Gandhi's Seven Sins

Today I came across something that seems at least somewhat related to yesterday's post about Lincoln and Darwin.

You may be familiar with Gandhi's Seven Sins:

1. Wealth without work.

2. Pleasure without conscience.

3. Knowledge without character.

4. Commerce without morality.

5. Science without humanity.

6.  Worship without sacrifice.

7.  Politics without principle .

The Origins Of Emancipation

Today I learned something interesting. 

If you live in the USA, you know that it’s Lincoln’s birthday.  Some argue he was this country’s greatest President:  He led the nation in the Civil War after several southern states seceded from the Union, and issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which outlawed (but did not end) slavery.

Until I was in high school, the anniversary of his birth was a national holiday.  Schools, banks and other institutions were closed.  The same thing happened on the 22^nd, George Washington’s birthday.  In the 1970’s, the two holidays were folded into one Monday observance known as President’s Day.  However, Lincoln’s Birthday is still observed in New York State.

But I digress.  Today I learned that someone else who changed the world at least as much as Lincoln did was born on this date.  What’s more, he was born in the same year.

The 12^th of February in 1809 witnessed the birth of Lincoln—and Charles Darwin.  As far as I know, the two men never met.  Darwin may have been aware of what Lincoln was doing in office, but I suspect that Lincoln was not aware of Darwin’s work.  Somehow I imagine that had “Abe” read The Origins of the Species, he would have understood its worth and necessity.

In my own uninformed opinion, Lincoln would not have been a “social Darwinist.”  The funny thing is that Darwin himself wasn’t one.  In his writings, he actually said that species, including humans, have to cooperate and even act altruistically in order to adapt and survive.  That leads me to believe that most of those who talk about “survival of the fittest” (a phrase Darwin himself never used until Herbert Spencer coined it) have never read Darwin’s classic work:  They probably learned nothing more than the comic-book summary most kids learn when they’re in junior high school. (At least, that’s when we learned it in my day.)  In my own admittedly amateur reading of Origin, it is a specie’s ability to adapt and reproduce, not its ruthlessness, that determines its survival.

Now you might wonder where this leaves LGBT people.  From my own unbiased ;-) observation, we can adapt to conditions, whether through confrontation or cooperation.  Plus, I think that we have at least our share of altruism:  We are represented disproportionately in the “helping” professions and among paid workers and volunteers for organizations and causes that promote social and economic justice.

So, I think it’s appropriate for us to celebrate this day, the anniversary of the birth of two people who made the world in which we live—and the means we have to improve our lot—possible.

Retreat, But Not Retreating Fom

Over the past few days, I managed to be busy and not do anything at all.

Today was a busy day.  So was yesterday.  Friday, too—most of it, anyway.  In between, I got nothing done.

All right, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.  But I managed not to do anything work-related—at least, according to the ways most of us define work.  I also managed to remain offline.

You see, I traveled about 100 km up the Hudson River from this city for a retreat.  The beauty of the place or the opportunity to be offline would have been reason enough to make the trip—which I hope to make again some day, on my bike.

The most important reason to go on such an excursion, though, is to nourish the spirit and to draw closer to the Infinite, the Divine Power or whatever you want to call him/her/it.  I have said in previous posts, and in other venues, that my journey from living as a man to life as the woman I am has been, above all, spiritual. 

Five other people—members of the church I’ve been attending—and our guide, the church’s rector, would probably give similar reasons for undergoing such an experience.  We talked, reflected, prayed, read, studied and ate together.  And there were long periods of silence.  The real point of the latter, of course, is not simply not to talk.  It’s also about quietude—peace, if you will, of the mind and spirit—or, at any rate, freedom from the distractions that we regard as parts of a “normal life”.

The experience wasn’t just “good for me”:  I actually enjoyed it.  In fact, I remained offline yesterday.  It’s hard for me to believe that three days offline could be such an accomplishment, especially when I considered that it was how I lived my life every day until I was 41 years old.  (Of course, when I was very young, there were no cell phones or personal computers.) I hope to go on another such retreat in the near future.  If time and the weather permit, I’ll even ride my bike there.

