If you don’t tick like I tick you’re a heretic!

Posted on September 28, 2014 by charissagrace

Yes, there is…an intentionality in how my latest poem Of Women and Wolves follows the post Never Again.

It is like being around a hungry wolf…when you are in an encounter that feels like it will devour who you are, what you are, if you are not careful…and if you are careful.

The only way to appease a wolf is to feed it, and that is to diminish yourself or others…

And no…the man I talked to is not a “wolf” in the biblical sense of a deceiver who is seeking to destroy other people for the sake of his own gain.

No…he is more the garden variety religious person who has found meaning and purpose both in the search for those specific thoughts and those specific actions that “please God”…and then being “diligent” to make sure that others whom they define as part of “the body of Christ” are “taught” those same thoughts and do those same deeds…and if they don’t, if they think different thoughts based on the bible, and are led by Lady Grace to different actions expressing their understanding, then they must “correct the deviant” (and it is for their own good, only, of course).

It is the old saw “If you don’t tick like I tick, you’re a heretic!”

Thus the poem, and its metaphor…at least on one level…the fabulous women who read here will find the other levels over time…all of them.

Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly,

Charissa

Never Again

Posted on September 27, 2014 by charissagrace

Constance, I want to write here my commitment to myself and to you, and also state ahead of time that I recognize the result of this commitment will be quite a bit of ostracization from many people who call themselves Christians, but want to use that name to police me and my life decisions.

First of all, let me state that I am not removing myself from the scope and majesty of the wonderful word of God. When read and understood properly, it is a document of collected writings that show a God of love and advocate a relational ethic, not a legal ethic or a behavioral ethic. Right standing with God is found in right relationship! Not right deeds or right thinking (though each will likely result when you focus on maintaining a whole relationship first).

Given the pre-eminence of my commitment to this relational ethic, I am fair game for being called into account for anything that violates this ethic…things like committing adultery, committing murder, stealing, cheating, assaulting another physically or verbally, harboring hatred in my heart, and other things such as that. See the thing in common? All of them involve a relational breech with either myself, my neighbor, or God.

But:

BUT:

I am no longer going to subject myself to the inquisitions that I previously felt I owed anyone who wanted to “correct me” or “express their concerns” to me about who and what I am. For the record: there is nothing in the Bible that is prescriptive on the subject of being transgender, and there is less than that on the subject of whether or not a transgender person should pursue transition.

Therefore, anything beyond genuine questions seeking to ascertain what I face in order to stand with me and help my life to glorify God is off limits. I am not going there again.

Here is why:

In my recent encounter with a man that I have known for about 25 years, I spent 4 hours of my life in the attempt to reach this individual’s heart. Truth is? I never had a chance. He listened to me about an hour and a half, with a few questions, and then began to interject with a list of “concerns” which he had written before he even heard my story! He began by saying that he might (might!) modify what he had written if he had heard my story first…but since he was soo upset, he felt justified in going ahead.

He then proceeded to list for me several concerns that ranged from things that simply were not true factually about what being transgender is, all the way to accusations that I was under the influence of a demonic spirit!

He thinks that transgender people are victims of the fall (we all are victims of the fall…whether or not being transgender is a direct result of the fall or not is moot, as the Bible simply is silent on the topic). He also thinks that transgender people are bound by the words of Jesus that we “take up our cross and follow Him”…meaning that verse prohibits us from pursuing technological help and remedy which is readily available and so swiftly brings about such immediate change emotionally and spiritually, and is documented in so many places and in so many ways.

(Constance, I am very capable of nuking this proof-texting rape of these words, if you are interested, please let’s pursue that in the comments or via email, but trust me, it is not about transition specifically!).

Clearly, this man had seized upon this verse and wrenched it to fit his preconceived judgement that transition should not be undertaken…an opinion of his, not a biblically given command. He did not think it was wrong for someone born with a hole in their heart to seek surgical repair, or someone born with a cleft palate to seek surgical repair, or any other number of examples…just transition! he was intractable in this opinion, and I was considered by him to be indulging the flesh.

Next, he told me that I was under the influence of a spirit of deception that he called “the impostor”, and that this spirit opposed my becoming who God wanted me to be (which was code for him saying I was not becoming who he wants me to be). When I asked him if he thought I was bearing more fruit in my life in the last year than he had seen before, he affirmed that this was noticeably so, and so I then pointed out that it seemed to me the impostor was doing a pretty counter-productive job, as I was becoming more, and not less like Jesus…reminded me of the Pharisees who accused Jesus of casting out demons by demonic power!!

Then he told me that I was going to lose out on the blessing of being a patriarch of my family (nope, didn’t touch this…it would have been like telling a fish that it is in the water).

Next I was informed that he had never been so devastated since he was divorced from his first wife and that marriage totally fell apart…that he was just barely more devastated by that than he was by my decision to transition! When I asked him how many times we have had dinner together in 25 years, he answered none. When I asked him if we had ever done anything…anything socially together, he said no, never. When I asked him if he had ever come to my house, reached out to me when my father died, or when my children experienced growing pains, when I was injured and couldn’t do chores, he said no. When I asked if he agreed that we had not truly been a part of each others’ lives with the exception of the occasional church activity and our seeing each other at work where we casually interacted, he said yes, he agreed…

…so when I pointed out that this seemed to indicate a judgement of me made from the outside with no real knowledge of me what so ever, and thus would point to his devastation being far more his own issue rather than my “violation”, he denied it! He said that the Holy Spirit was laying it on his heart! That my claims that Mama had been gently leading me, confirmed by my wife, by my therapist whom I have opened my entire life to, by my naturopath who knew I was transgender at least a year before I did, and by a few close friends who lived everyday with me…that all of that was purely subjective and his own subjective “feeling of conviction” had just as much weight and legitimacy!

I kid you not.

When I asked him to show the biblical passages upon which he rested his “concerns”, he confessed this: “the bible is silent on this subject so I can’t actually say this is sin“. Shocked by his terminology, I asked him “Do you want to be able to say this is sin?” He got offended with me, and said that I was being harsh to him (!!! Yes, he went there). I said “no, not at all. I am so struck by your word choices. They reveal so much to me, for I would have phrased it something like this ‘Since the bible is silent, I would never say that someone was sinning in their pursuit of transition, absent knowledge of the relational parameters between the person and God, and friends and family.'”

He sought many times to other me and police me, and I gently and firmly rebuffed every attempt.

And then at the conclusion, he said that I had shocked him, because he thought I would blow up at him (“blow a gasket” is what he said)…Constance, when I was dissociated from myself experiences like this were very threatening to me, and I did tend to react very strongly and vehemently when accused unfairly. But I was calm, peaceful, and sorrowful far more for him than for myself…this bothered him, because it didn’t jibe with the picture of a demonized deceived person who was in rebellion to God.

But it wasn’t enough…he told me that he (and this is a quote) “had to obey his conscience above all else, and that when people asked him about me it was his duty to tell them his opinion and concerns regarding me”.

Yes, Constance…he has elevated his own conscience even above God, for when I inquired what he would do if God told him to remain silent, he said that God would never ask him to deny his conscience! I think you can see the problem with this…essentially there is a conflation of his conscience with what God wants! If he feels something strong enough, and labels it his conscience, then it is the same as God talking!

I did not have the heart to point out to him that even a cursory examination of biblical teaching regarding the conscience commands us to put the conscience and behaviour of our brothers/sisters as preeminent to our own…besides, it would not do any good. He considered it his right to out me, to anyone, in the name of conscience.

(Charissa before she decided to refuse to let others savage her)

(Now here is a little secret, Constance…part of the reason I agreed to meet with this person is that I suspected this might be the endpoint of things…and the truth is that I am ready to come out…I want to move on, get it over with and get on with an effective and fruitful life lived free and without a mask. So I sort of planned to use him as a stalking horse. If I wasn’t ready, I would have not met with him. Nevertheless, it was staggering to me…the arrogance that he so blindly bathed in, wallowed in…oh, and by the way, he has no “official ecclesiastical authority” in any denomination, or for that matter in my own life! He is simply a fellow follower of Jesus…and make no mistake, he does indeed love God and love people…just within the boundaries he has chosen to call legitimate.)

He specifically said his conscience demanded it of him. I didn’t even bother to ask him what he thought would be the consequence if he decided to not speak, to be silent and urge people to come to me if they had questions…I already knew his reply would be this: if I am not true to my conscience, then your blood is on my head…a phrase that indicates he considers me blood guilty of something or other, and also believes he is both qualified and called to be the bringer of correction to me, never mind by what credential or authority…there is an old testament comment in Proverbs that uses this phraseology…people who have adopted this as a moral code use it to justify all kinds of things including bombing abortion clinics and other heinous acts like that. The people at that crazy church who are so virulently anti-gay use this idea to justify their own evil deeds.

So his conscience is more important to him than I am, than the lives of the people who he talks to that may have been open to actually getting to know for themselves where I am at and what I am going thru but after he gets done will almost certainly avoid me…and the lives of the people who may have been touched by newly open-hearted lovers of God who would reach out to transgender people in love because of knowing me, and who I am, and my being transgender makes it not as weird as they thought it was…

And lastly, he said he would never ever call me “Sister”, or a woman…that this would be him empowering my lie and participating in it by proxy! What does one do with that…besides just shake off the dust and move on?

Constance: I had no chance of persuading him that this was a good thing, a fruitful thing, a blessing. None.

Everything I said to counter him was evidence of my deception and was a regurgitation of the evil that the deceptive spirit had spoken to me…and everything I was silent to I was silent to because I was incapable of refuting his great convicting words (he is wrong…I was silent because I didn’t want to destroy him by stripping him of every vestige of intelligent discourse and exposing his xenophobic foundations…when someone says they read about transgender issues for a few minutes the night before, and really don’t need to do any more research because God is speaking to them…well, there is nothing to be said there, is there?).

So here is my resolution: I will never again submit to such so called “expression of concern”. I will seek to find out ahead of time why someone wants to discuss my transition, and if it is for right reasons I will go ahead after giving the caveat that if they begin to “correct me” I will shut them down and leave the situation.

This is not evidence of my not being correctable…it is evidence that I am finally going to not be a dormat and put myself in harms way…which I have always done before (ask my wife, she can tell you of years and years…)

This man right this moment thinks me in error…nothing I said made a difference…and the others who will be coming, and many far worse than he, for he is at least merely passive aggressive, so his demeanor and voice are calm and pleasant…well, they will be even less persuadable!

They will do this (and it is a fact…ask any of your church friends, they can tell you): they will conclude that I am deeply deceived and in sin…because I won’t let them befoul me with accusations…so why should I even try to persuade them?

My therapist said something very powerful…she asked me what would be the result of my refusing to allow them to savage me so…and I said if I don’t, they will think me a heretic and not a true christian…and she then asked me “and what will happen then? Will you become a heretic? Do you care what those people think right now? Does their thinking anything change you or effect you in any real way?”

and I laffed!! Cus the answer is “no”.

This I resolve:

To do justly

to love mercy

to walk humbly…and love Them with all my heart

to be kind and gentle and full of Grace…upon Grace.

Love, love always,

Charissa Grace, beloved of her Mama the Holy Spirit, joint heir with Jesus the first fruits of the resurrection, and a daughter of the Father of lights, from Whom comes every good and perfect gift.

How Bones Feel

Posted on September 24, 2014 by charissagrace

together
like dry kindling and hungry fire
like full fire and eager air
like clingy air and cool water
like glitter water and thirsty earth
like yearning earth and welcome sky
like starry stars and nitey-night
like secret night and tender love
like burning love and full desire
together.

i think i know
what my clothes feel like
when I put them on,
fill them out and move, inside them,
them wrapped around me
in warmth, softness
scratchy sibilance singing
socks sliding over feet

and when I met you
I felt like my clothes feel
after,
and all full and moving and powerful…

when I’m with you
I know how bones feel,
inside bodies
moving, running,
free and full of being
full of knowing

I know how kindling feels
when it is near fire,
shivering, eager
enamored and wanting
to be thrown and thrown and thrown,
burn free, be undone

I know how the silver spear-point
diamond-shiny and sleek
feels with the weight of that shaft
so smooth,
so long,
so heavy,
pushing it thru air
to pierce dead center every time
and know you are following
solid and substantive
and remaining there
behind when I am buried.

we work together
thru much
we walk together
thru more
together

This is like my poem Across the Aching Blue Sky

Posted on September 23, 2014 by charissagrace

Across the Aching Blue Sky

“You will always be too much of something for someone:
too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy.
If you round out your edges, you lose your edge.
Apologize for mistakes.
Apologize for unintentionally hurting someone — profusely.
But don’t apologize for being who you are.”

*charissa nods solemnly*

Posted on September 16, 2014 by charissagrace

Quartet

One the 1st

there.
back there.
where was it, when was it?

somewhere,
between the ends of the rainbow,
in the middle,
where the gold pushes east
and the gold rushes west,
and leaves green, leaves mossy green
and bowed by light.

my eyes dazzled…there.
gleamed.
your eyes,
soft and intent, hawklike and cowlike
all at once as you took me
in glance and
then in glitter-glance
and then (shiver) in hungry glance and I,
I was still and not moving…
between the legs of the rainbow…

but between my own, I was alive (again),
I was the heart of a star,
my light wet and my gravity heat
pulling you there by your eyes,
to me, and then

there. oh
there. oh
there. oh

After…when you…yes…
your eyes and their leggy light
gone there and then gone out,
I lay wakeful, still in the moonlight streaming
thru gossamer curtains, swaying slowly
‘neath the wind’s caresses.
And my smile,
my endorsement of you
played round the corners of my mouth
and moved in time to sounds,
the symphony of many waters
rustling in me now,
rapid, and rushing runny…
there

and I held my life-your life,
I held our life
there, curled round it
with my galaxy curves
and molten churning spark.
I thrummed, hummed,
taut and unstrung all at once,
and waiting for that java-jolt,
that move, that kickback…
there.

until there was
no there.

and we…here?
Eyes dulled
in pain’s muddy waters dirty,
hearts torn. Just torn.
Nothing fancy,
just brutal grip,
grab, tear, shred, toss
and then I was empty

there

I journey steady now,
come to (that)
grips, come to terms
with that day but
never
come to heal or honor it because,
my heart wanders
there,
it sneaks off from the chain gang
and floats, up,
circling the rainbow’s middle spaces…
never in Oz, never in Kansas,
but always
there, looking
looking there,
for us, come and torn away…
and finding footprints, hearing echoes, touching ashes
of what never happened but should have,
there.

when I walk I get tired.
when I get tired, I sit down,
here, or on the wet grass,
and I remind myself that
there’s a cure for all and
everything, somewhere
there and I content myself
with knowing that,
I trick myself with knowing that,
I choose to know our us-life…
waits…for us

there.

Two the 2nd

stare.
that’s all I could do, waking up
in warm and darkness close and clothed
in the warm velvet of you.

I heard steady “Luv u. Luv u. Luv u,” together
with some sound like wind out in out in
around me, thru me…it felt good to be, swaddled
and surrounded with you

(by you)
(I stare),

I strained, tippy-soul up to surround you back,
around your voice, around your breath, to add to you my “luv u. luv u. luv u.”
back, in octaves high and beyond, but in dark.
I saw blind, inside wonders but I still sang, I still stare.

you held me careful as you sang and told me things without words
(in your colors and shades), remembering yourself (then)…and him…
(and me there, almost, but still here too), you stared at you,
youth and inexperience veiled in optimism and immortality…

you saw, that then time…(the rain, pouring steady
crackling like forest fires, popping like firecrackers,
water splashing and sweat spouting in the dusky light flicker-dash-streaks,)
you told me that you clicked your tongue in time and tempo

your slick and graceful grappling torsos, tissues, tangos,
and on your lips the glorious taste of salty skin like mangos…
and you moved…in time…with him…and you…and him…and you…
stare, dance, that then time…different from this one…now.

you hummed, he thrummed, near bursting in the joyous moment
and incense of recovery from the tragic, fluky lash of death’s
hungry whip o’ nine tongues, til rejoicing, rising, falling safe and one
then me, brewing and becoming, moving future of hope fulfilled.

I was me there, with you inside your song and center
while you gathered courage still to stare unblinking into dark unknowing gaping,
you sang of me…

then silence…

and I was spun afraid and cold and oh the wrenching rain
in the dark dawn hours
of that green field clotted
in stone and searing sorrow.

you keening, fallen on your knees and wordless,
empty agonizing grappling with that monster blind and mute,
that just rolled over, ripping you in two,
ripping every goodness from the heart of greatness,
leaving all creation crying in the center of every bitter moment.

I float over you since then, and now, here in front of you,
your face tattooed forever with the tales of me writ large and hidden there,
and I try to wipe those silent tears and dry them with my hair
and then I stand in that spot, there, the one you focus on to live

the one you wish hard on, will hard in, try hard to go on within…
well I wish too, will and try hard, to get in, become, break out and
to burst in, be born into your world from mine. but there is always that…

shadow and space…

between me here and you there in time.

and so I wait and follow you, learn you and I shout to you
it’s not your fault, I don’t know what or why but it was not!!
your fault…or mine, and like you, I am waiting…mama.
Love you cross the years, as you are loving me, we wait…

we
stare.

Three the 3rd

Sissy!! Dani!!
Where are you?

You walk
(there)
in time
(here)
at pace, keeping place, for them
step steady…
step steady…
step steady…
for them
silent beat…
silent beat…
silent beat…

but oh god bereft of them
(oh! oh! OH!!!)

you walked alone inside (me too)
and haunted, by ghosts of your regrets (me too).
You, bereft of a full womb, and I,
a womb bereft of a full me!

