Reminders of why we’re all in this
I don’t usually do image posts on here. I reserve those for Tumblr & Facebook, but I really like this one.
This speaks to me as a dancer and as a human because I live like I dance: I try to use the skills I’ve been taught and I do my best to choreograph a plan, but on the whole I teach myself what steps I can manage and make it up as I go.
Keep dancing, friends.
Six years ago today I started taking T. In my moments of reflection on this date, certain things stand out to me. The anxiety leading up to the day, the sleepless night before, driving to the doctor in my best friend’s beat up car… the face of the nurse when she refused my care… crying in the empty waiting room. I was 22. Four months before that I had called the doctor, introducing myself through a thorough history of trans pathologization and why I deserved transitional health care without a gender identity disorder diagnosis or mandated therapy. After sitting through the typical barrage of trans questions asking how I “knew,” when did I know, and why, if I really wans trans, I wasn’t what they expected, I got my script for T. I setup my appointment to get my first shot on the morning of Sept 4th. When the T came in the mail, I left the box unopened, sitting on my dresser, waiting… It was like a creature there to save me, or to destroy me, or both. It was the egg of my body’s phoenix.
I watched the nurse’s face as she spoke awkwardly, “Actually, the doctor said we aren’t going to do this today…”
I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was the breaking stress from the build up, maybe it was crushing disappointment, maybe it was my exhaustion after a night awake crying and writing… I broke down and cried right in front of her. As soon as I could speak I said, “I want to talk to my doctor.”
“She isn’t here….”
“Where is she? This appointment has been set for a month. Why didn’t anyone tell me this was going to happen? Get my doctor on the phone.” I said, “I want to talk to my doctor.”
I paced the grey nurse’s break room, clutching the plastic hospital phone. My exhausted despair had given way to my primary defense mechanism: anger. I was ready to fight. “You’re my doctor.” I said, “You’re supposed to help me. I told you I wasn’t going to do therapy. I don’t need therapy because I’m trans. I know who I am and I’m not going to pay some uneducated “professional” $200 an hour to tell me why I’m not normal.”
The doctor’s voice was diffident and anxious. I still remember the sound of her voice as she tried to placate me, saying how GID therapy was for the good of trans people and that she was trying to help me. “I don’t want help if it means giving up what I know is right for me.” I said, “I can’t walk around fighting a system that I’m feeding into. I can’t do it and it isn’t fair for you to ask me to do it. This isn’t fair.” I’ll never forget the insulted shock I felt as I heard the doctor say, “Well, maybe you can just not tell anyone…” I gathered myself and said, “What kind of health care is this? You want me to be forced into therapy I don’t need, and now you’re telling my to lie about it – to lie to all my friends, my family, and the people I work to help… I don’t think you understand what you are doing here.”
“I’m trying to keep you safe…”
“Safe? You do know I have this T in my hand right now and I could just go out into the parking lot and shoot up, with no guarantee I’m doing it safely or properly. I’m here, in a doctor’s office, looking for support and education on how to care for myself properly and you are turning me away. I want you to know that if I end up at risk, it is because of you and your inability to rise above the outdated notions you were taught that trans people are mentally unfit. I can respect your professional boundaries, but I can’t respect any institution that would rather put a person at risk than bend to the idea that it might be wrong.”
Obviously, since I am writing this post six years later, I got my shot that day. With the support of friends, and a little help from some bodybuilding websites, I took my first shot. Like most people in the trans* community, I learned as I went and took what I could get. I was privileged to have had access to T in the first place; to have been able to save up money from my shit job to afford it; to have access to a computer where I could get reliable medical information; to have a community of friends who were there for me when I felt like I had no one else. With all that happened, I was pretty lucky. I consider myself lucky to have had it better than a lot of our people, especially those who are affected by racism, poverty, globalization… the list goes on.
I was looking through my pictures to find the quintessential pre/post photos that I (and almost every trans* person) loves to put in their blogs. Instead, I found one of my absolute favorite pictures of me ever. It is from when I was 17, on a high school photography club trip to Red River Gorge hiking the Natural Bridge trail. My disability made it so I couldn’t take the trail as fast as everyone else, it made me feel weak. I didn’t have a lot of friends and I was afraid of socializing with the other kids cause they tended to tease me, so I hung in the back of the group near my teacher, Mr. Ferguson. I remember walking the steep trail, looking up at the trees, and just feeling the energy of the forest. I remember feeling very alone, but it is hard to feel too along when you are in the woods. I sat in a shady spot near the top of the bridge; I changed my roll of film and got out the same lunch I eat every time I travel: PB&J sandwich and an apple. I watched the other kids goofing off and talking a few yards from me; I felt invisible, but in a mix of positive and negative ways. The leaves were changing. I enjoyed the silence and the view. Mr. Ferguson’s voice broke my thoughts, “Hey, Alice,” he gestured with his wide, closed palm arm wave, “Come over here. I’ll take your picture.”