Petition: Drop Charges Against Trans Girl Who Defended Herself

It's bad enough that we're bullied as kids--and, sometimes, as adults.  Sometimes the bullying is physical.  

Apparently, it's not OK to defend ourselves:


https://www.change.org/petitions/drop-charges-against-transgender-teen-defending-herself

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Trannie Kills Baby!

The death of a small child is, of course, a tragedy.  It's all the worse when the child died in some brutal, painful way--particularly if he or she was abused by someone who was trusted to care for him or her.

Such is the story of Myls Dobson, a four-year-old boy found dead in a Manhattan apartment a month ago.  Shortly thereafter, Janaie Jones--his babysitter--was arrested and charged with his murder.

The police weren't sure who his legal guardian was:  His mother lost custody of him, which was granted to his father, who was in a New Jersey prison at the time of Myls' death.

Aside from the boy's death, the facts in the previous paragraph are--to me, anyway--the saddest part of this case.  However, those details have been, for the most part, lost in what has passed for reporting on his case.

Every story I've read in print or online, or heard over the radio, regarding Myls' death has led off with this:  The babysitter is transgendered.

She was born in Jamaica as Christopher Jones and, since coming to New York, has worked as a performer under the name Kryzie King.  Little else is known about her, except that she was, apparently, the girlfriend of the boy's father.

In the month that has elapsed since they found Myls' battered body in a bathtub, I have heard almost nothing else about him, his parents or the case.  Moreover, about all I know, to this day, is that Janaie Jones/Kryzie King was a transgender performer.  And all almost anybody else knows is that she's a transgender who killed a child--which, in many people's minds, makes the incident all the more lurid and sensational.

On Ice

I didn't ride my bike to work today. In fact, I'm not riding at all.

Blasphemy, you say.

Well, I took one look out my window and saw ice everywhere. Not just patches; I think the sidewalk in front of my place was the beginning of the Great Queens Glacier. At least the light was interesting:

Forgetful Snow

Snow is falling.  At least, that's what the official weather reports say.

It's really more like white slush.  But, I'll admit it looks pretty until it hits the ground.  

Interestingly, it looks more snow-like when it clings to tree branches.

In The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot wrote, "Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow."  It's not hard to see what he meant:  For a moment, I can actually forget that leaves have died and fallen from that tree.

I also can forget, for a moment, that one day this tree, and the one in the first photo, will be green again.  Or, at any rate, I have--however temporarily--no need to remember that. 

Chris Kluwe Didn't Punt On His Principles

You get laid off from a job or your contract isn't renewed. That, in spite of your excellent performance and evaluations.  

You feel--understandably--upset and frustrated, perhaps even angry.  But you can explain it to yourself, at least somewhat:  The economy is bad. Earnings are down.  Enrollment dropped.  The company or organization is changing its focus.  Or some new owners or management team want to bring in "their people". 

However, if you're transgender/transsexual or, for that matter, lesbian or gay--or are even suspected of being so or merely sympathising too much with us--you can't help but to wonder whether your identity has something to do with the fact that today you don't have a job you had yesterday.

Sometimes you just know it's true. And, when you say as much--or merely raise the question--you're accused of being "too sensitive" or "paranoid", or of wanting "special treatment".

Chris Kluwe finds himself in the situation I've described.  For eught seasons, as a member of the Minnesota Vikings, he was one of the best punters in the NFL. A self-described libertarian, he spoke and wrote against a proposed Marriage Amendment in Minnesota which, essentially, would have defined a marriage as a union between a man and a woman and specified the rights that pertain to such a relationship. He also voiced support for same-sex marriage although he is married to the women who has borne his two children.

Kluwe also wrote a letter to Maryland assembly member Emmet Burns, in which he defended Baltimore Ravens' linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo's right to speak up for LGBT rights.

