adrift

im struggling with the whole gender/sex thing. i cant be a guy. im not comfortable being seen as a woman. i even have a hard time typing woman in reference to myself. im rather at the end of the road here. (not suicidal, ok?) i dont know where to go from here. the one open lane, is something im not comfortable with, the other is beyond my reach. i know it sounds like more of the same same whining from me, and for that im sorry, but its eating at me. its like acid dripping me away.

im beginning to think that my idea of keeping the girl suit and accepting my life as a hidden man, was flawed.

and so the thrashing around within my bindings continues..........

Sent from my iPad

Oh my Sir!

You ARE happy to see me!

The Question

Steven over at thestateofthenationuk.blogspot.com has ended 5 on the fifth, in favor of something new, a thought provoking question is put to us. This month the question is

What you attempt if you know you could not fail?

That is the easiest question ever.

1) come out to EVERYONE

2) transistion, and live a full life, not this half hidden life that is strangling me.



What would your attempt be?

Of Fish and Birds, a guest post by T

Recently my friend Biki posted in blog "A fish may love a bird, but where will they live?" It is an interesting presentation so for all of us I will try to answer it.

The duality we all have in life whether we are any of the letters in LGBT is one of conflict. More often than not it is an internal one. It is our struggle to fit in a society that is ill prepared for us. Because of this ill preparation we are usually in the midst of defining our lives by standards and terms that really do not apply to us. We struggle.

What we need to discover is the power of love and creation. We must love who we are and who we want to be. We must love the journey that takes us wherever we will go. In that journey we should realize its success or failure is our creation. Like any traveller we can choose to flock to the masses or find our own path and enjoy the adventure on our terms.

Life has many obstacles, pit stops, even questions. Some may take our whole lives to figure out but that's fine. We are all works in progress, ever learning and changing. We are our choices and experiences. We are expression. Maybe that is the answer.

If there is no definition, space, or even feeling or thought about something express a new one. It does not have to be universal because our lives are our own.

So to answer my dear friend Biki I say this:

They live by the river, the lake, the sea. The bird soars proudly looking down upon its love always in sight. The fish gazes upward in joy. Diving forth the bird plunges through the watery surface for the brief foray to love's world. Bursting forth back to the air the fish surges up nudging the bird, a tantalizing embrace. It is not  a perfect love but who said love is perfect?

The boundaries in our lives are usually set by us and as long as we follow someone else's definition we will never embrace our love fully. Fish or bird, it's expression is our own and as long as we are happy with it then it is a perfect love. 

Love and create it's expression



Love is Never Wrong

by T http://links-of-love.blogspot.com/

"A fish may love a bird, but where will they live?"

I have no pronouns that "work". I'm happiest with the male pronouns, but not 'seen' as male so only female ones are attached to me. I dont feel female, but dont look male.

Sent from my iPad

Baka Hoka*

The traffic for the first few days scared the shit outta me. I haven't driven in heavy traffic since I was 18! So, huge learning curve there. The GPS who I have named "wife" cause she bitches at me when I dont manage to follow her orders, has for the most part done a great job getting me where I've wanted to go. There was one very odd day where "she" had me across the street from where I wanted/needed to be. Luckily I had a huge thirst for a frosty beverage of the coffee type, and there was the mother ship gleaming at me from across the street, Starbucks. And when I got out of my car and looked around.....yup! There was the store I was attempting to locate. But hey! I got to wander around a really cool unexpected store, so it's all good!

I've spent quite a bit of time driving around getting the odds and ends that I seem to need and had forgotten. Water purifier, measuring cups, bath rug, etc. As the days past, the comfort level with the traffic has increased, to the point where I'm taking the highway if the "wife" says to, and have actually charted a few trips without "her" guiding me along. Grid streets are a huge help to finding ones way about.

The other day after having a wrong address to a asian market I wanted to visit, decided to do a wander around one (!) of the huge local malls. I've never seen a cheesecake factory in person. Its well odd to see a chain restaurant selling mid-level food, looking like it has been transported from Vegas. I wandered into and out of many stores in the mall. Many of which I've never heard of. I mean I've heard of Lucky brand jeans, but didnt know they sold anything else! And actually bought two new shirts.

Girl shirts.

and I'm ok with em. Sure they arent very girly, or show chest or cleavage, but still.

While the main reason for me coming here was to get out of the cold for health reasons, and yes, I can't remember the last time I've felt this good, tis been a very long time. No limp, no brain fog, and the exhausted weight in my chest is gone. And now when I do get tired, its a 'normal' tired. I've stumbled across a surprised benefit, time to actually think about things.

A retreat in the desert, a time apart, a time to finally hear me, and to find out who I am without the context of the modifiers of wife and mother. And one thing that has become obvious to me, is that I submarine a lot of me to fill those rolls, something that makes me a stupid other*. If TH didnt like the person I was to begin with, he wouldnt have fallen in love with me. I've got to find him again. Because submerging so much of me has turned me into a stupid other*.

Sent from my iPad

Whew!

It's been very busy these last few days. When I left home, it was -35, and was a fantastic 70 here. OH! You'll never guess what occurred the day I left Alaska. I had texted eldest to see if he would like to meet up for supper, and possibly take me to the airport. He answered back, how about lunch with me and baby, AND I'll take you to the airport. And so he did! 'twas quite wonderful.

So, I get into Phoenix, did some texting with Newleaf, took a shower, changed clothing and we met for lunch. TH got in around 6 pm, safe and sound, that was a long, cold hard drive let me tell ya. I gave my list of apartments that looked good on the web to Newleaf, so he could plot it all out. The next day, Newleaf picked TH and I up, and off we go apartment hunting. By noon, we had found the one we wanted and started the process of getting all our ducks in a line to make it ours.

Newleaf took us to a magical land by the name of Ikea. Zomg, it's completely fantastical! We walked thru the entire store, something that IS rather a PIA, because if you only want to visit one select area, one must still wander through the entire store, small moment of grrrr for that. We all had a nice dinner, and Newleaf showed me how to use the garmin gps.

