My Only Response, Ever

Constance…the timing of God never ceases to amaze.  Events of Holy Week this year…events of great import and significance took place.

And on In The Grave Day, I heard a missive written about me, a little to me, or maybe indirectly all to me, I don’t know.

It was the worst thing I have ever heard in my life, and as such it chokes my heart.  I guess what was ultimately most sorrowful was to see how deeply broken and in pain the writer was in spite of what were my best and highest efforts and intentions…and obviously woefully short of the mark in every single facet, bar none.

It cut off response, for it declared all of who I was null and void and all of who I am pathetic and weak.

Well, I left that missive in the grave on Sunday, and simply have no choice but to go on, forgetting what lies behind and pressing on to be more yielded, more surrendered, taking hold of Them Who have taken hold of me.

But I will comment in this one way:

Always Ever Treasured

I love you with inexpressible beyond understanding love.
I miss you terribly.
I am so sorry that so much of what I desired, intended, was received and twisted into this present snarl.

I get it now, Papa…why Your one and only answer to every question hurled in Your Face by Your creatures was to take on our form, and come to our existence, and be crucified horribly suffering all things in Yourself.

Oh Love…if I could do that, and give you back yourself I would do so and gladly.tumblr_n76owu13M41rktvico1_1280

Why Indeed?

Similarities between Blake Brockington and Leelah Alcorn

1. They wore both Transgender.

2, They were both rejected by their families (Blake was in fostercare because his family kicked him out).

3.  Their ages. (Blake had just turned 18, and Leelah was 17 turning 18)

4. They both commited suicide.

So explain to me why this well known Transgender activist, Blake Brockington, who raised thousands for charity and became the first black transgender homecoming king is getting almost no media attention. Leelah Alcorn trended across Twitter and Tumblr—even got her own Wikipedia page and article in People magazine. 

This is by no means a comparison or a contest for opression. But Blake Brockington deserves the same memorial Leelah Alcorn was given— if not more.  Three thousand to three hundred and sixty four (and that is including articles about him winning @ HOCO) .

The only clear difference between them is his race. Preserve this young man’s life.

REST IN POWER KING, BLAKE BROCKINGTON.

Constance, the above is a quoted passage that I found today…I think it is worth noting the first four points as the only important thing…and then it is worth noting that race was a huge significant factor in this disparaging difference as the only factor!  Both and.  Not either or!

Fight off issue fatigue, and keep passionate about freedom and life.
Charissa

Going Nova On Palm Sunday

In light of this nova-burst
I want to thank you for silver
I want to thank you for gold
I want to thank you for stardust
I am truly grateful that you would
check on me, earthbound here
and shackled by this self-gravity.tumblr_nkrjw15GwY1s4uwt4o1_500I really feel so awkward all the time
Cus I look for freedom as a voracious reader
of pages, of faces, of hearts
and suns gone nova.

Going Nova…

that explains perfectly how disconnected I feel
in my heart from all that while grasping
in my mind exactly what they are saying
and why they are saying it!

And feeling so goddamned guilty for even being…
always, feeling so goddamned guilty for even being.
Never ever had a choice in that, and untold time and tears
toiling in trying to be other…
tumblr_ndrjw4lnQd1s4e9y0o1_500Going Nova…

I guess that’s a choice I make inside my heart
as I float between me and those shimmery stars
that woo me so…

anyway I am trying to say sorry to you for something
but I don’t even know what it is or how to say it…
sorry…nova…for what I am, who I am?
Charissa, trying to survive this human experience
in a body and brain at constant odds…is that me and what I am?tumblr_nlaqwvGLkO1qllucco1_1280I am a girl and have always been and have no need to prove that I am 
(and couldn’t anyway, even if I did)      God knows
patriarchal fists slam into me trying to beat the woman outta me, 

feminist talons slash my skin trying to tear the woman offa me…
while my own nails I keep razor sharp and always ready to rip that male biology 
right outta such dumb DNA that’s so much less than me.tumblr_nlj2o1V0qC1qllucco1_1280Anything I say can be construed as lack of humility because
I never had a chance at solidarity in biological sisterhood with you
and remaining silent can be the height of arrogance because
it reeks of presumption and I am neither or both or all
(silent, arrogant, presumptuous)

I am Going Nova.

I try my best to be a tender soul, to be a gentle soul and do good
and bring honor to woman and women by how I live, how I draw close
to my God Who has been, is and always will be Mama…
the Wise, the Comforter, My Helper in this time of death
hiding behind Hosannas and Hail Caesars.

Please hear my heart, but if you don’t the fault is mine
in all my dark and clumsy lack, 
so let your eyes
do all the happy work of ears 
and see me in these words…

Going Nova on Palm Sundaytumblr_nkhwgweeQs1qesboko1_1280

 

Naked Emperor

When I exploded into myself
from nothing

and knew
there was 

something
and
me

I heard something
wish that me 
would never be.

I didn’t get over it,
but I got used to it.

Somehow
that wish 
got its way
in my bones
and now it seems
like all I know

and all that I
am known by.

Sounds, scents, storms sent
from that beyond

rail and wash
in curtains 
over me,
scour and scrub me

because maybe,
just maybe

I can one day
be released

from the curse 
“shouldn’t have been”

and see
that self invisible

that everyone else
says is there

but just looks like
a naked emperor 

to me.tumblr_nldhi5rJoU1r7l28fo5_1280

 

Why We Must Honor the Trans Lives We’ve Lost Without Telling the Living They’re Doomed — Everyday Feminism

Why We Must Honor the Trans Lives We’ve Lost Without Telling the Living They’re Doomed — Everyday Feminism.

I am begging you all to read this.

It’s hard to describe what it feels like inside when I, who have never felt more present, more alive, more legitimate, hear that other people say that I have died, or that they consider me dead.

It’s a worse feeling than despair.  It’s repudiation mixed with invalidation and poured over indifference and then shoved into my throat.

It’s at that point that the thoughts of making that statement true begin to assail and assault…like there is this feeling of well okay if that’s what they think then let’s just finally let it happen and in that congruence let them have a real comparison.

People say that suicide is the ultimate selfish act…maybe.  Certainly this is something I have thought about a lot.  But is it the ultimate selfish act?

What about the act of policing someone with the withdrawal of relationship and then acting like they are dead and they “betrayed”?  Is that act selfish?  Ultimate?

It sure feels like it is at least petulant and petty.

But hey, those are the feelings of a dead girl…and since I am considered dead what do they matter…and since I am considered dead why would anyone even notice when I am gone…right?

Yes…I am using absurdity to illustrate the absurd.  But please:  don’t tell me I should stick around and then punch me in the face of my tender hurting heart.

I am pretty sure I have pressed other things similar to this article…in my opinion it should be pressed by every wordpress blogger until it stops.tumblr_ndg1500IZT1qb4hiyo1_1280

Chas | I lost a friend today and I don’t even remember…

Chas | I lost a friend today and I don’t even remember….

No words…

Constance, how is it that others cannot see that these things can be avoided with accessible health care, physical and mental, and the cessation of being called things like demonized and freak, pervert and monster, and then the slurs…

It made me cry so hard, because I often feel like I don’t want to continue beneath the crushing weight of dysphoria and then the added weight of every ignorant creep who thinks they are playing “pile on the transgender person”…and then the thought that I would cause such pain to others when all I want to do is have my own be over and the guilt is huge, for even wanting to, for even thinking about it.

Sometimes I talk about my feelings, and it’s not okay that I feel them about myself, they get corrected or rejected as not true and thus not legitimate that I carry them.

But calling them “not true” doesn’t make them any less real, and it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

I can tell you this:  the more I am received as just a regular person the better I feel…and the more I am rejected, the worse I feel, especially when that rejection has the Name of God attached to it.  I am fortunate that I know that God loves me and that I am Acceptable in the Beloved…but many people don’t know this and that extra little oomph just might grease the skids and push them over the edge.

A Bird’s Free Flight and Flower Feet

i am a flower planted deep,
my soul a bird loose in deep skies

i should be free to soar and spin
but i am caught by roots in dirt
my body coarse in clumsy lurch
yearning for freedom’s feathered perch
tumblr_nbqyrk2g3R1qej2n5o1_1280

i am a bird that cannot land
with soul that longs for roots at rest

i should be buried safe in soil
burrowing warm in dark rich nest
but i’ve no harbour, no still rest
no pillow for my aching breasttumblr_nc5t6zrD0V1qej2n5o1_1280

a flower trapped within a bird

a bird caged in a fragile flower

and God above my prison bower

may hear me in my darkened hourtumblr_nlbk0hg9ty1qas1mto1_1280

Suicide Bonfire: A Deconstruction

Constance, the reaction to my latest poem has been such that I want to provide a few bits of the peek under the blanket for you.  It seems that there is this very conflicted feeling as readers take it in, and it adds confusion and a sense of settled peace all at once.

Ordinarily, I would be overjoyed with this, as it is from this maelstrom that the reader’s own inner conflicts begin to be confronted, engaged, and eventually dealt with.

But this one used a word that is highly charged emotionally and fraught with fear.

I know I fear(ed) the word:  suicide.

So let me lay out a few things.

1.  Consider the presence throughout the entire poem of words, phrases and turns of phrase onto their ear that are stripped straight from our National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner.  Ask yourself why would the poetess lace those phrases into a poem such as this?  What is it she would mean by applying them in this context.

2.  There is a contrast of paths and trails, their source of origin, foot traffic.  All of these things are highly metaphorical and stacked vertically with fatness.

3.  The poem speaks of departures, and arrivals too.  It speaks of things repudiated and things embraced.  It contrasts death and beauty.  Consider this juxtapositioning of things, and go ahead and assume that the poetess is intentional in this placement.  This will enable you, should you wish, to delve into the deeper layers of the poem, the more vital layers of meaning that all the rest is mise en place for.

4.  Lastly (though by no means exhaustively), regard the title:  is there more than one way to read that title, especially in light of the last stanza, imagery of a mythological creature that is not named (intentionally), double entendres and double backs, side by side realities and states (wait:  a transgender person would write of 2 existential realities simultaneously experienced and the death of one of them?  wooaaaa…).

5.  Reassurance:  those of you who jumped to the conclusion that this poem was an alarm that Charissa is going to kill herself are so appreciated by me, and also so dancing on the surface of the poem in alarm.  Read thru the last couple months of posts, including “The 5 Nevers” and other similar things…and then read the poem again.  This time chew it and consider it.

I think you might find it reassuring and empowering, evidence that the door has and is closing entirely on a long and arduous chapter in the tale of my life, and the beginning of a new one…say, the ending of “Charissa Crosses the Desert” and the beginning of “Charissa Sets Sail At Last”.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your concern.  I won’t lie:  the flame is hot, and persistent, and those haunts are frightening and sinsiter/seductive…but I see their teeth and empty eyes, and I send them away with my incantations…such as Suicide Bonfire.tumblr_mvyigc57Cf1qhsps6o1_1280

Depression in Transgender Youth Eases with Recognition, Treatment | Psych Central News

Depression in Transgender Youth Eases with Recognition, Treatment | Psych Central News.

