On the myth of high and low maintenance, through the lens of a trans experience

I read an article this morning "In praise of women who are high maintenance of proud of it" in which the author uses life experience and pop culture examples to explain what is meant when a woman is called high-maintenance. It's almost always thrown as an insult, at a woman who takes too long getting ready, who is too demanding in public, or feels uncomfortable in traditionally male social situations. The low-maintenance girl wears jeans and a t-shirt, drinks beer, and watches the game with the guys (while keeping her sports opinions to herself, of course).

There's a line in the piece which inspired me to write my own reaction piece. "If a woman does anything to distinguish herself from the fold — whether that means wearing lipstick or voicing strong opinions — it makes her difficult or prissy. It means she becomes harder to "maintain." The mere state of womanhood is considered an affect, a glamour on top of the default of maleness."

The maintenance comparison is to vehicles, which fits right in with men always referring to vehicles with female pronouns. The low maintenance woman is effortlessly beautiful (which, is an oxymoron if I ever saw one) requiring minimal effort on behalf of the owner (cause let's be real) but easy to show off to friends.

I have personal reactions to all elements of that statement that I hope to unpack here. As a transgender woman, the idea that womanhood is a glamour on top of default maleness set off several bells. That's certainly a charge that's been levied against trans-women, especially in pop culture. The trans-woman is the honeypot out to trick straight men into sleeping with what are essentially men wearing a glamour.

Recently I went to a new primary doctor for the first time, after ten years of only going to LGBT specialty clinics. I was honest about my sex reassignment surgery, about my hormone regimen. I was hoping to transition from specialty clinics to a normal doc like everyone else. After going through the full physical, which included putting on gloves and poking around downstairs, he told me I seemed like a well adjusted young man. He corrected himself to woman and apologized, but the damage to my psyche was done.

When people meet me and discover I'm trans and wish to broach the subject, it's always dressed with 'you look great' or 'I couldn't even tell'. I mention this as setup for the fact that I've consciously aimed for being a low-maintenance woman since pretty much the beginning of my transition.

I first went to change my name and go full time as a woman a year and a half into hormone therapy, living in vegetarian themed co-op student housing. I came out to my house of sixty some people, and then soon after I changed my name in my student records and started attending classes as myself. There was a conscious decision to gravitate toward skirts and makeup, to really assert the change.

A few months into going full time a housemate made the comment that I'd been wearing a lot of makeup lately, which another housemate softened with saying they knew I was just finding myself. The message was clear, and all the blue eye-shadow and blush went in the trash. I was coming across as too high-maintenance.

I wasn't surprised that googling Caitlyn Jenner high maintenance yielded a result, as every other word out of her mouth is something about makeup or nail polish or fashion. It definitely depends on your peer group, but I had the low-maintenance creed affirmed later when I had a long term relationship with a man.

We were in the subway headed out, and I saw a young trans-woman I had mentored at Cal headed down. I pointed her out, and his comment was "I can barely see her face under all that makeup". I tried to deflect and point out that its a personal choice and it's what makes her feel comfortable going out in public, but my choices were reaffirmed.

The irony is that looking like you're not wearing makeup takes a bunch of makeup. I was at Disneyland once and overheard a young woman saying "he told me I look so much better without makeup, and I was like 'if you only knew how much makeup I'm wearing right now'". For me, a 'no makeup' look involves covering my entire face in foundation, either eyeliner or mascara, and a lip tint or gloss.

That's a solid five minutes of makeup application to look like I'm not wearing any. Every once in a while I'll have a woman tell me "wow, your face is so smooth". Hormone therapy, deep face washes, careful makeup application. Or, y'know, effortless.

For me, low-maintenance is a constructed bubble where I feel freest to relax. I wasn't going to stop liking sports just cause I transitioned, or video games, or beer. On that same token, it was easier for my family to be around me in girls jeans and a t-shirt than in a dress.

There's something I'm trying to wrestle in my head here. There's the association with low-maintenance lifestyle and maleness which doesn't entirely ring true. The language of being chill and down to earth is very much male gendered. From the original article's "guy with long hair" to the ever popular "one of the guys". However, within that acceptance of women in male social situations, there's still a lot of distrust of women's opinions.

A cursory search of google for sexism in sports journalism turns up plenty of results. Here's one just as a jumping off point. If a female sports reporter is too critical, she's told to get back into the kitchen. If she appears to try too hard on her appearance, then it's assumed she doesn't know anything about the sport she's covering. The female sports reporter is expected to be reasonably attractive while minimally informative.

