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Emmet Outlaw is not your average hacker. Unless, of course, you have in mind a massive androgynous rockabilly (a self-identified “gender-queer”) with long, girly eyelashes and both arms covered in tattoos and scars. A giggly laugh that punctuates his stories deflates the rest of the tough-guy image.
While Outlaw plays a drag king and performance artist, he (or she – Outlaw’s comfortable with either) also knows how to build a PC from scratch, phreak phone lines and rig up tiny portable websites accessible from mobile phones.
His most recent pride and joy is a PlayStation Portable tricked out with “homebrew” hacks that allow it to tap into wireless Internet signals and work as a music sequencer and drum machine.
“The stereotype is little nerdy guys in their basements hacking into mainframes,” says Outlaw, lighting up a smoke. “But my whole thing getting into it was watching my brother BBSing.”
BBS, a precursor to the Internet, was, and still is, a world of boards, portals and chat rooms. After enough pestering, Outlaw’s older brother passed along his Commodore 64 as well as the basic skills to get started.
“I was astounded that you could sit in your home and talk to someone through a keyboard. It was like talking to aliens,” he says. “And I think it comes from being so isolated. I wasn’t like anyone else in my family or anyone else in my neighbourhood, and here there were people I could reach. So I’ve grown up knowing the need for contact.”
So what’s it like being a transgendered technofiend? You’d think it’s a territory that already has no shortage of dicks. Or that for someone born female, with such obvious awareness of gender identity, exploring technology might be like putting on drag. Turns out it’s a little more complicated.
“It’s always been about communication for me – and I’m interested in the communication aspect of the Internet – but I think now it’s really knowing how things work as opposed to just trying out what technology could do when I was younger.”
Entering his 20s, as he explored his gender identity further, his relationship to hacking changed as well. In fact, Outlaw explains, making friends in the inner world of online geekdom during high school gave him the courage to express himself on the outside.
“Realizing I wasn’t as weird as I thought I was made me a lot more confident and made me grow as a person and not be scared of who I was,” he says, taking another drag, “which I think led to being able to be brave about my sexuality, about my gender and to be more outgoing – because I made these relationships earlier, at a time when I didn’t fit in.”
According to Outlaw, resources available for people exploring trans and gender identities have been reaching critical mass online in just the last four years.
One site, for example, The Transitional Male ( www.thetransitionalmale.com ), started as a personal diary of one trans guy’s experience and then grew into a behemoth of facts, forums and phalloplasty. Sole proprietor Nick apologizes for the site’s awkward navigation right on his start page. He hasn’t yet been able to catch up with its massive expansion: 5 million hits since he launched eight years ago.
Outlaw acknowledges that he was lucky growing up in a “queer mecca” like Toronto, but for people in less populated or less open-minded regions, sites like this are invaluable.
“I think right now we’re at a very limitless place as far as being able to fulfill our needs for education, to create anything we need right now,” Outlaw explains. “So as a queer person, as a trans person, as a straight person or as any person, there’s a real fundamental thing [available] in that technology. Whatever you’re struggling with or feeling oppressed about, whatever your internal struggle is, the technology we have now allows us to find a commonality that wasn’t available before.
“No matter what community we fit into, there’s safety in numbers, and now, thanks to our technology, those numbers are accessible.”
It’s no surprise that an unrepentant computer geek like Outlaw has been able so confidently to realign her gender identity. He has discovered the ultimate site to hack – and it’s himself.
Other trans-friendly sites
www.butch-femme.com A community cabaret for butch-femmes and genderqueers.
www.transster.com The biggest photo site for before/after gender reassignment surgery.
www.gender.org Useful, if sombre, gender news and educational site.
www.ftminfo.net Great starting point for exploring FTM ideas.
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