As per the request of the Vikings' owner, he always made it clear that he was expressing his views as a private citizen and not as a representative of the Vikings' organization.  Still, it was apparently too much for his coaches, one of whom openly expressed his homophobia.   

Kluwe, to his credit, didn't let the slurs slip by.  And, as he relates in an article he wrote for Deadspin, it probably led to his release from the Vikings.

Not so long ago, it would have seemed preposterous to use "NFL" and "LGBT rights" in the same sentence.  Thankfully, the situation is changing.  But, as the experiences of Kluwe and Ayanbadejo show, there's still a long way to today, as Super Bowl XLVIII is to be played.

What Happened To Nizah Morris?

Back in the days of the Civil Rights movement, it was not uncommon--especially in places like Alabama and Georgia--for police officers to offer "courtesy" rides to African-Americans who "appeared" to be "inebriated" or who "seemed" to be in "distress."

That would sound benevolent had some of said African-Americans not mysteriously died while in custody, or simply disappeared.  

Apparently, similar things still happen, and not only to African-Americans, and not only in the Deep South.

Three days before Christmas in 2002, transgender woman Nizah Morris died in a Philadelphia hospital from a subdural hematoma, the result of traumatic blows to her head.

Morris had been out drinking when a concerned bar patron called an ambulance for her.  She turned down the opportunity to go to the emergency room and instead accepted a courtesy ride from Philadelphia police officer Elizabeth Skala.     

Morris never made it home.  Skala claims that Morris asked her to drop her off at a corner two minutes away from the bar where she'd been drinking--but 45 minutes from her apartment.  A minute after Skala left her at the corner of Chancellor and South Juniper Streets, a motorist (according to his testimony) found Morris, naked from the waist up and bleeding from her head, lying on the street. 

Now, here's where things get interesting. 

 Another witness reports having seen her body on the street fifteen minutes later and a police officer pulling a jacket over her face as her body was loaded into the ambulance.  The ambulance attendants said they loaded her body at the same time--3:30 a.m.--the first witness (the motorist) claims to have found it.  The officer on the scene says the ambulance didn't depart until 3:45.

If these accounts are even remotely accurate, why was there such a delay in embarking for the hospital?  And why did the officer pull the jacket over Morris's face as if she were already dead?  Finally, why wasn't the police report released until 2011--nearly a decade after Ms. Morris' death?  And why did it take a freedom-of-information request from Philadelphia Gay News to make that document see the light of day?

Are you surprised to learn that her family thinks the police murdered her?  

I agree with them.  Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like.  But I've found that people who so label other people have not--or don't want to admit that they have--been subjected to abuses of power.  I know:  I was once such a person.  

Whether I'm proved right or wrong, I hope that the true story of Nizah Morris's death is disclosed, and that her family finds the peace she didn't have in those last moments of her life.

(Thanks, again, to Kelli Busey of Planetransgender.)

 

Out Of The Mists Of The Past

 This may not seem related to gender or LGBT issues, let alone my experience with them.  However, it has to do with the city I have called home for so long and whose history has always fascinated me..

Also, urban mass transportation systems have always interested me. Perhaps those are the reasons I found this photo irresistible and was thinking of an excuse to post it here:

This train is entering the New Lots Avenue station on the Canarsie Line (now the "L" train) of the New York City subway system.  From the light and the condition of the trees, I'd guess it's from early spring.  And, from the style of train cars, I can tell you that this undated photo was probably taken some time before the early 1970's, as these cars were "retired" by that time.

You can find this photo, and more, on www.nycsubway.org. (Note:  The site is not affiliated with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.)

Heterosexuality: Priceless

I am going to make the worst pun of the year (so far, anyway).

Here goes:  What I am about to report is just priceless.

Even the most tolerant and understanding of parents may feel concern and even a twinge of disappointment when their kids "come out."  After all, nearly all parents want their kids to be safe, and they naturally worry that their queer son or daughter is at greater risk of being bullied, harassed, assaulted or even killed than a straight (or seemingly-straight) or cisgender kid.  And, let's face it, most parents still have the fantasy  of their kids meeting the "right" person of the opposite gender and having kids.