Yesterday morning, TH and I wake up bright and early and head over to the apartment to sign the lease, and get the keys. Then off to a whirl of shopping. Ikea for furniture, Walmart for dishes and even though I though we had decided on not splurging on a tv for me, TH bought me a nice tv. Back to the apartment to dump that stuff off, then onto the grocery store. After getting the food put away, we were completely trashed tired. We ate some left overs, good thing I can never eat all of my dinners, yeah? And we're dead asleep by 9. Yes, sigh, by 9. And the alarm rang all to early at 5 am. TH got a shower, we ate and was at the front lobby by 6 for the ride to the airport.

And so the adventure begins.

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Acceptance and Peace

 

Today, I was sitting on the sofa re-reading a favorite manga series, when my phone chimed a calendar alert.  Having no clue to as what I have scheduled I pull it out of my pocket, and oh, its my "Out of the Closet Birthday".  Whoa, has it been a year already?  A warm feeling filled me, and unlike last year when I was a baby at accepting me and learning who I was, there wasn't any fear or grief, only a pleasant feeling of.....love.  For quite possibly the first time in my entire life the war that screamed in my head of self hate and disgust had faded into a dull whisper.  It had faded so slowly that I never noticed the loss of the internal cacophony that had raged within me.  Feeling love and not disgust, being at peace with who I am, and not what I'm not is quite pleasant.

Am I happy when I see a girl looking back at me from the mirror?  Well, no of course not.  But girl and I are learning to work together a bit better.

The trick is how to integrate the outer shell with the inner true self, not an easy feat, at least for me. 

Looking back on this year, it was a year of growth and acceptance, a year learning how to be the most authentic self possible.  There have been several stumbles, and a few landslides, and several successes.  My one big success is dressing to please me, not others.  And the only time I dressed to please someone else caused a huge upheaval, and later a melt down when the wedding photos arrived from 3rd son.  I've determined if indeed youngest son gets married next year, I will stand to my personal guns and go in some sort of pants.  The day of me in a dress are over.

I leave tonight for my "Great Adventure".  Yes, that's what I've decided to call it, sounds ever so much more exciting than "wintering for my health", yeah?  For the first time ever, I and no one else will be master of my time, of what I do, what I wear, of my entire world.  After endless days of whining about being afraid, the fear is gone, and I'm rock steady.  I am ready to go, excited to go.  And sad to say, ready for TH to fly home leaving me to my own devices.  What I do find interesting is that my trip coincides with my closet b'day.  Rather a total re-boot of my life.

Unlike last year, when the future scared me down to my atoms, I'm racing into my future, happy and laughing.  This year could well prove to be a pivotal year as a trans person.  Ditching the parts of me that only hold me back, clinging tight to the things that really matter.

My only fear is that TH wont fit into my new view of who I truly am, not who I'm expected to be.  But, as my grandmother used to tell me, "don't bother trouble, until trouble bothers you."  If indeed this fear of mine comes true, I'll cross that bridge tomorrow.  Damn!  I sound rather like Scarlet O'Hara when she said, "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."  But she rather had it right, don't ya think?  We can worry ourselves into a frazzle about something that may never come to pass.

Candy Canes of Death and Destruction

Ok, not really....but man, if they sold those evil little crooks of minty sweetness all year 'round?  I'd be in a sugar coma non-stop.  I have absolutely no will power to resist them, zero ability to not power them down.  Rather like a beaver....I gnaw and suck, and chew and bite and lick.....and sigh tis all gone... sigh.  So what do I do then?  OPEN ANOTHER ONE!!!  YIPPEE!!!  What you don't know is that it can take me several days to finish a candy bar the size of a Hersey's, so yeah... I have it bad for these thank gods only seasonal treats.

I've been a bad blogger, and haven't updated my blogs, and only sporadically read and commented.  Sorry about that folks, but winter has me in her cold and dark talons and I'm lucky to get outta bed.  It's gotten to the point of the year where I have to decide if I cook dinner OR shower cause I dont have enough energy to do both.  A good day for me now is to manage both, which leaves me weak the next day.  I sure do hope my winter sojourn to Arizona gives me back some semblance of life, I'm well tired of flying a sofa thru my day.

Last Christmas was such a disaster, TH and I almost gave away or threw out everything that had anything to do with Christmas.  Early in November 3rd son, called me and said, "Turkey day is at our house this year.  What would you like to bring, the turkey?  hint, hint, hint..."  "Hahahaha!  Sure kiddo, I'll do the turkey."  Turkey day was a huge success, and yeah the turkey was tasty too. ;-p  Eldest and his wife didn't show, which is why it was a drama and stress free zone.  In fact it went so well, TH and I decided to give Christmas a try again.  However being so burned from last year, we went in a different direction.  No decorations, no gifts to each other, only for the kids and baby, and a non-traditional dinner menu.  I went with a super bowl theme.  We had hot wings, teriyaki wings, hot german potato salad, green salad, yeast rolls and desserts.  I did make gingerbread, but its a cake like thingy, and we never made it for Christmas, traditionally I made it during fire wood cutting days.  The guys would come in all cold and tired and be met with the fantastic smell of gingerbread.  While we never had a wood burner, TH cut many cords of wood for elder neighbors, or families where the husband was north working, and didnt have time to get their wood 'in'.

We called all the boys, even the one who is currently living in Minneapolis, we didn't want him feeling left out.  I had picked the Friday before Christmas, thinking that would work for everyone.  However, youngest had a 'do' at his GF's father's home, so we scooted it back to Thursday.  I didn't manage to get eldest on the phone, so finally ended up texting him about the date change, and he never answered my text, which TH and I took to mean, he wouldn't be attending.

Monday the temperatures started to climb up the scale until we hit +30!  Whoo-hooo!!!!  And they held pretty much consistent, which made me functional.  Halli-fucking-lula!  The day started out with building the brine for the wings, and off to the desserts, the afore mentioned gingerbread, peanut butter cookies, and a cookie we christened 'dutch crunchies' due to none of us being able to pronounce them.  Call them what you will, these are great cookies!  Then the steamer was drug into duty for the potato salad, and while I was working up the dough for the rolls, my nerves started to ramp up.  TH had the same haunted look around his eyes as well.  By 6 the wings were done, the rolls in the oven, and we waited for the doorbell to ring.............

