Tag Archives: gender policing

The Triune Choice of Transgender Humans in a Binary World

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I wanted to press this because I admire the courage of this person, and I wanted to call attention (again) to the plight of transgender people.  Sadly, we are limited to just a couple of options:

1.  Be true to ourselves, and get harassed, bullied, and very likely even assaulted and/or killed.

2.  Hide, and be subject to awful harassment, bullying and assault from ourselves from inside our own being.

Of course there is the 3rd option, the one I took:

You can always just rip yourself in two…dissociate, so you don’t “know” about yourself (and neither does anyone else), and you can simply study the prison that you have been given and called life and learn how to perform.

Perform well, and get rewarded with praise, affection, what is termed “love” (and from the perspective of the givers surely is love, but from the perspective of the dissociated person it’s never really known for sure if they’re loved), and all the privileges accorded to one who conforms to their prescribed role.

But the fallout from this…the gender role half life, if you will…is terrible.  Stress, dysphoria, depression, and ultimately despair.  The ripples of that rending of the soul in twain go forth from that moment…

…but they don’t diminish with time, they magnify, grow larger and have increasingly more destructive results in the lives of all who intersect with that person.

I know.  This is what I did…and I’ve been informed by those who had the grave misfortune to exist in those waves and troughs that I ruined them forever in my cowardly and hypocritical choice to dissociate rather than displease (or worse) my parents.

Hey, I was 6 years old…I shoulda known better…I did know worse…eventually.

So there you have it, folks…the 3 fold option for prisoners of the gender binary back in the mid 60s.  If you know a family with a gender variant member, and they are seeking to grapple with it now in a world that is slowly growing more flexible as attitudes and superstitions change…reach out and give them love.

They will certainly need it.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly
Charissatumblr_npuxgzCrCq1qg4kx9o1_1280

riverheadlocal.com

Transgender youth skip school rather than face discrimination, humiliation from educators and peers

The N.Y. Civil Liberties Union is calling on the State Education Department to provide detailed guidance to public school districts on preventing transgender youths’ discrimination and harassment by students and teachers.

Many trans* youth don’t get the education they deserve due to undue harassment and discrimination from both educations and peers.

This is why EVERY school should have a fully inclusive non-discrimination AND anti-bullying policy which protects youth and educators alike on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender presentation.

Neighborhood Bully (Apologies to Bob Dylan for the Adjustments)

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Well, the neighborhood bully, she’s a woman
Her enemies say she’s on their land
They got her outnumbered about a million to one
She got no place to escape to, no place to run
She’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive
She’s criticized and condemned for being alive
She’s not supposed to fight back, she’s supposed to have thick skin
She’s supposed to lay down and die when her door is kicked in
She’s the neighborhood bully

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
She’s wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen her family scattered, her people hounded and torn
She’s always on trial for just being born
She’s the neighborhood bully

Well, she knocked out a lynch mob, she was criticized
Old women condemned her, said she should apologize.
Then she destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for her. She was supposed to feel bad
She’s the neighborhood bully

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That she’ll live by the rules that the world makes for her
’Cause there’s a noose at her neck and a gun at her back
And a license to kill her is given out to every maniac
She’s the neighborhood bully

She got no allies to really speak of
What she gets she must pay for, she don’t get it out of love
She buys obsolete weapons and she won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by her side
She’s the neighborhood bully

Well, she’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
She’s the neighborhood bully

Every empire that’s enslaved her is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
She’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command
She’s the neighborhood bully

Now her holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract she signed was worth what it was written on
She took the crumbs of the world and she turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and she turned it into health
She’s the neighborhood bully

What’s anybody indebted to her for?
Nothin’, they say. She just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
She’s the neighborhood bully

What has she done to wear so many scars?
Does she change the course of rivers? Does she pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully
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Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music
Lyrical adaptations by Charissa, in honor of courageous women everywhere, especially transwomen

The Triune Choice of Transgender People In a Binary World

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I wanted to press this because I admire the courage of this person, and I wanted to call attention (again) to the plight of transgender people.  Sadly, we are limited to just a couple of options:

1.  Be true to ourselves, and get harassed, bullied, and very likely even assaulted and/or killed.

2.  Hide, and be subject to awful harassment, bullying and assault from ourselves from inside our own being.

Of course there is the 3rd option, the one I took:

You can always just rip yourself in two…dissociate, so you don’t “know” about yourself (and neither does anyone else), and you can simply study the prison that you have been given and called life and learn how to perform.

Perform well, and get rewarded with praise, affection, what is termed “love” (and from the perspective of the givers surely is love, but from the perspective of the dissociated person it’s never really known for sure if they’re loved), and all the privileges accorded to one who conforms to their prescribed role.

But the fallout from this…the gender role half life, if you will…is terrible.  Stress, dysphoria, depression, and ultimately despair.  The ripples of that rending of the soul in twain go forth from that moment…

…but they don’t diminish with time, they magnify, grow larger and have increasingly more destructive results in the lives of all who intersect with that person.

I know.  This is what I did…and I’ve been informed by those who had the grave misfortune to exist in those waves and troughs that I ruined them forever in my cowardly and hypocritical choice to dissociate rather than displease (or worse) my parents.

Hey, I was 6 years old…I shoulda known better…I did know worse…eventually.

So there you have it, folks…the 3 fold option for prisoners of the gender binary back in the mid 60s.  If you know a family with a gender variant member, and they are seeking to grapple with it now in a world that is slowly growing more flexible as attitudes and superstitions change…reach out and give them love.

They will certainly need it.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly
Charissa

riverheadlocal.com

Transgender youth skip school rather than face discrimination, humiliation from educators and peers

The N.Y. Civil Liberties Union is calling on the State Education Department to provide detailed guidance to public school districts on preventing transgender youths’ discrimination and harassment by students and teachers.

Many trans* youth don’t get the education they deserve due to undue harassment and discrimination from both educations and peers.

This is why EVERY school should have a fully inclusive non-discrimination AND anti-bullying policy which protects youth and educators alike on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender presentation.

Affirmation

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Deconstructing Masculinity & Manhood with Michael Kimmel @ Dartmouth College

YAAAAEEESSSSSSS

You know what I like, and feel is so important? That he doesn’t say “Men thinks those are THEIR positions”. He says “We think those are OUR positions.”

As a male feminist, he still doesn’t exclude himself from the group of men.

Here’s What’s Okay (And Not Okay) to Say to a Trans Person – Once and For All — Everyday Feminism

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Here’s What’s Okay (And Not Okay) to Say to a Trans Person – Once and For All — Everyday Feminism. Dear Constance, this article will be good review for some, and a great beginning for those who are interested but don’t know protocol.

The one that is most crucial to me?  The one that says my story is mine and not yours…and you have no right to out me to anyone…even though people have done this to me. It’s sorta weird to meet someone I knew then and hear that there is all kinds of gossip about me happening…that means that the paragons of virtue who told me I was beyond a river they refused to cross and that I was demonized?

They started the rumors and passed them along…and likely think they served Jesus in doing it. The trouble they caused me…I weep still at times over things that I could have shared in my own way and time that got shared and soo distorted… …but that’s the way it goes when you deal with the privileged…whatever they say is God’s will becomes God’s will…

because they say so (which makes them God, I guess).
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TransWhat? • Allyship: first steps

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TransWhat? • Allyship: first steps.

Fabulous aggregation of basic information!
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Is Your Trans Allyship Half-Baked? Here Are 6 Mistakes That Trans Allies Are Still Making — Everyday Feminism

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Constance…you are all so kind to me, supportive and for me.  And sometimes, you just put your feet right in it, and not even know it!

Because your comments are not intended to harm or other or police me, I nearly always do not give a clue as to how they have hurt me…but they do.

Like when you say “Oh wow, you’re looking so great today girl, and you’re gonna look even better when you get that 5 o’clock shadow” lasered off”

*OOooffff!*  That hurts…especially because there are many cis-females that have more naturally occurring facial hair than I do!

Or this one was particularly cutting:  “Why don’t you consider getting your Adam’s Apple shaved?  It will make you look more feminine”…

…so I went home and cried after that one…cus lots of reasons, but one of the biggest is that there are many drag queens and transvestites who look 100% feminine and completely identify as gay males and in no way consider themselves female…while here I am, female thru and thru and yet told that I need a shave of my Adam’s Apple to look (read “be”) more feminine.

Or “you sound like a boy so you are a boy”…wow, don’t know where to go with that one because here is the fact:  any human being whose vocal cords are exposed to testosterone is going to have those cords damaged by that exposure and it will be permanent, irreversible damage.  The result is that person’s voice will then deepen, coarsen, and sound like what we have been socialized to believe that men sound like and not women.

