Constance, this devotional is by my favorite devotional writer Jill Carattini, and rather than copy and past it I decided to press it…
…and then copy out a poem here that she quotes. I was stunned by this poem…and Constance? You think I write poems?? *charissa laffs and shakes her head in wonder at the thought*
No, dear Constance…this is what a real poem, a grown up poem looks like!! Just wow.
We walked in that old thrift shop musty,
dingy light seeping around stacked shag carpets
and formica tables piled high with bakelight plates.
It smelled of dried rain and wet mildew.
It beckoned us luridly, promising hidden treasures
squirreled away in dank depths and skinny aisles
piled high and tippling.
Your eyes glinted with purpose and glee
like Sherlock Holmes on the case,
so I resigned myself, Watson-like,
to the chase and followed
your dashing red boiled wool coat
and white fuzzy stocking cap deeper in
to the belly of this lazing laughing thrift whore—err—store.
And sure enough your squeak of discovery
morphed into a squeal of delight
and you held up your find like Aphrodite
holding up her heart to Adonis’ ruby thirsty gorgeous lips,
and you possessed, moved demi detourné
and grinned gleeful in the tight aisle
when changement you spun to hand me
your thrifty trove plunder…wait…
Russian nesting doll?
“Oh Charissa!!” You spoke softly
but your sotto voce rang in my heart booming
cus you know that place big and special
that only you live in and call my Lady’s Chamber…
“It’s soo you!” You cooed and fussed in total committed certainty
that this odd intricacy was me.
It was wood, golden glossy with painted folksy face
…and it was male?? Wait. Whaaaat is…?
You saw me, my confusion in this
the only time in my living memory
you had paid this shell more than
the passing glance and haughty sniff
we all share at how uncooperative
our bodies can be, and your smile
more tender than all the leaves of every Beech and Birch under the moon.
“Oh Sweetie, let me tell you…these dolls…you…well,
there is a history here, right?
Tradition carves these, dolls within the dolls within the dolls
until the core and look! Just open it up, ‘kay?”
My eyes were blurry and my nose felt raw
rubbed in rough coarse handkerchief flesh
oversized and clumsy and inside my lil toes
throbbed hard in hurt stomped ache
from what you had not done ever
and yet had brandished that day
in triumphant tinkling delight…
but behind your insistent excitement
I saw awareness, I saw your pleading strong
ask of my trusting heart open to you
there and waiting…
So I took it, I felt
its smooth warm grain
inviting and fairly singing
of mystery and glad discovery
and with a last foreboding look
at your face illumined I twisted it open
to find the waiting center was another doll like the first
and painted gaily and it was female…
and when I looked inquiring
if I should open it too,
your fierce nod was
in time to the trembling
of my hands as meaning
washed me and when
I twisted it open
the skritch of the wood turning
sang together with your
smothered cry of joy in me…
..and I saw the small girl I am
but never was and inside
the baby whole and of one piece…
“See?? I told you, Charissa! It’s SOO you!”
And with that, you pushed past me
like winds pushing past the windmills
and me turning in your wake
to follow you to the place
of purchase and presentation.
I sit and stare at those dolls…
I remember that day when you were here
and our short time was forever and our poor spouses weary
from our fevered pursuits so fueled by that find
and so eager for our next parable-mystery tracked out…
and all the days since, and
who knew that so many dolls
could fit in so many days?
So many you’s in me and me’s in you
as we walked us the streets of life together
and laughed our way deeper inside
from me to you and back to me,
and us, nested there within.
I know, I know…I can hear the squeal of mental brakes locked up, smell the smouldering acrid heat of belts spinning fast on cogs that are jammed and won’t move…did Charissa just say she is an introvert???
Giggle…believe it or not, I am indeed.
So, before I get to my point, I want to preface with this:
I love what my friend Dani writes of and speaks of when she mentions icebergs as a phenomena and metaphor for seeing and understanding what you see. She points out that the vast majority of an iceberg is under the surface, regardless of what is visible on the surface. She then has sort of developed this teaching moment for her readers, derived from her own life practice, and instructs us to understand that we must intention to see, and in that intentionality we can see what we don’t see…granting credence, respect, inferring presence and thus legitimacy to something more, something that exists and extends beyond our own way of defining it.
I think it is this intentionality of being and granting being that informs Dani’s writing and thus infuses it with such potency and presence. And it is also what enables her to see me, something that is a literal miracle to me but the scope of which far exceeds this forum’s ability to reflect or contain.
Anyway, I am an introvert, in that all that is visible is really not that much compared to the things unseen in me, unsaid by me, and unacted on thru me. I have tried to build in an “airlock” in me…a space thru which I try to pass all things before they exit or enter me.
I am much better at filtering the things I allow out than the things I allow in! But I am working on that!
So this post was stimulated by the quote below:
“One of the risks of being quiet is that the other people can fill your silence with their own interpretation:You’re bored. You’re depressed. You’re shy. You’re stuck up. You’re judgmental.When others can’t read us, they write their own story—not always one we choose or that’s true to who we are.”
— Sophia Dembling’s The Introvert’s Way
I think that is what goes on in a lot of ways with a lot of people…and it was an insight moment for me in regards to my dementors. They simply must settle things, and settle them in the way that makes them feel–what? Authentic? Present? Solid? Justified? Affirmed? Secure? Any of those things can drive dementing.
I want to go ya one further: even when it is more benign and less toxic, less radioactive and destructive, the small, daily banal ways that we do this “defining” of others can really be a source of a lot of alienation and separation. The ways we look at our spouse when they are quiet, and we want to know what is up…or the way we imagine our friend when we haven’t heard anything…or the way we speculate on the inside of our teenager’s brain…it might be the one greatest source of separation between people there is…and the truly sad thing is that most of the time the motives are fairly benign!
So…give another go to the quote, and really chew it. Then give some more thought to Dani’s beautiful practice of Intentionality…and then lastly, see what you see, and see what you see by what is unseen!
Love Charissa
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward being is perishing, yet the inward person is being renewed day by day.
“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.
“For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
I do shed tears, these days
(and nights…it is strange to wake
and find the wet residue of sorrows
dried and digging at the corners of my eyes),
I also shed dreams too
(like tears).
I dreamed, last night
(last night…it is strange to wake
and find the dry remnants of dreams
moist and pressed, pushing into the spaces between me and my pillow),
I also shed tears too
(like dreams).
I think…yes.
I dreamed that I walked lands crying
and my tears fell on red sands glistening
(my tears glistening, not the sands, they lay leering, skulking, glaring flat and angry).
my tears
(the ones in my dreams, the ones with no shadow)
my tears on red sands sizzled
because I had no shadow, they had no shadow
(the tears and me, not the sands and dreams)
and then in that glaring sun unbridled, that staring star unfiltered
they (my tears) became pearls
of white
and ivory
and pink
(like the armpits of abalones, who also learned to live without shadows)
they
(my tears, not the abalones, or the red sands, or the shadows)
became pearls of My Mother, the Mother of Pearls
(born of tears shed on red sands glaring, tears glistening and without shadow)
and then I saw, Her (not shadows or sands) walking there,
sowing in tears and reaping in pearls with nary a diamond in sight
(because diamonds have shadows and slinky songs and glittery platinum brittle best friends)
and She turned to me, She bid me pick them up
(the pearls, not sands and shadows)
and take…eat…and I did and where they lay the sand was gone
(like shadows flee daylight)
and green grass jumped lush into my eyes with verdant glee!
And the pearls tasted like honey
(and clear thirst-quenching shadow-clearing life)
and the pearls became glory within me
and I rose up on glory, I rose up in glory,
glory within me and glory in the air
(and the pearls of my Mother, not the sands and shadows)
and I saw my shadow, distant and crumpled and pinned to the ground
for always by arrows and spears and the knives
of those children of red sand and shadows.
And just as I began to wake
I realized that ever would they gather there,
around that shadow pinned and empty of all save their vitriol and hate
while I walked free but achy across the red sands, with no shadow
between me and that stark sun except for the glory
that’s given by pearls plucked from green grass so verdant
that used to be red sand hot
on which was shed precious
tears without shadow.
So I wake, each time
(not to day, not in night, I wake to me)
I wake and realize I do not need a shadow
to stand between me and the sun and some something
to tell me that I am, I am.
I just need those tears
shed on sands red and glaring
become pearls from my Mother
to wrap me in glory and glory wrapped in me
and no shadow
my shadow forever
In 1937 two women caused a car accident by wearing shorts in public for the first time
I read the following comment on a site where I just spotted this:
No they didn’t. The man driving his car who took his eyes off the road because he was staring at a pair of women caused a car crash. He averted his eyes from the road, he endangered other people and he crashed his own car. This is all the proof you need that we live in a society that blames women for things they didn’t do.
Constance…your assignment for today: think of all the ways that we blame shift in our society…because blame-shifting is such a common thing for humans to do anyway (hey, see Genesis: the woman blames the snake, and then Adam blames the woman, and then blames God too…).
But there are huge ways we do that culturally…rape is a good one to look at. Ways that people are either empowered with entitlement in shifting blame to women for being raped, or ways that women are violated even deeper in that they are made responsible for their own violation.
Race is another one…and the issue of “driving while black, walking while black, or fill in the blank while black” and how police authorities then blame-shift their own hatred, or fear, or whatever onto the ones they brutalize.
Religion is another, and it is a veritable tennis match as haters on both sides shift viscous volleys of blame back and forth from “those damned liberals” to “those ignorant fundies”.
And now that you are warmed up…how about just lil old you? How do you blame shift onto others? (Charissa will not comment regarding her own woodshedding with Mama regarding that Q)
I’m attracted to trans women – Salon.com.
I am pressing this, Constance, because it is the chronicle of the courage of a person to explore the dynamics and politics of gender in a world that is gradually moving from ignorance into enlightenment in this area.
No…this does not mean that I want to date men.
No…this does not mean that I want to date women either! Quite simply, gender and sexuality intersect only to the degree that the individual person connects them, they are not inextricably joined at the hip!
All desire to date anyone disappeared from within me the literal instant my eyes saw my beloved. She is my “sexual orientation”…She is my “sexual preference”…I don’t know if I would have seen her if she was male-bodied, but now that I have lived with her these last decades, well it would not matter to me what body she had…she is herself, and forever my one and only love.
Just wanted to mention that because of the coming crap storm from my self-appointed “lovers of the sinner” who will say that I am (fill in the blank from their fetid minds and sordid imaginations and black hearts)…
Nope, none of that, I want you to please read the thoughtful intelligent steps of courage of a human being.
It is only circumstance that I met my beloved before dealing with my gender issues…who knows how the struggle would have been? And that is why the issue must be grappled with. Each person needs love and someone to love…even transgender people.
Charissa
PS: I just noticed that this article appeared in a different form at this link:
It is just enough different as to be interesting.
They stood there,
silhouetted against the sunrise
and rifles aimed, at me
silhouetted against the velvet dark
of dawning and birth and being,
silhouetted against that red brick wall.
21 guns, barrels like unblinking eyes,
black, flat depths unblinking too
and peering from their graves
in grim unfeeling determination
to put me in my place,
put me in my grave,
put me back with them.
There are 3 bullets among them,
the 21 guns staring unblinking and grim,
and they comfort themselves with lies
that they do not know who has the bullets…
but I do, I know, I see
the silver winking bright
in the unblinking barrels
once (Father!)
twice (Forgive them!)
thrice (They know not what they do!)
And then the lightning struck
in those volleys of thunder raining down
over my ears as my eyes went bright
and my vision streaked red and silver
in terror and tragic tremour and
violent shuddery release.
It knocked me out of my shoes
and pinned my shadow against that
smooth red brick wall, now pitted
three times pitiless and gaping,
and I felt funny somehow, floating there,
hanging light and airy, somehow too light
without my shadow, crumpled
and remaining nailed
to brick and beam
by palm and palm and foot
and those empty shoes, kicked akimbo
by my eager rushing exit from that place.
Right under their noses!
I rose up unseen
while they stared on
in horror and resignation
except for the three
who leered in hungry glee
and desperate jealous lusty thirst.
But for just a bit, I stayed,
to move from gun to gun
and kiss the barrels each one cold
(and 3 so hot and acrid)
and then I began to rise and leave,
when I heard some flat dead zombie voice say
“get that thing out of here and clean this mess up”.
I saw that it was one of them,
a former being who was
a current corporate walking dead
(but hey, see this company credit card?)
and dressed
in shoes and sunglasses
and lumpy
in the dawn’s early light
and I couldn’t tell
what was more offensive:
my shoes skewed
sideways and useless
or my shadow
pinned and unmoving?
I shed one celestial tear
and rose up on the sound
of 21 flat cracks still ringing
and I leapt graceful
on feet bare and light
from sounds of wrong
to sounds of ever right
and found my wings
midst the flurry of sound and fury
and flew away for good
to a 21 gun salute.
Hanging here,
this moment,
this drifty-floaty
timeless moment,
timeless
like the moment just before
a leaf decides to let go
but the tree doesn’t yet know it,
so it waits, the leaf, it waits
to leave and never return.
It’s this moment, still,
between determined faith and action,
between sharp heart felt questions
(like whether God loves me or tolerates me, or cares or hears my prayers or is even near?)
and dark deep-felt screaming
despair unquestioning running
ragged and burning in flames
undulating from faith to action
shoving hard against paralysis.
This drifty floaty
timeless moment
lingers, lurches,
lunges, becomes
that drifty floaty
timeless movement
torn loose,
tossed down
spinning down
pinwheeling down
and it drops, it drifts,
it breaks and crashes, it dashes
into a thousand brilliant colors
and a million diamond drops
each and everyone shouting forever
I was!
I was, in my birth,
and I am!
I am in my courage
and I will be!
I will be
in the sea
and its salty desire, in the dirt
and its brown gritty tang,
in tree roots drawn up liquid again
from the ground to the limbs thru the leaves there to breathe
and to fly up and shine
in the glowing deep night
in the twinkle and tingling cold there to
glitter and shimmer like silver elixir
for seraphim thirsty in splendour…
slaking the thirst of angels…
stoking desire in God…
then, now
someday, now,
hanging in this moment
midst the fragrances of hope
and stormy lightning-strike ozone
stark and fresh and scintillating
in the stillness of the moment,
of the drifty-floaty moment
before movement,
this drifty-floaty timeless moment
10 Things You’re Actually Saying When You Ignore Someone’s Gender Pronouns — Everyday Feminism.
Constance…immediately pass this on to every stubborn person who is important to you. It is that good, and it does give the basic and true message communicated by those who refuse to use proper pronouns.
I know in my life? So unfortunate, but the people that I love, was willing to sacrifice for and even die a bit for, well, they did not feel the same way about me and they engaged in terrible acts of betrayal.
So, weirdly, it set me free.
Now? Well, thanks to them, and my wonderful horrible very own haters who come as dementors, I have toughened up…and here is the truth:
When you gender-shame me with improper pronouns and hate filled speech, you identify yourself as a hater, and make the whole thing easy for me. I can save my love and effort for those who are engaged and loving.
“But wait!!” I can hear the haters right now. “Wait! You have to love your enemies and be kind to those who persecute you!” Well hater…I will after you do. You stop showing up here spewing your crap, and show me how to love…and in my case, I am not even your enemy and have never done a thing to you, have never even met you! So you have the easy down hill…you simply be nice and love me…and then I will think about it.
“But what can I do to love you??” asks the hater…
Use the proper pronouns. We’ll start there.
Charissa
Transgender Children – Transgender Stories – Woman’s Day.