3rd son and bride came first.  The door bell rang again, and thinking it was youngest and gf, I answered the door, and almost fell over, it was eldest with the baby, and no wife.  It was awkward for a moment or two, and then he leaned over and gave me a hug, and on the way back up, I bussed baby's cheek.  The fact that DIL (the daughter in law) wasn't in tow wasn't spoke of.  Shortly after eldest arrival, youngest came with gf.  Now bride and gf dont get along really well, and its a silly reason really, but we were hoping they could get along for the evening, and they did!  So, that leaves TH and I wondering how much of the friction between these girls is made worse by DIL? 

The night was a total success!  It was easy like it was before DIL came with her drama, and her need to be the center of attention, and her need to stir up conflict.  We laughed, everyone played with the baby, we ate, talked, told stories, and everyone had fun playing with baby and her new toys.  When everyone left, youngest told TH to wait it out, he thinks things will get better, so we shall see.  TH and I went to bed happier than we had been in many a day.

I'm almost completely packed for my trip.  TH leaves Thursday morning in my packed car, and I fly out the 3rd.  Since we have air tickets and a hotel room, the trip is a concrete thing.  I'm getting better with the idea of being alone without TH for 4 months.  We can't afford for him to come down very often, so yeah it will be a swim situation.  Sinking is NOT an option.  I know I can do this, I know I can.

Merry Christmas!

           Merry Christmas to one and all!

with affection and gratitude,
                                          Biki

And The Winner is........................TH!

For years now, TH has been attempting to have me go to a warmer climate for most of the winner, and every year I've dug my heels in and refused to go.  Why?  For many various reasons, but the two most important boil down to:
1) I'd miss TH like crazy
2) believe it or not, I'm a shy person in real life and slow to open up.  I'm fantastic with the superficial stuff, like with clerks and waitstaff.  But put me in a social situation, and I'm at a loss, sigh.

But after years of quiet wrangling back and forth, never a fight, never a cross word, just that defeated look in TH's eyes when I again refuse to go, and again fall ill due to the cold and dark, I finally gave in.  This September when I hied off to Atlanta to visit Steve and his hubby and go to the concert, I couldnt believe how good I felt.  No painful joints, loads of energy, and my allergies were much improved, and then it hit me I am stone dead tired of being ill all the damned time.  I love and adore Alaska, but it seems the love is rather one sided as the climate here isnt all that good for me.

So, January 3rd will find me on a plane to Arizona.  TH is driving my wee car down for me, and then flying home after a few days visit.  And then it will just be me, alone.........for the first time in my life.  I went from home (not that my homelife was all that good, but I knew my place in that world), to college, and then to TH and later the boys. 

Knowing that unless I make a huge giant effort, I'll spend the 4 months alone, I've come up with what I hope is a workable plan.   It's a mix of taking some classes and hopefully some volunteer work.  I've found a place that rescues homeless teens, some of them are street kids while others are removed from their families by the courts.  They ofer the older teens classes in life skills, and that is something I would be good teaching.  Even better?  They serve LGBT teens, which is something that is vastly underserved as you know.

As for classes?  Well.................I'm a rabid knitter, yeah.  My grandmother taught me to knit.  Early on she discovered the trick to shut me up was to fully engage my brain.  My poor grandmother, I know that I drove that poor woman to distraction. After grandmother passed away angel uncle took over teaching me knitting.  If I dont have something on a set of needles, I feel restless and at loose ends.  Its what I do while tv watching.  If I just watch tv without doing something else, I become like a caged lion and pace, and get jittery.  Yeah, me and tv not the best of combos.  Lately my passion for knitting is for socks.  I dont go in for the fancy stitched socks, but just brightly colored socks.  These all were knitted these last six months.

But in the world of knitting there is loads of stuff I dont know how to do, or an easier method to do something, so knit classes here I come!  Ya know how it is, sitting with people all engrossed in the same pursuit, tis mega easy to chat, and if nothing comes out of meeting these knitters, at least its time not spent alone, so that's to the good.  Maybe I'll take a language course, a wire jewelry class, maybe a tai chi class, which is something that has interested me, but never had a chance to take, who knows the sky is the limit, yeah? 

And if you are curious as to if I'll still be blogging during this time?  Hellz yeah!

tis been a while

Hello All!

Yeah, I know that I've been gone awhile again.  Remember that virus that laid me out?  Well, ya see, for some reason that crazy assed virus got to comfy living in me, and wouldnt move on.  For the most part, I've been sofa surfing and bed lounging.  Long dark days where I slept more than was awake.  Long nights of no sleep, my longest stretch was 28 hours and then only napped for 3 hours, and was up again for over 24.

Part of the issue is I have a compromised immune system which is worsened by the cold.  Yeah, lucky me huh?  It's been a bit warmer of late, and so I'm feeling a bit better, don't know how long it will last, but one must enjoy every morsel, yeah?

So, what occupied my waking hours?  Hmm, lets see......ok I watched way way to much tv.  I watched so much of Mythbusters, my all time favorite show, next to Star Trek, that I can tell in what order certain scenes were filmed.  How?  Well, some by the size of Kari's tummy the year she was preggers.  By the healing of scrapes and burns, and ultimately wardrobe.  No, really!  But one must watch episode after episode to see what order the clips were filmed.

I've read loads.  No, let me repeat that, I read LOADS AND LOADS.......there that's better!  I'm what most people would classify as an eclectic reader, and most of the books I read are e-books.  Why?  Well, many of the inks and glues burn my hands, however a more precise view honestly is, what bookstore is open at 2 am?  Exactly, none are, but Kindle and iBooks never close! Whoo-hoo!!  Books available 24 hours a day!  Now that is my idea of heaven on earth.

Here are just a few from my "hit" parade.
"the kids from nowhere" The Story Behind the Arctic Educational Miracle by George Guthridge

 Life in most of Alaska is vastly different from the "lower 48".  We seem to view things differently here, and for the most part it isnt what you wear, what you do for a living, what you drive or even what your home looks like, if indeed you have one that you're judged by, but its who you are, if your word is able to be trusted that matters.  But as different as the larger towns here are from y'all, the villages are a world apart from everyone.  To a great extent they are still tied, willingly mind you, to the tides and seasons of the year.  Honestly to me they lead a much more authentic lifestyle, than our acquisition centered lifestyle.  They live in the here and the now, not next week, month, year but now.