Two weeks ago, I walked that trail again. I looked up at the trees and felt the energy of the forest. I still took it slow, climbing the rocks and roots behind the others, but I had some fast moving company: a 17 year old I’ve had the pleasure working with for a couple years now. He goes to the same high school I did, and is in a lot of the same clubs, but unlike my high school self, he is out as trans*. I didn’t even know what trans* was when I was that age. I see a lot of myself when I see him, but he’s much more impressive. He was much more animated on the trail that I was 12 years ago; he was excited to be with trans* community, racing up the path with other transboys, climbing on everything in sight (much to my anxiety’s displeasure). I hung back and enjoyed the walk and the views. I get so over-saturated with work now days… or really, I’ve been so over-saturated with work ever since I came out. When I came out, I took to trans* activism and never looked back. Sometimes that meant I didn’t stop to look around either. If I can take a lesson from the me of 6 years ago, it is to use the same care and attention to my process as I did back then. I used to write a lot more; do more photography; I used to dance more. Looking back, though I was afraid and anxious about making the right or wrong move for myself or my life, I did a lot to keep in touch with who I was and what I was feeling. I’m not one for making resolutions based on some event or special date, but I do like to make clear decisions surrounding change. It is important to keep myself in touch with what progress I need to make. When I was 17, I was afraid of most of the world. When I was 22, I was angry with most of it. I don’t know how much progress I’ve made since 22, lol, but I hope it is at least some. At 29, I am hopeful that I am continuing to improve myself, and to know myself. And I am grateful that I have the ability to live as I do, and work as I do, so that the folks that come after me might not be so anxious, or so angry. So, here’s to the continual fight for trans* liberation and the gift of slowing down to see the journey there.
As you may have noticed, this blog hasn’t been as active as it could be. The reason has been grad school, and holy hell has it been tough!
As of just now I have officially finished my grad school program for a Masters in Social Work. This was incredibly hard, harder than I thought it would be… I have never been a good student and school has always been torturous for me. When I started the program, I wrote down all the shit I would have to do, all the classes I would have to take, and at the bottom I wrote “You can make it this far. Do it for them, and for you.”
Community, you are “them.” I did this for you and I promise that I will use it to serve you better, help you more, and do all that I can to get us the human rights we deserve. Thank you for being my inspiration, my drive, and my passion. Without you, there is no such thing as success for me. I think of my people every day and I am grateful to be able to play a small part in our collective journey. You are what keeps me moving forward. You are what drives my feet to lift and land. You are what I am walking towards, and who I am walking with.
To all who love me, support me, and carry me. Thank you is not enough. I could not have survived without your love and care. I also want to say an extra thank you to my classmates and supportive professors. Coming into this, I was afraid of you. I did not trust you to accept me or understand me, and you have. You re-taught me to trust in ways a jaded activist and social orphan tends to forget. You proved that I do not always have to be so afraid. Thank you for demonstrating the side of humanity that is easiest to imagine but hardest to embody.
And as grateful as I am, I know one thing I never, ever want to do again: Complete a full-time graduate program with a 20 hour a week internship while signal handedly running an organization, doing national organizing work, touring, and performing/co-running a drag troupe. If any of you ever catch me fancying to over do this again, throw glitter in my FACE and knock me the fuck out.
love.
I read a quote that really moved me. It said “self portraits (selfies) are often such an act of self preservation and resistance.” I take a lot of self portraits, and sometimes I catch myself feeling silly about it. I wonder if it makes me vain, or makes me appear narcissistic, and people often tease me about it. Most of the time, I don’t give it a second thought. I really like taking pictures of myself, and I have a good reason for it.
A special note from me: Most the photos in this post have either never been seen by anyone except me, or haven’t been seen by anyone in years. I ask you, the reader, for kind eyes and minds as you view them.
When I was about 14 or 15, my lifelong best friend Jess and I took our photography hobby to a new place. We were late into a sleepover when, either out of boredom or innovation, we dragged out the big black trash bags of dress up clothes from when we were kids. We found the old slips and used prom dresses of our pretend-time past. Jess had the idea to do a photoshoot; she has always been a fountain of empowerment and I was in awe of her ability to own her body. We tried on the old dresses, clothes, slips, and costumes and posed before sheets covering the old furniture and cluttered boxes of my old playroom. No one ever saw the photographs; they were just for us.
We did these shoots for years, and occasionally I would spread the practice among some other close friends. It became a passion, an addiction; especially early on, it was the only time I felt pretty. It was the only time I really felt I was what I was supposed to be: a girl. A pretty girl who could look like the other girls; who had a body like the other girls; who was one of the girls. Looking at the photos now, it is funny to see the tame, sometimes blurry shots I thought were so risque, and others where I think “Holy shit, I had no concept for how sexual that pose was!” It was an amazing experience for body empowerment. Jess and I did these bonding shoots all through high school, roaming all over the city documenting our faces, our bodies, and our lives on film. Attics, bedrooms, parks, cloudy train tracks, mall dressing rooms, big box store aisles; we would try on everything just to see how we looked in it. When I was 17, I wrote a poem about my intimate relationship with my camera. From what I can remember, I wrote how I wanted to “sit inside the camera lens” so that I could touch the “frozen perfection” that only film could create. I remember chalking the poem on the cement commons of my high school grounds, spiraling around in a giant drawing of a camera lens. I used to have time to create things like that… I was learning to love myself, and my body, by finding ways to portray it through art.
When I went to college I started doing self-portrait shoots on my own. It’d be late at night in my dorm room and I’d have the urge to create something out of myself. It was around that time I formally fell in love with the “pin-up” and found a huge amount of body love and acceptance through doing pin-up inspired shoots.