Okay, I just bawled my way thru this story…Oh Mama, please bless this woman for her faithful love of her son and of you. Please honor her for praying that prayer “Change my heart”, instead of wreaking havoc by climbing up on the throne and trying to change everything and everyone else!
Love, Charissa
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.
“When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse.
“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
– The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real) by Margery Williams, 1922
Hi Constance: This came across the transom today, and I found it fascinating! Clearly, the phenomenon of gender variations has been extant as long as gender. I am quite interested in reading of how this has been lived out socially in other times and places, cultures and spaced.
I hope you find it enlightening as well.
Charissa
Going beyond the Western gender binary – unlearning our backward cultural conditioning
In Western colonial society (which dominates many aspects of the globalized, capitalist world today) we operate under the presumption that there are only two genders, male and female. But gender is a social construction. One’s options for what gender they identify with are shaped by the culture they are born into. Biological factors are most-often the primary driving forces that choose among the available socially-constructed gender categories.
Cultures around the world have different ways of talking about, thinking about, and identifying gender. It’s often a challenge for (particularly cis-sexual) Westerns to think about other ways gender can be socially constructed. Westerns have the false equivalency of gender and sex drilled into their eternal psyche from the time they are very young, and re-enforced through examples in popular culture. There is no biological reality to gender. Many Westerners have the bizarre belief that one’s XY-sex-determination should also inform one’s gender identity, a socially constructed role in society.
In some cultures, there is no distinction made between gender and sexual orientation and the same can be said for sexual orientation – our culture socially-constructs the options and our biology helps us identify which socially-constructed option feels most ‘right’ and best resonates with us.
I’ve attached some photos to offer some examples of non-colonial, non-Western construction of gender. They’ve all been uploaded onto our Facebook page photostream in case you’d like to ‘like’ or ‘share’ them there. There are literally hundreds of ‘third-gender’ identifying peoples around the world. The eight I’ve chosen are mostly examples I remember from some of my anthropology courses but if you google ‘third genders’ you can find many lists and examples.
Who cares? Why it matters.
The most obvious reason to care about the way our culture has constructed gender and sexual orientation is to deepen one’s capacity for solidarity with people who identify as transgender, transsexual, and others whose gender or sexual identity exists outside of binary Western culture.
But there are other reasons as well. Western culture’s binary nature often creates non-sensical, problematic binary identity constructions that are inherently problematic. For example, I believe that Western masculinity (dominance, aggression, lack of communication, lack of emotional expression, etc) is inherently problematic. I believe that to be the reason why most acts of large-scale-violence and terror are committed by men (see: 100% of the mass school shootings in the United States), and I believe it fosters a degree of internal misery within people who heavily adopt these particular ‘masculine’ traits.
In the age of information, and the age of global connectivity, there is no longer any reason (particularly for young people) to feel isolated or restricted to Western definitions of gender, sexual orientation and identity in general. I think the social ramifications of a generation where more and more people begin to identify outside of the gender binary would be tremendous, and I think we should all consider how we can unlearn our cultural conditioning to embrace other, perhaps less exploitative and dominating identities.
Background information on the identities depicted in the above images:
Hijras
Hijras are male-body-born, feminine-gender-identifying people who live in South Asia (mostly in India & Nepal). Many Hijras live in well-defined, organized, all-Hijra communities, led by a guru.
Although many Hijras identify as Muslim, many practice a form of syncretism that draws on multiple religions; seeing themselves to be neither men nor women, Hijras practice rituals for both men and women.
Hijras belong to a special caste. They are usually devotees of the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata, Lord Shiva, or both.
Nandi female husbands
Among the Nandi in Western Kenya, one social identity option for women is to become a female husband, and thus a man in society’s eyes. Female husbands are expected to become men and take on all of the social and cultural responsibilities of a man, including finding a wife to marry and passing on property to the next generation through marriage. Female husbands may have lived their lives as women and may even be married to a man, but once she becomes a female-husband, she is expected to be a man. Women married to female-husbands may have sex with single men uninterested in commitment in order to become pregnant, but the female-husband (who is often an older woman, often a widow) will father the child of said pregnancy and treat the child like her own.
Two-spirited people
Two-Spirit is an umbrella term sometimes used for what was once commonly known as ‘berdaches’, Indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native Americans and Canadian First Nations communities. The term usually indicates a person whose body simultaneously manifests both a masculine and a feminine spirit. Male and female two-spirits have been “documented in over 130 tribes, in every region of North America.”
Travesti
In South America (with a large presence in Brazil), a travesti is a person who was assigned male at birth who has a feminine gender identity and is primarily sexually attracted to masculine men. Therefore, sometimes the distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation is not made. Travestis have been described as a third gender, but not all see themselves this way. Travestis often will begin taking female hormones and injecting silicone to enlargen their backsides as boys and continue the process into womanhood.
The work of cultural Anthropologist Don Kulick (a gay male by Western definitions) in Brazil demonstrated that gender construction in Brazil is binary (like Western gender construction), but unlike Western gender construction, instead of having a male-female binary, there is a male-notmale binary.
In this particular construction of gender:
** Males include: men who have sex with women, men who have sex with Travestis but are never on the receiving end of anal sex, men who have sex with men but are never on the receiving end of anal sex.
** Not-males include: women, men who receive anal sex from ‘male’ gay men or from Travestis.
Fa’afafine
Fa’afafine are the gender liminal, or third-gendered people of Samoa. A recognized and integral part of traditional Samoan culture, fa’afafine, born biologically male, embody both male and female gender traits. Their gendered behavior typically ranges from extravagantly feminine to mundanely masculine
Waria
Waria is a traditional third general role found in modern Indonesia. Additionally, the Bugis culture of Sulawesi (one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia) has been described as having three sexes (male, female and intersex) as well as five genders with distinct social roles.
Six Genders of old Israel
In the old Kingdom of Israel (1020–931 BCE) there were six officially recognized genders:
Zachar: male
Nekeveh: female
Androgynos: both male and female
Tumtum: gender neutral/without definite gender
Aylonit: female-to-male transgender people
Saris: male-to-female transgender people (often inaccurately translated as “eunuch”)
Kathoey
Australian scholar of sexual politics in Thailand Peter Jackson’s work indicates that the term “kathoey” was used in pre-modern times to refer to intersexual people, and that the usage changed in the middle of the twentieth century to cover cross-dressing males, to create what is now a gender identity unique to Thailand. Thailand also has three identities related to female-bodied people: Tom, Dee, and heterosexual woman.
-Robert
EDIT: So let me clearly say that in no way am I intentionally encouraging white people (or anyone else) to appropriate these identities. Rather, I hope that this post and conversations like this will lead to an understanding of cultural diversity and other gender constructions/identities and an understanding that there is no biological reality to gender, and that gender manifests itself in many beautiful ways across many cultures.
I AM encouraging people in colonial society to have a less-binary, more nuanced approach to gender that doesn’t lead to so much domination and exploitation.
I also understand that in order to talk about these things, words like ‘male-bodied’ or male are inherently western concepts. Each of these societies and cultures have other ways of talking about these identities. Although I wasn’t born in the U.S. I have spent most of my life and the entirety of my adult life in the United States. I speak no languages other than English. There are concepts that I can’t understand, that my language limits me from even talking about, and in order to communicate these ideas, I am restricted by the only language I have available to talk about these concepts with. My perspective is etic. I do not belong to the above cultures, so when I talk about these things and use the English language to describe them, I am limited in my options for describing a concept as abstract as gender. The very categories of gender and sexuality belong to the cultural lens through which I view the world and I could not possibly provide a comprehensive emic analysis of the way the things we call ‘gender and sexuality’ actually are understood (if at all) within these cultures. In that way, mine is a very limited perspective. But it is geared toward other people living in Western society and it is aimed at changing this culture, not to appropriate these others but to not be so terrible toward gender and sexual variant people in this culture and to begin to question the implications of how we define gender and sexuality both personally, and as a whole culture.
Also, there’s some problematic stuff in the way I framed this and some of these only have one source.
-Robert
all was hushed and quiet, so still
that the fiercely beaten air
fanned by that ruby throated
hummingbird became a hurricane.
her breath was fast and furious
in crimson jeweled puffs darting,
diving streaky panting gasps,
her wings whirring, fluttering frantic
roaring in the looming silence,
in my towering still moment
me so quiet here, so settled
and so solid that Nia-gara Herself would
whimper and under her breath
would mumble terse and choked,
reduced to churny tumble.
then a solitary cricket
just erupted into singing
and then nothing dared to stir
dared draw breath or dared to move…
and there,
in this space of cricket clamour,
in the hurricane of hummingbird winds
blowing but so far away
on lost lamenting shores
(in the edges, in the edges)
and an instant comes, arrives
when a wave is born and rises up
no longer sea but now itself
and knowing time and longing
to emerge and run forever
to the moon and to the shore…
this kinetic stillness stretches
in this intersecting moment
touching time and touching timeless
from the whirring wings aflutter
and the cricket in the gutter
and Niagara’s jealous mutter
to this wave leapt up from clutter
hanging on that crucifix there
not yet broken by its futile try
to fly across the endless sky
to kiss the moon and touch
her golden placid face…
the moment…the wave
hanging
no more sea from which it heaved
but not yet broken and unbalanced,
not yet shattered on the edges
not yet fractured there forever
to be that wave again…
…never…
that one moment of moon passion
and that rushing exaltation
(in the eye, in the song, in the mutter of this matter)
and then the moment shatters
and foretells a falling future
and the wave loses its option
has no way to retain wholeness
and just slide back unobtrusive
to the silver sea unbroken
there to merge again with nothing
and unknowing.
and the hummingbird is stricken
in the sound and in the breaking
of a moment and a wave
in a hurricane of movement
midst the singing of the cricket
and the mutter of that falls
and it darts away, is gone,
trailing airy sangre breaths
and the cricket falls asleep
and Niagara is emboldened
to again assert Her tumble
and the hurricane is gone,
yes the moment it has broken
and the Voice of God has spoken
in the quiet, in the mist.
but for me, well moments still
string together into prayer beads
slipping smoothly thru my fingers
as I mutter like Niagara
and I sing the cricket song
with my hurricane-heart flutter,
wings a-beating with such longing
for another rising moment
to arrive and to break over me
in knowing soft moon passion
and a promise of redemption
and release to finally rise
and fly away, my spirit panting
in red puffs and exaltation
when I reach the shore so broken
I can be no more there broken…
until then, well I will live,
midst the whirring,
in the singing
thru the muttering
in the breaking
on the shores
of Golden Morning.
8 Things Parents of Trans Kids Want You to Know | Brynn Tannehill.
Posted without comment, on advice from my bff and my baby.
Constance, please read this…please hear hearts
Charissa
“Do not fall in love with people like me. I will take you to museums, and parks, and monuments, and kiss you in every beautiful place, so that you can never go back to them without tasting me like blood in your mouth. I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible. And when I leave you will finally understand, why storms are named after people.”
— Caitlyn Siehl
WOW! This quote gets to the heart of a very salient, perhaps the salient aspect of Love…it transforms us.
Period.
Once you are loved, you are never ever a “not-loved” person again. Oh, you can lose all your friends…acquaintances who were kind can turn on a dime and revile you as evil and lost (Charissa waves her hand and says holla! Been there…am there)…but then you will be one who was loved who is no longer…and thus still one who is/has been loved and thus never “not-loved” (or maybe to say “has never ever been loved”).
There are many things that masquerade as love: desire, lust, hate, fear, anxiety, courage, wanderlust, romance, religion, law…and many others, Each one of these things affects us, impacts us…but to transform us, now …that is a completely other thing.
I am speaking here of the transformation that is of this order: tadpoles into frogs, caterpillars into butterflies, ice into steam, plain water into tea or coffee, one who has never reproduced into one who is holding offspring, one who was totally spiritually dead who is not alive with a life not of this worldy order and frame, but with a Life that comes from Beyond the Universe…transformation.
So now re-read the quote, and you can see there that what she is saying to you is that if you show yourself to her, she is going to give you everything, no holds barred, nothing held back, come what may…and she is promising, no…she is covenanting with you that you as you are right now in yourself will be transformed…or “destroyed in the most beautiful way possible”…
I get that. I get what she is saying…and I want to be this kind of person, but with a slight but important twist that would read something like this:
“Count the cost
if you find me interesting
and want to know more.
If you really want to be in my life,
we will be together, and in that place,
everything looked at will never
be seen by one again!
We will see it, from now on!
Works of art well known
will seem strange and alien and
need explanation and interpretation.
Long familiar haunts of ancient peace
will be new and turbulent and full
of glorious upheaval as they
settle underneath the feet of we.
You will never again
taste anything as it once was…
it will taste always of peaches in hot sun
and fudge in cold snow,
of salt in rainy days
and honey in times of sorrow.
Every moment
I will be present with you
and the me I am
will be an always kiss
of your heart,
to your soul,
of your vital you.
I will never go away
until death sunders us,
and in that moment
you will hate death
as deeply as I do,
and vow to join my side
at the arena wall
when He stomps death dry
and disappears it forever.
Count the cost,
and if you still want,
then I love you
and let us go laughing.”
Love, Charissa Grace and all her sticky bleeding heart
Constance, I think I will be okay to post about this, as it is unrelated to the other issues I am dealing with in my life.
I want to talk about terminology…and the way that an issue is presented, discussed, talked about and written about has such a profound effect on the overall zeitgeist of what the issue actually is.
Let me build on the article I posted yesterday (right here is the link again: Gender Confirmation Surgery: What’s In a Name? ), and tell you a bit about what it is like to be someone like me…or really, someone from any minority group that is little understood…but I only know about mine, right?
Imagine if you will that suddenly, for no reason that you could tell, everyone you met began calling you by the gender other than the one you identify as…if you are a woman, they called you a man, and if you are a man, they called you a woman. What would you do?
First, you would correct them…but wait, then you see the looks of confusion, or puzzlement, or irritation, cus no one likes being corrected for anything.
So then you will think, well, I just wasn’t careful enough…what is obvi to me is hidden to them, for whatever reason. So you decide to explain a bit…and the eyes glaze over, or they roll cus you sound so condescending and pedantic in your convoluted attempt to explain you are the gender you are.
Next, you will check yourself…your dress, your pants, your shoes, all the visual cues you can control, your voice and your walk and gestures…but nothing works. No matter what, you are still called the opposite gender.
No…really try to take a moment…don’t just read the next line. Please stop: imagine…there. Now you are getting a scintilla of the experience, minus the wonders of the gut-grind of dysphoria.
That is the first thing.
The next thing is say that it was permanent for you…and you needed to do something or die. You began transition, and you found others who are like you for support…and then lo and behold the culture begins changing a bit. You discover allies! Even friends!! YAAAAYYY!!!!
But you also find that there is a lot of simply uninformed thinking operative in those allies and friends. You feel like you already are getting so much forbearance from them that it seems nit-pickish to point out their well intentioned but inaccurate vocabulay…or the truly supportive but incredibly wounding comment…what do you do?
Correct them, to save them future embarrassment and feeling bad because the support they intended ended up wounding just like the bullies who misgender on purpose? Or overlook it, and continue to try to educate as a context for the relationships so they can soak it up and find themselves in the right spot organically.
I will be vulnerable and tell you all something: whether I am misgendered by a bully who does it on purpose to hurt me, or whether I am misgendered by a friend who literally has no idea, it hurts just as bad.
And it is a defeating hurt, a deflating one…punctures, drains, and then, nothing but empty and worthless…the shell seen and nothing inside.