I would add one that the author leaves out:  we trans-folk are not your personal research assistants!  “Why Charissa, whatever do you mean?”  Here is what I mean:  many of you have taken baby steps out into the jungle, and trans-misogynist tigers have roared loud at you, eyes glaring…and you scurry to me and say “CHARISSA!!!  There’s beasties out there!  Give me some bullets PDQ!!!  What do I say???!!”

Umm…so here is what I want you to know:  we are not born the “Golden Child of all knowledge trans!” We were born inside these skins, as tabula rasa as you…what we learned was from hard work, investment of time, research, learning Google-Fu and using it, and then more of the same!  The information is out there…the same things I found and tested and tried and learned.

I cannot be an ally for you!  You either are or you aren’t.

You can’t just show up when it’s convenient, and expect me to carry the ball the rest of the time, give you your lines, take all the arrows so you won’t be harmed…I am already taking arrows and dealing with that.

It’s the nature of being an ally…get some skin in the game.

It makes me heartsick when “allies” come around because they need something, but they aren’t around when I am under assault and feel like I am fighting the Battle of Bastogne all by myself.

Oh…and please, PLEASE:  don’t get all hurt and go away pouty when you ask me to give you all the answers and I reply with “It’s out there…go dig!”

Allies…by now, you could be eating meat…why do you content yourself with milk?

Awwright…lecture over…go read the article if you still are here LOL!!

When we talk about biological sex being “what’s between your legs,” we’re forgetting that sex is actually much more complicated than that. Genitalia, chromosomes, hormones, and secondary sex characteristics all contribute to our assigned sex at birth, but ultimately, sex is just that: assigned.

Biological sex is a social construction, meaning it’s something we as a culture have created. That’s not to say it isn’t relevant to our health or that it doesn’t influence our personal realities, but the categories of “female” and “male” must be recognized for what they really are.

via Is Your Trans Allyship Half-Baked? Here Are 6 Mistakes That Trans Allies Are Still Making — Everyday Feminism.

Beside This Ring Of Ashes One Year Later

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One year later,
in this year of grace
I sit in stillness
ringside once again
but only with dead ashes,
no flame.

Instead, I warm myself within
with thoughts of fires long ago,
long gone out but flickering
strongly in this quiet night
of lonely memories.tumblr_nq9ngm71fg1qat5pio1_500

I know it has to happen, yes
this death of me, this death
of who I was, no…
what I was, or rather
what you thought I was
and what I wasn’t too.

You thought me as a god,
and just a little lower than a god.
Your “glorious glorious father”
shining strong and tall,
quick and certain, no one knew
that was but wooly curtains drawn
over a stage making the ready
for a play to become real-life…
finally…at last…
But…what’s a child to do when god betrays?

tumblr_nm8fo9zWD51tkr81jo1_1280When god is thus unfaithful and capricious…
that god must become monster,
and vicious harsh taskmaster,
when god must be recast as sick pretender
(your words, love, not mine, those are your words)
as just the “other”, empty, just a mask?tumblr_nd6tstqbwz1sckob0o1_1280

Well, Nietzsche showed the way, now dint he?
He sussed the death of God and birth of crisis…
He understood the very underpinnings
of everything are quivering like liquid,
all foundations kicked asunder
and this hollow edifice
left floating in the shell-pink air.

Nietzsche called for total transformation,
he demanded blood, the death of God,
and also everything He stood for.

I get it…I do…the death of god
No really, I know it’s me, not you…
Problematic in my breathing
and offensive in my joy, well
this aggression will not stand, man!

And so it is that I must die…well,
he must die and be defamed
for every single gripe,
complaint or wound or sling
he must be destroyed
because he wasn’t He
and now it’s clear
that he would never be…
but I will be…me.tumblr_nneoshc0PX1sq00azo1_1280

Go ahead, beloveds,
it’s true that I must die
so you can be set free
and God at last can finally BE
that God of Wonder
far beyond the Galaxy,
high above and right beside us
bringing life again to you and me.

Use what silver knives you have
(I placed them in your hands so long ago,
carefully planned, bequeathed to you your
weapons of words, of music and of comprehension).
Use the ropes you find inside your packs,
laid lovingly from Lorien in wonder
and in sober long anticipation yes,
that someday your blood be required
of me and on my head as well
(but it’s in my heart forever).54606def315a3No crucifix for me, how gauche,
how gothic and old fashioned!
No…a shiny scaffold glittery
erected stainless steel there, gleaming
austere, so implacable
and one thin razor wire noose
with my neck’s name writ there

*Charissa Grace* tumblr_npuhk5h8PG1uru6h4o1_1280

(except it’s not so plain as all that)
no…the old name that speaks of

blood     and
the price     and all things made
white as snow again.tumblr_nq5pgxrQWz1qllucco2_1280

I have confidence in you
(this is not stupid or myopic,
this is love, Lovelies).
I see this execution
is but you living out
what I have taught you
that there is no god but God
(not even glorious father)

and all things that you love
descend from His Great Goodness
and Mama’s bag of richestumblr_nm27mtsR1i1qkevp7o1_1280

*beauty of the Leaves of Grass
haunting grace of purity ring
simple joy in eyes of beloved boys
furious flow of men and balls and love*

I wish you all good always
and hope that someday your mouth won’t be cursed
with this burnt aftertaste of death,
and me just acrid curse to you…
if my death expiate your soul
and bring release and freedom to you all
then quick, oh Hangman, let the black bell toll
and pull your lever that I may hard fall

and snap…snuff…pooftumblr_na3un4PrG41r1arpmo1_1280

and on you live, free
building brave new worlds
but I will still be like those flickering fires
that linger in my mind while I sit here
beside this ring of ashes never warm
and those seats empty in this quiet storm

of memory, of love, of sorrow held so dear
God knows I gladly die and wish you near
and trust that I will rise and know no fear
forever, just Love’s Fires always here.tumblr_nq3ucoBZSl1qat5pio1_400

“The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. ‘Whither is God,’ he cried; ‘I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I! All of us are his murderers…Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder?…Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.'”
Friedrich Nietzsche 
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This Nebula Crumbling

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The birth of stars
begins with death,
begins with dark
collapse in depths,
and destructions mark
a beginning, the birth
of a star from collapse
and crumble.69609b394ebaa0261bba09213613c643They came with
star-killing words
and struck light from
space and didn’t even
give the dignity of
a blazing trail of glory
as this star augers in
to gravity.tumblr_npxxyrZeCO1r38hk2o1_1280I collapsed in
on myself tonight,
crumbled from nebula
to white dwarf.
And while their
words whirled round
my head in stardust clouds,
I wondered
if there would be
the birth of a star…
at last.

Holy Woman Icon

Living as a transgender woman who doesn’t yet ‘pass’

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This…everyday.  This is the life we walk.

As the recent Human Rights Commission’s ‘Resilient Individuals: Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Intersex Rights’ report shows, transgender people are at a highly elevated risk of being physically and verbally harassed, made unemployed, homeless, denied healthcare or access to other services, than most other demographics within Australia. Having experienced every one of the aforementioned situations at one time or another during my transition, I wish being transgender was unremarkable enough that I didn’t have to ‘pass’ and that I could safely participate in activities like sport and work without my identity being constantly under scrutiny.

via Living as a transgender woman who doesn’t yet ‘pass’.tumblr_no7l4ikNi01thfeewo1_1280

Murder By Bully pt 2: An Open Letter to the Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools

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Madeline Dietrich | Bullying: An Open Letter to the Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools.

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The River of De-Nile

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You know who you are…

here is your judgment, not mine.  By your own words you have made your doom (in the Tolkien-esque sense)…your fate, if you will.

Perhaps you will not have to suffer 50 years before you come to grips with your own self.

But know this:  my life was lived in dissociation and fragmentation.
You?  You are drinking the river of Denial.

Extremely Powerful Thinking: On Femininity and the Patriarchy

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Constance…please read thru the sections I am sharing below.  Read it slow and let it sink in.

This is my life.  I am living these sentences (word chosen to echo and double back on itself, those with eyes let them see).

Consider the way that my sentences being served also impact you…and the way that yours can set me free, if you will but begin to speak them.

transfeminism reblogged rambleonamazon

rambleonamazon:

snow-anne:

Just read up on the Bell Hooks-Laverne Cox talk, thought it was really uncool (and unfemininist) of Hooks to chide Cox for her presentation.

I mean yeah, I get that for (feminist) cis women, femininity can start to feel constricting after a while, but trans women have a very different relationship with it. Patriarchy wants AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth) people to be feminine, it does not want AMAB (Assigned Male At Birth) people to be feminine.

For a person that was assigned male at birth, it absolutely can be revolutionary to embrace femininity. It is anathema to patriarchy for AMAB people to embrace femininity, why else do you think trans women get any and all femininity beaten out of them for the first part of their lives?

