Tackling Infallibility

In reading a story about a player on the George Washington University women’s basketball team who recently came out to teammates as trans, I mistakenly wandered into the comment section of this story on the Yahoo! News page. If you don’t know, the combined hate of the people who comment on Yahoo! News stories rivals the energy of several small suns… but I digress.

The large majority of these comments (as opposed to the magnificently wonderful ones I came across on jezebel.com) screamed out in rage and disgust, citing reason after bloodthirsty reason why the person in this story was so epically “confused.”

...and thus begins the first in my series of blog posts responding to these reasons. Here we go...

Part I: The Infallibility of God
Yikes! That seems like such a big thing to tackle with the first part of any series… though I’ve never really been one to scurry away from an intricate discussion of theoretical abstractions. Seriously though, it does seem like such a grand, sweeping topic, but I’m really only going to be looking at it from the scope of this one issue. Additionally, I’m not here to debate if there is or is not a God, nor whether this deity is indeed infallible. What the practically entitled “Part I” is addressing is an often-used barb that I see hurled at people like myself on a relatively frequent basis:

You were born the way you were born. God doesn’t make mistakes.
If you should have been a girl (or boy), you would have been born that way.

Okay, people do believe this, and I do see their point. I say this because, while I may not be one to subscribe to another’s particular religion, I will in no way ever knowingly disrespect their views and beliefs. So, if one earnestly believes that God is infallible, as I was actually taught for 12 years in school, then I can see them thinking that if someone was born a boy (or girl), that messing with this trifling aspect would pretty much be messing with divine design, because, you know, of God not making mistakes and all of that.

The thing about this is that more and more evidence has been pointing to the fact that people are born trans (and/or gay), so, if that’s true, then God’s design was for us to be this way. If God is infallible, and God governs how we’re born (i.e. we shouldn’t change how we're born), AND we were born with this condition (for lack of a better word), there would have to be a reason for that. GOD would have to have a reason for that… and personally I can only fumble a guess at God’s motives.

Additionally, would these people say the same thing if someone was born with a cleft lip, or 10 fingers on one hand, or myriad other conditions? We live in a time where there are treatments for these issues, so should people not have things like this addressed because it would be messing with how they were born? I, and I think most other people, would say "no." If, however, you think that situations like cleft lips and the like should not be addressed by medical science because you believe that this isn't "God's will," then you should stop reading now and maybe ponder why you believe that God wants someone to suffer with conditions such as these when they don't really have to... because I can't think of a reason.

And even if, in spite of the mounting evidence available, someone still chooses to believe that people are not born this way:

Not only are there people in the world today who are trans, but people have been feeling this way all throughout history. Despite what you believe about the genesis of the issue in an individual, this currently is and has been an issue for a countless number of people. These feelings exist, and they have been existing for centuries.

If you believe that God does indeed have a "design," I think it would be fair to say that you believe that there is a reason for everything (because it is part of said design). So, if there is a reason for everything, why would scores of people have these same feelings that I and many others have? To take it further, why would scores of people have these feelings in a time where means have actually been created to treat this situation and bestow some degree of happiness and sanity on those suffering? If you truly believe that God has a plan and everything happens as a part of this design, there has to be a reason for people like myself to exist. Who are we to say what that reason is?

Now some people may say that God created us the way we are, and that ambling down the path that I'm on is only due to free will and our ability to sin. Fair enough. But, in reality, where is the sin? What are we harming by doing this? It certainly doesn't affect anyone else on any kind of physical level. We're not inflicting pain on anyone.

As I said, loads of people have these feelings of incongruity (which must come from somewhere), AND we currently live in a time where there is a treatment available for this kind of torment (and make no mistake, going through the process I'm going through is widely regarded as treatment for this condition). So... couldn't there be a reason for people feeling the way I do that doesn't have to do with moral corruption, depravity, or mental illness? Since people have been like this for centuries, isn't it possible that there just might be a good reason behind it, a God-given reason behind it?