I don’t know what is right, so I will just tell you what I am choosing here: I am going to try to gently, gracefully and lovingly correct. As I do that, I will ramble and say waaaayyy more than I likely need to…cus I would rather err on that side than the terse too brief and too open to question posting of “just the facts” Joe Friday style.
Part 2 will continue below. I hope the things I write here have some impact…honestly I often feel like it is shouting into a canyon and what I hear coming back is just the echo of my own voice in the lonely stillness. But that is nothing I can control…I write, so that is what I will do, regardless
Hi! 🙂 Still with me? GOOD! Let’s move on now to a very sensitive and very important understanding you need to have if you are a trans-ally and/or friend: the misunderstanding that a transgender person is “changing genders” or “changing sexes”. You simply have to get this right, because the proper understanding of this is what will give you the heart connection with the plight of transgender people, and begin to expose the presupposition that biology is the locus and genesis of gender. If you need some information about why that is not so, it is readily available on line.
When you as an ally say to your other friend “I have this friend Charissa that I really love…she is changing sexes from male to female”, you think you are saying something affirming and supportive, right? And I get that. I do! You want to help explain what is occurring in my life, you want to show an identification with my quest, and you want to support me.
But here is the problem: from my standpoint I am not changing from male to female…because from the time I became aware in the world, I have never ever thought of myself as male! And that is the core of the horror itself!
When you as my friend tell someone “My friend Charissa was sooo brave today. He had the courage to be himself and paint his nails and wear his female clothes”, you think you are speaking of my courage and my grit…but you are actually wounding me very deeply by not really really grasping that your friend Charissa is not a he…and has never been a he…in spite of how I look.
I look the way I do because at puberty my body was flooded with testosterone…and if you are a natal female, the exact same thing would have happened to you! Think about that for a moment: imagine all your hopes and dreams as a young girl growing up, excited for the moment you began to blossom…and then instead you sprout, and sprout, and poke out, and other things worse…
Please…I am not trying to be a jerk! I am not trying to be that shrill on-guard defensive lashing out at everything anyone says sort of person. I am trying to let you know that if you really do care for your trans-friend or family member, your words will be life or death to them, regardless of the intent behind them.
I posted to the really good article on Gender Confirmation surgery in Part One…I want to say a little about my own feelings on this topic: it hurts me when people say to me I am changing sexes…even when they mean well. It hurts when I am afraid to correct them because it might hurt their feelings. It hurts me to not correct them because they will continue to speak the way they do in complete innocence but sadly rooted in total ignorance and will thus continue to wound not only me but any transperson they run across. And it hurts the worst when they finally figure it out, and they are then horrified and wounded that I never said anything.
That is my dilemma…I feel like every option is a bad one for me, except for maybe the possibility of writing about it here in one of my interminable mewling whining posts that drones on and on…
I am pressing on: it has been called “Sexual Reassignment Surgery”, and “Gender Reassignment Surgery”…but as you hopefully can see now, to me as a transgender woman that would be an inaccurate name, because I am not changing sex, or changing gender.
I have never identified as anything other than a woman.
So that was me…long winded and trying to be as gentle and kind as I possibly can, bleeding and feeling like it is an unwinnable battle…trying to educate on trans issues
Constance…I really am trying to help you…really, even though it seems like I am trying to school you or correct you, I am not. And frankly, right now I just want to run away and never come back and let the world just roll on.
But I have pressed thru too many times of discouragement to not know that tomorrow is another day, and joy will always find a way.
So in the meantime: your transfriend is who they say they are. They want to be loved by you if you say you love them, and they want to be talked to the way you would talk to anyone. If they are female, then they are not getting a sex change male to female…they are undergoing the medical treatments their body needs to live a fulfilled life (just as you would if you were natally female but you had a hormone disorder and didn’t make estrogen naturally, or you made too much testosterone)…
I am Charissa Grace…I am confused, discouraged, hard pressed…and I am determined to not go away and let the pain that has already been spent to all be wasted.
Sowing in tears, hoping to reap in joy, and seeing more clearly than ever that my name is my only hope
Constance, in general, I think that the stuff I am posting below is pretty good stuff…certainly my baby and me have experienced fruit in all of these ways and areas. And it is a good friendship guide as well, filtered for the obvi romance stuff.
So what about it? How are your relationships? Maybe this guide can help…and if you find a trouble spot, maybe you can isolate it and then dress it so it heals. Hey, when you get a sliver, just take the dang thing out, right??!!??? No need to cut off the finger!
We’ve all asked ourselves the same question at least once in our life: “Is this relationship going the way I want it to?” Finding someone unique, someone who stands head and shoulders above all those who came before can be an exciting prospect. It’s all too easy to cling to the hope that the special someone you’ve been seeing is actually the one you’ve been looking for, and sometimes it is necessary to think logically about what that person offers, and how both partners behave when in each other’s company. Here are 30 signs of a good relationship.
In daily life, we put up walls to block out the people around us, and it can be difficult to let our guard down once we find someone we genuinely want to spend time with. Often, relationship woes are the result of this internal struggle. Being yourself is one of the toughest things to do- not only in relationships but in everyday situations. We sabotage our own chances of relationship success when we shy away from being ourselves, and the mark of a great relationship is one in which both partners don’t even feel the need to alter anything about themselves.
If a couple meets for the first time and they are comfortable enough, they often get a crazy, sudden urge to come clean and reveal all of their dirty little secrets. At some point, both partners will have to decide whether or not to succumb to this urge, and the choice they make can have a huge impact on the relationship. The type of impact it has can tell you a lot about the nature of the relationship. If both partners are able to open up to each other and reveal things about themselves that they wouldn’t dream of telling anyone else, it is an extremely positive sign. It means that they both genuinely want to be with each other no matter what. The mark of a great relationship is one in which both partners don’t even think twice about it, they “come clean” with each other, about anything and everything.
A strong emotional connection with someone is hard to describe in words, everyone experiences it in a different way and everyone thinks they understand it. It can elude many, slipping out of one’s grasp easily, and there are many things which masquerade as a truly strong emotional connection. But nothing comes close to the real thing and when you have it, you know deep down that it’s real. This is an essential part of every good relationship. If both partners aren’t fully committed to each other and don’t truly care about each other, then it is a waste of time for both parties involved.
Sometimes a person’s true qualities are revealed when they are faced with serious, perilous situations. Sooner or later, a couple will be faced with such a situation, and the way that situation impacts their relationship is a sign of how strong the connection is. Sometimes a couple already has a long history of hijinks together, even before the relationship began, as in couples who have known each other since early childhood. In any case, shared experiences between the two partners strengthen the relationship immensely, especially if they are success stories.
Fighting is never a good sign, but sometimes it is necessary, and never is it a good idea to keep concerns bottled up without expressing them. Communication is key in any relationship. It is imperative, however, that the need to express oneself does not overstep the boundaries of communication into physical violence. People who truly care about each other do not inflict pain on one another. In some relationships, levels of passion run so high that people are driven to do wild, uncontrollable things. Sometimes this is unavoidable, although still completely inexcusable. As long as there is no violence or abuse whatsoever, a fight can actually build tighter bonds and prove to both partners that intensity is present in the relationship.
Trust is a crucial part of any relationship. One could even go as far as to say it is the foundation of a good relationship. Without trust, both partners will be fighting an uphill battle until they resolve this part of the puzzle. Trusting someone means believing in someone, it means casting aside all doubts and diving headfirst into the unknown. This is one of the hardest things to do in any relationship, because it means risking everything. That is why only the strongest of relationships exhibit true trust, because both partners risk betrayal and heartbreak when they put their trust into someone, but they do it anyway out of complete faith in their partner.
Sleeping together is an essential part of a healthy relationship, and has been proven to provide many health benefits. It has been shown that sleeping together reduces stress in the human body by reducing blood pressure. It also has been observed that people who sleep together get a better sleep and an improved immune system. It is a way for the two partners to reaffirm their interest in each other, reassuring themselves that there is still life in the relationship. If a couple is sleeping together, it signifies a strong emotional bond, trust, and true unbridled passion.
Communication is a key part of any relationship, but it is also necessary that the message itself is understood. There must be some level of empathy between two partners, and the mark of a great relationship is one in which couples can finish each other’s sentences and put themselves in each other’s shoes. Sometimes this can manifest in an eery, almost telepathic connection between two people, in other situations it can be more of an unspoken understanding. If at least a basic level of understanding is maintained between two partners in a relationship, unnecessary misunderstandings and worries can be avoided entirely. A mark of a great relationship is one in which a couple is crystal clear about each other’s feelings at any given time.
When a couple are in a loving relationship, they are completely devoted to one another, each hopelessly dependant on the other. In a way it weakens them both, and in a way it makes them both stronger. They cease to be two individuals and become one whole. They take care of each other because if one partner is suffering, the other feels it as if the pain were their own. Indeed, it is almost as if they both exist as a single body, and one does not allow harm to come to one’s own body. It is a mark of great endearment when both partners take it upon themselves to look out for each other and put their partner’s best interests first.
A couple’s trust is truly tested when the need arises for one to come to the other’s aid in times of dire need. Actions speak louder than words. It is one thing to claim devotion to someone, and another thing altogether to actually follow through with it. Even the most unreliable, forgetful and inconsistent person will still pull themselves together for someone they truly care about. A mark of a great relationship is one where a couple has no doubts about putting their fate in each other’s hands, because both partners will always deal with their own needs and desires only after the one they care about is satisfied.
A great couple is always confident that they will have a strong connection no matter what. Fear of rejection and abandonment can sometimes lead to one partner keeping secrets from another. This fear is understandable, because one partner doesn’t want to lose the other, but in the end it will always be detrimental to the relationship. People who truly care about each other cannot stand to feel the guilt that arises after the deception of one another. When a couple keep absolutely no secrets from each other, it is a sign that they truly have faith in the strength of their relationship.
Unless two partners are truly committed to each other, their efforts to please each other will undoubtedly be half-hearted. To be considered a great relationship, a couple must be overjoyed by the feeling of causing each other comfort and pleasure. It must be a top priority. Commitment can also mean being unafraid to shoulder increased responsibilities and taking more serious steps forward in the relationship, like moving in together or having a child. Commitment is present in every great relationship, and it means that a couple is devoted to making each other happy and plans to continue doing so for a long-term period of time.
Ghandi once said that the strongest example of love on this earth is the love between a brother and a sister. A brother and sister have pure love, they care about each other and it simply because they care about each other, there is no other factor involved. Pure love is not loving someone because they are pretty, rich, famous or visually appealing. It is the love of who a person is, plain and simple. It is the intrinsic value of a person’s soul which inspires true love. Great couples have a strong emotional connection with each other based on who they are, not what they are.
In the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet, two lovers from rival families fall in love and although their relationship is ultimately doomed, this is a great example of how two people who are truly passionate about each other will always find a way to be with each other, no matter what they risk and no matter who objects. A truly great couple will never put the wishes and opinions of their friends and family above their own and those of their partner. It a great sign when two people in a relationship overcome the opinions and objections of the people around them and persevere through faith in one another.
A willingness to change things about one’s self, and to make concessions in order to please one’s partner is a sign that the relationship is a strong one. One should not feel the need to become a vastly different person in order to please one’s partner, or to spend lots of money on them, but in a great relationship both partners are willing to make sacrifices for each other. Sometimes this can end up improving both partners’ lives, especially if one is forced to give up a bad habit to please the other. A couple’s willingness to put their own needs after each other’s is a sign of a great relationship.
Couples who are truly content with each other’s company will always remain positive, no matter what has happened in the past. In a great relationship, two partners who are in good health will always be happy with the fact that they are together, and right then in that moment, that is all that matters. They count it as a miracle and a blessing that they have each other, and that feeling is so sweet that it makes them focus only on the here and now, the present. Often in great relationships couples are proud of the long road that it took to get them where they are, and count the path that lays behind them as further testament to the strength of their bond.
A truly great couple can break down and cry together without fear of losing face. Neither partners tries to uphold a facade of being a superman or woman, they accept each other’s humanity and realize that life has its struggles, and that we all can feel low sometimes. A couple who truly care about each other doesn’t lose respect for one another when they see each other suffering, instead they try to understand it and help them through it. A mark of a great relationship is one where both partners have experienced firsthand each other’s weaknesses, and they have persevered with each other’s help.
Couple who are truly serious about each other often think about what kind of effect the loss of their partner could have on them. It is almost unthinkable for both partners in a great relationship to have to go through the pain of losing each other, it is not something that they even want to think about. This is because in a great relationship, both partners are such a huge part of each other’s lives that without each other’s presence their lives would be empty and meaningless. the acceptance of this sad truth is one of the things which makes a great relationship.
It is often said that people are attracted by good qualities in other people which remind them of their own good qualities. On the other hand it is also said that people are repulsed by bad qualities that they observe in others which remind them of qualities they don’t like about themselves. In a truly great relationship, both partners are able to put these feelings aside, and instead focus on simply who that person is at their core, rather than what that person reminds them of. If in fact partners in a good relationship remind each other of their own flaws, this feeling is not met with reluctance but acceptance, and it can even inspire both parties to improve themselves and accept their own flaws.
If someone feels the need to make their partner feel jealous, it is sometimes because they are not sure whether or not that person cares about them, and wants to see how much their partner will suffer after seeing them acting intimate or friendly with someone else. Other times, it is simply because they want to see their partner suffer and squirm. Either way, this behavior is not a hallmark of a good, functional relationship. A great couple is truly confident that they are desired by each other, and doesn’t feel the need to reaffirm this fact or prove it to anyone.
One doesn’t simply get bored of a genuinely meaningful relationship. When two partners are truly captivated by each other, everything seems new and meaningful, nothing is routine. If the passion fades with time and a couple feels like they are just going through the motions, then the relationship is not a truly worthwhile one. In a great relationship, a couple may come to assume that they will always be together. Too often however, is the assumption made that this enables partners in the relationship to get away with all manner of wrongdoings and still be able to count on the one they care about to still devote themselves to the relationship. Truly great couples do not take the affection of their partners for granted, and will never abuse their partner’s trust.
As long as two partners with a strong connection are in a relationship, life will always be worth living to both of them. If one feels dissatisfied or unhappy with their life and is currently in a relationship with someone, then the person they are in a relationship with isn’t someone they truly enjoy spending time with. A couple in a great relationship could be completely broke, going through the worst spell of bad luck imaginable and still love life, because in spite of all their difficulties they still have each other.
Couples with a strong attraction to each other sometimes experience the strange phenomenon of being reminded of their true self when in each other’s company. It comes as a kind of heavy realization, that a couple only feels like they can truly be themselves when in each other’s company. Indeed, it can feel as though one’s whole life previous to meeting one’s partner was merely a false prelude to one’s true life. The mark of a truly great relationship is one where both partners feel at peace with themselves, each other, and the world around them when they are in each other’s company.
Couples that have a strong connection beleive in each other. Partners that are in great relationships never belittle or patronize each other, they take each other seriously. They might playfully tease each other or joke around, but it never becomes mean or distasteful. They are constantly encouraging each other to succeed and to try things which they might not believe they are capable of. A mark of a truly great relationship is one where each partner never looks down on the other. When people truly care about each other they compliment each other and constantly reassure one another of their potential
Constance…I have no words to express what this means to me…what is being said to me…both in the post and in the comments. I simply will repost this, and let you know something: each of you is a potential ally in someone’s life. I an so very blessed to have the one that I do, and she knows how I feel, who I am, and our welcoming, beckoning road…and thus for me to say anything more is inappropriate, in that the only legit words for to say are uh-MAZED and broken thank yous…55 years of loneliness is a long time.
