i tried to explain
the majesty of mushrooms
who grow best in darkness
and thrive in the damp
and flourish midst breakdown
and live in the bullshit
but he just laffed derisive
and opened his wolfmouth
and said you are still
just a fungus
Tag Archives: transphobia
I Am The OtHeR
they sit beside the brook
its merry song tinkles around them
music from the heart of
the earth’s blood clearer than diamonds
more fierce than oxygen
and all they hear is the sound
of piss bouncing off stones
and fouling the dirt
in the presence of waterfalls
roaring with the immanent joy
of the void becoming UN-void
and spray like pearls on the way
from nowhere to as yet pregnant
oysters in deepest seas and
deeper sees
all they hear is a vague
annoying buzz of
an insignificant tramp.
and at that shore vast
that shore that makes them
wistful, hopeful, weak, strong
in, out, shrinking, growing
never changing never same
and the thunder of the deep
calling to Deep…
they cast their trash
and drop their gum
after taking my picture
My True Name
the sun scurries from the rim
of the far horizon, hurries
up to its important stage above all
things beaming.
it’s gonna have a helluva day
throwing shade at everyone
especially me, this moonchild
that sunshine passes thru.
the sun forgets everything
but its self-important run
to heights to glare down from
imperious, impervious, and naming.
I could look straight at it
but if I did, it would be quenched
in my knowing, darkling gaze,
my look that sees the backside
so I look away as it names me
wrong, other, afterthought
aside, and that old flame would
just as soon burn my ass.
but in just mere moments
when I lower my gaze, the sun
forgets I ever was, except maybe
to laugh and snicker at the moonchild
but the moon remembers
and so do I
the moon, soft, beautiful
receives me
knows my name
my true name
That Line?
that line?
right there.
the one stretching out
from somewhere to nowhere
i crossed it
but not just stepped across
on dancing feet
i danced across
and caper on its grave
“Oh, you’re trans? But you look so good!”
What Cis People Say To Trans People Vs. What We Hear
“Oh, you’re trans? But you look so good!”
Rory Midhani for BuzzFeed News
Meredith Talusan is an LGBT Staff Writer for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
Contact Meredith Talusan at meredith.talusan@buzzfeed.com.
Illustrator: Contact Rory Midhani at info@rorymidhani.com.
Feast Upon The Village Green
I am the bristly nest from which the great blue heron springs.
I am the stones upon which stinging ice-churned runnels ring.
And there, those fires hot from which the Phoenix rare takes wing.
I’m scintillating embers, coals ablaze and life giving.
They named me foul pale heretic and laid me down to rest,
outside the white-washed churchyard walls, outside their ruddy fold.
And there my hot blood flowed rich-red to feed their bloodless grass,
I deep red died upon that emerald sward of murder bold.
And I do let my bones peek from the curtain of my skin
and thus do I me nourish every living thing herein
with my authentic self and my unconquerable song,
my passion unquenchable and my me a sacred throng
of birth from death and life leapt up in winds, in rain and dew
I am nest, stone and embers singing always clear for you.
and thus it is unholy ground is cleaned, hallowed once more,
and every living thing’s communion, ever opened door
The Lense Thru Which I Read My Lil Red Songbird…
I need my small, meaningless lies. I need all my self-created semi-truths.
It’s the only way for me to keep exclusive parts of myself to myself.
Believe me, I do not even perceive them as lies.
It’s something different that keeps happening inside my head.
At the same time, I long to tell you the truth about me, always.
I want to share with you each important or unimportant detail and feel and fully embrace the very act of sharing.
But it occurs to me that it’s the hardest of tasks; I hate it.
I hate unveiling bits and pieces of anything permanent or temporary that resides in me.
I loathe it with my heart.
It’s the only way for me to keep exclusive parts of myself to myself.
Believe me, I do not even perceive them as lies.
It’s something different that keeps happening inside my head.
At the same time, I long to tell you the truth about me, always.
I want to share with you each important or unimportant detail and feel and fully embrace the very act of sharing.
But it occurs to me that it’s the hardest of tasks; I hate it.