I make mental notes when a sideline reporter shares actually insightful information, only to have the booth essentially ignore what she had to say for their own conversation. There are any number of sports chat shows where the female host is there only to introduce topics, while an all male panel discusses the issues of the day.

Women like Katie Nolan, who have earned a space to share their opinion, have to deal with articles from their own company about landing a husband at sporting events. Even that article Nolan called out is still dealing with the dichotomy created by high-maintenance/low-maintenance. Can you still be a high-maintenance girl while enjoying things boys like? Yes, and it could result in getting a husband!

Ultimately, and especially as a trans-woman, the gendered terms used to describe social spaces are meaningless. A guy with long hair is a guy with long hair. There are plenty of them riding surfboards shirtless in Venice, a girl is more than long hair. No girl is just one of the guys if she isn't allowed to point out when a sports team isn't performing well.

My personal journey has been in finding the value in both high-maintenance and low-maintenance lifestyles. It's liking sports and not being afraid to wear a little pink dress. It's natural looking makeup and not being afraid to speak up when a server gets your order wrong. It's why women look up to characters like Peggy Olsen, who show these are not binary choices but rather window dressing on the things that really matter.

Finding that truth is how my internal drive to be female finally met a fleshed out version of an adult woman. It's a journey I feel every woman has to go through while coming up through a society where male is default. Where women are described through male gaze terms like low-maintenance and high-maintenance.

A society ultimately where you have to deconstruct years of narrative to find a place to just be. Good times, for a change.

What LAFC's new stadium means for the LA Galaxy

Today MLS expansion franchise LAFC announced their intentions to build a soccer specific stadium in Exposition Park, on the former site of the Los Angeles Sports Arena. At a cost of $250 million dollars, it will have a capacity of 22,000 seats. At its completion it will be the first open air stadium built within the city of Los Angeles since Dodger Stadium. Permitting and construction will take more than two years, pushing LAFC’s entry into the league back to 2018.

The point about construction in the city of Los Angeles isn’t just public relations. Since Dodger Stadium was built, many teams have played within the city of Los Angeles only to leave for a stadium somewhere else.

Los Angeles Angels left for Anaheim, Los Angeles Chargers left for San Diego after only a year, Los Angeles Rams left for St. Louis, and the Los Angeles Raiders went back to Oakland. The Los Angeles Galaxy leapfrogged over the city going from Pasadena to their own stadium in Carson. UCLA ditched the Coliseum for the Rose Bowl. The Dodgers own their stadium and USC has nowhere to go, so until now they’ve been the only open-air sports teams inside the borders of the city of LA.

The Los Angeles Sports Arena that LAFC will replace with their soccer-specific stadium had its own experience with the flakiness of LA sports. Jack Kent Cooke built the Fabulous Forum in 1967 for his recently purchased expansion Kings, moving the Lakers out of the Sports Arena in the process.

This cost the Sports Arena its hockey tennant, the WHL Blades (who didn’t draw very well anyhow). They’d try again with the Los Angeles Sharks of WHA, which lasted two years. It’s ABA tennant the Stars moved in after the Lakers left and lasted two years. The Clippers came in the mid-80s, but were a doormat until they moved into the Staples Center. UCLA and USC both called the Sports Arena home at one point, but both opted instead for on campus arenas.

AEG worked some magic building the Staples Center Downtown, but they chose to build their soccer stadium in Carson. Built on the site of a 1984 Olympic cycling venue, the now StubHub Center serves not only the LA Galaxy but US Soccer, the US Tennis Association, and up until this season a second MLS tennant in Chivas USA.

In that way it’s quite similar to Staples Center which houses the Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Sparks, and at one point even an arena football team. For indoor arenas, which have lower capacities but year round functionality, sharing is the norm. Conversion from one sport to the other can be done in an afternoon.

Ultimately my thoughts on LAFC’s stadium are filtered through the Galaxy’s needs, specifically, is LAFC’s stadium a legitimate salvo in a battle which hasn’t even officially begun? In trying to organize my feelings I read a bunch of economics articles which used math I couldn’t understand. Outside of the math, what they’re dealing with is supply and demand.

	Attendance Per Game	Capacity	A/C%
LA Galaxy 2014	21,258	27,000	79%
2013	22,152		82.04%
2012	23,136		85.69%
2011	23,335		86.43%
2010	21,437		79.40%

The StubHub! Center is built at a greater capacity than there is demand for Galaxy tickets. It was built at well above the average attendance the Galaxy saw in the cavernous Rose Bowl. This has kept ticket prices relatively stable over the history of the complex, but it has also dampened the demand for season tickets. Getting Galaxy season tickets comes down to preference for a specific seat, as getting in day of game is rarely an issue.