“But Charissa…isn’t this all in your mind???  Cus demons and stuff??”

A young man has recently befriended me.  He accompanied me out one day, all day…he later reported that he had never been so uncomfortable as he was when he was watching the way that other people stared at me, looked at me…the reactions of disgust, fear, slack-jawed amazement, or derision.  He was flabbergasted that they would be that way…because he knows me.  We have spent hours talking, and he has had the “benefit” of my counsel regarding his relationships with women.  So he knows me to be an astute observer of human nature, a tender hearted intuitive listener, a gentle teller of truth that is at times somewhat hard to swallow, and above all a valuer of his life which is of priceless significance.

So when he saw them looking at me…like that…he knew for real that it was not “all in your mind, Charissa”.

The link is a good read.  Please head over and acquaint yourself with the dynamics of how (surprise!) getting help to someone helps them.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.
Charissa Grace

This!  But I Keep Forgetting!!

This! But I Keep Forgetting!!

Suicide Bonfire

By the dawn’s early light
I see the faint track of passing deer
o’ershadowed by padding soft cougar prints,
and I leave behind what I so proudly hailed,
my back to that last twilight gleaming, my last one
I shall endure, or ever see.

I have conceded the fight fraught with perils
and I have left the path, to follow the trail,
the last trail, flag finally furled forever,
victim of futility and vain imagination.

I think it’s better this way, following the trail
of animals, far off the beaten human track
because that way I will not be found
or ever tracked out, and the last horror
will not be me blasted or bloated or slashed or purple

it will be a simple, puzzling absence.

The morning is blazing, gleams of blue and grey,
the air crisper and cleaner than a gunshot crack
and the beauty rolls from ridge to ridge
and my eyes fill and smudge a smidge
in sorrow and relief.

I’ll never see you again, but that is not a thing
cus hey, I haven’t seen you thru the night
and have no proof you’re even still there,
I don’t even know if I’m still here, truth be told.

The going gets tougher, the trail drops away
and I am bushwhacking thru thick thorny
fierce frolics of Scotch Broom and poison oak.
I won’t be allergic, where I am going.

Finally I find the deep copse dark,
slick with shadows, layers laid lifeless
and freshly dead in morning, and I walk to
the deeps of the bowl and hunker.

Down.  Down.  Birds dart overhead in sound and glimpse.
Down. Down.  And spacious skies descend to gulp.
Down. Down.  And ancient hills crouch low and dusty.
and me, in the hollow, growing thin, bleeding out, feeding grasses
copper and salt, tears and surrender, and sorrow on the wind.

Time will pass and my flesh becomes the dust from whence it came
and my bones will still delay, waiting for a spark, waiting for
the Flint of God to strike them, tender tinder with me finally
gone in ghostly ever-swoon,
and there they ever burn, in the night, in memory
of all that we endured, and all we were denied
and all I hope to spare you from
with this bonfire, this bonefire
releasing me in conflagrating furies
in flight to the stars above
and this tragedy stupid, mute, dumb
finally finished.tumblr_ncw0xjvGW41rhrouno1_500

Posting this as is: Language Alert

Constance, this is being posted as is…it was a question posed on a forum I read…well, actually, it was a statement disguised as a question.  Don’t you just love when people do that?  Instead of asking what you think, they tell you what they think but since they don’t have the courage to say that to you, they “rouge it up” all sweet and kind in the form of a question.
 
While the answer is spoken in harshed language than I would utilize, I completely agree with the answer.
Q:  Possible confusion
Do you think that it’s possible that everyone involved with gender identity furthers the confusion by focusing on labels? There are valid instances of people being less than admirable about pronouns and names but generalising about something like this could spite someone with sympathy for the cause. (I’m not saying you do these things because I don’t know you and thus wouldn’t have a position of authority to say something like that, I just want a different perspective on things)

A:  I think labels are only not necessary to people who haven’t had to fight for their labels before. When you get assigned to be the average label and you agree with it, there are tons of examples of your label everywhere. You get examples of how others act so when you grow you can emulate behavior, you can ask questions about your labels without fear of prejudice or hate, you get to practice and live out the examples of your labels without fear of being hurt.

I had to fight, tooth and god damn nail, to get my label. Being trans is something I’ve been beaten over, lost jobs over, lost friends over, and lost huge parts of my family.

And for the record, if you see everything going on to trans people, if you see the undeserved hatred and the murder rates and the homelessness rates and the suicide rates and the abuse and the genuine fucking torture trans kids go through, and you STILL need to be convinced to be sympathetic, you are a horrible human being and we don’t need your sympathy.tumblr_nkyyvkUpyh1qj8rk8o1_1280

The Wrong Side of the Glass

Come close, up here, on the porch and draw near where I sit,
hunkered down, clinging close, pressed with all I am
against this barrier thin, austere, and yet impermeable
thru which I see, and speak, and yearn but over cannot cross.

I get naked, bare and slick and covered in Her Oil
and hurl myself hard, fearless, face first pounding in wild flails
until the fists of my heart break and bloody grow within this cage
and sorrow rises right alongside all my heartsick rage

at being born here in this place so richly furnished wrong
at hearing music so distinct but dissonant from my song
Maybe we together can make a crack in this stark mass
and relieve my long days spent here, on the wrong side of the glass.

“It Would Falsify Everything You Taught Me…”

Constance…most of you who are public followers of Grace Notes are cis-gender humans.  Some of you are trans (thanks for the support, family!!  🙂  ), and as transgender humans you are intimately acquainted with the entity that dysphoria is, and you know that thoughts of suicide or talk of it is often our most noble and courageous act of the day, because we are speaking about it rather than…tumblr_n9h3hmA63y1sypuuko1_400

But I want to talk to you Constance (and you lurkers, too…yes, you are there), you cis-gender humans, so blessed to be non-itchy in your skin and of limber-lung to draw in draughts of refreshing air…you live in a homogenous world…a world that sniks together and is of a piece.  And where it doesn’t, it doesn’t in the same places as other humans and so you find an identity and community in that.

You don’t understand how alienation from yourself puts you at a distance from everyone else and everything else…always.

Because dysphoria is like missing pieces in a mosaic of being.DSCN7014

You say to yourself that you are shattered too, and you are…but your pieces are present, and as you glue them back together they form a sort of whole once again…whereas the dysphoric person diligently and urgently works daily to reassemble the shattered image into a whole, only to discover that the crucial core is absent…and the middle is void.

We are separated from you always…as if you are on the shore of the sea and we across on the opposite shore and lacking the voices of whales to sing to you across the leagues and the deep.

So there is that.

This morning I am mindful of dysphoria and the gulf that it is around me, alas, and the challenge that it presents me in my quest to be a yielded vessel yielding blessing…I am mindful that there is also, somewhere packed in all of this, an opportunity to know and understand Their perspective and methods as Gulf-Breechers and Core-Restorers…perhaps this is my destiny, to be a restorer of the breach and a crosser of the gulf.tumblr_mxydoeknpZ1saxfomo1_500

But in this mindful place, I have been remembering the words that a man spoke to me last summer, upon being let into my secret world of confusion and horror, that world of the transgender person caught between body and brain.  He is a man who has in the past been very open in expressing admiration for me, as a child of God, as a communicator of Grace, and as a caretaker of my children.  He has said toweringly complimentary things to me, things that I felt were far too idealized and simply did not adequately assess how flawed I am, what a failure I am…

…but he had said them, spoken of my impact on himself and those around me.enhanced-buzz-wide-819-1425685150-9

On that soft and lazy August Saturday, by the waters of a small man-made lake (which seems appropriate), we spoke, and I shared with him the struggle of dysphoria and how suicide is as constant companion as the sensation of choking is to the asthmatic.

He burst out in a fit of passion “Don’t you dare off yourself!  It would falsify everything you taught me, and all you stand for!”  And he went on to talk about how negatively it would affect him, and how he would lose heart and likely not have belief anymore that what I taught meant anything worth trusting.

That is what I am thinking about this morning…how easily and how often my situation is somehow twisted around and becomes all about the other person.  It was like another situation where I had been accosted by a long standing acquaintance (whom I would have called a friend, but now realize that was me putting my view of what a friend is on someone who sees it vastly different) who demanded an explanation for “why you have been seen around town dressed as a woman!!” (quelle horreur!!)…and since he had that place in my heart of “friend”, I gave the full account, but only half-way.  He cut me off because “he was overwhelmed and couldn’t take anymore of this”.  And then he looked at me in sheer misery and said “What am I going to tell my children??!!”tumblr_nbmpahNSPo1r78unxo1_1280

See?  All about him.  His place, and his burden…as if that question needed any other answer than tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and begin to study these things together to help out a people in chains.

Well…that is a very similar response this other man by the lake had, regarding discovering my daily battle with dark thoughts.  His burden placed on me was that if I were to ever choose to not be here any longer then I would be the cause of his faith being weakened and diminished and his life harmed.

Since that time, I have spoken to this man two times, once a day or two after a big crisis that was brewing, and then again at the end of October 2014.

Twice.tumblr_nkp8l7TjAs1spq83no1_1280

And since then, nothing…and I get that there are complicating reasons for that, not the least of which is my transition and he is a man.  Very few men have been “man enough” to handle my transition with anything other than rejection at best, and murderous, venomous looks at worst (and those looks threaten far worse is coming).

Constance…is this not something close to suicide?  Friendshipicide?  Is not this towering silence some sort of death?  Does it not underline and highlight the gulf between us, because really all that changed was his understanding that he was interacting with a woman?

And those words ring in my heart, part of the voices that circle me like wolves and nip and slash and bleed me out…

“…it would falsify everything you taught me…”

Well, I don’t know if it would or wouldn’t.  Things are true and worthy of living regardless of the source one receives them from.  But I know that this staggering abandonment does indeed make me mindful of how those words are true from my perspective.  Apparently, I am no longer those “three C’s” to him…Child, Communicator, Caretaker.  Now, I am simply “It which must be avoided, lest whatever ails it somehow infect me”.tumblr_mrl193edwJ1qm86t3o1_500

As to the other man…that was the last time we spoke, in September, with a terse letter being the final salvo and manifesto of that declaration of war religion has filed on me…and sadly, I have reason to know the sense of duty fulfilled and integrity maintained, and sweet sadness at doing the “hard but right thing” which follows the writing and delivering of such a letter…

…it is such an awful feedback loop of legalism and lies and lack of life (death).