You don’t get to decide the truth. Other people have their own experiences, just as valid. This is easy to forget. Your slice of life seems so large and unmistakable, like a mirage of wholeness from where you stand. But it is your job to know better and not confuse your small piece for the whole, even if you sometimes forget. Life is big—much bigger than just yours. This is the only note to self: other people are real. That’s all there is to learn.
— Frank Chimero – The Only Note To Self
At an event earlier this month, I sat reading over the only flyer available: an advertisement for The New Three Tenors. As I glanced over the neon page, I saw two sandled feet standing inches from where I sat. I found the feet peculiar, noting that the toes weren’t bare but layered with seamed stockings, and…
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Saw this just now, and wow did I relate…the quote, I related to it in that I have some blessings in my life who assiduously refuse to allow me to beat myself up (if they see it! lol), and the pic…well that is just life right now.
“Stop beating yourself up. You are a work in progress –
which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once.”
Constance, I like this quote. Read it carefully…
On it’s face, it is tempting to view it as a relativistic statement, which, if you have read here much, you know that I have issues with that approach. Oh it is not that I think that I have the market cornered on truth…it is just that I cannot wrap my mind around an approach that says all things are relative and there are no absolutes…or there is no absolute truth and each person’s choice is absolute truth for them…
BECAUSE..these statements both have an absolute premise as their pre-supposition.
Do you see it there? Yes? Good.
No? Well, let me help: the first statement that there are no absolutes can be rejected, because it in and of itself logically is an absolute statement…and the same with the second!
So philosophically I don’t give serious weight to anyone who says or thinks in such short cut ways…for that is what they are: short cuts to deeper and more prescient observations and the potential for wisdom gained.
I do think that what this quote is saying is far closer to where we want to go. It is basically exhorting you to understand that you are not God, the all-knowing all-encompassing author of all things and thus the only One qualified to discern ultimately, decide ultimately, and judge/rule ultimately.
And here is the kicker: as beings created in Their Image, we have a “Junior G-Man” version of this authority! It is an honor, a wonder, and a responsibility! In all ways we must emulate Them…all ways that is, but one: humbly accepting that our view is limited by the scope of our enlightened awareness and consciousness combined with what Grace They have given to each of us to be Their ambassador in our space and our time.
So that’s why I love the quote below…it saves us from hurting a lot of people…it saves us from hurting ourselves.
Blessings, Charissa
“You don’t get to decide the truth. Other people have their own experiences, just as valid. This is easy to forget. Your slice of life seems so large and unmistakeable, like a mirage of wholeness from where you stand. But it is your job to know better and not confuse your small piece for the whole, even if you sometimes forget. Life is big—much bigger than just yours. This is the only note to self: other people are real. That’s all there is to learn.”
— Frank Chimero – The Only Note To Self
| — | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie |
Constance, I have written precisely one time on my explicit beliefs regarding sexuality and love. You can find that post at Love, In a Sexual World .
I reference that post, because it is saying very similar things to this lil quote I posted…
…the key point in this quote and the absolutely essential thing to grasp is this: sexuality is something you are given as your very own, and thus it belongs to you. It is a state of being that is held in potential, and when you choose to engage it, you forever are altered…just like when you get married, or become a parent.
Oh…marriages can end, but you will always “have been married”…children can die, but you can never “un-become” being a parent.
And to take someone’s sexuality…to let it be taken…well, that is the greatest act of theft that can occur: either the person taking it the greatest thief or the one letting it being taken the greatest thief from themself.
Recently I have been beset with acts of betrayal and broken trust. And in another place where I attempted to contact an author whose book raised many things, I found myself accused again of sin…sexual sin, mind you…simply for being open that I am transgender.
As a matter of fact, sexuality is actually one area that is pretty darn together in my life, thanks to Mama and my darling holder of my heart.
I will soon post about the awful and hateful things that were said by complete strangers…but in the meantime, seeing this quote reminded me:
teach your children that they possess the gift of the ages: their sexuality and the right of its dispensation.
Love, Charissa Grace
bleeding and cut, bruised and battered, but refusing the bribes of defeat
Constance…in light of recent events, I am continuing posting things I find germane to my current place, current state of mind, and current resolve to not accept blame for the actions of abusers…you all know the trope: “if you hadn’t done (or been, or said, or thought, or gone) X, then I would not have had to say (or be, or do, or think, or exploit you in the place you went) Y. Classic displacement of responsibility from where it rests squarely and justly onto the shoulders of the one who happened into the path of a monster for whatever reason.
I am vague about “abusers” for very good reasons of counsel…sorry, I would love nothing more than to name them publically. I might never get back what was taken from me, but they should have to wear the permanent stain of their actions like heart tattoos.
Insidious, institutionalized, and so deeply inculcated into our point of view societally…blaming the victim, and then comes that wonderful training in Stockholm to teach victims how to blame themselves, police themselves on behalf of the abuser.
I wrote a poem last year around this time called The Terrorist . It is making the point that emotional terrorism is just has destructive, just as death dealing as physical terrorism, and quite likely even more so, because it leaves its victim alive and violated, dehumanized and then made into the object of derision by the blame shifting that is then engaged in like a demonic game of Duck Duck Goose.
Over at Everyday Feminism you can find this article:
This contains the poem that I have taken formatting liberties with for effect…it contains it as a poetry slam short film. I encourage you to first of all watch. I also took the liberty of giving it my own title. Certainly if this is in error I will edit that ASAP, just let me know anyone…I just thought the piece I pulled for a title was apropos.
Then…after you watch…I want you to think of something. Think of someone in your life, someone in your past…the worst bully you can recall being around. Or, maybe just the most banal, the most bathetic…they are one in the same.
Try to remember what it was like when you were subject to that foul flow, puked in scalding gouts acidic and harsh…and then remember how good it felt to escape it, finally.
Then ask yourself: what became of that person? Did they go on from me to bully others? Abuse others? Are there other victims out there, and if so how are they…are they scarred like me? Worse?
And then lastly, imagine what things would have been like if you stopped the bully for good, or better yet, if someone had courageously stopped them before they got to you. Now what would the imagined future be like? Ya know, it is sorta like having your own version of “It’s a Wonderful Life” except in reverse…everyone has been living that bully’s truth which is in reality Aftermath.
I am confronted with a daunting and arduous road. Likely in this confrontation, I will be completely trashed in reputation, motivation and presentation…but maybe it will make the bully think twice next time…and maybe the sight of me publicly humiliated will somehow be the turning point that cracks a hard shell encasing a torn heart, and an enabler will be convicted to take a stand with the powerless in identification instead of taking leave in the safety of what we do now…blame the victim.
I dedicate this poem to a certain “Dick” in my life.
Charissa, clear minded and terrified
Quaking and resolved
Condemned to die and trusting Them who specialize in resurrection
Thank you. Hi, everyone.
I’m Lucy, and the title of this piece is…
Uh, the title of this piece is…
People make a big deal about eyes,
but it was really
the wrinkle in his forehead
that caught me
as he fumbled to
write down his number.
We fell in love
like children running downhill:
wind whipping past,
parading each other to our friends,
to the sky,
to the old couples we
imagined as our future selves.
When he moved in,
I swore he fused with the house.
I could hear his sigh
in the hum of my ceiling fan,
I could taste him in my coffee,
and anyone could
see him in my poetry.
The grooves in his palm
spoke of tragedies.
A frayed lifeline spread
to the pinky tip.
I traced along
those calloused patches
and kissed the scars
on his knuckles.
When you love hard enough,
you can embrace those scars.
And when you love long enough,
you excuse or even ignore
almost imperceptible
changes in the terrain:
when he gripped me a bit tighter,
a bit more often.
When “How are you?”
became “Where were you?”
In college,
I learned that in World War I,
soldiers rarely wrote about their misery.
They were living
a new kind of nightmare,
so what good were
the same old words
and metaphors?
Poets died in those trenches.
I thought of them
as I tiptoed
around the landmines
that littered our home.
When you live in a battlefield,
where do you find energy to pick up a pen?
Like a numbed soldier,
I lived from moment to moment,
and when the moments were sweet
(and many were),
I savored them because nothing
tastes as good as hope.
Because even on the bad days
when it seemed an eyelash
could set him off,
when he threatened
to leave the apartment
or this world,
still each night
he would murmur
into my ear that
these were the natural
ups and downs of love.
But there is nothing natural about war.
He was my comrade,
sinking into the trenches,
grasping at my face,
my arm,
my collarbone.
I wanted to rescue him.
If that meant
bearing his blows and
his slurred insults,
I would do it.
If I could’ve
swallowed his sadness,
I would have.
My friends considered me MIA,
but I reported for duty every day
and would’ve marched into death
if she hadn’t made me listen.
In that moment,
I realized I wasn’t his comrade,
but a prisoner of his war.
And after two years
and seven months,
I finally made
a break for it.
Some nights I find myself
clicking through old memories.
I marvel at the smiles
and the closeness and realize that
these are the images which remain
with me most vividly.
When time has had its way with me,
has softened the edges of my memory,
I’m afraid I’ll only remember his charms:
the crook of his arm,
the way he said
“Hey baby.”
I’m afraid I’ll miss these ideas of him.
But then
I remember those poets,
and how long they lived
in those trenches,
and the mornings
I spent crying
into my breakfast.
And now
when I pick up my pen,
it is heavy,
but it is firm.
I lean into it
like a staff
as I tread the ground
that hardened beneath me
the moment
I let you go.
The ink smudges my hands
like war paint.
I am bruised from battle,
but I am not
a casualty of his war.
I am free.
I am free.
I am mine.
Darling, are you awake? Yes?
Good…do you remember our beginning?
A little hut by the sea
wearing grey cedar shingles like feathers
ruffled in rainy winds and shot thru
with browns and blacks…
the red round rock stacked
shambling into walls that just spelled home,
nestled midst woven thatches of
marram shot thru with sedges and dandelions,
clinging to shifty sands like picnic blankets
strewn round that heart…that little hut,
our beginning kissed by windy sands
scritching out beach music
on violin decks and cello chairs of cypress.
You were a wordless humming song
and tidal in my veins you moved
in rhythm, rhyme, in time to that
strumming music tidal
joyous humming in the dancing of the waves
and sand and wind and sky.
We walked each day steady
across those shores ever reaching
to the sea and the sea ever running
back to sands and sunset ever blessing
everyday each moment with its many colored kiss
in hues of pinks and purples, oranges, yellows, hues of bliss
in reds and blues, and greys… you…
always grey lining blue of mine with you,
in silver shot straight thru
with grey shot thru my blue.
We knew each sunset,
whiled away another day
closer to that sunset last
and that final mystic gateway
at the end thru which we enter
Lone and sundered, hoping that we yet may
walk together on a new shore
where there are no sunsets because
there is only sunrise
sunrise
sunrise
yet again
and yet again…
We walk still each day,
and every sunset bows to us,
and then bows to the night,
to the next day yet born,
to the next sun yet risen,
to the next sunset kiss…
and the stars always
over head and constant,
glitter chips of always-light
against the thick and sable night,
the stars nod in return, return…
ahh…the beach at night.
Air refreshing, breezy, flexible,
runs its loving hungry fingers
thru your hair pliable
as we walk, the sand
packed and wet and clean
and time at last is friable
in the smell of salty air
its kiss brushes against you,
trailing fingers across your cheek,
over your skin, and I too brush against you
(rush within you kissing,
trailing fingers)
We are Quietness
nestled deep in certain stillness,
and snuggled yet deeper
in the steady static roar
of the ever crashing waves
and the gurgling swishy swirling
of waves playing tag
with sand and seaweed
and seagulls refereeing
crying foul foul foul
so the waves run
and retreat in laughing ripples
back to the waiting deep safety
of the vast receptive sea,
and us safely snuggled
in our you and me.
The sand is crisp and cold and damp
as we walk, you and me, our steps
singing skritch skritch skritch,
singing in time
to the cry of those legalistic gulls
and our feet slide as we move from wet to dry
and we skim across the surface
walking like penguins
so we can move thru time
and yet leave nary a trace
and you feel so safe, like you are home
and you feel so safe in my feeling that…
find safety in my adoration
and you are home…
We can see
a vast array of stars overhead,
a broad expansive sea swelling before,
and stretching there a beach, the shore
beneath our sliding skimming feet,
comprised of endless grains of sand
uncountable but having number,
speaking of the days of time
since time began…
everywhere
are unique things uncountable,
innumerable…and you:
a one off, one and done
and rendered even just that much more special
on this stage of infinince
in the midst of audience
of blank uncountable conclave.
and there upon that stage
you are all the more substantial,
present, solid, singular,
just the endless treasure of your beauty
and the vast stretch of my love
(echoing stars and sand and sea)
singing harmoniously
in the presence of this eternal array,
this echo of infinity
we’re in.
And we walk, away from our little hut,
towards our little hut, and away again,
and time is scrolling out before us,
we two, we poised to write
with heart quills dipped in love’s well,
and then time rolls back into itself
(ah, it sees its the sea,
rolling out to kiss the sand
and rolling back to dump those kisses
into waiting heart so deep)…
time rolls out day by day by day, and back again
neath the stars,
in the night,
with the wind.
I wonder in the midst
of this sandy sacred setting
which thing it is my heart echoes
as it aches and hurts so fierce,
so good as it longs, yearns
so empty and so full,
so hungry, satisfied,
so intricate, complete…
my fiery core of passion and of promise
what…
Rolls in and out in waves?
Glitters fierce like diamond stars?
Never ends like grains of sand
everywhere there’s earth?
It aches too fierce, too good,
it thrills, thrums too ferocious
to identify and focus on,
and then it gets dim and blurry
when I look at you and see the quiet
gentle fierce glad brightness
of your countenance at night that
dims the stars, and
blurs the sands, and
makes the waves stand still
breathless and in awe, and
I know then my core
is ever always you you you
we married,
long ago beside this same vast ever sea,
on the same shore of sand golden, tan
and singing to the music
laughing in the running waves
beneath the glitter gaze of stars
overhead and hanging on angel visions,
we married…
and the moon officiated,
she gloamed before us
as we walked into her temple,
her the Officiant,
the Congregant of Always and gentle love,
we walked her moonlight aisle together…
some marry on mountainsides midst craggy peaks
to the wedding songs of brooks and creeks
and others still mingle in the firelight
beneath the tall stentorian witness of deep forests
redwood and sequoia who roll out meadows
soft and green, and arrayed more beautiful and
richer than the wealth of Solomon in their dress of flowers
and stalks and stems as the birds serenade
and sing their praise to them.
we visited there, you and me,
we heard that brooky song,
we saw that craggy might,
we lay in meadow soft
resplendent in love and
we have in our many walks found that
we were foundered, mired
in swampy lowlands funky, smelly,
decomposing rotten and releasing
the last gasp of life in its methane relief
but still stinking of that unbecoming…
we have thought us lost but then discovered
that it is here that wombs become impregnate,
become renewed as elements of used-to-be-alive
stick to our skin in longing desperate clingy clutchings.
But it is back,
always to the sea,
we are drawn, we,
to that intersection
of time and truth and bright eternity
that we see tangible
and with us in the sand,
and stars and sea.
and inside us,
you and me, burns a flame we share,
yes the same one, the same blade
of those fires that we see before us
in the night and yet to rise anew
in the day yet to be born,
the echo of stars and suns,
of the moon’s desires and passions
for lovers everywhere
and the twin of driftwood fires
that we kindle every night
as our offering to beauty,
to love, to us, to light midst
the crackling shouts of wood at last
consumed and released popping up up and away
in sparky eager pieces at last
free to become the stars overhead
that driftwood prophecies of old proclaimed their fate,
and the incense of their longing
drifting around us in thick vapours
that smell of longing
at last to be fulfilled,
smelling of worship,
smelling of Mama’s breath
and the courts of the Risen Lamb,
and smelling of Us,
you and me,
and our little hut.