Dani!!
My heart keens, cries, with you
and for you, thru you

But now…
(why we met now, and not before…)
where am i to go?
Where is there now for me that you are not as well,
sister-friend, walker on the paths of the dead
and thru?

questions turn and spin in wonder,
longing to have been
there, then,
and afterwards to be
here, now…
pouring river-deep-consoling,
over pain and empty sorrow
and then break a hundred times
and heal a thousand more!

I could shatter endlessly
(oh please, I can, oh please let me)
shower pieces teary wet
this red heart over you, and then
extinguish grief-fires and wild questions
drowning all conflagrations of
there
and drain that bitter cup of black despair…

Let me take some…sister-grief?
I practiced 50 years for meeting
here and feeling there, my sister,
me a sea-sponge wrung out dry
of love so I can sop up sorrow
mop up gall into this hyssop, I–
made for so many things, I–
made for just this one thing…
by your side, in your shoe,
I will walk with you and dance then walk
with you and sing then walk some more
and cry then walk with you
and then just sit and sigh.

Let me bleed over your feet,
over your way, don’t worry,
ddh, there’s plenty blood enough
for grief and for me both!
When you kneel at graves, me too
When you walk, tears dry and stale
me too with tissues in my glove.
When you sit, remembering? I’ll serve you “Cookies Rissa Roo”
and love-tea…and when you are smiling
I’ll rejoice and shout nonsense,
the world’s best Fool of all.

that’s all I got, sissy…
and Dani…that’s all you need and that’s the truth…
wait…
wait…
that and Mama always…

love, forever,
from your sister
friend devoted me

Charissa Grace

Four the Fourth

My daughter Dani bends low.
Her hair drags feeble thru the scraggly mud.
I watch her there, hands on her knees
and stomach clenchy sick.
My heart breaks resolute and sure
on schedule as I feel her…
sad…grieving…torn…
and empty-numb.

I approach her and she knows,
somehow…she starts and stands up quick,
a gold-brown willow springing up
resilient and released from ill winds blowing…
Her fine hair frayed and flying, she looks
right at Me! Straight into my eyes, but she saw
only the white leaping fox, her tail flickering quick and neat,
the silver hare hopping and skittering
into her warm burrow waiting
and the glinty moon reflecting
frosty on the secret owl-wing gliding,
silent in the still soft ebon night.

I step to her, she feels Me as the Wind in her face,
smells, scents, wafting cleansing arctic hymns
and fragrances following spicy with that joyous island song.
I touch her precious tear torn cheek,
and her eyes close and she smiles low
imagining that holy flakes of ice falling from heaven
bless and beautify her solitary suffering and sorrow.
Then she stills, she lets go and My Love washes her over.

Glancing right I see her sister
(My daughter Charissa Grace)
kneeling in the silent softness,
tears like diamonds in the incandescent moonlight and the snow.
Her crimson garments caked with ice at knees,
but she does not take notice of these, for her heart is fixed on Me,
and her eyes fixed upon her sister.

I nod, Charissa jumps up, ever eager serving vessel
cracked and faithful broken…quick she runs unto her sister
and she wraps her arms around those shattered shoulders
And I watch how Dani flicks her eyes wide open,
pools of night and galaxies of stars therein those touching depths.
Charissa gently touches her dear sister’s cheek and nods,
she deftly touches hand to belly, heart to heart,
and Dani breathes and sighs released and reaches
out to touch Charissa’s back with fluttery grateful hands.

I smile, happy and rise up wings spread,
healing flowing forth.
I am well pleased because My daughters,
sisters of My Heart and in the Sacred Blood,
My Brood is well.

Loving you with my life, for the rest of our days.
Pledged to you as sister, pinkie-swear,
Love and all my gooey heart…

Charissa Grace

Lassos and Lanky Lines

Posted on September 13, 2014 by charissagrace

For too long
lassos and lanky lines
have spun round my neck
and held me to this dirt in time.
I listened, a few words here like grime,
a big fat echo there like slime,
up in the sandstone and
limp mountains like bars
around my world.

I believed them,
I let them choke me
tame and chain me
to plantations of shame
and fields of blame

Well, I am rearing now…
I smell water in the air!
My Mama tells me I am
Her work and She is
Filthy with loving me!
____5894820_orig

Streaked and smeared
with my red clay,
with my white heart,
Her hair standing
glowing, flying as
She works the treadle
and spins me loose
and into my shape yet born
but always known.

The dry skies crackle, and victory rumbles
in my throat like thunder,
in my heart like lightening
and the cowpoke slides sideways
and decides it’s time to go have lunch
and forget to ever come back here

and I will run on winds
my passion-fires will ever burn
in freedom so fine, so full.

The Difference Between Tolerance and Acceptance | Brynn Tannehill

Posted on September 11, 2014 by charissagrace

The Difference Between Tolerance and Acceptance | Brynn Tannehill.

Constance, this article sums up perfectly what is happening to me at my work as transition gets further and further along…and it is a shame because I am truly becoming a better person everyday. It is also another article on a topic I have previously written about.

Deep down inside? If I am honest? I truly feel sorry for them…because my Mama has been helping me to believe that I am actually a pretty cool person, and that She esteems and likes me very much.

BUT: though I may be able to weather this, the fact is that this problem is due to the usual phobias and hatreds and superstitions that I have commented on here before and sought to dispel by open display of my own life and heart. And those things are power things…not good power things. They harm everyone who participates in them, not only the trans or LGTBQ humans who it’s directed at, but sadly it also affects the practitioners as well. It truncates them, stunts them, dulls them, and ultimately enslaves them to ignorance and darkness of heart and mind.

As always, Constance…Charissa sez check it out…and when you see someone who is on the outside, offer them a smile and a hand.

Love, Charissa

This is why the subject of Acceptance is soo inportant

Posted on September 4, 2014 by charissagrace

Found this online…Constance…oh, Constance, this could have been me. I myself have written of identification with the monster that Viktor Frankenstein gave unholy birth to in that tragic and terrible story (terrible in an awe-ful way).

This could be me…without my Mama, without my baby, without Heather…

Constance, as late as last November, I was on the edge. Go back and read some of those fall poems from 2013. I have actually been reviewing the last year, and I marvel at where I am now, but I tremble at where I was then.

Here is the story of a woman who had no one, and nothing but everyone’s hatred, in black and white.

I recently heard that “no one is quite as mean as those people who are ‘mean for Jesus'”…and while there is a sad truth to that sometimes, the actual fact is that mean is mean. Period. Here is the story of Filisa, the sister of Charissa. If you love Charissa, or if you have fondness or admiration, I would ask for a favor: find someone outcast in your region…trans, cis, gay or straight…and go love them.

Just.
Love.
Them.

Charissa

“On January 5, 1993, a 22-year-old pre-operative transsexual woman from Seattle, Filisa Vistima, wrote in her journal, “I wish I was anatomically ‘normal’ so I could go swimming… . But no, I’m a mutant, Frankenstein’s monster.”

Two months later Filisa Vistima committed suicide. What drove her to such despair was the exclusion she experienced in Seattle’s queer community, some members of which opposed Filisa’s participation because of her transsexuality — even though she identified as and lived as a bisexual woman. The Lesbian Resource Center where she served as a volunteer conducted a survey of its constituency to determine whether it should stop offering services to male-to-female transsexuals.

Filisa did the data entry for tabulating the survey results; she didn’t have to imagine how people felt about her kind. The Seattle Bisexual Women’s Network announced that if it admitted transsexuals the SBWN would no longer be a women’s organization. “I’m sure,” one member said in reference to the inclusion of bisexual transsexual women, the boys can take care of themselves.”

Filisa Vistima was not a boy, and she found it impossible to take care of herself.

Even in death she found no support from the community in which she claimed membership. “Why didn’t Filisa commit herself for psychiatric care?” asked a columnist in the Seattle Gay News. “Why didn’t Filisa demand her civil rights?”

In this case, not only did the angry villagers hound their monster to the edge of town, they reproached her for being vulnerable to the torches.

Did Filisa Vistima commit suicide, or did the queer community of Seattle kill her?”

Why We Buried Our Awesomeness, and How We Can Get It Back – Dara Hoffman-Fox

Posted on August 31, 2014 by charissagrace

Why We Buried Our Awesomeness, and How We Can Get It Back – Dara Hoffman-Fox.

Constance…I cannot even begin to tell you how thrilled I am to have made a new friend in Dara…I have admired them from afar for just about a year, and somehow knew that we would connect and work together? Well, that connection has sparked and birthed…now we feed and let it grow.

In the meantime, I want to draw your attn to their blog and their fab writing. It really applies to all who would read it and dare to press in…I think that is what faith is, right?Pressing into what we know to be true instead of hanging back in what we fear is true.

Anyway, go check out Dara’s article…they’re a Champeen!!

Love, Charissa

Intentional Unknowing

Posted on August 31, 2014 by charissagrace

Constance, one more quick post, and then we are off on the bikes! Yippeeee!!!

So…I am learning to not call my body/soul/mind/emotion clash a prison, or sentence, or monster, or any of those other things…Mama has been quite active and specific in calling me into account and showing me that far from being the result of the conditions of the fall, and something that went haywire as I was formed, my being was very intentionally and soberly purposed by Them! Ever single last aspect!

oh, I was well acquainted with the Psalms which tell us of Their involvement and intricate knowledge of us…but I had pushed these things to a comfortable place theologically…as in there are many things that the Fall mars and wrecks…things that They have not intentioned, but have indeed accounted for with Their Grace. And I had classified my transgender being as one of those things: a result of the Fall and something to be redeemed and eventually cured when all things are made right. In the meantime, I despised myself. My body and its awful clumsy and large power covered in blechy hair and muscle…and that. And my heart…”weak and overly emotional and on my sleeve at all times side by side with streaks of snot”…and my soul…unwilling to hammer down on someone who needs correction but instead draw close and win them over, much to the ire of all the males in my life…I despised my swings from knowing I could do all things thru Jesus to thinking that They literally despised me for longing to have the body I felt I was denied…

…and worst of all? I thought, in my most secret thoughts, that They had done this to me, to punish me for being so bad…They had made this as scourging.

I am so thankful that They are overcoming all my evil with Their good! Truly…

…but this latest round of talks…She has been very specific, and letting me see some of the backstory of what things I have said, or done, or written which have been helpful and life-giving and of service to others…and She has shown irrefutably to my heart of shame and self-loathing that not one of those things would have been possible were it not for the unique balancing of all the various aspects of my being which are seemingly in conflict but are in truth the warp and weft of the very tapestry of life and grace They are making me into!

My experiences in male roles, and the accompanying policing and disciplines (used in a putative sense), the intense efforts made by men when I was young in efforts to “make me tough” or “teach me to be a man”…and later being in male spaces in our culture hearing the naked expression of men to one another, witnessing the truly unconscious taking of privilege and the aggrieved hearts when denied…and hearing men talk, when one on one with me and thinking me male…just different or weird and yet strangely comforting to talk to…

…and my experiences on the outside, excluded by minds and bodies and actions…female roles and spaces and bodies…which heightened my observational skills, and sharpened my inductive and deductive abilities…and gave me an ear to hear…

…and the null…the razor place of horror and emptiness where everyone else had a place and a person, and I had nothing, like literally nothing…and my lil mind heard about the God shaped vacuum? and assumed that was this (it isn’t, by the way, that space is where our spirits are still born and in need of resurrection)…and so pursued God and was pursued by Them,…hey, it was either that or kill myself. Those were my options…

and now…to see…to feel the wisdom and the divine risk They took in intentionally availing themselves of the developmental processes in human biology to make me…and then make me…Charissa Grace…so see that They gambled on Their love and grace and mercy being enough, and They gambled on me to be so slayed by one glance that I would be hopelessly in thrall forever??

No…never again will I call it a prison…and thanks to my bff who asked me once if I could choose one or the other, would I choose that? Giggle…most of the time the Q is which would I choose…but wise wise DDH asked more would I choose, if I could.

I choose Them. I choose Their glory and Their Plan. I choose Their Indescribable Comfort and Joy.

And now to my topic: I believe that God intentionally has chosen Unknowing in regards to relationship with us!

Yes! I KNOW, right???? That sounds heretical, and sounds insane! I mean, God knows all, sees, all, etc etc…They are freaking GOD! And when the One God in 3 Persons and the 3 in One God decide to manifest in Their Oneness, Their THEM-NESS…why then we see that fantastical and indescribable Entity referred to by those who have been in Its Presence as “Lord God Almighty”…and it is too too TOO to the extent that the people who see this fall down as if dead, and their eyes perceive “monsters” with multiple wings and legs and eyes and mouths that fly around the Entity Lord God Almighty and scream at It louder than all loud “HOLY! HOLY!” (and other things…shiver).

So where do I get off saying that God chooses to not know vast portions of relationship with us?

Well, Ima tell ya a story…years ago, I was out and about on a rainy dark clammy morning, soaked to my bones and chilled, and miserable beyond words. It was Oregon rain, and my baby who grew up in Wyoming swears to this day that 38 degrees and rainy in Oregon is a million times worse than 20 below in Wyoming…and I was out in a loud, smelly, noisy truck! Driving it, using it to work with my body so I could provide for my darlings 5. I hate trucks. I hate machines, and they hate me too. They bite me almost everyday and leave me bloody and wounded…and they hurt my heart too with their bellowing and caterwauling.

And my mouth and mind were with God…hey, I had nowhere else to go, it certainly wasn’t because I was any paragon of virtue or spiritual giant! Lol! No…I was more like the bum at the off ramp of God’s freeway with my sign and tale of woe to elicit a few coins…

but I was trying to talk to the Father that morning…and getting no where, because I was so despairing and so frustrated…and Ima be blunt honest with you, kay? This is how I talk to Them, cus I figure They know my heart already, so if I fake it and talk all pretty then not only will I have the regular failures and sins to deal with but the additional sin of lying to Them!! (Cantcha just hear it? “Don Pardo, tell Charissa what she just won!!” <Pardo’s unctuous voice>”Charissa…you just won LYING TO GOD!!!!!!!! No new car for you, girl! Nope…you get the nannygoat prize!” lol)

So, being bluntly honest with Father that day (and you here)… I finally had the following conversation:

Papa, why the fuck do I even bother praying!! It is just a litany of the same fucking complaints, the same awful feelings, the usual puking Pity Party! And the most frustrating things about it is You already fucking KNOW EVERYTHING!”

(yes, I f bombed to Papa…not proud of it…but you all know yo have done this, whether you have said it outloud or not…cus our hearts ARE F bombs, in their deceit and wickedness apart from Their Redeeming love)

Now, this is the distillation? Perhaps this rant went on just a bit longer? Long enough that I was hoarse and in a wrack of sobbing tears pulled over in a wide area beside the road because I couldn’t see?

And then as my sobs subsided (as they always did), as the tides receded and there was still the beach walk with Them to continue, I heard Papa sort of clear His throat and make a very gentle sound…so I listened.

“What makes you think I already know everything?”

“PAPA! Please!! Don’t fuck around with me today…I am not up to Your jokes and tricks and double-back hidey-behind pranks which result in your Wisdom being spoken to this fool! Everyone knows You know everything! It’s in Your bible, even people who don’t like You or believe in You know that You know everything (and by the way, I get super pissed at those idjuts who say they don’t believe in You, and yet ignore that You must be in order to not believe in…but that is a different rant!)!

“Does it? Does My Word say that?”

Constance, I have learned that when They ask you a Q like that it is best to shut up…and re-listen!! For the Bible is living, and so are we…and as we live and grow, so too the Word unfolds to us heights and depths and breadths that are there always, but visible only when we are in just this place…at just that time!

Papa said “What if I made a deal with Myself, with Jesus and Mama (Whom back then I referred to very impersonally as “the” holy spirit, and objectified Her)…and in that deal I decided that I would agree to “not know” vast territories of you and your life and existence…so we can have the Pleasure of joint discovery? After all…We have “unknown” all of your sins and iniquities in Our gifts of Mercy and Grace and Redeeming Metamorphosis…

“Think about your own self, with your own children…which is better…when you drag something out of them, or when you spy from a distance and figure things out…or when they come to you, unexpectedly and all on their own…in just that moment when you are feeling lonely and unnecessary to them or their life…and they begin to tell you their insides!

“The way that feels…the joy and gladness…the sense of miracle and wonder…and the way those things are your treasures and in your forever treasure box?”

and as soon as He said this I was PIERCED!! Whole volumes of reality clicked in for me…experiences lined up, and a whole new way of looking at Them was before me…so I laid down my f bomb boxing gloves, and instead asked in my open-faced and heart showing way…

“..Papa, is this true? How can You not know…but it FEELS true to me!!” And essentially He spoke to me about something I have called since then “Intentional Unknowing”. They chose to limit Themselves in many ways in regards to us….They have given us Free Will, and given us many other things that They have the ability to take back, but because of who They are, They never will, and thus “cannot” take back!

When it comes to our lives…our fears, our hurts, our joys and hopes? They can only know the depth of our specificity if we tell Them!!

Well, the rest is very funny, cus as soon as I grasped all this, I told Papa that I was gonna chirp and chirp forever and He was gonna regret ever telling me He wanted to know me! LOLOL (Hey DDH, can you relate??? giggles…or my baby out there?? or my own Daddy long dead…he is nodding in heaven and knuckle-bumping with the Father in solidarity, having endured the never ending Charissa chatter-flow! lol)

And I leave you with this: God has filled His word with countless exhortations to pray…and we in our foolishness and religious dumbassery have turned these pleas to talk to Them into duties to be performed in order to merit Their activity on our behalf giving us what we think we want!

Well, see it a bit differently…see Them, as you would your own children, pleading with us to talk to Them!! Let Them into our lives, into our thoughts and heart! They are hungry to know us!! They long to be given something that They cannot have in any other way, than that we give it to Them!! And then when you go to pray, do not think of Them as big know-it-alls who are checking things off Their list and tallying our score and computing our “answer to prayer effectiveness quotient!”