It is difficult being the friend or relative of a transgender person.  You get caught up in the punishments they are meted for their gender-crimes.  You get branded with the Scarlet TL to match their Scarlet T (“tranny-lover” and “tranny”)…tumblr_mcq1juZYxN1r2zs3eo1_1280

…and you get confronted again and again and again with that gulf uncrossable, that breech unbridgeable, and the dysphoric human’s many-sided and alienated existence when you yourself live in a world where such concepts as sides and incongruency are understood in the brain alone and denied in the bones, those non-dysphoric congruent bones.

I am watching “Romeo and Juliet” right now, the 1954 version directed by Renato Castellani (huge giggles here, ddh)…this play has long been my very favorite Shakespearean play (followed closely by Henry the 5th).  It is tragically striking, how I am in one being a Montague and Capulet, and both Romeo and Juliet…it is in a sense a tableau of dysphoria and the solution is inferred in the tragic ending…only loving acceptance and dogged commitment can validate a life and overcome abandonment.

And there is a timeless line (distinct from the rest of that genius’s timeless lines):

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”tumblr_n6u1weh7on1trxee1o1_1280

I am still whatever Rose I was…and still stink of whatever stench emanated from me under the old costume I sported.  I still live in the dysphoric House of Mirrors, and sides all around me with everyone else there and me here…I am still “Fortune’s Fool”.

…and as to men?  “Friends”…well, there is this, from the mouth of Juliet’s Nurse:

There’s no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men. All perjured,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Ah, where’s my man?—Give me some aqua vitae.—
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.tumblr_lvlbcphL9V1qeovheo1_500

Breathing Underwater Once Again

That long slow glacier spit me out whole
Into the ice-cold sea, fully formed and floating.
Everyone saw me hit, that splash, those waves,
and my voyage launched and me christened.
They broke their arms patting themselves on the back
because I was looming, tall, could sink ships and loose lips,
and I made them forget how deep the ocean really is.tumblr_nh9f9wH4x81r3wk1zo6_1280They didn’t know I was born breech and upside down.
They didn’t know I couldn’t breathe.
Have I told you my recurring dream, that I could breathe underwater?
In that dream I go where I want, I am free, and I suck in
great draughts of release and blow out winds of release
and I live in the place of one, limber and lithe and little
until the dream-ender smashes my face in again, and I surface and choke again.tumblr_nc9vp6L89D1qgvdcto1_1280Storms rage, waves rise and billows blow against me
but I just float along, every once in awhile catching my breath
between waves, when they are careless and let me snatch a gulp.
But I have noticed something…the rhythm of the storm, and myself
and the timing of ruin running and tugging in deadly gravity:
It’s gonna follow Napoleon into Russia, and when it does
I will be ready to go all counter-intuitive flippy-floppy!tumblr_nkwoymmVUu1spq83no1_500Yep…I am going to turn upside down and let my dreams come true
Stick that soggy, waterlogged drowned rat soul straight up into air,
just roll in the waters until I have no choice whatsoever but to breathe.
Maybe there will be water-jewels showing? (They look like carbuncles to me)
Maybe there will be pits and secret crevices shocking that the leering crowds
will peel, eat, and throw away as they move along to the next carny freak show…
But at least I will be able to breathe…finally…and dreams at last come true.


“In the case of this jewel-like iceberg, the ice is probably very old. In glaciers, years of compression force out air pockets and gradually make the ice denser,” according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

“When glacier ice becomes extremely dense, the ice absorbs a small amount of red light, leaving a bluish tint in the reflected light, which is what we see.”

“In addition, minerals and organic matter may have seeped into the underwater part of the iceberg over time, creating its vivid green-blue color.”

San Diego clinic finds high need for treatment of transgender youth | EurekAlert! Science News

San Diego clinic finds high need for treatment of transgender youth | EurekAlert! Science News.

Quite interesting article. 

Tell that to the dead Transwomen of 2015…

Nothing in the world can bother you as much as your own mind, I tell you. In fact, others seem to be bothering you, but it is not others, it is your own mind.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sorry, male cis-gendered person…gotta call BS on this one.

The person spouting filth at me in front of kindergarten children?  That was not just “in my mind”.

Constance…when you take your outrage for injustice out of your mind, your sense of compassion out of your mind and let it be incarnate in your actions in this world…THEN we will see some transformation!

tumblr_nknmx9iB3o1rulaxwo1_540

Sex redefined : Nature News & Comment

Sex redefined : Nature News & Comment.

Giggles…big time!

I wanna see the person who will tell her now that they are enforcing the binary on her that they have sought to enforce on me…and tell her she is not really a woman.

Here is a crude and sad fact:  in a large group of minds genitalia and gender are identical.

How ignorant.  How blind.  How sad.

Ask for Password…It’s Not All Glitter and Rainbows: 6 Harmful Myths About Coming Out — Everyday Feminism

 

But we shouldn’t be pressuring people to come out. Instead, we should be challenging the expectation that others are entitled to our identities.

No one should be demanding that people take on the risks of coming out. No one except you can make that decision. Your identity is yours, and no one else owns it.

You don’t owe anyone anything – especially not people who are ignoring your personal autonomy and safety by demanding that you come out.

via It’s Not All Glitter and Rainbows: 6 Harmful Myths About Coming Out — Everyday Feminism.

Constance…I face a lot of challenges in life that are in addition to the ones faced by all people simply as a condition of being in this world.  If you have read here for awhile, you are acquainted with the gamut of these, and if you are new, well have a gander at the other posts ;-)…giggle.

My point is that it is the additional ones that kill.  They are like the difference between running a marathon, and running one chased by dogs, and running one when you aren’t fast enough to keep from getting nipped numerous times on the run.  And it is the nips that bleed, get infected, and drain…of vitality, of energy, and eventually of hope.tumblr_mwey0r4LUa1rze6z5o1_500

Right now the hardest of these challenges for me is that of making myself known to other people that are of utmost importance to me.  They are mourning what they perceive as the loss of the person they knew, rather than perceiving it as the loss of the explanatory narrative that stitched together our common history.

For a whole host of reasons, some of them spiritual, some of them developmental, and most of them cultural/paradigm related, the onus and burden falls squarely on me in this process…to be the bigger person…to walk the second mile, or the third or the fourth, or however many miles must be walked…to turn the other cheek again and again and again…

My own identity is in need of justification, of proving, of validating, and the ways I respond either contribute to or detract from my right to be.

Judgement is passed on the narrative that I have, as it compares to the narrative that was.tumblr_mh7kswp48l1qg39ewo1_500

Again…I get it.  Fairness is not the operative determinant.  But I want it to be understood:  this is a costly gift, and gift I do think it is.  It is not something that I owe…to anyone except myself whom I owe the debt of authenticity inner and outward.  I think that my perspective on things is equally valid, is equally valuable and to be treasured.  The “things I have lost” or the sense that “what I thought I had never existed” is just as real, as vibrant and legitimate for me as it is for anyone else who feels like they are being robbed.

Let me state it baldly:  anything they are “robbed of” wasn’t real in the first place.

How about this:  instead of the point of view that “a father I thought I had is now dead and replaced by you”, how about this: “I have a father who just happens to be a woman, and the idea I held that my father was also a male was an incorrect one.  I am fortunate to be able to have this inaccurate understanding corrected while there is still time and life remaining to know this person that I valued and treasured as a father!”

Because this is my story…my history.  I fathered four people…as a woman who inhabits a body that is biologically male.  And as far as I am aware, my children always felt that I was a good dad to them, valuable in the love, acceptance and counsel that I offered them.  And I am still here!  The same person with the same ideas and same truths (and some newly understood ones too).

Perhaps instead of me saying over and over again I am sorry I am sorry…I am sorry for being…I am sorry for wanting to be, needing to be…maybe it could be thought about that a different sorry could be said…I am sorry that I held onto my own belief and insistence that a father has to be spiritually and biologically male and only that…I am sorry that I invalidated the lives and efforts of the millions of women who “fathered” young boys into men because there was no one else there.

I am posting this link, because it gets to a lot of the reasons why there is so much gravity behind the other narrative, the one that requires me to justify my right to exist, my right to pursue congruency, my right to be free from suicidal ideation, my right to feel okay about the truth that I did the best I could and while not a perfect parent did a pretty adequate job even compared to a cis-male…and as a transgender woman serving in the role of father and not knowing, well maybe I did an admirable job.

and maybe I suck.  but I suck based on what I did and didn’t do, not based on whether I identfy as male or female…others who are insisting with actions that the actual measure of my being is in that identification are the ones who must grapple with the suckitude they frolic in!tumblr_nhg9ugnlFx1sp3hhvo1_1280

Read the article…acquaint yourself with the myths…and then divest yourself of them for some clearer, more objective standards that we will all, together, be held accountable to…how we love one another, how we forgive one another, whether we divorce and separate ourselves or remain connected…those are things that will endure long after gender identification falls away as not needed.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.tumblr_nkizy29dm51sooy9go1_1280

 

To These Bars You Flock

looking through them,
at me here inside
rattling my tin cup
back and forth
clitter-clatter-clikity-clak-clak

shouting, raising a ruckus
and raving about the lost key
buried somewhere out there with you
in the snow and sheep dip and shed wool…

and yet you stand, stare, and bleat
about bearing crosses and binary rules
uncrossable rivers and unforgivable sins…

even in frozen air
the smell of sheep

is pervading everything

sheep!

Though Ye Be Made of Stone

Ye possess a beauty innate
far surpassing my deepest efforts
and most twisted machinations,
for I have being in living flesh sensate,
I dwell in alchemical dirt miracle

While you, though made of stone
find shape and form that fits you fair
and curve that matches moons and stars
and softness that my soul sings of in air,
and sadness choked and stifled by me, dirt and stone.

you are carved, a statue, stuck and still
and yet are one, while I am severed in this chill,
never knowing unified connection
with myself and peace within the nill.

alas and not a lass, that’s me
and you? mere shackles hold you
that one day you can break or be delivered from
by some grave Odysseus or Hercules,
someone with the boldness to forgive you

i would trade plights with you in a millisecond

A Letter to my son Jacob on his 5th birthday — Medium

A Letter to my son Jacob on his 5th birthday — Medium.

Gender orientation…once again.  In another brain, in another place, in another genetic pool, unrelated to me, unrelated to “demonic possession”, unrelated to “unsubmission and rebellion”, unrelated to “mental illness”…

…related to the gender spectrum and continuum of creation as human, male at one pole and female at the other…related to hormone washes over body and brain and the differences in how they align…related to a world that sometimes spawns cleft palates, holes in hearts, heart murmurs, diabetes, etc. etc. …related to a world where the miracles of modern medicine exist to alleviate suffering and give life fulfilled and joyful…

…pushing against your taboos…pressing against your prejudices…pounding down your judgments…piercing the veils of your ignorance…presenting to you new understandings…

…those with ears, let them hear…

Someone Tell Me That I’ll Live: On Murder, Media, and Being a Trans Woman in 2015 – xoJane

I am starting to think that trans women and trans femmes — all of us linked by the cardinal sin of being named boys at birth, yet breaking the rules of boyhood and manhood — are trapped inside a traumatized story. From an early age, we are inundated with the story of our deaths, we relive it over and over many times before we actually die.

