coming out – JAC Stringer

Tracing Trans Years: 6 Years on T

Posted on 09/04/201301/04/2015 by JAC

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.

About April

Posted on 04/18/201002/28/2011 by JAC

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.

Coming Out for Your Entertainment?

Posted on 06/17/200901/18/2011 by JAC

The newest trans-media craze has hit. A semi-celebrity, who I am not naming, has come out as trans and announced his transition. Clearly the announcement was made to circumvent a mass-media fest. In his announcement he also specifically requested privacy. Of course he’s not getting it. Who’s surprised?

I realize the media sensationalizes the most minimal things for entertainment. That said, I have found particular attention is paid to queer and trans concerns. The media either crucifies the person or tries to highlight how amazingly normal the person is (in effort to be supportive to the poor, gay soul). Who would ever think a queer person could be well-adjusted? Holy heterosexist, Batman!

In the case of this person coming out, some news articles have been surprisingly well written and mostly focused on actual trans issues. However, the majority are full of the expected trans-ignorant language like using the wrong pronoun and terms like “gender switching/swapping,” “Girl Boy,” “she/ he,” “it,” and my favorite-“wow.”

A person’s coming out story should not be a opportunity for public commentary and fascination, as if the person were growing a new limb. Being trans doesn’t make you magic. Believe me I wish it did, but it doesn’t. Yes, it is hard to come out and it is hard to transition. Yes, we are a greatly ignored population and there is little education about us. That doesn’t give anyone the right to turn us into a spectacle.

There is public habit of making representatives out of people just because they are different. There is no consent in this iconization, only the assumption that if you are different you must want to be talked about. So often marginalized populations are labeled, boxed, and then expected to present their experience for the sake of “educating” others. What people want isn’t education, its entertainment. When someone finds out I’m trans they don’t want to discuss gender theory with me. They want to know what my body looks like, how I have sex, and if I’ve had “the surgery.” They want to hear about how depressing my life is so they can feel like a supporter when they tell me how brave I am.

The reality is that I’m no braver than anyone else. I think that we all are brave for surviving in this fucked up world, queer or not. People need to look past the labels and see the person behind it. Sensationalizing those who are different is a form of societal oppression.

x-posted amplifyyourvoice.org, queercincinnati.com