I started to like myself more. I started to like how I looked. I began to put pictures of myself up around my apartment, and enjoyed talking pictures with people instead of just of them. Sometimes people would say, “You have a lot of pictures of yourself…” I would feel shy and awkward about it, but I secretly responded “It’s to remind me to like myself.” I wanted to like myself, and I did what I had to do. And though I wasn’t going to fully admit the importance of what I was doing, I was also not going to apologize for it. When I came out, I realized that I once again had no idea what I looked like. I wasn’t sure if I had ever really known. I could recognize my face, my body, my eyes… but I did not know what I looked like. My coming out and transition was extremely painful. My mind’s dissonance of what I was and what I wanted to be, of how I looked and how I imagined myself to look, is a torture I have carried for most of my life. It was not JUST about being trans, or of being a boy or a girl, of having a body part, or not having one. It was, and is, the issue of knowing who and what I am for the sake of knowing myself. Coming out as trans was a new avenue of self understanding that brought many things I had never understood to the surface… and it was excruciating.
I have never been the type of trans* person who wanted something specific for my body. I have gone through times where I thought I might want something in particular; a flat chest, and angular body, a taller frame, a more muscular physique, but over all I could never decide exactly what I was going for. Masculine, feminine, man, woman; this language can be useful at times but I have found that all of it is secondary to the understanding of my own humanness. When I was 18, and newly discovering femininity and “womanhood,” I learned to like the body I had. Over several years I began to own the breasts, hips, legs, waist, and overall form I had. I then went from owning my body, to loving it. When I came out, I was told that I had to change it, and even destroy it. I’ve always been more about creation than destruction. It is why I am an artist. I approach life and art the same way, and I’ve always wanted to be better at both. I went to art school once, for photography and sculpture, but dropped out within a year. I wanted the freedom to make my art whatever I felt it needed to be without someone else telling me it was good or not. My favorite sculpture medium is clay because of its ability to take shape as anything. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I would spend hours creating forms, primarily of the female body. They seemed so real I felt I was the clay. A couple years ago I wrote a song called “Clay.” It was primarily about my muscular disability and the feelings of powerlessness that comes with it, but as it developed I feel it became a combination piece of how I felt about transforming my body in general. When I started to take testosterone, I approached my body like clay. I realized that my body is malleable, fluid, and moving. My body is mine. I do not have to fit my body because I can make it fit me. I am the sculptor of my own shape. I do not have to destroy it to change it, I do not have to change it to own it, but I have the option and I can own the changes I make.
This Sunday marked my 7 year anniversary of coming out as trans (or my transiversary, as I like to say). Several friends asked me “Does it feel like it has been that long?” to which I answered “It feels like it was just yesterday, at the same time, it feels like it’s always been this way.” This isn’t about me having it all figured out or that my journey with gender is “over.” Quite the opposite, actually. I spent most of this past year feeling like I was coming out all over again (but that’s a whole other blog post). The difference, I suppose, is how I have been addressing the process. The concept of processing gender, though no less painful, has become somewhat normalized to me. It’s like when you’re a teenager first experiencing heartbreak you have no idea what to do or how to help yourself, but when you’re an adult you’ve been there so you already know what to do. You can say to yourself: “Yeah, I recognize this shit. It hurts but it’ll be over soon enough.”
My transition was a pivotal time for me, but after seven years its significance (in some ways) seems to fade and blur into the rest of my life. What is left is just being me; thinking about it, working on it, and noticing that some of it happens to be labeled as genderqueer/trans. And as “trans issues” fade into the paint, I am left looking at the walls, my walls, that I built a long, long time ago… I might have even been born with them. Walls are not always bad; Walls are needed to protect and manage our inner selves, but they can trap us. Walls, and the need to hide behind them, is so easily enmeshed into the trans experience. For a while, the main reason I was hiding was greatly connected to all the shit that comes with being trans. What I think I lost sight of was that being trans wasn’t my only reason for hiding. I have spent so much of my life hating myself. I have spent so much of my life hiding. In hiding I have found ways to love myself more and protect my self better. Because of hiding I have spent so much time fighting… All of these feelings have been carved into my walls, and as I read the writing on them I have discovered that I am flat out afraid of showing myself to anyone, sometimes even myself. When I do a self portrait, I am facing myself. I am reminding myself that I am ok. By showing these portraits in this post, I am making the decision to face the world.