Constance I left the following as a comment to encourage someone…I decided that maybe it would have value here as well…hope you like it
The ache inside, the empty chasm
looms threatening in the night
and our heart writhes, and moans in spasms
and tries to hang on tight.
The darkness hangs its cloudy veil
and lays its claim to time
and grinds all words fine, down to Braille
and it seems no reason, rhyme
Can ever answer our hurt cry
can ever heal our pain
we know from here we’re meant to fly
clean, free from death’s dark stain
Sis, take heart, we’re out here, we
survived our cross of woe
we learned to share hurt, that’s the key
to rise again and grow
My heart is with you as your heart
beats every second out
may grace and peace to you impart
deep mercies in this drought.
I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers, dear one…if you can but manage to hang on, you will be glad, one day. But now, in the hard times, the silent scream times…just hang on, and think of thousands who are with you.
Love, Charissa ❤
Coming Out – Yes, it still does matter – LGBTQ Nation.
Constance…how ironic that it is “Coming Out Day” today…I post a really great article about it and while it deals with the topic of sexual orientation and being public about that, it translates perfectly over to gender orientation as well.
Salient words for me here (I substituted transgender for gay):
“Truthfully, most people believe that just saying the words “I’m transgender” means you’ve come out. In a sense it does, however, the real coming out, in my opinion, is when you look at that reflection you see in the mirror and say “I’m Transgender” and you don’t look away in shame – that’s when you’ve come out.
When you can accept yourself and love who you are and understand that the world can be cold and lonely and ignorant and intolerant – and you can still smile at your own reflection – you’ve come out.”
I have a long road ahead of me, God willing…one that I have just begun to scratch the surface of the joys and sorrows waiting.
But something is different: joys and sorrows are old acquaintences, especially the sorrows, and I walked with them in hollowness and null, void. Oh yes, They were there, are there…but:
What is different is me. Me. I am here now, and perhaps that will tip the balance in my favor at last.
“I’m skert Mama!!”
“I got this too, Baby…I got this too.”
Listen, I loved my father. It was out of that love and respect that I split in two, so I could please him. I heard his heart even thru other things. He never bullied me like what you will see in the beginning of this lil video…but he was a towering figure, and his presence was writ over my life large. When the twist at the end occurred, a torrent of tears tore loose…and I could not help but wonder what would have been…could have been. I used to mourn and grieve the amount of time I had left…before I was at last released and set free from this double crossed body, betrayed by sin and betrayed by gender..but now? I mourn and grieve the time I have lost, wishing I had those years to live proper as myself.
I mean…bff…would that particular source of weirdness and strain and uncertainty that surrounds our friendship be present if I had the right body? I don’t think so…I think that after the oddity of how we connected so deeply via writing and then fell into our future and walk our our present backwards, navigating the folds…after that was internalized, it would be a casual shrug, and we would be free to function in our world as we women always have, under the noses and before the unseeing eyes of men who comfort themselves with thoughts that we are like cackling hens and chitchatting crickets easily satisfied with baubles, shiny things and trinkets.
But for me being me…the penumbra of ignorance that surrounds me colors everything, taints everything…i think i would die if it ended up impacting you harshly and causing you trouble in your life. It haunts me, frankly, and makes me want to flee screaming in the night “unclean, unclean!” Modern day leper.
Anyway, this video is very redemptive, and gives me hope…inspiration…to keep going forward and not quit, and pray that my pain would be transformed into someone else’s power.
Bleeding and unable to staunch the flow,
Charissa Grace
high strung doesn’t even come close
to how high strung i really am…
but i lay like the dead lifeless,
empty inside, afraid,
seeing your departure as
the substance of my ugliness
and your withdrawal as
seceding heart to heart and
heart in heart.
anxiety is a fix-needing junkie
inside me, twitching and
twerking at the intersection
of thought and rational discourse,
wielding its squeegee
(some eldritch Excalibur)
over my heart wet and sloppy and screechy…
in its wake i am driving blind.
your hand feels absent.
my heart feels absence…
but your eyes are present,
wide in shock and gaping,
and finally open hurt outrage
asking plaintive, in naked anguish
what does it all mean, the cumulative
crowd of days and throng of years
in the long lost land called trans.
(and we didn’t even know
we were living there!)
your god-damned beautiful
perfumed forehead
(smelling always of heaven’s bakeries hot and warm
and working for that Feasting Day Coming)
it’s furrowed, that one line
near your left eye (silver-grey sea)
jumps up, twists and shouts
“this is not about you!
why is it always about you!
no it is not about you!”
you move off
like clouds racing the wind
black and billowy
to the mountains
to rain there on naked rock,
but I dwell
in the valley lonesome
and shadow deep
and dream of days
past and uncertain
to ever be days to come,
days of waffle weekends,
movies and popcorn (make my day)
chocolate and coffee…
and I am missing
long hours of talk
at the beach
in the wind, and later
at the fire
over wine…and later still
at hearts bonded deep
and words not needed
and action (then, now, coming)
rendered irrelevant.
I will indeed again
confess my love for you,
my desire for your company
and time and song
…and seeing…
oh to learn to be
grown women together,
all the while being informed
by the girls we were without knowing
and without needing to know
as long as we knew
how to remember wonder…
but you will never read this
(you never come here, why would you?)
so i can paint with fingers, feelings
and this canvas of grace
showing every clumsy stroke,
every wrong move
public and on display
and maybe
(Mama be gracious)
someday these words will be etched,
stained crimson on my crystal heart shattered
and each piece shouting love love love,
will sing to you of
all i thought
all i felt
all i forgot
all i am
all my love
Constance, this article is really good. Pass it along, please.
Sorry for my terse prose…I am feeling a bit down.
Running to Mama…Charissa Grace
Originally published on The Huffington Post and cross-posted here with the author’s permission.
Recently, a video about a transgender child in California named Ryland Whittington went viral. It is beautiful and moving and shows the power of unconditional parental love.
Sadly, like every other conversation about transgender children, the comments section was often unkind. Scanning the comments, I saw the same poorly thought-out ideas keep popping up. Many of them were similar to things said about transgender adults, but others were particular to transgender children.
I think it’s time to put these misconceptions to bed.
The overwhelming consensus of the psychological community is that gender identity is formed by the age of two or three. The consensus of the medical community is that sexual dimorphism of the brain occurs in utero as a result of exposure, or lack thereof, to androgens.
In other words, gender identity and expression are determined before a child is even born. It is only at two or three that they can express it.
Even those psychologists who push for “reparative therapy” to “normalize” gender non-conforming children acknowledge that if a child is still asserting a particular gender identity at the age of six, the odds of it changing are exceedingly small.
In utero, the reproductive organs develop and differentiate earlier than the brain does. When the brain later develops in ways that typically differentiate between male and female, it is based on whether or not the androgens are present and received.
Usually, because the gonads are already in place and producing minute amounts of hormones, this differentiation allows the brain development to match the typical pattern. When something (such as endocrine-disrupting chemicals) interferes with this process, you can get a mismatch between phenotypes.
A person’s sense of self and their gender identity and expression are based on what’s between their ears. Who you are as a person is defined by gray matter, not by genitalia.
Usually this line of attack is meant to imply that the children grew up in a broken home, or that somehow the parents were gender non-conforming or ultra-liberal or somehow encouraged it.
I have spoken with many parents of transgender kids who live in conservative, religious, two-parent military families with both parents filling stereotypical gender roles.
Wayne Maines became an advocate for his transgender daughter and transgender children nationwide despite previously having a very conservative philosophy and values that suggested that transgender children did not exist. Watching his child grow, he could not deny the fact that she was indeed a girl, not a boy.
But these stories are all anecdotal. Let’s see what research has to say about the matter:
“There is no proof that postnatal social environment has any crucial effect on gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Next.
Let’s look at two of the most famous case studies of trying to “fix” gender non-conforming children. There was George Reker’s case study of “Kirk,” and then there was the case of David Reimer, who was raised as a girl after a botched circumcision.
In both cases, trying to cram these children into a box they didn’t fit in ended up killing them.
Nearly every parent of a transgender child I have met has told me that they reached a point of acceptance when they realized that they had a choice: either accept their child or lose them altogether.
We’ve already discussed that this isn’t a fantasy; there are biological origins, and simply identifying as male or female is not abnormal. However, this reminds me of nothing so much as the same sort of ill-considered opinions that people have about raising other special-needs children.
It also bears repeating that the majority of parents who have children who have socially transitioned reached a point where they feared for their child’s life. Suicidal ideation is common even in very young in transgender children.
I cannot say this more plainly: You do not have a right to question or judge a parent’s decisions when they fear for their child’s life.
Individuals saying this sort of thing may have demonstrated some cross-gender behaviors but not a persistent cross-gender identity.
This is a key difference between the two, and such comparisons represent a false analogy.
This is another form of blaming the victim. Shouldn’t we focus on preventing bullying rather than making the victim conform? We do not accept that forcing kids to act “less gay” is right. We don’t like the idea that avoiding being raped is the victim’s responsibility.
The parents of transgender and gender non-conforming children aren’t to blame if their children are bullied. More often than not, they are already doing everything they can to keep their child alive and happy.
If blame is to fall anywhere, it more rightly belongs on those doing the bullying and on school administrators who allow it to happen.
No. Doctors are prescribing Lupron, which blocks the onset of puberty. This drug is already being used on children who aren’t transgender to prevent precocious puberty.
The reason that doctors block puberty in transgender children is that forcing a transgender child to go through the wrong puberty is more or less irreversible, does permanent harm in terms of ongoing dysphoria, and results in greater difficulty living in their target gender.
For children who haven’t undergone any sort of medical treatment, they transition back socially. However, after age six to eight, this becomes very uncommon. If they are on Lupron, they stop taking it, and puberty proceeds as normal, just as it would for a child who had been given it to stop precocious puberty.
According to Dr. Norman Spack, who specializes in this field:
“[A]t the time that puberty begins — that means between about age 10 to 12 in girls, 12 to 14 in boys, with breast budding or two- to three-times increase in the gonads in the case of genetic males — by that particular point, the child who says they are in the absolute wrong body is almost certain to be transgender and is extremely unlikely to change those feelings, no matter how anybody tries reparative therapy or any other noxious things.”
At the age of 15 or 16, if the child is still asserting a cross-gender identity, there is almost zero chance that this will change. Then, and only then, are cross-gender hormones administered.
In short, the medical and mental-health protocols are designed to only take permanent medical steps after everything possible has been done to ensure that this is the correct course of treatment. Until that point, everything is reversible.
Along the way, however, steps are being taken to minimize potential harm to the patient whether or not they are transgender.
By that time it is too late. Puberty has already given them a body that can’t be easily fixed.
Medical science can attempt to mitigate the harm, but at that point it is expensive and painful, and the results only partially compensate for the effects of going through the wrong puberty.
In short, forcing them to wait can (and often does) cause massive, irreparable harm.
No. No. And a thousand times no. I have met the parents of gender non-conforming kids. These kids may express themselves differently but do not have a cross-gender identification (e.g.: they are a boy who identifies as a boy but likes things that are gender-stereotyped as more feminine).
I absolutely do not want children who are simply gender non-conforming going down a medical track.
What parents of transgender and gender non-conforming children want is the same thing that every other parent wants: for their children to be happy, safe, loved, and protected.
If medical care will help their children go out into the world with every chance of achieving their potential and having a fulfilling life, then they will fight tooth and nail for it.
It’s what any good parent would do.
Brynn Tannehill is originally from Phoenix, Ariz. She graduated from the Naval Academy with a B.S. in computer science in 1997. She earned her Naval Aviator wings in 1999 and flew SH-60B helicopters and P-3C maritime patrol aircraft during three deployments between 2000 and 2004. She served as a campaign analyst while deployed overseas to 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain from 2005 to 2006. In 2008 Brynn earned a M.S. in Operations Research from the Air Force Institute of Technology and transferred from active duty to the Naval Reserves. In 2008 Brynn began working as a senior defense research scientist in private industry. She left the drilling reserves and began transition in 2010. Since then she has written for OutServe magazine, The New Civil Rights Movement, and Queer Mental Health as a blogger and featured columnist. Brynn and her wife Janis currently live in Xenia, Ohio, with their three children. Follow her on Twitter @BrynnTannehill.
Dear Constance…I have a heavy heart today, and my eyes are red and throbbing from weeping.
The second wave of “loving wounds from friends” is occurring. I got a letter in the mail from a man I spoke with several weeks ago, one whom I have known for years and had thought was open and interested in my fate.
Well, the letter showed that while he thinks of himself as a friend (and make no mistake, he truly thinks he is “doing the right thing”), he does not believe that I am of my right mind and walking properly with the Lord. He makes this clear.
And I am so conflicted! Because on the one hand I know that it is not man who grants righteousness or will be able to ultimately label me, but God who has given me righteousness as a free gift and my beloved Advocate the Holy Spirit (whom I adore and love to call Mama…a poetic, intimate and informal expression of heart connection that is underlaid by foundational theological teaching and underpinnings)…and yet on the other hand to be told by someone that I have known for over 35 years, lived with for a few of those, and then worked with for our entire working career, someone who has not been intimately involved in my life for the last 25, has rarely come to the house, did not check in when Dad died, failed to notice my rampant and extreme despair, to be told that I am under a spirit of deception and not rightly choosing for life…
…well it is shattering in a lot of ways.
I am going to post the letter here with my reply…and my comments to you all here, not anywhere else (My comments are indented and in blue). I am deeply convicted that Mama does not want me to argue about this with people. If they are open to learning what being transgender is and is not, then I will spend whatever time it takes…but if they want to “a priori” judge me as wrong and in sin simply for choosing transition, then it is pointless to argue, for the evidences that I have biblically and scientifically and philosophically are moot to them! They have already made up their minds based on feelings, cultural traditions, and a few verses wrenched from context to bolster their weak arguments.
I think what breaks me most…shakes me most…is the awareness that this same process is going to keep happening. And it is painful.
I could take the easy road…simply post “No Trespassing” and let them talk…but then again, how does that potentially educate? How does that maintain openness to relationship on my part? How does that lend any legitimacy to gender transition as a Christian?
I think that I am called to a higher purpose than just transition, and “fixing myself”…I think that I am called to speak for those who cannot speak, to run for those who cannot walk, and to stand for those who would shatter in the wind. So many individuals who are trans are so very broken, outcast, alienated…and I…true child of blessing and privilege even though I suffered as trans…I am relatively whole, and gifted with writing skills and speaking abilities.
No…I do think Mama has a different road for me, a road that will end up on the mountain top, but only via the lowly and lonesome valleys of the shadow of death. I hear Her singing to me “You gotta walk that lonesome valley…”
As you read below, I am going to add in comments of things I would have said, could have said but chose not to. Perhaps this intimate look into the life of a transgender Christian woman who is in the trench warfare that only Christians seem to be able to wage with such exquisitely kind cruelty will illuminate to you ways in which you may have failed to truly love your neighbor…or barring that will inspire you to simply “not go there”…to the correcting stool…at least not until you have walked side by side with someone for at least a hundred hours for every minute you plan to correct.
Interesting how Jesus spent very little time correcting anyone…oh wait! Except for the religious leaders and power mongers who corrected everyone else and were the final arbiters of who was holy and who was not!
