Yet Again.

I feel like every post I write is the same. And it's been like this for ever.

Yet, every time, it seems new as I the first.

It's always been this. My hatred of myself, my desperate need for someone else to love me. I've been journaling for seven years, and it's always been this.

At church today, someone I was sitting with at lunch mentioned how one of his friends had been stabbed 16 times in "The Fort" (the mostly student housing area where I live, adjacent to some lower SES areas). I've known friends to be shot at, raped, mugged, and so on just walking through it back to their homes.

So I went home this evening and I thought about it. Because, see, I walk home alone in the middle of the night in The Fort. It's one of the self-harms I allow myself, the risk without actually having to hurt myself. I've fantasized about being attacked a fair amount. But today was something new. I wondered "What would make me finally feel like I've atoned?" A scare definitely wouldn't do it. Sexual assault would probably just make me hate myself worse. I settled on paralysis below the waist; above it I'd probably just prefer to die anyway. My mind drifted to being deaf, blind, mute. And I think I could do one, but if I was deaf and blind I think I'd feel as if I trapped in some kind of tomb. It would be terrifying. And I sat with that a few moments, idly wondering if perhaps I'd be in the process of being mugged when somehow I'd manage to either run into or get pushed into an oncoming car.

These fantasies mostly make me feel better (although the blind/deaf/mute combination just left me terrified). I either want to die or be significantly damaged while not being a burden on others. Because I need to keep working, keep trying to make my existence worthwhile to *someone*.

This, of course, is nothing new. What is new, though, is how increasingly I seem to have it together externally. I'm a smooth-motherfucker when I want to be. There's an elegance, an empathy, a light joy and positive regard to me that just seems *good*. I'm the person that people with trust issues talk to. I'm the person who listens not in a "passively absorb what 'other' says" but "actively engage in communicating self."

And I could be this person constantly if I had a consistent source of validation. But I am fucking hard to reach. You have to make a conscious effort to burrow, to fling yourself at my walls and keep trying til you make it in (you will make it in, though). But, of course, that's rare. I've met two people who can do it consistently and a handful more who can do it if they try.

And that makes everything really lonely. Fuck, I just want to talk to someone who cares about me. Like, reaches out for me to get to the place where things actually hurt. I don't need my problems solved; I know how to do that. I want *love*.

But because I hate myself, I can't get it. I'm stuck as an ancillary companion, a third, a fifth wheel. And, increasingly, I'm realizing that until the hate changes, the lack of love won't either.

NeoAnnual Progress Report

Three years ago, I was staring down my final semester of undergrad. Staying in bed all day, my girlfriend would sometimes come over at 3:00p or 3:30p and crawl in with me because attempting to get me up was largely futile. I was preparing to teach high school, a career I had more trepidation than passion about, but it was safe and I was anything if not safe.

Two years ago, I was working my part-time job over winter break. I could not sleep late, and that was wonderful. I had been single for a bit more than two months, and it still stung poignantly (although not nearly as bad as it had). And, the last week or two, I had decided to finally transition genders. I came out to my immediate family around this time. And although I dreaded returning to teaching high school, I felt significant hope for the first time in my life.

One year ago, all of my applications had been sent in for graduate school. I was staying in bed until 4p or 5p, going to bed at 7:00a as the sun came up. I had just driven to Memphis to see the young woman who I loved more than I thought love was possible, and a few days before the last day of the year, I had three hours with her that encompassed the happiest I've ever been. I had been on hormones for eight months, had my chosen name legally and been full time for two months, and there were moments where I felt overjoyed simply to be alive. [And moments where I felt I was haunted by a stain of self that would never truly leave]

Today, I find myself in graduate school. Based upon one client, I love my chosen career. Based upon one semester, I adore my cohort and I appreciate most of my classes. I look in the mirror and see Juliet. I have increasingly closer friends who I really believe truly care about me.

I'm still single. I still find myself staying in bed for too, too long. I still don't eat well, don't take care of my environment, don't regard myself particularly highly. The notes from one year ago aside, last year contained some of the absolute most painful and stressful times in my lifetime. And they ended in a way that will deny me closure until I can figure out how to conjure it for myself. I have motivation problems. I have significant anxiety. I have monstrous fears of and intense desires for intimacy. I have a lot of work to do.

