2012, I don't want to say you were completely awful.
Here is Charles Mingus and his band playing the title-song. Background music for this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sfe_8RAaJ0
Sure, coming out to my parents about my gender identity sucked. Sure, that ensuing sleep-less summer sucked. Sure, the house-hunt wasn't pleasant and didn't end that well. Sure, 4 family deaths. Sure, debt explosion and financial aid revoked. Sure, deepest depression hit since moving to Flagstaff. Sure, a month and a holiday season completely eaten up by applications. Sure, all of these awfulnesses.
But there were some good parts too. AWP was awesome. So was getting published. So was taking on CV-boosting statuses: a president, an editor, a secretary, a 2-class teacher. So was going vegetarian. So was getting my bike. So was losing 20 pounds.
Even goodnesses in the badnesses. The sleepless summer, I started jogging. The house-hunt provided this place, where I cook, stay warm, play drums, sleep, and take long showers. Debt explosion, your fallout is restoring itself to its prior state. The depression? The depression. I hate that word. It communicates nothing but self-bad. I hit a bottom, and rose. I'm seeing a gender therapist tomorrow, second appointment, to talk about hormones. I met a bunch of awesome trans people the week after the Thanksgiving from hell. I've been sober for almost a month now too, saving money, not letting the booze turn me sour, which it had been doing on the regular since September. Application season surely helped both the sobriety and the money-saving-by-not-drinking. Application season ended with 9 applications to 9 awesome programs, which could be the most significant thing I have done for my career and my art, combined, ever.
Coming out to my parents gave me the guts to start coming further out. Though it sucked when it happened, I have since recovered. The family deaths put some urgency behind doing what I know I must: life is too short. As a result, I feel as though I am being so much more honest in my daily life now. I think my step-grandfather wouldn't understand, but wouldn't necessarily condemn. I think my second cousin wouldn't care. I think Aunt Janet would be okay with that, probably supportive. I think my dog is still happy for me.
Ya know, I'm still hesitant to come completely out on facebook, or at work, but I understand that the decision to reveal yourself carries a bit more weight for trans people than for others who deal with closets. I know part of my hesitancy is due to some form of chronic paranoia, reinforced by my pot bust a few years back. Sure. I also know I want to be an out and fabulous me 24/7, and not give a fuck about who to reveal to or not.
But I also understand there are very real consequences to the whole "outness" thing for trans people, more so than for the sexual-orientation crowd. Besides being perhaps the most poorly-understood segment of the global population (thanks lots to unhelpful media, sexist culture, also to our language that doesn't have words for us), workplace discrimination is still commonplace enough that I read essays written by trans women this year who still discuss it.
I am just now discovering that word about my trans-ness has already gotten around a bit, has already had Chinese Whispers played with it . One of my friends, who I wasn't out to, told me last week, that he heard rumors going around the office that I "want a sex change operation"--something that is years down the road for me if at all...honestly I'm more concerned with getting a good therapist and researching gender and trying to get a good enough job that I can pay off my debt and afford hormones and electrolysis and voice lessons...and THEN start saving for small surgeries, not completely sure where I stand yet on gender reassignment surgery for myself.
What I plan or don't plan to do to my genitals in the future is something I have never discussed publicly. Though this rumor-mill stuff is not necessarily workplace discrimination, it is workplace gossip. I don't want to think it will lead to gender-discrimination, because I live in a very tolerant place, but I also don't know how educated folks are about trans people here.
Really, I need to think more like this: Whatever. They will make their assumptions, and I will be around to help unmake them.
It's interesting to me how me simply saying "I'm trans" equates to "sex change operation" in casual observers. All people can think about is that I want to mutilate my genitals somehow? Instead of anything that has to do with gender expression or gender identity? More like: the mind goes directly to the hypothetical genitals when the word "transsexual" is dropped. Mrph.
I think what interests me most here is the extent that people are willing to allow their imaginations to run off without asking me about myself. We truly do live in a transphobic world. Perhaps even a gender-variant-denialist world. I am glad to both be a person who challenges our culture's fear of acknowledging that gender isn't static and isn't binary and is, really, arbitrary. I am fortunate to know others who share my beliefs, and to have such supportive friends as I do. for that, I am thankful for this year.
If I hadn't come out to my parents, I could say none of this.
But I think the most important thing I did this year happened when I turned 27, and came out to myself. By that I mean reached a yet-to-be-known degree of self-acceptance about my gender identity. I acknowledged that I am trans, and summoned the courage to start telling people. I wouldn't even have this blog if that hadn't happened. Or written those poems that may be getting me into the degree programs I want.
I won't resolve to further out myself to everyone I even remotely know. Not out of concern for their feelings, or out of concern for keeping our relationships-in-passing stable. Out of concern of it's not even that big of a deal. Who cares what I am? Turns out, not many people. So I have license to do this at my own pace. I can resolve to be more confident that things will work out.
I resolve to find a name, and use it more. I resolve to be gender-positive this year to compensate for all the gender-negativity I felt this past year. I resolve to keep doing what I'm doing. I think that is good. I think that is achievable. I think that will be pleasant.
Anywho, 2012, you've been a wild ride, regardless of how you will be moralized. If you are any indication of how 2013 will be, I predict great degrees of living will occur. I predict I will be more myself this coming year than I have ever been before. And that, for good or bad, is worth living through.
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