Comments (0) You may have noticed a new addition in the upper right (for those of you not reading via RSS). I keep coming back to trans fiction in posts, so I figured I should just make a (semi) static page linking to my blog posts on the subject, as well as authors/stories/sites I like. So, here it is! I’ll try to remember to make individual posts when I update it, but no promises…
-R
I know a place where no one’s lost,
I know a place where no one cries,
Crying at all is not allowed,
Not in my castle on a cloud.
-Lyrics from ‘Castle on a Cloud’ from Les Miserables
Les Mis is some of the earliest music I learned on the piano that I still play regularly. In fact, come to think of it, I’ve probably been playing Les Mis (and using the same beat-up book of sheet music) for over ten years. And, although ‘Castle on a Cloud’ isn’t my favorite song from the musical, a place usually reserved for ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ or ‘On My Onw,’ I do think it’s an evocative metaphor.
That said, the verse I quoted above never sat right with me. I completely understand wanting to exist in a place where no one is lost, and where there is no need to cry. That makes perfect sense. But the idea of not being allowed to cry always made me kind of sad; sometimes the grief of living just needs to come out in tears.
I’ve been crying a lot more lately than I’m used to, and it’s made me think about how I handle my emotions.
I realized recently that no sentence which begins, “If it makes you feel any better…” ever actually makes someone feel any better. Lets do some test runs:
If it makes you feel any better, my dad just got thrown in jail!
Nope. Doesn’t help.
If it makes you feel any better, I heard Steve got fired, too.
Nope. Still doesn’t help.
If it makes you feel any better, Gabe and I are having relationship problems, too.
Nope. Still doesn’t help.
Why can’t it ever be If it makes you feel any better, here’s a box of puppies! Or If it makes you feel any better, you just won the lottery! Or even If it makes you feel any better, take the rest of the day off. Any of those might actually help.
-R
I was recently talking with my mom about a woman she’s become friendly with as part of a group she goes to for parents with trans kids. We’ll call her Susan. (I have no idea what her real name is, but I get tired of saying “this woman” over and over again.) Susan has two children: a son – lets say Ben – and a child – lets go with the gender-neutral Casey – who keeps insisting that she’s a girl, even though she was assigned ‘boy’ at birth. Both of her kids are pretty young, definitely not yet in highschool, and Susan has been trying to understand Casey but having a hard time. She was apparently retelling a conversation she’d had recently with her children, in which she had asked Casey, “But why do you like the color pink, playing with dolls, wearing dresses, and don’t want to be called a boy?”
Casey replied, “I just think I want to be a girl.”
Now, from what I’ve heard from my mom, Susan has been trying hard to help Casey be happy, but she is still having a hard time accepting that the child she thought was a son might really be a daughter. Indeed, Susan was holding this response, and specifically the words “I think I want,” as evidence to my mom that Casey wasn’t sure what she wanted. That there was still hope Casey would change her mind and realize she was really a boy.
My mom, in turn, was asking me what I thought.
Obviously I’m not inside Casey’s head. And, as someone who is a decade and a half older than Casey, it’s hard for me to say that anyone can know what they want when they’re 10. But I distinctly remember using the same language in my mind, and even when I came out to my parents. And the use of “I think I want” wasn’t because of any uncertainty of my desire, it was because of my fear of failure.
How I Met Your Mother is a funny show. I’m not going to lie and say it’s not. I really like the cast, I really like the characters, I really like the writing, and I consistently laugh when I’m watching it.
I’m getting more and more upset by the transphobia. That is, by jokes told at the expense of transgender women. Two big examples spring to mind:
But I know there are more out there. In both examples, a potentially attractive female partner is rendered unattractive by being trans. I realize the show makes fun of a lot of different minority groups, but there seems to be a difference between having a positive gay character on the show and laughing with him, than simply making fun of how no one in their right mind would want to have a relationship with a trans woman.
As a trans woman, it really sucks to hear characters I thought I liked casually dropping things that would be incredibly hurtful if directed at me as a joke. I can’t imagine my little blog is going to have a huge effect on the show’s viewing audience (though I am also posting this to the show’s forum) but the very least I can do is speak up in the face of what is, in all likelihood, ignorance.
-R
A friend of mine recently posted about giving to charaties and I wanted to weigh in with my agreement. In the same way that calling/writing your elected officials is important (as, aside from ellections every few years, that’s the only way they’ll know what you think!) donating to organizations you value is also really important.
I donate to three organizations right now, in automatic giving plans of $10/month for each:
I also have some organizations I’m trying to donate to on a less-regular basis, and some I’d like to look at donating to in the future.
Gaiman recently appeared on Colbert (who I also heart, except when he’s being transphobic) and talked about his most recent book and about how it’s OK to have dark children’s literature. I’m a huge Gaimen fan, and love watching him interact with Colbert (and, near the end, geeking out about Lord of the Rings):
Apologies for the overly-provocative title to this post, particularly in light of my last post, on violence and the expectations of violence.
In the past month or two, I’ve had three dreams where I was raped. It was very dream-like, in that I didn’t have the actual experience or memory of the actual rape. I just woke up in a state of panic at 3AM, with the knowledge that I’d been raped.
Looking at an online dream dictionary yields the following:
To dream that you have been raped, indicates vengeful feelings toward the opposite sex. You are feeling violated in some way or being taken advantage of. Something or someone is jeopardizing your self-esteem and emotional well-being. You feel that someone or something is being forced upon you.
I haven’t truly felt my physical safety threatened since maybe fourth or fifth grade. It was in the gym class locker room, although I honestly don’t remember if it was before or after class. A few of my classmates had taken a liking to picking on me, and the locker room was (in a way that’s almost cliche) a space isolated from any teachers and perfect for making trouble.
In my memory, the locker room is huge; cavernous and echoing. I have no doubt if I revisited it today, my growth would have shrunken it down in an almost comical way. And, although I don’t remember any specific incident, I remember the faces of my aggressors, and the knowledge that if I didn’t say the right thing they would beat me up.
They never did beat me up. And, looking back, I don’t know that I was ever actually in danger; whether the training of our white, middle-class upbringing would have overrode their dislike of me. But I remember feeling that fear.
As I said, I haven’t truly felt my physical safety threatened in maybe fifteen years.
But I sure have been thinking an awful lot about violence lately.
A page (and holiday) that I created last year in repsonse to Steak and BJ Day which holds that March 14 is now a holiday for “ladies finally have a day to show your man how much you care for him.”
Because the lady in your life deserves a cupcake.
And you ‘Steak and BJ Day’-ers need to shut the hell up.
Cupcake and Shut The Hell Up Day. Tell your friends.
-R
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