Besides, cis women had all their lives to try it out and grow tired of it. How many cis women haven’t smeared their mum’s lipstick all over their face as a little girl? At least have a heart and give us some time to experiment with femininity, you were given that time while you were growing up and I don’t see you high-n-mighty feminists going after teenage cis girls for it.

I would like to expand on this, and say that the patriarchy derides and punishes femininity in general. That’s why men who like female-coded activities are mocked. that’s why “girly-girls” are derided as shallow or high-maintenance.

But with trans women, expressing femininity is particularly revolutionary because it isn’t just about social conditioning–it’s a complete rejection of masculinity as the “valuable option.”

Many women–trans and cis–find value in femininity, but when cis women embrace it, everyone assumes it’s because it is expected and because that’s how they were trained. It isn’t considered unusual, because society insists that’s the punishment you get for being a woman, and if you’re very good you’ll reject that and try to act more like your “betters.”

But trans women are offered masculinity on a platter–it’s assumed to be our birthright–and we reject it. More accurately, like most people we reject parts of it. We’re proof that masculinity isn’t inherently valuable or precious–it’s just another thing.

And of course, patriarchal ideals double down on us for that. Our punishment for embracing the feminine and not being “rightly” ashamed of it is to be chained by it, and punished for any infraction. Male-coded interests are “proof” that we’re faking it.

Not appearing feminine enough is grounds for firing or banning us from homes (or from the lives of our own relatives). Expressing anger or standing up for ourselves is interpreted–even by self-proclaimed feminists–as our being aggressive and “really” men.

And revealing anything about our genitals is literally grounds for execution.

People hunt down the tiniest nuances–our shoulders, our voices, or hobbies, or age–and use the smallest infraction against gender norms to completely invalidate our statement that masculinity isn’t precious at all. This despite the fact that trans women, like everyone, aren’t inherantly “pure women” or “pure men” any more than any cis person–we’re mixes of social messages and biological impulses, some accepted some rejected, that go into forming a complex human being.

Trans women highlight that there’s no superior gender or gendered form of expression, and that pisses people off.

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To All Trans-allies:

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Remember, the steps you take so effortlessly are nearly impossible for us sometimes to even think about, let alone get over.  While you are busy “ally-ing”, be mindful to look down and let your eyes rest on us…

…and if we are scrabbling at the curb you stride over without thinking, just a lil hand on our bottom to skootch us up and over is so appreciated!

Oh…and that curb can be anything btw…from using the bathroom, to applying makeup, to obtaining healthcare…to getting a fair shake on a job application without having to hide gender status to merely walking down the street in peace without dodging globules of spit.

Thanks to you, Ally…you are appreciated greatly…just be mindful of us lil kittens!

Murder by Bully

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Transgender teacher’s suicide was covered up by MPS after a decade of staff bullying | Planet Transgender.

Constance, here is the deadly reality I live with.  This pit-bull is in my room, all the time, straining at its flimsy leash…wanting to snap it and chew me to death.

I am pretty delivered from suicidal ideation, and have been so blessed to be surfing on top of waves of dysphoria rather than swamped by them…

…but bullying, harassment, and other forms of othering and policing…well, they just really destroy your soul in small pieces.

The “best ones” are the ones christians do to you cus “they love you so much”… those are the worst, because the spirit they operate in is the spirit of the dementor, and not of Jesus.

I want you each one to read this…and let it sink in…if you had to go thru this, just for breathing.

And then?  If you ever see this going on?  Make sure that you raise a ruckus right straight into the bullies’ faces.  They are cowards at heart.  That is why they attack those without power and privilege and seek to steal even the minute agency we have.

I had a recent experience when someone stood up for me…and I will never EVER forget how I felt when she just stood there fiercely and told someone that what they said was NOT OKAY, and that it was HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE!

I felt very special, and something else, I felt as if I mattered.

I bet you a million dollars that there are people in her circle who didn’t like what was happening to her, but just never said anything…

…and I bet that they feel like their hands will never not have her blood on them now.

Because this was more than a suicide…this was murder by bully.

Without You Adding To It

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“It bugs me when people are unnecessarily mean. Like, you didn’t have to make that comment.
You could have just kept your mouth shut and left that person not feeling bad about themselves.
What do you gain from making someone else feel like shit? Nothing of substance.
Maybe a fleeting moment of power but that’s gone as soon as it comes so why?

There’s enough unhappiness in the world without you adding to it.”tumblr_nfq77xlbRu1ska0k5o1_1280

“Your Best Friend”

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I rolled into work early, comme toujours, and bustled down to the kitchbah to get things prepared for the day.  There were ranges to light, ovens to turn on, dishwashers to prep, and food to coax.

*You realize that…don’t you?  You must coax food to “join the party”…usually with letting it warm a bit, and then liberal application of olive oil if it is something that must come together.*tumblr_muo6bsyfhO1qzleu4o1_500

What do you know, when I got there, and spied on the counter an 8 1/2 x 11 sized package, wrapped in light yellow tissue paper and green yarn holding it together.  On top of it was a folded piece of paper…

“Only for Mrs. Charissa
🙂
Your Best Friend”

The paper had been drawn on to make it appear as if it were an envelope…it was soo touching and adorable, and from the handwriting, I was certain it was from one of the children that I help care for.

Have you ever had the experience of finding out unexpectedly that someone considers them self “your best friend”?  I have not…until that day.  (No…DDH, when I discovered that you considered yourself my bestie, it was delightful beyond belief but not unexpected! lol)tumblr_mug8bcrC3A1qkjpslo1_1280

Inside the folded paper (special stationary type paper) it was laid out like an email with a “to” section and a “from” section.

It was from “Cassandra” (name changed to protect my angel lil friend’s privacy)…this young lady is one of the most amazing people I have ever had the good fortune to encounter in my entire life…and she has 2 sisters who are equally amazing, accepting, friendly and loving.  Her youngest sister was the bold child on my first day at the center when I was doing my “try-out” classroom test…she walked straight up to me, her dark eyes like limitless pools, and so solemnly asked me if I was a boy or a girl…I told her I was like an oreo cookie:  one thing on the outside, something different on the inside, and all together I was me, and sweet.  She thought about it, smiled, and nodded.  I then simply explained to her what happened to me as I was created, and the insight and look of knowing that happened in those eyes was an eternal gift.

Since then she has been one of my biggest fans.tumblr_mt637dVtd31r4hhzeo2_500

But Cassandra…well, she also was kind, caught on right away, but she hung around a bit, listening, watching, feeling the experiences I have everyday in living.  She paid attention to my true heart, and not the things I spin outta my kitchbah to feed the kids.  She is the one who was walking beside me, talking, on the way into the center from the bus parking lot…and these people who live across the street decided to verbally and loudly tell me what I was, in the lowest and most crude slang imaginable.

I ignored it, like always…sigh…and just kept talking with Cassandra, but her face went white, and still.  Her eyes widened in shock, horror, and then…something else:  she realized that this was my life.  Every day.  Just because I am…and she began to cry.  She was horrified at what was said, and I think even mildly traumatized, so we of course talked a bit about it.

It was a true teachable moment on the meaning of forgiveness and a lifestyle of Grace.tumblr_mukhaaFXSI1qd0knjo2_1280

So anyway, Cassandra had written this:

I now you will
like this.  I Made
some Pritty Good
ones for you
I was Thinking of You at
school

🙂

Can you say *Instant melty heart exiting eyes PDQ*???

Okay, first of all…she knew.  She knew I would like it, a priori.  Let that sink in.
Secondly, she judged her own work, and decided it was pretty good (it is, btw), and that it was for me.
And then…the killer love words:  I was thinking of you at school.

When it was time to create, her thoughts turned to me…

Rapture.  Pure.  Rapture.

The next several poems are hers…I am placing them here on Grace Notes as my own weak ineffectual attempt to show I am thankful and grateful for her love and affection…and her friendship. cropped-tumblr_m4t7m7roid1r743s1o1_12801.jpg

To My Heart’s Four Chambers

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“I don’t care what you do to me,
but I don’t want you to hurt me.
I’ve had enough hurt already in my life.
More than enough. Now I want to be happy.”
— Haruki Murakami

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You Speak Like Snakes (You Know Who You Are)

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you speak like snakes
slithering faster than slinkies
which at least have to
go downhill
and stop .

how can I love you
and dodge all at once
when you strike tooth and nail
with your sexual puns
and demeaning poisonous
passive-aggressive
nuclear blitzes?

you always move,
always, you shed your skin
quicker than snakes
that slide sideways
over the dirty sands
under the prickly sage
out of sight, gone before
I can quick turn the page.