Well, the only thing we can say for certain is that this is something that’s part of the world today, just as it’s been for ages, and people in this spectrum are now more in the public forethought than ever before. Is the reason for this because God wants everyone to fight and rail against people like myself and pulverize us into the ground, OR should we follow the advice of every major religion and love and accept people the way they are, ESPECIALLY when these people aren't hurting anyone else and are just searching for their own slice of happiness?

And maybe people like myself are more in the public eye because the world is just now getting ready to accept an even wider variety of people into the fold, and in the process, evaporate mounds of hatred and transform it into a massive amount of love for people who were once maligned. I'm not one to be presumptuous about the Almighty, but I’m pretty sure that these sentiments are something that God could get behind. After all, God = Love. :)

That being said... love to you and yours.

My Purple Post

Today is the day when people are asked to don purple in “honor of the LGBT youth who have committed suicide in recent weeks/months due to homophobic abuse in their homes and schools” (according to the Facebook page that seems to have started this movement). Additionally, there has been a recent spate of video pieces featuring numerous celebs and the like telling kids that "It gets better." 

These efforts are tremendous because teen suicide due to anti-LGBT bullying IS a horrible problem, and because it IS something that can be remedied by love, compassion, and understanding. And, you know, it’s simply just a good idea to give these kids hope, especially when they’re dealing with something that they may be having a hard time wrapping their head around, possibly with no one to turn to, and they’re forced to go to a school where every. single. day. can be a grueling gauntlet of teasing, harassment, and violence. Public shows of support like these help raise awareness, foster understanding, and they are things that can give hope to someone who has no hope left in their reserves. 

What I don’t want to get lost in all of this, however, is that while kids may be more vulnerable to pernicious treatment, and that things WILL get better after they can leave the cloistered high school campuses and expand their social bases, things STILL aren’t all ice cream and puppy dog kisses as an adult. 

As I addressed in an earlier post, the suicide rate for trans folks is over 30 percent. 3 out of 10 trans people will kill themselves. Because it’s just that much fun to be trans in society today. And even if you overlook these statistics, how many of these people are slowly killing themselves by other means, even as adults?

Even if someone doesn’t come right out and kill themselves (which is just staggeringly horrible), there are still a lot of other, more “quiet” ways to get the job done, and that’s what a ton of people in the LGBT community seem to do. Many studies have indicated that LGBT people have a higher incidence of smoking and a higher incidence of drug and alcohol abuse than their heterosexual counterparts (not that cigarettes and alcohol aren’t drugs... but I digress). Sitting in support groups for people like myself, I heard a litany of horror stories centering around these kinds of abuses. It’s like life gets better enough so that you don’t kill yourself in one fell swoop, but it’s still bad enough and makes you apathetic enough about living to coerce you into the silent, erosive ways of killing yourself: smoking, alcohol, heavy drugs, etc.

Let’s face it, sinking into abuse is essentially a way of coping (for most). I know, because I’ve done it, and I’m still waging an on-going personal war against cigarettes. But shit, cigs—one of the worst things in the world for you, that, by the by, just happens to be one of the most addictive things in the world—have certainly gotten me through some tough, stressful, hopeless times. Maybe that coping mechanism actually saved my life at one point... I don’t really know... and that’s not really my point. I’m just saying that it’s not a coincidence that people who fall into the LGBT spectrum are more likely to smoke, are more likely to abuse heavy drugs and alcohol... and are more likely to kill themselves.

Again, SO much of this can be remedied by love, compassion, and understanding. Maybe reaching the haters starts with these poor kids who have to deal with so much. Maybe they’ll see these young and innocent people who are being destroyed by fear, misinterpreted doctrines, and xenophobia, and they’ll think on it, even if just a little. Maybe seeing the stories of tragic suffering that have been personified by these sorrowful incidents may stir something greater in their souls. Maybe these kids didn’t die in vain, and maybe, just maybe, their very public display of just how much they were hurting can make the world a better place for scores of other people. I’d certainly like to think so, as I’d like to think that something good, ANYthing good, can come from such heartbreak and tragedy, and that through all of this pain, things will truly get better.