A couple years ago Kate (Bornstein) and I were goofing off taking selfies, one after another. She laughed and said “We trans people fucking love pictures of ourselves. We can’t get enough!” I smiled and clicked the shutter on the camera, thinking of how right she was. Like anyone, trans* folks work really hard to be ourselves, and we work really hard to look like ourselves. Many of us hide from our own image, sometimes we don’t even know it. I have never been a stranger to the mirror. Throughout my life, I have spent a lot of time looking at myself, especially as a child, because I was trying to learn what I looked like. I would stare deep into the mirror hoping that the image of my eye would swallow me into an Alice in Wonderland hole, dropping me into my mind so that I could see who I was face to face. I would often comb my hair to the side, like my dad does his hair (and ironically similar to how I do my hair right now). I remember one time, combing my hair over and looking deep in the mirror; for a split second I felt like I saw something real. It scared me so much I jumped off the sink, mussed up my hair, and started pacing the bathroom floor in a panic. I must have been about 12; I remember writing about it in a prose series I wrote to myself called “Dear Jim.” The poem started with “I saw you today.” I am continually trying to re-capture the image I saw back then. Over the years, I have gotten better and better at it. The result has been more and more pictures of me. The statement “self portraits (selfies) are often such an act of self preservation and resistance” says more to me than I can really describe. It speaks to the mes of the past, standing alone with a camera, trying to capture my insides in the shape of my outside. I still love to do photoshoots. Every now and then, I’ll spend a few hours finding some form of temporary, personal perfection in my body. In the split second it takes the shutter to engage, I can see myself, and I am real. It is an act of resistance against a world that would rather see me erased. It is an act of self preservation to remind me that I am alive and that I am human. No one ever sees these photographs. They are just for me… and now some are for you.
If you find yourself feeling alone; if you are suffering, please know that you are not the only one. I am like you and I promise to try to show that more. There is no shame in hiding, it is something we all need to do sometimes… sometimes for a long while. Take your time. I hope that me taking this tiny step out of my hiding place will encourage you to feel safer in yours, and maybe help you take a step out too someday. I am grateful to all who have been there for me, helping me come out, or stay in: My amazing parents, my beloved sister (and new brother), Jess, Alex, Al, my family and chosen family, my friends, my mentors, my people, and my kitties too. Thank you.
I’ve never been very dedicated to school. As a non-traditional learner with typical ‘atypical’ learning (dis)abilities, I was never very adept at the “learning environment” as it was presented to me. I entered grad school with two primary motivations: hope and desperation. I was hoping to become better; to become more skilled and learn the things I hadn’t been able to teach myself. I was desperate for more; I wanted to do more to help my community. I wanted more authority over the systems that ruled over me. I wanted more power, and power comes from getting that paper.
I really don’t like my university; And not just because it is an exemplary representation of the corporate college industrial complex; its sick sports obsession; its gross financial incompetence; or its staunch conservatism. I don’t like it because I’ve got a grudge. It was there I first put faith in my ability to change a system, and was first truly let down. I was used to being rejected by the learning process, but this was the first place I actively decided I would do something – not wanted to it or hoped to; I decided I would change it, no matter what. Contrary to the stories I flung at administrators, I didn’t work for change out of school spirit. My activism was aimed more at thwarting the institution’s dynamic, rather than supporting it. The institution pushed back, and hard, until I ended up spending all my time doing activism, not studying. The school was a system I was trapped inside and making resources felt like the only way out. Activism was my education, the classes were auxiliary. When I look back, I’m still amazed I graduated; only took me 6 straight years… And when I was done, I prepared my activist projects for new leaders and I got the hell out. I don’t think I thought I would ever come back, but here I am.
This winter, I attended an open house for the campus’ brand new LGBTQ Center. It was surreal for me to walk into the (exact) space that six years ago, I ignited the (long smoldering) fight to get. I came to the event feeling happy about the space being built, but still angry about my own blood in the bricks. But when I walked in the door, all I felt was nervous relief; a mix of retreating anxiety and seething frustrations. The small program started and I listened to the administrators ramble about how great their work was for this space. I wondered if they were really as delusional as they seemed. Looking them in the face, they didn’t remember me as the frustrated student activist in front of their desk. I was just another student they “helped.” I felt even more disconnected from the institution, and just as jaded about the administration. I listened to the last speaker with low expectations. There was a lot of disappointment in our joint past. Years ago, she was both a hurdle and a step in my work to get a queer center. I felt like she could never see past her desk, though perhaps not from a lack of trying. She always loved to compliment the faculty and staff, forgetting to mention the reason they were all there: the students. In my years as an organizer, it was a huge point of contention between us. I respected her for listening to my complaints; I judged her for not acting on them. When she stood in front of the room, I was shocked to see, through the folds of her papers, the names of student organizations. After all these years, she thanked the students first – in fact it was the only thing she talked about. You could tell she was a little out of her element, but her intention was clear. She was the only speaker that day who mentioned students in any context that was not a direct compliment to themselves. She made a point to show the students had done the work, and I made a point to thank her for that. In the after-program crowd, a dean walked past me. I recognized him as one of the many talking heads I had met as an undergrad; another face behind a desk, saying he wanted to help, but mostly powerless to do anything about it. As he came by me, he smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. “Good to see you again.” he said, “I glad you were hear for this.” I have to admit it. I was shocked. I smiled and shook his hand, but I doubt he knew why I was so glad to do it. I was grateful that someone cared enough to remember me. Sometimes we have to be reminded that administrators are people too. I guess I should know that, considering I was one for a short time. And if working in a college environment (as an activist and again as a professional) taught me anything, it was that administrators are not all suits behind desks; there are ones who really care about the students. Being in front of the desk showed me the red tape; being behind the desk made me feel it. An administrator can be a wrench in the gears, yes, but the machine is the real problem. “Higher Education” “Student Life” is a machine; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. That day, it worked, in more ways than one.