This same story is taken up, commoditized, and mass produced by communities outside of ourselves — media outlets looking for sensational stories, academics looking to produce research, and as Morgan Collado points out, even “LGBT” human rights organizations eager to use the statistics of transphobic violence to garner funds used to pursue the interests of cis, white gays and lesbians.

Even well-meaning liberal cis people, eager to earn “ally” points, consume and exploit the narrative of the doomed trans woman in their way.

via Someone Tell Me That I’ll Live: On Murder, Media, and Being a Trans Woman in 2015 – xoJane.

Constance, you know my thoughts about this topic.  This article states them far more eloquently than I do.  There is a part of the article speaking about how people who “knew us then” feel as if we have died already…

…in light of the murder of trans-women being an almost ritualized offering of human lives to the bloodthirsty god of patriarchy, it feels so eerie, as if my own loved ones consign me to those fires with forked fingers and muttered incantations invoking protection against the evil (trans) eye…

My deepest sorrow is that my life seems a curse.  If I exist as I was, then I am doomed and serving life in a prison invisible and undeclared and I am forever derided because I am depressed or despairing or I am resented because I hated myself…

…and if I exist as I am, then I am resented because I am the cause of death of a man who never was and never could be, except in the thoughts and minds of everyone around me.  And all they offer me is the promise that they will give me their illusions and fears to prop me up and costume me and call it liberty, or they will call me Patrick Henry and give me death.

It is my choice they say.

Yes…it is…my choice.  And I choose Tikkun.

I choose to live, and let go of all other things I cannot control.  And if I die before you wake, then I pray the Lord your soul will take…to the fountains of truth and revelation…and then I pray that He will take you across that river you so proudly declared you would never cross…I pray that He will ferry you across Himself, and show you the blood-soaked ground that constitutes the banks of the river called Rejection.-dcaa8f4b5344b04a

 

My Honest and True Assumption

Constance, let’s face facts.

This woman is never going to be seen by the eyes of this paradigm.  It ain’t gonna happen.  Too many layers of judgment, too much weight of assumption, and not enough understanding of the nature of gender orientation and where it resides in a human being.tumblr_nkbhxsERto1qccjsuo1_1280I am never going to be “pretty” in the sense of how human eyes grown in the world in which I live perceive beauty.  My only possibilities for beauty lie within my soul…in my heart…in my spirit…in that inner life that my spirituality and theology teach me is the truest reality anyway and the only one that extends eternally.

Mama, please give me a hunger for true things that outweighs the longings that plague me, that cry out from each and every chromosome that finds itself at odds with the spiritual DNA that flows from (what, my brain?  My soul?  My heart?) me…

I close with this quote I ran across, and make it my goal…kindness, good humored, smart, and strong of heart.

We get so worried about being pretty. Let’s be pretty kind. Pretty funny. Pretty smart. Pretty strong.” tumblr_nkakqbLCV81r7huino1_500

Another Day of Insults, but…

…thank God for the director at the center where I volunteer!  She knows what the right thing to do and say is!

So…there was this “specimen” who came to the center today.  I know him, and he “knew” me…and did not even come close to recognizing who I was.  I was dressed in a very nice American Eagle plaid shirt, soft pink, flannel, and a tie-die spink broomstick skirt, with a black t-shirt top and pink jewelry.

I looked nice.

But as I walked by, I felt his eyes, I felt his derision.  I was in his vicinity less than 5 seconds, and yet for some reason he was compelled to refer to me to my director as “a dude in a dress”…

…as in “what’s with the dude in the dress”…

My director simply said “She wanted to wear a dress today”.  When he sought to contradict that and reiterate his insult, she stopped him, and repeated herself…and then a third time!

I was soo blessed by that, what she did.  She did not try to go into any explanation, she did not differentiate me in any way whatsoever.  She simply cut him off, and told him that I wanted to wear that pretty dress today.

I don’t know which was stronger…the resignation and sadness over another insult by another privileged boy, or the gladness and genuine admiration for this strong and steady soul who sees something worthy in me and lays it out straight to anyone who comes around.

I think I will go with the latter…

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.
Charissa Grace

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The Story of Ryland

Constance, I think I have posted about this previously, but I think this layout here is succinct, accessible, and easy to digest.  Ya know, I have been thinking about the backflips that some people do, the contortions they knot themselves in so that they can preserve a way of thinking about a topic and not have to deal with changing a point of view…

…sadly, they place that point of view over a person far too often, and end up contributing to a tragedy.

It really is the ultimate in idolatry…a human life slain on the altar of the idol of their point of view.

Thank God there are parents like these, who understand the appropriate reaction to the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance.

Upworthy Article

Video

Ryland’s story is real for people all over the globe.  Please listen to your children.  Be understanding and accepting.  If only Leelah Alcorn could have known such understanding parents.  Stop trans discrimination.

North Carolina mom believes bullying led to transgender teen’s suicide – LGBTQ Nation

North Carolina mom believes bullying led to transgender teen’s suicide – LGBTQ Nation.

Constance…ears are deaf to our pleas…another one has gone over the precipice of despair.

This area is the same one where some of my own dementors hail from, those truly baffling souls so full of hate that they are compelled to speak spite and make sure that they attempt to infuse my heart with that poison…oh yeah, cus they love me so much.

I am deeply saddened but not one bit surprised that this poor dear despaired in such a caustic and hateful atmosphere as this.

Ima keep on posting these things…you cannot pretend it doesn’t happen.  You cannot pretend that reading here is the same as supporting a transgender person.  If you read here but do nothing, you are like the rich person who walks the streets in -20 degrees below zero and tells the ones who freeze in their nakedness “be warm, be warm.”

Listen:  it is not going to stop until you get you up out of your ease and privilege and stand with me!  With us!  In your community…and yeah, you will lose face and reputation and may be called a name or two…quel horreur!

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.
Charissa Grace

http://www.wsoctv.com/videos/news/mother-believes-bullying-led-to-transgender-teens/vDH8L9/

Part 1: Transgender in Cincinnati

Part 1: Transgender in Cincinnati.

I wept as I read this…for all the long lost years of my own life…and for those found, saved years that Zay has ahead.

Blessings, Crawfords, and good on Ya!!

The Transgender Brain | Transas City

The Transgender Brain | Transas City.

For you science geeks…the biology of the brain is real, and its existence far more relevant to gender than plumbing.

It’s a bit dry to me…but the first time thru these things for me??  WOW!  Eye opening.

But best of all, it rebuts the notions of those who think that I have a mental problem, a spiritual oppression, or a newly emerged proclivity.

Sigh…few things are more discouraging than the so called supporter who (ignorantly) says to me “Hey, if that is what it takes for you to be happy, then I don’t care what you do, be happy!”

Nice sentiment, but it is not a matter of happiness…it is a matter of identity.  Not sure why that is so hard to get, but it is.tumblr_mqmr2yCtaV1qgv17go1_500

I Sit Where Edges Meet

Greys, silvers soft and tinged with gold
and washed out pinks bleed from my heart
as I sit on the dock and look out on the lake
in longing, in lingering longing.

I wash across the sky so blue,
soft blue, robin’s egg unbreakable
and endless in blue, endless in echo
of my longing soul, lingering.

lingering.
yeah, that’s me,
and always has been.
on the edges sitting,
living inside my longing
bleeding, rising, blossoming.tumblr_njts5cL7951spq83no1_1280I cannot fly like birds
so instead I send me up up
tinging, coloring, rising
grey and silver and pink
against blue, and over blue too.

The edge of sky and land,
the edge of land and water,
the edge of water and sky,
it is at this nexus that I sit…I.

Without wings, without boats.

But I have my inner cello,
strings taut and tuned just so,
I have my song of greys and pinks
sprung from my silver bow.

So I will sit, here in this meeting
of sky and lake, land and song,
and play my tune across bright waters
that glow and glisten under skies

of blue tinged silver, shot with grey
and gleaming pink into the glowing night.

Fresh Washed Sheets and Yeasty Bread

a bed of fresh-washed sheets
and smells of fresh baked bread
waft yellow down my hall
into my twitching nose.tumblr_n12khuWFgT1s6nbxco1_500I find more nakedness in those comforts
than in the brothels of the Romans.
They strip away my cloaks of fear,
they dissolve my masks so carefully applied
and let my face lay fallow and unharrowed
while I am carried off across the gulfs of time…

Another me, both proud and vulnerable
and peeking thru my fingers at my stomach
and those fine glistening hairs white
in the morning sun beams refracted
thru the window pane
while birds sing lazy and slow trilling
on the outside.tumblr_ni6om40Znw1s1gcxio1_1280My bedside table has you there
in memento and framed, still
but straining at the edges
with that unrestrained smile.

My thighs are creamy white
like fresh bread broken
and awaiting new churned butter
still wet with milk and clotted cream.

That red affection and connection
and there like butter yeasty bread
and crusty breakfast wait
with a warm and singular
latte on my swelling hips.tumblr_ni9d4cbqhI1so83hto1_500I let go in strength, and feel
weak and without grip
and without need to grip
because my core is not containable
or needing a container
because it is me, and home…
every curve and crevice,
every speck and scar.

The tinkling jangle of
forks and dishwasher racks
jettisons that lovely past
and I am here again
in that bed of sheets
and baking bread
and serrated knife
that goes right thru that loaf
like it’s butter beneath
burnished bronze edges
and steady fingers.

Those scents will not flash forward,
but I dream of a day
that I might be unmade,
fresh sheets shown beneath,
yeasty bread laid bare
beneath a faithful blade.tumblr_njgj2kmduC1r2zs3eo1_1280

Barry Williams Makes Insensitive Comments About Bruce Jenner And ‘Going Transgender’

Barry Williams Makes Insensitive Comments About Bruce Jenner And ‘Going Transgender’.

Constance…

You will notice that I have not as of yet commented on Bruce Jenner and the news that he is grappling with gender identity issues.  There are a lot of reasons why, beginning with the unfortunate context of his life in the “celebrity limelight” and running the gamut all the way down to the fact that Bruce has not made a comment yet on the record regarding the whole complex topic.

Therefore:  we do not yet know what is transpiring and thus should just wait.  Why wouldn’t we?  Why is it so important for everyone to know?

Ahh…that brings me to the real reason I haven’t commented:  I am hoping that by now you who regularly read here would be spotting the tropes, cliches and inaccuracies in the story.  Such as these:

One doesn’t ever change “gender”…we are born to the gender we identify as, and pretty much nothing can change that.  Based on the bell shaped curve that nearly every phenomenon of this world falls on, most people’s gender orientation and biological sex match up…but there are literally millions of people alive today, and sprinkled throughout the ages and epochs of history whose gender orientation and biological sex do not match.