The Key

While there are many people out there who offer those in my position acceptance and support, there is still a significant undercurrent of people who find what I'm doing to be odd, horrible, and perverse. I don't think that these kinds of attitudes are a surprise to anyone.

What may be surprising, however, is that in spite of these perceptions, in spite of the ridicule and violence that is levied upon trans people in the world, I still ardently believe that at the core of everyone, there is good; that there is a desire to do right and to do right by other people. As illogical as this may sound coming from someone who's mired in their own personal gender catastrophe, I believe that those who vilify people like myself DO believe that what they're doing is "right".

Now one may argue, "How can inflicting pain on a group of people who are just out to live their lives (and who are not harming anyone) be right in any way?" Valid point. Personally, however, I feel that the motivation behind these people doing what they think is right is all a matter of not fully understanding what being trans is all about. (As an aside, I can't even contemplate how much animosity is generated in this world by sheer lack of understanding... but I digress.)

I've read all the arguments against people like myself:

• You can't change who you are... if you were born male (or female), you'll always be that way, no matter what you do to yourself.
• It's immoral.
• It's against the laws of nature.
• It's mutilation.
• etc.
• etc.
• etc.

If I could convey one thing to these people it is solely this:
Bring trans is not a choice.
That's it. That's all there is to it.
It's the key to everything when it comes to this.

No one chooses to be this way. Sure, we may choose to do something about the feelings that bombard us with misery on a daily basis, but no one chooses to have these feelings in the first place. They're just there. They exist... and they grow stronger with each passing year. The effect of this on someone's psyche seems to grow exponentially as the days pass by, and it's just crippling at times. I've seen this, not only in myself, but in many of the trans people who I've come across in my life.

An article from the BBC even states that Australian researchers have found a genetic link to transsexuality, which occurs in the womb. Here's another excellent (and very in-depth) page about it.

And just speaking from my own personal experience, which I've delved into in earlier posts, I fought these feelings for 15 years or so before even admitting to myself that this may be an issue. This was followed by visits to no less than four different therapists (some of whom I saw for years), all in an attempt to get them to tell me that this wasn't the case with me, and that it MUST be something else. ANYTHING but this.

Again, the point I'm really trying to deliver here is that this needs to be accepted as something that isn't chosen. This needs to be seen as something that someone just is. When one does that, they can better see the emotional and psychological misery that this produces in a person. They can better see how not being in concert with your own body is a truly searing trauma. They can better see the societal stigma attached to it, and see just how truly wrong these views are. They can, ultimately, better see that when you have to deal with the incongruence AND THEN have to deal with all the negativity and societal stigmas hurled at you, it wreaks horrible outcomes. (As I also stated in an earlier post, this is why 30% of trans people kill themselves. 3 out of 10. Sobering numbers... to say the least.)

If society at large could see that this is not a choice. If they could see that this is something that many, many people have to deal with that is causing them immeasurable pain. If they could just see that this is something that has been documented by scores of cultures throughout the course of history, and that this is purely a rare, yet natural, variation in a person, I really think that the good hearts that govern these people would be more apt to reach out and try to help than to shirk away in fear and revulsion.

This is what I hope for. This is what I hope is to come for people like myself. It's hard enough to have to deal with the trans feelings in and of themself. If the social stigma was alleviated, it would make SO many lives easier, and more productive, and more positive. Ultimately, the world would get better. The abatement of that kind of pain across a huge mass of people can only be for the good. Again... it can only be for the good. If you're one who wants to do good and who wants to do what's right, how can the easing of that much terrible pain be seen in any other light?

All the best, and warmest regards.