No…They are moms, hearts bleeding joy that Their babies are speaking to Them! They are dads, who so deeply yearn for the sharing of Their children and that dialogue which makes every sacrifice an honor and every blow a privilege!

And you wanna know something more? You yourself will come to know yourself better…and Them better too, cus They actually like to conversate!! They will talk back, you know…you did know that right? Right??

“Pray without ceasing” can be read as “Whaddya do t’day ‘Rissa??? Huh? Huh? TellMeTellmeTellMe!!)

Okay…I’m outta here for now…so how bout this? Shut off the computer…go for a walk…and chatter like Charissa!!

All my love and heart to you, and I can’t wait to hear your stories!!

Charissa

A truism and a signpost inferred

Posted on August 29, 2014 by charissagrace

Constance, here is something I have noticed…about myself and about people in general, I think:

We judge others by their actions…we judge ourselves by our intentions.

Is this true? If so, I think you are canny enough to turn that signpost in the direction it should go in order to better be generous of spirit and kind of countenance and compassionate in actions…right?

Deepest Blessings to you this day, and I exhort you to try out a new thing: a conscious search in each person you meet today, for their intentions which may put a very different light on their actions.

Love and grace to you…

Charissa

Charissa is Content

Posted on August 28, 2014 by charissagrace

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

Psalm 131:2

Wean: to deal out bountifully to, to recompense fully, to ripen
Weaned: to have been dealt out to with bountifulness, to have been recompensed fully, to have been ripened

Each and every day, my Mama, the wonderful Lady Grace and Great Holy Spirit of the Almighty God of the Universe has dealt with me generously, recompensed me with great favor and grace, and has and is ripening me.

She has given me Herself, and ladies from Her courts as sisters, friends, and companions.

I am ever eternally grateful to you all

Reflections

Posted on August 24, 2014 by charissagrace

The scent of our home,
funky quaint and riddled
with books and bikes,
and the long laid scent of family.
The scent of the kitchen,
yesterday’s dinner
and the overlay of croissants
like fierce french washer women
scrubbing away all other scents.

…the scent of our clothes,
and our laundry soap…
the scent of the air cooler,
that of the soft night air
waltzing in,
slow and sleepy
from her night out
amongst the stars,
and carried in drowsy
on cricket wings…

…the scent of popcorn
shared on the couch,
of our wine wafting
from bottles possessed
by only the last 12 drops,
our lil garden outside,
and the auto sprinkler
which has come on to water
in the dark and the cool…

the scent of your currents,
your deep distant observing soul
that hangs back and watches,
even in the midst…

i do go on…

from here…from now…
in the sweltering heat,
where you and I lay,
you sleeping,
me watching you sleeping,
soft face limpid and languid…here…
listening to tides of eternity
race round and round
inside our veins, our universe…

i do go on…

…watching our breath mingle unseen
as you sleep, and I
my many rounds to keep,
awake as usual.

in your world,
nothing is what it appears to be.

(i mean that “mirror sentence!”
nothing is what it appears to be and
nothing is what it appears to be and
nothing is what it appears to be and…)

well, as I think about it,
it seems logical
you were drawn here…
maybe I was
the one thing
you were supposed to get,
maybe I am
the one thing
you cannot forget…
or get shut of!

regardless…

you now have me,
writing here
my musings and childlike tears,
my laughs and my cold dark fears,
my forever fat and full
wet joys of today

(as long as it is still called today!)

Alas it will cost you,

(I will cost you)

but at least it will
only cost you
what is yours
to easily pay:
everything.

I am here, but you must
look in unusual places.
not in scents (innocence)
from bottles
and spray jars
and spritzers
and cream pots
or flesh pots.

I may be hiding,
laughing in the most
unexpected spaces.

It is time
to set the last croissants…
I am smiling,
and feeling that
wonderful joy that has
a tinge of sadness to it
because it knows
though joy lives forever,
its moments come and go

like the meals of our lives…
the scents of our home…
reflections of what was
and what is yet to be

Dara Hoffman-Fox and Me

Posted on August 24, 2014 by charissagrace

Constance, I want to tell you about a very important resource for your education and growth in matters transgender related. My new friend Dara (who getting to know is like coming back to a childhood home from long ago, and having memories flood back clear and full) is a therapist, specializing in transgender humans.

(I love this photo of her, because it shows the Peace she carries on her shoulders!)

Dara is a true bright light, and her energy and commitment is literally saving lives that otherwise quite likely would be miscarried and malformed, or even lost altogether. Dara has a sense of mission that is of the ilk I refer to when I plead to you cis-gender people to pluck up your courage and conviction and make a place for the dispossessed and stranger and alien.

I truly believe that real significant cultural transformation will only occur when the current possessors of power willingly insist on the inclusion of the outcast. Dara has that vision, that passion, and that calling, and dives in whole heart. I was fortunate enough to first encounter Dara thru a podcast. At the time, I was at the crisis point, that place where all has fallen apart enough for the power and life in the seed to burst the hull and come forth.

Just hearing Dara, this cheerful certainty that transformation was possible, was enough for me, and I began to nose up once again…and knew in my heart in that moment that sometime in the future, somehow, somewhere, Dara and I would cross paths. I was filled with the conviction that our nexus would be significant and that together we would be able to have great impact. I am mindful of that old prophetic declaration “…and one shall put a thousand to flight, but two shall rout ten-thousand!”

I signed up for Dara’s newsletter and went to the website where I found links to educational materials, resources for my own growth and mental health, and just that indomitable cheerful strength that Dara simply exudes. And then flash forward one year…

…and Dara is asking for input from readers regarding different resource ideas. Well, I felt that “baby” kick in my gut, hit the reply button, and jabbered away for 10 pages…apparently those words were a similar lil power bomb in Dara’s heart as that podcast and other writings were in mine! Dara liked it! Which thrilled me, obvi…it has been a struggle in my life to ever know I am liked.

One thing led to another, and we emailed in fun flurries of fancy and vision, and voila! I had an article written.

This article is aimed at you, Constance…you cis-gendered individuals who might find yourselves tapped by transgendered people who desire to have you in their life as a pillar of support. It lists a few points that explain why you are the one that has been chosen to come out to, it details what the trans experience is like from a transgender perspective, and finally it gives counsel in ways you can be present and help your loved one to live…and not die.

Please? Head over to Dara’s site?

http://darahoffmanfox.com/

There you will find a wealth of resource and support…and my own lil article called

Gender Transition: The Leap of Brave Beginnings, and 8 Ways You Can Help

Dara and I have been brainstorming in a beautiful serendipity over creating some things that would be available for a small fee with all proceeds going to those without anything so that they could live and transition without having to partake of destructive things just to survive. We have lots of ideas…

…but we are finding that when cis-gender people who are curious about things ask, well it gives us such good direction and focus…so as you read, as questions arise or topics surface, let us know? You can reach me here at Gracenotes and charissa_grace@comcast.net and Dara has contact information easily available over on her page.

Think of it…one snowflake sets off an avalanche…will it be you? And if not, will you take your place so that the “one” can have a place to land and set it off?

Thanks Constance, and blessings to you this day

(Dara and Charissa brainstorming! Lololol!! 🙂 )

Clues

Posted on August 24, 2014 by charissagrace

Okay Constance…I am gonna confess a lil indulgence of ego: I really like my new poem “Her Door, Her Red Door“, and frankly I am a little disappointed there have not been very many likes on it…but I am also not surprised for it is inference, symbol, veil, subtly blatant while blatantly subtle…

I actually and for real think it is one of my most skillful poems to date.

But I get that it is not necessarily appealing…but consider, if you would, the poem itself in the context of the work of the poet: I once said “The poet is a desperater man than most. He must get it all down before the ages are up. Which, as any poet will tell you Is A BITCH!” (waaay back in 1982)…

…I was trying to say that there is a “job” in poetry, or perhaps a better word is quest? No matter…if you consider yourself a poet (and I do) then you find this inability to see life as any other thing but a poem and events/circumstances/happenings are all snapshots into the heart of the poem.

Thus, when I write I try to emulate the layers, hidden and revealed, that comprise this Mystery we swim in.

In “Her Door, Her Red Door“, you find me operating on a few very intentional levels…I do not want to just lay it out there. That is a bit too clinical, sort of like the difference between sex education class in Middle School Health class, and the wonder and poignant pain of Love’s First Kiss. But I do want you to have some sense of the structure, the themes and the interplay of them. I can be obtuse…lol.

First of all, consider that it is a poem written by a trans-gender woman who is in the midst of transition. This overall context puts the other elements in perspective and frames the picture.

Secondly, it is a poem dedicated to a person whom I have openly spoken of and the role she has in my life. That role has permutations and multiple facets when considered poetically. What is her “business” with me? What is mine with her? What is our mutual end? And more fundamentally, Constance, what is your position in all this as well? Are you somehow about the same things, in the salient areas of becoming that you face?

Next comes the unfolding of my view of our essential business: becoming. She is a facilitator of mine, and as I participate in her provisions I aid hers as well…and each of you, as you become day to day, may perhaps find touchstones in this poem’s point of view and approach to that becoming. You will, of course, have to make inference and feel your way under the sheet to the true bones of your own transitions in this life as a sentient, conscious being stuck between the macrocosm and the microcosm infinities, and with eyes…

I choose a physical aspect of her and invest that with meaning far other than the expected trope culturally in our pornography laced times…there are only three capital letters used in this poem. That is on purpose.

There are obvious references to musicians…why specific ones? Why them? What are the specific characteristics of those humans? (Remember to ask this inside the “frame” of the picture I mentioned earlier). There are single words that link back to lyrics, and those lyrics in turn echo back the essential business of this magic woman, which echo back to my own quest of becoming.

There are many puns laced throughout, intentionally slanted in relation to the core…that way they can make the connection and then…like leaves in early autumn, gracefully drop away once their purpose for the tree is completed, and reveal the strong and vital branches of the tree beneath that leafy veil…

The door: resist the temptation to skim over this, thinking it is obvious…no? Perhaps, like usual with me, it is a sonar reading on a larger diamond lurking in the dark of unknown knowns…but if you will try, you may very well enjoy letting those things bubble up inside you…from your heart.

Lastly, and remember that I have said before that wine and the process of creating it is for me the central metaphor of the universe, think about the poem again, in entirety (which means you can reinterpret the words on the 4 layers of existential being: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual)…and once you have that palate built? Start to pull elements from one read through, and combine them with elements of the other…sensual elements mixed with sacred elements…becoming and unbecoming mixed with living and dying…

…and always, always: Communion. Bread…Wine…in the presence of knowing knowers broken and shared.

We are given our birth…but we have to achieve our being, and enter in.

I hope these clues assist you into at least understanding why I am so proud of this one. It was “easy hard” to write down and weave, and it tested my limits at this stage of my becoming…as a poetess, as a prophetess, as a woman, and as a lover of God.

In heartfelt passion,

Charissa Grace

Mama is Pretty Tall

Posted on August 16, 2014 by charissagrace

Trans community can change minds by changing discourse – LA Times.

Oh Constance, I Love this article!!

It has a very similar p.o.v. to what/how/who I feel called to be and the manner in which I desire to influence and educate those people in my life who are most central to the overturning of an insufficient paradigm of bondage (the gender binary) and a harsh cruel paradigm of patriarchal privilege that enslaves both men and women.

To walk, my head held high, my inner self shining thru this shell like light thru a stained glass window…to be gracious in the face of ignorance and courageous in the face of misogyny…compassionate to the face of brokenness and kind to the face of need..to be resolute in the face of hatred and forgiving in the face of repentance.

Whew! That is a tall order…but then again, my Mama is pretty tall…besides, it is the heart and soul of why I took the name Charissa Grace.

Check out the article, and then join my legions in the armies of Grace!

Love, Charissa

My Son Wears Dresses and That’s OK With Me | xoJane

Posted on August 16, 2014 by charissagrace

My Son Wears Dresses and That’s OK With Me | xoJane.

Hi Constance…pretty sure I pressed this already? But just in case I didn’t, here it is again.

Mama, please bless this father…a true confident and faithful man, who refused to be his child’s first bully.

Love, Charissa

Companion Of The Wind

Posted on August 16, 2014 by charissagrace

When you listen to the wind
you hear the tales she tells you
and feel her history…
fragments of long ago,
of forests vast and tangled
and so you will rest,
lulled by her ebb and flow,
her soft and steady rise
and fall.

Earth breathes in winds, in gales,
ruddy scirocco blood-breaths,
wracking chinook coughs,
and mistrals making ways
and sprouting wings arising,
and gliding over gulfs
to delve in yester-caves…
and always Breezy Boras
exploring mountain-faces,
and touching them with fumbly
longing frantic fingers
like a bleak blind beauty
touching her own face
in pining sad mute envy
of such solid certain
there-ness, standing jagged
and heartbreaking in relief
against the yawning sky
and in the eye of Beauty’s
glad and graceful smile.

Wind is tinged, and tainted
in trees and ocean billows,
transformed by desert passage
and fired in blasts blazing
unmerciful and hot,
cured in baking, still fat
wallowing inferno
so ruthless in the sun,

the sun,
the always hot unblinking eye…and

she is tattooed there, fated
to carry always, always
those marks within her soul
that her song seeks to hide.

But in the night, tentative,
she will give up her tales,
if you listen…just, listen…
and let her story blow,
be patient with her trembling,
her clumsy-fumbly fingers
so frantic to form signals
in suestado signing sighs.

If…if you tarry…
give up the tempting refuge
of the wind’s soft thereness,
If you listen deep…
and hold your divine breath,
and taste the territories
of time and tears and turf
without correcting her
or limiting her longings,
without defining stories
and diminishing her witness
with the gentle vapors
of your long accustomed
familiar exhalations…

You’ll hear what she has touched
and has been touched by too,
you’ll taste currents of history
in what her eyes have seen
and what she has endured
in not ever being seen.
Then you will rise, graceful
and humble on her song,
her symphony of sorrow
and swelling sure salvation,
to dance unfettered in her
shamals and silver sharavs
of resignation gentle…
to move in mercy with her
side by side, companion
amidst that mummer’s trudge
in tracks worn, set in stone
and you will tarry with her

there…

All know her, but few find her,
and those who taste her philters
fewer still, and rare…

(for to taste is sacred,
to take the cup of knowing
no harbour and no home)

…but walking with the wind
well, that’s a very different
pilgrimage of presence…to
become her moving tether,
her undaunted deliverer…
If with her you walk,
you will find her voice speaking
things shared ever only
in the wind within
the wind and breath behind
her birth, her wander here…

and you will feature flowers
cascading midst your hair,
and find your cozy locks
flicked and feathered there
and stroked, caressed so tender
in her whisper-wander sighs
as her sign, her settled sigil
to affirm your place and presence
in the bosom of her deepest
precious longing breath

Raising a trans child is not child abuse.

Posted on August 16, 2014 by charissagrace

Raising a trans child is not child abuse...

Dear Constance…

It is hot, and sultry in the night. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and stumbled out to the lappy and I am sitting in the velvet thick wraps of heat and cool, dissipating, swelling, gaining strength and washing away.

I am thinking of the waves of years, like waves washed up onto the shores of my soul, and how those waves have all at once sculpted my edges and eroded my interface with the world…and yet left me untouched, in the deep hinterlands of identity and meaning.

I have always been drawn to the ocean, and its hungry sad roar, its insatiable throwing of itself onto the earth it loves, the constant assault on that mass which resists its efforts to billow over it, washing it down a hungry mouth and being unable to swallow such a juicy morsel…the high cliffs and stubborn trees, given shape and scope by winds and rains and time…and how time and the ocean are one and the same.

Always there. Changing everything. Changing nothing.

As I have worked to dig deeper and deeper into the roots and genesis of my origins, I have wondered…constantly…what would have happened if I had the chance to grow up in a time and place where being transgender was understood, accepted as something analogous to cleft palate or some other differently abled condition that we so easily and quickly address with modern medical understandings…could have been welcomed into that sphere that I was excluded from then, socialized and policed so heavily that even now, having walked out of that penitentiary of thought I find that I carry the prison bars within and they have managed to grow into the roots of my heart and entangle themselves there.

I am still in a cage, a horrorshow of entangled lies and terrible truths…lies regarding who I am…and truths silently standing in towering clarity of who I am not…what I am not, and what I always will be. And I must keep walking forward. The only thing that will keep me out of the penitentiary is forgetting what lies behind and pressing on towards the upward calling…

What ifs still linger though, and one of the greatest is what if my parents had truly known? What if my classmates had truly known? What if I had never been infected with the awful mentality that tells me I am ugly, and repulsive, and never shuts up even underneath smiles and during the recitation to myself ot the catechism of mental health?

If I could have had puberty blockers followed by the very hormones I am at long last taking which have brought me immeasurable inner peace and relief?

I will never know…but I see the efforts of people like my Hero, Kat over at Dandelion Fuzz, like so many (mostly) mothers and fathers who have grasped the simple basic truth that their child is a gift from God and needs only to be fed and watered, loved and nurtured to emerge as a unique and eternal embodiment of one facet of God’s heart…and I want to cry with relief that things are changing, and my prison is becoming like Alcatraz, shut down and decommissioned as inhumane and unprofitable.

And then I see the actions of wanna-be jailers, and listen to the wild and desperate cries of “gloom and doom, gloom and doom!” They are now classifying the acceptance and active care of a trans-gender child as child abuse!

I guess to them the spankings I received were nothing more than loving efforts to keep me in line with who everyone else said I was? The teasing I got just a jovial activity to “toughen me up and make a man outta me?” The forever nights of turmoil workouts to empower me to have no emotions and feelings and end up with strong muscles to resist suicide and depression? The guilt and shame that was thrown down on me from so-called people of God was merely the loving ministrations of “God’s Servants” to purify me and make me holy (read wholly oppressed and chained)?

