"I was just doing my duty as a citizen." (Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl aka Oracle)

"I was just doing my duty as a citizen." (Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl aka Oracle)

I should like to begin this particular article by pointing out that this piece is by no means meant to be any kind of negative commentary about the Camp Fire organization.  They do some amazing work in the community and the current Camp Fire FAQ specifically mentions that the organization doesn't discriminate on the basis of the issues I describe in this article as having had to deal with in my childhood.  That was a LONG time ago, and I want it to be clear that I support Camp Fire as an organization and their progressive community outreach is to be lauded.  It's a wonderful thing to see the following passage included in their FAQ on the website (hence my earlier link - check it out, it's REAL!):

WHO CAN BE INVOLVED?
Camp Fire is unique because we are not an exclusive club. We have evolved to welcome everyone, regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic status, disability, sexual orientation or other aspect of diversity.

We are inclusive and open to every person in each community we serve. We work to realize the dignity and worth of every individual and to eliminate human barriers based on all assumptions that prejudge individuals. In addition, our program standards are designed and implemented to reduce sex-role, racial and cultural stereotypes and to foster positive intercultural relationships. 

Now that's progress.  I actually just left a message with Camp Fire's outlet to find out when this most recent list became active - I'm wondering how long they've been so progressive versus their Girl Scout cousins (who have also joined the ranks of allowing trans youth into the organization, despite attempted boycotts by extreme conservatives).

But this is an article about Batgirl, not Camp Fire.  How does Batgirl connect with Camp Fire?  I'm getting to that.

 


Sing around the campfire!
Join the Camp Fire Girls.
Join the laughter, join the fun,
It’s a wonderful time for everyone.
It’s a busy day, and when… it’s… done….
What fun to sing around the campfire!
‘Neath the moon above,
Sing “wohelo”, sing “wohelo”,
Work – Health – Love!
     - "Sing Around the Campfire," Camp Fire Girls Song

Well, maybe not exactly EVERYONE.  

At least not in the 1970s.

I couldn't find any advertisements from the period, but I remember seeing a similar ad like the one above either on television or in a magazine, and the description sounded like absolutely the most fun ever - and something I remember absolutely, positively wanting to be a part of in no uncertain terms.  I was at an age when my gender identity was sort of an unspoken realization in my own life, where I saw myself as a girl and naturally gravitated that way, but I was also old enough to recognize in a lot of ways that society was made up of a bunch of people who stubbornly refused to see me as a girl and treated me like a boy.  I didn't waste a lot of time arguing with them.  It was a fruitless position - there was just simply no alternative to them, and all I did with expressing how I "felt" like a girl "on the inside" was convince them that I had some kind of mental disorder I knew I didn't have.  So, even then, I reached a sort of peace with the world despite all my frustrations:  I would live my life and do what I wanted, as much as I could, recognizing the rest of the world wouldn't necessarily always see these things the way I saw them, and that was just the world's problem to deal with, then, wasn't it?

But no amount of arguing would have dissuaded me out of wanting to be a part of Camp Fire.  

I remembered that I had seen some materials about Camp Fire at the library, so I went to my folks and told them it was library time again.  So, the next time my family made a trip there I retrieved some brochures.

This, in itself, was a bit of a mission.

I remember being nervous that someone was going to stop me and ask if I was collecting the information for my sister and then I'd have to explain I didn't have one, or lie about it and get caught when my parents blabbed that I didn't have a sister.  Such fears can occur anywhere and everyehere for a trans child.  As it was, I brought along the little bag that contained my library card and other supplies for library time and stuffed the brochures in there, out of sight of my parents while they checked out the books and had me stand by the doorway.  And to think I had hatched this plan to acquire the brochures - and it worked! 

But I was not to be stopped.  

Between the promotions' promise of camp-outs, horseback riding, etc. and uniforms I thought were amazing at that age and desperately wanted to wear -

... there was no way I was going to miss out on that much awesome happening wherever it was happening.  

Plus, even at a young age I remember being struck by a strong sense of civic duty I have carried with me to this day.  I remember reading in the brochures I got from the library that Camp Fire girls did a lot of things for the community, like helping the elderly and doing a lot of charity work, and that sort of thing - improving the community - was something I enjoyed.  There was a sense, to me, that dressing up in those uniforms and helping people was, in its own way, something of a superheroic thing to do - to become this other type of person - a Camp Fire Girl - and do good deeds in a sort of heroic identity that recognized me as someone with only good intentions who dressed in a uniform and helped fight the social ills of the day.  What could be more superheroic than that short of being able to fly or work magic?