Of course, even such attitudes and responses are better than trying to "beat it out" of the kid or throwing him or her out of the house.  Then there are those parents who try to use "incentives" to make their kids straight:  They send their kids on "blind" dates with kids of the opposite gender or encourage them to do things considered appropriate to the gender they were assigned at birth.  

I always figured that some parent probably offered financial incentives, though I'd never met or heard about one--until now.

Cecil Chao is a Hong Kong billionaire who claims to have slept with 10,000 women.  One would think that such a man would understand why someone would want to sleep with a women.  So it seems a bit incongruous, at least to me, that he would offer $130 million US to any man who can turn his daughter, who married her girlfriend in France, straight.

Being the charitable person I am, I am willing to believe he isn't a homophobe.  Perhaps he's just afraid of commitment--or, specifically, committing to a woman--and his daughter's marriage has made it clear.

For her part, his daughter Gigi says she wouldn't mind a man taking  up the offer as long as he's OK with her marriage and is willing to donate at least some of the money to her favorite causes.

I Am A White Supremacitst. And I Am Very Thankful To Nevada For Letting Me Know.

Several people have given me plausible, sensible, cogent explanations of why the thought of legalizing same-sex marriage drives its foes to the most breathtaking contortions of logic.

In an earlier post, and in a Huffington Post article, I mentioned the "diversity" argument used by opponents of marriage equality in Utah.  They cited the fact that colleges and universities use diversity as a criterion in admissions.  Academic institutions have such policies because activists pointed out that some schools had monochromatic student bodies from the same social classes--and, in some cases, the same geographic areas.  Also, studies over the past half-century or so indicate that students indeed learn more and better when at least some of their classmates are different from themselves.

It obviously follows, then, that kids are better off with two parents who are of different genders.  At least, that's the conclusion of those diligent folks in the Beehive State.

I guess one of Utah's neighbors simply could not be outdone.  So, from Nevada, we have yet another canard from the Bizarro world of people who simply can't stand the thought of Jane marrying Jill or John wedding James.  

We really should listen to the what golden minds from the Silver State said in a Ninth Circuit court hearing.  Are you ready for this? :

 White supremacists engrafted the anti-miscegenation rules onto the marriage institution — and thereby altered marriage from how it had existed at common law and throughout the millennia — to bend that institution into the new and foreign role of inculcating white supremacist doctrines into the consciousness of the people generally. Because of the profound teaching, forming, and transforming power that fundamental social institutions like marriage have over all of us, this evil strategy undoubtedly worked effectively for decades.

Question: Where does one see today a similar massive political effort to profoundly change the marriage institution in order to bend it into a new and foreign role, one in important ways at odds with its ancient and essential roles? Answer: The genderless marriage movement.

So let's see:  White supremacists "engrafted anti-miscegenation rules onto the marriage institution."  (Gotta love that phrase!)  White supremacists changed the definition of marriage.  Gays want to do the same. Ergo, those who want same-sex marriages are no different from white supremacists.

Now, I'll grant you there are white supremacists, as well as bigots of every other kind, who happen to be gay men, lesbians, transgenders, bisexuals or of just about any other kind of sexual or gender identity you can imagine.  If nothing else, most at least have enough fashion sense not to wear white robes and hoods. (Most white people don't look good in white.  I include myself.)  But, seriously, I think that there are fewer such extreme haters in the "spectrum" in which I include myself.  Most of us still have unconscious prejudices, as nearly everyone else has, simply from being inculcated with subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) stereotypical notions about the sorts of jobs people are supposed to have, the clothes they're expected to wear and the foods they should eat, depending on their race, gender, geographical location or any number of other factors.

