HE SAID, EXCUSE ME MAAM, MAY I WEAR A DRESS?

by Admin | Jan 1, 2006 | Articles, General

By David Kettlewell

You may have read about Steven, he’s the male skater who wears a dress on the ice.

If you haven’t heard of him, read the center insert. It gives the details.

As an author with 24 years of professional writing experience, I’ve never dealt with an issue that generated such tremendous emotion from the public.

Respected, intelligent, successful people literally accosted me with views that were anything but balanced or reflective of a considered viewpoint.

I was told his genetic material should be removed from the gene pool, that he was ungodly, and worse. Friends from the skating world called to suggest the story should not be written.

What follows is my attempt to make sense of the emotions. It is theatrical. It is overblown, by design.

The essentials of the story are pretty obvious, and even predictable for those of us born and raised in Ohio.

A man chooses to wear a dress on the ice. People make fun of him. He feels outcast. End of story. Or is it?

We Midwesterners have about as much tolerance for this type of behavior as we do for a fish that won’t swim.

Ok, let’s put it another way. You want to win the Presidency? You better win Ohio because as goes Ohio, so goes the nation.

I figure it has to do with the frontier of the 1800’s. The real conservative types stayed in the East, and the real adventurous went to California, but the middle of the roaders…yep, we’re here in Ohio.

So the predominance of opinion is against the guy wearing a dress. He’s never hurt anyone, that’s not the point. You don’t have to hurt anyone. Just don’t “go along.”

Clearly, he’s not “going along.” Step in line boy, you should.

Like the prison guard with the shotgun in Cool Hand Luke who bloats, “What We Have Here Is A Failure to Communicate.” Luke ended up shot and driving at a snail’s pace in the ambulance till he died. Or Jack Nicholas’s character in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. He didn’t want to take his pills, he didn’t want to get along so he got lobotomized and had the life literally smothered out of him with a pillow.

Think this is just in the movies? Think again.

Guess what, what we say about the man in the dress says whole lots more about us than it does about him.

WE say he doesn’t fit in, he won’t go along, he’s sick, and maybe dangerous.

What we should say is we expect everyone to fit in, that you better go along to get along, that we define those that don’t as sick, and that it’s we who can be dangerous.

One finger points, three point back.

In the 1700’s men of the aristocracy wore wigs, perfume, makeup, stockings, and little bitty outfits that look a lot like a skirts.

What we wear is merely a convention, we agree to agree, about clothes at least.

Wear this, it says you fit in. True in bowling leagues and the corporate suites.

So what does it say when a person chooses to wear something different?

Well, I don’t think we like what it says.

It says that our conventions aren’t the final word. That our views aren’t the only ones that count. That he can choose to be different. And that if we don’t like it, we can go jump.

Not that we don’t like a bit of the outcast in our stars. Madonna, Marlon Brando, Avril Lavigne, bad boys all. But please, pretty please, not too outcast.

Look, you can wear a Harley outfit and ride a Fat Boy, that’s ok, but don’t wear a dress.

We wear the thick muck of prejudice around our necks like an oxen yoke, and it fits so good we don’t even see it.

For most, our eyes are the key to our prejudices. Forget about them being the window to the soul. It’s prejudice we like, pure prejudice. See a black man, hate a black man, see a white man, hate a white man, you get the point.

To see beyond the eyes, to view something and think clearly about what our options are, how we choose to respond from various options, this is a monumental task, Herculean. It’s like, “Love Your Enemy,” Jack, that’s hard.

Convention can be a good thing. It makes traffic flow work. But convention has an ugly side too.

Like when we can’t even tolerate a dress. Or an accent in speech.

We’re a lot closer to our nation’s potential regarding armaments than we are with the nuances of freedom.

Better than thou? Don’t count on it. Do I like a man in a dress? No. I’m an Ohioan.

What does it mean when we react so to a guy in a dress? Who does it hurt? Why do we care?

You tell me.

Cross Overs On Ice

by Admin | Jan 1, 2005 | Articles, General

By David Kettlewell

CENTER STORY

At the far end of the Kent State Ice arena a skater practices their edges. You hear the crunching of steel blades cutting ice in wide arcs. First, inside and outside edges on the left foot, then the same on the right foot.

As the skater approaches closer, you see immaculate white skates, suntan- colored tights, a brilliant blue skating dress, and a trim black jacket with a rhinestone name pin attached.

The skater approaches, he holds out his hand and says calmly, “Hi, my name is Steven.”

