The Republican Religionists Feel Emboldened (for now)

In some ways, I “othered” myself by coming out as trans. At least with my children and my family of origin, dwindling as it is. I highlighted yet another way we are not “the same” in this world. That shouldn’t be a problem, but of course, it is potentially mired by words like “deceived” and “liar.”

I struggled with that notion for a long time. Am I a “liar” in this world because it took me so long to disclose? Or, is this world, this country, so vehemently opposed to the legitimacy of my existence that I just didn’t have the shoulders for it?

I had to stop loathing myself. I had to then find love of myself. I had to examine so much of the script that was installed and slowly tease it apart, lift each feeling, each memory, to the light, and examine them closely for clarity. At least that’s how my mind works.

I had to know this was the only way forward for me. This isn’t some phase or flight of fancy. I’m far from a masochist, and my many years of therapy have kept my mental health in check, thank you.

If I was “lying” it is because the people who kept little me fed and sheltered told me it was essential to my existence, and their approval. They set a course with decided hard edges, and while I always used all the crayons, I also colored only inside the lines -with precision.

Puberty, as I experienced it, made them right and me wrong. Except it didn’t. I thought my only option was to accept what I “could not” change. I was suddenly big and broad and hairy all over. My voice deepened, even as the lilt remained. My hips still had a sway I actually wound up hiring a coach to “butch” outta me. (Didn’t work.) And I’ve always had this big ass. I’m fortunate in that I paint up pretty, but my overall size creates a bit of a wall to this day.

Puberty felt like the confirmation of all they told me about myself, none of which fit. So I hollowed myself out to don the uniform of masculinity and still got knocked around in school by the boys. But I wasn’t a boy, you see. Despite whatever physical evidence contradicted me. I was the girl it was okay for the boys to knock around with impunity. Seldom did anyone come to my rescue -they told me to stand up for myself. Um, what?

I stood up for myself when I told them who I was.

I stood up for myself when I played with my dolls, designed dresses and played with hair and makeup, and wrote in my diary.

I stood up for myself when I tried to draw a distinction no one wanted to entertain with a moment’s air.

They told me to knock it off as they took their turns knocking me down. What they wanted me to do was have physical altercations with the boys. I frustrated them when I refused, and I got hit harder and more often. But damn could I run fast.

It will never make complete sense to me that so many wanted to hurt me physically. In my home and in school. I had a violent upbringing my siblings never thought was violent enough. That right there is trauma. Abuse. I lived it for the better part of my first 15 years until I began insisting on changes that would help me to survive, if not thrive.

What I have come to know is that I was entirely correct about myself all along. I knew myself from the very beginning. But as an adult, I had to unlearn a whole lot of shit to allow her to see the light of day. I kept my essence locked away for her own good. Like I was told. And shown. Every. Damn. Day. My childhood was exhausting, and I ran from it as soon and as often as I could.

It took me a very long time to notice I carried that childhood with me everywhere to which I escaped. That was not obvious to me until my first marriage crashed and burned spectacularly. Therapy, and two beautiful children to raise, kept me alive at all. I started the process then of sorting through the rubble. I started then to lay the groundwork for what would take another 22 years to begin to accept.

I came into this world trans. I saw it -and they saw it- from the beginning. I was never like the other boys. But my parents misbelieved, as too many (mostly religionist, now) parents today misbelieve -that trans isn’t real. They misbelieved ignoring it would make it go away. They escalated ignoring to insisting it away. Insisting became physical violence. And emotional abuse. All because what I knew challenged what they misbelieved.

The majority most often doesn’t do a great or benevolent job when it comes to making room for a decided minority.

That’s why big moves on our behalf come at a federal level. A more collective level. Civil rights. The “mixing” of races. Same-sex marriage. The right of adults to decide who is in their bedroom and what they do together. The right to contraception. Bodily autonomy. The big things we would not have were it not for the intervention of Our Supreme Court, a body currently overwhelmed by ideology and agenda, barreling us toward fascism. “We” put bullies in charge of the highest court in our land. And now the ACTUAL majority will pay the price for a nasty and UnGodly minority, now asserted.