Still, I have yet to hear even the most racist, classist, misogynist, misandropic or even homo- or trans-phobic (Yes, we have those!) in our midst suggest that we pass laws to keep people from marrying each other.  Like most right-thinking people, most of us support only one restriction on marriage:  a minimum age.

Now, I have never been to law school. I entertained the thought of going for, oh, maybe fifteen minutes of my life. So forgive me if I am missing something.  I simply cannot understand how anyone can use laws that were used to keep people from marrying each other to rationalize his or her opposition to a law that would allow people to marry.  Moreover, I don't get how anyone can use a law that kept people who were of different races from hooking up to oppose a law that would allow two folks who are the same, in at least one way, from getting hitched.

Maybe I'm just too East Coast-centric to understand the dazzling feats of logic they've achieved in Utah and Nevada.  Or, perhaps, I'm too European in my outlook (After all, I've lived in France!) to understand how real Amurrikkkuns do things.  Or, perhaps, I have misunderstood every thinker and writer I've ever read.  Yes, it's been some time since I've read Descartes or Hegel or Kant. So, perhaps, I need to refresh my skills in logical thinking.

Or it may be that I just haven't spent enough time in Nevada to see how marriage is supposed to be.  Growing up in the dystopias of Brooklyn and New Jersey, all I ever saw were people who were married in churches, synagogues and by justices of the peace, and who remained together.  Such couples include my parents.  They have been Mr. and Mrs. for one year longer than I have been on this planet.  I blame them for setting such an example for me, their firstborn.

I mean, if I haven't been around folks whose nupitals were witnessed by slot machines, how can I possibly know what marriage is.  Right?  I didn't grow up in a place (or time) where Dennis Rodman wed Carmen Electra or Kim Kardashian tied the knot with Kris Humphries.  I never saw or heard about such perfect unions as the one between Jason Alexander and Britney Spears.  Never having the benefit of having grown up around such fine examples of matrimony, I guess I'm unduly impressed with two women of my acquaintance who've been together since 1971.  Or my parents.

Yes, I admit, I want to hijack the august institution of male masters and female chattel so that folks like my friends can have the same rights as my parents.  Or--now I'll expose my self-interest--so that I can enjoy those same rights, if I decide to marry a woman (or, for that matter, a man).  

I guess that makes me no better than the white supremacists.  As we say in the old country, tant pis.


 

Growing Issues Of Hate

In spite of (or, as some might argue, as a backlash against) the passing of laws to protect gender identity and expression, more violence is committed against transgender (or other gender-variant) people every year.  And, perhaps even more disturbing, the assaults committed against, and the murders of, us constitute an ever-increasing percentage of crimes against LGBT people, hate crimes and crimes generally.

From:  Think Progress

 

Sneaky Queers And Treacherous Trannies

When I was growing up, one rarely saw an LGBT character in a movie or TV show. 

In fact, one almost never heard about "queer" people or characters in the news or other parts of the media.  On those rare occasions when one appeared, he was almost invariably a gay man.  And, if his sexual orientation was not denounced, there was an implication that it defined--in overwhelmingly negative ways--every other aspect of his character and life.  

So, the few gay men we saw or heard about were shadowy, sneaky figures.  They were seen as vaguely--or not-so-vaguely--dishonest.  They were often double-agents or simply double-crossers, or their homosexuality was used to depict them as such.  

One example is Clay Shaw, who according to his onetime lover (and male prostitute) Willie O'Keefe, discussed the JFK assassination with Lee Harvey Oswald and others believed to be involved in the killing. All of this is depicted in Oliver Stone's film JFK.  Stone, of course, does not imply that either man's proclivity or interest in each other was a root cause of their involvement in the killing.  But he shows how people commonly believed that such a thing was possible--and that O'Keefe's and Shaw's preferences and relationship (as well as the prison sentence O'Keefe served for solicitation) was used to discredit them.

