Metempsychosis, M.A. (12)

While it took me decades to accept the name given to me at birth, accepting my body is a work in progress that may not end before I am finished. How often did I hear someone on the street calling 'Johannes!' and turning back convinced they called ME... All the attempts to shorten my name to Anna, at school, at work, and at home ended with rather abrasive reminders that my name is actually Johanna - that, if one cares to look at the etymology, both names carry disparate meanings so, before you get into a habit, ask the person if it's okay to abbreviate... This said, each time a doubt would sneak in and I had to ask myself: is it? Is this really who I am?

Both of my parents firmly maintained the same version of the story: my name came was given to me in homage to my paternal grandmother, Viennese down to the bone who in her glory days brushed shoulders with Alma Mahler and Martha Bernays Freud. She died shortly before I was born and was reported to be a very distinct and cultivated woman. I must have been a great disappointment in comparison, didn't turn out up to the standard set by my namesake: classy, feminine, socially and culturally well-defined, cut to a measure set by the finest metropolitan tailors. My respect does not come from her good looks, her fine taste, or etiquette. My respect for her comes mostly from her indignation at the treatment of Jews after we know who came to power and annexed the country as if it were a piece of Prinzregententorte. She never accepted the violence, mass deportation and mass humiliation, to say nothing of the genocide. Her protest wasn't just limited to the treatment of a handful of influential friends – it was an egalitarian and highly principled though strictly personal outrage and sympathy extending even to the poorest, the common folk persecuted by the new lords and masters, the riders of the Apocalypse. For this, I do admire her. To be vocal about it in such a precarious era must have been a bold act of courage and magnanimity. Her husband, in comparison, played the tune of silent conformity. Sitting on the board of one of Austria's leading banks, he had to comply with the law of the day, which, at the time, translated into unconditional loyalty to the Reich. He saw too many of his colleagues - degraded and reduced to the state of cattle, thrown in the stinking overcrowded train carts and sent for hard labour or slaughter - to dissent following his otherwise lofty Kantian moral principles. Not unlike many others, he decided it was best to keep his categorical imperatives locked up at home, right next to his brandy and cigar collection, while in the open acting as was expected from an official – in line with the brand new categories and brand new imperatives. To be modern, above all, meant to be obedient. Gleich und Gleich gesellt sich gern. Birds of feather, and so on... The new superior Über-race was, therefore, a curious collection of the most servile and sycophantic elements the burgeoning propaganda could assemble. They almost succeeded in doing what Orwell would describe only a few years later: “We will squeeze you empty and then we will fill you with ourselves...” My grandfather was one of the squeezed, at least during the war, but my grandmother, Johanna, was too distraught by the scenes unfolding on the streets of Vienna to accept the new norm. Father said she died prematurely because of the accumulated shame for her compatriots.

Still, respect for the ancestor and the name given to you in their honour are two birds of quite different feathers. What I came to appreciate most, is the virtually interchangeable character of the name: Johannes and Johanna. I recall that in some of my early scribblings, I would on occasion undersign them as Johannes, just to check how it feels. Now that I think of it, I was already experimenting with gender fluidity back in the seventies. Does that make me one of the pioneers? Hardly. Anthropologists all the time come up with ever-fresh discoveries of gender-fluid bodies across the world dating back to as early as the Chalcolithic Period, over six-thousand years ago. In Hawaii, among the Kanaka Maoli indigenous society, there were those called mahu, biological males or females who inhabited a third gender role, known to have high social standing, conducting sacred rituals and being offered responsibility for education. Native Americans had their 'Two Spirit' bodies, and Indonesian Bugis their waria.

It is one of my great regrets... Back in the days, when I did my Magister Artium thesis in evolutionary anthropology, instead of the comparative study of how metempsychosis was expressed and interpreted in various cultures throughout their development, this could have been an even more fascinating subject: the third gender across the world. I suppose I can still do it in my spare time. Working in the Library makes it all the easier...

P.S: Following up on yesterday's entry, while at work, I have found this curious fact: “In Pakistan and Bangladesh, the hijras are officially recognized as third gender by the government, being neither completely male nor female. In India also, transgender people have been given the status of “third gender” and are protected by law, despite social ostracism. The term more commonly advocated by social workers and transgender community members themselves is khwaja sira. This can identify the individual as a transsexual person, transgender person (khusras), cross-dresser (zenanas) or eunuch (narnbans).”

Pakistan, India and Bangladesh officially honour and protect the third gender while discriminating, persecuting and gang-raping their women... This doesn't make any sense. I need to look into this a little deeper.

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