I hate unveiling bits and pieces of anything permanent or temporary that resides in me.
I loathe it with my heart.
You can find more honesty in the smallest of my gestures rather in my words;
my words are too impatient, too loose, too doomed in some way.
my words are too impatient, too loose, too doomed in some way.
To EVERY Male Who Others/Polices Me
Human! (Found Online)
When Your Violin is Supposed to Be a Cello | Let’s Queer Things Up!
“In a single scale, I broke my own heart.”
Ohhh SAM!!! This.
THIS!!
This article captures it so very well. In a single article, he made me weep!
Source: When Your Violin is Supposed to Be a Cello | Let’s Queer Things Up!
Yes, clothes matter. | the girl inside
I Am A broken girl And I Am
I am a broken girl and I am
not so easy to love like
carefree normal confident girls
next door in cotton and flannel and lace.
I live inside a fortress and I hide
inside shields and my soul
lives centuries in seconds
I am a survivor of wars
that break the strongest
men so flimsy.
Can you love me so strong that mountains
collapse into the dust of quiet surrender?
Can you melt my doubts and burn my soul
hotter than cold death and abandonment?
Can you endure my very worst days and stand
me not knowing that I am beautiful,
can you erase the thousand tormenting words
the sibilant whispers from hell’s pits of isolation and horror? 
Can you stand that I am thinking even now “Why would you?”
Why would anyone?
I run from you,
but do you see that I run
far slower than I could?
Do you even know
what that means?
Why won’t you chase me?
Could you provide me anything
that I can rely on, any routine
that will be as sunrise and sunset
again and again?
Could you give me a pet name?
Could you kiss me, touch me?
Then do it again, and again.
I am a broken girl and I am
thirst itself so strong that Sahara is oasis.
I am a broken promise but I love
with loyalty that is the stars’
commitment to shine in the night.
I am a broken girl and I am
I Am Burning
I’m on fire,
burning in words
burning in images
burning in thoughts
and torched again
by the why why why
why? Why do they say,
do, laugh, eye roll?
I honestly do not know
Hear Me Screaming (Transgender Remembrance Day 2015)
I am a ghost wandering in the dark
and you don’t even know,
you don’t even see.
Wandering lost and in sorrowful shades
and you don’t even know,
you don’t even see.
I am a wailing voice keening in grief
and you don’t even know,
you don’t even see.
Wrapped in a funeral shroud black and white
and you don’t even know,
you don’t even see.
You walk into the nook, seeing me here
but you don’t even know,
you don’t even see
you don’t even hear me screaming.
I Don’t Need To Go To Paris
I can stay right here,
no passport, no visa
no access to that fairytale
land of opportunity and liberty
I don’t need to go to Paris
to find those willing
to gun me down, blow me up,
kill me in the name
of their bloodthirsty god
called gender.
Those terrorists
walk the streets
of my world behind
white faces, middle class manners
and smirks to rival the Riddler’s.
Paris comes to me
everyday.
In Mid-Air (Ode To Facebook)
Your words,
tossed off
trumpeted out
staccato,
running trills
like some
Miles Davis
of the trivial
not-thought-thru
remark
leave me
set on fire
and hanging
in mid-air
The Rustling of Those Wings
I always thought vultures
slept at night, devil-red heads
bulbous on scrawny leather necks
tucked under fetid wing and pinion.
I was wrong.
They never sleep
but circle
endlessly
always
gliding around the dying
the rotten and discarded
waiting for that last quick breath
and then they land nearby
and hop like feather frogs
to their last supper never ending
I stick my head
out in the night
and cannot see them
but I know they are there
by the way
the rustling of those wings
echoes in my heart
The Crucible of Grace
If you seek to extend grace and love to cover over a multitude of sins, the worst thing you can do is undercut that extension by talking about it and pointing it out. Right?
This weekend has been excruciating, because the long-awaited and much dreaded article outing me to the entire world was published. And I am letting it stand uncommented on, because the person who wrote it apparently needs this as they deal, process, and move forward in becoming.
