyn Serven was not born a mathematician, nor was Robyn Serven born a woman. In both cases the person who is Robyn Serven came about through a considered process, a process to which she gave time, effort and careful analysis. While being a mathematician is, granted, difficult enough, the process leading to Robyn Serven as woman is the most difficult one.
Serven was born Robert Serven 48 years ago [sic: I was 46.--ed]. Serven did most of the things people named Robert who've spent 48 [sic] years on the planet do. She married, raised a daughter, did a hitch in the Army and otherwise had the experiences one has in life. With her it was different.
Serven traces her knowledge of being female back to the 1950s‑‑a time, she recalls, when little boys thinking of themselves as girls was "sort of a taboo subject."
"Little kids don't have the words to talk about it. I knew back then when I talked to my mother about it [and] it didn't go over well. I was basically told to straighten up and fly right."
And she did. The following time‑line of life was one of family and careers, of seeming normalcy. For everyone but her.
"[It was] sort of like trying to live a lie; eventually that lie starts taking on a life of its own and you start feeling disconnected from your existence and something's got to give," she said.
What gave was her maleness, it was either that or her sanity, if not her life. She speaks of the decision to come out, to live her life as the woman she is, after a suicide attempt, one of several attempts.
"I just decided that I was going to be happy with my life," Serven said.
"I decided to take a chance."
Originally the plan was to move off and go through the transition, to come out, in relative obscurity somewhere other than UCA. But people Serven had befriended during her eight years at the university talked her out of leaving.
"They didn't know what they were talking me out of. Now maybe they would change their minds. I don't know."
What followed was, well, history.
The story about Robert Serven's announcement to a math class that she had decided to live as a woman was picked up by the Associated Press and was reported as far away as Los Angeles. She was "forced"‑‑her word‑‑to do an interview with the Log Cabin Democrat.
A personal decision became a public one.
And the university administration freaked.
"It would have been nice at the time if we had all sat down, the administrators and I, and tried to work out the logistics," Serven said. "I've still not had a meeting with the president of the university or the vice president for academic affairs‑‑I've asked several times‑‑but it's always gotten derailed. In fact, in two years I think President Thompson said `Hi' to me once. Relations between me and the administrators were strained at best. The strain was pretty hard."
Serven also uses the example of her name change from Robert to Robyn as another area where she was treated prejudicially.
After a common‑law name change, legal in Arkansas, the university issued paychecks using her new name‑‑twice. Then she was told they had to issue checks by the name on her birth certificate (which said Baby Serven) and required a court order before the university could approve the change.
"I didn't see why I had to be treated differently from other people. Women get married and change their names; they go down to Social Security, the file a name change, and that's it. There's no legal document involved."
Nor did the problems stop there. Serven talks of continued verbal harassment from high school groups visiting campus; harassment ranging from advisors commenting to students as they pass by her office, to visiting students shouting things in her classroom. Not to mention the verbal harassment, the shouts and comments she faces on her walk home from work every day. (She passes by three fraternity houses on her way home. Sig Tau's are the worst, she said.)
"To me it's nothing short of sexual harassment," Serven said.
Many things are perplexing. Campus faculty staring through her and former colleagues who no longer acknowledge her seem, somehow, unfair.
"This by people who don't know me," she said.
"How can you just go out and attack people you don't know and feel good about it? I don't understand."
She talks of going into the hospital for her operation ("the" operation) and not being contacted by any of her coworkers in the math department. No card; no phone call, nothing.
When she returned to work she found a message on her E‑mail asking for a $5 contribution for a colleague going into the hospital.
What makes Serven's decision particularly difficult is that her decision to be a woman also involved her knowledge of herself as a lesbian. Serven is on, by whatever fates path puts us on, a road far more difficult than most could fathom. Which may explain why Serven can talk about her decision so easily using conceptual phrasing so common to mathematics.
"I didn't change so I could have sex with men," she said. "That's probably the common perception, because people like to put you‑‑like to put other people‑‑in categories that they can understand easier. And they don't like to make a distinction between the concepts of gender and sex. You know, I went through and had this surgery, not so I could have sex with other people. It was not about who I could have sex with. It's not about who I would be sleeping with. It's about who I'd be sleeping as. It's about who I am."
The roles we assign people are the problem.
"It would be nice before I die‑‑I'm 46 years old [see! told ya!--ed], getting along now‑‑it would be nice to see some sort of progress toward less hostility between people because they've been assigned certain boxes," she said.
"I'm not doing anything that's hurting other people. I’m not going out , you know, making other people follow my path. If people don't want to deal with me, fine. They want to ignore me, I'll ignore them. If they have a problem with me, it's their problem. They need to deal with it any way they can. If they want to be friends, fine. I'm friendly; I'm very open to being friendly."
Serven has identified part of the problem as originating in the roles we assign people.