Thus, to say that Bruce is “becoming a woman” is a deadly ignorant inaccuracy.  If Bruce is for real, and not simply exploiting a “hot topic” in service of the celebrity status that plagues that family, then Bruce has always been a woman, and is just now becoming congruent with the fact that Bruce’s biological body and gender orientation have been at odds in a lifelong conflict…and at long last is taking the steps necessary to invoke that congruency.tumblr_n988sx6qrY1re12ono1_500

Other repulsive things are being said and done, but one of the most repulsive is when people accuse Bruce of “going transgender”…such a story is behind the link that I put at the top of this post.  An aging ex-celebrity made this comment in the form of a bad joke and showed several things in it:

First of all, he showed the permanence and insistence of gender orientation!  Yes, the fact that he was outraged by it enough to joke about it shows the thing that I have written of many times before:  the outrage of so many cis-gender people when contemplating a “gender change”.  Since gender orientation doesn’t really change, the concept of body and orientation being juxtaposed is simply not acceptable as a state of being…welcome to our world!

If this idiot really did seek to transition his body, he would be buying a ticket on the train into gender dysphoria-ville, not out of it!

I say to this person:  go ahead.  Do it!  I dare you…start dressing female, start grappling with the rejection, the ridicule, the open stares of disgust, and the troglodyte attempts at humor that testosterone-fueled people make repeatedly…and thrive.

Wait, what?  You would hate that?  You would find the price not worth it because instead of gaining anything you lose everything?  Well, goodness gracious…isn’t that a shocker!!  You just discovered that you aren’t really transgender, and you proved the permanence of gender orientation!  Because truly dysphoric people do indeed walk the transition road I described above, endure the horrors I enumerated, and end up more whole as people, more at peace, and more fruitful as human beings inspite of all those bad things!

The peace and “fit” of gender orientation inside an incongruent body is such a deep and important factor in a healthy human organism that almost all of the terrible things we go thru seem as nothing compared to what we gain…if we are of stern enough mental mettle to endure the fiery trials that the cis-gender world rains down on us…driven as they are by their own horror at imagining living as the other gender with their own unchanging and unchangeable gender orientation!tumblr_n9kj52yfDb1tp8szvo1_500

But this first point, the location and persistence of gender orientation, is as nothing compared to the deeper and far more subtle inference that is on display:  that being a woman is a horrible thing and a human being should be ridiculed for openly embracing one’s being if they are doing so from within a biologically male body.

I mean, think about it:  since when did women have such a road in life that all they have to do is announce to a magazine that they are a woman and they immediately get a career, fame, fortune, attention, and ego gratification?

Since when did being a woman not mean making around .75 for every $1.00 a man makes in the same job?  Since when did being a woman not mean that merely walking down the street alone puts her at risk of sexual assault and possibly being murdered?  Since when did being a woman not mean dealing with being treated as an object of no value save what sexual pleasure she could provide and what reproductive opportunities she could grant?  Since when did being a woman in our world mean any kind of advantage at all???

Clearly, the man is an insensitive and unaware buffoon, and I wouldn’t even give him the time of day normally…but he provided such a good mirror opportunity for those who are thoughtfully educating themselves about gender orientation, those who are taking their courage in hand to realize that there is no inherent morality in how we are oriented, but rather in how we live that orientation out.

What other things do you see hidden in this man’s stupidity?tumblr_n9igfjjFFI1tuih7ho1_500

Now…back to Bruce.  I encourage you to read of this journey, from the most reputable sources you can find, and really listen.  Listen.  Listen to what Bruce says, if anything at all.  Listen to the way things are reported.  Listen to the spin that reporters put on things.

Pay attention to the patriarchal paradigm assumption that are foisted on this.  Notice them, and draw inferences from that.  Watch for the things that happen at the level of what is assumed, such as one’s status and worth as a female and one’s status and worth as a male.

Be aware of the gossip and talk surrounding you in your daily life when this topic comes up and the flaming ignorance that will abound and be celebrated…watch how that will be mostly male humans who act that way.

And then…I have no right to ask this of you, I realize, as I am transgender and thus of an inferior human caste, so I am humbly beseeching you, Cis-gender Constance…then consider maybe speaking up in the midst of this ridicule and flaming ignorance, and bringing some correction and truth and light into the situation.

I seem to remember some admonition that true religion involves defending the powerless and the alien, the widow and the orphan and the stranger…here is the perfect chance!

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly,

Charissa Gracetumblr_n81ff1rQWM1spq83no1_1280

host to Host

In this morning mist and cold,
wet sand twixt my toes and me
and gritty ‘neath my knobby knees
I remember beginnings
of this moment long ago
and culminating in this now.

I woke then, to find my heart
had been torn open, then ripped from
my heaving chest in one harsh yank
and there were towels and pads all round
me there beneath those storm cloud words
still ringing

“Clean yourself up and go outside and play!”Image 002Those long years ago I learned
to cry silent and hide my tears…
on the insides of my cheeks
where they would run back down
to pool
inside that empty place my heart
used to be.  It used to be.

I wandered and I found places
that I could pour me out…
I don’t know
what hurt more:  the emptiness
just pouring out
or all those tears…
running down and drowning me.

So I lay me amidst the flowers
in lush grass meadows green
and there
learned to abide, endure, persist…
and yearn.  Oh how I learned to yearn.
tumblr_nhr7ihIf1n1rnsb2oo1_1280But that was then, and here, now…these
long years later
and miles travelled
down time’s trail…I stirred myself up
from underneath
my soft blankets
and threw on my big boots and coat.

But I left my cane behind…
limps are irrelevant when we
are down on our knees,  Yes?  They are.
tumblr_niozsiDmhG1rg59vvo1_500I walked the old beach access road
but my achy and empty core
walked contrary, backwards in time
to take on shape, substance and form,
becoming in the memories
the who I should have been back then
instead of this hollow and shipwrecked

me here, kneeling in this moment…
and I dreamed of what never was,
and sang of all that should have been.
tumblr_mtnr4td5YI1s24shdo1_500Then I arrived at ocean’s edge
and just in time…because the wedge
of memory, the urge to jump
had become great. 
And so I stood
and let my tears run down the outside
of my cheeks
while waiting for
the sun to walk its path
to stand

on the far edge of the horizon

and then to jump into the sky
and make its run once more across the void,
once more across the void.
tumblr_me6fkg32As1r37et1o1_500The sun, the sand, the sea

and me…

stood there where they met.

My eyes roved o’er the curved and graceful
backs
of waves swimming in droves
while songs abound
until they found
that old wreck stubborn run aground
on rocks, foolhardy in its heedless
balderdashy thrust
against
the foghorn blast and lighthouse beacon.tumblr_ni6vxzfGYI1tw1yvro1_1280Still there, rusty, sodden, and yet
not much worse for wear…not much.

Its familiar hollow hull
echoed my own empty hollow
chest…m
y locked up knees began
to tire, then give way at last…and

that is how I got here,
in the sand,
on my knees…
and waiting.tumblr_n57bhbuFqm1qf9n3ao1_1280and in that place my heart should burn
inside at last I felt the rising
of a voice
or was it something else?

the rising of a tide?
A fountain? No, a mountain? Mmm…
A spring

welling up in supplication
all my yearns found wing and from
my lips they flew
into the heavens,
beyond that marching willful sun 

to land at last safe
there in Mama’s lap.

And now…now.
Kneeled here…I listen.

I listen for the Word come down
to take up residence within
my empty chest, to become…yes
a presence Present, to have become
substantial substance and I think
maybe I can become a host

to the Host.

Regardless…kneeled here,
I cast it all away to Her
and let myself diminish, grow less

and become more.
And I am grateful for Her answer
in the graceful break of waves
and the ever rushing sound
of Her forever Kisstumblr_nioedv74sT1rn12zko1_1280

Why did David Reimer commit suicide?

Why did David Reimer commit suicide?.

Dear Constance:

Okay, so you wanna know what it is like to be transgender?  Well…read the article at the link above.  It is the story of a natal male who was horribly maimed during circumcision and was then subjected to a further mutilation of his body to “change him into a girl”.  The theory was that gender identity was purely a matter of external plumbing, and that if this little person “woke up” and saw their external plumbing was female, and that their clothes were female and their name was female and they were treated as female by everyone else, well they would just “be female”, case closed and everyone lives happily ever after.

Except it was an illusion.  A tragic and horrible illusion.  And it ended in suicide after 38 years of horror and suffering.  The article explains that all very well.

So how does it relate to a transgender person?  It goes to the location and seat of gender identity!  Under the current paradigm of the binary gender orientation, I am defined by my external plumbing.  From birth, I have been named, dressed, treated and socialized in the role consistent with my external genetalia, regardless of how I feel, think, or see the world which is totally the opposite…and this contradiction results in the same sorts of feelings and reactions as this poor soul in the article.  Oh, I processed things a bit different, but as I read of his despair, well it was too close to home.

Imagine for a moment:  if you woke up tomorrow, and all your clothes were the other gender…everyone you knew called you by a name that felt like sand in your own mouth and heart…you were expected to excel in the roles assigned by the opposite gender…you were expected to “know” the things the opposite gender has as inherent to them…

Maybe even at first you would think “cool”, what a chance to see the other side!  (Disregard the fact that you have prior experience already “seeing” your correct and natural side and would carry that experience with you as a help and buffer…we transgender people don’t even have that much).

But eventually, you would tire of this…enough, you would think.  I am going back to my real self, laying all this crap aside.

Oh but wait!  Everyone everywhere and every arm of society is now poised against you like the bramble bushes that were against Prince Charming as he sought to set Sleeping Beauty free!  It is all one giant Mirkwood filled with Shelobs and worse!  You show up to work wearing your right clothes and get mocked, threatened and terminated.

I think you get my point.

Gender is not located in external plumbing, and when your internal sense of gender and your external manifestation of this don’t line up the conflict is cataclysmic!

But the reverse is also true!  When a person’s body is surgically attended to with skill and care, and brought into alignment with the internal sense of gender, why voila!  The conflict dramatically diminishes and even disappears…and normal life happiness results.

We have always been taught not to judge a book by its cover.  We are taught that it is not outward appearance that impresses God, for They regard the heart and assess that.  So why in the world do we insist on imposing gender standards from the outside in, rather than discovering who our family and friends are from the inside out?

Listen:  being transgender is not a mental illness.  It is not a demonic spirit, any more than epilepsy is either of those…or a cleft palate is either of those…or a leaky heart valve is either of those.

Being transgender is a state of being, one that has been a part of the human experience of gender as far back as historical records extend, and it is across all cultures and races…it is something that is a function of the core of some people’s lives…

BUT:  if this condition is left untreated, then that neglect can result in horrible consequences: addictions, depressions, emotional and spiritual despairs, and ultimately the overwhelming desire to not hurt anymore, suicide.

