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.

Store dressing room shoot, early 2000. I was deeply embarrassed by this picture because of the cleavage.

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.

Spring 2002: Night diner adventures with my oldest friend, Jess. We balanced the camera on a nearby booth and rushed to take the shot before the camera fell. I’m wearing a 1970s party dress and Jess is in a thrifted costume from the Cincinnati Ballet. Everyone in the place was staring. This shot, called “Seasoned Salt,” represents so many memories. Jess, you have given me some of the happiest moments of my life. I am free whenever I am with you.

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.

Freshmen year of college, 2002: My first solo lingerie shoot. For many years I saw this picture as the key representation of what I like about how I looked.

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.

February 2007: The “Nudes Shoot” was a five hour portrait shoot that was foundational to  how I approach my trans* self portraits. It was spurred by my decision to start T. The photos discuss my feelings about my body (and the “trans requirements” of it) as well as document my body before the effects of hormones.When I did this shoot, I had been out for year, and hadn’t done a portrait in almost as long. It made me feel like myself again. It brought me home to myself. 

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.

December, 2007: In my bedroom, four months on T. This shot encompassed the exact image of masculinity I wanted to embody. This shoot grounded me in an otherwise empty and confusing space.

July, 2008: Newly pink-haired, the “Fuschia Shoot” was a turning point for my self-portrayal as a genderqueer body, though I would not come to think of it in that language until several years later.

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.”

December, 2008: The “Watermelon Shoot” was about seeking sexual power. This shot was captured accidentally in between poses, which makes it even more significant. My expression reflects the exhaustion I was feeling towards my inner conflict with sexuality (and gender). Trapped in an emotional ice age, I isolated myself causing terrible heartbreak for me and my partner at the time. The shot also conveniently includes framed pictures of me with friends at a simpler (and more butch) time in my life. I dedicate this rediscovered piece of myself to you, Jackie. Thank you for all you went through for me and for being one of the best friends I could ever dream to have.

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.

March, 2012: This shot, called “Bubblegum,” is out of the “Suicide Boy” shoot which was very significant in the processing my genderqueer identity and femme body. I was heartbroken. This shoot helped heal me.

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.

October 17th, in Chillicothe, Ohio a teenage boy was jumped and brutally beaten by his classmates because of his perceived queer sexual orientation. One boy attacked the 15 year old freshman while a second filmed the incident. The video has gone viral, but since I tend to find the promotion of such things without the express consent of those involved to be exploitative and sickening you will not find it on this blog (no matter how ‘moving’ it may be to the audience looking on from the safety of the present). The story didn’t break until a few days ago, and just after it did another attack happened in the central Ohio town of Westerville. We talk about bullying a lot now days, but what do we actually do about it? Facebook blasts, Tumblr reblogs, and attention from national organizations are good for visibility but how can we touch the reality of those who are out in literal fields battling oppression and violence?

Three weeks ago: I cut through the Appalachian hills of my beautiful Ohio. On my way home from a gig, I planned a somewhat impromptu pit stop to visit a dear friend and activist colleague who lived in Chillicothe. I drove into the town, taking in the Fall air and quaint scenery through my open window. I turned the corner toward the small town “Main Street” and was immediately hit with muffled shouts from the street: “What…. pink hair! Fucking gay! …Sick!” Not five minutes later it happened again, this time from a passing truck. It’s the same every time. You feel it in your gut; the panic and fear washes over you leaving behind tough-guy thoughts and extreme hyper-vigilance… you get used to it in that weird way where you never really get used to it. Just the sight of my friend brought me some relief.  I watched her walk down the street without apology, surrounded by overall clad factory workers and towering historic buildings worn from wind and winter. She wasn’t afraid like I was. To her, Chillicothe is her her ancestral home town and her backwoods battlefield. Her fight: to make a safe place to live with her partner, to raise her children, and to foster her community. The two of us are bonded for a lot of reasons, one being that she and I often commiserate with each other about the over all conservative hellishness of where we live… But Cincinnati is one thing, Chillicothe is another.  I listen to her talk about her daughter dealing with a bully (who assaulted her and made continual threats including being calling her a lesbian and a dyke) and how the school’s administration would do nothing to help her. Sound familiar? It should because it is the same cry for help the mother of the boy beaten this past month is voicing, and that of most parents of bullied kids. This is not an isolated problem, and it is not the fault of one child, one school, or one administrator. This is a historical, systematic problem.