It is a male voice, it is a man, dressed, well, in a dress.

Steven Arness is a 35 year old male who has determined to skate on the ice, in public, in a dress.

As he puts it, to be accurate, they are not “women’s clothes,” but instead are clothes originally made for a woman, but which are now his, so they should be referred to as his clothes.

One would expect that a male skater wearing a dress on the ice, on the same ice that hockey skaters call home turf, would be the target of considerable criticism.

You would be right.

Kids in bleachers hoot as Steven skates by, figure skaters’ parents careen their kids to supposedly safer ground, and most people simply refuse to interact in any way.

To say that his wearing a dress affronts some in the conservative fish bowl of rink life would be an understatement.

“Some people pick on me. Some have accused me of being a pervert or a voyeur in wait for children, some accuse me of being in defiance of the bible’s commands, but I put up with it,” says Steven, because wearing a dress is what he wants to do.

Steven has had great difficulty finding a coach who always offer one excuse or another for why they cannot teach him, is oftentimes treated poorly by skating club parents and club officers, and occasionally finds someone willing to hear his views on dress, or dressing.

So why go through all this to wear a dress?

THE FIRST TIME

For Steven, unmarried, a computer and telephone cabling contractor in winter, and manager of a Go-Kart track in summer, the first step into women’s clothing was wearing a leotard at age 11.

“I was 11 or 12, and I got a black leotard which I wore at home. Did you know that leotards were actually developed by a man for use by acrobats and other performers?”

“As a child I’d seen the beautiful outfits that females wore and thought, ‘Why do they get to wear such beautiful outfits while the guys wear such bland and ordinary styles?’” He determined that if and when he learned to skate, he would wear whatever he wanted, be it pants or a dress.

“My mom thought I should wear a wig and makeup and pass as a woman, (she thought it would be less controversial,) but I couldn’t do it. It’s not me. I’m not a woman in a man’s body, I’m a man, but a man who chooses to wear what I call non- traditional attire,” said Steven.

The first dress he wore on ice was made by a New York woman. When she learned that Steven himself intended to wear the dress, she refused to alter it. “She lost a lot of business, because it’s one of my favorites in terms of cut and style.”

Steven has about 100 skating dresses, from plain white to brilliant blue, to tie dies, in many hues of colors. Blue is his favorite color.

He says that women’s clothing offers him so many styles to choose from.

“Open a skating catalog, what do you see? One page for men’s fashion and a hundred for women. I’m built different from a woman, so most of my outfits are custom made with a long girth. I’ve been told that a V-waist is most becoming for me, and I prefer a longer rear skirt because I don’t want too much of my cheek to show!”

I asked Steven the question so many impatient men ponder: just why is it that women take so long to shop for clothes?

“It’s simple. There are so many different styles and colors, it takes time to see them all, to try them on,” said Steven.

Do clothiers allow him to shop for clothes?

“Yes, they do. I go to a shop in Cleveland and they treat me well. I also buy some dresses by catalog, but prefer being able to try them on.” (Steven seldom wears a dress in public, primarily at the ice arena.)

WEARING A DRESS IS NO BIG DEAL

Said Steven, “Look, my wearing a dress is no great whoopee. I don’t think of myself as a crossdresser, I am who I am. I see no problem with wearing a dress on the ice and I don’t understand the stigma. Women wear pants and men’s shirts and no one thinks anything of it. I can be feminine in male pants, or masculine in clothing made for a female. These are just labels, what I wear does not change who I am on the inside.”

He points out that we live in a world of breast enhancement surgery, tattooing, and body piercings, which to his way of thinking are equally “diverse.”

“I think that too many people are more worried about what’s on the outside (how people see them), than on what’s on the inside,” said Steven.

“I don’t care how others dress, I really don’t. I look at somebody and I may feel that what they are wearing is goofy, but I still let that person express themselves, until such time as they express themselves in a negative or dangerous manner.”

On February 6th and 7th of 2004, Steven marched in the Million Skirted Men March in New York City. “About a hundred of us marched, we were fighting for the rights of men to wear skirts. We marched from the Guggenheim Museum to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

For Steven, skating was a chance to wear the clothing he enjoys and to lose unwanted pounds.

“I weighed about 210 before I began skating, and now I’m closer to 170.”

“Skating was my first sport, the first time I used my body as an athlete. I never was into baseball, football or basketball.”

“Skating has a different kind of power and energy to it, I like the footwork and spins and jumps and it’s so exciting to go across the ice!”

“It’s been a different thing for me.”

