Feral Cats Make Me a Better Woman
My son discovered a series of books in the past year. In the United States, the series is called Warriors; it originated in the UK from several authors publishing under the pseudonym Erin Hunter. The official web site is here; you can read more about the series here.
My son loves these books, and I love to read, so I began to read them. It is wonderful to talk with my son about the characters, their motivations, and what might happen in the future. I realized recently how Warriors is an excellent allegory of human life in general, and it also describes my transgender experience very well — enough to bother to explain it here. Please bear in mind that I will discuss major plot points. Although I do not intend to give away any spoilers (and the first book was published in 2003, possibly obviating spoilers completely), read this article at your own risk.
The Warriors series is a Young Adult coming-of-age story. It happens to be a pretty good coming-of-age story, as it also incorporates prophecy, intrigue, betrayal, unrequited love, and picking life back up after experiencing setback and loss. Oh, also — all of the characters are cats.
These are not cats like T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. These cats live in the forest as four Clans; each Clan must fight to maintain its land, feed themselves and the elders, and fend off disease and internal conflict, not to mention the advances of the three other Clans, who struggle to do the same. Life in the forest is difficult.
That said, life in the forest is rewarding. Each Clan has a sense of identity that springs from having faced and conquered adversity. There is camaraderie among them; they love each other because they conquered adversity together. Being a Clan Cat is a source of pride.
Humans also live in the Warriors world. Being humans, they make things difficult for the Clans by cutting down trees, poisoning rivers, and building shelters on Clan land. Humans are despised for another reason, however: they also keep cats as pets.
Our Story Thus Far…
It is with one cat in particular that the story begins. His name is Rusty, and he is a kittypet. That is, he was born with humans and has been cared for by humans for the first six months of his life. Rusty looks out into the forest longingly. He feels the draw of hunting for his meals, for finding meaning in his life that extends beyond a good patch of sun inside a house. The forest represents freedom to Rusty, a chance to make his own way, the ability to determine if he is made of the stern stuff that he wants to be.
One day, Rusty ventures into the forest a little farther than he has before. He is accosted by a group of Clan Cats, who sneer at his kittypet life and admonish him for not living as Clan Cats do. Rusty answers that he did not choose his kittypet life; if he could live with the Clan Cats, he would. The Clan Cats take him up on his offer almost jokingly, as the Clan has lost Warriors recently and needs more cats as members.
Rusty takes one look back at his human house, his kittypet life, and races after the Clan Cats without another thought. This is the dream he has had his whole life. Now, Rusty believes, his life can truly begin. When he arrives at the Clan’s headquarters, he meets the Clan leader, Bluestar, a gentle, grey she-cat whose demeanor belies the grit underneath. Bluestar believes in Rusty; she approves of him and announces he will become a Clan member.
This announcement is met with horror from some members of the Clan. Have they sunk so low as to accept kittypets into their ranks? Other members see Rusty as just another cat who can further the cause. Bluestar silences the opposition and gives Rusty his Clan name: Firepaw, in honor of his orange tabby fur.
Firepaw does not have it easy. He works twice as hard to establish himself, and after much tribulation, he is granted the honor of a Warrior name, Fireheart. (The suffix “paw” denotes an Apprentice; it is changed to a different suffix when the cat becomes a full Warrior.) Fireheart continues to distinguish himself in several ways, earning further honor from Bluestar (whose “star” suffix indicates she is a Clan leader) and respect from some of the other Clan Cats.
Unfortunately, only some of the Clan Cats respect Fireheart. He cannot escape his kittypet past. He was born a kittypet, and he will always be a kittypet. That is a offense some Clan Cats are unable and unwilling to forgive. Fireheart is an affront to Clan life; a freak unworthy of the honor of living with the Clan.
Kittypet or Warrior
Fireheart also has an internal struggle. While hunting in the forest one day, he returns to where he was born. There he meets his sister, Princess, who has remained a kittypet. She does not understand the Warrior lifestyle. She does not want to become a Clan Cat when her humans feed her nightly. She does not want to live in the forest, where it can snow (or worse), when she has a comfortable bed where she sleeps at night. She respects Fireheart’s decision to live as a Warrior, but she would not make the same decision for herself.
Fireheart’s struggle is simple: remain a Warrior and live his life to the fullest, or return to being a kittypet and live a life of comfort and stagnation. Fireheart considers this question frequently. Despite the glamor of Rusty’s naïve view of the forest, it turns out that snow really is cold. It turns out that sometimes it is difficult to find prey in the forest, especially in the Winter. It turns out that disease can kill when there is no veterinarian available. And worst of all, the other Clans are willing to fight to the death for resources in the forest. Fireheart’s life is one of battle, killing cats he may know personally, and licking his wounds as he considers the death that he has delivered.
Throughout the strife in Fireheart’s life, he still faces the fact that as he hunts for his Clan, as he fights for his Clan, as he commits over and over to give his life for his Clan if necessary, there are cats who will only ever see him as a kittypet. They want him to return to his life as a kittypet. They want to see him fail at being what they are — lucky enough to have been Clanborn with no decision to make regarding their future.
The Transgender Allegory
Fireheart’s story resonates with me. As humans, we constantly face a decision. Do we advocate for ourselves, achieve what we can in the forest of life, and suffer failure after failure in pursuit of the slightest happiness? Or do we accept a surrogate happiness in comfort, choosing not to battle, but also not to reap the possible reward of risk? Life in the forest could mean doing great things, but it could spell an early death. Life as a kittypet means not having to worry about many troubles, but it could entail a seemingly interminable life of boredom, watching the world occur outside the window.
As a transgender woman, I understand Fireheart’s longing for the other side. I waited 52 years before chasing after Clan Cats to begin my transition. It is so easy to listen to society around me, to stifle the yearning to unleash the woman inside, and to watch the world through the window of a masculine presentation.
Like Fireheart, I have found some approval. My transgender Bluestars have been Bianca Lewis, Kitty Whitemore, and Jenny Starr✨, among others. They allowed me to enter the Clan and live the difficult life. And…some transgender women have been exclusionary to the point of nastiness, questioning my loyalty to the Clan by daring to have original thoughts.
Like Fireheart, I did not choose to be a kittypet, nor will I ever be Clanborn. Some of my cisters have piled hate upon me, believing that once a kittypet male, always a kittypet male, never recognizing that “woman” is the Clan that ties us together, not “female.” They would prefer that I go back to wherever I crawled out of as opposed to allowing me to fight for their cause, perhaps even to be successful at it.
Purplepaw
Today, I consider myself Purplepaw. I hope that as my hormone therapy continues, and I overcome other trials, such as name changes, gender marker changes, perhaps even undergoing some difficult and costly surgeries, I will one day be granted the honor of being named Purpleheart, a sobering name which is also an awesome name. I will never become Clanborn, but maybe — just maybe — all of my work will lead to me acting as another “kittypet male’s” Purplestar. I will continue to fight for my Clan.