George drags his family to an extremely remote corner of Alaska, and yeah I hear what you're thinking, and yes they can see Russia from their house on a clear day.  Schools as a whole in Alaska are rather dismal, but schools in villages are the absolute dregs.  We get the teachers that no one else will take, the fresh faced kids right out of a large school from the 'states' who think teaching in Alaska will be.....sigh "romantic".  But every so often we capture a rare gem, and George is the rarest of the rare, he battled the other teachers to prove these kids were teachable.  Found ways to reach these kids who scholarship was just a waiting time until their real lives could start, where school honestly to them was a monumental waste of time.  These kids are all ESL (English as a second language) who had grave issues writing in English, as Yupik is arranged differently than English.  George was tossed into teaching a class on Future Problem Solving, without any resources or experience, and in two years took two groups to the nationals, and won fighting against enormous odds.  Before you have a chance to think,  "ahh, one of those pat myself on the back books", no no George is quite clear that while he pushed them forward, it was the kids who were motivated to win.  The first year they wanted to win because they knew they would be the only Eskimo team competing in Anchorage, and wanted the chance to prove they were more than whale hunters, the second year they wanted to score better to show that their last placement wasn't a fluke.

Dragon's path by Daniel Abraham

A solid book, there were several characters that really stole my breath with how well Daniel managed to "draw" them.  I'm not quite sure how to classify this book, I'd suppose fantasy as at one point in time there were dragons, but they aren't any left when the book takes place.  There isnt any magic, at the heart of the story is political intrigue and how the most far flung person can cause epic changes.  What I liked about this book the most was that their world is populated by many different types of people, think Star Trek with the mix of all the cultures/beings, and ya got it.  Some of these beings were created by dragons to be servants, and as in any society there is class distinction, and racism.  Daniel draws his people with a deft hand, and isnt shy about peeling away the thin veneer of society and showing the raw underbelly many people possess.  There is one character who did a deed so vile, so horrific I had to put the book down for awhile.  But then, y'all know my low threshold for violence.

Josh Lanyon

I adore Josh's writing, and haven't found anything he's written that I haven't loved.  What is it about his writing that draws me?  Hmm.....his word usage, his playfully smart dialog, and his everyman characters.  He is to use a rarely used term, witty.

My first introduction to his work was the Adrien English Series.  Adrien is a owner of a mystery bookstore who keeps getting drawn into murder investigations, the first of which because he was a "person of interest" to the police, and was afraid if he didnt investigate he would be railroaded straight to jail.  As the case unfolds a very unlikely romance develops between Adrien and Jake.  Jake is everything that Adrien hates, a closeted man, but something about Jake gets under Adrien's skin.  Adrien has a mom that worries about him non-stop as Adrien has a bum ticker, and is honestly not healthy.  As Adrien works his way through the murder of his high school best friend and more currently employee, he fights with his mom about moving back home, works to keep the store staffed, and tries to figure out what to do about Jake.  There be sex here, but unlike many m/m books tis a book that includes sex as a normal part of Adrien's life, not a word porn book with just enough plot to hang a story on.

Take The Lead by Johnny Diaz

Johnny's book is a loving portrayal of a son's love for his dad who is dealing with the debilitating effects of Parkinson's while he navigates through the dating world.  Gabriel is a college professor who has moved from Miami to Boston, leaving his family behind.  All is well with Gabriel's world until he realizes that his father needs help, and he begins to look for something, anything that will help his dad move better.  Then he finds an article on how dancing improves some of the issues Parkinson's patients have, and while exploring the dance class he begins to crush on the dance teacher, Adam. 



Ooku: The Inner Chambers by Fumi Yoshinaga

Manga about the Edo period in Japan where a strange new disease called "Red Pox" has begun to kill the country's men, and continues to do so until there is only a quarter of the men left.  This manga explores how society would change to accommodate this occurrence.  Men become too valuable to use for manual labor, war is a thing of the past as they cant be so easily thrown away.  The Shogun is now a woman who has an "inner court" ie concubines of over 800 men. An unbelievable wealth in a society where every man is cherished.  Men no longer work, but are cosseted and cared for, and women pick up the slack doing traditionally male centered jobs.  The main portion of the series takes place in the inner court and the repercussions it has on all of these men who have no outlet for their sexual needs, their needs to having something to strive for and against.  And so they plot and conspire against each other.  When one young handsome man comes in, the men who have been there longer take an instant dislike to him, and after dark rape him.  A very multi layered series.  It reads from the "back" of the book to the front right to left on each page.  If you only try one manga, this might be a good one to try.  Like 99% of manga available only in print form.

And if you were curious as to just how dark it is in the winter here during the day?  Well, we havent yet approached the darkest day yet, but it sure feels like it.

This was taken at 2:30 pm.  Yeah just a typical day here in the frozen north.  If I think about it, I'll do a picture tomorrow at noon, yeah?

See y'all soon!

Merry Turkey Day!

                        

Happy Thanksgiving!

It seems as if we mostly only hear gloom and doom in our daily life.  The cable news networks seem to enjoy breaking our hearts with daily stories of rapes, murders and worse.  I'm not sure why bad news is such a draw over happier, uplifting stories.  Could it be that we are that jaded?  Or is our daily life so devoid of joy, that we really can only bear to see people worse off than us?

Hmmm…….what I think is really going on, is that big horrid occurrences DO draw in the viewers, but the day to day updates on a missing person or murder trials seems more like a reality show.  We turn in to see what's up with the hunt for the missing human, or to see how the prosecution is doing against the lawyers for the defense, and somehow thru the medium of the tv, it looses its 'realness' and becomes little different than "Big Brother" or "Survivor".  Both are similar really, they both have their 'villains' their 'heroes' and of course a winner that we hash over days after that current cycle of the show ends.  But, today I'm doing a happy story, a true story, a story that needs a wider audience, because this man is a shining star indeed.

Jimmy Creech was a United Methodist minister, yes past tense, he is an unsung hero of the trenches of fighting hand to hand for marriage rights for all Americans, and for his unrepentant fight he was defrocked.  Jimmy felt the pull to be a pastor, he loved nothing more than holding his parishioners hands and hearts in their time of need, spreading the God he knew, which was a God of love and of peace.  This is a man who lives the word of God, no shilly shalling about, he believes what he preaches.