SOCIETY’S MIRROR

There is a darker side, explained to me in detail by a grouping of individuals who all requested their names be withheld.

“He’s a pervert and I don’t want my kids anywhere near him,” said one woman with two children who skate. Her views seem to reflect the views of many.

They view his peculiar dressing habits as something to be feared.

One ice arena manager said, “We don’t care what he wears, we’re a public facility and as long as he follows our rules, we have no problem. But I’ll tell you that many parents have come to me and asked that he be thrown off the ice.”

A minister said his wearing a dress went against the teachings of the bible, although he had no success in finding an applicable passage.

Steven’s legal rights are definitely not on slippery ice. He says that attorneys have told him he has every right to wear exactly what he wants, where he wants to wear it. To not allow him to participate in skating would be tantamount to saying that someone can’t participate due to their race, age, or sex. It’s illegal and he knows it.

“One skating club wanted me off the ice but they contacted an attorney at the United States Figure Skating Association. They were told to let me wear what I want.”

While overt discrimination has been rare, he does find making his way in the skating world a hard go.

“It’s been hard to find a coach who will teach me, and most skaters warn I’ll never be able to compete in a dress. I have a tunic which is close in style to a dress, but I would have to wear pants underneath. I haven’t decided yet how much I want to push the issue.”

Steven had hoped to participate in a fundraising calendar featuring men in dresses, but it never got off the ground. His hopes of being part of an endeavor with those of like mind evaporated like ice on a warm day.

BEFRIENDED BY SOME

There are people who can accept Steven the way he is, who almost seem to cherish him.

Chandra Morgan-Henley is one such friend.

“I was morbidly obese for much of my life, I weighed about 500 pounds. I would walk through the grocery store, which was work for me, and kids would stand up on shopping carts and scream, ‘look how huge she is!”

“People would either ignore me or make fun of me. People in general should be able to live without others passing judgment on what you wear, or the color of your skin, or your body size, or hair color.”

Roger Thurman, a luthier in Kent, Ohio, summed up his thoughts, “People just don’t like what’s different. It scares them, and I’ll tell you what, they can be dangerous.”

Thurman served in the armed forces in Vietnam as an interpreter.

He continued, “Oftentimes how people respond to someone who is different, like Steven, says far more about the person being critical than it does the subject of the criticism.”

Another individual said, “Steven is important and of value to each of us. In him, we confront something we cannot relate to, and so the question becomes, “how do you relate to those who are different?”

In this sense, Steven is a mirror and it is we who are reflected.

Steven has hopes for the future, on and off the ice.

“I hope someday to find a woman who can accept me for who I am.”

A Slippery Slope

by Admin | May 16, 2004 | Articles, General

The Pain Dealer, A Slippery Slope Sunday, May 16, 2004 Susan Vinella

Steven Arness laced up his skates, slipped on his gloves and started toward the frozen oval at Kent State University’s ice arena. Before his blades touched the ice, the whispers began. People stared. Some frowned. Others giggled.

What, they all wondered, is with this guy wearing a dress?

The 34-year-old Arness says it’s not what some people think. He has no agenda, no deep-rooted desire to express a feminine side and absolutely no intention to prey on children. The self-employed computer cable installer and summertime Go Kart park manager simply likes to glide across the ice in women’s skating dresses.

“I like the flow,” Arness says. “I’m attracted to the movement. I’m fascinated with the styles ladies get to wear.”

Some in the Greater Cleveland skating community are less than fascinated with Arness. They find him disruptive, weird and even a little scary. His unorthodox attire has prompted discussion about whether rinks can impose dress codes for public skating sessions.

Others have skipped the discussion and gone straight to outrage.

One recent Tuesday evening, parents complained to management at Brooklyn’s rink when a photographer showed up to take pictures of Arness skating in a dress and tights during a public session. Some called Arness a “faggot” and “pervert” and used profanity and obscene finger gestures toward both the photographer and Arness.

Several parents pulled their children off the ice, demanded a refund and left.

“They didn’t want their little kids photographed with a guy wearing a skirt,” says Al Sforzo, recreation commissioner for the city of Brooklyn.

After the incident, Sforzo spoke to the city’s law director, who told him the rink had no legal right to ban Arness from skating in dresses. “We don’t like it, but there’s nothing we can do,” Sforzo says. “We don’t like it because it doesn’t seem appropriate. But he has the right to dress how he wants.”