But no…for some reason that completely mystifies me, we think that transgender humans are “adopting a lifestyle” or “adopting a new sexual proclivity” or are “seeking to overthrow marriage” or “rebelling against God”, or “are freaks” or…or…or…

It never ends, those “or”s.

If you are an ally, thank you, and please continue to support with your time, talent and treasure until these lies are shattered and a whole beautiful segment of humanity is liberated.

But if you aren’t…if you are “neutral” or simply new or think it is blechy…well just imagine if you were forced…yeah.  Not good.

I am a letter, and the envelope I am in has changed…a lot.  But I am still the same letter I always was…and if you have courage, maybe I will let you read me!  🙂

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.

Charissa

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Transmisogyny 101: What It Is and What Can We Do About It — Everyday Feminism

Transmisogyny 101: What It Is and What Can We Do About It — Everyday Feminism.

Dear Constance…I would be honored if you would read the article I linked to above.  It is about a real thing, a thing that I am experiencing more and more each day that goes by.

For real…transmisogyny is real.  I know first hand.

I want to tell you something:  if someone you know is transphobic and/or transmisogynistic, and you know better but do not stick up for the transgender people you know, then you are empowering that transphobia/misogyny.

They are not going to truly understand and get it that it is not okay to be that way until it hits them directly…affects them directly, and with consequences.

Constance…this is not the ranting of a shrill disenfranchised jealous outcast.  I was for 53 years considered amongst the brightest and the best.  I am a college graduate, with a 4.0 GPA since I was in the 7th grade.  I was a respected speaker, thinker, and leader.

And then I committed “Gender Murder” when I chose to transition and become myself…I was guilty of two unforgivable sins in our patriarchy:  first, choosing to be female when I could simply “be” male…and second:  “wasting a perfectly good man” as I was told…literally told that.

Did you get that?  To be a woman when I could continue to fake it as a man was a waste.

Cis-Sisters:  when you allow transmisogyny/phobia to occur in your presence, you actually reinforce your own worth-less-ness in the eyes of the patriarchy in general and the person hating in specific!

Cis-brothers:  when you allow people to hate on transgender people, especially when you allow other males to do that, you are tacitly hating too…and you are not only hating transgender people, you are devaluing your own wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmothers and female friends.  You make a mockery of nobility and civility and honor.

Strong words.

I know, right?  The nerve of me…pleading for sincere and honest action to back up words with.

But hey…it’s either that, and the potential discomfort it will cause for a bit, or it is stay silent, and work on that Transgender Remembrance Day Roster for next November…and you can sit in silence and feel good about your courageous acknowledgement of more dead people while their blood cries out in echo of the previous year’s…and the previous year’s…and…and…

My prayer is that one day we don’t even know what a transgender remembrance day is…because there is no more need for one.

PS:  If you are reading and thinking “but I don’t even know a transgender person” then I will clue you in:  you likely do, but don’t know they are transgender…and even if you don’t, then I ask why not?  If you have sympathy with our plight, there are services you can volunteer with, there are transgender people who need help, and all of us need a friend.

PPS:  And you still should make sure those around you know that it is not okay to be misogynistic/phobic, trans- or otherwise.

In serious stillness and love,
Charissa

Silken Tears: Written in the memory of Leelah Alcorn

i saw her there, in the dark woods,
so fair of movement, fair of face
she walked beneath the milky moon
and bathed in silken light like lace.

she glowed with beauty’s blessing kist
upon her brow, but knew it not
for hatred choked her slender throat
and in its death grip she was caught.

i ran to her, and called her name
my voice it was a whippoorwill
my voice a falcon stark and shrill
i called her name in terror-trilltumblr_nhbo5yvqs21sqba70o1_500

but she could not hear me approach
her, buried under long reproach
so cut off from a future hope
and bound by hate’s black biting rope

so I just stood beside her there
just her and me, her broken stare
and dirges echoed through the night
and she in tragic silken light…

and then she ran straight to the moon
it rushed at us!  alas, i swooned
upon the snowy cold fields fair
and when i woke, she was not there tumblr_nbehmpPs4v1smipnlo1_500

i asked the owls and talked to trees
and heard the moon had stooped so near
had come down to grant her release
from stony hearts and hatred’s sneer…

so now i haunt those woods, those vales
and listen hard inside the night
in case a singer runs for me
as i to her ran desperately

but silence croons so clear and cold,
the lonely moon is wreathed in gold
so distant, never drawing near
to where we stood in silken tears.LeelahEdit

Charissa Comments On Leelah

So…at last I think I can comment about the tragic death of Leelah Alcorn.  There has been a maelstrom of emotions inside me over this.

I won’t list them here, because some of them may shock, outrage, or worry some of you.  Suffice to say that I absolutely and completely understand in my marrow the very heart-fire of what she wrote in her note.

But what is more interesting to me is this:  her parents had a choice to make…a choice about gender, gender orientation, and even a choice about Who God Is in light of Gender.  They had to either choose to reach out to their child in spite of their own feelings about gender and what it is and how it is derived, or to slap her down in the name of the binary.  They had to either love their child in spite of anything, everything that she had done or failed to do, and love her just because she was here and gifted to them…or to repudiate her in the name of who they conceive God to be in their own small and stony hearts…

Well, actually let’s boil it down further:  they either had to choose to love Leelah, or love themselves.tumblr_nhhqy6QtCa1tuw8wbo1_1280

That is the bottom line.  Let me unpack this a bit for you.

First, let’s start with gender, and the crucial thing here is to really feel the distate and horror they had for a transgender person, the visceral reaction they had to what they felt was wrong wrong WRONG!  Oh Constance, how is it not more clear, the strong and unchangeable thing that gender orientation is!!?  Because their rejection of who Leelah was and the feelings that they had?  They are the same feelings and depth and strength and absolute that transgender people feel inside about who we are gendered as!

They would rather see her die than to see her live as a gender they thought she was not…and I will confess that I would rather die than live any longer as who and what I am not.  That is not a life anyway, and never was, not at its core.

They imagined that it would be torture for them, to see Leelah dressed properly female but to their eyes looking like a clown (one of my former best friends told me that I look like a clown, by the way, thanks for that, former 33 year friend)!  They pictured a life of seeing her over years and that making them uncomfortable.Image 002

Constance…this is how we feel…transgender people…when we live in a world where our very breathing is transgressive!  And to walk around being in such a way to reduce the absolute hatred we face from others when we are ourselves is to choose to be something that is indescribable agony inside ourselves to be!  We get treated “fine” (and that means with indifference and left alone)…but it is an abattoir inside our hearts as our own life blood is spattered on the walls of our souls as we claw at our chests trying to tear the pain out of our hearts!tumblr_nfb8vsABbE1qznvrxo1_r1_400

But wait!!  We can take hormones!  We can dress properly…and even better, we can actually have medical attention that literally transforms that pain into joy, and fills that horrible void with presence!  The statistical evidence is overwhelming on this point, by the way.  But it comes with a price:  we exchange our inner torment for torment and rejection from our social groups and culture.  The torment just changes location…sadly, most people in our society are just like Leelah’s parents and they  begin to exercise the dominance of the binary.  They want to avoid their own discomfort and are willing for us to die, whether it be by our own hand or theirs.

That is the choice we have:  suffer in how we are made…or suffer at our own hand…or suffer from the hands of other people.tumblr_nh62vnYyO81u6arw9o1_500

Because God forbid that my choice of clothing and presentation make anyone uncomfortable or antsy, right?  Better that I just go away, or even better, change back…I am blood guilty, after all, of “wasting a perfectly good man” as another 3 decade long friend said to me in utter seriousness after 3 and a half hours of me trying to explain to him what it is like.

But that brings us to the next point in regards to the Leelah Alcorn tragedy:  Who is this God that Leelah’s parents supposedly worship and live for?  What is this God like?

Well, if we look honestly at this situation, Leelah’s parents believed that they themselves would be guilty of sin if they reached out to Leelah and did whatever it took to be sure she was mentally stable, healthy and able to actually live everyday without being bullied, othered or policed.  They literally believe that God would call them unfaithful sinners and accuse them of enabling their child to be in sin, and then remove all blessing or protection or support from their lives.

They see God being who they themselves are!  To their way of looking at it, Leelah’s suicide was the lesser of two evils, and really they actually are implying that God would say to them “Well Done, Good and Faithful Servants!  You held the line against immorality and sin, even at the cost of your own child!  You sacrificed your own flesh and blood for your own standing as righteous and defending My Honor!”tumblr_necznlA2Ma1r1arpmo1_1280

That’s essentially what happens inside their heart…they were willing to endure the death of their child in a horrific way, and live with that their entire lives, her blood crying out in every sunrise and sunset…because they think that brings God pleasure.

Where did they get this picture of God?  I really want to know this!  Because they certainly did not get this from the Bible, a book that I have read countless times and studied for years at various stages of life and maturity.

Here is who the Bible says God is…the Father who had children who chose selfishness, self-worship, hatred, strife, murder, envy, greed, malice, war, slaughter, wantonness, foolishness and darkness instead of simple fellowship with Him.  So THIS Father did something completely other than what Leelah’s parents did.  This Father instead searched out His children, went where they were, and gave a manifestation of His Heart on their behalf.  He didn’t require them to die for their deeds and lives…instead He had His own Heart die for us instead, as a transaction of love which covers everything.tumblr_ng20au91Nc1s2z59jo1_500

When you love your children regardless of their actions, reactions, deeds, words, silences…well you are imitating God that that finds great favor…when you put your children to death with your own words, deeds, actions and reactions…well flat out you are imitating the devil and worshiping yourself…because the only spiritual beings who take pleasure in evil are satanic and people who put themselves above everything else.

So this post is a very emotional and very crappy piece of writing.  I am too close to it to not be all over the map…but just try to grasp these things:

The horror that cis-gender people feel when they are around us is nothing compared to the primary horror we are inside ourselves waking up and finding our heart/soul/mind/spirit at complete odds with the body we walk around in and are consigned to for everyday of our lives, and the secondary horror we will cause ourselves if we dare to give away who and what we are or even worse if we avail ourselves of the medical miracles there are which will almost entirely cure us.

It is the same absolute for us that we are not congruent inside and outside as it is for cis-gendered people that we are just mentally ill and can be fixed so we are just like them.

These two points illustrate the lie that has so long deceived us all…that gender is derived from plumbing…because if that all it is why do they freak out so bad if they even think about dressing or acting different?  Wouldn’t it be as inconsequential as being in costume for a play?  That it is NOT that inconsequential proves absolutely that gender is something inside and it is what it is!!