Although some people have moved away from such attitudes--or, at any rate, wouldn't publicly express them--about gay men, transgender people are being portrayed as devious in almost exactly the way gay men were not so long ago.  (Interestingly, there doesn't seem to have been a similar stereotype about lesbians.)  Even people who have gay or lesbian family members, friends and colleagues--or who themselves are on the "spectrum"-- may hold or express the notion that trans people are fundamentally dishonest.  In fact, I have talked--before, during and since my transition--with gay men and mental-health professionals who said, in essence, that trans people "just don't want to admit they're gay," as a onetime friend of mine put it.

So, although I was upset, I was not surprised to learn that Caleb Hannan had not only "outed" Essay Anne Vanderbilt; he used the fact that she was born male--something, apparently, only a few people knew--to explain her true dishonesty:  lying about her academic credentials and work experience as a scientist, much of it as a private contractor to the Department of Defense.  She apparently used those fictions to convince someone to invest in a new golf club she'd invented.   

About all I know about golf is that Tiger Woods plays it (and the field).  So I couldn't tell you whether Vanderbilt's club was everything she claimed, and her investor believed, it to be.  But, apparently, some swear by it.  Even Hannan acknowledged that he played a better game when he used it.

Now, if people like the club, they're probably not going to care whether she actually worked for the DoD or went to MIT or whatever.  On the other hand, I can understand that someone would hold her, as a person, in low regard for lying about her credentials and just generally being a difficult person, as many have testified.  After all, great ideas and creations don't always come from good people:  Wagner was one of the greatest composers and most detestable human beings who ever lived. I'm not so sure I would have wanted Bach as a father, husband, brother, friend or neighbor, either.  And T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and Fernand Celine were notorious anti-Semites.  Still, their flaws don't degrade the quality of their work, any more than Vanderbilt's fabricated resume makes her golf club less of a marvel than its enthusiasts say it is.

However, to imply that someone who was born with one of the most fundamental conflicts a person can live with cannot be anything but inherently dishonest as a result of that conflict, as Hannan does, is simply ignorant at best and vicious at worst.  I can't help but to tend toward the latter interpretation:  He portrayed Ms. Vanderbilt as one born to manipulate even though he knew about her suicide attempt--which he uses to further the idea that she was congenitally unstable.

But the real reason I am so upset at Hannan is that while he was "researching" his article, Ms. Vanderbilt took her own life.  Now, I realize that it's probably not possible to "prove" that his outing her caused her to off herself.  Still, I think he should be taken to task for "outing" someone who has the sort of history she had--or, for that matter, anyone who does not disclose that information about herself.

I realize that in writing this blog, and some of my other works, some people might think I'm giving them permission to "out" me to people who would use that information to portray me as a monster, criminal or worse.  However, there are still many, many people who do not know my history and never will--unless, of course, someone "outs" me.  As an example, I was renewing my state ID last week.  The clerk did not know that, at one time, my name and gender weren't the ones on the card I was handing him.  And, really, there was no need for him to know.  I don't know whether knowing that aspect of my history would have changed the way he treated me (He was, in spite of the stereotype about Department of Motor Vehicle employees, friendly:  Somehow we found ourselves talking about our cats!) or added another layer of bureaucracy to a transaction that, for most people, is routine.  

I will probably never see that clerk again--or, for that matter, most people I encounter on any given day.  They don't all need to know about my gender history and, really, have no right to know unless I disclose it (which, of course, I do on this blog).  More to the point, neither they nor anyone else has the right to use it to paint me as anything other than I am, for better or worse.  

Jay's House

Lately, I’ve been listening quite a bit to WBAI, the Pacifica Radio station here in New York.  I have gone through periods of my life when I have listened to no other radio station—sometimes, during times when I wasn’t watching television.

I started listening again a few months ago because there is so little on local radio or television I can stand, even as background, while I’m working on something.  At other times when I listened regularly, there were more intelligent, engaging or simply entertaining (by my standards, anyway) options in the media than there are now.  I know that I can find some favorite old episodes and programs on You Tube and other venues, but I don’t want to spend too much time on reruns.  Besides, it’s hard use You Tube or its equivalents as background.