All of this didn’t sell me on the institution. Call me a judgey mcjudgerface if you like, but it takes more than a couple warm fuzzies to win me over – though it is a good start. And though I wasn’t feeling any strong sense of kinship with the admins, I did sense was a bond with the students. I watched them sitting on the floor, smiling, happy to have their own space; a place where they could feel safe and be themselves. They have a LGBTQ center. It isn’t perfect, and I know I’ll soon decide it still isn’t good enough, but it is there – it exists. When I was in undergrad, that was just about all I wanted… Standing there, seeing the reality that I had only dreamed about, it reminded me of how I used to feel: that passion I felt, and the desperation; how tirelessly I worked, how much it hurt every time I was kicked down, and how much stronger I felt every time I got back up. I was filled by a humbling sense that I played a small part in something bigger. It reminded me of how important campus activism can be, how many people it can reach, and how many lives it can change. It may seem like an organizing “small fish,” but when the pond is a puddle, a small fish is pretty damn big.
I was just very pleasantly surprised by a fellow human being. This evening I was very suddenly tossed into a resources search for a local community member in need. I called the local YWCA hotline, but honestly was not expecting much. I started to describe what I was looking for and dropped the word “transgender.” The operator gave a long pause, “Can you say all that again?” I repeated my statement, a little slower this time. She paused again and, to my amazement, she was able to give me an answer, instead of another question.
I could hear the operator flipping through pages of her referral manual. She said to herself, “I’m just not findin’ what I’m looking for. Seems like there should be something for that ’cause everybody deserves help, no matter what they’re like.”
Her language was all wrong, but her warmth and willingness to help was everything that is right about humanity. I am so grateful for the moments when we, the trans* community, are reminded that we are not alone.
This past weekend was the 4th Annual TransOhio Transgender and Ally Symposium, the only trans focused event of its kind in Ohio, and one of few, if not the only one, in the Midwest. This was my first year on the conference project as a TransOhio board member and I’m very pleased with what we were able to accomplish. We have a long way to go, but we’re getting there in a good way! I totally used my board position to aid in bringing amazing activist/performer/educator (and a my dear friend) Ignacio Rivera as the keynote. Through their keynote address they delivered exactly what our community needed to hear; the importance of hard work, dedication, inclusion, and intersectionality.
Image: 3 Conference organizers posing and smiling with Keynote Ignacio Rivera. Sarah (brown hair, glasses, blue sweater), Ignacio Rivera, (PoC genderqueer in white half sleeve shirt and glasses) Shane (bearded, glasses, grey shirt), JAC (pink hair, blue shirt, glasses), and Melissa (longer brown hair, striped blouse, holding a black laptop)
Community. I got a surprisingly large amount of it over the weekend. Every year I associate this symposium with community, yes, but more so with what may possibly be my longest work days of the year. This time around I didn’t feel the work so much. I mean, I felt it; I was presenting in almost every block of the 3 day conference plus producing and performing in Fabulously Fluid!. But this year it seemed like a more active, lively, and loving experience.
[Image: Midwest Genderqueer -gq transguy w pink hair, standing with hand on hip, head down slighting holding a microphone. dressed in gold metallic booty shorts, black bra, a gold metallic necktie which sits underneath the bra and has a black fascinator hat on his head.] Photo by Thomas Menningen
At the show, now finishing it’s 3rd year running, I was moved by the performers. The first year of Fabulously Fluid! I advertised to performers that it as a genderfuck show, but the majority of the numbers weren’t especially ‘gender’ themed. This year was quite different with nearly all performances using elements of gender, politics, and/or personal empowerment. Everyone around me was working hard and sending love and support; talking about the importance of being there, being present and active in this fight in whatever way they could. I continually found myself loosing composure – maybe because by the show I was emotionally and physically drained from the day, maybe it was because these last several months have been more lonely and hellish than usual and the contrast of support was a shock, or maybe its because I was able to take a minute, look out, and see the community that I’m so often struggling to build and to find.
It’s not easy to be Midwestern and Trans* and I’ll admit it, sometimes I feel pretty downtrodden. The “straight” community either doesn’t believe we exist or is determined to pretend that we don’t and local “gay” communities, many feel the same way OR are still misunderstanding us either through well intentioned exclusion or oblivious oppression. It’s a 24/7 push against a wall that never gives, and every time you think one brick might be giving way, another collapses on top of it to reinforce the structure of invisibility, disempowerment, and rejection. The understanding that there is more to ‘queer’ than homosexuality, more to community than white, middle class; more the gender than boy or girl; more to accessibility than putting up a poster; more to activism than simply stating that things are getting better. Our community is isolated, separated, and scared – but the most important thing is that it is there. It is there and for the first time people are actually seeing it. I think that the “change” that has been incubating and forming is finally growing big enough to recognize. In my Gender Identity Disorder Removal workshop, I had almost twenty providers listening, nodding, and understanding the plight of the trans* community. In my genderqueer caucus I heard people, younger and older, bonding over the same feelings and learning from their different experiences. Even at home here in Cincinnati, the project I’ve been working to get off the ground for three years is finally taking some sort of shape and providing more to the community. Out of nowhere people are starting to talk, and as I watch the mixing of different generations’ and communities’ language, ideas, and experiences I’m thinking that this is bigger than what any of us can see right now. Is the solution to oppression, exclusion, and miseducation around the corner? I’m too jaded to be optimistic, but I’m always willing to be hopeful.