I am still Charissa Grace. I am still seeking to do justice, and now in particular I am with all my being hungry to love mercy…but I am so sorrowful, how do I know if I am walking humbly? Well…Mama knows, She knows…so Ima stay close to Her always.
*****Handwritten letter to me dated October 4th, 2014*****
I want to write this to you in order to respond to our conversation that we had on your front porch on Sunday afternoon three weeks ago. My thoughts have taken awhile to distill within me but I believe that they have settled into an understandable form.
My heart is heavy as I write this and just as it has been since I was made aware of your public display of being transgender on a Monday morning as I was (Charissa comments: insert work activity here). From that shock I have been praying and have arrived at these few points that I hope you will be able to receive not as arrows of judgement or religious diatribe but as my response and call to Truth.
Interesting to see here that the very first things he communicates to me put the onus on me to “receive”…rather than the onus on him to speak edifying and encouragingly. He has done no study since we talked, asked no questions, or really even interacted with me at all.
An arrow of judgment is when we infer a heart condition based on an outward manifestation of behavior. You have judged someone when you think you know who they are based on what you have seen them do, or fail to do, with no other evidence. Jesus called it taking a speck out of someone’s eye when the speck remover’s eyes were full of logs.
A religious diatribe is when a deeply held belief is held over or against someone who is seen as violating that belief or invalidating that belief, and the said diatribe will not have any authoritative teaching accompanying it…it will simply be an emotionally laden coercion moment. Sometimes religious diatribes will be accompanied by some form of authority, but nearly every time they will be things taken out of context or twisted to serve the purpose of the one making it.
The goal of both of these forms of interaction is to control another person.
For me personally, you have crossed over a river which I will not be crossing.
This comment was confusing to me…is he telling me that he will not be transitioning beside me? Um, duh? Who would want to transition if they were fully themself? Or, is he telling me that we will no longer be friends, associates? And also, why will he not cross? Because he is happy as the gender he is? (again, duh)…or because I am in sin and he does not want to be sullied? Which is antithetical to the example that we have in Jesus by the way, who came in the flesh when we were yet dead in our sins and active enemies of God.
And now I am aware that you made that decision some time ago and I was not aware of it. And I have not ever been aware of your struggle with gender. My shock and surprise indicates a weakness of relationship and lack of transparency and openness that I assumed had existed in the past and present between us. Neither of us am I blaming for the weakness but I am sharing a feeling of loss because of the way I ended up finding out about your life change.
I simply must explain here…this man has not been a true part of my life on any consistent basis that would earn him any authority to speak like this to me. He was not there when my dad suffered…he was not there when my children went thru various trials…he was not there when I wanted to kill myself…he didn’t hear me when at work I tried to talk to him about the despair that overwhelmed me…
…and of course, he was not there when I at last admitted what I am. Because how could I dare talking to anyone about it? Seriously…look at the response he is having. Tell me how that makes him a safe place to pour out my heart and make my very core vulnerable at the most defenseless time of my life?
Weakness of relationship…lack of transparency and openness…assumed existed in the past and currently present.
Hmmm…first off, notice the assumption there, that everyone be all up in everyone else’s business. Somehow either he or I owed the other one this “transparency” simply because we had history and were both Christians. There is a devious and poison doctrine that got loose in the church in the 70s, and it assumes a heavy authoritarian leader to whom all others are “submitted to” and demands an accountability to that leader, or group of leaders. This was most clearly seen in the Shepherding Movement and in the teachings of a man named Bob Mumford among other men. As time passed, it was repudiated but managed to metastasize and mutate and the authority figure became something seemingly more benign called various things like “accountability partner” or other similar names.
While there is definite wisdom and benefit in having someone close that you trust who is there for you and who knows all about you, this practice usually devolves into various forms of bondage and control in its best forms and flat out spiritual abuse in its worst. Deep study of New Testament behavioral codes place about 99.9999% of the emphasis on removing specks from ones’ own eyes, and looking for ways to defer to others with them being more important than one’s self.
If you had shared your struggle and the reality of what you were dealing with in your heart with me or someone, perhaps things would be different. I am hoping that I would have cared enough to pray and help carry that burden to the Lord.
As I made clear when we talked, during the time he knew me most, I had no conscious idea that the source of my despair was gender dysphoria…and yes, as a victim of that Christian culture during those years, I had “accountability partners” who knew that I wrestled fiercely with depression and despair, and they had affirmed the nobility of this struggle.
I also had one friend in particular that I was open about gender feelings with, though we did not know at the time what the dealio was.
He ignores the presence of my amazing spouse and her complete sharing of my horror, her encouragement…and then he says he is currently hoping he would have cared enough to pray and help carry that burden to the Lord…WHAAAAAaaaa???????????
Did I read that right? Let me see if I am tracking: so far I have been warned that there are arrows coming and words that may be resembling religious diatribe…I have been told that I am across a river that he will not be crossing…he has implied that I have been secretive and dissembling over the years and has flat out stated that I had not shared my struggle…
…and then turns around to say that he is currently hoping that he would have cared enough…
Here is an idea: how about caring enough now, enough to be around me and see for himself that I am still the very same person I always was but more whole and healthy? How about getting over the fear that I am perishing, and getting over himself that he is somehow the knight riding in on the charger to save the day, and simply coming along side me as a friend with no agenda but to love me?
I have a few things to ask you to consider and to see my understanding of things.
OOoohh…his understanding…okay, I thought, here is where I will see some information, indication that he studied a bit on this…alas I was sadly disappointed. His understanding is just that: what he thinks in himself, and for reasons either explained poorly, weakly, or not at all.
First I am concerned that you have made these life changing decisions without any submitted relationship and dialogue with the people in the Body of Christ closest to you and who have known you. Any one of us becomes vulnerable without being in submitted relationships that are mutually held in open and honest accountable communication. Is there anyone you trust that could say “(Charissa comments: he used my deathname here) don’t go this way your (sic) making a mistake” and you would wait and not keep going? Left to ourselves we are alone.
Where do I start on that? See, the term “submitted relationship”…that is code, and means that anytime you want to do something you have to run it by other people, especially if it is something unusual. It is not enough to be submitted to God, and daily seeking Them, daily being in the word looking for guidance…it is not enough to be submitted to one’s spouse, and together daily seeking God in prayer together. No…there is a different dynamic, one in which someone else…a human being(s)…serves as an intermediary between you and God.
Hear me…there is nothing inherently wrong with doing just that…but neither is there anything inherently wrong in not doing that. A Christian who considers God’s word authoritative would search scripture for any broad stroke parameters that would include or preclude the considered direction, and if it was not prohibited would then pray and ask for guidance and insight regarding a looming decision. They would also consult with the people any such decision would directly affect, so as to defer to them humbly and understand the impact a chosen course may have on them. Then they would consider any science, technology, teachings etc that would further illuminate the possible outcomes of a choice…special attention would be given to any testimony of people who had experienced similar things.
Ideally, if one wanted to, they would share this with the people who are rooted and woven into their hearts and souls, just out of friendship. There is wisdom in counsel, and counsel from those who truly know you is priceless.
If the considered action was clearly prohibited by scripture, the counselours would be sure to point that out…but if it wasn’t…if it was a matter of choice…free will…then the preferred course of action might or might not be received, and it might or might not end up profitable…but it would not a priori be a matter of sin or rebellion or deception!!
It would simply be a choice, one if made foolishly would result in a bad end, but a bad end not due to inherent sinful action simply because it was different than the “submitted relationship” people want.
In my own case, by the time I actually confronted my being transgender, I had also pretty much divested myself of all controlling relationships and was seeking to draw close to God everyday. In fact, as depression tore at me, and dysphoria grew worse, there was not really anyone I trusted who would not immediately say I was under demonic attack or try to “buck me up”. It was insulting and hurtful that they would think that I had not already recited every encouraging verse in the bible…I know them all, literally…it was painful that they would think me vulnerable to demonic influence given that I was daily interacting with God and crying out desperately for help.
Besides, I do think there are quite a few theological issues involved with another modern doctrine that I find specious (the notion that a believer can be demonized after they have been united with the Spirit of God) a doctrine built on a few instances from the days of Jesus in the flesh. New Testament teaching regarding who controls one’s body, and who lives in that body when relationship with God is sought is full and pretty directive so as to infer that wrongs and sins would be the responsibility of an individual free will choice to deviate from clearly stated scriptural exhortations which are properly understood contextually and culturally.
I was deeply saddened when I read his rhetoric, that were I to confide my journey in someone trusted their immediate response would be to warn me of error and then I would be bound to cease and desist. It revealed that he considers transition to be wrong and a mistake and sinful in and of itself…but without any biblical edict whatsoever, no scriptural authority at all, and absolutely zero examination of the science side of things to see if my decision is sound medically and practically.
Tragically, such an attitude does indeed preclude him as a potential consultant for life matters, for in taking the next steps after examining God’s word, I discovered that there are a plethora of wise reasons to embrace transition…and in light of no forbidding authoritative bible teaching, and nothing checking me in daily prayer, and nothing checking my spouse, and the presence of positive affirmation of this course via wholeness and health and a more robust and joyful life experience, transition seems to me to very much be an answer to prayer.
There are three things that are alarm bells to me that I have been considering since our conversation that day.
One is the feminizing of the Holy Spirit. As we talked you referenced the Holy Spirit as “She” and “Her”. And you mentioned that you were now most often talking with Her (the Holy Spirit) and not the Father or the Lord Jesus. I do not see this sexual gender in the persons of the Godhead. Feminine attributes yes but not the exclusivity of specific sexual gender. I believe even our personal dialogue with God should be in accord with God’s word about Himself in scripture.
Okay…stop right there. First off, I did make it clear to him that I use those words for the Holy Spirit as part of my own personal relationship with the Holy Spirit…but I want to make a stronger point:
There is an assumed perverting of who God is by “feminizing” the Holy Spirit! Do you see that? As if calling the Holy Spirit the feminine expression of the Godhead to us somehow dirties God, and that only masculine descriptions are legitimate descriptions of God! What if over the years we have lost touch with the overall richness of the expression of God, and that restoring feminine pronouns to talking about God is needed and in order? I won’t bore you with the specifics, but just for example, one of God’s best names in the Old Testament is “El Shaddai” which means among other things “many breasted God”.
Really?? So we are to imagine a masculine god with many breasts? Or are we directed to instead consider a nursing mother dog, who has multiple food sources for multiple puppies, and the message is that God will nurture you and care for you like a mama dog her puppies! What is so bad about God having feminine attributes? And talking to God using feminine names? Is God that small and small hearted that God would shut His ears to avoid being besmirched?
I see arguments regularly which assure us that God is beyond and/or above gender…and thus saying “She” is inappropriate…
but the fact remains that “He” is still considered “appropriate” and correct!!! What a freaking contradiction!! If God is “beyond gender”, then logic tells us that either ANY pronoun is inappropriate, OR that God is big enough to not be offended by ANY pronoun one uses.
Frankly, I find anyone getting offended at the use of She for God is simply manifesting the internalized misogyny bequeathed them by the evils of the patriarchal paradigm that has imprisoned us all.
Also, notice how he characterizes gender as “sexual gender”…and that is one of the huge issues is that people reflexively associate sexuality and gender. It was telling to me that he did not have the wherewithal to simply say “gender”.
Here is the kicker: God made humans in Their Image: male and female, which means that God is possessing qualities that we see revealed in male and female humans (and countless other ones I am certain)…but we are only permitted to use the male ones to talk about or to God, or God will get offended and smite us? Or somehow if I talk with the Holy Spirit and use “Mama” and “Her” as I do, then I will be ignored and even worse turned over to evil spirits and deceived? That simply doesn’t make any sense at all, either logically or theologically…and it certainly assumes a very mean view of the Nature of God.
“God’s word about Himself in Scripture…”
I dare you to make a study of divine gender terms in the old testament…
Secondly I cannot agree with what you are doing with the body God gave you. I know you know 1 Corinthians 6 well but it does make clear that our bodies are not our own to do with as we please. They are made for God and belong to Him. Making such severe changes as you feel compelled to do and are doing certainly muddies the waters if not plain challenging the Lordship of Christ and His ownership of you.
*Charissa face-palms here* Constance, you can explore that chapter for your ownself. Volumes are written that explain proper exegesis of it…in a nutshell, it is addressing visiting harlots for sexual contact, and even more specifically as a carry over from the kind of religious practice of that day which involved sympathetic magic, and sex in temples with priests and priestesses as acts of worship of the gods of the various cultures who required such activity.
The apostle is teaching that you belong to a collective spiritual entity called the Body of Christ if you are a Christian, and as such you are not to unite yourself with anyone or anything that would lay claim to that allegiance.
It also easily generalizes over to sexual conduct and the use of the body…but to say that these verses prohibit anything specifically other than sexual acts deemed to be illicit and out of bounds is ludicrous!
Can you see how one could use this verse by itself as an arrow to seek to enforce control of anyone for doing or being anything? It could apply to those who seek to keep others from piercing, or getting tattoos, it could apply to those who seek to enforce eating rules, or activities deemed harmful to the body such as professional football, it could be used to prohibit someone from getting surgery on a cleft palate, or on a leaky heart valve, or the removal of cancer-ridden breasts, and it goes on and on and on…(as an aside, I do indeed view my unwanted and wrong genitalia as a sort of “cancer to my soul, to my heart”).
No, Constance…we can be guided by what is specifically addressed, whether to do or to not do…and then we are in the wonderful arena of maturing in relationship, sharpening our ears, and growing in wisdom as we walk, doing our best to be kind, listen to Mama (Holy Spirit…just listen!), and apply the wisdom we have gleaned. At the end of the day, the one and only measure of the success of that is how much our heart looks like Jesus at the end of the quest.
The third alarm for me is your decision to change your own name. This is very troubling to me and I am feeling strongly that this will be a point of departure from which any return will be most difficult. The authority to name belongs to God and our parents not to ourselves. To rename yourself seems to me to be a very serious thing to consider doing.
*Double face palm* First of all, I do believe that I was directed by the Holy Spirit to take this step, both in the name I settled on and the process of doing it.
Having said that, I would again encourage you to read every instance of a name change, and you will see that my friend has revealed his own belief and preference, but has not given any evidence to back that up. I would give my evidence, but I am sure I would bore you more than I have already!
The last thing I have to share is one I know personally very well. It is that it is definitely possible to be displaying the “fruits of the Spirit” and yet at the same time be deceived and strongly influenced by a spirit of the enemy. This was me and my life for quite a few years.
Classic double bind here. My only defense is that the fruits of the Spirit are in my life and growingly so…and Jesus said that we would know them by their fruits…I deny that I am deceived. The fruits of deception are not there. There is no teaching that I would be distorting or seeking a way around regarding transition! This is just an agenda driven double bind, and leaves me no way to “prove” I am not deceived.
I lead (sic) worship, was kind gentle, loving, patient, and joyful in varying degrees. Yet I was being deceived and influenced by a spirit that held me addicted and subject to pornography and the selfishness of sexual sin. It was not until the day I repented and confessed with as complete a transparency as I knew that Jesus delivered me through His Spirit. That spirit left and never returned. But in retrospect, I was deceived even while displaying some good spiritual fruit.
Ok, Constance…I was privy to this time. I can tell you that there is a very different take on these events, but in the interest of confidentiality, I am remaining silent on that.
I do want to point out an obvious issue, though: Sexual sin, sexual immorality, and pornography by extension are all things that are directly addressed with biblical teaching. As such, it would not be up to any one individual to decide for themselves what was right and what was not if they wanted to remain true to the core of what being a Christian is…
This is a huge difference between what and how the bible speaks in these areas, and what and how the bible is silent in transgender areas in general and transition issues in specific.