No.

Constance, those things were child abuse! I deal with the fallout to this day.

But I have posted this link to an article about them, about those like me, in hopes that you will know better what we have gone thru and what we face daily, and what is available to be our help…and also what we face from our accusers.

Stand in the gap? Reach a hand, not of pity, but of support…and educate those you encounter whose minds are still chained to images of boogeymen and monsters.

In solemn longing,

Charissa

For Kat: My Friend, Sister, and in many ways my Hero

Posted on August 14, 2014 by charissagrace

Mom confronts TERF bigotry aimed at her family | The TransAdvocate.

My friend Kat is a mom like this…Perhaps this article will not only educate you about a very specific form of trans-phobia, but show you the awesome power of a parent whose only lense for viewing their child is that of love.

Thanks Kat…

Your friend ‘Rissa

Every Transsexual’s Right to Gender Confirmation Surgery – Dara Hoffman-Fox

Posted on August 14, 2014 by charissagrace

Every Transsexual’s Right to Gender Confirmation Surgery – Dara Hoffman-Fox.

Hi Constance! Please check out this great and informative article about transgender people’s right and need for surgery…there is a measurable and documentable positive effect and outcome in the vast majority of cases.

I post these sorts of things, because I remember when I was ignorant, uninformed, and afraid of my own self without knowing it, and I conflated “Drag Culture” with trans-reality.

I figure if I can help you to avoid my mistakes, you can be part of a solution of kindness, acceptance, and encouragement.

Blessings!

Charissa

Solely By Existing…like God’s Love, Upside-down

Posted on August 14, 2014 by charissagrace

Good Morning Constance…ran across this quote, and immediately saw a converse to the acceptance and love and welcoming that the Love of God has and is.

Let’s try to simply love? It is amazing how much energy you will have, if you lay down trying to force everyone else into your image, which is the ultimate idolatry.

“Framing trans people and trans discourse as though it falls along the lines of “transgenderism”, frames the issue as though it is ideological.

“Trans people are not an ideology. There is no monolithic ideology that trans people share. There are radical trans people, liberal trans people, conservative trans people (though that is sort of rare), apolitical trans people, just as there are femme trans men, butch trans women etc.

“Trans people exist and are an eminently marginalized class of people.

“Trans people are, as well as being an oppressed class, individual human beings with their own idiosyncratic experiences, lives and stories to tell.

“Trans people, for challenging the institution of gender solely by existing, are treated with vitriolic contempt from all corners of society in a material basis.

“Trans people, most especially transgender women of color, are disproportionately affected by hate crime, poverty, police brutality, sexual violence, the prison industrial complex, are economically coerced into survival sex work, often have a lack of access to appropriate medical care, experience sensationalistic media depictions, constant hyper-objectification and so on.

“Trans people, especially trans women, are consistently dehumanized by wider society, all because of society’s preposterous obsession with gender and their anxiety, and downright terror of people who fail to conform.

“Trans people are not an ideology.

Trans people are f***ing human beings.”

Society’s Dismissal and Dehumanization of Trans Women

Posted on August 11, 2014 by charissagrace

While I am still invested in concealing myself in certain societal stratas, I do share with Janet a growing awareness of the many facets of being. And a growing awareness of the ways in which I have been othered and policed…both as trans and as a woman.

“My assignment at birth is only one facet of my identity, one that I am no longer invested in concealing. Acknowledging this fact and how it has shaped my understanding of self has given me the power the challenge the ways in which we judge, discriminate, and stigmatize women based on bodily differences. The media’s insatiable appetite for transsexual women’s bodies contributes to the systematic othering of trans women as modern-day freak shows, portrayals that validate and feed society’s dismissal and dehumanization of trans women.”

-Janet Mock, Redefining Realness

On the Stigmatization of Gender-Variant People

Posted on August 11, 2014 by charissagrace

“As long as trans women are seen as less desirable, illegitimate, devalued women, then men will continue to frame their attraction to us as secret, shameful, and stigmatized, limiting their sexual interactions with trans women to pornography and prostitution.

And if a trans woman believes that the only way she can share intimate space with a man is through secret hookups or transactions, she will be led to engage in risky sexual behaviors that make her more vulnerable to criminalization, disease, and violence; she will be led to coddle a man who takes out his frustrations about his sexuality on her with his fists; she will be led to question whether she’s worthy enough to protect herself with a condom when a man tells her he loves her; she will be led to believe that she is not worthy of being seen and must remain hidden.”

-Janet Mock, Redefining Realness

Forcing Kids To Stick To Gender Roles Can Actually Be Harmful To Their Health | ThinkProgress

Posted on August 9, 2014 by charissagrace

Forcing Kids To Stick To Gender Roles Can Actually Be Harmful To Their Health | ThinkProgress.

Dear Constance…I ran across this fascinating study of gender roles in adolescents and how they are harmed health-wise. It is from Portugal, and fascinates me with how those stereotypes have bound and held captive with the same chains and lies.

It is almost like there is some force in this world…some evil which wants all to be slaves of its hungry destructive self…(coff coff…satan!..coff coff…)

I was most struck how all of the kids surveyed wished they could “just be themselves”…

I get it…I know that feeling…see “Haunted By A Lovely God” in case you have missed my feelings on this…

But I have found my stride, and am running with my Mama, walking with Jesus and finding fulfillment in fulfilling the Father’s will that we each be free and unfettered, to blossom and bloom in His Garden of Grace.

Flower to Flower…

Charissa

Fighting Back Against Anti-Transgender Talking Points | Brynn Tannehill

Posted on August 6, 2014 by charissagrace

Fighting Back Against Anti-Transgender Talking Points | Brynn Tannehill.

Good Morning Constance. 🙂

I do not spend a ton of time (any time) questioning the legitimacy or reality of my being transgender. Too many things that never made sense ever in my life now do…too many good and fruitful things are happening in my life as I heal and integrate and actualize who I really am vs who I was “trying to be”, too many good fruits of the spirit are blossoming and coming forth in the last 1 1/2 years that were not there previously.

But: Ignorance is great, fear is greater, and their bastard child hatred is the most vengeful of all. As knowledge is the greatest answer to ignorance, and wisdom is the greatest answer to fear, I am reposting this article to assist any of you who might be “okay with Charissa:” but not so okay with other transgender people or their lifestyle choices.

I get that. It is definitely a brave new world outside the binary and learning about all the gender variations that have always existed but been shunted away to the side because they are not “convenient”

Well, Time Magazine just did some writing on Transgender issues, and it stirred up a bit of ignorant backlash. Brynn Tannehill does a great job of rebutting that backlash, and it should give you plenty of ammo to lay aside questions of legitimacy, and return to the essential question present always with all people:

“How can I live so as to embody faith, hope, and love?”

Shining in new life, and being changed by degrees, from glory to Glory!

Charissa Grace

Why Do We Need Labels Like “Gay”, “Bi”, “Trans”, and “Cis”?

Posted on August 4, 2014 by charissagrace

Why Do We Need Labels Like “Gay”, “Bi”, “Trans”, and “Cis”?.

Wowsa…Constance, this is a long, well thought out, and somewhat complex article on the necessity for words to describe our experiences…and also how power segments of our culture control words, define the ones allowed and the ones that will be known as “labels” and thus verboten.

The complexity lies in the need to keep a few ideas simultaneously in mind as you read, and to patiently assimilate the foundational things at the beginning to roll with understanding at the end.

Please…roll up your sleeves and give it a go. It will greatly assist you in having a greater connection to my life experience, and more effectively equip you to be a tower of kindness and compassion to those you meet each day, especially trans-folks.

Love, Charissa

(pic by Charissa Grace)

When enforcing gender norms turns violent | PBS NewsHour

Posted on August 3, 2014 by charissagrace

When enforcing gender norms turns violent | PBS NewsHour.

Constance…re-posting this for your consideration. I also encourage you to peruse the comment section. This is rarely a good idea to do with online articles…but this time it is illustrative of the very subject of the article.

Be sure you put on your suit of armour though, and spray yourself with hate/ignorance/harassment repellant, as it is there in quantities of mass-pollution.

One of the hugest eye-openers to me was that of how the privilege I had been socialized into by virtue of being born in a biological male body and forced into that role by all powers from my parents to the church…that very privilege blinded me to the ways that I myself oppressed non-privileged human beings, even in my very attempts to help them!

My desires to help people, to show them the wonders of Divine Love, to assist them into higher ways of being…nearly always this was me policing the behaviour of others without actually entering into their world, bearing their burdens and identifying with them in their station…in other words, I was more a Pharisee than I was a Follower…

In prayers for the opening of the eyes of our hearts,

Charissa Grace

PS: I do think that there is a way for a trans-person to live with grace and mercy, and assist the clumsy, the ignorant, the rude and the invasive…it takes courage first of all, then self-control, benign indifference to wounds that are minor, refusal to take offense over wrongs small or great, and a genuine welcoming heart for those who genuinely want to approach and reach out, but lack even the beginning tools to know how to put this desire into action.

In these last months, I have found that when I notice others who are uncomfortable or bound up around me, but sense that they wish to interact, if I simply tell them that I am newly transitioning, and I share in their awkwardness myself when I look in the mirror, it brings them a relief and freedom, and births genuine dialogue…they will give me permission to educate them, and actually leave glad, empowered to be kind, and an ally.

Hey…this is the very grace that we can, each and every one of us, extend to one another in all things, all ways and all times…it’s simple, really…but not easy.

Transgender Children Today: Shifting the Responsibility for Change Away From Children and Onto Society | Aidan Key

Posted on July 24, 2014 by charissagrace

Transgender Children Today: Shifting the Responsibility for Change Away From Children and Onto Society | Aidan Key.

Constance, this is a very good report by a person helping families understand and help their transgender children just as they would their cis-gender kids.

It does a marvelous job of highlighting how being transgender strikes across class, race, creed, religious, political, cultural and historical boundaries.

May it assist you, and contribute to your courage to speak up and speak out on behalf of transgender people in your lives: the ones you know…and the ones you don’t!

Love, Charissa

Haunted by a Lovely God

Posted on July 23, 2014 by charissagrace

(NOTE: If you wish, you can click here and be taken to a page where I emboldened certain words to try to convey the rhythm and meter of this poem, which is literally essential to it. But: if you wish to just wade in, first time thru and let the rhythms and meters rise and fall, fade and disappear and then come back, well that is ideal because that is literally written into the work as its own “poem of rhythm”. In either case, I hope you are able to read thru it…the things in this poem literally happened to me, with me).

Okay.

I get it. I do…in spite of what you might think, maybe
several of you, maybe dozens of you, maybe
hundreds, or thousands or millions of you
have endured deserts and mirage oasises
vanished in life when it comes to the subject of God.

I hear your stories, the bitter rants of some, the tired futility
of many others, I have taken venom, been covered in acid,
as I lead face first and I listen to tales of one
thing held in desolate common.

“God’s not here”.
“God wasn’t there”.
“God isn’t real”.
“God doesn’t care”.

I bleed when you cry in anguish, and weep as I
hear your recitals, and then in dark rage, and then
finally in grief, that pools on the dark other
side of the desert, in that null empty kingdom of
Ozymandias the great ruler of Vanity.

You might think I weep sanctimonious, sorrowful
supplicant of righteous standing, who’s crying for
those destitute and benighted, the distant, the stranger and
other, from my tower of ignorant pie in the sky…

You’d be wrong.

I weep in guilt.

Yeah…guilt.

For my tale of dark woe is so anti-tragic,
a Mysterium Tremendum, of a wretch so
shattered and shipwrecked in this desert island

…my body…

My story is different, and I feel so guilty,
confused as to why even in existential
despair I am still on the outside of
the common narrative swirling around me?

Contrary to you, in your longing and noble long
struggle to live, and to surmount desertion and
lost lonely silence by God in Their Heaven above…
I have always been

Haunted by a Lovely God.

When I was little and in my first dawning awareness,
and ageless, I recall that I always heard This Voice,
and at first I thought it outside me, I thought the wind had a
voice, or perhaps it was Trees, but it
never was dirt under my feet, no,
dirt is a tongue-tied dull mute.

As I grew I realized that the voice was inside me…in my heart, and I came to
treasure its company and the glad beauty of thoughts, and of musings. Then
I told my parents what it had told me, and,
flabbergasted, they asked where did I hear that?
And I told them “God. God told me”
(for that is Who the voice told me They were
and …Jesus like a Shepherd led me).

They laughed! LAUGHED! And while they were
not mocking, they merely thought
I was mistaken, had fantasized wonders.
So I cried then, and thought that
maybe my parents were right.

And then came the break, the thirsty sword stroke
that cut me to ribbons, my soft girly heart left in shreds…
then the slavery started with harsh words resounding, those
prison door words…and God was still there, holding
me in my tears, wrapped
around my hurt heart…and I longed for death, wanted to
jump in the river from that tall steel bridge I crossed
over each day but God asked me “please”, and…

well…

who can say no to God when They ask “Please?”

Then They would give me a joy for that day…and They
gave me a dog! Oh! How she and I bonded!
But you have already heard some of the tales of Millie…”Good Old Dog!” No…
this is the story of me being Haunted…

Haunted By a Lovely God.

One time, I was alone outside our house

(the one in the Pear Orchards down
near the cold creek where my Millie and me chased those
skimmer bugs and slippery pollywogs all live-long day…)

and it was warm in the soft early evening and dusky and glowing ethereal gloaming,
the good dusk…and wind softly rustling thru fruit trees so
heavy with life and the sounds of the living earth echoed around me…

…and then all was silent…

Suddenly, and it caught all my attention immediately! Slowly I
walked to the pear trees and stood, just to listen…and I heard it…something!
The call of a Mourning Dove

(or is it Morning Dove? I can’t distinguish the
One from the other, it seems to shift
back and forth always and ever).

It cooed and it called, and it seemed to me as if it spoke to me,
saying…”Come out to Me, Baby… Come out to Me. Come home to Me.”

(Lady Grace, She calls me Baby now, here today)

I was so skert! I thought it was a ghost! And this ghost it was longing for
my tender spirit and if I went out there, it would get inside me and
I would belong to it, always and be its flesh, its living body for
it to inhabit, its dwelling place then and forever.

I wasn’t far from the truth… I look back, I think it was Her, Lady Grace,
Dove come down, Her Voice was calling me, claiming me even then as Her own…
I wonder what would have happened, my life had I heeded Her,
gone to Her, run to Her heedlessly on that first day?

It’s not coincidence that our trees now, all around our house are filled with
Morning Doves (Mourning Doves too), calling, cooing…and pestering people in
our neighborhood, but so comforting to me as totems and emblems,
reminders of Mama’s first call to my hurt lonely soul and my soft tender heart.

Then: it was Veteran’s Day, fall, 1969.
We went to town several miles from home for the parade…I insisted that
Millie come with us, and after the music and marching had ended, we
went to the movies: “The Love Bug”. But Millie was left in our Volkswagen van.

(the one that was faded red
with canvas roll back top
and that relentless bamboo pole that
Dad used to poke us and hit us with
when we were clear in the
back and too rowdy and rude.)

and when we came back to the van…
she was gone.

I cannot tell you what that was like. I nearly fainted. I ran in the
street screaming her name, as cars screeched stop and Dad chased
me hollering “Get Back Here!”

We drove the streets hours and hours, me, head out the window, her name become
my tongue protruding and flapping and desperate in the cold wind.
I screamed that name loud, again and again until I was hoarse, and I kept
screaming, my grief-expiation for killing my dog with my stubborn insistence that she come along.

I tried to bargain with Them…in the sibilant cold and the darkness, I lifted my face:

“I will scream her name until I pass out and can never talk ever again, and then
You will receive my burnt offerings of me and give me what I earned with
desperate grief, what I bought with my service…my heart, Millie come back safe home.”

They remained silent, aloof (and I wonder if this is where They were in your tale of sorrow…).
Finally Dad said “she’s gone”…so we had to go home, in that cold rainy dark night of loss
on that day that we remember and honor the valor of
those who faced their fears and endured for me.

I threw up. I do that when I get distraught…I always have done…I cried, and
cried and I cried, and when I had no tears I groaned and keened, inconsolably moaning…
crying til dust poured from my eyes in place of the tears long drained empty by
grief so stark it was a terror strong, threatening to crush me forever.

My folks were hurting for me, so they used what they always had carved me with,
thought was the best for me, raw in my towering emotions and gaugeless deep passions…
words, stern and cruel, words so full of dark violence, and those words’ incarnated beast,
gawd…the spanking…well…yeah, the Red Raving and Hungry Beast.

I was forced to eat my dinner, and I threw it up…on the table, on all the food
laid there for others to eat. Then I got spanked and sent straight up to bed…
where God was silent and no where to be found… but hey, Ima talker, right?
So I cried out to Them into the darkness thick…

(now get this, and understand that I’d been thru the
wringer of Sunday School, Hellfire Sermons,
Damnation Devotions, and I knew enough to be good or the
devil would get me. I once was told: “I will not spank you…
I’m just gonna let satan get you”…and I roamed behind my mom
hours, and wailed agonizing in fear and stark terror, and
begged her to spank me, deliver me from evil on the cross
of my butt, and her hard paddle the hungry
propitiation for my sins and my wrongs…and
I knew that so many times I had done things,
hell-things like say “shit” or steal cookies, or
sneak out the window to sleep with my Millie and
her wriggly puppies though I was forbidden to,
or watch cartoons on a Saturday morning so
early and low before anyone woke up and caught me at it…and I’d
never been sent to hell…God had not bothered to notice or
even to thunder at me, or make trouble over me, and I
knew lots of people thought God was a fairy tale, which, frankly,
mystified me cus They talked to me so much when I was so little.)