Like most people who don't realize they know LGBTQ humans, Jimmy was typical in his blindness to their daily struggles to live a 'normal' life.  While in his office one fine morning one of his flock came into his office saying how he was finished with the Methodist church.  How Adam refused to support or attend a church that hated him.  Jimmy calmed him down and pulled the reason out of him.  This is what drove 'Adam' from his church of birth;

"The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching. We affirm that God’s grace is available to all. We will seek to live together in Christian community, welcoming, forgiving, and loving one another, as Christ has loved and accepted us.  We implore families and churches not to reject or condemn lesbian and gay members and friends. We commit ourselves to be in ministry for and with all persons." (1)

Adam's grief and anger ripped the blinders from Jimmy's eyes, and he began a spiritual quest to seek the answers.  This is a quest that began in 1984 and still continues to this day.  At one of his church trials, this is what Jimmy had to say about how he felt that God, the bible and his faith intersect;
"It is my belief that the position taken by The United Methodist Church regarding same-gender unions, as well as that regarding "the practice" of homosexuality, is wrong, unjust, discriminatory and inconsistent with the spirit of Christ and our Wesleyan and Methodist traditions…"

"Sexual orientation is not a moral issue; it is morally neutral.  Sexual ethics are simple: sexual relationships should be mutual, non-exploitative, nurturing and loving.  What is immoral are unequal, exploitative, abusive and unloving sexual acts toward another person.  This is true regardless of the orientation of the persons involved.  I believe that sexual activity which is considered moral when practiced by two people of different genders, is no less moral when practiced by two people of the same gender.  The crucial test is whether the activity is mutual, non exploitative, nurturing and loving.

I believe that the sin of heterosexism is no less a sin than that of racism.  While some of the dynamics may be different, they are fundamentally identical in nature as an expression of a dominate culture over another.

Just as it was the church in the South that perpetuated racism so that slavery and white supremacy could have legitimacy, the Christian church has been responsible, more than any other institution, for perpetuating the sin of heterosexism as a form of control over what is feared within all of us: the mystery of human sexuality and intimacy (sexual or non-sexual) with persons of the same gender.

Because of the heterosexism taught and practiced by the institution of the Christian church, countless young people have committed suicide, adults have lived lifetimes of lies, families have been destroyed, gay men and lesbians have been cruelly treated and murdered, the spirit and lives of millions of gay people have been crippled, and they have been told that the love of God is denied to them because of who they are, and will continue to be unless they become other than who they are.."(2)

This is a man who loved being a pastor, who loved ministering to his flock, and worked hard at his job, who took a pay decrease when times were tough at his church.  Even though he lost one church due to his stance on believing, no strike that, he knew that God and Jesus loved all of his children, gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual and transgender, that Jesus would have welcomed all into his church, and allowing all to marry.  After getting a chance at a new church, Jimmy didn't blanch or hedge his bets, he carried on, trying to make the new church more inclusive, more open to lgbt humans, causing the church to split in two factions, the group that grew to understanding that God loved all humans no matter of their sexuality, and the group that lives in the past with hate and bigotry. 

Jimmy's work caused him to lose this new church, and later be defrocked, which for a man who believes in God and his church was wrenching, but once he stepped off the curb and marched in his first gay pride parade, carrying a banner saying that God loved all his children, he never looked back, never wavered, never changed his stance, his tone, his belief.

If you 'know' me, you'll pick up quite quickly that I'm not a religious person.  I was raised going to church on Sundays, summer bible school and the whole 9 yards.  Even as a small person however, I saw the hypocrisy in singing, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so" and then listening to the 'pastor's' hate filled preaching, at that point in time, the hate was spewed towards the blacks.  This was the time period of the race riots, freedom marches and the beginning of desegregation of schools.

I lived in an apartment complex that primarily served military families, I was the only kid in our square whose daddy wasn't in the military.  I had friends who were black, who were half asian, latino, heck it didnt matter to me what color they were, still doesn't.  We were a rainbow, and got along great with each other.  From making mud pies, to playing pick up games of football, racing around on our bikes, and sharing lunches, and following the mail man every single day all of us talking to him at once, I knew these kids were no different from me.  The flyleaf of my children's bible was Jesus surrounded by children, and they were from all over the world.  I remember laying on the floor one sweltering hot summer day, (this is when only the rich had air conditioning!) and looking at my bible, and remembering the 'message' from the previous Sunday, and I couldn't get what I knew to be true, and what a man of "God" said about blacks. 

So began my quest for answers.  No one was safe from my questioning, and I never did receive an answer that satisfied me.  And as the young and innocent will often do, I came to my own conclusions, I was right, the adults were wrong, God did love us all, even the stupid.

Give Jimmy's book a try, and see if he doesn't make you feel just a wee bit better that not every christian in the whole world hates the lgbt humans, and gives you hope that times are a changing.

"Adam's Gift: A Memoir of a Pastor's Calling to Defy the Church's Persecution of Lesbians and Gays"
376 pages
Publisher: Duke University Press books (March 14, 2011)

Hardcover from Amazon.com is 19.77
Kindle version from Amazon is 16.47

(1) United Methodist Church doctrine
(2) Adam's Gift by Jimmy Creech  (i'm sorry i cant give you the page number, my copy is a kindle book)

It's all about love, yeah?
                                        Hope your thanksgiving was a happy day filled with laughter and hugs.

Beyond the binary

An incident occurred while I was at the Trans conference that I've never written about.  Why?  Well, I was totally overwhelmed at the conference, without a doubt it was an entire weekend of overloaded circuits, and I wanted to make sure that there was process time between the occurrence and the writing about.  While I finally had it all worked out in my mind ages ago, I didn't feel the need to write about until now, but something R.J. said in her comment to my last post, sparked the need to talk about it.

I have been discriminated against by a couple of T girls for not having transitioned and I never understood it. by R.J.

Fledging me was sitting at one of the dinners at the conference, chatting happily with the people sitting at my table.  Dinner was over and there was a great deal of table hopping going on.  The two ladies next to me, took their purses and disappeared into the mix.  The lady on the other side asked me to save her seat, as she need to use the restroom.   I'm sitting all happy as a puppy, sipping the last of my beer, when this lady I didn't know, but had seen here and there around plopped down next to me. 