"Gender is different from biological sex. A lot of people don't agree with that. My personality did not lie, and does not lie, in my genitals. My personality's in my head. And having a different mental set than one's biological sex really creates problems."
Which leads to an interesting question about gender:
Serven puts it this way: Do we have to have just two genders? I prefer to be a woman, because we only have two options at this point. Society doesn't allow for any others. That's probably why gays and lesbians get put down so much. Is it because of who they are sleeping with, or is it because they are stretching the bounds of gender?
The common justification for the treatment Serven gets is not good enough for her, although it's a common excuse in this part of the country.
"Usually I'll get, `Well, you got to understand, this is Arkansas' as if that excuses Arkansas from the rest of the U.S.," she said.
You get some idea about Serven's life when you walk down the stairs from her office to the front of Old Main with her.
People stop what they are doing and they stare, or they look away; or their eyes glaze over and they pretend Serven isn't there. ("I'm six foot four [Now 6'2"..I've shrunk--ed]. I can't hide that. I stand out as a woman," she said.) People, to varying degrees, react: there is a palpable vibe surrounding her passage.
Perhaps then the people who cross her path should take a moment and shake Serven's hand; it's not a particularly unique experience.
When approached with an open mind you find you're not shaking the hand of a transsexual, or a mathematician, or a woman who has an exceedingly difficult time finding shoes; instead you're shaking the hand of a human being.
Suddenly, she's not so scary or strange‑‑she's just human.
If only more people were.
< end >
Like an Echo in my Brain
I transcribed the following from tapes of newscasts.
One thing I learned is that I wouldn't want to transcribe stuff for a living.
Robyn
KTHV News, September 24, 1999
6pm news:
Video: Robyn Serven is chatting with Carolina Boyd in front of the KTHV studio in downtown Little Rock.
Announcer: A California teacher is changing his sex from male to female. It's a case one Arkansas educator can relate to. Robyn Serven says he [sic] met a lot of opposition from her employer when she had a sex change several years ago. She's a college professor and tonight at 10 she'll tell us why she did it.
------------
10pm news:
Andy (unknown last name): A male California teacher wants to become a woman. It's a situation all too familiar for one of the University of Central Arkansas' teachers. Carolina Boyd joins us from the newsroom to explain. Carolina?
CB: Well, Andy, Robyn Serven lived as a man for 44 years before undergoing the procedure to become a woman. This assistant [sic: should be "associate"-RES] professor says this decision was met with some opposition from her bosses. However, just like the teacher in California, Robyn says she's a qualified teacher, regardless of gender.
Video: Robyn walking on the campus of UCA.
CB: Robyn says when it comes to her job, don't think of her as a man or a woman...think of her as a teacher.
Video: Robyn sitting on a bench outside near the Student Union, talking to the reporter.
RES: I was a good teacher and I'm still a good teacher. If anything, I think I'm a better teacher. I have more empathy for my students than I used to.
CB: Seven years ago, everything changed for Robyn when she underwent the sex-change and became a woman. [cringe!--ed]
RES: Whether I change my sex or not...if that interferes with the process of learning, then that's a bad thing. But if it doesn't interfere with it, then it shouldn't be an issue.
Video: Dana Lee Rivers at a news conference in Antelope, CA.
CB: But it has turned into an issue for Dana Lee Rivers. The California teacher is preparing for a sex-change and because of that, she lost her job.
DLR: My teaching ability is not going to be impaired, it's going to be enhanced, when I can be truly, truly, truly who I am.
Video: Robyn Serven on the park bench.
RES: She's getting blamed for telling her students, you know, about her life. Well, so what! You know, there are people like me, there are people like her, there are people like us, and you know, we are people, too!
Video: Robyn walking away on campus.
Robyn says unlike Dana, she didn't lose her job because of her decision, but the road has still been difficult. She says her life has changed for the better and she has no regrets about it.
CB (in newsroom): Now Robyn says she loves teaching most of all, but she's not sure it's something she's going to do for the rest of her life. She said she would like to eventually write about her experience and possibly one day move out of Arkansas.
Andy: So, Carolina, does Robyn have any words of advice for that teacher in California.
CB: Robyn said she has actually had some email correspondence with Dana Lee Rivers, the teacher in California, in the past, and she said that she basically told her to stand up for herself.
A: Carolina Boyd. Thanks.
'The comprehension of self', that is the Beyond of all dharmas."
--Siddhārtha Gautama, The Questions of Suvikrantavikramin
Phenomena III: delving
Film at 11
Froth
Deep down below
past even the words
are ideas and concepts
normally unthought
except by the weird
unkempt minds
of those who dare
to be different
Whipped creaminess
of dangerous notions,
syllables expressed
too rarely
and more seldom heard,
whizzes by faster
than can normally
be sensed
Grabbing on
to a possibility
I was taken downward
further than
imagination
could conceive
There is truth here
There is more
wherever I look
And who wanted
to be normal
anyway?
--Robyn Elaine Serven
--December 28, 2007
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