Last year, when Arness first showed up in Brooklyn, Sforzo called several other local rinks to find out if they had a dress code, or planned to create one, for skaters who attend public sessions. No one did, he says, and no one wants to initiate one for fear of a discrimination lawsuit.

Rinks can mandate skating attire during public sessions only to enforce safety, says Sforzo.

Skating clubs have more leeway. Because they buy ice time for their skaters to use during private sessions, they essentially “own” the ice during that time and have the right to impose dress codes for any reason. Men must wear pants.

So that he can wear his dresses and pay less for ice time, Arness skates during public sessions. He has about 100 skating outfits which are basically leotards with skirts but wears only 20 of his favorites, mostly in shades of blue.

He doesn’t understand clothing restrictions that clubs impose on men.

“Ladies can wear pants or skirts,” he says. “Men can wear pants only. I find that discriminating.”

Still, as a member of the Kent Skating Club, he refuses to be ignored. He insisted his photo in which he is wearing pants over his dress be displayed on the bulletin board with the rest of the club members, most of them girls. He is the only adult pictured.

He has filed two grievances with the club; one complaining about being discriminated against because he’s an adult, another complaining about “unprofessional” behavior from one of the coaches there. He says several skaters stopped talking to him after their coach told them to stay away from him.

“Whatever her opinion is, she should not be using her professional status to influence her students like that,” says Arness, who took up skating three years ago.

He says he plans to take his complaints to U.S. Figure Skating, the sport’s national governing body, if they are not resolved to his satisfaction.

Kent Skating Club president Lanna Omlor calls Arness a “nice” guy but otherwise declines to discuss him.

Arness says he is not out to make trouble. He just wants to be welcomed for who he is.

Though he describes himself as “weird,” he says his penchant for skating in dresses has no hidden meaning or malicious intent. He doesn’t believe he’s a woman in a man’s body, which is a typical belief of cross-dressers. (He says he was asked to leave a local cross-dressing group because he’s comfortable with his gender. )

Off the ice, he wears pants and dates women. He says he wants to marry someday, although girlfriends often flee when they learn about his dresses. “Talk about a sonic boom,” he says.

Friend and former coach Chandra Morgan-Henley of Cleveland says there is no need to fear Arness. “I think there are too many adults who worry that because he’s different he’s a threat. Once you get to know Steven, you realize his clothing quirks are only clothing quirks.”

Others don’t accept that.

Arness says several mothers whose children skate with him during afternoon sessions at Kent are morally opposed to him and worry that he might harm their children. He found their opposition so hurtful at first, he stopped skating for a month.

One woman, who was reading the Bible while her 15-year-old daughter skated, acknowledged that she has instructed Arness not to talk to her daughter. She declined to give her name and says she and Arness have agreed not to speak.

Coaches, too, can find it difficult to be associated with Arness.

Leslie Shackelford-Rinicella, a longtime coach with one of the highest certifications in skating, says she’s seen a lot in her 20-year career, but Arness’ situation “definitely took the cake.”

“I took a lot of flak” for coaching him, Shackelford-Rinicella says. “A lot of coaches in the area said: Why are you doing this to yourself? Do you want to keep getting beat up?'”

Shackelford-Rinicella says she wanted to help Arness because “he has a very good heart.”

At the same time, she wanted him to understand that “you can’t change 100 years of tradition.”

“I don’t think the ice rink is the place to stand on his pedestal,” she says.

Shackelford-Rinicella took a full-time job in December at a local fitness club and Arness has been searching for a replacement coach ever since. In the meantime, he attends adult learn-to-skate classes and practices on his own during public sessions.

If he can find a coach, he hopes to begin competing soon. But there are dress codes for competition, too. If he enters adult “freestyle” competitions freestyle is the type of skating seen in the Olympics he will receive an automatic deduction if he wears a skirt, according to U.S. Figure Skating rules. Interpretative competitions, however, permit skaters to wear costumes, so a skirt might be OK.

Some don’t care what Arness wears on the ice.

Marie Sorkin of Ravenna was impressed when she spotted Arness skating across the Kent rink in a navy velour skating dress, tan tights and white skates during a recent outing with her son-in-law and five grandchildren.

“The first thing I said to my son-in-law was, I can’t tell what gender that person is, but what great legs,'” Sorkin says.

When Arness skated closer and she realized he was a man, she shrugged it off.

“You go to public places, what’s out there is out there.”

Susan Vinella is a Plain Dealer sportswriter who covers figure skating. She used to wear leotards when she competed in gymnastics, but no skirts. She may be reached at 216-999-5010 or through magmail@plaind.com.