But it is awful having my voice stolen from me…it is awful being portrayed as a cruel caricature of who I am and who I was…it is tragic to see the consequences of what I chose and lived twisted so tragically as life spins on by and the gravity of the Fall pulls everything to that fierce collision with nothingness…and it is heartbreaking to see the person that I literally would instantly die for, right now this moment, if it would restore them to wholeness, flail around trying to recover their bearings and watch as they grapple with emotions and choices and basically just suffer a sort of death process.
The place this article was published did not contact me (though if they had, I would have said to go ahead…my loved one needs to speak unfettered)…the things that were written, well let’s just say that one person’s account sounds right until another person in a situation gives their lived experience, and then things are usually a lot more complicated and delicate in determining “what happened”.
Mostly what happened? The binary. The binary punished me from the beginning of my life, it trapped my parents into seeing me as someone I wasn’t…it tore my soul in half and left the only option forward for me a dissociation from self and adopting performance as my currency and agency in the world…it left a bloody gaping void within me that never ever could heal, and in which the Love of God was sufficient, but only just…it led to the birth of children who deserved more and got less in spite of me trying to give them everything…
What happened was a flawed imperfect person full of hope and love and wanting only to have kids and love them and raise them up into life did her best in the skin and role of a man…and is now vilified and excoriated for this…what happened is that I was born in a time and place and culture, and practiced the things that I thought were right and true and proper, and those so at odds with what I know now, what I matured into, grew into, and yet how does that undo things that happened 30 years ago?
And what happened was so much pain in my decision to transition that an entire narrative had to shift to account for the horror and the loss of a father…and I read of things, and am painted in ways that just do not match up with what I lived, what I remember, what emails and letters say to me, what other people who knew us and were around us a lot recall…
What happened was my dysphoria and depression and despair did indeed affect my heart and soul, and that affected everyone around me, and likely was the metaphorical equivalent to belts and abuse so does it really even matter if I never did the actual things I am accused of doing? Actually no…it doesn’t matter that I never did them, because it is clear to me that I was them…poisonous, toxic, radioactive, damned for being absent and cursed for being present and above all accountable for every last ill in those lives so precious to me.
I never really understood before why God’s answer to the horror of the Fall was to come as Jesus to this world, and suffer and die…I do now though. Because there are no words that I can say that would explain it, justify it, make it right, make it better, disappear it…all I could do would be to simply die in their place…
…and if I could do that, I would want it to happen hidden, without anyone knowing, and the provision of that death simply being wholeness and happiness for my hearts…
I love you, hearts…I will grieve until the day grief itself is satisfied and all things are made new. Say on. Whatever you need, whatever you want, whatever you must.
I only ask Mama, please hold me close and sustain me in Your Love.
Othered Once Again
it’s like the instantaneous arrival
the spontaneous appearance
the epiphanous eventuality
in one thunderous moment
of dull leaden light that clashes
and smothers and chokes out
everything else…
that moment when fear
puts on its mask of hate
and joins the ritual circle of death,
eyes wide shut,
and I am othered
once again
Posting A Very Sobering Reflection
All…this is a post from a tumblr blog I follow, not my own writing, but her concluding question echoes many things I have written about, namely that all the “Remember the Dead Trans-girls” rallies change absolutely nothing.
We don’t want to be remembered.
We want to live…be fruitful and share life.
I don’t want you to say my name when I am killed…I want to say my own name in the zest of life! Without fear of attack, policing, othering or rejection simply for being born.
I echo Jen’s question: since last weekend’s events, what has changed?
PS: Language alert! If you are offended or defiled by scatalogical language, proceed with caution! F-bombs and other such things are in evidence!
Maybe if…Maybe….maybe if every man who has ever hired a trans escort, if every boy who has ever beat off to trans porn, if all the guys I and thousands of others have hooked up with via Craig’s List, if the millions who fetishize our bodies, who enjoy us on our knees in bathrooms, who press us against hotel windows, who lay with us in our beds, if the men who adore me and my sisters, but only behind closed doors, would STAND THE FUCK UP AND SPEAK OUT…maybe 21 year old women just enjoying an evening out with friends wouldn’t be beat to death.