It’s not okay
to speak jokes that conceal
a knife slicing with malice
and using my flesh to build
your kingdom’s palace!

It’s not okay to rape
my heart on your platter
letting my blood spatter
on your face for your cosmetics
and war paint bravado.

Heart-on or hard-on
and then you say
I’m up and down??

No…
you speak like snakes
you speak like snakes
you speak like snakes
hissing and deadly.

 

The Transgender Brain | Transas City

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The Transgender Brain | Transas City.

Constance, another article that helps explain the reality of transgender brain formation and how this determines gender orientation.

This will be preaching to the choir, but likely might be helpful to those still uneducated that this is something quite different than “living my truth” or any other characterization that seeks to make my gender orientation some version of a choice.

Perhaps you all could pass it on in your own attempts to be allies.

Reader, it’s up to you…you are proud of judging non-christians for ignoring the evidence for Christ…pot meet kettle, if you continue to characterize gender variance as anything other than what it is:  a reality that is as legitimate as your own “owned internal sense of gender”.

It’s a bit like being proud you are not a cleft palate born person, and then trying to deny treatment to anyone who was born that way.

Privilege and Captivity: One and the Same

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This morning I am somewhat morose over an experience that I had this week.tumblr_mws19657NM1t3vrj3o1_540

I am struggling to deal with the ways that people tend to gravitate to ideas and appealing causes, tend to be drawn to words that are spoken with passion and purpose…

…but when the Incarnation time comes, they turtle…back into the shell of comfort, or familiarity, or least resistance, or something that they falsely call peace when it is actually the mere absence of conflict.

You did realise that, didn’t you? Your destiny? To become an Incarnate word? To take that core passion, meaning, burning intention, determination, whatever it is, and actually become a living, breathing, triumphing, failing, enduring persevering example of it!

But oh the cost…and pain…confusion and sorrow (But One has gone before and blazed the trail).tumblr_np0qu3m6mq1qk2poao1_1280

There is a paradigm in our culture (that stems from a greater problem, but that is another post another time) and it holds us ALL captive…except some of us are captive in barbwire bonds, and some are just captive by walls inescapable…and can move about, partake of comforts that make it more bearable being a prisoner.

That latter quality is called privilege. When you have it, words that wound and destroy are seen as not such a bad thing and meant only as jokes or slang.

When you don’t have it and protest words that wound and destroy,  you become the object of the privileged speaker’s ire and irritation at being called out…and finding yourself alone in this sort of battle is sobering and difficult.

When you have privilege a raid on your personhood is like going to the beach and taking a bucketful of sand…when you don’t have it, a raid on your personhood is like a flood that washes away precious topsoil and leaves a devastating wasteland in its place.tumblr_nowtpbDLaj1s4cmmwo1_1280

This week I encountered a man on social media who used diminishing and objectifying vocabulary to describe how he became aroused as a teen-ager regardless of what the women were wearing.  He purported to be a supporter of women, an opponent of Rape Culture and an advocate for women as subjects and not just objects of the lusts of men.  He seemed to value being somewhat flip and “hep”, because he used this term to describe lusting after a woman:  “Bone Out”.

Bone Out.393121_400888443273074_63734520_n-934x

Constance, if you are reading this as a human being who has spent time in male spaces where they believe themselves to be alone with themselves and no female people present, you will recognize this term as slang for masturbation accompanied by fantasizing over whatever poor unfortunate woman has the burden of being his fantasy object, and in this fantasy she will do, be, say, or act out whatever it is he wants (or thinks he does).  You will also know that after you are finished “boning out”, you will have unconsciously internalized (in varying degrees) some of this fantasy as “how women really are” and “what women really want”.

Constance, if you are female…how do you feel inside when someone who purports to be an advocate advocates for you while talking about “Boning Out” and blatantly says that it doesn’t matter what you wear, it is going to happen?

Well, I called him out on it…first with a somewhat rhetorical “Wait, whaaaa?  What did I just read?” (or words to that effect, I cannot quote them because I blocked this person after our next exchanges).

Aaaannnnddd, what do you think this advocate did?  Check himself, and say “Oh wow, sorry ladies, I apologize for my slang, and I really do see how in trying to make a point that dress codes are irrelevant I inadvertently revealed that I was gonna lust after you whenever I wanted to”…hmm?  Seems a gracious response, yes?  Or do you think he got huffy, aggrieved and touchy, blame shifting any objection to what he said over to the objector?

DING DING DING!!!  And you got it!  The latter!tumblr_n6a43xqvY01qfi7p6o1_1280

Now keep in mind that this thread was vitally active with intelligent women who were making informed and insightful thoughtful comments and expressing their hearts over how these dress codes are designed to oppress and other women and keep them in places of exclusion in the paradigm.

So I commented further and sought to point out that his vocabulary was coarse at best and lowered the level of discourse and destructive at worst because of the way it objectified and sexualized women.  I tried to point out that he had obviated his support of abolishing dress codes by flat out stating that he would lust after a woman regardless of what she is wearing!

Let that sink in.

He then went on to defend his position that school attire should be like work attire:  “business appropriate”…and that is not a bad idea, by the way (the fact that many people do not want to go into business not withstanding)…and yet still couldn’t see that the problem was not the dress code!

The problem is in the attitude of males who believe it their right OR their inescapable biological destiny to lust after women for the sake of their own satiation sexually.  So we know that this person would “bone out” over a woman in business attire, or snowsuits, or bikinis, or the latest chic shade of grey.

Scattered throughout his man-splainin’ were jabs at me, turning it back on me and basically claiming to be intention-wise such a champion of women…and he doubled down on his slang with scatological vocabulary and a tone of anger in his words that I took as his clear intention to intimidate me into silence…tumblr_nowl3btjDz1sooy9go1_1280

and he also doubled down on his blindness and tone-deafness, by making comments about his propensity to get aroused over whatever women were around.  He did not own this as his own issue!  He said that women give him a chubby!

So Constance, you women out there…be it known that you now have a new role: to be a Giver!  YAAAYYY…um no yay, because you are now a giver of chubbies.

Oh, and “chubbie” is a cute word which is used to cutify the male erection…I suppose calling it a chubbie was supposed to make me coo like it was his mischievous unruly puppy that makes messes here and there but will be oh so loveable if I just pet it and feed it.

I know these things.  I lived amongst them.tumblr_mxqdlbSkej1qft4nwo2_1280

No matter what you are doing, whether you realize it or not, you are a giver of chubbies to men.  And what are these poor fellows to do, being such a downtrodden oppressed group, except to take this gift and…yeah.

Well, I appealed to my sisters who had been speaking so lively and true…was I wrong?  Was I out of line?  Was everyone just so impressed with his wit, his scatological riffs more reminiscent of Richard Pryor than Dice Clay?  Would they let me know?  Or, if I was right, would they come to my side and help me try to educate this man?

I also decided to draw the interaction to a conclusion so far as my end was concerned because in social media an artificial connection exists that does not lend itself well to “Iron sharpening Iron”…you have all been there I am sure…emotions rise up and swamp intellect and good will is washed away and insult and invective become the implements of war in Sarcasm’s hand, until blood and entrails are the media for the pictograms that death carves into the scene.  And all that carnage between two Image Bearers who have never met, never knew each other even existed 10 minutes before, and have no idea who and what the other person is…

…the wrong that is inside us just gushes out like a geyser…

…why does it almost never happen otherwise when there is a sharp difference of opinion or misunderstanding?  No, better to just end it, after all the beginning of a quarrel is soo much like starting to relieve one’s self:  once it is going, it is nearly impossible to stop until you have voided your bladder, and then it’s too late, you have defiled everything in the stream of your waste.

And also, I blocked this person, because I have stepped in it before with men just like this guy who then become relentless in hunting me down and virtually assaulting me online, and rest assured they make sure that I know that I am transgender and what they think of it…as if I had not ever known or heard.  And when you are told that you will be ambushed and killed by people that others think is a great guy, well it messes with your heart.tumblr_mwk6uksqQj1sl15wgo1_1280

And no, this guy did not say that to me…at least not that I know.  Because I blocked him preemptively.

This all happened on someone else’s domain, and I did not feel the freedom to deconstruct his arguments and address them one by one…and I truly believe that he was so angry and defensive it would have made it worse.  I also did not think to copy them all before I blocked him so that I had a record, and I do not want to unblock him in order to do that…

…so these are my recollections…but really…these are the things I felt and experienced…

and they left me feeling bruised and insulted…

…and isolated.tumblr_mqhjbp8dZ61qer2oto1_1280

No one else said anything…what was so obvi to me was either not true, wasn’t visible, or was so scary that no one else would step forward and stand with me.  And that is what was the most deeply discouraging, because then I wonder if I had been a cis female would someone have spoken up for me?  Was everyone silent because I am transgender, and openly so?  Is my courage like trying to put out a volcano by carrying teacups of water to the violence one by one?

