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A letter to my friend

Tue, 09 September 2008 15:41

Anonymous

The following is a letter I wrote to my friend. I share it because I think the subject speaks to us all. It also raises issues about leading blended vs. open lives, and just what reality awaits for us. Some statements you will disagree with. I left them in anyway, so you can see the whole letter.

FYI, I am post-op and live a largely blended life, and recently had someone from my past appear to maliciously wreak havoc in my present. The person is a woman who was attracted to me as a man -- which in my life were often the people least accepting of my transition. Here is the letter:

Yeah, you were 100% right: anything said by [Jane Doe] shouldn't bother me. That's absolutely correct and I agree. It "shouldn't." It totally should not. I mean, in a perfect world, we would all be immune to the slings and arrows of others. No one would be bothered by anyone else's words or deeds. But no matter how desirable that would be, that's not the world I actually live in. I'm not a perfect enough person to be unaffected by [Jane]'s words and deeds. Oh, most of what she says ... doesn't bother me one bit. But this thing about attacking me as a human being, denying me equal human status, that does bother me. "Should" it? I don't know. It's easy to say no, but in some ways, I think it definitely should.

Let's face it, we don't like to admit it out loud, but I am a member of an oppressed minority. I know we like to talk about how I'm not, and functionally I am doing my best to be just another woman. But in real world terms my relative lack of current oppression has everything to do with my success at hiding the cues of my minority status, and not from any great strides by humanity in recognizing me as "real." And while we can all cheerfully agree that I am "simply a real woman," and no longer a "transwoman," there are about six billion people walking the earth today who would disagree with us if they read me. Some would disagree to the point of murder and obliteration. And that is a reality I can't ignore. [Jane] is one of those people, and since she arrived from the past I can't "hide" my status from her.

Crimes against transwomen are on the rise, which is due to our increased visibility. We can't be immune from the hatred, we can only hide ourselves from it. When we are discovered, we make people uncomfortable...we pull the rug out from under people's assumptions. We're catalysts for a changed paradigm, and most people don't want to change their views of the world. They'd rather kill the catalyst, obliterate it. And when transwomen are killed, they are not simply shot or stabbed, their faces and bodies are mutilated in an attempt to erase their humanity. That is a reflection of how people feel, even in 2008, and that is the silent reality I live with that I can never discuss. I don't think we can stop the people from feeling that way. I think we can only hide when we can, and stand up for ourselves when we are confronted with it.

Aside from the very palpable shame and damage to our sense of self that is caused by haters, failing to stand up for ourselves when confronted with hate simply emboldens the haters. If I can go this far, they wonder, how much farther might I be able to go? Some go as far as killing and mutilating. Others take more hidden actions against us: denying us jobs, spitting in our restaurant food, puncturing our tires, excluding us from groups and snickering behind our backs.

[Jane Doe] is a symbol of the hidden hatred that is all around me. If I didn't pass well – if I looked and talked like [name deleted], for instance – I could see and feel that hatred on a daily basis if I were aware enough. And even when I did not see it, even when good and decent people encountered me, the discomfort would still be there. When we don't blend in well, we make people uncomfortable, sometimes enough to turn them to rage and an attempt to obliterate us in order to save their concept of an orderly world.

[Jane Doe] is doing what she can to obliterate me. If she was the killing kind of person, I have no doubt that she would kill me. She would not just end my life, she would smash my face with a rock until it was nothing but a pile of red mush, unrecognizable as a human being. She would dismember me, cutting off the offending parts, and obliterate them, as well.

That's what [Jane] means to me: the person who would obliterate my humanity from the face of the earth. If you think that is an exaggeration, I say you're wrong. It is exactly what she would do literally if she could bring herself to, and is what she is trying to do figuratively and functionally, instead. [Jane] is the face of hate in my life.

I understand that there are possible hidden consequences to sending the letter I wanted to send. You are wise to caution me that it is risky to poke a grizzly bear, even when you think it can't reach you. If the bear is sufficiently motivated, you might find that it discovers a way to get at you. And so, despite the strong desire to stand up for myself and give her as good as she gives me, I demur.