The majority of people in my little town, like those in my house, didn’t want to know about me. I came to learn most people in this nation didn’t or don’t want to know about me. What does that say about Me?

Nothing. The answer is nothing. It says everything about them, not me. But can you begin to get why it took me so many years to sort all this shit?

It takes a whole lot of temerity to stand up and say to most of the rest of the world, “I am valid. I am precious. I matter.” Even as most of you say I do not. Silence is complicity, by the way. My grandmother used to say, “right’s right and wrong’s nobody.” It isn’t right to harm trans people just because you don’t want to understand us. You don’t have to understand. If you’d just stop resisting the fact that we know and understand ourselves, that’d be good.

Within the broader trans community, I am just one. Over here, I’m not special. We all are special. We all are Rare. And we see one another because we are connected in showing up trans. From there, we are as different and varied as the population at large. But I gotta tell you it feels great to hang with folks who get me. Every out trans person I know is a model of courage. Every. One.

Yo. If I was ever “groomed” for anything it was to be cishet. Didn’t take. You can’t beat the cis into me or the trans out of me. You can’t even kill it outta me. I will die as this, just as I came to be as this. I am.

Do I cringe when a trans person is involved with a heinous crime? Yep.

Do I cringe when a trans person expresses themselves well outside even the loosest bounds of polite society and creates an unhelpful spectacle? Yep.

Am I still untangling my own internalized transphobia? Yep.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be done. I’m not done dealing with my first 15 years, and I’ve been wrestling that stint for 41 years!

But you know what I have ALWAYS tried to do? Be gracious. Be kind. Learn more. Learn to unlearn. Live and let live. It never once occurred to me to roll myself up in the politics of my oppressors, legislate against my own, and go on the news to talk about it while I fuck rent boys on the side.

And yet, here we are with today’s ugly republican thugs. The only thing many of them are better at than Hate legislation and spewing misinformation is Grindr.

There are relationships in my life that will take time to heal, and maybe never can. It’s one more price I may have to pay for authenticity. But I now know authenticity matters More than other people’s hurt feelings. I honestly have a lot I want to do. A lot I have to do. Feel driven to do. Someone else may have to mop up after themselves, because that in’t my job. Not anymore.

So like I said, in coming out yet again, (there’s nothing more to reveal -I swear) perhaps I have othered myself to those for whom our bond relied on me portraying a man. I’ve retired the role in favor of being fully and only Me.

If you knew me at all before, you know me now. Mascara (especially the good stuff) can work wonders, but it doesn’t change a human being. And this isn’t about mascara. Or a dress. Or a hairstyle.

I was born in late 1965 at a time in America when it was commonplace to “sex” infants based on the perception of their genitalia. If it was far enough “out” they declared, “Boy!” If it was far enough “in” they declared, “Girl!” And God help anyone showing up in “ambiguity.”

That stub of infant flesh was subsequently supposed to set the course for my entire life. Who and “what” I was, the toys I was allowed to play with, how I would dress and interact, who I would marry, and the kind of parent I might one day be. Hell, even future vocations would be largely decided by it.

The fact that I felt no congruence whatever with any of the rules they laid before me was, to them, irrelevant.

They’d take me by force to a place comfortable for them. And many have.

Absurd, isn’t it? All of it. And it took me well into adulthood to learn this was all cultural bullshit. Born at a different time or into a different culture, I might have as easily been Revered. A shaman. A healer. With a dignified or even exalted place in the community exactly as I am. Rare. Exquisite. Precious.

As I came to accept myself, I see I don’t have a choice but to risk the “slings and arrows” that come with being a trans American in 2022. I did all the wrestling with “God” I will ever do. And the demons? The demons aren’t external things. They are carefully installed within people. Taught. Usually accompanied by a hymn.

And they’re quite real. The only way to exorcise the ones terrorizing my community is to Vote them out of public office.

My only choice was whether or not to raise my hand and say, “if you’re coming for “them,” you’re coming for Me, too.” Like I said, I’m something of a wall, and I got a big mouth. These days, I know how to square this shit off and block your sun. And I have a purple pen. There’s nothing I despise more than a bully.

I leave it to y’all to decide where it is you’ll stand. I got shit to do.

Peace, Lovelies

- MM

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