Theater/Symphony
The 'Naked' Playwright’s Transgender Jesus
By Jacob Anderson-Minshall

May 1, 2008

Tobias K. Davis

“I’ve always been interested in the strange relationship that exists between transgendered people and the medical and therapist community,” says the award-winning trans playwright Tobias K. Davis. He explores those issues in his latest play, Standards of Care, which examines the relationships between a therapist and a transgender patient.  

Davis’ The Naked I: Monologues From Beyond the Binary won first place in the 2003 Five-College Denis H. Johnston Playwriting Competition. He lives in his hometown, Northampton, Mass., where he graduated from Smith College. Collaborating with classmate Claire Avitabile, the trans identified author developed The Naked I (“a transgendered take on The Vagina Monologues”) his senior year.  

“Through the miracle of the World Wide Web,” Davis explains, “I interviewed a number of transgendered and gender variant individuals about their own experiences of their bodies and sexualities, and then compiled, edited, created a number of monologues and short scenes celebrating the wide diversity of our experiences.”  

The Naked I and Davis’ short, The Best Boyfriend, have both been performed at a number of theater festivals and college campuses. The trans playwright also authored Crossing, retelling the story of Christ’s crucifixion with a transgender Jesus.  

“ Crossing was one of the first plays I ever wrote, and I have plans to revise and extend it, since it was only a one act, and I think there’s more material there. The basic premise is that Jesus was FTM, that his struggles and persecution and crucifixion were motivated not only by his teachings and how they threatened the Roman Empire, but [also] by his gender, and how it threatened the rigid binary society. I was trying to draw a parallel between different types of oppression.”  

The playwright says he’s extremely grateful for his education at the women’s college, and maintains that such institutions “were founded for people who could not get an equal education elsewhere because of their gender identities, and as such, they lend themselves uniquely to the education of gender variant individuals of all identities.”  

Still, Davis insists, “It’s extremely important for male identified people to respect women-only spaces. My optimistic hope would be that women’s colleges could find ways to accommodate trans and trans-masculine identified students but also maintain important women’s spaces.”  

Now running Minneapolis’ 20% Theatre Company ( tctwentypercent.org)—which is dedicated to work by female, transgender and gender-queer theatre artists—Avitabile helped staged a reading of Davis’ latest play, Standards of Care. Last May, the sold out event played to an audience of trans folk and their families. Avitabile is also producing the world premiere of Standards June 6-15 at Twin Cities’ Patrick’s Cabaret.  

Standards of Care explores issues facing two transgender guys—one older and one a teenager—who battle gender dysphoria, struggle with therapy, fight for family support and search for love.  

The title refers to the Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders (SOC), which spells out standards for psychiatric, psychological, medical, and surgical management of gender identity issues. Davis suggests that these standards exist not for the well being of trans patients, but for benefit of the medical community and society at large.  

“If gender identity disorder or gender dysphoria are truly mental disorders,” Davis says, pointing to the American Psychiatric Association handbook— The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)—which catagorizes the trans experience as a pyschiatric problem. “Then why won’t insurance pay for the treatment of surgery and hormones? And if they aren’t mental disorders, which I believe, then why do we not have agency over what we do with our own bodies?”  

In Standards, Davis adds complexity to the psychiatry-trans patient dynamic by allowing their relationship to deepen until it threatens to cross boundaries of intimacy and ethics. The playwright says he recognizes the potential power dynamics in such a relationship.  

“It’s difficult to sustain an equal relationship in a situation where the two parties have an inherent power imbalance. However, in Standards… the client is less in therapy because he actually needs help with his mental health, and more because he needs some paperwork completed.”  

Still, Davis acknowledges, since the therapist has the authority to deny the patient’s request for surgery, there is a different kind of power imbalance. “I like the ethical dilemma as a dramatic tool, because I think that difficult situations make for more interesting theater, and I think that it strikes a chord with audiences.”  

Contending that people’s identities shift when they are around others, Davis examines not just therapist-client interactions, but relationships between mentor and mentored and mother and child.  

“I think that the relationship between the transgender community and mental health professionals is unique and worthy of attention. I’m also interested in exploring the relationships between parents and transgedered children.”  

Standards’ gender therapist may be professionally supportive of the transgender community but that doesn’t seem to make it easier for her to accept her own kid coming out trans.  

Davis says he based that element of the play on the real experiences of acquaintances. “I think that a lot of parents who are perfectly accepting of LGBT or other identities in their friends, acquaintances—even siblings—have trouble when it comes to accepting those identities in their own children.”  

“I would never claim that there is one universal FTM experience,” Davis says rejecting the notion of a standard shared experience. Still, he hopes that other trans folk will see themselves—and their struggles—reflected on Standards’ stage.  

He says he’s also thrilled to bear witness to “the rising number of trans artists appearing on stages across the globe. Theater is [an] incredibly vivid and human form of art. It also offers more of an opportunity for transgendered people to tell their own stories, rather than having talk show hosts feed them lines and set them up to be ridiculed.”  

As for his own journey, Davis admits, “I don’t think I’ll ever be done transitioning, transforming.” In addition to finding new venues for Standards, Davis plans to revisit Crossing, and says he’s been working on a young adult novel about a transgendered teenager in boarding school, which he hopes to publish someday. Davis encourages contact at TobiasKDavis@gmail.com.  

Trans author Jacob Anderson-Minshall co-writes the Blind Eye mystery series with his wife. He has an essay in the anthology, Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power , which examines his transition from lesbian feminist to straight white guy.