I mean, I truly think they would rather us kill ourselves than let us live and move and have our beings just like them!  But if we are too stubborn to kill ourselves, there are plenty of brutes every year who are happy to execute us for the sin of breaking the binary.tumblr_ndrlprYaIl1txj8zfo7_250

It is so strong that they will even remake who God is to justify it…well, sadly, God gets remade all the time to justify the evil that people do.

I hurt and suffer as a human being, in common with everyone else…but I hurt and suffer as a transgender person in addition to that…and I hurt and suffer additional burdens because of what others do and say, fail to do and say…and I hurt and suffer at the lies that people live out as testimony of who they think God is.

Because that is not who They are.tumblr_nc9u51asVe1qa5hedo1_500

Now the confession that I have been avoiding:  in all truth, I am envious of Leelah, because in the midst of all the sorrow and horror and grief, her own torment has ended…and that prospect, of that low grade fever buzz of wrong being gone finally and there being blessed silence, sweetness, and rest…well that is something that I wish I could have.

And I feel a huge amount of guilt over that envy…because it is very clear to me that were I to seek relief it would be at the lifelong expense of many people I am connected to, and I would buy my own release with their pain…and that is unacceptable to me…so I sit…and mourn Leelah even while I am longing for what she now has…and feeling this awful mix of guilt and cowardice and bleakness…and thank God for Them, and They do bring comfort and joy and security even in the midst…no, especially in the midst.

I have many blessings…I have inner peace in terms of the Ultimate End of things…but I struggle, oh I struggle so hard, and I truly fear at times that I am not up to the task of being.  I try to be honest with myself, and that means feelings…but then again I am not like other people and able to just rise above them.  And that adds to the guilt and shame of not being good enough.

I wish I knew if Leelah would want me to live…I think she would, actually, because I think she wanted to live…it just got too hard, too heavy.tumblr_mx5becxnZE1shqs68o1_500

Hey Constance…regardless of your feelings about gender…if you have any feelings what so ever about being a good person?  Try making the burden lighter for people…with compassion, kindness, tender heartedness and smiles, instead of heavier with judgment and rejection.  You would be amazed to know what one kind word can do.

Confused rambly Charissa is now done gushing and vomiting.

Sorry for the succumbing to the passion and letting it produce a big messy dump of a post…I just could not live with all this inside me any longer.

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SmartAssJen | listening to the living and the dead: ruminations…

tumblr_n32tdwdZ0i1qzxeqqo3_500SmartAssJen | listening to the living and the dead: ruminations….

Long post…rambles a bit…and scintillating in every single point, as an emotional map tracking the swings and oscillations of my heart and soul.

Trigger warning:  boring for cis-gendered people…and explosive for transgender people.

Charissa

Suicide Strikes Again

Constance…this appeared on my Facebook feed…I am distraught.

***********************************************************************************

Leelah was a 17yo ‪#‎trans‬ girl who just committed suicide. Rejected by her Christian parents. Put through reparative therapy. Her suicide note is below.

(Yes, it’s a verified real story. This post is from the City Councilman. Leelah is misgendered in news reports and images say “beloved son.” Love your kids, no matter who they are.)

10882203_10152890370433559_4919673113361989723_n

Some very sad news to share.

Yesterday, a 17-year old committed suicide by jumping in front of a semi on I-71 near the South Lebanon exit.

It has come to light that this person likely committed suicide because she was transgender.

While Cincinnati led the country this past year as the first city in the mid-west to include transgender inclusive health benefits and we have included gender identity or expression as a protected class for many years….the truth is….it is still extremely difficult to be a transgender young person in this country.

We have to do better.

By reading her letter, Leelah makes it clear she wants her death to, in some way, help “trans civil rights movements.”

Please join me in making a donation (investment in our trans kids) right now to TransOhio.

Invest by clicking here: http://www.transohio.org

SUICIDE NOTE
If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.

Please don’t be sad, it’s for the better. The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in… because I’m transgender. I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and I’ve felt that way ever since I was 4. I never knew there was a word for that feeling, nor was it possible for a boy to become a girl, so I never told anyone and I just continued to do traditionally “boyish” things to try to fit in.

When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self. That’s exactly what it did to me.

My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.

When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart. The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.

I formed a sort of a “fuck you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted.

So they took me out of public school, took away my laptop and phone, and forbid me of getting on any sort of social media, completely isolating me from my friends. This was probably the part of my life when I was the most depressed, and I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.

At the end of the school year, my parents finally came around and gave me my phone and let me back on social media. I was excited, I finally had my friends back. They were extremely excited to see me and talk to me, but only at first. Eventually they realized they didn’t actually give a shit about me, and I felt even lonelier than I did before. The only friends I thought I had only liked me because they saw me five times a week.

After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like shit because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.

That’s the gist of it, that’s why I feel like killing myself. Sorry if that’s not a good enough reason for you, it’s good enough for me. As for my will, I want 100% of the things that I legally own to be sold and the money (plus my money in the bank) to be given to trans civil rights movements and support groups, I don’t give a shit which one. The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say “that’s fucked up” and fix it. Fix society. Please.

Goodbye,

(Leelah) Josh Alcorn

4th Grader Asks Santa For Equality, Writes About Transgender Sister

4th Grader Asks Santa For Equality, Writes About Transgender Sister.

Constance…I am a total wreck right now.

Just tears.

God…please, more people like these?tumblr_naka9qSUsT1thqgeao1_1280

11 Ways 2014 Was the Biggest Year in Transgender History | Rolling Stone

11 Ways 2014 Was the Biggest Year in Transgender History | Rolling Stone.

Good Morning Constance…

I ran across this article this morning, and of course was interested to read of this historical recounting of an amazing year of awareness growing…

…and yet, somehow, I found it strangely disconnected from my own life.  In the midst of these events, I swam in my own seas of trial, toil, sorrow and joy.

My own year:

In early January, I went to my therapist dressed as myself…outside in public.  It terrified me and I thought I would die of fear.  When I walked into her office, she cried in joy.  Her tears are jewels in my memory.

In late January I had my ears pierced, and though it hurt like crazy, I was ecstatic.  A week later, I was derisively interrogated by subordinates at work “what the F**k had I done with my ears?”.  That particular brand of self-loathing, shame, fear and anger gave me its first sip…it is not intoxicating.  It is hell.

In February, I began HRT…and the horror fires banked so long in forges that rival Mordor in despair began to diminish, and then extinguish, and streams of mercy clear and relief substantial coursed through my veins…and who I am began to blossom and bloom…I was well named at birth, if it is considered what that sort of thing is destined to do…

In April, I had more experiences at work that were distressing.  I also joined my poetry group, and that cadre of people who have only ever known me as myself are such salt of the earth wonders, who simply know me as Charissa, the odd poetess.  One beautiful woman in particular has taken me under her wing…and on that first fearful night, she looked at me with open face and clear eyes.

In Spring and summer, I sold my truck and used the proceeds to fund my transition…of this I can only refer you to those months.

In summer a relationship that is very significant to me began to be built, the first one, in fact, as me Charissa.  It is a very simple one in its arc and scope…it is very complex in that it is unfolding from the end to the beginning, and someday we shall arrive where we are meant to begin.  It is encumbered with obstacles, none insurmountable but all onerous…distance, time, and prejudice rooted in ignorance and fed by distrust are outside forces that have so far driven us on with sails full before those winds, and we have sailed to many wondrous shores…may there ever be another, DDH…ever be another until the Last.tumblr_nh5lyicxll1qgk7mfo1_1280

And in the autumn, I took my own journey down The Green Mile that most of my sisters walk…I was murdered professionally, guilty of the crime of becoming myself and throwing off the chains of privilege and white male power and position.

This is the ultimate crime in our patriarchy.

A human being, born biologically as an XY chromosome-assigned being, and granted all the accompanying privileges, rights and riches, power and position, initiated into the ways of “men” and present in their spaces…this human considers all that as utter futility compared to the all surpassing richness of being myself and authentic…and I am unabashedly thrilled to be myself…I openly declare being a woman to be the better destiny and life.

For those crimes I had to die.  I have been put in my place, and my tale of woe would be recognized by any woman anywhere who sought to be herself in places she was not permitted to be.

Since that moment life is full of unbecoming…unwrapping, unraveling…the chrysalis is split and the butterfly within is terrified as its house and covering is torn asunder…only the future will inform her she can fly while she writhes in the clutches of the threatening lonely present.

Abandoned by friends, neglected by loved ones, showered by Mama, constantly encouraged by one…the heart of my heart and constant support and nearly my life itself…16601790-standard

…that is the year in review for me.  A year of portent.  Perhaps the overall macro view contrasted with the small view of this flea will give you some perspective in the issues we face that cis-gender people take for granted.

May 2015 contain triumph to match the certain tears…may there be joy enough to overcome my fears…and may I find somehow the grace to continue on, in the midst of lonely silence and neglect and need, laying aside my own selfish point of view and greed to feed and care for myself…may I be a vessel poured out over and over again, trusting Mama to fill me full and looking never to others.

Blessings to you Constance…and deepest heart gratitude that you are reading here this day.  Your support has been so precious and invaluable.

Charissa Grace…a butterfly emerging and persistent.

book-sculpture-david-kracov-book-of-life__880

Advent Poem: The Season of Emptiness

I remember
last Christmas,
lingering in my mind
midst memory’s fogs
and memories
…just grey mists now,
swirling and coiling
back on themselves,
roiling forward
from the past
and boiling over
into this morning,
this day…

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this time sitting
in the midst of ashes
dead and flat remaining
from that cold conflagration
of becoming thru the fires
of that season.

Friends, job,
name, family,
reputation,
all consumed
by fire,
all revealed as
morsels of the moment
(that lasted 55 years and still just a moment)…

last year,
I had it all
at least in the eyes
of those who don’t matter,
I had it all…especially
the awful yawning
void of nothing
gaping inside
me, most real
inside me,Processed with VSCOcam with x1 preset

I remember
the day after Christmas
reduced me to a place
in the hills adjacent
to the place a woman
took her own life
this year,
reduced me
to screaming incoherence
because I had run out
of words to scream and
I had just begun
to scratch the surface
of what there was
to scream about,
that awful
substantial black
nothing.

that day,
it was a close matter
a razor’s edge tumble
into red greedy flames
burning long and low
all year until
they blazed in fury fanned
when smothering shrouds
were snatched away sudden
in torn and tattered strips
to consume the bribes
and chains of nothing
clothed in costumes.

This Christmas,
nothing has been exposed,
revealed as the imposter
it still masquerades as.
I am empty of screams
but full of me and
ready to receive
the Promise of words
to give voice to
what’s unspeakable, unnameable,
to dress that wound
infected with nothing
and salve it with
the scratchy tickle of truth
and set free we
shadowbound to be
our shining selves,
casting shadows
instead of being flat
and cast by them.

It is the season of emptiness, and places
prepared by pain are hungry
for the Presence
and the Promise
that only emptiness contains.