Working on the confidence I'd gained over the past couple of days, I greeted her first, with a happy welcoming smile on my face.  Not the reserved one that I usually wear.  And then, the other shoe fell hard on my neck.  This is the gist of our "conversation".  Conversation is in quotes, because really it was an interrogation. 

Her:  So, we have all been wondering about you.  Just what do you think you are?

Me:  Umm, what do you mean?

Her:  WHAT do you THINK you are? 

Me: ……………..

Her: (very condescendingly) Are you a guy or a girl?

Me:  Oh!  I'm a guy. Why?

Her:  Well, you have earrings on, nail polish and boobs.  You were confusing us.

Me:  My earrings are guys, and if you'd look around, you'd see most of the transmen wearing earrings.  I have on polish sure, but its black and left over from the decades dance.  I was a rocker and forgot to purchase the special remover this polish requires, So I left it.  And yeah I have boobs, my body is female.

Her:  You should bind and not wear earrings and polish so not to confuse us.

At this point I was beyond speechless.  Heretofore I didn't realize this event was policed by the styling mafia.  Did I mention her ill fitting wig?  Or the poorly applied makeup?  I did not.  Why?  It wasn't any of my damned business.

One sweet transguy asked to sit with me, said he wanted to talk to me.  This was after the interrogation, and I was leery to say the least.  But he was sweet, and kind and we really hit it off.  At the end he asked me if he could use me as an example to his therapist.  It seems the therapist has a very narrow view of what it means to be male, and an even narrower world view of what being a trans person should be.  He actually said, "You've given me hope that I don't have to cookie cutter myself to be trans.  I want to model myself on you."

Well, knock me over with a feather!  I was surprised to say the least.  At this time I still hadn't dove deep into the trans pool and both of those responses took me by surprise.

And this is what I was talking about in the last post, of trans people policing their fellow trans so very closely.  What do the transmen think?  I'm not really sure actually, as a whole they are very quiet.  This is a really representative view of what a great deal of transsexual women feel. 

Transgender is a term created by a transvestite to rename her kind to a more acceptable sounding word. Virginia Prince so named herself and others of her kind such in the late 1970s. Since that time the LGBT political mongers have included everyone who is gender variant under that term. It is predominantly Gay Males who want us included in their psycho-sexual world. This gives them some sort of vindication that they are the same as us. Not even close.
A transsexual person is dealing with a congenital birth defect. This is a medical fact. Therefore there is no possible way we are the same thing. Ours is medical theirs is sexual and political.
What occurred with the ENDA mess has verified just how bad this word is to us. We are grouped with the TGs and that is part of the problem. This effects us in work, housing, and every other part of our lives and being associated with them is damaging us politically. While we may all have differences within ourselves in so far as our sexual orientation we who are transsexuals all have the common bond of the medical issue. Ours is gender identity and not sexual orientation.

…………yeah…..ok……….whatever

But really, this is what a great deal of the rhetoric I hear around the blogworld when I hang out in the transsexual spaces.  I heard much much hate towards the cross dressers.  And how they screw up their ability to gain civil rights due to their outrages actions, and the fact they only dress as women now and then, so no one will believe them.  Sound familiar?  How many times have I heard guys complain about the flamers in their wee spangled thongs at pride fest, and how it makes the rest of the "normal" gay world look bad?

I do have to agree that cross dressers do seem to cause a chilling effect on the trans world in winning civil rights.  Makes it seem more of a "game" than a "real" problem.  However, its the "haves" that are causing the ripples in the trans pool, we are just silly enough to allow those ripples to cause class war within the trans ranks.

Most of the transgender people I've been lucky enough to meet, either in the flesh, or in the virtual world all say, they knew they were different from a very early age.  They don't quite fit comfortably within the body they were given.  They don't have the extreme form of needing surgery to feel whole, they are more of a blend than a mono-gendered person.  And after a struggle session, have come to terms with who they are a beautiful blend of male and female, or they realize they have no gender.  I think this song from the Disney movie Mulan is quite apt as to what most of us feel at one time or another.



Truthfully I've more or less decided not to attend the trans conference this winter.  But I will go back, perhaps next year when I have more a concrete platform nailed down.  And when I do come back, it will be to host a program, of which I already have a name for, "There is more than one way to be Trans, and all of them are right."

My response to the militant transsexuals?  Is this quote, The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself. --Robert Ingersol

The Barrier Method

When society closes its doors of privilege to certain people the stress it causes the shut-outs is immense.  So immense that just being a member of this shut-out group lowers life expectancy, and increases substance abuse, and in some groups lowers the age of sexual activity.  What I find fascinating is how each and every marginalized group goes through the exact same steps, no matter who the group is or when the marginalization occurs.

There are quite often physical signs telling the group they are not allowed, as with both the Irish and the Blacks.  Then their are the hidden signs but they are clear nevertheless, as in Jewish people not being allowed to join country clubs or professional societies.  Or the unspoken, unwritten rules regarding LGBT's in the work force.

While the majority really gives little if any thought to the hated "group du jour", the outsiders give massive amounts of thought to living within the restrictive confines allotted to them.  Which is why when each and every hated group begins to demand their civil rights, the majorities response is usually the same to each group. 
"We've done so much for them!  They need to be grateful for all we have given them!"

"Well!  They need to know their place! And stop flaunting themselves around."

"I have nothing against ____.  In fact I have a friend that's ____."

"Let's go slumming and hang out at the _____club.  They are such a fun 'people'."

"The bible says ….."

Within group du jour life is often arbitrary and conflicting.  Some members are picked out by the majority society and are considered "better" than the rest of the shut-outs, which quite often starts a chasm within that group, that is often unable to ever be repaired.  And because of this arbitrary mark of being allowed certain access to the majority of society, the shut-outs often fall into inter-group bickering about which members of the group is more deserving of the largess of society. 

When only scraps of the pie are given to marginalized people, what's left over is quite often fought over without any thought to sharing.  And this is where I feel the LGBT is today, especially the T.  Each letter of our rainbow has a certain faction that feels some level of hatred towards members of their own letter, and dissatisfaction towards the inclusion of certain other of the letters to the rainbow.  All of the infighting stems from the 'haves' of society cherry picking which members of the shut-outs are less objectionable to them. 