So it was that my kindergartener brain was absolutely, unequivocably determined that I would become a Camp Fire Girl, just like Wendy the Good Witch.

Wendy was (and is) absolutely and totally awesome, herself (but that's a different article entirely).  And if SHE was a Camp Fire Girl then I was going to be one, too.  

I begged my parents and, as mentioned before, knew to be non-specific.  But Camp Fire was just for girls, right?  So there'd be no mistaking what I was asking to be.  

"I want to be in Camp Fire" SURELY meant "I want to be a Camp Fire Girl," to them, right?

Wrong.

Of course, part of this was that even at that young age, as I said, I had learned to be careful with my language out of fear of reprisal.  It was a daunting enough task in my mind to ask to join "Camp Fire" but if I asked specifically to be any kind of girl at all then such a reprisal would likely be imminent.  So by my asking to be part of "Camp Fire" I can't really blame my parents for the way they handled themselves, even though my statements came out of a place of my own fear and their ignorance.

So, of course - imagine my shock when their reaction was to nod instantly and say I definitely could be part of that organization.  My folks called Camp Fire and arranged things.  My parents ordered my uniform, and it arrived shortly before the first meeting I had been so anxious about attending for days and days.

And that's when cold, worldly realization struck.

Instead of the lovely outfit shown above,  what my mother laid out for me for meeting day was ... a vest, a shirt, ankle socks, trousers, no beret ... no sash ... and, wait, what?  Trousers?  No skirt?  Ankle socks?  What?

I stood there, I remember, shaking a bit.  Tears welled up in my eyes.  I cried quietly.  But I kept my head together and grudgingly got into the uniform.  My mom must have not understood, and maybe I could change into the more proper uniform once people got used to me.  Maybe they'd understand.  Keep it together, D.  Keep it together.

So, bravely putting on this bastardization of a Camp Fire Girl Blue Bird uniform, I went to my first meeting of Blue Birds.  I remember my mom wondering why I was so grumpy and irritable in the back seat of the car.  I didn't really feel like trying to explain it.  I was already miserable enough with the outfit I was wearing and the stigma associated with it.  I would be dressed like a boy at the Camp Fire Blue Birds meeting.

Of course, for those who know how the organization worked back then, you already know that a bigger disaster was looming once I got there.  For those who don't know:  there were two organizations at that time, which I missed somehow in the brochures.  There was Camp Fire Blue Birds as seen above in the WENDY comic ... for girls.  And for boys, there was  the organization known as Blue Jays.

Everyone at the meeting I attended was a boy.

It was absolutely awful.

I was the definition of cranky, not wanting to be there, not wanting to do the things that the Blue Jays did, annoyed by how loud and boisterous the Blue Jays were in that particularly aggressive fashion that is the dominion of males of that age, how nobody wanted to sit around the semi-circle quietly holding hands telling stories like in the pictures I'd seen.  

Worse, there was no camp fire, no camping, no trading of stories, no crafts, no art, certinly no horseback riding and obviously there was no chance at establishing the bonds of sisterhood as the brochure had promised.  

It promised!

I was snappish and grouchy the entire meeting and I lashed out verbally at everyone in my childish "agony."  The Blue Jay leader politely - and then more insistently - asked my parents to calm me down, but I wasn't having it.  This was not what I had signed on for, and I wanted no part in this group of rowdy boys talking too loudly and being obnoxious.  I was disinvited from the group and told not to come back, with my parents there listening, too.

I don't blame the Camp Fire leader for kicking me out, though I do wish someone at the time had understood what was going on and offered some kind of solution - not that I think any existed back in the 1970s.  

In any case, to quell my sobbing in the car on the way home, my parents got me some Dairy Queen.  Once I got in the door of our house I trudged immediately to my room and took off all the offending articles of clothing and got into my peach-colored non-gender-specific pajamas despite it being midafternoon.  I sulked on the couch and told my parents I just wanted to curl up and watch TV and do nothing else, and they obliged me. 

And that's where Batgirl comes into the story.