I was bullied growing up, but I was lucky. I was lucky that any insult I heard I got over and any fight I was thrown into I ‘won.’ I was lucky that I found a way to survive the hatred of other people as well as the hatred the built up inside myself. Still, here I am as an adult; back in school and I am afraid. I am afraid to walk down the hall by myself, afraid to talk to my classmates about my life, I am afraid to call out others (including professors) when they speak/act in ways that are harmful to me and my people. I am afraid of being physically and emotionally hurt because of something I can not change: Who I am. Imagine what that must be like for a kid; someone with no power, no voice, and no way out. Now days people are coming out younger and younger, but in this world of homophobia and transphobia we think that Glee, Lady Gaga, and Facebook are enough make things right.  And while I appreciate the visibility of national media attention and seeing local organizations posting ONE article on facebook, it isn’t enough.

Yes, I live in a conservative mire full of complacency and incompetency. It is frustrating, and a lot of times I want to give up. Even with that, I was lucky to be born in a city – no not lucky, privileged. I complain about being the “only one” in my city, and while in some ways that may be true, overall I am not alone. My friend in Chillicothe can not say the same thing: she really is the only one. Most of us will never fully understand what it is like to experience the level of isolation, fear, and frustration that rural trans* and queer folks deal with every day. For this reason, I admire and respect my friend more than most people I have met. Standing alone, she keeps fighting. It may sound sad, but to me it is a message of hope. For almost a year she has been trying to found a local LGBTQ group but she could not find a single business or church willing to host it out of fear of “being burned down.” This week she told me that finally the Chillicothe LGBTQ Peer Group is launching (see plug below). This is the example to follow. We must be in our communities fighting, working to building something real  It starts at home, and whether you live in a small town or big city, there are things you can do that influence everyone in your state. The more visibility, support, and education we have the less people will hate us, attack us, and misunderstand us. One person being attacked is too many and one person fighting back is not enough. We need to get off our computers and start talking to one another, talking to our representatives, and talking to our children about how to make the real world better. We need community groups, we need legislation (see Ohio House (155 & 208) and the Senate (127)), we need it enforced, and we need it now.

If you would like to do more to help Ohio become safer for our communities’ youth, you can sign this petition for Ohio Safe Schools but remember that an online petition is not enough. We must make phone calls, write letters, and lobby directly in the offices of those who are supposed to be our voice in government.

For Resources and Support:
Chillicothe LGBTQ Peer Group
1st and 3rd Thursdays of Every Month from 7 to 9pm,
Fellowship Hall of Orchard Hill United Church of Christ, 105 N. Courtland Dr.
*The Chillicothe LGBTQ Peer Group is a secular (nonreligious) peer led support group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, and queer identified individuals to discuss their experiences living in the Chillicothe and surrounding areas, to share resources, and to create a greater sense of community and support for all.  For more information contact us at LGBTQ45601@gmail.com.

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.

Mini-documentary about getting my name legally changed in rural Ohio: May, 2010.

Check out the interesting photography exhibit called The Other Men Project by photographer Ebba Schmid.

“[The Other Men Project] is to force viewers to look these men square in eye, and count them as human.”

JAC Stringer – Photo by Ebba Schmid – The Other Men Project

[image: close up black and white photo of JAC's face showing only his right ear, right eye, nose and mouth. He is looking off to the side, smiling slightly.]