Wed May 5, 2010 – just after midnight

What follows is an entry I wrote in my "diary" (for lack of a better term) this evening.I found it to be pertinent. The only thing I changed from the actual text in my diary is the use of a friend's name. I'm kinda squirrelly about just how open I should be on the webbernetz about exposing my life, as in I'm sharing stuff verbatim right out of my diary. But, like I said, I found it to be pertinent. So... um... enjoy!! :P

While sitting here earlier this evening, I kind of arrived at a few conclusions.

The first, while it’s immediate, is that the song “VCR”* is just fucking FAN TASTIC.

After that, well, it seems that I really have a lot of conflict to resolve.. you know, on the internal level. Well, I guess on the external as well.

You see, it’s been years, and years, and years, and years that I’ve just wished upon wishing to be a girl. Just so much time and energy, hope and praying, and all that gushy, gushy stuff devoted to this idea… this notion. Why is it that I can’t seem to just be living this way?

Well, I think it’s obvious that I just don’t look the part. I guess this really is all about resolving the interior with the exterior. I say that because I can see myself. I can see my breasts… and make no mistake, they are breasts… I can see my skin, and just how I look overall. My size is the only thing keeping me from people seeing me as a woman… and I really feel this to be the case.

The fact of the matter is, I don’t know that there’s anything I can really do to offset this size thing. A friend of mine, who pissed me off at the time, was actually right in the fact that she told me that I had to “get over it”. I guess I do. It’s either that, or just kind of do nothing and live in fear (which has been established as just a horrible idea), die,... or get over it.

Don’t really wanna die right now. I’m looking for reasons to live. I’m looking for a reason to be here. I’m looking for someone to help. For a life to share. For everything that makes this existence true. And real.

So, since I don’t want to die, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to give into fear. I guess I’m gonna have to do something. Not real sure what that is at the moment, but I know… I KNOW… that this involves momentum and movement. It’s like making the energy that surrounds your life kinetic. It’s forcing things to happen when they should. It’s doing what you need to do to achieve these things. It is what you’re here for. It’s what you NEED to do.

And the fact of the matter is, I don’t want to do this because I’m lazy. I can’t be bothered enough to do things about this. I can’t be bothered to do what I need to do to get myself comfortable enough with myself to be comfortable in the world. And I can't get comfortable because even I look at myself, with breasts, and shiny-soft skin, and just everything that goes along with being on hormones for five years, and I STILL see nothing but a guy staring back at me. I can feel very much like me when I’m lying here alone, but when I look in the mirror, everything feels like lies.

And a big part of this bullshit is that fact that I can’t just accept the moniker of “woman”. I have no idea what that’s about. I’m sure it’s also fear-based, but part of it is that maybe this doesn’t feel right either. Well, not that exactly. Just everything feels foreign. Everything is strange. I’m not used to this yet, and I feel REALLY fucking awkward. Maybe these are just my neo-teenage years that I often hear transpeeps refer to (though maybe not in that exact term).

I mean, I just don’t know how to be a girl. OR, should I say that I don’t know how to be who I am. I’ve been hiding that person for so long. I’ve been hiding her for so long.

And referring to me as “her” feels natural… like really preternaturally natural (if that makes any fucking sense)… but yet it’s like embarrassing to me. I guess I’m just not that “out” with all of this, though I have no idea what’s holding me back when I’m by myself.

I just don’t know what the fuck I’m doing right now. I can’t get me to feel right. Maybe I just need to “grow into” my new skin. Maybe I need to take things for test drives. Maybe I need to do a lot of things.


That's all I gots tonight.
Be good.

* the song "VCR" is by the band The xx and, as I said, it's certainly worth a listen

Part III: The Lovely

Now's the time for the much-delayed conclusion to my "The Good, the Bad... and the Lovely" posts. If you remember, these were about three different experiences I had dealing with health care professionals while being trans. As I said, this is the third part, meaning it's time for...