Maybe if all of you who read this, our allies and friends and colleagues and family, would call out when others make jokes at our expense, even when we’re not around, if you’d tell advertisers and producers and journalists and writers and comics that you’re not okay with them making trans women nothing but the punchline of jokes or tragic tossaways, that you know us, that we’re not disposable….maybe groups of people would stop feeling so free to harass me and my sisters, maybe crowds wouldn’t just laugh when a man spits at me, or just watch when two young men chase me down the street yelling “shemale”…maybe if you ALL stood up and said enough, maybe a young woman just being herself wouldn’t be beat to death in the streets of the supposedly best place on earth to just be yourself.
Maybe if all the gay men who act as if equality means marriage, if all the white feminists who only serve those that look like them, if all the queers who drop “TWOC” like a shibboleth but don’t know or talk to or walk beside any actual trans women of color…maybe if all of you saw what was happening here and how your actions allow it, how every moment of silence, of waiting for people of color to start the conversation about race …maybe this child could have enjoyed a few more years of being beautiful among us.A 21 year old was beat to death in our streets. It happened because she is a woman, and of color, and transgender. It happened because our men won’t admit they love us, because our friends aren’t speaking out against the thousand little dehumanizing actions of others, because our own “LGBT” community isn’t comfortable talking about race and class.
This has to change. Now.
I wrote this two years ago.
What’s changed?
Death Don’t Have No Mercy In This Land
I want to say something to you, cis-gender friends. Please PLEASE hear this heart, and not a strident voice. Do not mistake my intensity for blathery emotional anger-slinging.
Do you know that the number of murders of transwomen has already surpassed the TOTAL for 2014?
I am talking about people…just like me.
For the last few years every time there is another murder of a transwoman the news gets pushed around in trans-circles with sorrow and shock and outrage accompanied by cries of “this HAS to stop!!”
And yet here we are…in mid-August and already surpassing the totals for last year…and this is just murders, by the way…the numbers are even higher if you throw in suicide.
My dear friends: this is not ever going to stop until YOU decide it must. It is on YOU.
Because what power do we trans-women have? What standing do I have? When I am spit at for simply walking in public? When I am hated on with eyes for holding my head high and forgetting about gender for a moment and just flowing in being like any other person can?
And then there is the intersection of race and gender variance, and ohhhh the absolute tragedy of how the blind become even more the blinder…
…because it is the same with race too…the stink of that zombie that lurches freely thru our society eating hearts like rotten apples and screaming for more, that stench is even greater than the sheer indifference shown to the plight of transwomen, so if you are a transwoman AND a woman of color?
Well, to know just how that is, simply read of the condition of the remains in some of these cases…faces bashed into a bloody mash…dismemberment…stabbed with an ice pick repeatedly…dumped in the trash…lit on fire…
Cis-friends, until this is no longer okay with you, we shall continue to be harvested by death with impunity. Our blood cries out and will never stop, never cease. Until you choose to use your privilege for someone “less than”, then the wolves will continue to hunt and the transwomen die. And the rest of us will continue to flap our gums about what “has to”, knowing full well that stop is not a choice a ravenous beast makes.
How many is it gonna take to push you to the place where you yourselves will step up? One a day? Would that do it?
How about a hundred a day? One Hundred Women a day…marched to the town square and shot dead at dawn.
Will that do it? And if so, then what is the difference between a hundred a day and one a day?
What is the difference between one a day and one a week?
What is the value of a transgender life?
Confronting Your Own Privilege
“Is ‘heterosexual’ a slur? No. It describes an identity and experience. Because straight folks don’t typically experience their heterosexuality as an identity, many don’t identify as heterosexual — they don’t need to, because culture has already done that for them. Similarly, cisgender people don’t generally identify as cisgender because societal expectations already presume that they are. […]It’s an incredible and invisible power to not need to name yourself because the norms have already done that for you. You don’t need to come out as heterosexual or cisgender because it is already expected. Since it isn’t a derogatory term, those who take exception to it may be uncomfortable with trans issues, or perhaps they are unwilling to confront their own privilege.”
| — | K.J. Rawson, interview via the Advocate |
One of the greatest acts of advocacy you can partake of…confronting your own privilege.