I like to think that I have gotten used to oppression – I need to think that in order to feel strong enough to fight back. It is easier to take a blow, especially one from your own people, when you see it coming. But being accustomed is not the same as accepting it. I will not accept being assigned a ‘less than’ value; I will not accept moving forward while leaving others behind; I will not accept rejection from a community I know I am a part of, and that includes the community of trans*, queer, Cincinnati, Ohio, the Midwest, the USA, the globe. It isn’t going to be easy, and a lot of it isn’t going to be enjoyable. Of all the things I love about my work and my communities, there is a lot that I really struggle with to where I think I’m going to either crumble or burst. Gotta keep your eye on the prize. Sometimes the right thing to do is not what we like to do or what we want to do. We have to do it anyway. What will carry us through this pain and suffering is not anger and it is not love; it is perseverance. It is dedication to something bigger than you or me; the idea that something better than this is possible. I don’t expect to see the golden changing of all of this in my lifetime, but I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure that those who come after me will.
This weekend was a fabulously busy. It was my 2nd year at the Philly Trans Health Conference (PTHC), first time as a board member. I presented six times, volunteered, and had tons of meeting, both for fancy business and friendly love. My thoughts about the conference circle around a sense of growing community, and our past and future. This was stirred particularly by my seeing friends from early on in my coming out, people who I haven’t seen in years, reawakening memories of first finding community, that desperation to not be alone, and the joy of connecting with someone who was like me.
I ran a trans performance plenary with the amazing performers Bryn Kelly, Katastrophe, Athens Boys Choir, The Notorius OMG, Leah b. of Gender Edge, Ignacio Rivera, and AJ Bryce. As we all spoke, points of similarity kept arising; we all started out alone, isolated from anyone else like us. We never planned to be this visible, we were searching for ourselves, and ended up finding more than we ever thought. And in searching for myself, I selfishly loaded the conference with femme stuff this year. I brought the issue to the board, stressing the importance of femme inclusion, and before I knew it I was titled the Femme Program Coordinator – something PTHC has never had before. Honestly, I questioned myself like “but, wait, I’m not what most people think of when they think femme… should I be in charge” but then I realized that not only was there no one else, and it was me or nothing, that also the fact that I am not the “mainstream” vision of what femme is might be a good reason for me to take it on. Time to break the mold and get the wheels of change moving! There were so many folks like me there, it was like looking in a mirror – a much more fabulous and well dressed mirror. And when the inevitable happened, and non-trans female femmes raised their eyebrows saying “wait, you are the one in charge a femme programming….?” I brushed it off and smiled to myself, because the femme workshop they attending would not have been there if it wasn’t for me. If they didn’t think I was femme enough, then they could get out of my workshops- and there were several. Through the supportive conference leadership I was able to take PTHC from having one femme workshop (that had only been in programming for two of the ten years of the conference) to seven workshops focused on femmes presented by a diverse array of femmes of different identities, and all of them were packed! My femme boys workshop had almost 160 people in it which was intense but wonderful, and gave me ideas for new programming next year. I also did a workshop with my mentor and friend, Moonhawk River Stone about gender identity disorder removal which was a success, and we have new plans for the next year, and how we aren’t willing to wait anymore on what we’ve been nervously dragging our feet on. Our community is getting too big, too strong to sit under this oppression any longer. Ignacio Rivera and I did a fun sexual liberation workshop for the young folks in the youth programming track. It was incredible to hear 16 year olds talking about the gender binary and privilege. It made me wonder where I would be if I had known about that stuff when I was their age, and it blows my mind thinking what they may accomplish by the time they are my age. Speaking of age, I also got a ton of baby time this weekend, getting to play with S. Bear Bergman’s son, while totally blowing off other stuff that was not as important as crawling around the carpet with a 16 month old. I wonder what things will be like in the trans community when that baby grows up…
My other big task of the conference planning was I directed and performed in the new show, “Blender! Trans Performance Showcase.” This was the first time a performance showcase has been a part of the Philly Trans Health Conference and it couldn’t have gone over better. I wanted to do a show because I wanted to promote trans and queer performance, and also to stress the importance of including art in our work as activists. Our community’s art is our community’s culture, and if we don’t support it, who will? This show was great. It was honestly the most hectic, disastrous, stressful show I’ve ever organized but it was also one of the most exciting because we were forging a new space. In the end, all the hard work was worth it. All the performers were fantastically talented doing spoken word, music, dance, and drag. We bonded together, ready to create something for our people, and to show our people what we had created. The fabulous Liberty City Kings Drag and Burlesque troupe were life-savers in helping me run the stage, and the audience was happy and excited giving the night such a positive energy. It was a great way to wrap up the weekend and I’m looking forward to running the event next year!
Video from the performance, which loops in perfectly with this blog topic. I call it “GenderBent Kids” partly after the name of the song the dance is set to, “Kids” by MGMT. Its a little reflection on myself growing up, enjoying both femme and masculine cultural expressions, but continually feeling the need to choose between one or the other under the imposed narrative of social authority promoting the gender binary. Like most of my favorite pieces, it came together from a last minute idea that hit me like a hurricane like “OMG this would be awesome” and there it was. This is the first run of it so I’m looking forward to beefing up the dancing a little bit more and maybe making it a little more complex.