I checked the internet today, in preparation of this article, and found the episode that I saw that day was called "The Unkindest Tut of All" and featured Batgirl, albeit more in her guise of Barbara Gordon than Batgirl.  I didn't care.  I had never seen the BATMAN tv series from the 1960s before that point, so that was my first exposure to the entire style/premise of this version of BATMAN.

And I was enthralled the way you'd expect someone that age to be enthralled by BATMAN of any kind, the camp entirely lost on me.  Of course, I understand now that the old show is considered poisonous by many fans of these characters, but this blog is all about how I first encountered these characters and why they're important to me.

So, yes, this was my first experience getting to know Barbara Gordon.

And she was AWESOME.

 I checked the clock on the wall and realized that this was "Appointment Television" for me, before the phrase had even been coined.  I would need to go out of my way to see this show, and to see the amazing Batgirl, every weekend.

I won't lie and say she made me forget all about the misery I'd encountered that day.  Sure, it might make a better story.  But that's not how it went.  I still sulked all the way through the episode, and the rest of that day (and several days afterward).  I never went back to Blue Jays (ergh!), but I did keep my weekend appointments with Batgirl ... and those other two crimefighters who hung around with her.

Likewise, it's also entirely true that I remember feeling a distinct sort of symmetry with her as the series progressed and I saw how much the world of Batman (and Bruce Wayne) was a sort of "all boys' club" that sort of excluded women for the most part.  With the exception of Catwoman and a few other minor players, there was a distinct absence of women from that show's world, and Batgirl's arrivals and departures (not to mention the way he befuddled even Batman as to her identity!) were always very welcome, and the way she stood up for herself in a "man's environment" was comforting against the sting of that childhood "scar" in my psyche about the whole Blue Jays experience.

Like so many early events in one's life, I came to conflate the two things to a degree:  the first appearance of Batgirl, and my realization that the world can often exclude a person because of gender from being part of things a person wants desperately to be a part of, epecially for a trans person.  And Barbara Gordon helped take the pain out of that, because I saw that no matter how many times she would be disregarded as "just a girl," she would rise up beyond these people's expectations and prove that it wasn't a person's gender that mattered in whether they should be included in what they want to do - it was who they were, their character, and the things that matter to them.

There was also a civic element to Batgirl.  Even though it wasn't really discussed in the show, I knew Batman had become the Dark Knight because of the death of his parents.  But I knew of no such similar origin for Batgirl, which meant to me that Barbara had MORE expressly CHOSEN to be Batgirl than Bruce had "chosen" to be Batman.  Hers was a choice to take on the role of costumed crimefighter, in my mind, out of a sense of civic duty.  That, too, connected her in my head with the whole Camp Fire experience and was inescapably part of the thought process that inspired me to keep that part of my life going later on, even once I got to college and beyond.

And it was in college when I rediscovered Barbara, who had changed into an entirely different character by then.  I had seen the horrible treatment of the character in THE KILLING JOKE (a book I disliked immensely for that among other reasons, despite its massive critical acclaim - just, ew) and I had thought that was the end of her, but then I found out she was STILL being a hero even after the editorial element at DC had advised a writer to "cripple the bitch."

So much love in that world.  But even DC COMICS' editorial department couldn't keep a good character down for long (you hear that, Stephanie Brown?).  And Barbara Gordon rose again as Oracle.  From her base of operations, Barbara-as-Oracle proved to be one of the most inspirational characters in any literature I've ever read up to that point and since.  

As Oracle, Barbara didn't just fight crime - she also protected every single person in the extended family of Batman characters that DC Comics' New 52 has worked so hard to break apart (sorry, DC - you won't win in the long run on that, but I know you're trying to wreck every relationship becaus they're not toyetic or condusive to movies).

A lot of people refer to being trans as a "disability."  I've never liked that term, and part of the reason I've never liked it comes DIRECTLY from Oracle, and it's funny because Barbara inspired me with her heroics as Oracle MORE than she did as Batgirl.  That's the real route of the inspiration.

Of course, I recognize as I said before that it was childish for me to be so upset about Blue Jays.  In the grand scheme of things, I look back and understand that I was being something of a brat.  And I look at what Barbara dealt with - having her spine shot by Joker - and of course there's literally no comparison there in terms of people having to "deal" with things.  So knowing that history of the Camp Fire girls and my experience with being introduced to Barabara is essential to understanding what she taught me - that the toughest times can be overcome, that it's up to the individual to be strong even in the face of real adversity, to understand what real adversity is - and once understood, NOT to let it stop me.