Anyway, WBAI has an “OUT Radio” program, which claims to be the only LGBT-centered radio program in the NYC area.  Their claim is probably accurate.  I hadn’t tuned in specifically to hear that program, though:  I’ve had the radio on most of the day as I’ve gone in and out to shop for food and do laundry and other errands—all within a two-block radius of my place.  Still, I listened.  I’m glad I did:  the producer—I didn’t catch her name—interviewed Jay Toole.

Until recently, Jay headed Queers for Economic Justice.  However, the organization is dying because it’s lost its funding.  But Jay had been working on a dream, which is now coming into fruition:  Jay’s House, a shelter/community center for LGBT people.

Jay’s vision for it was borne of experience living in the New York City shelter system and, before that, on the streets.  Like too many other young queer people, Jay became homeless upon “coming out” as a teenager.  To be exact, Jay was 13 years old at the time and would live without a home for more than thirty years afterward.

One of the things for which I am thankful is that the most difficult times I’ve experienced are nothing like what Jay experienced every day for decades.  Another thing for which I’m thankful is for which I’m thankful is having met Jay, especially at the time in my life when I did.

Not long before I moved out of the apartment I’d been sharing with Tammy, I went to Center Care, the counseling center of the LGBT Community Center of New York.  Jay volunteered as an intake counselor and was on duty the day I walked in.  Until that day, Tammy was the only person with whom I’d talked about my gender identity.  Actually, I didn’t talk about it so much as I insisted that the clothing, the jewelry and the time I spent in them were things I could simply “walk away from” if and when it ever became a possible roadblock to her career—or, more precisely, her own life based on her defying other people’s perceptions of her real and  understandable wish to escape the pain other males in her life had caused her.

Living a half- (or otherwise partial-) truth really isn’t any better—or, at least, mentally and spiritually healthy—than living an outright lie.  Well, it might be better in the sense that sometimes it’s necessary to live that partial truth—which, really, is another kind of mendacity—in order to learn whatever one must learn, or simply to survive, before facing reality.

I knew I had to end those fictions—and the ones I’d given my family, friends and anyone else who knew or questioned me—on the day I met Jay.  As I sat in the Center’s waiting area, I thought about how I would explain myself to whoever I met.  (At that moment, of course, I didn’t know that person would be Jay.)  Until that moment, nothing made any sense to me:  I didn’t know, therefore, how I could make it make sense to anyone else.

The receptionist called my name and directed me to one of the Center’s narrow but well-lit offices.  “I’m Jay.”  “Hi.” 

At that moment, I forgot whatever I’d been rehearsing in my mind.  Instead, this passed through my lips:  “I’m a woman.”

“I know.”

I would later realize that, at that moment, I knew Jay, too, even though we were meeting for the first time.  You see, I intuited—and much later articulated—this:  I was, at that moment, an inversion of Jay, who was about as “butch” as anyone could be without having been born with XY chromosomes.  But, even more important, we had both been defined by our vulnerability and pain.  Both of us had experienced sexual molestation and violence; while Jay was cast out, I alienated myself because I simply could not relate to anyone else, not even members of my own family.  Jay had spent more than three decades without a physical home; I’d spent about the same amount of time, if not more, unable to be at home in my own body, in my own mind, in my own spirit, let alone in any physical environment in which I’d lived, worked or been inculcated with notions to which I simply couldn’t conform, no matter how hard I tried or how much I loved the people who were teaching the lessons they’d been taught and, in some cases, did not understand.

Jay and I would later volunteer on one of the Center’s projects and remain in contact, if episodically.  Although Jay is very busy, the time in which we didn’t talk or write much to each other was also my fault:  I withdrew from almost everyone with whom I didn’t have to be in contact when Dominick was doing everything he could to destroy me.  I didn’t have to make the apology I offered when we bumped into each other, for the first time in a couple of years, back in June:  After all, almost no one else I know understands what it’s like simply to survive the day and the day before as well as Jay does.