If I am silent, it continues.  If I speak, it attacks, and continues.

Well, I am speaking.  Here…on Grace Notes…and I am saying it is not okay for men to hide behind the notion that their arousal from being around women is something they cannot control…I know about this first hand, and it is indeed possible to not do this!  I am saying it is not okay to talk both sides against the middle.

And that way?  At least I can live with myself.

Do JUSTICE
Love MERCY
Walk HUMBLY

In sorrow and tears,
Charissa

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The Pools of Illusion

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Your bellies drag the ground,
crouched and coiled and waiting,
unsprung and deadly potent,
filled with waters, poison, imbibed,
ingested, indulged,
you lurk and lay in waiting
to pounce on me defenseless,
beside dark pools malignant
with memories, dreams, reflections
that sit off kilter, cracked,
those springs of tales seductive
retold and twisted…clockwise

(remember that we used to live
anti-clock-wise?  You recall?
Remember how that was?
Can you even do it now…
re-member?Your tails lashing hazy air
your tales lashing me in here,
deep inside, they probe and seek
to replicate themselves,
like viruses, contagious
half-truths bitter, poisonous
in decade-long half-lives
hanging like a blade
of time left to be served
in a sentence undeserved.tumblr_nlo1ogBFSk1s2z59jo1_1280But I swim rivers
pure and vital,
waters crashed on
clean stone, shattered
into liquid smithereens,
a million broken rainbow prismstumblr_nb949v0kp41s1vn29o5_1280clinging to the air together
to speak of wholeness
in the broken
gath’ring of them
all together tumblr_nmzdul5Y8W1qbe766o3_1280and I breathe air, drink
the water of life immune
to your off-kilter philter.

So if you see me
(if you even bother
to look) and I am sick?
It is your own infected myth
I drain so you could simply stop,
quit worshipping the twisted past,
old box of pain, and you can join me,
once again beneath the stars,

beneath the moon in the spring rain
in the spring rain beneath the moon
the moon and rain so clean and pure
and free from stagnant pools.tumblr_m67b1gzLlg1qzn4kzo1_1280

On Outing Another Person

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Constance…

You have read here of my evolution and growth, and the reduction as well over the last year and a half since I began writing Grace Notes.

Odds are you have also seen articles and notes that I have posted that are designed to educate you regarding how mindsets influence action…but actions affect heart-sets…and heart-sets inform mindsets.

As you think in your heart, this is how you are…maybe not manifested right away, but it is just a matter of time before that comes out.

Transitioning gender is such a difficult passage.  I am crossing over gulfs that are deemed uncrossable by the patriarchal paradigm of our day, breaking the binary rules that rule minds…and thus offending hearts that have as their central focus and idol what feeds them, sustains them.

Some people simply are repulsed by my transition and write me off in some form or fashion…crazed, demon possessed, or some other judgment of similar ilk, and some people are intrigued enough to draw near with open hearts and minds, and end up at the very least knowing me in a fuller and richer way (and some would say that is a bad thing, those who have judged me as the worst human being on the planet and hold me accountable for every wrong thing in their lives).

But some people would be destroyed by the knowledge of my gender struggles and subsequent journey.  They would hold themselves responsible for my being the way I am, or simply close their minds so completely as to just be caught up in a whirl of panic, fear, and conviction that I am hellbound.  For the rest of their days, there would be a blight cast and a shadow of failure on them (in their minds not mine).

This is the matrix that I consider when I choose who and how I am going to be out.  Now please don’t misunderstand:  I am publicly out, but not ostentatiously so.  I have not yet chosen to come out to my 2 closest immediate family members, or my one closest in-law.  In the case of my in-law, the odds are very heavy that there are only a few more years left here at most, and this person has lived a happy, productive and kind life and is proud of who I am/was in their history and experience.  In the case of my own family members I see each of them so rarely that the news of my transition seems to me to be an unnecessary burden upon them.

I could be wrong…in each case there might be a pleasant surprise of acceptance…but I am not sure about it, and the potential for damage is far greater than the potential for blessing…

…and so silent I remain.

Well…it has become clear that someone intends to out me to these individuals, and all in the name of their own supposed pain and violation, all in the name of “helping others” who grapple with the transition of a loved one.

And it is impossible for me to describe the internal state that this prospect puts me in.

First of all, one of the quickest ways to induce suicide in a transgender person is to rob them of agency regarding who and what they are by outing them.  This is a historical fact and I have posted a lot about that.  Think of the woman who killed herself after Grantland Magazine outed her, just as one very public example.

But second of all, it feels at the core like such a vindictive thing, and full of spite…and worse yet, if I were to protest, well then I would be accused of doing the very thing that this outing will do to me.  I will be accused of being a hypocrite, wearing a mask, living a lie, curtailing the rights and freedom of someone to share their story…etc. etc.

Your right to tell your story ends at the beginning of violating someone else.

Well…Constance, if you go to the beginning post, and make your way thru Grace Notes, you can decide whether or not I am living a lie…

…what I am living is a tragedy.
What I am determined is to be an agent of Redemption, Grace, and Mercy.

Carefully consider how you live…and in all things, be kind.

In sorrow, in hope,
Charissa

This Is Me

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more than my arms
more than my legs
more than my face
more than my back
more than my adams apple
more than my skin tag
more than my hair
(or what I lack there?)

I am
Charissa Grace
I am

 

Judith Butler on gender and the trans experience

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Judith Butler on gender and the trans experience

Constance, Judith Butler is a very important voice in the rethinking of gender and gender roles, and as such is worth spending some time exploring.

This article is a good introduction, so I am posting it for your opportunity.

Dear Reader, I Just Heard You Wondering

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How did I get where I got?  How you got left behind?

You could have come along, if you would have.  You could have called.  You know where I live, you could have come over.

You still can…if you have the courage to.

Or the desire to leave behind useless old ways.

Either way, there is dead weight that must be let go of to come where I am.

I can’t really say it feels like a loss…it more astonishes me than anything else, that relationships I thought were fairly deep and strong had the roots of dandelion fuzz but lacked the ability to travel on the wind.tumblr_noth7qlFGk1r2zs3eo1_400

“…Everyone’s Got One”

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An opinion…sometimes I am just walking along, living my life, and somebody just has to give it to me…about who I am, or what I am…about whether I am legitimate, or have a right to be.

I think you have all heard what opinions are like, right?  Something that everyone has that generally stinks.

“If That’s The Truth You Need To Live”

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This phrase drives me nuts!!  Because it is usually spoken by someone who thinks themself supportive, and they have no idea how it others me, demeans and diminishes me.

Can you imagine, as a cis-gender person if someone else came up to you and said “Hey, if the truth you need to live is that you are a (fill in the blank), then I am all for it!”

You would just laugh, and think “what an idiot”.  Right?

But with me, when they say this, it is as if they think that they have somehow conferred some legitimacy on me and then posed themself as the paragon of acceptance…

I think next time this happens, Ima just do this:

No Protest In Philly!!

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OMG Constance!!  Did you hear about the massive protests and riots going on in Philadelphia because of the death of a woman of color???

Yeah…neither did I.

After all…she was only a woman.

A woman of color.

Oh…and she was trans.

Just another piece of trash collected for the patriarchy.  http://www.buzzfeed.com/dominicholden/transgender-woman-stabbed-to-death-in-philadelphia?utm_term=.yfzwq8GpK#.pnOnBKk8L tumblr_no7mu5zPsO1rebxsto1_1280

But while I am on the topic of killing transwomen?  If you slur me with your words…if you other me with your actions…if you lie to yourself about who I am…if you call me “engenderer”, “mask”, “monster”, “other” (a literal “othering”)…

…you do not get to call yourself a trans-advocate.

Words hurt, wound irrevokably…but silence slays the heart.tumblr_mvieqh54sY1qj5oxwo1_1280

Only A Smidge Lower…

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Constance…I am here today to admit.  OMG there is sooo much I would change about my body if I could.  The more salient question is what would I not change?  So this really hit me…hit me hard.

What am I supposed to do, stuck in this skin of some biological male creature that so many seem to have attached to, and now hate me because that creature has been revealed as who it was all along…and that revelation happening to me at the same time?

Do you have any idea how it feels to be othered so hard that certain people now act like I am dead?  And when I am blessed enough to have communication it is of the harshest, cruelest and most dehumanizing form possible, stripping me of personhood, of being, and reducing me to a verb, or a mask, or a nothing?