But, overall, considering where I've been, I'm in a decent place. All I have to fear and dread are research deadlines. And, truly, that's a lesser concern that I hope I can figure out. I have a lot of things to look forward to this year. And, if I keep on progressing, I think I might find a bit of contentment along the way.

The Last Girl

Without a doubt, my favorite genre is the post-apocalyptic. I include dystopia in that, because dystopia encompasses the same kind of widespread destruction of humanity in a spiritual form, even if the people will likely survive into the future (and may move to a non-dystopic phase within their ontology).

In the abstract, it's romantic. Youth, desperation, terror, and unquenchable need all lend themselves to the "fucking like they do in art films" mentality (and support the "hot/crazy" positive correlation). The apocalypse lends itself to those emotions directly.

In the immediate, it's, of course, not romantic at all. I've had conversations and long periods of time with someone I desperately loved when I had reasonable expectations of her not surviving or not making it to safety and those months (crystallized in a few particularly intense weeks) are some I never, ever want to relive.

But what that experience and genre do convey is an immense sense of meaning. It's survival. Except, in most of the better media involving the apocalypse, it's rarely the survival of the individual but the survival of the community. It's love, it's family, it's human as a quintessential social animal and the struggle to not let that spirit of humanity die lends a sense of importance to every moment that is largely absent from modern, middle-class, Western lives like my own.

In the apocalypse, there is literally a struggle between Being and Nothingness. Whereas we are interchangeable and expendable (outside of our communities) in modern life, in the end of the world we *are* life.

Or that's how it often seems, anyway.

In truth, there is so much "quiet desperation" even in this world of comforts. One need only go to a "Take Back the Night" rally and listen, for an hour, to every single person who comes up and says "I've never told anyone this before, but..." and you find that spiritual survival is very much an ongoing and contemporary struggle. And, indeed, those struggles are what make me feel real and vital.

The lives of others, as it were. In an apocalypse, I would survive for someone I loved. But I wouldn't survive for myself. And the same's true now. I find meaning in the meaningful struggles of others. I'm only safe when I'm ensconced in another, only happy and joyous when another is embracing the all of me. It's all other other other.

It's the same way in apocalypse too. I write this same post again and again and again. Because it's the fundamental tension in my life. I have no (or minimal) worth in and of myself. And I'm not entirely sure if that's a bad thing. After all, I rather doubt most people would want to be the last person on earth. But one of the last of a select two? That would make all the difference. Why not in life as well?

Last Night in Three Acts

Last night, I went to three things.

First, I went to my ex's to play board games. She generally hosts a boardgame night with her boyfriend once or twice a week, and I try to go whenever they don't have too many people attending. It was really nice. I like her, I like her boyfriend, I like his friends, I like her friends. It's a warm, intimate place with lots of laughter and engagement.

But I left because there was a going away party for someone I didn't know too well, but that I admired anyway. She was a member of LAMBDA, the gay-student group on campus, and pretty much ran the thing single-handedly. So I went. There were a lot of folks from Americorps there, because her girlfriend is in Americorps and they were her friends. And many of them were really nice. But I tried to have conversations with them and, due to my complete lack of interest in small talk, I tried to talk to them about their plans and passions and education experiences because I figured folks in Americorps would be committed to these sorts of things. And it largely failed. They'd talk, but it was clear they felt uncomfortable, and for all their years of study the level of their discourse was... somewhat less than I would have liked. Some other lesbians from LAMBDA showed up who I knew, which was nice, but I still found it difficult to have longer conversations with them. I had to work hard at it, asking lots of questions and drawing them out. And that's generally a sign that they're not interested.

So I went home, and then I went out to a gay club for about an hour last night, at the behest of some friends who were already there (it's a five minute walk from my apartment). It was interesting to people watch, certainly. Seeing so many queer individuals in one place, I can really appreciate how much diversity Knoxville has, even if it's not immediately apparent day to day. But I kept my long coat on inside, my coat of armor, my "don't fucking mess with me" veneer. And although I enjoyed the company of some of my friends, it was hard again. I felt out of place. And when someone asked me "Are you a real girl or not?" it pretty much deflated me entirely.

I say all this not to give a travelogue, but to point out a few themes. One is that so much social interaction is hard. It's not that I can't do it, but it just feels like I'm trying to force something that's not there. And it ends up being quite alienating. Another is that I'm quite guarded. I defend myself by reverting to cognitive discussions, I come on too strongly in that domain because it's the one I feel strongest and safest in, and I just give off uncomfortable vibes. Someone at an autoparts store yesterday asked me why I was so sad, and I thought "I'm not really that sad right now, am I?" I am uncomfortable, unhappy, and afraid. And it shows.