We Are Come At Last
Marshal your forces, you protectors of the crown,
send your dogs running, your dogs of dreams,
your dogs howling, full noses of my fur, my pelt!
Bring on your hunt, your horses in full gallop
and chase for all you’re worth, your lust and fear
of free blood running red, and full, liberty’s blood!
Your coats, scarlet! Your smirks, affixed with tax,
and become terrible twisted rictus in your sweaty efforts
to hunt this free fox leaping, yipping, dancing on the dawn!
They shall come to me, your dogs, and wriggle ‘neath my touch!
They shall hear my dog-whistle words, too high for your dull ears
but so keenly attuned and pitched to their own straining hearts!
And they shall call to their comrades, your horses, who will alert and thrill
and leap into the air to gallop freely there…and you unhorsed…you laying there
upon the blood-stained grass of yesteryear…
Your time is up, for we are come to hunt you down
and tear that red coat straight away right off your back
and tossed into the sky, our banner free unfurled and our war cry…
No Longer! Not Anymore!
Feather and Fur
It’s puzzling…
the sheer effrontery
of those raucous rooks,
those rapacious ravens…
they flock around
(why? I couldn’t say)
and act all furry and red
and soft and they think
their beady close set eyes
are so foxy…
I act bored and disinterested
but I watch them carefully
with slitted eyes
and coiled muscles
ready to jump away from
blood-thirsty beaks
and harsh cries
that tear the air apart
and leave feather and fur
in their wake.
The Triune Choice of Transgender Humans in a Binary World
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.
Neighborhood Bully (Apologies to Bob Dylan for the Adjustments)
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
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
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.
40 questions for Christians who oppose marriage equality (GUEST COMMENTARY) – Corner of Church and State
A VERY interesting and thought provoking article and series of questions…Reader, this is posted more for you than anyone else. See if you can hold your need to “binary-ize” things into your “either-or” world view…just for a second or two.
I am less interested in answering the question of right and wrong at this point, and more interested in asking what kind of heart are you showing, advocating, and modeling by your current approaches to relationship with LGTBQ people?
I mean…33 plus years of relationship was over in the flick of a heartswitch and the drop of an envelope in a mail-slot…
Boom.
My life has gone on. No…more accurately, my life has finally begun and I have been blooming and growing spiritually and emotionally and growing more healthy physically. The loss of relationship has in my case been a very healthy pruning in that so many new people have come into my life bringing messages to me like I have rarely experienced in my past years done in the dungeons of christendom.
But I do think about you, Reader…and the life you live of inspection and constant lifting of yourself and others into scales that are not even accurate…
…and I encourage you to read these questions and ponder them…
because to answer them and be challenged by them will require you to change your lifestyle, spend your time differently, and draw your boundaries very different!
You never know…you just may find that the river you say I have crossed that you won’t be crossing is the River of Life and that what matters is the water, and not the bank you stand on…as if that matters…as if you could really make that claim, that your bank is “the bank”…as if that pleases God who left heaven and took on the form of a bondslave…
…and as if that River of Life doesn’t have twists and turns to the human eye that could end up with us actually still “on the same side” (cus that’s a thing in this divisive binary world, being on the same side is far more important than belonging to Jesus *SARCASM*) and you not even realize it.
Just let go.
The list is getting sooo long, and the burden is getting sooo ponderous, all the things you must inspect and check and ascertain…how bout just letting all that go, and simply doing this: Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, and loving your neighbor as yourself with something more than a letter that slashed and burned and then preened like Little Jack Horner…
Here’s What’s Okay (And Not Okay) to Say to a Trans Person – Once and For All — Everyday Feminism
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).
TransWhat? • Allyship: first steps
TransWhat? • Allyship: first steps.
Fabulous aggregation of basic information!