That nite…I cried in a jagged blood whisper, my voice bleeding raw, and the
words, still they linger there, seared deep in me to this very day, now, here with you.

(and now, in this moment… I feel so damn guilty!
Why me??? Why did They talk to me of all people?)

I cried out “God…if You’re really there, real…bring my doggie home…PLEASE!” Then…
somewhere, somehow, I moved past bargains, and buy-offs and bribes…I had cried my way
thru the stark castle of filthy rags and entered into the place of no exit, the
inner sanctorums of grace, where there’s nothing to buy there with money, and
there is no bargaining, no supplicating, no pleas, there is just the
beginnings of Mercy Free…

and crying out the word please in that dark night, eyes
gummed shut with sorrow and tacky tears I at last faded off into sleep
dreamless as I grieved and wished I was dead, like I did every night, and at
last I knew nothing, released and insensate and absent within the lost
shoals of sleep’s gift of respite from my agony, sorrow and grief.

Until I woke, instant and on point, into an electrical dark of night
black glowing bright-black that cast light and filled the still air with a
presence, thick, substantive knowing, and threatening to
rend plain reality like the quick ripping of shrouds in the
hands of the dread faced and tall grim deliverers….

…and I heard scritching, and

(oh oh oh)

her whine (that lil ki-yiy-yiy she always used to call me heart to heart)
and I jumped from the top bunk with a thunderous thud loud enough to wake
even the dead and I got up and ran thru our house in that miracle moment:
“GOD BROUGHT BACK MY DOG!”
“GOD BROUGHT BACK MY DOG!!”

Babbling over and over again like a babe, Bartimaeus had nothing on me!
Shattering slumbering sundering darkness and giving voice
to that One Thing that I am:

Haunted by a Lovely God

Fumbling feverishly I rolled the gravestone away in my heart and threw
open the back door where she called me eagerly whining in joyous returning at sunrise…
she’d jumped a 6 foot fence out of obedience so she could come in thru the
Eye of the Needle: the back yard garage door. She limped and jumped on me
and I went down to the ground, I was crying and kissing her and she was
kissing me too and I ran my hands over her, scarcely believing that she was real,
she was returned, she was home and alive, and my heart was restored unto me.

Then she rolled over, so I could scritch her tummy like she loved
and when I ran my hands over her precious side, my fingers slipped inside
her skin and I drew them back from her side which was pierced and torn open…

(I swear!
I know, the metaphor seems so damn cheesy, right? It really
happened this way! That’s the kind of thing I feel so
guilty for… it’s like They shouted it from the Bright Heavens that
I was not ever escaping Their Undying Love never ceasing and
new every morning. I’m telling you that I have always been
Haunted by a Lovely God).

She had torn open her side, and I’d thrust my hand in just like Thomas and drawn it back,
bloody and warm and changed and I collapsed,

(cus I can’t handle blood, even though it has
handled me, covered me, branded me,
marked and commanded me
forever Under the Mercy)

I murmured brokenly “God hear my prayers, God heard my prayers, God hear my prayers,
God heard my prayers”.

Later, my parents made sure I knew that this was highly unusual, God has more
pressing concerns than my dear dog, or listening to me scream and demand…
yeah, there are all kinds of other prayers over the years, that went up and bounced off…

you know the kind…yeah, those

…and life went on…went on…until

Puberty hit and then hell came home hard to stay…in hair and voice and a
horror-beard (and oh god oh god, oh god down there, oh god please no).
And life required again its cruel ransom, and I wanted, longed to lay me on the gears and cogs
that turned in schools and the church groups that seemed to me incomprehensible
strangers, in their innate knowing of how to move and how to laugh and to be… again
I longed, desired to do away with me…this gender-joke…absurd and ugly mistake, just an
ironic blight on “There” and “Here” because I was neither…here or there, just a null thing

…and then…

…I had another time, deep in the darkness of night and numb tears and dumb talking to Them…

…Them…

1973…14 and awkward and lonely and numb from the bashing I gave me to
un-know who I was and was not supposed to be, allowed to be, allowed…
On that nite, cold and alone in the darkness I told Them that I was not going to follow Them.
I was resigning from being a christian and that I was leaving Them once and for all.

“No offense”, I said. “It’s not you, it’s me”

(I’d yet to discover how this trope is used when we
want to abandon an unwanted suitor or
how its thrown out…to hurt and to wound a familiar dull
lover become coarse and rank and too shrill)

“You have done nothing wrong, You have not failed me, no it’s I who’ve failed You, and
what’s worse, I cannot BUT fail You…always, because I’m a

“horrible boy, I’m an
absent mute girl, I am
nothing, and I count for
nothing and I live on
nothing and I mean more
nothing, just more black
horrible, lost empty nothing.

“I am not going to church anymore,”

(for in those days I, like others around me, assumed that if
you went outside and climbed into the
chicken coop then such a fat happy bird you’d become.)

“…when school starts up again, I’m going to say yes instead of
no thanks when they offer me pot, and offer me drinking, and
offer me bodies and no clothes and company there in the darkness and then I’ll be
numb and feel wanted at least…

“I cannot do it, walk blameless and upright, for
I am a constant habitual wallower in my sin
all the time in my heart, in my mind as I fail ceaseless,
besides, I don’t even desire to be in on this world full of Leavenworth walls…

“I will not fake it! I refuse to be like them, sitting in their pews…

“with hallelujah on their lips and wanna screw ya in their hearts!

“I’ll stay alive, take my medicine straight and deserved and so bitter…and
maybe if I try I will even manage to conjure up a hearty yummy while
I drain the draughts of despair bone-dry…

“I know You’ll send me to hell…I deserve that, and even more so…I don’t
hold that against You, for You are and You always have been so Beautiful…
no, it is me, blight and curse, it’s just me, a disease in this world and pure poison.”

Fountains of sorrow again welled up, even as I wondered why they could
never be fountains of joy? And I cried and cried…softly so no one could hear me…
my brother sleeping…as always in these cut-off times…and

Millie was newly dead, gone to run free in the fields of her dreams, yet another cruel
tribute collected by Usurper death…that left me so empty,
so cold, so cut-off and bereft.

Until I heard it…the Voice!

Calling me gently (as always), so I held my breath, listened to be sure it was Them, then
I heard a soft quiet question asked so plaintively…

“What would it take?” (Ummm…whaaa? I didn’t get it)

“What would it take, Precious One? Child, what would it take for you to not check out,
not go away, but to come here and spend time with Us everyday?
Talk to Us, listen and just be for Us… just be Ours always,
just as your dog, Good Old Millie was your friend, and she belonged
only to you?”

This was a careful and startling question and it was quick,
coming at me curving sideways! So I had to really think!
Something absurd, something so damned unusual, that there was no way it
ever could happen, I mean, don’t get me wrong…I still wanted to be with Them,
wanted to share in Their sweet soft communion, cus I LOVED my Jesus, my Shepherd who
I always dreamed someday would leave the 99 and come to rescue me, I dreamed that
He was my Jester to make me laugh joyously, dreamed that He was my best Friend

…I just wasn’t…His best friend…and I couldn’t fake it. Nope.
So it was crucial I create conditions that even the Almighty God couldn’t meet

…you know…

God cannot make a rock so big that They cannot lift it, but They can do anything
so They can make this rock so big that even They cannot lift it…wait…

I was searching for that Rock that God couldn’t lift… right? So

I said to Them “If, when I wake this morning, and my dad says ‘Kids we are moving’…
if there’s a strange town so distant where nobody knows me, and no one has
seen me, and I can start over, start fresh and anew, then I’ll choose you forever and
give my heart freely…lock, stock, and barrel, completely to You… I’ll be Your Millie,
all of my days till I die and my sentence is over.”

Silence gave answer…then after a bit…I drifted away breathing
deeply again as my tears crooned soft lullabies
to my hot cheeks, they ran down in such ancient deep
canyons of sorrow…down my face, down my heart,
down my soul to end up glistening in sorrowful streamers.

When I got up the next morning, things didn’t sparkle or gleam, and I didn’t
remember the Voice, the Epiphany…I was just staring at breakfast my mom used to
“cook” me in those days…Shredded Wheat with skim milk…and feeling
…that gulf, that dark feeling. That feeling. Yeah… The relentless sharp
razor slash cutting inside my soul, forever aching and Constant.

I wasn’t list’ning, as Dad droned on talking of somethingorruther… until I heard
him say the word…“moving”…something about that word…
why did it stick out?

Then in a quicksilver windstorm of memory-shredded, each piece was
hitting me, sticking, unripping its way to become one
coherent experience, and I recalled my reply to Their inquiry…
so I turned quickly and asked my dear father what did he just say…and he
said it again! He confirmed it! Just as I’d laid forth, to a T!

Haunted by a Lovely God.

(I feel so guilty… why am I treated thus?
Why me? Why not the prayers of parents
whose children suffer and die in horrible pain for
nothing that they ever did?
Why not the prayers of wives for soldiers
Cain has already marked for death’s dark
gaping foul maw, prayers supplicating
deliverance, protection, but
they go unheeded and
Death eats again?)

And of course, we moved, and I did…commit myself to Them…
once all for always…yep, I was in…And I’ve hated it sometimes, and loved it at others.
I’ve grown and I’ve changed, seen Them change before my eyes as they were
opened and I could see other than my own idolatrous self and that
small god I fashioned, so stunted, blind, deaf and so mute in the
vanity of my self worship when my box, my image of Them I had
made was so gloriously broken!

I’ve sorrowed and railed… I’ve been outcast by mean so called
spiritual family, been stunned by the towering cruelty of those who should
know better, done blindly in the Most Wonderful Name of Them…

Lovely God to me, and so ugly and coarse, buffoonish in their mocking mouths.

I met my darling, and we had our babies…
she/they are amazing miracles…I watch the
lives of my college acquaintances shipwreck, their
marriages foundering on the black jagged rocks of their alluring
careers and blood money…and I watch the children of
hard working salts, such dear people around me, more worthy than I, better
people than I, quaff drugs like their hearts are on fire, and join themselves
numbly to anyone there in those earthquakes of loneliness,
wreckages strewn in their wake and their orphans tossed
careless like litter abandoned.

And I have prayed with these people, so passionate, supplications far more
suitable than my own bumbling tongue-tied petitions and tall ebenezers…
and seen them bounce off, with dust poofing, dry-cloudy in
dull drifting mockery…

…and I feel so guilty.

Such. Guilt.

Because They have haunted me… They’ve apprehended me… taken me…
They have not let me go, not let me drift… and I,
transgender woman held in such derision by
most of the offspring of the Blood of the Lamb…
The Holy Spirit has even shown me Her Name and Herself, Lady Grace,
and She’s drawn so near to me, to be ma Mère…my Mama, and teach me
my secret heart and my self, so young and emerging.

And yet still I ask myself why am I haunted?

I could go on, forever recounting the
stories of Their faithful presence and meddling hands…of

Yosemite Sacred, cathedrals where mountains became the
Triune God, and I fell asunder to claw at the dirt in despairing blood-guiltness and
crying for mercy… and wonder of wonders!
El Capitan: Papa…Half Dome, cut asunder became My Friend Jesus…
Yosemite Falls: my Lady Grace, flowing and washing forever until I am pure…
Bridal Veil Falls was me, shifting emotions and prevarications blown
lacey and wandring across rocky faces but always to Them…
rising up from the ground, clean and unsullied as
Waterdeep sang for me They have been nothing but
Good in my life!

Each time I hear someone’s tale of woe filled with despair or with cynical bitterness flowing,
or just fatigue and futility…I am worse than any teller, and merit less than the askers, more
toxic than anyone else whose had issue with God, or
issue with Their present absence, or make issue with Them because

“there is this construct God which has come
out of nowhere, seemingly and thus doesn’t exist
(unlike anything else which its knowing of testifies to its being)…”

I have not told you this tale to shame you… I who am shame incarnate for so long.
Nor to claim privilege or power, position… I do not have an iota of that.

…I have not told you to lobby, convince you… or
proselytize, or evangelize you. God No!
I have made my expiation to you, my confessors…
The sin I am guilty of? Of this I Charissa Grace stand blood guilty:

Being

Haunted by a Lovely God.

Come Home To Yourself

Posted on July 21, 2014 by charissagrace

It all seems like a dream…like I woke up
into Real life and there you were, grinning,
that crooked lil smile and that small dimple
at your mouth’s corner, honey cupid bow.

It was as if we happy-laughed forever!
And cried for ever too, both all at once.
It was as if my torrid fever broke!
Things clear now to me, I’m in on the joke

regarding the us that we were…we are.
How I must have puzzled you, my dear!
Befuddled you and discouraged you too,
for you saw my real red and pulsing heart,

and underneath, the shade of deep dry rot.
From that mad carnival my wistfulness
and longing that you would be double blessed
sprang up to cover over my despair

and make a castle for you in the air
(I long for naught but glad good things for you!
Blessing and health, and most important Love.)
Capital L Love, vital and alive.

Thus my recoil from your beguiling ways,
from that slight space you harbor to survive
and aloofness you must have to thrive.
But passion, fire for you…remained and bloomed.

I give you those things, slight space, aloofness,
so crucial to your sense of who you are
and how you are…BUT…you… you must cast off
the boredom of the same old peccadilloes!

Soon you will find your true-north self again,
your way again, to walk the sacred spaces,
and haunts of ancient peace, familiar places,
to draw comfort from them, at rest within.

God placed such presences in this bright world
and lets them flourish, glad and glorious.
God’s threatened not by great manifestation
of beauty taken to be gods unknown…

God simply is not threatened. Pure and simple.

God’s given us Beauty, and this is Truth…
…God gives Truth, and this is our Beauty…
Alas! It’s we who fracture and dismember
with reason’s rule we drown out Beauty’s ember.

So…Walk those roads, the trails, the barren beauty
verdant with its own color and life…and way.
Hear the sea, she’s ever-always singing
her ever ancient, ever new swan song.

And let yourself come back home to yourself,
as torn, defiled places are knit together.
Cleanse all the places pain has hollowed out
with haunts of ancient peace…and grace throughout.

To treasure your words, modulate my own,
…“return to that self I have never been,
and yet I always was in breath and being”…
The trust to simply talk to you about

anything gone awry in innocence,
and you will hear my heart as clear as day,
and I will hear your heart as well…the warmth,
connecting, friends who’ve gone thru thick and thin.

So…we dive now into our sleep together,
and when I wake with terrors in the night
you’re there…and when I get up because sleep
avoids me like I haven’t washed for weeks,

You slumber on, and I pass time until
at last I sleepy get, and gently slink
back to our bed and you in graceful slumber
still know that I am there and slide your arm

under my head and pull me oh so close.
I fall asleep my cheek upon your chest,
hearing your breath unguarded, raw and new,
your heart, steady, flutt’ring on so different

than my erratic anxious dark contrast…
And you, temple of Love so tender-fine
comfort me…and I lose myself at last,
to be found…yours…and you forever mine.

“That’s Good Enough” (Debi Jackson, Mother Of Transgender Child, Gives Moving Speech)

Posted on July 16, 2014 by charissagrace

G’Morning Constance! Another amazing mom tells her story of love and finding her girl inside a little boy’s skin.

I listen to these stories, and wonder what if…

This story is somewhat different, in that this Mom, Debi Jackson, experienced quite a bit of discrimination and trans-misogynist blame. She takes on the typical tropes that were thrown at her like stones in attempts to police her and her family…and her daughter.

She is a fabulous, poignant speaker. She is not afraid to show tears and passion…she is unashamed of her love of God, and knows biblical references to refute the hatred thrown her way by so-called christians.

Please…won’t you take a look? These stories are all similar, but each unique experience adds a special tile to the mosaic of the expression of God to us in humanity. I am excited to be a part of shining forth the parts that trans-gender people have to show for Them.

Love, Charissa

Debi Jackson, Mother Of Transgender Child, Gives Moving Speech

The Huffington Post | By Noah Michelson

Posted: 07/15/2014 11:43 am EDT Updated: 07/15/2014 11:59 am EDT

“My daughter is six years old. She transitioned, which means she changed her outward appearance from male to female and started living full time as her true gender, when she was four. Until that point she was quite a rough and tumble little boy with a buzz cut and a shark tooth necklace.”

And so begins the absolutely beautiful speech Debi Jackson gave earlier this year about her transgender daughter, AJ, at the Unity Temple on the Plaza in Kansas City. As Jackson continues, she outlines how her family came to realize that AJ is transgender, what happened the first day she went to school “in girl clothes” and the bigotry her family faced.

But the best part of the video may be when Jackson addresses the comments she’s heard about her daughter and sets the record straight about statements like you “wanted a girl so you turned your child into one” and “kids have no idea what they want or who they are — my kids wants to be a dog, should I let him?”

Spend six minutes and get to know Jackson and her family a little better. You’ll be happy you did.

(h/t A Note To My Kid)

I told myself that this “happens” to other people — not me. Wrong.

Posted on July 15, 2014 by charissagrace

Hi Constance…I found a cool article about yet another parent who has the vision, courage and love to raise her transgender daughter with love, acceptance, and support.

She made a statement in her article, and it so resonated with me, because I remember that fateful late March afternoon just last year (!!!)…after extensive reading about transgender people and lives…I was so lonely, and so separated from everyone and everything. Surrounded by people who loved me, but not me me…just who I posed as for their security and happiness, and yet I felt totally alone.

I was worthless. I had no meaning. They had actively and intentionally sought me, found me and time and again healed and sustained me…and I still just wanted to disappear.