I can also assure you, that if one is capable of reading the bible, practicing the things being practiced, and having a “clear conscience”, that this is far more a signal of a so called spirit of deception.
I tend to view it far more practically…anything we feel bad about that we keep doing will eventually de-sensitize us to its harmful impact. It is not so much a spirit, as it is a habit of our heart and thus a tremendous bondage that we soon are in thrall to. In this case, there was never a pretense that such activity was okay or sanctioned. There was no open display of this unashamedly, such as when I dress as myself freely and without sin, but rather it was hidden behavior, with great planning and scheming and sneaking around at work to keep it hidden and thus available for indulgence. There was no knowledge by other people who had a stake in the relational implications…
In short, there was nothing whatsoever in common with his situation and my situation. I find no scriptural prohibition or direction, on either gender change or transition. I have been open completely with my spouse, from the first day of our marriage til now, and she has been fully in the know and walking united with me in love. We have studied out every bit of information we can find for over 18 months. I have a fabulous therapist, to pursue all avenues. I have not “consulted” people from my past…frankly what happened this time was exactly what I thought would happen if I tried to.
At every turn, doors opened…this was after we started asking for doors to either open or shut as a partial way to receive guidance…
Classic double bind again, right? 
Now I am praying for you.
(Now? NOW??? How does one take this?)
I would love to see you take time to get a second opinion.
What he is referring to is the counseling approach called reparative therapy. Basically this is a belief that all issues we have are due to experiential wounds we have endured. The assumption here is that I am transgender due to things that happened to me after I was born, and if I got healed of those wounds, my issues would resolve and disappear.
As a former counselour, uncertified but very active and informed and pretty good one, I can assure you that all the techniques there are to be healed of past wounds I have embraced…inner healing, deliverance, inviting the presence of the Holy Spirit to heal…what ever you have, I have tried it…and while there has been wonderful healing from wounds, and true growth and health, my dysphoria was never addressed, and since I had no idea there was such a thing as dysphoria, I was left feeling abandoned and condemned, not good enough.
The general literature regarding the reparative therapy approach is mixed at best and fruitless at worse. It has no great success rate, any more so than any therapeutic approach.
What does have a solid track record is transition. The results of transition are measurable improvements in mental health, quality of life, and general well being. If you wish, do a google search and discover on your won.
I am sure your counselor is caring and inciteful (sic) but without the presence of the Holy Spirit in prayer even she is unable to bring the depth of healing that is needed. Relief possibly but probably not wholeness.
Again…notice the assumption? That healing is what is needed (does a cleft palate need “healing”, or surgery?), that I am broken and not whole, and if I was whole I would not be transgender.
I don’t accept this. I say that as I get the hormones my brain and mind need I am growing into wholeness like any other woman. Any one of you, Constance, if you began to have your body flooded with hormones that contradicted your own internal sense of gender and self, why you would find yourself dysphoric. It is that simple!
And the clear inference that I am seeking relief…oh Constance, while I am so blessedly becoming right, there is no sense of relief when people that have known me for over 35 years begin to speak this way to me. And the prospect of more looms…
Lastly, the assumption that my counselor isn’t a christian and that the Holy Spirit is not big enough to use any means and/or tool to accomplish the will of God…
Your childhood stories are hurtful and I know the wounds are real. I just can’t see the path you are choosing as leading to real true restoration for these woundings. There is a dissonance that is unavoidable and hard to make peace with in this gender switch.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I want to restate that “real true restoration” is good, necessary to every human being, and unless accompanied by the proper sex hormones needed for that person is powerless to address gender dysphoria.
Evidence? Buehler? Buehler? Dissonance with what? Unavoidable where?
Get this: I AM NOT MAKING A GENDER SWITCH!!!!!!!
I am embracing the miracle of modern technology that allows my body to grow into my already innate sense of who I am, what I am…Charissa, a woman, and lover of God and people.
You have in so many ways been a faithful and generous friend. There is a scripture stating “faithful are the wounds of a friend”.
I could enumerate them, the ways that I have been a faithful and generous friend…I won’t. Rather, I want to take a look at how in the midst of all the verses about friendship he chose to talk about that one which discusses wounding. I agree with the verse…the wounds of a friend are faithful…but now we must establish what a friend is, does, looks like, acts like, etc. Sadly, it is my far more common experience to be a good friend to others than have them be a good friend to me…that is changing, thanks DDH!!!
If my writing has caused any more “wounding” please forgive me and know I am speaking from a heart that loves you and truth too much to remain silent.
You will take note of his assertion that he loves me and loves truth too much to remain silent…so let’s look at a few things there…first of all truth. What truth has he shown that he loves that I am not also loving? What truth has he laid out there as true truth that is authoritative and I am bound as a professing Christian to embrace? I contend he has not done this.
Thus, the truth he loves is his own truth. And wowsa do we all love our own truth, yes?
Next, I want to mention that he says that he cannot remain silent because of loving truth too much to do so. Quite simply this is an inversion of New Testament behavior in situations where there is no authoritative guide from scripture to give specific help…in those causes we are exhorted to put our sister, our brother and their own needs and wants over our own. Philippians 2 speaks well about this, and many other places do too…it is the habit of “Preferring others over ourselves”
Lastly, he claims he loves me too much to be silent. I am not rhetorical here. Where is the love again? Where has it been? What does it look like? Since we spoke last, where is the evidence of such deep love? And what will be the path going forward?
In faith.
Always your friend,
XXXX
Wow…just wow. So now comes my response. I kept it short and sweet. You will notice that I did not include a word of what I have written to you, as I truly think it would be fighting a tar baby. His mind is made up, and his heart is closed up…
…but I have written to you, Constance, because you just might read this, and get it in a new way, and be kind to someone and save their life…you just might be that cup of cold water to that one person who needs it or dies. And you just might find that I am speaking truth regarding the absolute certainty that God loves transgender people and is far more interested in their heart and character than They are their gender!
Dear XXXX…
Thank you for taking the time to write your letter. I appreciated how you characterized my “public display of being transgender”…that statement is accurate in each respect: display, and being.
Please know I receive your intention and desire for my best. Your arguments are very familiar to me, things I have asked myself and worked through until I was at peace in a biblical sense. I spent sleepless nights in thought and prayer. I counted the cost of gender transition, such as I understood it to be. I am capable of engaging on these matters with eloquence in depth, detail and evidence.
However, I disagree with your conclusions, and I think the most fruitful option is to refrain from defending myself in a debate that is not likely to touch the heart. I do not think there is anything I can say that would cause you to feel better or rest easy in knowing that I am still okay with God and God okay with me.
I choose to be silent because I believe this best sets the stage for the possibility of continued whole relationship. I have found the courage and the grace to simply stand in the face of charges and accusations. Those things say more about the ones who make them than they do about me…as time passes, God will be shown true.
I know my hope lies in a life exonerated in choosing eternal transition from works to Grace and death to Life…my gender transition is very much a subset of that. I walk unashamed and covered in the precious blood of Jesus which is my birthright as God’s offspring…for I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until That Day.
I want to state for the record that I am submitted to God, to Jane, and to trusted friends. To the very best of my knowledge I am not in rebellion and I utterly reject the assertion from both you and George that I am under a spirit of deception. I stand with a clean heart and conscience before God and man, and daily welcome the Holy Spirit in all of the Holy Spirit’s Divine Wisdom, counsel, conviction, and comfort.
I do want to say I am sorry to you for being so informal, poetic and intimate regarding what you called the feminizing of the Holy Spirit. This verbiage is to me in my heart and soul a prayer and relational “shortcut”. I was open with you that way in the spirit of our history together. I assumed you would recall my being a student of the word, committed to fidelity, one who has sought to be a workman approved…in these areas of my life, along with the bedrock areas of Christian Faith and Dogma, nothing has changed!
Our conversation was about the issues of being, gender and me, not about the nature of God, the use of gender referencing God and what we should or should not call Them. It was sloppy of me to add the burden to your heart of unnecessarily using feminine pronouns for the Holy Spirit and unwittingly placing a stumbling block before you. Please forgive me that unwise conflating of 2 things, either of which would be “an issue” by itself.
I will close by saying thank you for your letter, and that I will always do my best to be myself with you, open hearted and grateful to know you. It is my prayer that the Holy Spirit will manifest the will of the Father for us and bear the fruit in us and through us commensurate with that Life.
Remaining silent in Hope, refraining from speech on most of these things in Faith, and deferring to the Holy Spirit in all of them in Love…especially Love…
Charissa Grace White
*********************
If you are still here after all this, you are diehard indeed!! Thank you for reading.
Charissa Grace, who is heavy hearted, mourning, and still not ashamed of myself, of the Gospel, or of God in whom I put my Hope.
UPDATE: 2 years later…this individual has not had any contact with me whatsoever…has not spoken one word to me.
This man who claimed to be a friend, and a follower of Jesus, whose professed life mission is to seek and save “the lost” has not even seen me since then or in any way, shape, or form even sought me out.
This says less about him as a person and MORE about the horrible lies and bondages he lives under inside his evangelical ghetto.
It has been painful escaping…I rejoice for the pain…and the gain.
UPDATE: 3 years later…still not one word from the dude. What a Christlike witness…HAH!!
I have seen deep rivers,
tasted long deep wells…
I have sensed some deeper places
underneath that
bedrock scoured,
bedrock bathed,
bedrock carved
in bass basalt and blurry
with water movement.
those rivers run, flow
in clear water,
in cool water,
in living water
come down brilliant from stars
in drops of crystal light,
in flakes of liquid gentle night.
that water primal, original
and not yet tasted with achy teeth…
that water drained pure
and drawn from veins of gods good
but long ago forgotten gods
with whole hearts soaked, besotten
by longings large and looming….
well that water is
right there!
you can cast down buckets
on lines of hope
long and strong,
vibrant with purpose,
but those rivers open
only to the meek,
to the lowly,
to they who know
the password is sorrow,
sorrow…
I admit I’ve been biting my tongue
for some time now, I’ve been
waiting and wanting,
longing to pour my heart
out to you, to bleed on you and you
not wipe it away in shame
but instead you’d
dip low,
dip graceful,
dip soft
beneath the silver surface
into crystal waters running
and draw up healing blood of gods,
lift out liquid songs of stars sprung up
and out again to fly.
I admit it has occurred to me,
maybe you are water…
no, waters
(cus the “S” softens the syllable
and adds a blurry velvet to the word),
maybe you are stone,
are bedrock, are riverbanks blurry,
overlaid with warm velvet,
with steel over that and under,
and blurry velvet inside again
ever singing of snuggles and tickles
and of sorrows too…
yes, I think that’s it…that’s you…
and in this fading light of day
washing over your face
(like water)
in blues and blues and blues
I receive this treasure unto my heart,
breath held for something coming,
breath released for something here,
breath given for deep rivers,
and I wait for that bedrock sunset
writ large in red and banked in blue
there, just beyond that deep horizon.
A Transgender Activist on the Authenticity of ‘Transparent | Indiewire.
Constance…this will give you a very good insight into the daily life of a transitioning transgender person…especially one going from male to female (I can only assume about the female to male, but suspect that it is largely a commonly held experience).
Salient quote:
“…It’s not a man coming out as a woman. It is a transgender woman who is coming out. There’s a line in the beginning of the second episode where Jeffrey Tambor’s character, Maura, is talking to her eldest daughter. The daughter asks, “Does this mean you’re going to be dressing up like a woman?” And Maura replies, “My whole life I’ve been dressing up like a man.” That isthe distinguishing reality for trans people…”
(photo from the new Amazon series “Transparent”)
after your dead leaves magnetic and alchemal
drew from you those vapours and fumes
our Mama gathered each bitter sprout one and all
burned them in fiery plumes
i cried for you, with you, sharing your sorrow
and burden inside of my heart
and then found a leaf from the tree of tomorrow
and wrote there with tears a fresh start
i give it to you, now, here, wet and made clean
and waiting the touch of your pen
that will write of promises aquamarine
Made by Mama, kissed with Her Amen.
and worry not that your inkwell might run dry
for I will my tears shed for thee
and there you may dip your quill, write, and then fly
to your Mama-promised destiny
and i? i will walk in the forests and trees
in fall, i’ll catch every fallen leaf
and i’ll gather them precious, add my tears as keys
and i’ll Sister-stand there, stark relief
so write on these leaves with your heart and your soul
and when they are filled up, write some more
and our Mama will faithfully there make you whole
from your leaves to your pen to your core.
i love you, dear sister and friend,
me, your ever faithful bringer of tear-washed leaves
Welp…it seems that the obligatory post has thrust itself forward, or rather time has thrust it forward as it rolls on. Today is the date of my first blog post here, one year ago.
Grace Notes is One Year Old.
It’s funny…way back then, I hardly knew what to write about, I hardly knew anything, really (now, I don’t know much more, but I much more know what I don’t yet know).
I knew that my life had been shattering inside…
I knew that I had admitted, out-loud with words, the deepest secret of my life, one that I had kept even from myself…
I knew that I wanted to die, but could not bear the thought of my darling finding me, or worse yet, not finding me…
I knew that I did not know who I was, and yet I knew very well who I wasn’t…
I knew that I had to get some help, and had searched the internet for counselours in my area…
…and that was it. I sat down, a year ago, and asked Mama (Who at that time was still Lady Grace to me…I had not yet given up deep enough to discover the surface of the depths of Her Great Love Personally for me…for me.)…
It was early, at the usual times I have been haunted since I can remember, and I was up…coping…just coping, using all the ways I had developed over years to push the pain down, to put up some sort of layer between my insides which thrum to even the slightest breeze and jangle with the unfathomable ways of others who say and do things that literally flummox me.
I said out loud, “Lady Grace, here I sit in the night, awake again (naturally)…what in the world shall I call my blog?
You know that feeling when you undress for bed, and the room is cold and you know that under the blankets will be cold too but will warm quickly, and so the moment you are undressed you just snik straight into bed quick as can be lickity-brindle? And then the first rush of cold covers, followed by that delicious bloom of warmth and you have never felt so snuggly-cozy?
Well, that was what it was like when the title, in whole cloth, snikked into my mind and was bracingly clear and then started to glow warm…as I saw it, and then began to love it…Charissa’s Grace Notes: Transitioning from works to Grace and death to Life.