And that leaves the effects of hatred poured all over me like sticky honey. Covering me. Difficult to get off. Making me feel dirty. And it evokes the feelings of all the people in my transitioning past who have ever hated me for who I am: The man who raped and beat me. My parents. My brother. My ex. [My customers] who left me and complained about me. The teens in the gas station who yelled threats and threw beer bottles at me, and scared the shit out of me. The many people who stared and snickered. The waiter who made a point of calling me "sir." The religious nuts who said I am an abomination before God and who threatened me with eternal torture. The politicians who want to take away what few rights I have. The jokes we transwomen are made of on TV. And the asshats in the [organization]. All these things are real. All these things inflicted a collective hurt that lingers, even though I really, really, really want to be able to wish the hurt away, just like people suggest. "Just don't let it bother you. What do you care what they think?" (Sigh...) If only I could. You have no idea how badly I want to be able to do that.

You may discount those things I mentioned. You may believe them unimportant or unworthy of acknowledging, or simply drama from the past. But their effects are real and unavoidable for me, as is the case for each one of us who have undertaken this path. I am one of the lucky ones. For me, all that stuff means only emotional remnants, and those relatively minor. But for 75% of us, it means chronic unemployment. Uncounted numbers of us suffer neuroses and psychiatric disabilities because of it. A third of us are killed or take our own lives. The vast majority of us suffer marginalization and varying levels of exclusion from the mass of society. And there are many other effects. I could not run for political office if I wanted to. Because I don't think I "pass" (i.e., "hide") flawlessly, there are hundreds of jobs I could not hold. (There goes my career as a weather bimbo on the local news!) And as much as I try to carve myself out from the collective of transwomen, when I think of them I realize that there, but for the grace of god, go I.

And so, when caution and fear command that I not stand up to [Jane Doe], I am left with little outlet for my hurt and rage, save for a ceremonial blood-letting with someone who knows and understands. A shared event of meaning, like a wedding or a funeral or a church service. Or perhaps more like an exorcism. A chance to rail together and shake our fists at the air, to give the evil a name and to give it voice and recognition. To shake it loose from inside, and send it out into the universe where it can no longer do me harm. A ceremonial venting.

So that's what I was going for. But it was brought up short in the form of loving but premature advice to "get over it" being poured on my vent like cold water. I get that not everyone understands or enjoys this process, and that you may be one of them. Some don't see the need for it; some see it as a waste of time and energy. Some don't understand why the person in need can't just cut to the chase and do the "obvious" healing thing. I'm not sure where you stand, but you certainly do not see the same necessity for it that I do. People all over the planet seek the process out, though, for myriad reasons, from a bad day at work, to break-ups, to murders, so I'm pretty sure there is some validity to my feeling of need.

I actually don't disagree with you about sending the letter. I don't see the potential harm, but I recognize that there could be some somewhere that I don't see, and I acknowledge the wisdom of your caution, even if it seems to go against everything you've told me about standing up for myself. I'm not disagreeing with you. I accept the truth of what you said, or at least the wisdom of it. I accept it even if I don't like it. You convinced me, and that's why I deleted my letter and didn't save it.

So, you see, I listen to you. I didn't get angry because you said things I didn't agree with. I agreed with you, albeit reluctantly about the letter. And the proof of that agreement is that I deleted my letter when I could have saved it or sent it. You did, in fact, convince me. And I absolutely agree with you that I shouldn't let [Jane] bother me. Believe it or not, that concept wasn't new to me last night, and I was not shying from it. I want very much to feel as you say I should feel. My inability to do so may be a failure on my part, but it is not to ignore you, or disagree with you, or be angry with you. I do agree that doing that would be a wonderful resolution. Absolutely. I'm just not sure how to get there from here without going through the venting process. But I heard you, and I agree with you.

Anyway, I just thought you should know that I agree with you, I heard you, and I was just looking to vent.

Current Time: Sun Feb 12 12:42:11 PST 2012

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