And on that day, rain drizzling coldly outside, heaters ticking and popping, I read of the loneliness and alienation of my trans sisters and brothers…and I was soo struck by how their stories jibed with mine, how people whom I had never met wrote as if they were inside my head! My compassion welled up, and I wept for them, because I truly knew what they were suffering…and then the stories of the people who decided to transition instead of kill themselves, and such a longing consumed me…a longing to feel something normal, a longing to be “right”, a longing to know I belonged to someplace…

…belonged to myself…

and then I heard Mama say to me in my heart, that if I was totally honest with myself, I would see that I too was transgender, just like the ones I was reading of.

And that is where the statement that Julie Ross makes came out of my mouth…”No Lord…that happens to other people, but not me. I mean, I have always thought I was a girl trapped in this male body with no way out, but that doesn’t make me transgender! lol!

But She persisted, and besides…I knew, right then that she was right. All that had to be dealt with was the constructs of immorality and perversion that had been formed in my mind and heart due to the childhood experiences I went through.

All of that is going to be avoided for Julie’s lovely daughter! She will still have trials, and heartache like every human in this shattered world…but she will never feel the emptiness, the horror of nothingness where there ought to be life.

May Mama shine on each of our hearts with Her convicting love that upholds us, sustains us, and washes us everyday…and may we find the courage to go out of our way to ease the journey of someone else today.

Much love and rejoicing, Charissa

Julie Ross

Blogger, George.Jessie.Love

Raising a Transgender Child: A Star is Born

Posted: 04/20/2012 5:08 pm

Adventure , Children , Family , Courage , Honesty , Keeping Perspective , Parenting , Social Transition , Support , Transgender , Work In Progress , Parents News

Eight months ago, my 9-year-old son tearfully shared with me that “his whole life, he had wanted to be a girl”. Pressed by the therapist (who, thank G-d, was in the room with us) to clarify whether he wants to be a girl or is a girl, George immediately replied that he is a girl. And so began a crazy-ass adventure that I never, in a million years, expected to find my child or, frankly, myself, on.

To be clear, my husband Rich and I always knew that George (who is now Jessie) was different from not only our older son, but from other kids — male and female alike. With sparkling eyes and a wildly observant and funny personality, he was known by everyone everywhere we went. Never one to shy away from a conversation or situation (particularly if it involved dolls, dresses, wigs or mermaid tails), he captured the attention of anyone he came into contact with. When behaviors that concerned us in preschool and kindergarten — including, but by no means limited to his self portraits (a frequent drawing assignment) consistently depicting a girl in a dress with long, flowing hair — continued with even greater vigor in first, second and third grades. We concluded that he was probably going to grow up to be gay, yet didn’t quite buy it ourselves. He was a boy who greatly appreciated a beautiful girl and what she was wearing. He never met a doll, wig, dress or mermaid tail that he didn’t feel a total compulsion to own — no matter how strongly he had to fight for it. And despite the fact that he was not even slightly effeminate, there were several occasions that he harassed and harangued me for hours on end requesting everything from hair extensions to wigs to dolls. It never added up. And then he asked for (and by “asked for” I mean “demanded”) a pierced ear.

Our initial reaction to the earring request was that “little boys don’t wear earrings”, but he was having none of it. As he obsessively pursued this request, it became increasingly clear that it was not a desire, but a need. Since growing out his traditional little boy haircut was going to take some serious time (we had agreed to allow him to grow his hair — anything to stop hearing about hair extensions or wigs), a single pierced ear seemed an easy enough allowance in hopes of placating him. Of significant note was, just prior (and I mean as the alcohol was being rubbed across his lobe) to the piercing, he implored the piercer to be sure to do it in the ear that doesn’t mean “gay”… clearly he was building up the courage to tell us something, we just didn’t know it yet.

It was not long after the newly-pierced ear that our confusion was put to rest and we were told of George’s truth. It took me about a minute and a half to absorb what he was saying and to give myself a virtual whack upside the head. It all started to make sense now, except for the part when I told myself that this happens to other families — not mine. Wrong.

We continued along with our “if-it-was-ever-normal-it-isn’t-now” lives for a few weeks, noticing a huge change in our child’s mood and temperament. Clearly, an enormous weight had been lifted. And then there came what we refer to as “the article”. It was a Sunday in December, which also happened to be George’s tenth birthday. On the front page of The Boston Globe there was an article about identical twin boys, one of whom had identified as transgender and was now living fully as a girl. I, not surprisingly, was raptly reading the story when George came up behind me, noticed the photo and asked who they were. Upon telling him he responded, with his mouth agape, “You mean I’m not the only one?” It was at that moment that Jessie was born, moved in and has since made herself comfortable in my house.

The following day, I dropped George off at school and told him to be cool; we would come up with a plan. He was cool. Until 11 a.m. (not bad considering the school day starts at 8 a.m.), when he simply could not keep the truth to himself and, without fanfare or drama, told one of his teachers about his “secret”. The cat, ladies and gentlemen, was out of the bag. The next day, as it happened, was pajama day and, after a hasty, late night trip to Target, I successfully outfitted my “son” in head-to-toe pink, purple and green polka dotted pajamas in which he ran (not walked) into school with zero hesitation and without so much as a glance over his shoulder for support. Jessie had been waiting her whole life for this day. I almost wonder if that was why she felt the need to share when she did… just to ensure the perfect little girl pajama ensemble for what will likely (hopefully) be her last school sanctioned pajama day ever.

Since those first crazy days, we have had her second ear pierced and have had countless meetings, discussions, questions, plans and concerns hurled in our direction. At times we have laid low: mostly at the beginning, when we were nearly immobilized by the mere thought of what it meant to have a transgender child. Other times we have been “out there”: when, for example, we announced on Facebook (with her encouragement) “George becoming Jessie”, complete with a photo of her in her inaugural dress. This was a means of survival for us and done mainly so that we weren’t forced to explain the situation to everyone, everywhere, every time we left the house. But no matter how people learned of Jessie having identified as transgender, the response has been consistent: total acceptance with a healthy and appropriate dose of trepidation — both for us and, frankly, themselves.

Our family has been lucky. We know that we are just getting started, but are grateful that Jessie’s social transition, thus far, has been as seamless as we ever could have hoped for. She has that sparkle in her eye and a new confidence which is the envy of many an adult. We take each day as it comes and have as little an idea as to where this will land as we did eight months ago… but at least now her self-portraits make more sense.

PS: At this point, it is noteworthy to tell you that it felt strange to refer to my child as George or to call her a “he”. “New normal” surprises me every day…

This post originally appeared on George.Jessie.Love.

The Doctrine of Trans, Part 2

Posted on July 14, 2014 by charissagrace

The Doctrine of Trans, Part 2.

Good Morning Constance…Part 2 from Trans-girl at the Cross.

Prolly of interest only to my readers who are Christian, but even if you aren’t it is worth a look, for it gives some insight into the subtlety of biblical interpretation, and the importance of letting the text speak for God instead of the reader reading her own opinions into the text and then taking the name of the Lord vainly by claiming that God has said something He has not said.

Praying that Lady Grace prevails in the hearts of the Church, and that a place for all LGTBQ people is warmly secured at the table of Their Communion and Fellowship,

Charissa

Suzanne Grossman Writes: “Why I Chose Grace as a Gay Christian”

Posted on July 12, 2014 by charissagrace

Suzanne Grossman

via Why I Chose Grace as a Gay Christian.

I love this young woman’s faith, courage, and orientation to grace!

Hang in there Suzanne…there are fellow believers who realize that Faith thru Grace in Love is the winning recipe for connection with Them!

Please…read the article, and then think if you had those obstacles in your faith journey, in addition to the common difficulties we face.

Grace and Peace…

Charissa

Give Ear to My Words…

Posted on July 12, 2014 by charissagrace

…oh Lord, consider my meditation.
Hearken unto the voice of my cry,
My King and my God.

For unto Thee do I talk each day,
it is my voice You hear in the mornings…

Oh Lady Grace, in the mornings will I direct my prayers
and heartsongs and meditations sweet, unto You, and
I will look up.

For Your lovingkindness is better than life
My heart sings, sweet and silent and ever grateful
so thus I will Bless Thee, and lift up my hands unto Your Goodness.

For it is Your grace that sustains me and Your mercy that
endures forever…

But Your steadfast Love…it never ceases…it never comes to an end.
It is new every morning!! Literally, new every morning!
Oh Mama! Great is the Wonder of it!

THE FREEDOM OF IT!

Great is Your faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.

And so accept me this day, my Lovely King and Lord
your daughter true, born of blood, and blooming with love
and receive my life for Your purpose in today.

Those I meet, those I pass by, and those whose hearts are breaking.

In the precious and wonderful Name of Immanuel, God with Us…

My Butterflies, Myself

Posted on July 9, 2014 by charissagrace

…and free they fly, finally…

while with shining earthbound

feet we dance watching

hearts aflame, yearning…

fates alive, turning…

death, forever spurning.

CGW
7/9/2014

Christianity and being Transgender – Why I won’t justify my transition

Posted on July 7, 2014 by charissagrace

Christianity and being Transgender – Why I won’t justify my transition.

Hi Constance. I was delighted to run across this article. It is a decent essay regarding relationship with God and being transgender. It speaks also of the pain and sorrow of the religious reflex which kicks in and then kicks us in the butt when the fearful and narrow-minded and deeds-based church culture people decide to be judge, jury, and executioner over other’s faith status.

I am posting it because I am hopeful that if you find yourself in this place, as a person of faith who is weirded out by a transgender person, or if you have always assumed that a transperson is mentally ill, trapped in sin and sexually perverted. Hopefully you will see Meggan’s heart, hear her voice, and realize that she has a life lived in the Redemptive Arms of Love.

Me? If you really want to know? As far as being judged by other christians, I don’t give it a second thought. The presence of the Lord is simply too “there” everyday for me to even entertain the notion that They do not like me. They draw near, each morning and the conversations of our hearts is edifying and encouraging. Sometimes They are silent…and Their world sings to my heart of Their beauty and truth and love.

Besides…I have already been judged soo often in the past by people over basically everything you can think of! Sometimes on the same Sunday morning I would be judged for the very same thing by people who saw it from the opposite stand point! Sometimes my sermons were too full of scripture! Sometimes my sermons were not full enough!!

I got to know Abe Lincoln’s famous saying about pleasing people very well…

The last straw for me, the one that set me free, was when we were in the midst of a vicious power struggle as leaders with a spiritually abusive pastor who was far far FAR past his “pull date”, and knew it…but just…couldn’t…let…go…and I was one of the very few who refused to back down in the face of his rage and anger and horrible ways of making people pay. Many times the wrath would flow…the congregation was about 85% solid on moving on with our new leadership team (leading by plurality), but about 15% were the old guard…didn’t like the new fangled ways like playing guitar and singing choruses and raising hands and waving flags…yunno, really evil things like that.

So…during this time, my father suffered and died from frontal lobe dementia, a rather nasty variant on a nasty phenomenon.

It was so trying, so painful for me. I loved him so, and still do.

And…after he died, someone sidled up to me in order to “comfort me”, but managed to tell me that he was certain that the Lord would not have killed my father if I had not been in rebellion against the old pastor!!!!!

Yeah…that is why I really could give a rip whatever people think…except for God, and my family, and my friends, and those I serve everyday. Haters gonna hate…and show their black hearts like simpering socialites at the Cannes film festival.

Just remember…unkind words are never ok, for any reason…especially from those called to speak in the Name of Love Himself.

Love, Charissa Grace

I identify with Jennifer Knapp’s words

Posted on July 4, 2014 by charissagrace

Good morning Constance…I ran across an old interview with Jennifer Knapp, a singer-songwriter who has come out regarding being a lesbian who loves God intensely and has no intentions of turning away simply because the Church has turned away from her.

That is shameful…the shunning that goes on in the name of “Righteousness” sickens me and makes me feel so dehumanized and denigrated…more for the shunners than for myself!

What an awful surprise they will have when Jesus keeps His promise, to measure out to them in with the same measure that they measured out to their brothers and sisters.

Anyway, Jennifer said it well, so here is a small snippet for your edification and exhortation:

“… But if you remove the social problem that homosexuality brings to the church—and the debate as to whether or not it should be called a “struggle,” because there are proponents on both sides—you remove the notion that I am living my life with a great deal of joy. It never occurred to me that I was in something that should be labeled as a “struggle.” The struggle I’ve had has been with the church, acknowledging me as a human being, trying to live the spiritual life that I’ve been called to, in whatever ramshackled, broken, frustrated way that I’ve always approached my faith. I still consider my hope to be a whole human being, to be a person of love and grace. So it’s difficult for me to say that I’ve struggled within myself, because I haven’t. I’ve struggled with other people. I’ve struggled with what that means in my own faith. I have struggled with how that perception of me will affect the way I feel about myself.”

If I Could Explain The Love Of God

Posted on July 1, 2014 by charissagrace

The Love of God is literally the one thing that transforms all things. There is nothing that is greater. Nothing can stand in its way or resist its power…

…well, except for one other thing: the human will.

The human will can say no to this love…and yet, even human will, no, especially human will, is but the ultimate extension of the Love of God. Because God would rather have children who are free instead of children who are slaves. That liberty is so important that They even found a way to show the Ultimate Love by laying down His life for us all.

It is the one and only thing that has kept me alive all these years, that kept my finger off the trigger and the barrel away from my brain, that kept me getting up everyday and walking thru that gender prison camp I was locked in for so long…the Love of God has been underneath my wings when I can no longer flap them, it has been miles of pillows and cushions when I have cast myself from the precipices of despair and resolved to never ever smile again or ever look someone in the eye.

The times on my bike, when Mama drew near me in the high mountains and loved on me and in me as I slogged mile after mile up 10% slopes, and then came careening down at 55 miles an hour, nothing between me and the pavement but thin tires and bike shorts and the Love of God.

The times I was in my kitchen, hidden inside a big, awkward, hairy temple that was so defeating and monstrously final…and She would touch my heart and light up ingredients and show me how to put together food preparations…and speak to my heart as I did about what is true food and drink.

The vineyards, and the life surging there and the insights She gave me.

When my precious precious doggie was lost, miles from home, and I cried all night at 10 years old and begged Them bring her home…and I said that if You are really there and You really love me You will hear me and have mercy…that same prayer that millions have prayed in one form or another, but never got anything but blunt silence…and in the morning, she was there, my Millie…and I cried so hard, and words cannot express that strange mixture of relief, wonder, and yes a bit of shame for my naked doubt…and literal overwhelming wonder and confusion that They chose to answer my brokenhearted plea.

The night at the end of 8th grade that I cried all night, wanting to die, and finally resigning from being a follower…I told Them “no offense, this is not Your fault, but mine…I literally am not good enough and I am not strong enough. I am not going to live a lie, so I am checking out and will become like everyone else and bury my sorrow in drugs and alcohol and sex”…and wept some more…until She whispered soft but completely clear, asking me what would it take as a sign to me that They would be my life, and my strength, and my hope…

…and I said the wildest thing I could think of: “If Dad gets up this morning (for it was after midnight) and tells us we are moving to a completely different town, where no one knows me, and I have a brand new start, then I will still try and follow you. I will be Your child and always stay near Your side…but what a joke! Who does that, just up and moves to a different city?” And I cried more, until sometime just before dawn I drifted off to a troubled and thready sleep, wishing I could die…

…and when Mom got us up to get ready for school, Dad came in to the table where we ate our cold cereal, and said “Kids…I have some big news for you. Mom and I decided yesterday that we are moving to Gold Hill. It is closer to the house I want to build, and closer to Mom’s school”…and I burst into tears again and they all thought I was distraught from the move, when really I was shattered by the overwhelming, generous, graceful Love of God given to me, ton after ton after ton.

The night, when I finally cracked and admitted what I am, who I am, and Mama sang over me as I cried so hard that the sheets were literally wringing wet…She sang “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. Our mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning, new every morning! Great is Our Faithfulness!”

My dearest darling…the amazing manifestation in human form of Their love…

…but mostly, the tears that pour down my cheeks whenever I, the whore at the feet of Jesus, washing His feet with my tears and drying them with my hair, think about Their love…higher than the highest hills, deeper than the sea, broader than the skies above…and those words, vibrating at the core of all things: It Is Finished .

Love, Charissa Grace
the girl loved without measure
for reasons ever mysterious

Trembling

Posted on June 21, 2014 by charissagrace

When my doggie was bad, she would shiver,
and with eyes she would look sad and wet and long…
her trembling melted me always.

I remember how she would lay her ears back and soft,
how she would gentle her body against me and
beg for mercy.

I am trembling like her now, but not for being bad,
but rather for being, in a way not acknowledged
and frightening to others.

I am trembling like Victor’s abomination did
when the villagers rounded up torches and pitchforks
and came after it(him).

And I lay back my heart, my soul(ears), and
make them soft and earnestly yearn
for Her hand.

May I always quake, be transient, in my own
aspect and circumstance and
sojourn.

But please, may I be strong and forthright
a mountain unmoved on behalf of those lacking
even the resources to tremble.

Last night I was publicly shamed…

Posted on June 21, 2014 by charissagrace

I am sitting here, trembling and hardly able to see the screen, scrambling inside to find what my heart tells me is true, and Mama is telling me…but the titanic clash with self-loathing habits and rejection-reflexes is tossing me and turning me inside.

What I think the truth is: that Lady Grace, Holy Spirit, my Mama is proud of me and is honored by my actions tonight…what I fear the truth is: I am a freak and outcast and should just rid the planet of my blighting pimple on its butt. That is the realm of feelings and while I acknowledge they are real, I have chosen, do choose and will continue to choose to not believe their accusations.

So…in our town there are charity fundraisers, where it is a contest to raise money for several charities. We like to do charity fundraiser events. They are strong opportunities to serve, give, and also have fun with items that we would normally not buy…we actually spent some money on a wine country equestrian event, picnic, dinner, and overnight at the Inn at Red Hills…a fab fun thing we will be doing later in the summer.