Is Your Trans Allyship Half-Baked? Here Are 6 Mistakes That Trans Allies Are Still Making — Everyday Feminism
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.
Milwaukee Public Schools: We Are Watching
I noticed in the referral logs of my site that Milwaukee Public Schools has been on my blog. I am guessing they have someone monitoring public opinion on their decade long murder of a transgender woman.
Her name was Karis Anne Ross.
Karis Anne Ross.
Your convenience and desire to remain untroubled by the actions of some of your employees were the weapons that were used…but the worst part of it? 10 years.
10 years is 520 weeks…36,502 days.
And in all that time, just one firm decision could have not only saved her life, but ended the torment she endured.
We transgender people are tough…you have to be to survive dysphoria at all. And we are patient, long-suffering, and simply will do just about anything to be given a chance at a normal life…and those qualities are the very things that led to her enduring unimaginable suffering and harassment.
Because maybe, just maybe…tomorrow will be different.
Well, alas for Karis…it wasn’t. Different.
It was the same as it has ever been…kill the transgender woman for the crime of choosing to live out her true identity as a woman and eschewing her biological assignment at birth. She knew she was more than her genitalia…
too bad that her district never figured that out.
So yeah…comb the web, school district. I for one will certainly do my best to keep my lil nook of the internet up to speed as to what is or is not happening.
And btw…don’t bother trying to enable my bullies…
I don’t work for you.
I know my value.
Living as a transgender woman who doesn’t yet ‘pass’
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.
Murder By Bully pt 2: An Open Letter to the Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools
Extremely Powerful Thinking: On Femininity and the Patriarchy
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.
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.
You Speak Like Snakes (You Know Who You Are)
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.
Judith Butler on gender and the trans experience
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.
Omg…Happens To Me Every Day With Gender
No Protest In Philly!!
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 
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.
Me and My Cat-Hair
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!!
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…
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.
Transgender Today – Avery Jackson – NYTimes.com
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.
Please: Try to Grasp This, And Change…
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.
Anonymous: Her Blood is on your Keyboard
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
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.
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
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*
Gabriel Arana is senior media editor at The Huffington Post.
Re-Posting Nicole Mott on Bruce Jenner
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
“Who Are We To Judge…”
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!!“
Disconnected Fists
they’re visible, don’t worry, it’s now clear.
you’ve made them known to us, you’ve brought them near.
you’ve parted the black night to show their flurry
you’ve pierced the darkness with them, they are here
in front of me, swinging in violent sphere
and they connected judgement with rank fear.
those hard bones writhe, they crawl beneath your skin,
those bones now brittle with the pain within
and become sharp-edged, cutting thru the din
with angles, planes, indictments of old sin
imagined, perceived lurking deep within
and cloaked beneath your tattooed skin so thin…
and seeing those determined self wounds glare,
those prison house tattoos inflicted…where?
haha! where not is more the likely question!
those long years harboring the things you think
and living with that historical stink
to birth your athenaeum of hot ink.
I see them hanging, disconnected fists
I see the ritual mutilating notes
written on you, canvas once so soft
and now a record of your fists aloft
and shaking clenched, like Charon’s fated boats
attempting to defeat the smothering mists…
I beg you…let your hands let go of you
and let the ink run backwards up your arms
and let forgiveness work her healing charms
and let your face be wet with grace’s dew
whatever…regardless, I love you
“This Has To Stop”: Okay, whatchya gonna do about it?
Her Name Was Taylor, by Lori Duron
Constance, I often run across the statement “This has to stop” in connection with accounts of the bullying and suicide epidemics that transgender people face. And that is good, that people are beginning to get it, the monstrous othering and policing that we face every single G Dam day of our lives simply because we were “guilty” of being born into this life with the knowledge that our gender orientation and our assigned birth biology are at odds.
But I am restive with the ease with which in this internet age we can flourish our fingers over a keyboard and then move on from post with the feeling that we have actually “done something”, when all we have actually done is in effect restate the problem without attempting resolution. It is sorta like having a math test and re-writing the problem
6 + 11 = x as
x = 11 + 6 (and we be sure to draw attention to our use of different colored font and italics).