The Lovely

It's the summer of 2006, and I'm driving in the direction of my mother's house. She's on the phone and I'm telling her that I have to go to the emergency room because I'm having chest pains and feeling dizzy and just in a bit of a daze. It's the middle of the week and it's around midnight.

She's telling me that I should go to one of the ERs in the neighborhood, because the wait will be much less there than if we go into downtown Philadelphia. At the time, she knew I was trans, but she didn't know that I was on hormones (i.e. doing anything about it), though I had been for just over a year. That being the case, I wanted to avoid these neighborhood hospitals and go someplace that promised to be a bit more accepting of my situation. I insisted that we go into town – to the hospital that was affiliated with the LGBT center that I was getting treatment at. Now I don't know what would have happened at another hospital, but in hindsight I feel safe in saying that going to the hospital I wanted to was very much the right choice.

After we'd gone through all the waiting, they finally take me back into an exam room. A nurse was there and he said that they wanted to do an EKG on me to check my heart. I was nervous to begin with, and getting this test done made it even more nerve wracking, because, like I said, I had been on hormones for over a year, and that being the case, I was starting to get some noticeable breast tissue. Still, the test occurred and nothing was said by anyone in the room as far as anything being abnormal about my appearance, though the nurse did tell me that there was something slightly irregular on the test. Of course, I got a bit worried about this.

I realized at that time that I had to let the nurse know what was going on with me and what hormones I was taking, just in case I was having some kind of reaction. Since my mother was sitting right there, however, and I figured that this was NOT the way to let her find out what was going on, I waited until she left and went back out to the waiting area. I then began to jitteringly tell the nurse that I was trans, and that I've been or hormones for a year, and that I waited to tell him this privately because my mom didn't know.

He immediately put any and all of my concerns to rest, saying something along the lines of: "Don't worry about this at all. I'm gay myself and we deal with people in your situation all the time. Don't worry about any of this stuff, it's all fine." And he smiled and he was super-supportive, and it was simply amazing.

After this conversation, I was sent back out to the waiting area. There I found my mother. We went outside to get some air and that's where I told her that I was on hormones, and that I'm telling her this now because they found something a little odd with my EKG, and they also said that there may be a chance that the hormones were part of the abnormality. Since my mother was at the ER with me, I figured she should know this.

My revelation, however, was met with her tears. That sucked. That was a bad, bad part of the evening. To try to comfort her in some way... in any way... I told her that I mentioned all of this to the nurse, what he said about everything, and in doing so, I told her what was the most important lesson that I learned that night...

There are going to be people who will be fervently against me and what I'm doing. It's just the way it is. Either they have a problem with it from a religious standpoint, a societal standpoint, through lack of understanding, or just out and out fear of the different. I get that people are going to be like this, because the news is inundated with stories of this kind of hatred and intolerance. What we often fail to see, however, is that there are people who will IMMEDIATELY jump to your aid just BECAUSE you're in this position. You get support from literally out of nowhere, just like I did by the nurse who was treating me who just happened to be gay himself.

I stayed in the ER overnight that night, and underwent a litany of test. I remember around 6 in the morning the nurse who was treating me earlier, and who I hadn't seen since the EKG, came into the little cube that my bed was set up in and said that he just wanted to check on me before his shift ended. He squeezed my hand for a second or two and told me, "Don't worry, sweetie, everything's going to be okay." Then he asked if I needed anything before I sincerely thanked him and he left.

So... not only do you get support from out of nowhere, but you also get support like this. You get support that will take people out of their way to make sure that you're okay. You get support in that people will look out for you. And I think that in this case it comes from an almost kind of kinship that people across the LGBT spectrum share with one another. There's a lot of looking out for one another, or so I've seen.

Additionally, there are people who aren't in this group who are just kind, caring, and supremely understanding people. They seem to truly comprehend two things about what I'm going through:

1) This is NOT something I chose.
2) It's DAMN tough to deal with.

