Tag: emotion

On Responsibility

Empathy and compassion are truly important traits. To understand others emotions is powerful, to care about them though difficult is even more so.

Have you tried to understand someone you disagree with?

I don’t mean in the logical exercise of determining whether you think they are right or wrong but to deconstruct how they arrived where they did.

It’s difficult in a purely logical sense at times to take those steps. Sure it’s enough that we are confident that we are right what’s it matter how someone else is wrong.

Yet there’s more to this then just determining truth. As people we can’t unwind the emotionality of our thoughts and someone who disagrees with you also had emotions baked into their thoughts.

We have a responsibility to understand those around us.

I often find because I am in a different social situation the most people that empathy and understanding are critical because it’s not often that someone understands my perspective. So I have the responsibility of bridging that gap.

It’s not a matter of fairness but a matter of maturity, to be the best we can be does not usually leave room for the privilege of equality. To understand someone who disagrees with you or perhaps even hates you is hard.

Social circumstances often put trans people in a power disadvantage. Thus learning early and learning well the responsibility of understanding can be a matter of sanity let alone serenity.

There is a time to fight and a time to listen. It’s hard to want to listen to someone as they stab you. The pain of your cuts and wounds can overpower your reason and close you off from your compassion.

It is not an easy road we walk, but mercy and compassion for those less fortunate to have the strength gifted you by your experiences can help still the conflict in your heart.

People can be selfish, mean, and cruel. it’s not enough to expect people to unlearn through they must be shown the way.

I’ve often been called an old soul. Or mature beyond my years and I don’t think it has anything to do with the nature of my consciousness but the trauma it’s experienced. It takes a lot of care and concern to unwind the pain that is caused to a young trans kid. The pressure of adulthood is rarely a safe place to deal with that trauma.

It’s why it’s even more important to be kind to others. Care about those who are more fortunate than yourself. There’s no cost to kindness. But there’s a fee for cruelty.

As all people we have a responsibility to be caring and understanding of others but I think trans people have a special insight into how to model that compassion and kindness. I know I once truly hated myself and it took me a very long time to see the other side of that argument and embrace the idea of loving myself. That is a lesson we have to gift to the world so long as we care to give it.

I Don’t Hate my Penis

I read an article this morning about a movie apparently making it’s rounds in the film festival circuit. I’m not usually one to pay much attention to them, but it seemed pertinent based on the title so I read the article. Now, I haven’t seen the movie, it sounds kind of gross I don’t know if I will. I wanted to talk about a particular obsession that people seem to have with genitalia.

Here’s the article for those interested, the movie is called Girl. You can find it yourself.

https://www.intomore.com/culture/netflixs-girl-is-another-example-of-trans-trauma-porn-and-should-be-avoided-at-all-costs

Now, I can by no means portray myself as the end all be all of what defines Transness. I can’t, and I don’t want to. I can talk about my experience. Which kind of boils down to this. I don’t hate my penis. I don’t really love it, it’s just kind of there. It doesn’t offend me, and we have a working relationship. Would I be happier with a vagina? Am I sad that I don’t have one? Not really. I have gotten to a point of acceptance with my genitals, but I didn’t start at hatred, or even really dislike.

So I find it interesting how much cis people are fascinated with genitals. You can look at the lengths parents go to differentiate the genders of their babies, a two month old does not have a developed gender identity parents, the bow in their hair is for you. If it makes you feel better that’s fine, but it doesn’t matter.

When dealing with older children on towards adults the preoccupation with the world being a place where everyone’s genitals are clearly and easily identified has always been strange to me. I only know this because as soon as someone knows your trans then it becomes a point of interest.

It shows in movies like this. As we start to see more “trans” stories for lack of a better word popping up in popular culture, and I’m specifically talking about those written by non-trans folks the preoccupation with genitalia is foundational.

Which brings me back to the title. I don’t hate my penis. I have a far worse opinion of my voice, or my facial hair then of my penis. Nobody sees my penis, it’s just there. I’m upset about not being able to be pregnant far more then having a penis bothers me. Because fundamentally genitals are parts of us that procreate children. I’m sad that I can’t carry a child, I’m not mad that I have a penis. Let me explain.

Being trans comes with complicated emotions, much like being cis, but I’m going to focus on the trans thing right now. I am remorseful that I didn’t get the chance to grow up the person I wanted to be. I grew up not in control of who I was, because I knew who I was on the inside differed too far from the norm to feel safe and accepted enough to be who I was.

So most of my milestones are warped by this, in the pictures of me growing up, I see a little boy growing into a young man. That makes me sad. That fills me with remorse, knowing that the life and person I wanted to be was not the life I lived.

In none of those pictures do I see someone with a penis, I just see me. subtly terrified and trying to survive. Just trying to make it through long enough to someday be myself.

I wore a suit at my wedding, my wife knew I was trans but it wasn’t broadly known, and I love my wife. I wanted to make that commitment to her. I wanted to be able to publicly declare my love for the woman of my dreams. I didn’t know what path my transition would take, It would be nearly a year later before I’d meet with an endocrinologist to start hormone therapy, which was in and of itself a surprise even as it happened.

I don’t look at my wedding pictures, I don’t have them in my office, I don’t have them in my house. It was an incredible day, and an incredible moment in my life. and I hate seeing pictures of it.

And my penis was no where to be seen.

Being trans is often about what you lose, because in so many unfortunate ways you lose yourself. When you talk about childhood development you talk about milestones, and everyone needs to reach these milestones before you can move on. So when you go through some of them wrong, you continue on, because you’re a functioning person. Yet there’s a haunting that echoes through your life. All of your memories, your relationships, your achievements before you transition are touched by the fact you weren’t authentically yourself.

These are what make me sad. These are the things that I’ve lost. As I live my life, and I’m still working towards a place of safety and comfort with who I am. I continue to progress and mark milestones. and I am saddened that I didn’t get to share who I was with everyone as I go.

Gender dysphoria is complicated, much like people are. Some days I’m fine and I live my life, and other times I feel the stubble on my face and I’m sickened by it. It’s a complex and difficult feeling to understand and deal with. Often times its quiet, and takes prompting to roar into life, though that might just be from the years of repression.

There are many things that make me trans, and there are many things that make me upset, but also give me great strength and wisdom. I have never hated my penis though, it’s part of me for better or worse. I might not like what it represents or what its meant to my life. but I’m a complicated person I don’t have a single focal point that defines my experience.

If you want to tell a story about a trans person, talk about the inner conflict, the mixed emotions, the fight to stay sane as the world forces you into a box you don’t fit into. The doubt and the fear. The life defining, and changing decisions. There are plenty of interesting perspectives to show and fascinating stories to be told about the experiences and lives of trans people. To focus on such a small facet, and frankly a not particularly interesting one is shallow and mundane and best, and harmful at worst.

To anyone who might read this and is in a creative position to tell stories. Don’t tell the story of a cis person trying to understand being trans. Show the awakening and joys and sorrows and the highs and lows of that journey. Your storytelling will be better and you’ll give voice to a human experience that is not commonly shared.

Am I really?

Am I really just some parts?

Am I really not allowed to start?

Am I really just a laughing stock?

Am I really key to hatreds lock?

Will I really feel the pain?

Will I really be treated sane?

Will I really be a nanny?

Will I really always be some Tranny?

I am more than your insanity.

I am risen above your animosity.

I am more then any part.

I am more within my heart.