This picture reminds me of how I still have the exact same face as when I was a kid. It makes it even more curious that people tell me I “look so different” now or how old acquaintances, even old friends, don’t recognize me on the street. They just walk by like they never knew me at all… but I have the same face.

Columbus Pride was this past weekend- one of the largest prides in the Midwest. To start out the weekend I semi-butched it up with the troupe at the Royal Renegades’ annual pride drag show at Wall Street.

With fellow Black Mondays performing at the Royal Renegades Pride show, Columbus, Ohio

[image: four drag king performers looking at the camera, all dressed in white shirts with black coats, looking cool]

The show was a fantastic time, but it reminded me how different Pride – and its spaces, scenes, and people are compared to every other time of year. Maybe folks think of Pride as a way to give a dose of gayness to the rest of the world, to remind them we are here. But out of sight, out of mind. Maybe its just me airing my activist baggage, but I can’t help but get angry during Pride. I look around and see people so excited to be queer, having all this “pride” but try to get a thousand volunteers for something in October, or get people out for an event in February, good-fucking-luck. Its like Queer Pride is seasonal or as needed. What good is a parade to promote community visibility if afterward the majority of the community disappears again, back to their homes to hibernate until next year when its again time to wear rainbows and get drunk in public?

Pride is great because it is like we own the world for a day, all the communities that make up the mass that is greater queer community out and about. But it doesn’t last. The next day and I went in search of brunch (naturally, queers love brunch), but I was afraid to go anywhere. Once again I was thrust back into being aware of my outcast standing. As things are now, pride is the one opportunity I have to be in my own state, my own local community, and not stick out like a nail waiting to get hit. I like pride for that reason, its an opportunity to relax and feel like I’m in a visible community that understands me… but I’m still not. Just like every year, I met several people who didn’t know what I was and when I told them I was a transguy they didn’t know what the hell I was talking about. Its hard to feel included when people still don’t think I even exist. I don’t bother explaining because I think that of all days, I should not have to be an educator at Pride. I just want to have fun too. When I express my impatience, I’m seen as hateful or irrational. I’m supposed to support organizations that are taking their time on trans education. I’m supposed to be proud of a queer community that still doesn’t recognize me. I’m supposed to think its great that our parade is reduced to corporate shills and advertisements instead of education and action.

Read more…

I rifled through old papers in yet another fit of obsessive cleaning. Mixed in a folder of stickers, old poems, and magazine clippings I found a couple letters from my Grandma. Her dementia barely spilled out onto the page, maybe if I had nothing to compare it to I wouldn’t notice it at all. The last letter I remember writing to my grandma was when I was about twenty; I can see the stationary of my childhood against the bright green carpet of my apartment. “Dear Grandma,” I lied and said I was doing well in school, told her about my work on a social justice conference, and that I didn’t have a boyfriend, but I didn’t mind. That was my last letter. Within a year I came out as trans, I but I didn’t come out to her… I didn’t know if she would understand, I didn’t know if she would accept me, I didn’t know if she would remember it the next day…

My grandma and I had a special bond. When I was growing up, Grandma and I were closer than my mom and I were. My mom and I were always at odds, always fighting, but Grandma and I were peas in a pod, I was her special girl. She lived with us for several years. I would climb the stairs to the third floor everyday to tell her about my day, and I would always bring my friends and boyfriend by to see her, just to say “hi”. She paid more attention to my life than my mom ever seemed to do. I would sit on her bed and listen stories about her childhood in Australia; cane toads invading the yard, climbing the fence at her all-girls school to wave handkerchiefs at the boys, singing on tables in bars for the soldiers during the war… At night when I couldn’t sleep she would sit on my bed and sing fragments of her favorite 1940s songs, skipping the words she couldn’t remember. She would sit in her room all day, sipping boxed wine. Her voice would echo down the rickety brown, back stairs as she sang along to old Dean Martin tapes. Songs from another time, memories from an absent life. I remember when I was very young I liked to sit in her lap and play with her gold “G” pendant necklace. “Grandma, what’s your name?” She spoke playfully, “Georgia.” Her eyes were big and brown just like mine. I could see myself in her, maybe more easily than in my mother. All three of us have the same eyes, the same look, the same shape; like the same body passed down, each destined for a different life.