I can never remember a time when I did not feel this way…never.  Reading about these children, wow.
So I post this…for your thought.  Likely there is not much we can do now about our own body image issues…but we darn sure can be kind to others now.  We darn sure can touch our children with gentle words…and no matter what we can speak to other human beings cognizent always that they are stamped with Mama’s image, they are riddled with God’s Image, and are thus just a smidge lower than God and are as gods themselves.

Video

In case you weren’t convinced that hating yourself is a learned behavior

Physical shame comes from parents, teachers, media, and peers. It’s not something you’re born with. You were born naked, wonderful, and gorgeous, and no one should make another being feel as if that wasn’t, and isn’t true.

Letters From Those Abused and Afraid | Disrupted Physician

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Letters From Those Abused and Afraid | Disrupted Physician.

Dear Constance…I am blessed with such a plethora of amazing, wonderful followers.

That would be you…Constant Reader…Constance.

One of them is at the link I just posted, and he is a truth teller, more rare than gold dust as an amazing person commented over there.

“But why, Charissa?  Why would you share such a topic as the one you chose?”

Because it is eerily reminiscent of the treatment of transgender people at the hands of…well…virtually everyone in our society.  The double binds that are illuminated, the abuse, the policing and othering, the way the system protects itself and eliminates any possible threats to itself…

Yeah…this is the life of a transgender human being every single livelong day.

The system is a giant virus, and it has gathered to itself other virulent viruses and they all are completely sold out and committed to the mandate of one thing and one thing alone:  survival and self-replication. And we, all of us, are in the belly of this beast.

Some of us are the pilot fish of privilege…circling the jaws, living off the shreds of flesh that trail off those teeth sharp and cruel.  Some of us are between those jaws, ever consumed for the survival of the virus, and some live in the bowels, in the rot and excrement of everything that must take place in order for the thing to keep alive.

How are we to live?

The monolithic nature of this thing prohibits mass action, but what about individual action?  Will you consider changing the way you interact with every single person you meet?  Just think…if we all did that, loved our neighbor as ourselves, loved God (or if you believe you do not believe then loved being kind, being forgiving, being truthful and merciful), and refused to participate in injustice…

…there might be cracks, and then rents, and then in a rush a breaking down of the walls and the death of the virus.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa

 

Here’s To The Know-It-Alls

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…who tell me how they imagine dysphoria is when they are not dysphoric:

“Do not mock a pain that you haven’t endured.”tumblr_nnsi82SIkm1rmdrr8o3_1280

Bullied Girl Commits Suicide After School Officials Tell Her “Toughen Up”

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Bullied Girl Commits Suicide After School Officials Tell Her “Toughen Up”.

Here’s a thought:  how bout each one of you who reads this go to your school board and tell them that if  this sort of thing is tolerated in your school district, you will file civil suit against them as culpable for the death?

How bout you simply say to them you personally will not tolerate anything whatsoever except a no bullying stance?

Or is it to you as it is to so many:  the equivalent of the Aztec hearts held up to appease the angry god of the patriarchy and preserve your own privilege?

“It’s A Healthy Little Baby!” (Gender TBD)

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So Constance, on Sunday there was a birth announcement.  A child had been born, healthy and mom was okay too.  Everyone was happy and feeling good about a new little life in the world…and then came this:

“It’s a healthy little girl!”  Followed by a smattering of applause and some coos and happy noises…

…and just like that a potential nightmare of dysphoria is begun.

Can you see it here?  First of all, the very first thing we are told about this child is its gender, before anything else.  Everyone wanted to know this, and from this point on, that child is going to be socialized and treated according to cultural customs and expectations that may have nothing to do with who that child really is, and could be quite harmful to the child in that they would run directly counter to the child’s identity.

And we know the child’s gender how?  Why, because we looked between the legs…and now a human being’s first most basic categorizing has been accomplished in the name of genitalia.  Never mind the fact that there are all kinds of intersex conditions that only show up upon chromosomal examination…no need for that, right?

Now…the odds are that this child will turn out to be female.  But those odds are not as long as what everyone thinks.  And just think…if that child turns out to be like I was, and learns that their very being is wrong, is naught and ought not…

Not to mention how I felt, sitting there…in the midst of allies and friends mind you!  Who in all the reflex of the ritual sat there and gendered a human being less than a week old and without even having met the child let alone heard her tell us who she is! They would all say they support me…but it is sadly still a support after a couple of layers of thought and reminding themselves that I am “identifying female”.

And that makes me cry, because I identify as a human being. 

I am female.

I get criticized often for being persnickety about words…I get anxious about what people mean and question closely and then feel like I am an irritant when others say that they were not speaking as specifically as I took what was said.

But I am that way because of things like this…when a whole identity has been rendered a done deal without even a word being said by the person thus sentenced.

When will it be natural for us to announce our healthy children, and the great anticipation that we have in finding out who they are?  Think how they would be brought up!  Think how much more balanced and developed they would be.

Oh, and don’t worry…they will tell us their gender.  It is that basic.  You can rest assured of that simply by reflecting on how you would react if someone sought to police you as a gender other than that which you are.

Gender is more than genitalia…when will our understandings of one another be so too?

Until then, I will find myself alone, and sitting embarrased while gender privilege is handed out right and left, and a certain ratio doomed by this policing to join me in the ranks of those of who sit in the pew together…all alone.tumblr_nnzn95pYkG1rznpc8o1_1280

 

Me and My Cat-Hair

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Me and my Cat-Hair go where we want!
Well, my Cat-hair does, anyway.
I just trail frantically, pulled right along
as it wanders and pries and looks into burrows
and lays in the sun and just licks its soft paws
with no care in the world but those mice!

Sometimes it looks really cool, and just perfect!
Purring there, cooing and wanting the touch
of a hand that will smooth its sleek soft furry pelt
and some fingers so friendly with their gentle skritch
skritch skritch and then a flat palm to do obeisance.

But then there are times when my Cat-hair just hisses!
Its eyes glowing green and just brimming with daggers
and it jumps akimbo and arches its back
and it dares me, just dares me to try to address it
with anything less than a rake and a hoe
and better get ready to wrestle a she-devil
scratches for skritches and clawings for pettings!!
Image result for cat clawing arm
My Cat-hair and me are sometimes called names
and sometimes called other and sometimes called mask
and sometimes called liar and sometimes called nothing
and that’s when my Cat-hair sits silent, tail lashing
and eyes focused into the void that is lurking
inside the accusers who say they hate cats
when what they really mean is that they just hate me…
Image result for cat being petted
well, Cat-hair is there, and I cannot do anything
to make it dog-hair or human or cow-hair
or sheep-hair or anything else that would walk
off the Ark on that day when the floodwaters drained
and the animals rambled in freedom again.

so I guess I will just go with Cat-hair, just sitting there
being itself, just my Cat-hair and me.

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Transgender Today – Avery Jackson – NYTimes.com

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Over 50% of transgender children try to commit suicide by their mid to late teenage years. A large number of them succeed. And the main reason that these children state that they try to harm themselves is the lack of love and support of their family and friends. My wife and I decided that we would much rather have a happy, healthy daughter than a dead son.

via Transgender Today – Avery Jackson – NYTimes.com.

I LITrally Thought This When I Was Young!

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“In school, I was taught that the word “men” could mean all genders—it was up to the reader to be inclusive with the word in their mind. The word women always just meant women. So maybe men just need to find their path to include themselves every time I say women.”
— Katherine Bernard, reading Maggie Nelson’s “The Argonauts”

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“Can’t We Just Be Us?”

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This.

“smartassjen

You’d have two completely different views of the trans movement if you either read all the recent articles, or just the comments on them.

Articles: Tipping Point! Hollywood trend! Rapid change in public understanding & acceptance! We love you!

Comments: Sick, disgusting, delusional, predatory harbingers of utter doom and destruction! Who are also ugly!

If there is a truth, I suppose it’s somewhere between. Trendy monsters perhaps? Loathsome darlings? Delusional seers?

When can we just be us?”tumblr_nnor8qCfSC1qas1mto2_540

How To Support A Transitioning Loved One

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How To Support A Transitioning Loved One.

This.

Soo simple, really, and worthy of applying to everyone you meet, at the core of it.

 

Please: Try to Grasp This, And Change…

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Constance, this quote below…just this.

All you have is your experience in this world.  The good…the bad…the whole and broken…add to that the sorts of experiences that the quote speaks of.

I would add one thing:  dysphoria is a real condition that exists, of utter dislocation that transcends understanding, acceptance, and action.  It can be managed and worked around, even built into certain things?  But it can never be thought away, prayed away, or believed away.

The brain and body of a person with gender dysphoria will never flow together
They are oil and vinegar.

As such, they can be a fabulous and tasty dressing…but they will not find the congruence that is present with a cis-gendered person.

So all the crap and stuff that all humans endure?  Differently abled people endure all that with additional conditions placed on their lives…dysphoria is one of them.