And that's the kicker. I want so much to connect to people, but *I'm* the impediment to connection. And I don't really know how to change. There are times that are better, like with my ex in places where I know everyone and we're doing things I like. But is there a way to translate that comfort and security to places outside that comfort zone? The only way I can think of is to carry a partner inside me, a safety net to fall upon. That, or love and believe in myself. But how the hell does a person manage to do that? I really wish I knew.

"I'm not single, I'm alone."

I can't tell whether online dating is killing me or keeping me alive. It's a ray of tantalizing hope, certainly. But it's frustrating and fraught with perpetual disappointment. Conversations are abruptly dropped with no warning why. There's no real way to evaluate why some people respond and others don't. I fall in love with someone's profile and she lives in fucking Toronto. I've exhausted the supply of remotely compatible individuals within at least 200 miles. And there seems to be little chance of things getting better any time soon.

As someone [the only one] I've been messaging off and on on okcupid said,

 "you continue to be hilarious as your emotional investments in this website's prospects fall away like so much overstewed tallow from the bone. "

 The conventional wisdom is to learn to love yourself and love will eventually find you. I'm improving on that count. I am continually surprised at my confidence and assuredness, knowing what I want and taking active steps to try to make it happen. I still have something of a fundamental lack of self-worth, but I'll find the suicidal ideation creeping back in and part of me shouts at it that even though things aren't great, they're encouragingly positive. It's progress.

But as one of my friends said, quoting tumblr, queer dating is like applying for jobs: you either do it online or through referrals. One can hope you'll meet someone socially, but especially in Knoxville that just doesn't seem feasible any time soon.

And that's quite discouraging. I put myself "out there." I go to all kinds of events, talk to all kinds of people, look for what I want and don't get too beat down when I fail any one individual time. But I worry that it really is a matter of place. In Asheville, in Atlanta, in some big city elsewhere, in some *progressive* college town, maybe there'd be a thriving queer community. But here there just... isn't. And although many of us are making efforts to advance that cause, it's not like lesbian graduate students are just going to pop out of the woodwork.

So. I keep staring "3.5 years" in the face. And part of me feels like that's insane. Surely I'll find *someone* eventually. And even past that, I have a lot going for me in my life otherwise. If only what I have felt like it was enough.

Fear and Loving in Nashvegas

[11/15]
Last Friday, I went to see a sex therapist in Nashville as part of the requirements for me to get letters for Sexual Reassignment Surgery. I'd seen her two weeks before and taken some assessments, so this session was primarily to go over the results and talk about some of the difficulties I might face both related to the surgery and for life in general.

I'll state, for the sake of clarity, that I was and am quite irked at having to go through this process. The cost, the patronizing way the process is handled, the blatant ciscentric measurements, etc. all made me come in rather angry and mistrusting. But my therapist at home suggested I just try to make the best of the opportunity and, politics be damned, see if I can get something real out of it.

Overall, I think I did. The sex therapist told me the results of my tests probably wouldn't be surprising, and they weren't: I had significant degrees of anxiety and depression, with a fair number of indicators that I might have depressive personality disorder. I am very guarded, prone to intellectualization as a defense mechanism, and sociopolitical minded. In other words, I am, you know, me.

There were a fair number of points that she made over the course of the three hour session, but the one that's perhaps most salient to me is this: I often allow my emotional needs to compromise my judgment. As she put it, I am able to well argue most of the decisions I make. Providing rationales is not difficult, and it serves as a particularly solid defense mechanism. However, such capacities also mean I can rationalize to the point where I convince myself of various courses of action which, while having degrees of logic behind them, are ultimately unhealthy regardless of their ethicality or rationality. That's not particularly unusual, of course. But it can be quite dangerous to a person with my particular self-destructive proclivities.

As should surprise no one, this manifests itself most poisonously in my relationship choices. The "relationship" I was "in" (and it is so complicated as to justifiably merit scare quotes) was started with someone I knew I couldn't trust who I found myself completely falling for anyway. My desperate need for someone who fit me as well as she did caused me to rationalize my way through various warning signs and pertinent obstacles to the point that I signed myself up for a year of violent uncertainty, terror, self-loathing, and ultimately heartbreak. The kind where you lie sobbing in bed wishing that pain alone could kill you because it hurts so fucking bad to lose so much of yourself. The kind that haunts you like the dead, that leaves you replaying everything over and over and over and wondering why why why?