Read more…

April has always been a favorite month of mine. As a kid, April was time for Easter candy, my mom’s birthday, and violets – my favorite flower. It brought the first signs of Spring as winds blew away Midwest winter overcasts revealing bright blue skies shining on green clover fields. April means brightness, color, sunshine, and rebirth. Sometimes I wish SAAM (Sexual Assault Awareness Month) had gone to a different month. Maybe its supposed to coincide with life and rebirth… but for me rebirth has nothing to do with the topic. I do a lot of planning and programming around sexual assault, finding ways to promote healthy relationships, education and awareness. But the day of… the work stops being for the good of the community and becomes nothing but a reminder. Not of the failings of society, the aggressions, the suffering… I think only of myself, where I’ve been, and what I have tried to forget.

I wandered the empty lecture hall waiting for no one to show up. I hit the lights and started the film, listening to the survivors stories echoing over the empty rows of chairs. Like cracking ice, I started to feel it. Push. Pull. When the movie ended there was a silence. It was my job to promote discussion, but I didn’t. I didn’t know if anyone else was a survivor, and I didn’t want to out myself in front of my co-workers. So I left the silence alone, watching the three attendees gather their things. I felt like a shell, smiling, faking, wishing people a good night. On my way home I turned the music up. At home, I fed my cats, cleaned my kitchen, and dissociated.

Queers search for each other through our ‘queer-dar’ using haircuts, gestures, and politics to find each other. It isn’t the same for survivors. I look at people, continually thinking its gonna written somewhere for my radar to read. But it isn’t written on me, and I’ve never seen it on anyone else. So we are continually silent, waiting for someone to speak up so we can find each other, passing as people who aren’t survivors, for better or worse, never being recognized and never finding each other.

My second ‘Take Back the Night’ I got the guts to speak out. I held my friends hand, said almost nothing, and hid from everyone the rest of the night. I was horrified and exposed, but it did make a change in me. You always hear about speaking out changing lives, and it actually does. I had tried to claim ‘survivor’ before, but I still felt like a victim. Speaking out changed that. It stopped being just a weight on me, it became a part of my identity for better or worse. I was no longer a prisoner to it. After that, like a flood, other survivors found me. They didn’t know where I had been exactly, but we could understand each other. Now, almost three years later, I’ve back-slid into forgetting and ignoring. Its funny, the last thing I want to do is remember but forgetting is just as bad. Its lose lose. Sometimes I can manage a reasonable balance of neither acknowledging or ignoring, but that is hard to keep it up in April.

April. Sometimes I wonder who we are helping here? Communities of the oppressed are put upon to educate the rest even when we should be focusing ourselves. Whatever the cause queers, survivors, it is all the same tune. But who else cares about this shit but people who it has effected, either directly or indirectly through a loved one. I know, I don’t want to take credit from a great many allies, but if you look at the majority of people doing this work we’ve all been through something, or multiple somethings. That’s how we know what to say, and what isn’t being said. But… When I think about it, when I do this work really all that I have in my mind is those I love, more than myself. The people I know, the stories I’ve heard. That is what makes me want to do the work. I don’t think that much about my experiences because I don’t want to… So I guess I understand the allies working for this. They feel as I do, wanting to help those they love, wanting no one to ever have to live through that pain. And for me, it is because I know that pain first hand that I want to protect those I love from it.

This post has no real point, or profound message (like my other posts do??) More than anything, I think this was a speak out post for me, to refresh my power of self, to fight against back-sliding into denial and darkness. I don’t even want to publish this, but I am going to. I am going to push myself to not be afraid. And this post is a signal to other survivors. Since we have no radar, no flag, no rainbow to find one another… if you can’t find anyone else, you can find me. Here I am, I am like you. You are not alone.