And so we have gay men often looking down on the femme more flamboyant gay men, the men who really can't hide who they are.  However, if you think about it, its the flamboyant men who were first accepted into certain areas of the 'haves' lives, fashion, decorating, and theater for example.  Now if a femme wanted to teach school? Heavens above, like that would ever fly!  So, we have the more blend-able men being able to do most any job, and the femme guys regulated to only certain areas of society.  But the blend-able men also suffer, and mightily so, in order to keep their wee corners of ledge they had to hide and lie about who they were.  The femms were free to be 'out' but only in certain situations, and so are curtailed on their own ledge.


In the transgender group, t women who can 'pass' consider themselves better, much better.  Lately an interesting new chasm has arisen with the trans group, that is of transsexuals not wanting to be grouped in with the transgendered, in any way whatsoever.  Reading many of the transsexual's posts one gets the feeling t girls feel superior to the transgendered members.  Cutting the group into ever finer slices transsexuals who have had SSR feel they are more authentic women than those who are still intact and are tucking.  All of this infighting has lead many transgendered folks away from the T and to the Q.  Many of them call themselves genderqueer because there is much less binary thinking within the Q than within the T.  If you want to see a conservative group, just look within the T's.  Many of them rigidly hold on to the binary gender rules, and woe to anyone who doesn't want to fit into their neat box, or who can't.

Many people in the LGBTQ feel that the T or the Q for that matter, don't belong within their rainbow, say its not the same thing at all.  Well, yes it is the same thing, but you have to be willing to see the larger picture, and not the narrow one.  Many T's at one point in their journey are considered to be either gay or lesbian. M2F's who are attracted to men start out as gay, but when they transition they are now straight.  Some M2F's start out as straight, but after transition are now seen to be lesbian.  Interestingly enough, some people after transitioning, change the sex they are attracted to, which needless to say is very confusing to them.  The transsexuals who are bi to start with have all the marbles, yes?  But even looking past this position of transsexuals being two letters of our rainbow, there is yet another view point, that of to many 'haves'  view gays and lesbians as flaunting gender rules.  Think of the stupid question many gay men and women get when they are with a partner long term, "so, which one of you is the girl/guy?"  They can't imagine that two women or two men can live as spouses and not have one of them act the part of the opposite gender.  So while gays and lesbians don't see themselves are gender warriors, the 'haves' do.

Within the lesbian circle there is a group of radical feminists who look down on any woman who has been married to a man, or who enjoys penetrative sex.  Yes, you read that right, they look down on those women for enjoying a good fuck. They consider penetrative sex as "rape", sigh.  Umm, without any woman being penetrated there would be no children, am I right?  Of course the butch lesbians don't blend in real well, and suffer more discrimination than the femme's do.  Many lesbians have extreme anger at m2f's, and feel they are attempting to take over womyn's spaces with their male prerogative.  They feel that f2m's are poor deluded women, seduced by the lure of male prerogative who would butcher their bodies to get that golden ring.  And of course many lesbians plain out hate all men, so they see no reason to bind their L to the G or B and never! the T.

Ah, the lot of the B's.  They seem to be dismissed on all sides.  Unbelieved by all to be actually bisexual.  Yes, there are some men who stop at the way station between straight and gay at bi.  Why?  Because it has that wonderful aroma of possibly being straight, of being just a touch gay, so no worries.  While many men use the bi station to rest up before the next stop, it clouds the reality of life as bi.  There are many ways to operate as bi, and they are all completely and totally valid ways of being. 

And while how the society views these different groups varies, life outside is a cold and unwelcoming place, and warming ourselves over the fires of other shut-outs is beyond the pale wrong.  The  more we bicker among ourselves the better off the 'haves' are.  Remember the old saw from school, "divide and conquer"?  The 'haves' are doing a fantastic job of throwing scraps to us to keep us divided and no threat to their status quo.  If we want equality, throwing some of under the bus to get there, isn't a good thing at all.  When the 'haves' keep some of us under foot, and elevates other's it causes this nasty bit of infighting and the forming of micro groups, and this has to stop.  And not just for the achieving of civil rights, but why alienate those who understand what your world is actually like?

Each group seems to go through a period of worrying about loosing their culture if they are assimilated into the 'haves' of society.  The Jewish leaders say the easy acceptance in America is leading to the eroding of their culture.  Deaf people are fighting against cochlear implants, because they see it as the end of their culture, and many parents who chose cochlear implants for their young children are shut out of the deaf culture.  It is so bad that it has divided entire families! 

A few weeks ago Rachel Maddow was talking about how marriage equality would disintegrate gay and lesbian culture.  At first I understood what she was attempting to say, and then slowly what occurred to me wasn't the loss of gay culture, but the loss of how we lived as a hidden culture.  During the dark days surrounding the build up to WW2, many people who were on Hitler's list of hated people, learned to submarine who they were in order to live.  They lived a shadow life, a life filled with fear of being discovered that was so great many of them refused pain medications afraid they would blab who they really were.  Is that what we want to keep as our culture a remembrance of life as a 'shut-out'?

We need to understand that many of us don't want to get married, and thats perfectly fine and dandy.  We also need to understand the grief many of us feel about not being able to marry our beloved partners, never being able to mark the box as married.  While I don't think that marriage equality is the end all and the be all for LGBTQ people, we do need to be on equal footing across the board with the 'haves' with civil rights. 

But on our march to equality we need to remember our weaker members, the young and the elders.  Since many shelters are ran by religious groups they refuse access to gender variant teens, or outwardly gay kids, leaving these vulnerable members out on the street and prey for the wicked. Why the police don't prosecute the parents who throw their children out into the wild, is beyond my ability to understand.  If they don't want the child back, that's perfectly fine, but make them pay for housing these kids in a more welcoming and hopefully loving situation.  Ideally what would be the best of all possible worlds if the child cant be with loving parents, would be to have group homes ran by LGBTQ.  But where would the money come from?  At the present all of our funds seem to go toward fighting marriage equality, state by slow slog state.