This conference was just a good example of where I want our community to be going. This conference is the biggest trans focused conference in the world, and it just turned 10 years old. Seems fitting we are on a good path of growth, which could not have happened without the amazing folks working on the project. We weren’t without issues this weekend, not without people being hurtful and oppressive, or without pain, but we worked through it. We were together with our elders and our youth, forging a community that was accountable, responsible, active, understanding, and loving. Hell, even Chaz Bono got an earful of community folks asking him about his behavior and holding him accountable – more on that later. Our community is growing, and we’re getting stronger. We gotta keep this up.
I looked out over the Wisconsin lake. I’d been on the road touring almost two weeks, my batteries were running low, but in the best way. She asked me about when I came out. I thought about it casually, “Well, its been four years…” I stopped, “wait… six… no, I mean five…” I thought about what day it was and wondered where I’d been. February had come and gone, along with a date I thought I’d never forget. February 17th, my “transiversary” as I like to call it. The day I officially mark my coming out, even though by that time I’d been “working” on things for months, years. I use February 17th as the marker because of my state of mind then and what I was working out.
Back then I dedicatedly kept a journal. Every year I look back, and every year I see different things. Its like watching a movie over and over, you always catch some new thing you hadn’t noticed before. Every year I look back and whatever relates to my life at that time is what stands out. Last year was all about love and gratitude; reflecting on my history through realizations and gradual empowerment. This year, I am influenced especially by the fact that I forgot my Transiversary; I knew it was coming up but so much was going on with tour planning, documentary filming, performances, show production, drag practices, conferences… It just slipped passed me. I wondered at how it happened. Maybe I’ve finally reached a place in life where the absolute fact that I’m TRANS isn’t as prominent as it used to be, like I’m used to it now… Maybe I just haven’t kept an eye on myself as well as I should. This year has been amazing for me. I’ve been working non-stop; I’ve been on the road, enveloped in being an activist and a performer in ways I’ve never been able to do before. And I’ve been surrounded by the outside world more frequently and more intensely that I’ve ever experienced. To me, the “real world” means bouncing up, down, and around gender. What bathroom I’m in, what pronoun I’m called, flashing IDs, sirs to mams, mams to sirs – all rapid fire from airport, to gas station, to train car, to university, to theater, and back. I play ‘woman’ when I think its safest, I play ‘man’ when I think I can get away with it, and in between I’m just me; your average, flaming genderqueer femme transguy, genderfucked from head to toe.
This year when I look back on when I was coming out as trans, I see the identity-focused back and forth that forged the foundation for where I am now. When I started to come out I didn’t know anything about gender or queerness. I didn’t know anyone gay, I didn’t even know if I was gay. I didn’t know what I was…
January 27th, 2006: I wrote about coming out to my sister as “Bi-sexual.” I have no idea why I spelled it like that (or capitalized it). Maybe it was from quasi-reading outdated text books and off the path internet forums. Shows how foreign it all was to me… guess being in that GSA in high school didn’t really prepare me for anything.
“I walk around and have to remember how other people see me is not how I see myself. That I cannot act how i feel because to them, I am a woman. If i say “I’m a gay man.” I don’t think they will be happy. I worry gay guys will look down on me because i don’t belong with them. I can’t claim to be a lesbian because I am not a lesbian. …I feel like a guy inside.”
January 30th, 2006
“I’m just sick of being different from people, but I don’t want to change…”
Febuary 11th, 2006
“Am I my clothes? …it’s almost like my skin is dress up… Fuck it all, i’m finally gonna be something that I feel like i should be.”
Taken February 14th, 2006: The first picture I took of myself in men’s clothes after starting to come out. I didn’t own a tie, so I used a belt from a sweater jacket.
[image description: young JAC in a white collared shirt and knit hat that covers his hair with a knit belt tied like a tie around his neck. His eyes are brown, his face is rounded and young-looking]
Febuary 16th, 2006
“everything i have is purple or pretty or some shit like that. i do like my stuffed animals… alot. Fuck, this whole color scheme is all society, who says a guy can’t have a purple robe. why do i feel i have to be everything? can’t i be some bothness, like girly_boi… guess it’s how i’ve always been. I’ve always been ‘both’ and i can’t be anything else so i need to accept the constant change.”
By February 17th, 2006, the day I now use to mark my Transiversary, I had started to use the word queer in my regular vocabulary. By March I had started to use the men’s bathroom, had passed as male three times, and had fully gained a new “queer” lexicon. I have to laugh and think its kinda cute how I sorted out the labels.
March 1st, 2006:
“i’ve got a new description for myself. I’ve been reading up on it for a while. Like, what am I?
Straight. – “Yeah, that’s probably me. It must be, right?” Bisexual. – “You know, I think that’s really me.” Pansexual. – “Yeah, that sounds much more like me.” Genderqueer. – “Wow, that actually fits.” Polygendered. – “That fits even better.” FTM. – “That sounds like me.” Transgendered. – “Sounds a fuck of a lot like me. Me to a T.” (HAHA trans pun, total accident.)
So I’m a female [sex], pansexual, genderqueer, polygendered, transman. Fuck, how about I just say ‘Queer?'”