And as much as I want to say I've learned, I'm still quite vulnerable to repeating it. I find myself lying in bed wondering if I will be single forever. What if I will never find someone who's compatible with me? What if everyone I meet who's compatible is partnered? What if I'm in the wrong place at the wrong age with the wrong circles and I am destined to be alone for the entirety of the foreseeable future? Oh god it's terrifying. I hate being alone. I hate it I hate it I hate it. I want someone to want me. I want to want someone. I want to be able to wake up sobbing in the middle of the night and have someone there. I want to have dreams of isolation and desolation and be able to have someone hold me when I wake fragmented. I want someone to call when I'm afraid, when I'm angry, when I'm bored, when I'm horny. Someone to touch and fuck and talk to and hold and play and and and and and. And I don't want to be alone. And what if my standards are too high? What if this is forever? What if if if if if if

Yeah. It's so seductive, this narrative. It's like my father taking things that have some basis in truth, cherry-picking the parts that fit his perceptions, and then using that truthful foundation to make the cherries appear just as valid. Why wouldn't a person so scared and alone and needy grasp onto whatever's tossed her way, given the very legitimate needs and the very real uncertainties described above?

Why wouldn't I? Because down that path lies so, so much pain. Grasping for what's immediately available lends itself to heartbreak and waking up at some point wondering where the hell my real life went. I tell myself that I'm playing the long game, laying the foundation for decades of actualization at the cost of immediate sacrifice. And when I have that foundation, I can find someone who does not complete me but complements me. Who adds vibrancy to my already meaningful life.

It's entirely feasible. It's healthy. It ought to be so very rewarding. But it doesn't make sleeping alone tonight any better.

Transgender Day of Remembrance 2010

[This essay was originally written for the 2010 Transgender Day of Remembrance. I'm reposting it here because I think it still does a pretty good job of reflecting how I feel.]

There's a moment, right before I give myself my hormone shot, when I pause. Certainly, it's not the only time. Even after going full-time, I still have to convince myself before leaving home that I cannot hide forever. That I need to be myself regardless of the risk. But it's that point of impact, when the needle pierces my thigh and evokes that jolt of pain as I push the estrogen into my body, that I'm truly afraid of. Even though I know, from doing it so many times before, that the actual injection won't be that bad, I have to stop and stare and steel myself for that moment when it all becomes real. When I affirm, yet again, that I'm continuing this fool's errand of taking nature into my own hands. I pause. And I remind myself why I'm doing it, why I want real breasts and soft skin and blessed, resonant, so-right femininity. I remind myself how good “Juliet” feels. I remind myself that this is part of the price to feel true to myself. This is what it takes to feel female. And I plunge it in.

That's what I've written in my graduate school personal statements, anyway. And it's certainly true, in a sense. For me, and many others here I suspect, transitioning is not only hormone shots and building up the nerve to leave the house. No, the hardest part, for me, has been and continues to be persistent questions of identity, of logic vs. intuition, of body vs. mind, of theory vs. reality. Questions that, even now, I struggle with.

Of course, for other transgender people, there are different questions with different answers. Some transgender people feel they were always the right gender, it was just that their bodies were wrong. Some feel that they don't need to transition from one sex to another, that intermittent crossing is right for them. And some others eschew gender entirely, paving out their own identities outside labels or convention. While we share in common discomfort for our birth gender, our negotiations of that discomfort vary as much as we do individually.

This may sound like common sense to many. Of course individuals experience things in different ways. But in the one narrative allotted us, the coming-out story, we're allowed no such nuance. Almost invariably, or so the story goes, a person assigned male at birth spends years wrestling with himself, feeling like “a woman trapped in a man's body,” until he finally gets his penis chopped off and everything's all better. Because there are no pre-ops. There are no transsexual men. There are no closeted transsexuals. There are no post-ops but still struggling transsexual people. There are no “third genders.” There are no transgendered people of color. There are no people who never felt comfortable in their birth-assigned gender, but never felt like the other gender inside either. There are drag-queens, “she-male” prostitutes and porn actresses, and white, middle-aged women trapped in men's bodies. And even those groups, who I do not mean to slight at all, are not allowed to be people: siblings, parents, coworkers, friends, neighbors. They're jokes, freaks, or murder victims.