So I don't call my trans status a disability.  I see it as a part of who I am, just as Oracle saw herself not in terms of "a wheelchair-bound woman" but rather saw herself as "a woman."  She applied a sense of humor to her situation, a sense of pride in what she could do instead of fretting about what she couldn't, and in so doing those scars, however small, from that Blue Jay experience, which could have contributed to me being bitter about things - heck, which did do that from time to time in my childhood - finally healed.  And they were healed not by Batgirl, but by Oracle.  

Oracle doesn't ignore the fact that she's in a wheelchair, and she's not afraid of admitting she'd love to walk - or dance, as in the panels above.  But she's come to TERMS with herself and her identity, while always fighting to be recognized as a legitimate person in the eyes of people who might dismiss her.  I understand that fight.  I understand what it means not to be seen for who you are and to find one's identity online to a degree.  It's nice to be recognized female on the internet - not by deception, but by explaining to people who I am and what's going on with me and having people be decent human beings and see that aspect of me and understand it.  This blog is only one small part of my life, though - and the important part is not to live in that internet world, and I recognize that Barbara didn't EXIST as Oracle.  The Oracle identity was a tool, something that let her find her strength again after the world tried to crush her.  And again, that resonates so strongly and so powerfully with me that it means a great deal.

Gail Simone, who is as I've said my favorite writer of comics working today, crafted the Oracle character into someone who inspired me anew every issue.  When Gail wrote BIRDS OF PREY, one of my favorite comic book runs of all time, Gail made sure - whether consciously on her part or unconsciously - that every new storyline for Oracle featured another step in her development.  This is hugely important for me in comic book writing, because we all know (though some seem not to allow themselves to realize) that continuing series comic books tend to spin their wheels as an entire medium, in the sense that there's an illusion of change and development while the characters' basic situations and parameters often remain totally static.  

With Oracle in BIRDS OF PREY, I always felt like Oracle was a woman growing and changing over time, coming to terms with herself and other people in her world, finding the strengths and flaws in her character and working to be a better person, striving to improve herself.  And that self-improvement wasn't dedicated to "curing" her status as wheelchair-bound.  In fact, that development never even really went in that direction.  Instead, it focused simply on Barbara trying to make Barbara the best Barbara she could be.  

And that, to me, is the mark of an amazingly thoughtful analysis of how to craft a character - and following through with it all the way, to the point when Barbara became one of those characters I felt I knew in a small way, where I could think to myself "What would Barabara Gordon do?" and there'd be an answer - whether Gail or I would agree or not being another matter, but the character felt that much alive in Gail's hands.

And then came the New 52.

Barbara Gordon in the New 52 is back, and as a result Barbara's Oracle identity doesn't exist any more in the comics as of this writing, unless you want to count a weird one-panel bit involving an alien from another dimension or whatever (I don't even want to say more about that). 

Gail COULD have taken the short route and simply written a magical curative for Barbara, or simply had her suddenly be well as the result of some half-hearted story-arc as happens so often in comics, the kind where you look back at it when it's done and realize "Oh, they did this entire story to get to the end page where the main character has a new costume/sidekick/armor/origin/etc." 

Instead, Gail Simone once again took a path based on CHARACTER, which is so rare and so precious in mainstream comics.  I've even seen editorial people say that telling interesting stories trumps character.  Not for me.  I care about the characters and their relationships and that makes the action of the story MATTER to me.  Without the character, the story is meaningless.  It's just noise.  Fireworks. Gail's new BATGIRL comic isn't about fireworks, although there's plenty of fire in those pages.  No, her work is once again about developing Barbara, putting her through the rigors of phyiscal therapy, making her work to find herself again, buidling up her identity, who she is, what she's all about and why she does what she does.  The book has focused since issue #1 on the essential question of who Barbara Gordon is INSIDE, and this has made all the superheroics MATTER, and it has made me want to be a better person, to analyze myself and ask "Who is Dennis?"  This blog is part of my efforts to find the answer, so I'm working through my computer like Oracle to be a better person in the real world like Barbara Gordon is in the fictional DC Universe.

Thank you, Barbara.

Thank you, Gail.