And once people get these two things, it really seems like their heart opens up to you... and in amazing ways. When you hear story after story about trans people getting attacked, or murdered, or being fired from their jobs with no recourse, you tend to get more than a bit dejected. Then someone comes along and bowls you over with an intense act of kindness, and it's truly astounding. It smacks you in the face with hope and shows you just how insanely good people can be to one another. This was the first time I witnessed anything like this when it came to dealing with health care... and it was quite simply lovely.

Flying Blind... But Still in the Air

"Of flight or fly, This choice is left ye, to resist or die."
- Alexander Pope

It's been about 6 months since my last inspirational and uplifting post, and over 7 months since my last post of any real substance. In that time I've experienced a kind of "shut down". Essentially I just couldn't process and/or deal anymore. I didn't know what else to do, so I tried to shut off my brain as best I could. Seemed reasonable... or not. Actually, I think that it was more of a defense mechanism than anything else.

You see, the majority of my thoughts during the past months just flat out hurt. They hurt to think about. They hurt to dwell on. The hurt to write about. I didn't want to get into it. I didn't want to think about being trans, or my place in the world, or just about anything really. I just wanted to be. If only.

Pretty much every bad thought about being trans had a few good kicks at my ribs (and/or my psyche) during that time, and writing about it would usually help to ease this. Writing would get these thoughts out into the open and help me to deal with them more. Writing would help me to see my way around them and maybe even find a solution buried in the ranting. In this case, however, writing made it worse, because I was thinking about an impossible situation even more than I had been. It mired me in The Bleak even more so than I was already. I couldn't do it. I no longer felt liberated and mentally cleansed after I was done writing. What I did feel was hopelessness, sorrow, and yet more hopelessness. Writing proved to be nothing more than an intense dwelling on the unattainable. I couldn't do it... and for years and years it had been my predominant way of coping.

What I have come to realize through this sunny stretch of time, is that what I want out of life is truly unattainable. I will never have it. And when you're hit with the realization that all you want out of life is the one thing that you can never have, it kind of leaves you in a "ready to die" kind of mode. Not a lot of fun. It was best not to exacerbate it. So, I shut my brain off to it and just tried to be... an especially black-or-white decision, since the alternative is NOT to be. Aren't I just SO fucking Hamlet-esque? Bleh.

The important thing here, however, is that through all of the shit... through all of the despair... through all of the life-loathing thoughts of suicide... I still plodded on. I still tried to be. I still tried to exist. Even when it seemed like everything in my world was telling me not to.

The key to this was staving off my constant thoughts of trans-like issues in any way that I could. Old bad habits resurfaced – overeating, smoking, not caring that I was overeating and/or smoking. The last of these being the most telling indicator of where my head was at. I mean, can you really give a shit that you've gained 20 pounds or that you're killing yourself slowly with cigarettes when you're just out and out apathetic about the very concept of being alive? If so, I'd have to think that it's pretty damn difficult to do.

All of the above came about (in short) because I truly realized what I stated earlier: I can never have the only thing in life that I ever really wanted, and the only thing in life that I really care to get out of it. Never. It's not going to happen. Ever. Never. Ever. Ever.

So... now what?

Well, here comes the part of my life where I completely reassess what I hope to get out of it, what I'm looking to attain in this world, and what steps I can/should take to salvage something good from the rubble of my utterly smashed hopes and dreams. It's quite literally cultivating a change of my entire perspective on the world and my place in it, AND doing this while still dealing with the fact that I'm oh-so desperately trans. I mean, that feeling isn't going to go away (and from what I've seen, it's only going to get worse). So, how do I deal with this issue – THE issue – inside these new parameters?

Well, first things first.

I am throwing away the lens that I used to view my life for so many years. I have to find a new one, and I don't think that's going to be a swift process. Until that time, however, I have to be okay with the fact that I don't have any real idea of where I'm going. I mean, it's hard to know where you're going when you can't even see.

Be well.