Daily Archives: October 11, 2014

The Loneliness of Being Other

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The raucous room and wine, rollicking around us
awash in social currents and plumage all fanned out
and passers by drifted close to take a look and then
shifted chins and rolling eye to sit jowl to jowl and nook to crook.20141011_190936

(Donne wasn’t talking about trans-folk when he quipped
“no man is an island”, for I was a life boat drifting on an endless sea
and stranded, the fishies below and the birdies above
and me no water to drink in the midst of many waters)

tables full and over full, like bellies and wine glasses
which were groaning and clinking atonal and rhythmic
choruses echoed in this gathered congregation of the goddess Socializing
and her consort mammon to whom offerings would be made of time and treasure20141011_190856

Ah, but look…and see our dingy, drifting on desert seas entire
in this oasis of walled off spaces, our puffed up air-filled punt
the good ship “I Alone Survived” bobbed high and pristine, clean, in order
midst the merry chaos and the choruses of othering swelling with the music

perhaps we were mistaken as tee-totalers of banquets,
or the step children vegan and red headed in the throng.
OH! the weight watchers attending but on such a strict repast
that we were tasked to come and eat the food but fast the feasts of friends.20141011_190909

We sit alone, apart (the better to stare at you, my dear) in this overcrowded room
full of overcrowded tables, one there in the middle overcrowded by blank emptiness
occupied by someone glowing shining sparking becoming but accounted as a
lost placeholder only, and the one who loves her there, sitting side by side and stark.

It’s a long and lonely desert trudge, and not all deserts dunes…
sometimes deserts teem with life and trees and nights under soft moons
but the doors are locked, the gates are hidden deep in mystery
of how a transgirl finds her way and what becomes her key

To walk amidst the forests, in the fields of human kindness
there to forage for the herbs medicinal to cure that blindness
and to find that song, the notes to open up locked hearts, deaf ears
until then the Other will go forth, sowing in tears…Image 001

“…Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.  She who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing her sheaves with her.”

Psalms 126:5-6
*gender pronouns altered, meaning not violated)

Coming Out – Yes, it still does matter – LGBTQ Nation

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Coming Out – Yes, it still does matter – LGBTQ Nation.

Constance…how ironic that it is “Coming Out Day” today…I post a really great article about it and while it deals with the topic of sexual orientation and being public about that, it translates perfectly over to gender orientation as well.

Salient words for me here (I substituted transgender for gay):

“Truthfully, most people believe that just saying the words “I’m transgender” means you’ve come out. In a sense it does, however, the real coming out, in my opinion, is when you look at that reflection you see in the mirror and say “I’m Transgender” and you don’t look away in shame – that’s when you’ve come out.

When you can accept yourself and love who you are and understand that the world can be cold and lonely and ignorant and intolerant – and you can still smile at your own reflection – you’ve come out.”

I have a long road ahead of me, God willing…one that I have just begun to scratch the surface of the joys and sorrows waiting.

But something is different:  joys and sorrows are old acquaintences, especially the sorrows, and I walked with them in hollowness and null, void.  Oh yes, They were there, are there…but:

What is different is me.  Me.  I am here now, and perhaps that will tip the balance in my favor at last.

“I’m skert Mama!!”

“I got this too, Baby…I got this too.”

tumblr_n857kyjkvO1tri5c4o1_500

This made me weep

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Listen, I loved my father.  It was out of that love and respect that I split in two, so I could please him.  I heard his heart even thru other things. He never bullied me like what you will see in the beginning of this lil video…but he was a towering figure, and his presence was writ over my life large.  When the twist at the end occurred, a torrent of tears tore loose…and I could not help but wonder what would have been…could have been.  I used to mourn and grieve the amount of time I had left…before I was at last released and set free from this double crossed body, betrayed by sin and betrayed by gender..but now?  I mourn and grieve the time I have lost, wishing I had those years to live proper as myself.

I mean…bff…would that particular source of weirdness and strain and uncertainty that surrounds our friendship be present if I had the right body?  I don’t think so…I think that after the oddity of how we connected so deeply via writing and then fell into our future and walk our our present backwards, navigating the folds…after that was internalized, it would be a casual shrug, and we would be free to function in our world as we women always have, under the noses and before the unseeing eyes of men who comfort themselves with thoughts that we are like cackling hens and chitchatting crickets easily satisfied with baubles, shiny things and trinkets.

But for me being me…the penumbra of ignorance that surrounds me colors everything, taints everything…i think i would die if it ended up impacting you harshly and causing you trouble in your life.  It haunts me, frankly, and makes me want to flee screaming in the night “unclean, unclean!”  Modern day leper.

Anyway, this video is very redemptive, and gives me hope…inspiration…to keep going forward and not quit, and pray that my pain would be transformed into someone else’s power.

Bleeding and unable to staunch the flow,

Charissa Grace

Distorted Love: The Toll Of Our Christian Theology On The LGBT Community

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This re-blog is said so well…it very precisely dances around the tar babies of imported Old Testament behavioral codes, and gets down to the real issue: the true heart of the straight religious community as it is seen in its actions…or fruit (I guess that my friend who said that I could bear the fruit of the spirit and still be under the control of a deceptive spirit would argue that the presence of this hatred is actually still a sign of a loving heart…I digress).

Thanks to John for a very powerful piece, and for refraining from vitriol himself as he cogently and yet gracefully speaks about the horrors we endure…straight and gay alike, cis and trans alike…it’s just that the horrors waiting for the straight cis community have not yet manifested.

john pavlovitz

SadGirl


Love doesn’t always look like love.

When I published this blog post two weeks ago, I was prepared for some people to applaud it, and for others to condemn it. That’s what happens whenever you put an opinion out there.

I was fully prepared for the waves of both support and hostility that accompany any vantage point on anything, especially a controversial topic like Sexuality. 

What I was not prepared for in any way, were the literally hundreds and hundreds of people who have reached out to me personally, to thank me for bringing some healing and hope to their families. Parents, children, siblings, and adults have confided in me (some for the first time anywhere), telling of the pain, and bullying, and shunning they’re received from churches, pastors, and church members; from professed followers of Jesus.

Scores of people from all over the world have shared with me their…

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