Constance, let’s face facts.
This woman is never going to be seen by the eyes of this paradigm. It ain’t gonna happen. Too many layers of judgment, too much weight of assumption, and not enough understanding of the nature of gender orientation and where it resides in a human being.
I am never going to be “pretty” in the sense of how human eyes grown in the world in which I live perceive beauty. My only possibilities for beauty lie within my soul…in my heart…in my spirit…in that inner life that my spirituality and theology teach me is the truest reality anyway and the only one that extends eternally.
Mama, please give me a hunger for true things that outweighs the longings that plague me, that cry out from each and every chromosome that finds itself at odds with the spiritual DNA that flows from (what, my brain? My soul? My heart?) me…
I close with this quote I ran across, and make it my goal…kindness, good humored, smart, and strong of heart.
“We get so worried about being pretty. Let’s be pretty kind. Pretty funny. Pretty smart. Pretty strong.” 
Charissa's Grace Notes 
Some of the “prettiest” people I know are unattractive. The heart emits outward. And yours?? IS BEAUTIFUL!!
hmmmm…thanks Dani. I am not in touch with this…at all. but I am grateful that you say it, remind me.
there was an incident at the center this week…i was bringing the children in from the afternoon bus run, and some monsters in human skin on the porch of a nearby house began to catcall and insult and attack me verbally. I am honestly so used to it by now that i just wrapped my heart in withdraw and stored away the pain to cry about in the night when it would hurt no one…
…but the children heard it, a couple of the older girls. they asked me about it, horrified…they wanted to know if I heard it, and i told them that I had not listened to it or heard it but just ignored it, because it happens to me everyday. their eyes just bugged out. they were deeper horrified. EVERY DAY? everyday…
they told the director, and i am sure they will tell their parents. how much longer until the parents complain that because of me their kids are being exposed to filth and hatred?
well, over the next couple days the word passed to the entire older kids class, and now the boys know too. they all know i am trans, and it was not a big deal…but now they see the way the world sees me…and they are feeling it in their bones, the threat of standing beside me…
so the beautiful…i don’t know how to react to that, dani. but then again, this is not a place or moment for reaction OR action, as i am not in a place to be able to process things in a fruitful way. my hands are futile and my knees are weak and my heart is slain
Just take it for what it is. I have and will always See you.
And these children?? Hopefully, their exposure under “pressure” will make them diamonds of advocacy and Humanity.
i ask this in a serious way…what reason is there to hope, given trans-issues and our murder every 29 hours? certainly i feel the tides pulling round my feet constantly, seeking to pull me under to hear their siren songs instead of the siren blare of hate.
i want to hope in more than hope
I know that there’s a general perception of “pretty” but I feel that on a more personal level “pretty” is subjective.