This hurts the secondary market value of tickets. It’s common practice for season ticket holders to subsidize the tickets by selling off extra seats for high demand games, but outside of Fourth of July there just isn’t a guaranteed Galaxy sellout.  

	Games at less than 1/3 Capacity	Games at 1/3 - 2/3 Capacity	Games at 2/3 Capacity and Above	Games at 90% Capacity and Above
LA Galaxy 2014	0.00%	17.65%	82.35%	23.53%

While the Galaxy don’t sell out, attendance is incredibly stable. Referring to a chart in a CIT Social Science paper from 1974, while the percentage of games at 90% capacity is below an average ABA franchise in 1974, the games at ⅔ capacity or better rival the NFL of that time. Factor in the fact that the games below ⅔ were all weekday games, which carry their own restraints at the StubHub! Center, and you see just how consistent the Galaxy draw is.

I’d conclude that the 27k capacity of the StubHub! Center wasn’t done with the Galaxy in mind. It was done for the national teams, to host World Cup qualifiers, Gold Cup games, Olympic qualifying tournaments, and friendlies.

Which returns me to my original question, is LAFC’s stadium going to impact the gate for the LA Galaxy. We know Chivas USA didn’t have much of an effect on Galaxy attendance, but that was a franchise which required the exact same effort to follow as the Galaxy.

Another paper I read from UNC uses the example of two competing restaurants across from each other, each serving seafood. One is at capacity every day during peak hours and doesn’t take reservations, while another offers comparable food and service at a slightly higher price but has many empty seats. In this example, why doesn’t the popular restaurant raise its prices slightly higher?

This paper, long before Yelp existed, argues that demand for some goods is dependant on the demands of other consumers. Think about how crazy some restaurant owners go over their Yelp reviews. Emotional attachment is harder for economists to quantify, but what if some goods are in high demand because other people want them and not because of price or quantity?

In the case of the Galaxy and Chivas, while the community around LA has held steady and kept the same group coming back year after year, once popular opinion turned on Chivas they literally couldn’t give tickets away. The product didn’t matter, they had a bad reputation.

This might explain some of the scorched earth policy LAFC has had with elements of Chivas USA. While LAFC has been taken to task for allowing a talented youth program to get absorbed by the Galaxy when they could have claimed it as their own, the very brand aware folk at the center want nothing that will be a callback to the former MLS club.

So what is the identity of this brand new club? Thus far, what they are is not-the-Galaxy. Galaxy are blue, they are red. Galaxy are suburban, they’re building in the city. It’s the same strategy NYCFC has employed. They too came in without building a youth structure, because their entire hook boiled down to being blue while they were red. Why take the time to go out to New Jersey? We’re a soccer team in New York.

The Galaxy base isn’t at risk. For that some-20k strong core, the investment is in the Galaxy. LAFC is going after that other 7k, who show up for fireworks or when LA plays the Sounders, or for a national team friendly. Don’t drive from Echo Park, Santa Monica, Burbank, Pasadena, the Valley, down to see the Galaxy. We’re so much closer, and we’re way cooler. We’ll have food trucks and show outdoor movies, and all the things you young kids and your new families like.

That’s where that 22k capacity comes in. They aren’t building for the occasional national team game, or the possibility of landing a bowl game. It’s opening up in a completely different part of town, and they’re going to look for a different core, and they’ll work hard to keep it.

LAFC isn’t the restaurant across the street. That was Chivas USA, and economics took its course. LAFC is the restaurant across town, which with the right yelp reviews will take away the folk who were willing to drive out of their way just to have the experience you offered.

How does the StubHub! Center compete? Go all-seater, reduce capacity. Make it an in-demand ticket more than twice a year. Make it something people need to plan ahead for. There’s going to be a bump with Steven Gerrard comes over, but how do you keep those people? They didn’t stick around with Beckham. After that initial full year, it went right back to that core. Do something to make life better for that core, instead of chasing the capacity which is too big for the club anyhow and always has been.  

Old Navy jeans and whimsical Americana

It's only recently that I've begun thinking critically about my sense of style. I knew looking good was better than the alternative, but there wasn't too much investment in how or if I got there. Looking back, my biggest influences weren't at all high fashion. When I sought to get away from the free pile at my vegetarian themed co-operative student-housing, it was thrift shops and a dab of surplus store that defined my day to day look.

If one were to combine this with my Los Angeles upbringing, plus a surprising amount of nostalgia, the result is something I didn't know was called whimsical Americana. I didn't know that was my aesthetic until I read an article on Emily Current and Merritt Elliott (link) where they described their style with that phrase.