That doesn’t give me or any dysphoric person a pass…because each human has conditions on them that are invisible to everyone else.

So be tender hearted…understanding…full of forgiveness…and above all be kind.

Lives depend on it.

Of all the things I keep trying to tell cis people, “don’t presume your child’s gender” is the one that they consistently, deliberately refuse to understand and it is so deeply telling.

You cannot truly understand the transgender experience, and cannot count yourself an ally, until you accept that the trauma of being transgender is not inherent, it is a product of being coerced into thinking that you had absolutely no choice but to be the gender you were assigned.

Not “born with”, not “biologically”, the gender you were assigned.

The problem is assignment. The problem is doctors and parents believing it is their place to dictate their child’s gender, starting before they can even conceptualize what a gender is, let alone have the mental development necessary to object to what they’re given. This defines a child’s entire life, cuts short countless possibilities. It etches itself into the fabric of our developing minds and it is a ticking psychological time bomb for those children who are given a gender assignment that they cannot or do not wish to live with. This culture of dictated identity must end if transgender people are ever to be regarding as whole and equal members of society.tumblr_nlge4suDYH1rqi803o1_540

Blue Beneath My Feet

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this old stone house,
so grey and brown,
rough in texture,
tough in time,
shingled by
moments.

I finally got
the electricity on inside,
I finally see
from room to room
and everything
between,

and just when I found
the windows and
the verdant greens beyond and
the aqua blue beneath

it all went orange and then
began to change to red.
All red, all around
and blue beneath my feet.

The doors are locked (for now)
and windows blocked
and I am trapped inside

the stone and brown
beneath the shingles scratchy
and surrounded by the red
that fades to brown
and then to nothing

But it flows,
that blue stream
alive and cool and sweet
and whispers to me
of a place where all is true
a place where all is blue

blue beneath my feet

Anonymous: Her Blood is on your Keyboard

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Constance…I am sobbing deeply right now.  Another transgender person dead, dysphoria eats another one of us, and what’s worse but not at all unusual is the way that the cis-world egged her on.

I cannot imagine the cruel hearts of the people who said such horrible things to her.

But I will be blunt:  everyday, you need to remember that most transgender people are treated with staggering othering and policing.

I myself am shunned, and my history is distorted and fabricated.  My narrative is hijacked in service of a myth that allows people to feel good about the indifferent uncaring way they choose to live.

It weighs on a person, it does.

Constance, everywhere around you someone is suffering, someone is laboring.  How about just be kind?

Please?

Someday you will wish you had been, if you’re lucky.

Trans woman, 23, kills herself after being attacked online | Gay Star News.

Trans woman, 23, kills herself after being attacked online

#HerNameWasRachel
27 APRIL 2015 | BY JOE MORGAN
RIP Rachel Bryk.

A young trans woman has killed herself after being attacked online.

Rachel Bryk, 23, jumped off the George Washington Bridge, the bridge between New York and New Jersey, on Thursday night (23 April)

An eyewitness is believed to have seen the young woman leave her purse on the bridge and jump off into the Hudson River.

Bryk’s body has still not been recovered. A funeral will be planned when her body is found.

Her shocked mother Lisa Bryk, from New Jersey, found out on Friday morning.

‘She was super smart, really good with computers,’ she told Gay Star News. ‘We’ll miss her.’

Bryk was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at a young age and lived with chronic pain. This meant she was unable to get a job or keep to a regular schedule.

She found her life in anime, nerd culture and computing. She helped develop an emulator that allows you to play Gamecube and Wii games on your PC.

But because Bryk was talented, and hard-working, and open about being trans, it meant she left herself open to online attacks.

When she said on 4chan that she was considering killing herself, she did not receive support.

‘DO IT, if you’re such a weak willed thin skinned dipshit then fucking do it,’ one anonymous commenter told her.

Even in her death, some on 4chan have described it as a ‘victory’. On news of her death, some commented that she was the ‘whiniest fucking faggot’ and ‘any tranny death is good riddance’.

Such comments clearly left Bryk severely depressed, who would often call herself ‘worthless trash’ on her Ask.fm page. Her Twitter bio page read: ‘[Trigger Warning]: suicide on everything i say.’

At Friday midnight, this was posted on her Twitter.

Rachel Bryk Tweet

The people Bryk worked with mourned her.

‘She will be missed greatly by everyone. We are stronger, better people thanks to knowing her,’ one said.

And another: ‘Rachel was more than just a great programmer. She was a great programmer who always managed to put a smile on my face. I don’t think that there ever will be anyone else quite like her. Rest in peace.’

When we asked Bryk’s mom how the family dealt with her daughter’s transition, she said: ‘It caused a lot of worry, because the world is not a kind place for people who are different.’

If you are considering suicide, please call the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255. The LGBT National Helpline is on 888-843-4564, with the Youth line on 800-246-7743.

– See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/trans-woman-23-kills-herself-after-being-attacked-online270415#sthash.jcThC57T.kXWTRJ3X.dpuf

Bruce Jenner’s Special With Diane Sawyer On ABC’s 20/20 Sets New Bar For Reporting On Transgender Issues

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Constance, this is a pretty dang good analysis of the Jenner interview.

*I am calling this person Jenner for now…while Jenner has given request for male pronouns to be used for the interview and identification currently, Jenner has also unequivocally declared as female.  I remember those early days myself, and my mindset that I could/would accommodate everyone else, whom I mistakenly assumed were acting in good faith that matched my own…I was wrong to assume this, and wish now that I had just asserted myself*

*Just in case this is true for Jenner too…I will simply use Jenner’s surname until it becomes clear where on the spectrum Jenner connects in*

Bruce Jenner’s Special With Diane Sawyer On ABC’s 20/20 Sets New Bar For Reporting On Transgender Issues.

Gabriel Arana is senior media editor at The Huffington Post.

Re-Posting Nicole Mott on Bruce Jenner

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Constance, here is a post from a Facebook friend concerning Bruce Jenner.  While the opinions about Jenner as a person are hers, the concerns/facts about that vast majority of transgender people are quite real, and she so articulately expressed them.

Thanks, Nikki!  Your words RAWK!

So, Bruce Jenner.

I am so tired of hearing this person’s name. So sick and tired of it…

There’s been this stuff swirling around across what I’ve dubbed, the “Transphere” concerning idols, and all of that…what a crock…

Let me first state that being trans is NOT who you are. It is a PART of who you are like having brown eyes, or green skin (I dunno, maybe you do?). A lot of people choose to make it central to who they are as people, and that’s fine…you know what? Those people can do whatever they want to do, but it STOPS there, with them. I’m not in that box.

When someone sees me, I don’t want the light bulb to go off, “Trans.” in the same way someone else you might see triggers something else. When this happens, we surrender our person hood, in exchange for an issue. We are no longer people, but instead representatives of an issue. Try doing that, and having a meaningful existence…I dare you.

I am me. My life experience has taught me that while being trans may be a permanent part of who I am, and always was, it does NOT define me, and even if it did, that definition it yields for me is vastly different from that of another person who is trans.

When most lay people hear the term, “Transgender” they tend to think it means someone like me, for example, someone just like me.

“Oh, I knew someone who became a guy. That’s cool!”

or,

“Yeah I have a friend who became a girl, he’s still my best friend!” (Obvious gender pronoun errors, because who their friend is, and identifies as isn’t important to you, only what they mean (or meant) to you. Grats on being selfish, and inconsiderate or someone’s inherent self-worth and dignity.

In both of these examples, what’s happened is that people think that transgender means one thing, and my oh my, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

I will say this now, and I seldom ever just post it on my wall, but I was diagnosed with transsexualism, and that was treated under the care of a team of doctors via gender transition everything ranging from Hormones to Surgeries. My lived experiences are absolutely NOTHING like this person’s.

My personal feelings on this “Bruce Jenner” crap comes from a place of protectiveness. I am sick of this story getting air time, and these well-to-do 1%’s feeding their lusts for attention. This isn’t a game!!! People get hurt because of the attitudes propagated by this garbage….and that is EXACTLY what this is.

My protectiveness comes from the suffering of people who are trans. The people who deal with the shit from ground zero EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. We have the highest suicide attempt rate IN THE WORLD with almost ONE in every TWO people attempting. Then you have this person creating a circus of non-sense giving Cis people and others who have no idea what Trans is, so much ammo to continue the abuses, the bullying, the murders, the legally oppressive laws for us to go about our daily lives.

I AM SICK of it.

What’s more important to mention here, and I did hit on this on a previous post on a friend’s wall, is that as a “community” there really is no “trans” community, but more of a loose grouping of people defending human rights, specifically gender identity and expression. We can not agree on anything at all concerning who or what is trans, what that means or doesn’t mean…possibly because there is no categorical way to classify the breadth and scope of the human experience.