And in that year…
I survived a family member not speaking to me for 4 months (4 months!!! I freaking thought I would die!! How do you go 4 months and not talk to someone you love? Heck, I would talk to my bff every 4 minutes if we lived in paradise lol!!)…
I survived major betrayal and blame shifting at work…from multiple sources (and I was not even close to being out then)…
I survived suicidal feelings that got so strong and scary that I made an attempt, until She snatched me up (thank you Mama)…and Constance, I think about that day, that horrible day of weeping until I was dry and still couldn’t stop crying, and how words lost their power and I was reduced to literal babbling in the woods as I thought to myself I am insane, I am truly having a mental breakdown, and how close, how awfully close I was…and if I had, none of the poetry that I wrote would be now…I would not know my bff, or my Sissa Kat…my darling would still be unsparkly and shriveled inside and utterly shattered…
I walked into a wonder-ful moment when Mama showed up…and that I will keep to myself…
Somehow someway I began to grasp that I am worth something, not a monster or pervert of freak (yeah, those words will likely echo in klaxon intrusion til I am resurrected and set free)…
I discovered that I am a real person, always have been, and have been fighting for the life of the “man” that I portrayed for all those years and I developed a “resilience” (thanks for that word bff) that simply would not give in…I found me…
I found out that I am sort of a cool person at times, and have something to offer thru my poems…
I found the courage to start transition!! The courage to tell Dr. Jessie (who laughed and rejoiced and said “Oh thank God you finally figured this out, we here knew 6 months ago!)…
I started going to a spoken word poetry group in Portland, one that I didn’t know a soul there, and no one knew me either…and I went there as me…me…Charissa Grace, and in faith I spoke my self to them, my name to them…and they received me, and once in a while they think my poems are good…
I wrote 2 very significant (to me…it didn’t create much of a furor to anyone else) poems…they marked some sort of a turning for me somehow…I think it was after my HRT had had a chance to extinguish the testosterone poisoning I had suffered from for 54 years…
Those were written at the end of the first quarter of the year, and in hindsight I see that quarter was a detox time…detoxing from the awful assaults death made on me the year before, and the year before, and the year before…the declarations there in those 2 poems are still ringing…
I began to dress as me, out of town and openly, and how can I ever ever ever find the words to tell what that is like, because as you read if you are cis-gender you literally lack the ground of (non)-being to feel this. If you dressed up as the gender you are not, and went about, seriously, for a day or two…then you would know just a poor facsimile of what dysphoria is…well I began to experience time lived in a non-dysphoric experience…
I further integrated, and regained a ton of childhood memories…and Mama showed me the true reality of “that event”…the one that tore me in two for the next 5 decades…and though I cannot unhear that woman shrieking in fearful angry horror and I will never not hear the epithets she hurled into my fabric, I at last can hear Mama, and Her whispered words tenderly telling me who I am…and She knows cus She is the One who made me…
I began to spontaneously sing worship and praise songs again…and I was shocked when one day I heard myself, and knew I had been singing over an hour and not even knowing that I had…
I began to pray again…oh I had always “prayed” cus that is what a good christian does, right? Pays the Lord their bribes? (Yes, I went there…and if you are honest you will admit that you have done this, bribed God with your deeds and prayers…)…but I began to pray for real again, pouring out my momentary heart (and ddh you think I talk a lot to you…giggle! Mama knows…)…
I rode bike with my darling…together…and those times are better than all of my years of riding alone…
…and thru all of that…I wrote here, most everyday, but not always…and I began to discover I have a voice, and a name…
…and 4 days ago, that name became legal…all things are made new, the old has passed away behind me.
Along the way people connected to this blog, and it tickles me that there are actually people who follow these mewlings and musings…and tickles me even more when I see blogs that have thousands of followers!! LOLOL!!! How the freak does that even happen, since I really don’t get it how I have any followers at all??? But really? The only followers that matter are the ones who read each post, and invest it with life, dress them up and let them live far beyond the page…to you is my blood grateful thank you!
And I am still Charissa Grace…God’s Grateful Gleam of Grace displayed…if She and They love me, I know They love you as well and more so.
Dear Constance…it is official! At 1:15:15 PM yesterday, the judge said the words…and I legally became me.
Charissa Grace White
I guess I am out there now…still have yet to do the entire company sit down and talk, which will be about 15 minutes…but things are moving along.
And yes…I did wake up this morning and feel totally different. Not some massive quantitative change, but rather a deep and profound qualitative change. I have often jokingly sang to myself “I Got a Name” by Jim Croce…well, now for real I do.
I went out to my car to leave work around noontime, to go home and get ready. I see a yellow legal pad with writing on the seat…and there is a vase with 6 beautiful lavender coloured roses!. They were from my darling darling DARLING!!
I dressed nice, in a style that gets me lotsa compliments (Scorpio-Patrol I think you have seen the outfits??), and arrived walking straight and tall and in the right sort of way proud. I looked everyone straight in the eye and smiled. I was treated with deference by this old man there…I honestly do not think he realized I was transgender! He was kind and interactive.
The clerk office opened, and within 5 minutes I had my papers and was on my way to a teeny courtroom. It had 5 rows of benches, and felt like a mortuary funeral service chapel.
In the back, there was an advocate for battered women talking to a woman about a very very scary sounding man that she had been involved with. I thought about how I had been treated by the old man. I prayed that I would not have to sit through that case.
When the judge arrived, she walked forward…slim, serious, no nonsense, and appeared highly competent. I was equal parts afraid and excited.
She called for me, and I stood, and then…
…she did this thing with her eyes and face that told me non-verbally “you are so brave for being here!” I just know that is what she was saying. I turned in my papers, and she read them over, the ghost of a smile playing at her eyes and hovering at the corners of her mouth…and then she took her pen, and brandished it!! And then she signed…announced that I was now Charissa Grace White, and openly congratulated me.
I walked out and down the stairs, and then in a rush I began to weep, overcome in the moment with the monumental implications of one loooonnngggg journey at last drawn to a close, and a new one well and truly begun.
The clerk was moved by my tears and much nicer…mayhap she figured out that this was a big deal?
I was alone.
Oh, I know you were there, but Mama had distanced everything, everyone…it was just me…and Her. I went home and stood in our house, raised my hands in the air and upturned my face, and I prayed out loud to Her, thankful, grateful, supplicating…
…aware that I had started the first life ignorant of Her…and was beginning the second in relationship with Her, the most amazing indescribable being ever.
Later in the day, I was able to have a short conversation with my bff, and her words of life just laid down right beside the prayers I prayed, and then later in the evening, my darling and I opened a bottle of pink champagne and toasted many things.
I am out.
I am free.
I am Charissa Grace, my Mama’s daughter of grace and sister to the Great Precious One.
I am at last glad to be alive.
You told me there would be silences,
differences between
mountain streams and valley brooks,
You told me Your flow was warm,
liquid collecting of the gifts
and graces of valleys.
You said my bracing quick lightning was
“clear and quenched thirst, but good lord girl,
to bathe in that electric chill??
I might never sleep again!”
You said.
You told.
And Your Face
so still and mobile
and wreathed in grace,
always grace…
and determined healing.
You wear tears naked
like jewels, like crystal
chips of Your Clear Heart,
intimate on Your face.
and me…spit up and emptied
and waiting for You
to fill the silent spaces
that ate grace and jeered
while feasting on my food.
me emptied, waiting …
and my heart,
ego-stained and washed clean,
captured
by Your face,
Your gift,
Your grace…
waiting…for that one grain of sand
to start an avalanche within me
of hope, nay!
of Hope,
sure and certain of its end,
like a leaf on a stream floating easily
on its way to the sea is certain
that it shall the voyage endure
and enjoy rejoicing!
You told me there would be…
You told me warm…
You told me…
You
words.
swallowed in medicine times
but found to be only poison
slow half-life killers
just in time spat out
in relief,
in apprehension,
in hope…
i am jacob’s half-sister
confessing her sin of being…
her…
“guilty of wasting a perfectly good man”
say those words that lay writhing
in a painful pile of self-loathing
at my feet, finally, and not
at my throat, those words
with their acrid foul smelling stench
befouling my legs and
the air around me.
i am expiated.
and my Mama is well pleased
and readying me.
the stone under my head grows soft
and i think about my long ago
half-brother, and his ladder.
i search the brooding night sky
for mine, my eyes
pleading like puppies
hungry for milk
but my ladder is my heart.
i know that, finally,
and the skies will open
only as my heart pries open
to spit the pearls formed
within this shell-shocked soul
the stone under my head becomes flesh
and i think about how jacob named
that stone, that ebenezer memory
of open skies and accessible heavens…
bethel…and it echoes in the dark,
rings midst the stars and
chimes in cloudy choruses.
that stone,
that living stone had legs
to wander, God’s house sojourning
from place to place and time to time
ever wandering…
the stone of Scone
stone of destiny
stone of coronation
old, red, sandstone
the stone under my head becomes red
and throbs and thrums and thrills
my soul open and searching the skies,
and i sense it will speak
as it spoke so long ago
and whisper my name,
my new name from heaven.
but it pushes me to listen elsewhere,
my answers not from
rock and sand and ruin
but from the Cornerstone Rock
and its bloody open hand
red and throbbing and thrumming
my half-brother was grasper
and then God Persists…
and me…
i was messenger,
herald blood bought
price paid
white as snow
washed.
but now,
named now…
the stone under my head becomes blue
and then becomes wind,
and disappears to run
in trees and mountains and back to me
from Mama singing Her sweet answer
to my bitter long palaver…
singing my name’s song,
yes, my stone singing
the singing stone
the wind stone singing
my name-song on my face,
singing Love on my face
and my name, my name
echoes ever in me singing
charissa grace
| — | Steve Maraboli |
how much is enough?
I ask this because…growth.
Right?
how much is enough?
is growth a candy-cane, a barber pole
spiraling and twisting twins of
life and death entwined?
or is it a mountain trail,
switchbacks and double overs
and 2 steps back for every 3
each time you’ve gone a hundred.
and sometimes you just march in time
or stay beside a bush
to see if there really is a bird in it.
oh wait! maybe growth is
the wind, catching us up in it
like kites to kiss the sky and dance
while our bones are picked clean
by its breezy nips and us clutched in
airy talons by our hips.
if that is the case, then
the answer is never!
Growth is never enough.
No, what we need to go along
with the never of growth, is loyalty!
Cus loyalty is either there,
or not there…no one can be loyal
only when they feel like it!
you either are, or you aren’t…
loyal.
so spin that barber pole of
growth and loyalty
while we wait, and wait,
10,000 little prayers like
fluttering fingers in God’s face.
your hands are muddy from
digging and investing in growth.
my hands are hot from
stoking and cuddling fire!
together, we can answer the question
that cannot be uttered by only one person:
how much?
enough.
Time flies by in birds’ wings
and the sounds of flutter and
rustles of winds
tugging at leaves,
leaves that want to leave
and yet still hang on
still hang on.
and me? I stand still
while time whirls by,
seasons twirl by in
turning unfurling
display, all
pomp and pageantry.
but sometimes I think
secretly, that I am the
wings of birds flutt’ring
and the wind rustling…
…but mostly I am
the leaves
groaning to let go
but still hanging on
still hanging on
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
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.
Trans* Women Are Not Drag Queens — Everyday Feminism.
Constance…yes, it is very early. I cannot sleep. Usually I am good until the dread 3 AM. But tonight sleep is shy and skert of the potential I face for conflict today…
I am meeting with a person who has indicated that he has “great difficulty” with my choice to transition.
Think about that: this is a person I see less than a half hour a day…a person that I run into infrequently in everyday life…and yet somehow knowing that I am transgender is a burden unbearable to him, and the choice to transition is anathema and repulsive to the point that he wants to meet with me, so he can…what?
Tell me I am a freak? Tell me that I should not transition? Tell me to just suck it up and tough it out?
What…does he really think he is more creative, more insistent than my own heart for the last 48 years??? That I have not said these things to me already…and worse?
How does his life change if I transition…and how does it change if I do not (which is too late, by the way…I am never going back. It is Charissa Grace full and free or the grave)?
No…I think what he doesn’t like is that someone whom he knows and assumed many good things about is now acting in ways that are unexpected and unusual…and this is stretching him. It is challenging his lil boxes and tightly drawn lines…it is forcing him to confront things without the luxury of being able to write off the source of the conflict as a monster or immoral pervert…for he knows I am not that.
I ran across this link again today…and I may have posted it once already. No matter…it is a pretty good piece defining things well. I ask that you please read the piece…
…and then give us the chance to be. Please??
Charissa
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
“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*
Goodness…and all this in return
for the names you cannot say,
names I cannot say
names that cannot be said
or they would no longer be names.
simply to love from the bones!
Love, radiating upward and outward
like the warm cherry glow of
crackly drowsy evening fires
in the dusky autumn nightfall
wreathed in smoke and peace.
Each fleeting moment,
fleeing away daintily and quick
darting, into that bush
and up that tree
where it sits and scolds,
taunts? No…
sits and serenades and calls to me,
take wing
take wing,
take wing
for time is short
and the sky is fading
but still so brilliant
blue and resonant with love.
relief…can you see this word is a bottle?
it has a message stuffed inside it
a sprawling message scrawled
by the pen of your heart’s heart
that whispers its ever poem to you.
but…
there is a remove…always a remove
somewhere there
between you
and what you have written.
you there…
your words there…
observed,
watched
spied on
they are constantly observed,
and thus they sit silent
and never sing.
for words to sing, we must
somehow be entered into them,
so that we are not watching them,
we must become the word incarnate
for they are us
our essence
in squiggles and symbols,
and when we have the faith
to possess them bodily
(and be possessed by them)
they become contagious,
we become contagious
beyond the most virulent virus!
our words replicate themselves
in the heart and soul of the hearer
and then…
mutate
into something else
if guided by love something grander
if guided by hate something murderous
if guided by indifference something monstrous.
yes
we are our words, and
whether we are entered in
or not
is purely a matter of awareness
not of essence.
so find your pulsing core
sacred white hot nature
and let your heart be displayed upon
the canvas of your body
and let your soul give utterance
of your primal deepest cry…
…and then find someone you love
and who loves you too
for you
and wrap yourself,
curl around them (and enter in)
like a precious flame protected
in a wind storm punctuated
by the rain lashing from outside
(and thus creating your
“warm within”)
I am glad of this knowing in my heart
that not only can I ask this of you
but that you would be insulted if I didn’t.
this knowing in my heart
so wonderfully banked and tended now
fuel just right, air even righter
trust love
this knowing in my heart
this knowing in my heart
I found a bottle bobbing in the tides along the shore,
slick with slime and battered by the storms that came before
it found its way to me. The cold wind moaned and nipped my face
as I waded out to snatch it up safe, from that murky place.
It was roughly crusted with a barnacled hard shell
and smelled of desperate furlongs traveled far too close to hell,
and loneliness…for hell is total isolation, stark…
just self forever chained to self in utter endless dark.
I held it up against the muddy skies just tinged with red
and golds as the earth turned and spun and day stood on her head
to mark another moment brief and echo all the days
gone tumbling by since the first sunset sky was set ablaze.
Hidden there, just barely seen thru crusted colored glass
I saw a wispy paper stained and dull like tarnished brass
neglected for some 50 years and put there then by me…
I’d written it to this me now, and cast it in the sea.
My heart, my tears, my blood combined to fall upon that page
and tell of longings, tell of sorrows, tell of that locked cage
of flesh and words and hammer-fists and heartbreak ever more
and tell my future me about the life that I’d abhorred.
My knees grew weak, then buckled. I remembered that hard day
I’d put my heart into that bottle, hurled it far away,
thinking I could rid myself of all my hurt and ache
but knowing not that we can never outrun life’s heartbreak.
My hands shook, fingers fumbling as I freed my desperate cry.
The bottle birthed its message, gave a tiny copper sigh
and then began to sing to me in querulous hopeful song
of future hopes and me made free instead of me born wrong.
I’d written there “Dear Me, please do not tire of our fight
but be courageous in the midst of darkest blackest night.
Rise up inside yourself and let your beauty blooming free
become the joyful woman that we know ourself to be.”
The message trailed off in a scrawl, the letters marred by tears
I’d cried that day I’d cast away my me, then, all those years
I’d lived in sorrow, days passed dead within my mask, my shell…
that scroll was me, a message in a bottle prison cell.
I sat there for awhile until I’d caught back up to me
and let those words become living and vital, strong and free.
And then I blew into the bottle grace to there reside
Forever, then I corked it and returned it to the tide.
I watched the bottle drift away until I had to go
and saw the years marked out thru tides of time, and ebb and flow
How our hearts return back home to whisper secrets from the past
to help us lay our burdens down and find True Rest at last.
“I believe that
your soul
and
my soul
are
very
old friends.”
— Mandeq Ahmed
“Mates” 
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
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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