So we were getting ready…and since it was not in the big city, but our small town, I was really conflicted about what to wear…all my tops are a lil too girl-side, and all my boy clothes are just…uuuggghhh! Grrr…I couldn’t find anything and had to settle for my jeans, and a boy pull over top. I wore my pink hat and pink vest (as they are wine oriented for outsiders, but me oriented for me).

We got there, and I did what I usually do in groups of strangers…be gentle and polite, smile a lot with soft eyes and stay off to the side. I used to do that even before transition, and even more so now. We were sitting off to the side, against the wall actually, just my baby and I, and the auctions began.

There were two local wags up there…young, facile vocally, glib, sorta dorky and full of themselves as any small town big fish is…and totally nice guys, just really asleep, ya know?

The epitome of white male privilege.

So even tho I sit off to the side, we bid pretty heavy, as it is Their money, and we feel very good about contributing it to things like that . So we were bidding, and an item got over our limit, which was substantial…and when one of the MCs looked over I gave a subtle head shake, and drew a finger across my throat, saying I am out. So he starts cajoling me…fair enough, that is the game.

But then he says…omfg…right in front of several hundred people!!!!…”Hey nice hat, I will give you $25 for your hat!”

I froze…I freaking literally froze. I mean, my mind wouldn’t work, my heart wouldn’t beat, I couldn’t breathe, and my face felt like it was frying off the bones…I felt like my skin had been shredded, and my heart was just clobbered, like blindsided by a car (which has happened to me on my bike several times, but this was worse, cus it was inside me and I couldn’t get away).

I was sitting there, and my darling figured it out but not right away, so she touches my leg and then the spell broke, and I was quietly ranting to her that I was gonna let that asshole have it, just rip him for what he did…total reactive thinking…and I started to tremble and tear up, and felt like when I was little and we would lose a game I would cry cus I was sooo upset.

Time passed, and as I sat there, I heard Mama talking to me, reminding me that She had made this man, and that he was a good person (She said this, not what I thought), and that he was just asleep, ignorant, tone deaf, a guy made from dirt, (not living flesh like us girls)…and that if I just took out my hurt as anger and vocal violence, I was demonstrating that I was a concubine to the patriarchy!!! Mama is a pretty radical political Holy Spirit!! Lol

Concubine to the Patriarchy??? REALLY??? Wow.

So I asked Her to please help me and She was soothing me and I was just bleeding, and then I thought “fine…I will just swallow hard, like women always have, wash his mess off my face and have done with it and be tough and move on…” and She was like “that is not what would bless Me either.” So I began to still myself and center down, and really open to Her will…and She reminded me of the 3^rd way…She reminded me of the situation in the jet way in Philly…She reminded me of the destiny of being someone broken enough to speak for the broken, and whole enough to speak to the broken ones who know not how broken they are.

And I started understanding what Her preference was…I had choice to embrace it, or not, but I knew that is what She would want from Her daughter.

So during a break I walked up to him, and I said “Excuse me, sir?” He turns, acknowledges me in a friendly but distant way, and raised his eyebrows like Yes? I said “Do we know each other?” He said no, and got ready for some pleasant schmooze…and then I said “we really have never even met before tonight…so I am wondering, what is an appropriate way of interacting with someone you have never met, never been introduced to, and you are interacting with in a very public situation when you have a microphone and I am merely sitting?”

He just stood there, deer in the headlights…and then I said “Did you notice where I was sitting? Off to the side? Out of the way? Not drawing attention to myself? Every signal I was giving was that I was here to support, but was not in any way desiring the limelight. And yet you called me out publically, in front of hundreds of people and you did so because my appearance was distinct. But you didn’t do it to any of the other dozens of people here with hats.”

He took off his glasses, and was suddenly deadly serious, realizing he had stepped into a huge crap pile, and that he was on very thin ice.

So I said, “Sir, I am speaking to you as hopefully a person who loves you enough as a fellow human being to gently confront you now, with little harm done, to save you from potentially harming someone in the future very badly in complete ignorance.

“It is never ok to joke with a stranger that you have never met, especially in front of other strangers, and have the basis of that joke be their appearance, or their orientation, or their gender presentation, or their race…” (and I named off all the categories of the oppressed in our society).

I continued “tonight your words hurt me, but I am not here because of that…I think I am whole enough and supported enough that I will work thru it…but I am here for the one you might speak to who isn’t, who is on the verge, on the edge, and they leave and kill themselves or take drugs to forget…or just get even more broken…”

He says to me “My name is Nathan, and I am soo deeply sorry.” I said “I forgive you freely…I also wanted you to know that I am in no way seeking to hurt you or wound you, but you need to know this to save you and someone else from a great regret…and I do believe that my therapist would be proud of me for showing the courage to speak with you but not in a bad way”…I know I felt Her inside telling me I was ringing the bell.

So I shook his hand (yes, he did crush mine, sheesh!), and said “well Nathan, just put it behind you, after you really think about it, and learn.”

He asked me my name…omfg he had no idea what a veiled threat that was! I freaked out inside it felt so sinister and risky to me…Mama gave me words and I said “Oh, my name isn’t important, but rather the hearts of the little ones with no voice and no strength…THEIR name is what is important, and really, their name is like unto the name of everyone that these charities here tonight are all about.”

And I excused myself and walked off…my baby was there and I told her about it, and was shaking very badly (it was in a break).

Got it under control, and the event continued…and we won a great auction, and then it ended.

She went to get the van, as we had to load some things into it, so I sat in my place and just listened to the night, enjoying being there, but out of the way…and I see him coming over. I was thinking “Oh crap, here it comes” but he takes off his glasses about halfway over to me (his nonverbal indication that he was speaking openly and with no mask)…

…he sits down and wants to shake hands again, but this time, he was very gentle…and he said to me “I want to say thank you, thank you so much for loving a stranger enough to tell me what you did, and save me from potential horror in knowing that I had messed up.”

I told him, oh you are soo welcome, and I am so sorry that it hurt you, I really was seeking to avoid that. He said no, it was perfect, seriously…I was totally wrong, and just talking with no thought whatsoever, and you really blessed me.

At that I was crying hard inside, but I bit my lip bloody to stay together and not fall apart…so I said to him can I tell you a statistic? He indicates yes, so I said out of the population of people who are even willing to acknowledge they are transgender, 41% of them have attempted suicide, and even a higher percentage think about it constantly. This compares to 2-4% in the general population.

He was so still…and so I pressed in and said again that something like that could literally put someone over the edge…and then he said how wrong he was, on every level regardless of my status or identity.

It was a true apology! I think he really meant it? So I told him how just a couple of years ago his words would have shattered me, but now I was able to at least talk to him…and he said something about how in his church there was a m2f who was coming out in the community, and how ignorant he was, but that I had connected so many dots for him, and he was deeply grateful.

So Constance…it seems like it was all a success, right? Good fruit, wholeness exceeding brokenness, educated ruling class member…So why do I feel so bad right now? Why am I still crying, bleeding, and having all those tiresome hounding jackal voices yipping at me?

One Q, and he knows my name and who I work for…one comment and everyone knows…but part of me wants that, they have to deal with me as I am…and part of me wants to just disappear down a rabbit hole.

Constance,I beg you, on behalf of those whom you will talk to, interact with and relate to who are transgender or gay, or some other hidden brokenness and you have no idea, to take stock of your words…I am pretty whole, very loved by Them and I know it…but your words could literally kill someone, and I am not joking with wild hyperbole. If I wanted to do something after tonite, imagine…and the power of some kind word…again you have no idea how powerful your words are…my friends here, when they comment have at times given me courage to face my day, my life.

Silence can kill too…but it is better than saying the wrong thing, which can never be unsaid, unheard.

Oh…and one more thing: if you are of the opinion that being transgender or gay or transgender friendly or gay friendly is an inherent sin and that it is your duty as a member of christendom to “represent” and make sure that everyone you meet knows that you are so devoted to God that you will kill them in the process, Please…don’t bother speaking…you wear your own pride and your own opinions masquerading as the so-called heart of God like a butcher’s apron. Our eyes can see the blood stains of your victims, we can see the steel silver flash of your butcher knives in your eyes, we can smell the stench of death on you (and no it isn’t the savory aroma of the gospel which is the aroma of death to the perishing!) It is the decaying smell of horror become ho-hum and your own comfortable wallowing in your worship of yourself in God’s Precious Name.

We tremble at your approach…and at your fate, when the word “mercy” finally has meaning to you as you are judged by the children of your slaves that diligently work your gospel plantation!

That is my experience…and I still cannot sleep. But perhaps you would join me in a vigil…until all are cherished from the least on up.

Love, Charissa

The Footprints of Ghosts (commemorating my first Father’s Day as myself)

Posted on June 15, 2014 by charissagrace

The fire crackles and pops
its diphthongs and phonemes
in that hot and feisty
rapid-snap delivery.

“Dad! Dad! Daddy! Father!”
It says this in living
letters of merry blazing
iterations of what,
repetitions of who,
and smoky, hazy eye-burning
questions of…
how?

I shiver and draw close,
grateful for warmth
this late spring day.
It is still early, and summer
slumbers in the dawn,
as I sit shiva with spring …

and the fire sings, keens,
quests, warms and shows us
the way of all things,
fading natural-like, and
giving up its ghost.

Ashes drift lazily,
footprints of wandering ghosts
free at last from their entombment,
in limbs of wood and sap,
and finally I see ashes
are ghostly release,
are seeds, promises of Phoenix,
gathering, bunching,
heaving and inevitable.

Smoke gets in my eyes,
clears my eyes, blurry and stinging
and stirs my memory pools
as I think back on 31 spectral years,
as a ghost encased in a word,
in a role, entombed
in limbs of alien thick
coarse wooly flesh.

Those long years of walking on water and anxious,
with no idea
what was a daddy
and inherent universal
knowing of love so deep it makes
the shores of the galaxy seem shallow.

Love was my fire,
my ghost, my ash-seeds,
and I my own Phoenix
sleeping, waiting,
looming, wanting.

I gave myself, my blood and sweat,
my upturned nose to fear and downturned face to them…
I threw me on the fire
and I screamed silent,
solitary inside no-one-else-here land.

I popped and hissed
and seethed and whistled
and snapped as I
gave up the ghost each day,
turned to ash each day,
diminished, but growing…
disappearing and becoming

until I walked
free and disembodied
and covered with ashy afterbirth
and filled with knowing
I could do nothing more
than give the love of one called father
even if I could not bear the
name of man.

Summer stirs, and my reverie is snapped
by the sharp chirp of robins
wanting to scritch thru the fire remnants for sowbugs.
Spring has closed her eyes,
her breath has slowed
even as mine has quickened
and I stand to face
my first father’s day of
fully knowing me.

Love calls 4 times.
And I know that somewhere,
somehow, someway
that feisty fire-voice
was naming and liberating
and I have been reborn
from all ash,
a ghost no more
but bodied, present,

and turning in my joy.

Kevin Williamson shows us how to dehumanize a trans person, in three simple steps.

Posted on June 5, 2014 by charissagrace

Kevin Williamson shows us how to dehumanize a trans person, in three simple steps..

Constance…this will give a snapshot into ways that so often we dehumanize one another…specifically in the LGBTQ community.

But think about it: how often do these same concepts and methods get applied to one another in whatever social context we find?

Love Mercy.

Do Justly.

Walk Humbly.

Love and Grace,

Charissa

Kevin Williamson shows us to dehumanize a trans person, in three simple steps..

Dialogue: the key to kind acceptance of another person

Posted on May 27, 2014 by charissagrace

Think about a time when you met someone, someone you instantly clashed with, without a word being spoken…go ahead, I will wait…we have all had that happen. Now: think about someone that happened with, and then as time passed and you got to know them you discovered you were totally wrong about them, that your reaction had been all within you, and was unrelated to them completely. I am not going to wait on this one, for these sorts of endings are more rare…at least in my life they were. Sadly, far too often I just avoided the person and then lived…until I forgot about them, and went on in my cushy-comfy zone of complacency.

Wanna know the basic root of this phenomenon? I think it is Xenophobia: fear of the unknown. A person will look different, or act different, or some other factor about them is something unknown to us…so we clench up, clam up, and withdraw…and then make up all sorts of rationales to justify our low and venal rejection of a fellow creature made in Their image.

Generally, at least for me, dialogue precedes the change of heart and mind that I undergo when I have been in this boat. After talking with the person (not at, or over), I discover that we have so much more in common by virtue of our shared human experience and reality than we are different. Especially when I was firmly locked away in the christendom ghetto…I dared not talk with different people, unless I totally dominated the exchange in a monologue “devoted to evangelism”, but in truth designed to shield and protect myself from having to stretch and include someone in my world.

I think this is why so many so-called “evangelistic-efforts” end fruitless, and at times even exacerbate the divide between we who call ourselves “saved” and they whom we designate as “needing to be saved”.

Genuine dialogue bypasses all this. Trust me, if your faith is living and genuine, and you are in relationship with Jesus more than with His book, then you will not be able to miss the chances to give an account for the Hope that is in you…they will beg to hear why you seem different (you do seem different…don’t you???). You will find that connection…and begin to learn that the things you hid behind as reasons to not connect with people have become touchstones of punctuation in the quilt of common experience.

This is one of the main reasons I post essays on a lot of topics, and other people’s interviews of interesting people…and it is why I recommend reading the interview with Janet Mock that I post below. It originally appeared at http://www.rookiemag.com/2014/05/janet-mock-interview/ and it is a fabulous window into the existence of one of the most influential people in our times. Janet is uniquely positioned to touch a lot of spheres in life, and she is articulate enough to create that dialogue.

Dialogue is not something that is sorta like the old “I won’t hit you if you don’t hit me” game…that is stasis, and dead waters. No…dialogue is living, interesting, and often the very vessel They can get into to reach our hearts and minds.

Check out the interview…I am pretty sure you will be glad you did.

Love always, and Grace upon Grace…

Charissa

You Can Be Free: An Interview With Janet Mock

In which we talk about her feminist icons, how teenagers are way cooler than the media thinks, and why she identifies with Tracy Flick.

05/26/2014 Julianne gender identity, identity, interview, janet mock, trans, transgender

Pardon the hyperbole, but Janet Mock may be the best person ever. I felt this way after reading her 2013 book, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, a beautiful, powerful memoir that follows Janet from her childhood in Hawaii, where she grew up as a transgender girl, to her current position as a high-profile (and still young!) writer and activist who inspires people everywhere to live exactly as they want to live.

She decided to come out as trans in a 2011 essay in Marie Claire magazine; since then, she has worked hard to increase the visibility of transgender people, including starting the hashtag #girlslikeus, which encourages trans people to share their stories on Twitter. (She is also very good at social media.)

My feelings about her greatness only intensified when I actually got to talk to her on the phone last month, when she’d just returned home to New York from one of her many college speaking gigs. You know how sometimes you’re talking to someone and they’re just so on it that their voice crackles with electricity? That’s how Janet was.

JULIANNE: So much of Redefining Realness is your very specific memories from your childhood, some of which are so wrenching! How did you remember all of that, and how were you able to get it all out in your writing?

JANET MOCK: I started by writing journal entries. I made a commitment to myself to write 500 to 1,000 words every morning—to just catalog every memory, even if it was just a fragment, on paper. Once I really got into that space and got disciplined, I was able to re-imagine what happened and to mine the feelings and the details of that time period. That’s why there are a lot of pop culture references, because I watched so much TV! I would try to remember certain things by asking myself, What song lyrics was I trying to memorize? What type of dance moves was I trying to learn?

But then you have to remember the pain, too, and that was the hardest part—the wrenching part, as you say—having to revisit that, not as an adult, but going back as a child and feeling it again as a young person who didn’t have much agency over their body and how it felt to go through those traumatic events. So I just had to be very kind to myself as a writer, but also kind to those who wronged me, kind about the mistakes people made and how they contributed to my pain.

As a fellow writer, I have found when you’re accessing those painful things, there is an instinct to lie to yourself, in order to protect yourself. How did you avoid that?

There are certain moments in the book where I call myself out for wanting to soften things or exclude things, and that was part of being transparent. I was committed to being transparent not just through the stories I chose to tell, but throughout my writing process. I talk about my mother’s suicide attempt, and about not wanting to [write about it] because I didn’t want to see her that way. Also, some of the details of the sex work I went through as a teenage girl—sometimes I wanted to erase those from the record of my life. But being honest about that actually helped me. It relieved me from my silence and shame, and hopefully it can help other people feel that sense of relief about something that may be heavy that they’ve been holding on to for a long time.

Was wanting to find that relief one of the reasons you started writing the book?

Yeah. At first I wasn’t writing with the intention of making a memoir—I just did it ’cause I wanted to have a record for myself. It was a selfish project—there was no sense of intersectionality or social-justice jargon or anything like that. It was just about me, this girl, and her story and her pain. I was trying to get it as raw as possible on the page so that I’d know that it was real.

But when I stepped forward publicly in Marie Claire, I was like, Wow, there’s a powerful story here that I think I’m supposed to tell. I don’t mean that in a boastful way—there just aren’t many books by young marginalized women like myself who did what I did, the way I did it.

Since that Marie Claire piece came out, social justice ideas and words like intersectionality have become way more widespread, especially for young people, partly because of Tumblr. Have you seen a shift?

Ooh, Tumblr’s powerful, yes. Those words are very powerful tools for describing this oppression. And it’s great that some people have access to them—but most people don’t. For me, it was super important to not use those terms in the book, because they exclude a lot of people who don’t have educational access, or who may not be engaged in social-justice stuff, but who want to be enlightened about things, to have their political consciousnesses raised a bit. I wanted to write the book for everyone—including that girl who I was in seventh grade who didn’t even know the term transgender. I wanted to give her a book so she could also feel like she was in the know, without being talked down to or made to feel like she has to aspire to something “higher” when she already has all the knowledge she needs to define her own experience. It’s not for me to define it for her. So I wanted to use words and language that she understands.