Fact is: We are all people, and gender identity and expression, while an innate part of who we are, is not the defining characteristic of who we are…but a smaller component of a much larger entity.

Get this crap out of the media already. There’s no doubt going to be a negative impact because of it, and I can see it all over our local news station’s Facebook pages.

I do not like this person being in the news, and I think it serves to do more harm than good. Most of my posts are usually much more supportive than this, but we’ve seen too many train wrecks with public figures, and I just don’t want, nor do I care to see social attitudes decline and make life more difficult for every day people like those on my friend’s list.

I feel the same way about this, that I do when someone with Autism commits a murder, and they try to lump all people who are autistic into the murderer categories.

Bruce Jenner is NOT an idol, and needs to go away. ASAP.

/rant_over

Now, I’m going tend to my garden. Have a blessed day heart emoticon

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“Who Are We To Judge…”

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Constance, I likely will not post an awful lot about the Jenner Transition Announcement until she gets further underway.

I totally, utterly get where she is at right now.  She is thinking things about how she is not that worried about pronouns, and how she is willing to overlook the othering and policing that is going on right now, yadda yadda yadda…she feels a responsibility to other transgender people to effect a graceful transition with dignity.

But deep down inside…all those things are hurting her, affecting her, wounding her.  She doesn’t need me adding to the cacophony of noise surrounding her (and all of that exacerbated because of the family dynamics she married into). Eventually, she will begin to find her bearings and her voice, or if she already has, she will begin to express it in her own unique ways.

But I will be commenting on things that orbit her transition, things that are revealed and illuminated as a result of her decision, and here is one of them:

On my Facebook page, a friend linked to an article about her transition.  That article is here:

Bruce Jenner’s declaration creates an opportunity

What was telling was in the comments on the Facebook post, all generally very supportive, but one stood out to me.  It simply said “Who are we to judge…”

“Who are we to judge…”

Constance, do you see why that comment jumped out at me?  Yes?  Jot down your thoughts about it…or No?  No you do not see anything odd about that comment in relation to gender identity?

Well, Cis-Constance, imagine yourself being introduced to someone, and them very kindly and sagely assessing you and then saying to you and everyone “Who are we to judge…” and then shrugging as if to say “to each their own”…

as if your gender identity is something that is up for judgement in the first place!

as if your gender identity is an article of clothing that you simply decided to wear that day.

as if your gender identity was a moral choice you made or make.

Gender orientation is put into the same classification as sexual orientation and then judged as a moral choice, and this is simply incorrect and unfair.

There is orientation that is a given…and then there are behaviors that descend from choices that we make as creatures who are moral creatures and subject to moral constraints as determined by God and current cultural climate (and those are rarely congruent, btw)…the behaviors themselves are what I choose to do…but the orientation is who I was born to be.

Orientation is not moral behavior.  It is simply the given baseline.

You as a cis-gender person are never subjected to the statement “Oh…you say you are a (fill in your biological chromosomal state).  I see.  Well, who am I to judge?”

And that, Constance, is the very epitome of cis-gender privilege!

Don’t get me wrong…I love the compassion that is at root behind the commenter’s post…but gender orientation is not a matter subject to judgement any more than race is, or that there is a brain in a skull, or that there are arms and legs on a human.

The deep underlying ignorance that is being exposed in the light of gender-education right now is the notion that gender-variance is a moral issue!  The deep presupposition fostered in our binary is that any person who is cross-gendered is by definition subject to moral assessment should they decide to authentically live out who they are in spite of the external casing they are housed in!!

Do you see this?

The commenter is correct:  we are not the judge of one another and should not judge one another.  But the issue that she applied this moral principle speaks volumes of how far we have to go yet as a culture, and why we transgender people are subject to such tremendous othering.

Even the way we are supported is often times OTHERING!

I have the same internal response when people say to me “Hey, whatever makes you happy makes me happy”…and they are sincerely “for” me in terms of their willingness to accept me.

But they have no idea just how deeply they sentenced me to more time in the gender penitentiary.

“Mr. & Mrs. Cis-Gender Constance:  Tear down this wall!!“2008-5-10 Auschwitz No 11 - Final 2-1-2009 750

A Thoughtful Implication In Favor of Relationship…

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Constance, this lil essay below illustrates a similar experience that I have virtually everyday, except from the other end of the spectrum and working back.

I liked it, for it did a great job of revealing the underlying obligations that the paradigm encumbers all of us with.

Please chew on it awhile…and then think about how you can take people for who they are as the inside soul reveals, rather than how the outside accoutrements imply…one involves assumption, and one involves relationship…

“swanjolras:

okay, i have been trying to say this in a way that makes sense for ages, so here goes:

a lot of hatred of dresses, pink, stereotypically “feminine” stuff is based on internalized misogyny. and that’s definitely something we all need to look at within ourselves and address and work on.

but: a lot of hatred of dresses, pink, stereotypically “feminine” stuff is based on the fact that femininity is compulsory for people who are assigned female at birth.

like, this is a fact. this isn’t something i’m making up. femininity is compulsory. i have to wear dresses and makeup to be taken seriously when i go to job interviews, when i go to social occasions, when i present myself in any formal setting. when i don’t do that, people notice. they’re rude to me.

when i shop in the men’s section, store employees and customers glare at me! my relatives press feminine clothes on me during the holiday season because they think i should dress in a more feminine way! when i go to get my hair cut and ask for it to be cut in a certain style, the woman cutting my hair literally ignores that explicit instruction because it’s “too butch”. femininity is compulsory! i am not allowed to present my gender the way i would like to present my gender!

it’s not the fault of femininity that it’s being forced on me. and the patriarchy does devalue femininity. and the current rhetoric of “you can wear pink and skirts and still be a feminist and still be queer and it’s other people’s fault for not taking you seriously, not yours for dressing that way” is great.

but i’ve heard people say to me, “you can wear lipstick and dresses and still be a feminist” about a thousand times, and i have never, ever,ever heard someone say to me, “you can refuse to wear lipstick and dresses and you are no less of a woman than someone who does wear them.” i had to figure that out all on my own.

i’m allowed to be angry at the cis women who force me to present myself in a way that i don’t want to present myself. i am allowed to do that.

I will scream the bolded from the rooftops for you if you want. <3″

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Yes…Men as a whole are privileged and need a reality check!

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Constance, I post about men, their sense of privilege and entitlement, the mutilation of their soul they are forced to ritually endure as payment for that privilege, and the twisted and scary ways that sense of entitlement and the actual rape of their souls replicates itself in their actions…

…and I often get messages back that are variations on the “not all men” theme…cus these individuals have not taken the actual physical actions that I post about…even though they disregard their own violent and presumptuous writing style that is arrogant, presumptive, and ultimately such a perfect manifestation of the very thing I write about…

Well I am posting this below as illustration of a general thing by virtue of highlighting a specific.

And remember, men:  I grew up in your midst!  I was there, me Charissa Grace…watching, listening, horrified and traumatized when I was naive and new…and then tired and tearful when I was older and on verse 3, 214 of the same tired-ass old song that you each and everyone think is one you wrote…YOU wrote, and thus your every word is so important, so heavy with weight…and if only people listened to YOUR way of explaining it they would finally understand…

um no.  What is listed below?  It is the unvarnished, unsophisticated version of what the vast vast VAST majority of you do over and over and over again…such  as the nice guy I read yesterday who was mansplaining all about how women would not be effective leaders when they were on their periods because their hormones would make them irrational, or less rational…

which omfg ignores sooo many things, assumes sooo many things…and one major thing is that rationality is any better compass for providing leadership than other things like say intuition, or heart, or feeling, or compassion, or…or…or…or…and then assumes that women ARE more irrational than men…what the actual F**K?

Rational?  Like the poor person below…

um, no.bird beek

 

PS:  all comments below are from the original post, not me

 

canfy:

onefitmodel:

fformlessness:

genuinely the scariest person i’ve ever come across!!!! the first message was one from where he messaged me yesterday
the last message exchange was from another girl who posted her interaction with him, and after her message back to him after he VIDEO CALLED HER MULTIPLE TIMES IN A ROW he proceeded to tell her to “shut the fuck up, whore” when she explained how weird it was

i’m now blocked from his fb and i’m just sharing this in case any girl ever gets a friend request from him!! i have no idea what state he’s from and i can’t access his page anymore so please be careful ily!!!

OH MY GOD

Okay somebody please report that shit to the police he genuinely sounds like the kind of guy whod shoot women in a university. Like srsly people living in the us do something about it

EVERYONE, CONTACT HIS PARENTS, CONTACT THE POLICE, CONTACT FACEBOOK SUPPORT!!! Don’t let this asshole get away with it!!!