I remember that day. Its funny because first, all those labels meant the same thing to me then as they do now. I think at the time I used genderqueer more to describe my non-binary gender identity, rather than now where I use it primarily to describe my non-binary gender expression/existence. And though I identified as non-binary and polygender, its curious that I used the word “transman,” a label I never apply to myself now because for whatever reason, it doesn’t fit me; I say transguy exclusively. Really, I don’t remember ever calling myself a “transman,” so maybe it was just for the sake of print and definition. I cycled through a lot of labels for myself back then, a lot of names, a lot of identities – all within a couple months. Back then I used all those words to try and gain some validation, some explanation for what I was and why. In that same post was a quote from a trans activist. I remember clinging to it for months:
“What helped me a lot was to stop asking ‘What am I?’ and to start asking instead ‘What changes do I need to make to be a happier person?'” -C.Jacob Hale
March 7th, 2006:
“I still feel like there really is something wrong with me… Normal is over rated… probably.”
February 19th, 2007: (one year later)
“This year I have been so at peace with my gender ‘situation’ and my life… It is the dream-life I always wanted, which a few deviations… Because of the relationships I’ve had [I wouldn’t change it] even if it meant avoiding the frustration and difficulty of this life.”
“This life.” I keep going back to February 17th as some anchor for “this life” but really, I think that (though I had reasons) I picked that date to give myself a reference point for where I came from. Now, I think I’ve been cutting myself up. Lots of big moments have happened in my life in reference to my gender identity; New Years Eve 2005 when I was dolled up femme but “acted and felt like a boy” all night; six months before that I was dressing “as a guy” at home, and dressing “like a girl” in public; six months before that in the confidence of a close friend I “was a guy for a day”; six years before that I was signing notes with my “boy name” and secretly wished to be my best friend’s boyfriend; six years before that I begged my parents to cut my hair short like a boy. Which matters more? The day I said, “I am different that I thought.” or when I said “I know what this is.” or when I said “I accept who I am.” All of it had to happen, all of it mattered, and all of it got me to where I am now. Witness, I am officially limiting the Transiversary status as a marker date for ornamental purposes only. It will no longer represent a sectional “moment” of my life. Instead, like a birthday, it will be a representative of time passed, and times to come. I used to obsess over knowing myself, what I was, why I was that way, how I was going to handle it, and where I was going to end up. I’m starting to think that not knowing yourself is one of the few things that drives us towards tomorrow. Every time I think I’ve got myself figured out, something new arises. Its not a bad thing. The day I stop learning about who I am and working on who I want to be, I’ll be dead. I used to think time was a factory, producing life bit by bit. Now, I’ve come to know that time is more like the earth, holding us beneath our feet, surrounding us with all that comes from it, and passing over us like the sky hanging over head. We move under it, within it, and over top of it, no sense of control, and no way to be controlled. I think that in this year of being out in the world, I’ve been hiding more than ever before. I’ve been hiding more because unlike the past, I know who and what I am. I know what I want to be, how I want to be seen and treated, and I know I have the right to have it. Still I’ve been hiding; out of fear, out of convenience, out of remorse for being different. I’m not going to try to cut up my life any more and I’m not going to cut up myself either. Whatever that means for bathrooms, I don’t know. The women’s room is still gonna be cleaner, and it’s still gonna be safer. But maybe I need to start pushing the buttons I haven’t wanted to push since I was a high-strung, newly out transguy refusing to take anything less than a “he/him” pronoun and a men’s bathroom… who am I kidding, even at my most militant I was never very aggressive when it came to standing up for myself. I’ve always been better at defending others, so its what I’ve always done and I’ve counted on catching that overflow into my own life. It’s pretty clear what I need to do about that… I need to take ownership over myself and truly recognize that I’m not just a cog in the machine of this movement; I’m a human being within this community.
Five years ago I wrote that this life was a dream, a gift. I still think that, and for the same reasons. It’s the people in life that make it worth living, and while I don’t think I am “living for some else” I don’t think I am living my life just for me. The better I can live my life, the better I can work to make other people’s lives better too.
Last month, my mom dug out an old school paper I wrote about what I wanted to do when I grew up:
February 20th, 1996: (11 years old)
“I will be an artist and a musician… I will obtain my PhD… I will try to go into space where I will discover a solar system and each planet will be named after one of my friends. When I return to Earth I will be the first woman president, if there hasn’t already been one. I will encourage kids to build their self esteem… I will try try to make the world a better place.”
I’m not counting on ever getting a PhD, (no matter how happy it would make my mom). I don’t think I’ll have much luck on discovering a new solar system or obtaining the presidency – first woman or otherwise, but I’ve got the first two down, and I’ll be working hard on the last two for the rest of my life.
Marsha Aizumi, mother of a transguy, discussing the value of supportive parenting and social and governmental inclusion of trans/queer communities. She made this video in response to her city’s mayor inviting a Focus on the Family representative to a city sponsored community event. Marsha is the amazing mother of a very good friend of mine and she continues to inspire me.
Marsha’s voice is the voice I want to hear from my local community, but rarely do. Can you imagine what the world would be like if all parents, if all people were like her? And what’s more, imagine if everyone took the initiative to stand up for what they believe in and fight for the people they love. Please do what you can to spread Marsha’s message and help her in her work.