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California Department of Education Lies, Does Not Investigate LGBTQ Bullying

I cannot even begin to speak of how I feel after reading this. Thank yous to Lori for finding her voice to write about what I felt frozen by.

If you read this, and then go on business as usual, you need to realize: there may be someone in your circle of influence who is either bullying or bullied.

Your involvement could make all the difference.

We feel the tragic nature of these sorts of things because someone unique, utterly precious and beyond priceless has been snuffed out. But the same principle holds the other way: you…you yourself are unique, and have a power and a voice that impacts the universe.

But only if you use it. If you don’t, well we all know the black tide that seeks to erode everything and pull it into itself and its seething mass of hurt and horror.

raisingmyrainbow's avatarRaising My Rainbow

Ronin-cheerleader.jpg.pagespeed.ce.3GDLKTtQ8BRqgOhqwhHY Ronin Shimizu

Like my son, Ronin Shimizu was a young boy living in California. He was a cheerleader, like my son hopes to be one day. Ronin is described as positive and happy, like my son is often described. He endured bullying because he liked something that some people is “only for girls.” Sadly, my son knows exactly how that feels.

Last week, 12-year-old Ronin decided to end the bullying by ending his life.

I worry every day that my son will have this too in common with Ronin. Because the group of kids like Ronin and my son have the highest rate of suicide attempts in the world.

The articles about Ronin’s death report that in the years leading up to his suicide, Ronin’s parents made multiple complaints to his school about the homophobic and gender-based bullying their son was experiencing. The school’s response was inadequate and the bullying…

View original post 637 more words

This is me…

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this is me, inside my heart, my soul cupped in my hands
and lifted high in graceful beauty unto heavenly lands,
this is my spirit, beautiful and yielded in my place
on sacred prayer mat made of love and tears and joy and grace.

but this is that me, seen, encountered, clumsy in this world,
the way i am perceived and felt, the heated judgments hurled,
hard and horned, coarse and dull, imprisoned in my place,
of silence, sorrow, empty house, tears always on my face.

Bisonbulle(Bison Bull)

Going for the Throat of Love

I have always
gone for the throat of love.
Right?  I mean,
what else is there, really?

See, you are wiley…
you have your snares, your wire-traps…
but you know your way
around these woods

you touch those red trunks thick
and feel the moss and know
when that woody heart is open
and thirsty and available

you sense the wondering wildlife
hid nearby and hushed,
and know just how to move thus
and not startle the deer

and how to whistle for the birds,
you trill in practiced ease, that’s you…
touching terrain, scheduling territories,
reading maps and visiting…

spreading out your hunter’s eye
in webs and nets
and next thing you know, why
love is there and snapped

neatly on your leash and sat,
ears cocked, so it knows to roll over,
and speak, and play dead
(with a smile).

But me?  I have eyes that see, inside
those scented trunks concealed with fringey moss,
and ears that hear inside the hearts of harts that crouch so still
and hidden there so neat and underneath the wings of birds.

But I don’t have body, right?
When I move, I snap twigs and crash,
noise and blunder, all bleeding desire
and wet contagious bonding sticky heart

that catches on the thorns you deftly step around
and tears on twigs and snags on gnarly cedar fingers
and then clutches at the brush to cover
my embarrassing naked need of something other

my need of what I was not even given
the dignity of denial,
denial of my heart-felt soft request…
like a tree not granted the dignity of a forest.

So I just jump que sera sera, aiming for
the things I see inside the hearts of trees and
the things I hear singing inside the flight of blackbirds in the night…
and the humming of the bees

…and find myself missing…
…over and over and over…
and thumping hard on stones and tumbled
scratched and hotly embarrassed

by yet another fruitless
leap of faith while moments
walks right past me,
walk right thru me!

I imagine you, your skillful
deft dread lilting steps
and secret smile of success,
you equipped and given grace that matches…

and moving
in the forest ways
and easy and always
so at home.

Finally I pick myself up,
and listen, look, and get a bead
on that pulsing place so secret there,
the tender hollow of its neck,

love,
and I get myself ready to go
for the throat of love once more,
and missing take my deep compelled encore

in hope that I will
catch my quarry, or am still
and never need to long
or ever jump again.

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Under the Surface

I never scuba dive.
I’m afraid of those sharks,
great white sharks
(I could never figure out what was so great about them).

I think what they mean
is big white sharks.
and they aren’t even really white!
(why do we call things white that aren’t even?).

Their teeth are white though,
white razors running
from snout to throat and down
(I think they chew their way thru the water).

Besides, I am in enough danger (on land)
from things called great (that aren’t)
from things called white (that are just pale fish belly dead)
from things with teeth (that are hungry for blood).

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Japan Was Far Away

When I was little I used to lay in bed
and it was like time would surround me,
fall down over me, on me, lay round me
like the blankets, rough and wool
(and scratchy, so I could never get comfortable).

But the problem was, time would not keep out!
No…it seeped thru my pores and wrapped round my bones
with its icy tendrils that could morph and move
like foggy fingers there and not there
(and just like time has always been, uncomfortable).

I got desperate and anguished and panicked
and I thrashed around frantic like a fish
hauled out of the lake and flopping on the deck
with a bitter hook caught at its jaws
(because hungry and wanting comfortable).

But I wasn’t actually moving, not really.
My body was still, frozen, fearful of fury
and the stormy flipping frenzied flailing
was all in my head while shadows laughed
(on walls akimbo and decidedly uncomfortable).

Those shadows all the way from Japan, there on my walls.
Kabuki pallbearers waiting to carry me to the last place
where the hook of time would be pulled at last from my jaw
and I thrown into…what…the larder, or back in the lake
(I feared each one, false friend and never comfortable)?

Finally, blankets scratchy and harsh, holding me down,
conspired with time and its frozen invasive thrusts
and I was filled with the brutal fecund flow washing
over my fertile imagination and there conceived such spawn
(shadows and time and me spawn something very uncomfortable).

Then that thing began to writhe, kick inside me, jaws working
faster and faster until I knew it would gnaw me thin, and then gone.
I knew it was chewing its way to the freedom denied me
and I screamed so fearful that ears could not hear it
(but my doggie did, she was never away from me and comfortable).

I screamed until I passed out, and blood spatter gouts spurted
their baptismal incantations as I gave birth to the only offspring
I could bear, the bastard child of time and shadow and fear,
and awareness left me like the dirty water of my bath draining
(it spiraled down clockwise…that wisdom so uncomfortable).

But I always woke up, as if nothing had happened
and my stomach was flat, unmarked, taut and young.
The sun shown bright and birds sang all round me
and there was nothing on the walls…not even a shadow of shadows
(and Japan was far away, bowing, waiting and comfortable).

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Worthless…on Transgender Remembrance Day

Constance, here is the sad truth:  if I was murdered for being trans, I would be blamed, othered, misgendered in my death, and then forgotten as a sad cautionary tale of someone who went cray-cray…and once again the epidemic of hateful absolutely vile demonic murder would continue unchecked by my death any more than the tsunamis are checked by lil old seawalls along the oceanfront.

It is not a joke.  It is not just me being shrill.

It is pure unadulterated evil.  Killing someone because they do not conform to societal norms.

The post below is my contribution to Transgender Remembrance Day…the blunt and brutal fact that I am worth about as much to towns, communities and society as the dog crap in the street that needs to be cleaned up and disposed of with laws discussed to control the dogs.

Keep on fiddling, Nero…keep on fiddling.  You are sawing your own neck in two.

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Excerpted from a larger article:

Remembering Us When We’re Gone, Ignoring Us While We’re Here: Trans Women Deserve More


There’s an interesting phenomenon that I’ve witnessed over the past few years. The names of trans women of color will be in the mouths of the queer community after they’ve been murdered, but support for us while we are still alive is sporadic at best. Trans women are pushed out of queer spaces by cis people, dfab genderqueers, and trans men, just to name a few. Women’s spaces are frequently hostile to us because we aren’t “real women” but trans men almost always get a free pass. And I’ve seen more than one cis queer say that trans women are “appropriating” the gay rights movement, totally ignorant of the fact that we started the damn thing. I have seen more than one cis queer say that we have nothing in common with them, that our issues are completely unrelated. We have a hard time finding dates, finding support, finding community. And when we dare to call people out for their transmisogyny, we are labeled crazy, hysterical, divisive. I have been called Austin “queer scene’s” number one enemy. All for daring to share my thoughts on the world around me.

image via http://www.gazettenet.com

Trans Day of Remembrance is filled to the brim with the names of murdered Black and brown trans women, but is a single evening of remembering enough? And what does it mean that TDoR doesn’t explicitly talk about race and is often dominated by white people? Here in Austin there’s this tradition of calling the names of the dead and then having an audience member sit in a chair that represents where the dead trans woman would sit. The seats are always filled with white people and non-trans women. What do our deaths mean when our bodies, our lives, the physical space we take up, is appropriated by white folks? How can I mourn for my sisters when the space set up for that mourning is so thoroughly colonized? And how can I even see hope of living a full life when I don’t see myself reflected in what is supposed to be my community?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to honor those women who came before us, those women murdered by colonial patriarchy. But it seems like more often than not, the queer community at large is content with just remembering. We only hear about trans women after their deaths. And even our deaths are not our own. A week doesn’t go by without a white queer citing the deaths of trans women of color as the evidence of how oppressed they are. These stats are often used in service of their own assimilation; meanwhile, they’re happy to leave us out in the cold. We don’t even have dignity in death, nor the ability to decide what it will mean for us.

 via http://giveout.razoo.com

Support for trans women dwindles when we are still alive. Nowhere is this clearer than in fundraisers run by and for trans women. There have been some success stories, but they always seem to be few and far between. More often than not, a trans woman’s fundraiser will get a few signal boosts, maybe a couple of dollars and then languish. Meanwhile, trans men’s fundraisers for transition related care often get fully funded. This funding disparity is also clear institutionally, where organizations that focus on the concerns and issues of trans women of color get a miniscule amount of all the money from LGBTQ foundations. This is especially true in the South, where LGBT organizations only get 3-4% of domestic LGBT funding. Again, cis, white, rich institutions are quick to use our murders in their statistics then turn around and spend their money on organizations that look like them: cis, white, and rich. Organizations that push for assimilation.

Via americanprogress.org

Obviously financial support isn’t the be all end all action to support trans women of color, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. And the fact that it’s a struggle for trans women to acquire financial assistance is symptomatic of our society’s priorities. It points to who is valuable and who is disposable. At the bottom of this article is a list of fundraisers and organizations for trans women that I would strongly encourage you to support. If you’re not a trans woman and you’re reading this, think long and hard about the ways that you’re supporting trans women in your community. Do you see trans women in public community spaces? How are your actions pushing them out? Don’t think that just giving money nullifies your collusion in transmisogyny. Financial support is important but it is not the only step. As we honor the memory of those girls who have been murdered, ask how you’re helping the living.