Compassion is a bicameral quality. It has two lobes. It has the feeling, heart lobe…that throbbing, dripping, bleeding tender outpouring of sympathetic alignment if we have not experienced something for ourselves (and just so you know: if you are not transgender, it is impossible for you to empathize with a dysphoric person, just as if you are white you cannot empathize with a person of color…you can sympathize, but don’t deceive yourself into thinking you empathize)…
…but for it to be true compassion, it must have the action side as well. What will you do with your sympathy?
Lori Duron has again posted a truly moving recounting of a tragic tale of bullying and othering and policing that ended in another transgender life lost…and I will recite yet again the litany of 2015: a lost transgender life approximately every 30 hours since 2015 began!
As if it is not enough of a burden to face: the nearly overwhelming unendurable constant achy angst of dysphoria. Oh no…to that is added the onslaught of ignorance, fear, and hatred as expressed in the evil of bullying which drives so many to self-destructive action in addition to having to bear gender dysphoria!
But Lori goes one better: She posts people you can email, places you can step up and actually take action that extends beyond the hypothetical feel good phrase “This has to stop” and manifests in real, measurable action…and takes baby steps as a compassionate act.
And then I myself will go you one better: there are marches coming up in major cities…in June. They have various names, monikers…but at heart they are the same, in that they are opportunities for you to express–directly–your support with your body side by side with other bodies, facing gawkers and haters, the curious and disinterested, and others who have walked in solitary confinement in their skins…
Transgender Pride Marches.
Yes, there will be people there who look different than you…who walk or talk different than you…and who want/feel/think/need/deserve exactly the same things you do as human beings! Your presence there as an ally will mean more to them than any of them can say…in addition to the emails you write or the lawmakers you contact, or the PTA meetings you attend to make your cis-gender privileged voice heard that it is not going to be tolerated, this epidemic of transgender suicide and murder…and your other actions that you are thinking of and planning to take.
You are thinking of them? Actions to take? Plans to do something? Someone you can maybe even smile at? Befriend?
In the Portland Area, I believe Transgender Pride March Day is June 13th. I hope to be there and intend to be, God willing. I intend to walk, with a sense of presence and dignity (a word I use very reluctantly right now as it has been wielded against me like a sharp phallic sword to rape my heart and spirit, but I use it none the less to mean a sense of presence that contains worth and significance simply because I am a human being)…I intend to hold my head high and not angled down, and my eyes moving from face to face and eye to eye rather than always staring at the space in between…
I hope to see you there, beside me…cis, trans. But if I don’t? It would mean the world to see you standing at the curb, a smile on your face and a nod in your eyes.
This has to stop…this expression of emotion that lacks the manifestation of action.
If you don’t support in word and deed, then you don’t support.
These 10 ‘Acceptable’ Trans Narratives Are Actually Holding Us Back — Everyday Feminism
These 10 ‘Acceptable’ Trans Narratives Are Actually Holding Us Back — Everyday Feminism.
Constance, I am pressing this, not because I am augering for any one of these things, but because it is helpful to cultivate an overall sense of not being compelled to police other people!!
Stop Confusing Gender Dysphoria With Body Dysmorphia Already
Stop Confusing Gender Dysphoria With Body Dysmorphia Already.
Constance, this is a really good article for perusal, for it brings a somewhat esoteric but extremely important fact to the forefront: namely that gender dysphoria is not a mental illness or mental issue. It is a real physical phenomenon. It cannot be thought away, counseled away, or believed away.
It makes this point in that it compares gender dysphoria with something else that sounds similar…something called body dysmorphia, a phenomenon that is an anxiety disorder that causes its sufferers to spend a lot of time worrying about their appearance and ultimately have a distorted view of how they look.
It is not a sin to suffer from either of these conditions…but it is important to understand the difference because that difference determines what sort of treatment will be effective in addressing each condition.
Each of these conditions is challenging, and I found this article to be a good touchstone on understanding this topic a bit better. I hope you will take a look.
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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