Of course, we, here, know that's not true. Or at least, we do now. But because of this invisibility, because of the reductive nature in which we are dealt, those who have not come out, those who have not found a trans-community, those who have not known what is possible, those whose feelings do not match the “narratives,” they do not know that their feelings are ok, that their desires are ok Those people and so many more can feel so alone. So very alone. I certainly did. And in a condition where self-hate is practically a prerequisite, that's a recipe for tragedy.

I tried to be sympathetic about the recent outcry over gay bullying and teen suicides. No one deserves to be made to feel bad about themselves and any efforts to mitigate that harm are good. But, yet again, the “T” on LGBTQIA was largely absent. Even though a recent survey estimated that over 40% of transsexual people have attempted suicide, even though that doesn't include the many who have succeeded, even though that doesn’t include the many closeted and unknown transsexuals who took that pain with them to the grave because their society gave them little other option, even despite all this we are told that “It Gets Better” –particularly for the mostly gay, white men who can afford it to.

For me, at least, it has. And thank God for it. After years of depression, of a suicide attempt and plans for many more, of hating myself and feeling that my body was not my own but purely a source of suffering I could never escape, I was able to come to terms with who I was and who I needed to be. The internet helped me see that the impossible was possible. Local transsexual people, some of whom are here tonight, helped me find the resources I needed and served as living examples I could aspire to. Allies, friends, and family supported me, some more than others, and accepted me as Juliet. And I am finding what it means to look at myself in the mirror and finally like what I see.

But I cannot fool myself. I've been lucky. Privileged, even. I am white. I am young. I am thin. I am able-bodied. I have liberal parents and mostly liberal friends. I have health insurance to cover many of my costs. I did not have to worry about losing a job or a relationship [although finding them may prove difficult]. I had access to free mental health counseling in college that allowed me to find a good therapist who was a supportive ally, who not only facilitated my self-discovery but supported me while I was transitioning. I have had transsexual individuals present and virtual who provided so many resources, so much hope. I have had all this and more. And even then, I'm still so often terrified. Even then, I have almost destroyed myself. Even then, I so often spiral into more despair. Even with all those advantages, it has been a difficult process with struggles left I can't even think to forsee. And I am one of the luckiest ones.

Indeed, today is not just about me. It’s not just about us. It’s about all transgender people, most of whom are not as fortunate as I have been. It’s especially the men and women we honor tonight, who have lost their lives due to hate, bigotry, intolerance. But also because even not-hateful mainstream media continues to make us invisible. Continues to see us only as inverted penises and elongated clitorises. Continues to not let us be seen as real, as human. But tonight, perhaps more than any night, we are not invisible. Tonight we remind our society that not only do we exist, but that our community suffers terrible losses, still, daily. Tonight, we are humans recognizing other humans who have had their humanity stripped from them.

We are visible. And it is a risk. It is a sacrifice. It is scary and intimidating and in the back of our minds we know that our names could just as easily show up on this list next year. But our visibility saves lives. Our insistence upon our humanity improves lives. Our refusal to be what others want us to be inspires others to do the same. It saved mine. The presence and help of others here now and that I’ll never meet have made my life so much better. And because I know how much it has meant to me, I hope I am strong enough to remain committed to doing the same. To being out. To embracing who I am. I certainly don’t blame anyone who isn’t; truly, I can only hope I can do it myself. Because I know I’m fortunate. Because I know I’m thankful. Because I know I’m needed.

I don’t experience a high when I give myself hormone shots; I don’t consider them magic liquid meant to “cure” me. And they hurt, a bit. It all hurts, a bit. Sometimes more than others, when I look in the mirror and only see Dylan’s hard and hairy face staring back. But I know that the impossible is possible. I see it before me today. And the shots, the fear, the risk, it’s worth it. Despite the difficulties, I have never felt better than I do now. I, of course, cannot speak for them, but I rather suspect the people we honor tonight would say the same thing. Thank you, everyone here who has personally helped me with this transition. Thank you, everyone who has sacrificed so much to make being ourselves possible. And thank you, everyone here tonight, for continuing to be seen, continuing to be real, and continuing to save lives [mine included]. Thank you.