The elderly have an entirely different concern, the death of a spouse and the loss of their pension can mean the loss of their home, the inability to afford medical care.  There are living centers for elders that allow spouses to share a space, this option is usually not offered to gay or lesbian couples. 

Again due to the fact we are marginalized in all facets of our lives, its the weakest members who suffer the most.  The members who have no lifeline from the 'haves' to grab hold on until things get better.  So, what's the answer?  Not to get involved with the back stabbing, to not get drawn into bitch sessions about other parts of our rainbow, to truly find ways to stand together, firm on what is right, what is morally important.  We need to start yelling louder at our LGBTQ groups to find ways to protect our more at risk members.  More importantly we need to consolidate our civil rights groups into fewer, which I know to be a complete pipe dream, but at the least have them operate in tandem pushing together will accomplish much more than fighting separately.

Come on, lets join hands and hearts and win this fight, yeah?

5 on the fifth

Howdy y'all!  It's photo share time of the month again.  After looking at mine, stop on over to Stephen's blog and see all the great photos! 

The theme this month is movement, and it took me awhile to come up with some ideas.  Enjoy my typically twisted view of the world.

 The Chena River flowing slowly thru town. 

 My car moves me, yeah?

 Escaping from the tedious day to day.

I've moved to the moon!  Well, no not really, tis only the snow on my mailboxes.

An action shot!  Snow doing what it does best, fall!

Snapshots

I tend to work on TH's last nerve, or thats what he likes to tell people, but I know the truth, he loves it when I tweak him.  A few years ago, before he went back to work, cause I dont care what people say, 50 is way to young to retire, TH turned into a real bear to live with.  He was grumpy, short tempered, and all the fun had drained out of him.  There were many, many days where it was all i could do, not to murder-ize him. 

So one day after a partically trying day, I decided to tweak him, and the assault began.  I carefully laid a sheet of newspaper between the bed and the bottom sheet.  He got into bed, and it kept crinkling every time he moved.  He leaped up and ripped the bed apart with a roar.  At this point I was thinking, "hmm did I go a bit to far?"  Then TH began to laugh so hard tears ran down his face.  The next day saw a much more pleasant TH to be with. 

Since that night I've put the oddest things on his side of the bed, cheerios, metal washers, pennies, etc.  And oddments in his shoes, coat pockets, hats, fingers of his gloves.  Adding things to the inside of his gloves didnt go over well, the pennies got stuck in the fingers and he was almost late to his appointment!  So, that's a no-go-zone!

Then about 2 years ago he got a job at the local goldmine as a night warehouseman.  At first he was happy to head out to a job he loved, then last summer he was worried to leave me alone for 14 hours at a stretch.  And while the suicidal thoughts have for the most part fled, he still worries.  Years ago one of us ordered something or other, and this wee red dragon came with.  Last summer began the hiding of the dragon in unexpected places, it gave me something else to think about, and him a surprise. 

We take turns hiding our dragon around where the other will find it.  He's been on top of the shower stall with my toothbrush wedged along his back.  After a bath, he hid in the ice maker waiting for TH to fill his water bottle for work.  He was hanging from the switch on the bedside lamp yesterday for me to find.  Today he perched on TH's door handle waiting for him to leave for work.  Each time we hid or find our wee dragon, it makes us grin, yes we are really that easy.

TH and I have this running argument about locking my hatch on my car.  When he drives my car, the first thing he does is lock it.  Then because I'm not expecting it to be locked because I NEVER lock it, I go to open it and about rip my fingers off.   GRR!  The last time that happened, I told him, "Look!  It's my car and a cheap one at that, why would anyone want to steal it?  So. Leave. The. Hatch. UNLOCKED!" 

Now, I own this pair of pants I dearly love...except for the republican pockets.  Why do I call 'em that?  Cause they are good for nothing!   But really, they have to be the most useless pockets I've seen in a long time.  I forgot and put my iphone in the front pocket, and off I go to get my kona coffee for the morning cuppa.  Somewhere along the way, I felt my phone evacuate my pocket, sigh.  After pulling into my parking spot, I started looking for the phone, to find it wedged under the passenger seat.  I put my keys in my pocket, and get into the back seat, and after much wiggling around finally managed to lever my phone out.  I locked the doors, and went in to get my coffee.  On the way to the car....I realized my keys weren't in my pocket.  Ok, no reason to panic, I have loads of pockets.  Search, search, search...oh fuck.  Hoping that I was the last one to drive the car, I walk around the back and tried the latch.... success!!!  It only took me a few moments to work my way into the back seat, to find my keys laying on the floor. 

When I woke TH up to go to work, I said to sleepy him, "Well, I just won the argument."

"Huh?  We were having an argument?"

"Yup!  We were, and I won."

"Baby, I just woke up, what ARE you talking about?"

So, I put the poor dear out of his misery and told him the whole story. Which proves his point, that with it unlocked my car is easily gotten into.  But today, it saved my butt, cause we dont have a phone in our bedroom, I would have had to call a taxi to get me home....but then no way in, and you cant hear the doorbell from our bedroom.... so yeah. 

Oh yeah, hopefully I've learned my lesson about putting things in those front pockets!

down but not out

not long after my last post, TH came home with a fever, cough and sneezes loud enough to wake the neighbors.  usually i dont catch things, so i'm a great nurse that way.  TH managed to recover in a about 6 days, normal path for a virus, and was back up running again.  but whatever killer virus he brought home about laid me out.  i'd get better for a few days, and then wake up feverish and sick again.  but i've felt better now for about 4 days, so i'm hoping that my feet are firmly on the path of health.  today for the first time in ages managed to walk on our treadmill.  what a joke that was.  took me 6 minutes to walk 0.11!  but at least im walking again after endless days marooned in bed or the sofa.

now if only this good health continues!

Illumination

Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain. —Helen Keller

If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down. —Mary Pickford

You have your way.  I have my way.  As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. -Friedrich Nietzsche 

The Diabolical Dichotomy Net

I hate her! 

                                                HATE HATE HATE HATE HER

but without her i wouldn't have my family

 and i seemingly love them more than i do myself

                                                                       i'm torn to shreds inside

i cant be who i am

                                                               caught like a fish in a net
                          unable to find a way


to be    whole  / not  fractured

  psyche super glue is required