Your book has done a lot to help trans people be recognized in the larger culture. Did anything help you feel recognized that way? There aren’t that many books out there like your book.

My reflection of myself has always been a composite of many images and people that I have met along the way. I talk a lot about Beyoncé and Clair Huxtable and Toni Morrison, and I talk about the trans women who were in my life as a teenager, and the women around me when I was growing up, my father’s sisters, my grandmother, and my mother. I saw all of these women as mirrors, and made them into my own little mirrored mosaic.

But regarding the whole genre of “trans books”—I guess they would call them “transition stories” or “transition books”: So many of them do not have the intersection of youth, and that’s pretty important, because young people oftentimes don’t have much body agency in our culture. Like, your parents can literally pick you up and take you somewhere and put you wherever they want and tell you want clothes you can wear and what clothes they’re willing to buy you. All of these things are what make finding yourself and expressing yourself and your own authenticity difficult [when you’re young]. That’s one of the things I notice when I speak to young people, that sense of struggling with their lack of agency. I just tell them that, yes, you do have agency, despite your parents. Live your life on Twitter, put up some selfies! Reblog some things! That sense of self-representation is so important.

In terms of trans women, I’m happy that there are more of us visible in mainstream media. Platforms like Tumblr and YouTube allow people to create images that they don’t see in the mainstream media—and to also talk back to mainstream media when they fuck up. Rookie is a testament to that!

Thank you, we’re trying! You’ve talked about how reading the work of several female authors of color—like Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison—helped you get to a place where you could “just be.” As you were reading them, did you feel like you were being seen?

I think the first one I was exposed to was Maya Angelou, in probably eighth- or ninth-grade English class, when we read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Being the only black student in class I was like, Oh god, we have to read this? I knew everybody was gonna look at me and think this was my experience. But then I read it, and I was like, Oh my god, this is my experience! It was powerful to read—specifically the parts where she talks about sexual abuse as a child. That was something that I had never told anyone I had gone through, so seeing that someone had written it down in a book that we were reading in class, I was like, Oh my god—this exists in the world?

So that was one of those things where I was like, I need to go to the library and read more books. Because I also didn’t have access to books, unless it was school. (I always talk about my youth struggle of never being able to order anything from the Scholastic catalog that was passed around in class, and always yearning for those books delivered to me the following week!) [Reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings] prompted me to get a library card and just sit among those stacks and read books by women who looked like my self-image. That was important to me, because [those women] lived the life that I saw myself living one day, as a black woman. In my own reality, that didn’t exist for me yet. I was this trans girl who wasn’t out, who wasn’t revealing herself to the world or even to herself. It was so helpful to be able to look into those books and be like, Wow, this is what life could be like for me.

But the top one would be Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. For me, that book was everything. The idea of this woman on a quest to find herself and to find the right kind of love and fulfillment and identity and not being smashed into her community’s fantasies of her—that gave me so much agency. It pushed me to dream of greater possibilities for myself. It just blasted my mind open! You can be free!

What were you like as a teenager?

By the time I turned 13, I had met my best friend, Wendi. When you have a pivotal bestie, you kind of become the same person but you also complement each other. Wendi was so unabashedly unapologetic about who she was that no matter what I did—even when I started transitioning—I could never seem as “out there” as her. I was always slightly in her shadow, which gave me safety. From 12 years old all the way until we were 18, we were like close close close tight. So when you ask me what I was like, I can’t talk about my teenage self without talking about Wendi, because we’re so linked.

But I was very internal, if that makes sense. I think I was a deeper thinker than my best friend was. I enjoyed the library. I enjoyed quiet space, because I didn’t have that at home. But I also wanted attention, right? I was always kind of seen as a natural leader—people listened to me, and what I said mattered. So I never felt as though I was dismissed.

I loved school, and I was someone that people would ask for style advice. I always seemed like I was with it. I wasn’t a popular girl, but people liked me. I wasn’t ever going to be the prettiest girl in school, because I was a girl that wasn’t even supposed to exist. But I hung out with the popular girls, and they were my friends, so that gave me access points. It was almost like I was tolerated because I had these cool friends. So I always felt like I was internal, but I bet a lot of people from high school would remember me. I felt like I was invisible, but I knew I wasn’t, because I was so visible.

I think that once you’re out of high school, you start to understand that the way people see you does not necessarily line up with how you see yourself.

Mm-hmm. I had this sense of like…oh my god, I was such a victim. But then I realized that I’d internalized what people think trans people go through in high school. Like, it was tough, but high school was tough for a lot of people! I’m sure that my multiple layers of identities that I inhabit made it more difficult, but to be honest, I enjoyed high school. I wanted to go every day.

It wasn’t my peers who gave me problems—it was mostly teachers who didn’t understand how I could thrive, how I could be so liked, how I could be in marching band and debate club, how I could be captain of the volleyball team and be elected a student leader and become a peer mediator. They didn’t understand how a trans girl could do all those things, so it’s almost like they didn’t want it to be true.

When I was in the eighth grade, me and Wendi started a petition to get the intermediate school to allow us to wear makeup. [Laughs] I didn’t include this in my book because it’s something I forgot, but other people remembered us going around with a clipboard and some notebook paper and getting people to sign a petition so that we could wear makeup. In my memory [Wendi and I] just walked into school wearing makeup. I don’t remember ever getting in trouble for wearing makeup. I was that student, though, that’s who I was. When I watch Election, I’m like, Oh, I was soooo Reese Witherspoon!

Related, the times I’ve seen you speaking on TV, you seem to have so much grace and poise. Where do you learn those things?

In the mirror!

Do you think [poise is] something you can learn, or do you just embody it?

[Laughs] I feel like because I’ve had to juggle so much, that there’s not much that bothers me. There are a lot of high-pressure things that are stressful—especially live TV appearances! They’re so stressful, no matter what. Even if it’s a “safe” environment with a host that you really like, it’s still super stressful. What grounds me in this idea of having “good composure” or being eloquent or graceful is over-preparedness. Over-preparing puts me at ease and allows me to be present when I’m there. I can control how I act, how I react, how my face looks, how I sit, and what comes out of my mouth, which allows me to appear as though I’m totally at ease. It call comes from just growing up, juggling a lot at home, family dynamics, my own struggles with identity—wanting to be great, you know? Daring for greatness. Juggling all of these things was the boot camp. But preparedness is what grounds me. Knowing your environments so you can expect them, and even knowing the failings of your culture. Like, if you’re going into a racist, capitalist, sexist corporate environment, and you know what it is and its failings, then you can know how to operate around it. You kinda seem like #unbothered.

What do you do when you are suffering, and how do you help your friends when they are suffering?

The space of suffering, I struggle with, because I’m part of a community that’s so steeped in trauma. A lot of people talk about trans women of color and the violence that we deal with. But when we’re together, we don’t talk about that. Because the world will remind us of that. We know that when we walk in the world, we are under attack. We understand that. And so when we get together, we wanna talk about Beyoncé and have a couple cocktails, you know? Hang out and just be. Just be happy. Being happy together builds our sisterhood, but it also builds our resolve and it’s just like, This is revolutionary for us to be in this world and its suffering and to deal with suffering, but be fucking happy, too. We don’t need to sit in it all the time, because we exist in it.

Do you keep inspirational Post-it notes around your workspace?

Well, I do have one that my boyfriend, Aaron…he was listening to an audiobook about the I Love Lucy show—it’s random, but he loves inside-Hollywood stories. The head writer who helped them create that juggernaut of a television show said the two things that matter in Hollywood are ownership and perception. So I have a Post-it note that says ownership + perception.

The work that I do, it really informs me. I want to own the content I make—I don’t want to just be a subject on someone else’s show. I want to be leading those conversations. “Perception” is the idea of definition–I can create the image of myself that I allow others to see. And I can maintain my boundaries in a public world.

Also, I have a sticker on my planner that says It’s your turn to change the world.

Speaking of, I read that you work with Youngist, a platform for young people to do citizen journalism and have an amplified voice in mainstream media. What do you do there?

I mostly just giving editorial advice, but I think it’s so important for any silenced group of people, like young people, to have their own platforms. Everyone loves to talk about millennials—I guess that’s you guys!—but it’s important to give them power to have their own voice. Everyone always asks me, “What advice would you give young people?” and I’m always like, young people know exactly what they wanna do! If they want advice from me, that young person will come to me, you know? They know their experiences. They know what they’re going through. They know who they are. And my job is not to talk down to them, or to give them some aspirational message. It’s just to let them know that they have all the power to determine their own lives, to define them, and to declare them.

Youngist takes the political and pop culture news and really gives [millennials’] take on it, instead of older people always being like, “The millennials are taking selfies! They’re so absorbed with themselves!” It’s like, uh, no, look on YouTube, look at what they’re doing.

It’s nice to hear you say that—those selfie articles are so make-fun-able.

It’s always like, some 50-year-old cisgender white hetero man talking about young girls and what they’re doing. It’s like, this is so pervy, first of all! [Laughs] It’s these people who think all young people are the same. No, they’re not! It’s really simplistic and reductive, and I think young people can just, like, grab their computers and blow shit up. ♦

Sarah Hoffman, author of new children’s book, speaks with GLAAD about raising a gender non-conforming child and education through storytelling | GLAAD

Posted on May 25, 2014 by charissagrace

Sarah Hoffman, author of new children’s book, speaks with GLAAD about raising a gender non-conforming child and education through storytelling | GLAAD.

Good morning Constance…another really fabulous article about Parenting Gender-nonconforming children. The strength of this article is how it brings out that the gender non-conforming behavior occurs thru nothing the parent has done or failed to do!

That means that a lot of guilt, and therefore shame that many parents of gender-non-conforming children experience can be laid to the side as trash to discard.

Any reader who is a parent: think about the things with your children that “just were”, and you had to accept them or divorce from your child…those were tough things…

…and then think about all that, and add in the whole Q of gender identity…

…and let your compassion and kindness grow. Perhaps even reach out parents in your area that you know have this responsibility laid on them…let them know that they are accepted and loved and affirmed.

As you do to the least of these, so too you do to Him.

Sarah Hoffman, author of new children’s book, speaks with GLAAD about raising a gender non-conforming child and education through storytelling | GLAAD.

Some thoughts on Homophobia and the definition of sin

Posted on May 23, 2014 by charissagrace

I was just now thinking…it seems there is a huge virulent reaction to homosexuality in most of conservative/fundamentalist/evangelical christendom. It is thought to be immoral and sinful to “be homosexual”, and if you act on that orientation, regardless of how chaste and monogamous and full of integrity you might be, you are doubling down on your sin quotient.

Hmmm…let’s consider this: First of all, for the sake of this discussion, let’s assume for the moment that being homosexual is sinful in and of itself (I do not think it is, btw). That said, can we grant that there are many many many MANY other sins present on a regular basis in the people who comprise the body of Christ? I believe even a brief moment of thought will reveal this is true. And I would furthermore assert that these sins are even present regularly right smack dab in the middle of the congregation on Sunday Mornings during meetings! Sins of gluttony, gossip, greed, lust, lies, and I don’t really need to go on do I? THEY. ARE. ALMOST. ALL. THERE!!

And yet I have heard sermon after sermon which gently and compassionately reaches out to the so called sinner with grace…while at the very same time a virulence and abhorrence of homosexuality is railed out the likes of which is almost shameful in its implications…that perhaps even the precious Blood of Jesus is not enough to save a gay person! They have to get clean FIRST, and then…just maybe…suspiciously…we may accept them.

Why is this? Are not all sins of equal moral weight in the eyes of God? (yes, they are)

Here is my theory: so many things that are egregious failures of God’s good standard of whole relationship are interior states of being, or thoughts, or hidden attitudes, and not actions. It is quite possible to live in christian communities looking beautiful and white on the outside, and yet within be a tomb of death. But “no one knows”, so it is “okay.”

Homosexuality on the other hand, or for that matter being transgender, is something observable, visible, and obvious, and it is also something that can be hidden…either by not talking about things, or living a full life, or engaging in the cross-dressing that a trans-person is forced into when they are policed and othered for dressing as who they truly are. And thus comes the judgement.

The heart of this approach considers sin to be defined by actions: wrong acts = sin, and those acts defined by a list that is derived from a selective reading of behaviors spoken of in scripture…in the OT it is a capricious selecting of things from the law that one desires, and in the NT it is usually behaviors that are mentioned in descriptions of what life is like after we have an existential encounter and transformation of our being!

In truth, sin in the large and most deadly sense is simply separation from God. Period. Last word. When this is understood, one sees that no matter WHAT one does, or refrains from, it does not address the fundamental issue, which is restoration of our relationship with the Ones who made us. After that relationship is restored, the word for sin changes and means simply “missing the mark”. Once we are truly adopted and resurrected within with Jesus, we are set free from law…completely free. If you do not accept that, you need to re-read Romans and both Corinthians and Galatians. Paul makes some very bold statements about law and spirit and sin.

When one is in the very common error of attributing moral status based on actions, one is in grave error, and I think this is the root of the hatred of homosexuality above all other “sins” (again, it is not a given to me that it is sin)…because it is an easily identified behaviour and one can consider one’s self “sinless” merely by avoiding that behaviour!!

Here is a suggestion: let’s get our own house in order. Let’s spend our time and our zeal within ourselves seeking deeper connection with Them, deeper character development, deeper sacrificial attitudes towards all we meet…ok?

Love God.

Love yourself.

Love your neighbor.

Amen.

This song gets to some of the longings of my heart

Posted on May 23, 2014 by charissagrace

Constance, perhaps you could take the time to watch this video…it’s lyrics also apply to me and my situation. I am soo very lucky, in that my beloved loves me, from the beginning, and now, and to come.

But so many people are outcast from the circle of love and affection by the ways our culture has formed expectations and unspoken rules and allowances, based on specific understandings (or lack thereof) of moral codes, on binary gender expectations that do not even come close to fitting the wide expression of actual physical expression of gender, even down to the DNA…

As you watch, won’t you please resolve to be kind t everyone you meet?

Oh…and here is a clue: being kind does not mean “hating the sin but loving the sinner”! That is a nice and neat idea, and yet it is designed for the sake of the one who fancies themself not a sinner…it unconsciously creates a barrier, and regardless of how nice you are then? You will be condescending, and you will undercut your message, and ultimately fall woefully short of the example of Jesus.

Remember Him? Yunno, the One who drew so close to sinners He was accused by the conservative religious crowd of His day of being a sinner…and let a prostitute wash His feet with her tears (oh, you sin-haters and sinner lovers…have you ever cried such tears at the feet of Jesus, and then dried them with your hair because you were so grateful for His kindness to you? Just wonderin’…), the One who ate lunch and dinner and celebrated with sinners everyday.

I know these things to be true…because long ago, when I was still deeply dissociated and yet drawn by Their love for me and thus had said Yes to Them, I was a staunch practitioner of that glib maxim above. And I recall how finally it dawned on my how haughty I was, how like the man in the temple who was thanking God that he was not like the sinner over across the way who was weeping and howling and crying out for mercy as he beat his chest in agony and desperation…

A kind word to those in need. Such a small thing really, and yet it is the biggest thing under the sun.

Hymn in the midst of Shame and Sorrow

Posted on May 21, 2014 by charissagrace

Hold me close, I beg Thee.
Never let me go,
though I pull like wild horses at Your tether.
Wrap me in Your love please!
Tender, tough, and total
as it presses me and puts me back together.

Father, You have reached me!
Taken me back home, into
Your house that is the essence of Your Heart.
Jesus, You have breached me!
Leapt the walls and plumbed the gory
depths of death and caused shame to depart.

Oh Mama, my Help and comfort,
You are healing, changing,
breathing in me Hope and Joy and Grace on Grace,
So hold me close, I beg Thee!
In Your wonders and Your Love,
so someday I will look upon Your Wondrous Face.

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Why Do So Many Folks Hate Transgender People? | The Bilerico Project

Posted on May 21, 2014 by charissagrace

Why Do So Many Folks Hate Transgender People? | The Bilerico Project.

Constance, I have not pressed this right away, as I am really in a hurting place for reasons that are unrelated to this topic…just aching, longing, missing what never was, and finding it difficult to believe that it will ever be…trying to hold onto Jesus hand and be drawn thru this valley of the shadow…trying to hold onto Mama’s waist, and hold tight as She crashes time and space, and makes a way for me…birth is HARD!

But the topic needs to be looked at…posted and reposted so that you can see some of the basic things faced by transgender people. And, you know what? Hate of anyone really boils down to these areas.

Think about it.

Love God.

Love yourself.

Love your neighbor.

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Quartet

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“Framing trans people and trans discourse as though it falls along the lines of “transgenderism”, frames the issue as though it is ideological.

“Trans people are not an ideology. There is no monolithic ideology that trans people share. There are radical trans people, liberal trans people, conservative trans people (though that is sort of rare), apolitical trans people, just as there are femme trans men, butch trans women etc.

“Trans people exist and are an eminently marginalized class of people.

“Trans people are, as well as being an oppressed class, individual human beings with their own idiosyncratic experiences, lives and stories to tell.

“Trans people, for challenging the institution of gender solely by existing, are treated with vitriolic contempt from all corners of society in a material basis.

“Trans people, especially trans women, are consistently dehumanized by wider society, all because of society’s preposterous obsession with gender and their anxiety, and downright terror of people who fail to conform.

“Trans people are not an ideology.

Trans people are f***ing human beings.”

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Raising a Transgender Child: A Star is Born

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Concubine to the Patriarchy??? REALLY??? Wow.

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