I got to meet Current and Elliot at an Old Navy event promoting the store's spring line, which is tied heavily into the Spring Break/festival/road trip scene. On a road trip you need essentials and jeans, and that's what Old Navy is known for.

The event had a hitch-trailer on site similar to the one which was on the Coachella grounds last year, with the various pieces of the collection strung on clotheslines. There were stations to make key chains, get your hair braided, and doodle on maps of California and the US. A contemporary bluegrass band played on stage, as people sipped on orange-vodka cocktails and snacked on chicken & waffles.

Current and Elliot are responsible for bringing back bell-bottoms (now called Boot Cut) and boyfriend jeans (link). That's quite literally my entire jean collection, much of which came from Old Navy. They're described as ambassadors of this line, not designers, but if their track record means anything I'd buy whatever they're selling.

Old Navy - On the Road

That time when soccer gave me hope

I want to write a story about the 2006 World Cup, which will have little to do with soccer and just about everything about what soccer has meant to me. Have a feeling I'll end up using I much more in this than I'm comfortable doing, but it is my story after all so here goes.

I followed the 2006 World Cup from Thailand, recovering from gender reassignment surgery in a hotel just outside of Bangkok. My friends Neil and Chris had come with me for support, but the pain meds they had me on kept me pretty spacey. Which was unfortunate, as Neil had brought Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon to read to me as I recovered. There was no hope of focusing on that, as I could barely follow the NFL reruns that made up one of this Thai hotel's two English language channels.

These were friends I'd made at Berkeley, living in a vegetarian themed Co-op house. I'd begun my transition to my current life as Josie Moira after moving to Berkeley in 2003. Not that I hadn't been preparing for years throughout my high school experience, but Berkeley presented two things which my high school home life hadn't.

The first is probably guessable, my family was traditional and catholic and my father had already at a few points made threatening remarks about the parts of my life I was having trouble hiding. By senior year I felt like I was ready to burst, having read a coming out poem to my AP English Lit class and often wearing a skirt on stage with my garage band.

The other bit is something that still follows me, and part of the reason I've felt pressure to re-come out to the new people I've met, the fact that I went to high school at an all-boys Salesian catholic school in Los Angeles. Its something most folk probably never think about, but imagine if the question "where did you go to high school" was a loaded scary question. It comes up whenever I apply for work, it comes up in getting to know people.

So Berkeley distanced me from those concerns, and my transition unfolded rapidly enough that by the 2006 World Cup I was in a hotel in Thailand undergoing a procedure. When I was finally clear headed enough to want some of the outside world, it was an English language Thai newspaper covering the Cup that gave me something to focus on. The US didn't do so well during that June, but it was my first time really caring about soccer results since the 1994 World Cup.

By the time the Italy-France final rolled around, I was back in the states and completely depressed. Maybe it was getting off the pain meds, but I've often suspected that it was an emptiness at the end of a long journey. I'd spent the space of a World Cup cycle with my sole focus on transitioning. School happened in the background, more about getting to stay in Berkeley than about working on my degree.

The day of the final was my One Good Day before things really went dark. A park in the Italian corner of San Francisco was showing the game on a big screen, and when they won in penalties fans of the Italian team marched down Columbus ave. holding a giant Italian flag. It wasn't my team, but there was something comforting in feeling lost in the event and not wallowing in my own stuff.

By the 2008 Euro tournament I was living in San Francisco in the Italian quarter above an AS Roma supporting coffee shop. I was supposed to graduate Berkeley in 2007, but the depression had taken over to the point that I withdrew in my last semester. I'd found work in a coffee shop, but housing was tougher. The residential hotel above the coffee shop was a step up from the residential hotel above a strip club, but it wasn't the most glamorous life.

2008 and the Euros is the year when I truly got into soccer as an adult. The coffee shop I worked in was a little French bakery across from the Roma coffee shop. The Roma shop had a little TV and was showing all the games to a packed house, and I became the designated rep for the French team as I watched along with them. Italy beat France to get out of the group, which I was fairly glad of as far as getting out of there alive was concerned.

By the 2010 World Cup I was back in Los Angeles, and I screamed my lungs out as Landon Donovan put the US through to the knockout stage. I'd gone to a handful of Galaxy games in 09 and 10, and after the 2010 Cup I decided I'd try my hand at blogging about this sport which was capturing my imagination.

When I say soccer gave me drive and direction, I say that as someone who can tell the story of my last decade using major tournaments as plot points. In the past when I've been asked about how I got into soccer I've told half the story, the same way I've mumbled and said something vague when someone local asks me where I went to high school.

This is just a glimpse at where my transition and my soccer love intertwine. Thanks for reading, and thanks for all your support.