Just as quickly as someone enters, they can leave. People make mistakes. They disappoint. And you’re left with yourself. Being alone is unbearable when you’ve enjoyed a reprieve with togetherness. I believed in the power of companionship. What I did not know then was that no one can heal you. You must learn to be your own company, your own cure. You cannot retreat into someone else for fulfillment.  The above passage is from Janet Mock’s latest book, “Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me”, an absolutely sensational narrating of Janet’s coming to herself as a young trans woman of color in Hawaii and New York. But this isn’t a review of the book, which I do highly recommend. It’s been a while since I read an entire book in a matter of days, if that means anything. But I’ll leave it up to you all to read it and love it for yourselves.
This post is much more personal than that. Which I guess is a sort of homage to the power of Janet’s writing, that she can force me not only to face my own heartache and brokenness, but to speak on it. Publicly. To get me to actually practice the commitment I made to myself earlier this year to lean into vulnerability again. [breathe] So here goes.
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Have you seen the clip from Doubt of three trans women, played by trans women actors, sitting in an outdoor cafe, chatting and existing plainly? If you haven't, no worries. Doubt is/was a CBS show that barely premiered before it was cancelled. In fact, it was cancelled after only two episodes. Later on, they decided to show the remaining filmed episodes and I finally caught up with them on Sunday. I actually wouldn't have even known the episodes were up if I wasn't following Laverne Cox, Angelica Ross, and Jen Richards on social media. If you want to check the clip out, follow this link. Thanks Angelica for posting it.
Trigger warning: This article discusses some specific examples of how racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc. show up in Armenian spaces. Some of those examples may be known, while others may not be, by the targets of those examples and may be caught off guard by their articulation here.
Today (because it's already April 24th in Armenia) marks the 102nd anniversary of the date we have chosen to commemorate the Armenian Genocide of the late 19th and early 20th centuries – April 24th. April 24th, 1915 or Red Sunday was the night hundreds of Armenian intellectuals in the Ottoman Empire, teachers, poets, musicians, journalists, medical providers, clergy, and other spiritual, cultural, and political leaders were rounded up, deported, and most ultimately murdered by their own government. Each year Armenians gather wherever in the world they might be to remember, commemorate, and protest together. We remember because we were never meant to exist. We commemorate to connect to our lost elders and pay our respects. We protest to demand acknowledgment and even reparations.
Recently, I had the fortune of joining a dear friend’s new venture, a budding community of individuals looking to connect around short readings and talk about the themes of justice, intersectionality, and power they discuss. The Lazy Book Club: Woke in 30 is a bold initiative, calling on folks to devote a mere hour every month or so – 30 minutes to read, 30 minutes to dialogue – to engage intellectually and emotionally with strangers and not-so-much strangers alike. The first one started off with a powerful piece that admittedly I hadn’t read before, so I was grateful for the assignment. It was “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation” from James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time.
Sometimes this uneasy feeling bubbles up to my emotional surface. It happened yesterday while I was on the Blue line train from the O'Hare airport into downtown Chicago. I was finishing reading a book as my stop came up, so I started putting it into my backpack. As I did, I realized that the book cover with the word "transgender" in the title was facing outwards, so the person sitting across from me could see it if they happened to be looking in my direction. I don't know if they did or not, or what thoughts crossed their mind if they did, but I felt this tinge of concern. Or maybe it was fear. I can't be sure. Probably fear.   Courtesy of Mikki Vargas Perhaps it's become a cliche to bring in Audre Lorde's epic quote on self-care, but this is one cliche that cannot be oversstated: "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." As trans and gender nonconforming people, especially TGNC folks of color, our bodies and our selves are often in the crosshairs of political warfare. Countless times, we have been used as wedge issues in elections, as tokens that are patronized only when our presence makes cis people and institutions look good, and as the bodies which cishet men violate and take out their insecurities and internalized hatred on. So caring for ourselves and loving ourselves is radical. Our existence is radical. Our healing is radical. Loving each other is radical. So I choose to work on loving and caring for myself better, so I can love and care for my trans and gender nonconforming siblings better.
With love and in solidarity #TransLoveNov  On day 29 of #TransLoveNov, I send my love to the tome of a book, "Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community." A massively collaborative creation, the book includes sections on health, legal issues, race and ethnicity, history, theory, and more. Contributors include trans folks writing on the topical areas of their expertise, so there are authors, legal advocates, technologists, artists, organizers, and more. Everything about this book was created by and for trans people, including the grassroots fundraising that happened to make sure this was made. I got two copies, so I could gift one to a friend, and I know of at least two college courses that use it as their main text.
With love and in solidarity #TransLoveNov  On day 28 of #TransLoveNov, I send my love to Angelica Ross. Miss Ross is multi-talented, so perhaps it's a given that she gets to be part of this week twice. I wanted to specifically shout her out today because of one of her songs that I think is easily featured in my imaginary playlist of trans anthems. The song is Be Strong and speaks to the seeking of (inner/external) strength so many of us experience, and hearing it brings a calm into my heart and mind.
With love and in solidarity #TransLoveNov  On day 27 of #TransLoveNov, I send love to Buff Butch. Created by professional boxer Pat Manuel (who I got to go through the Brown Boi Project March 2013 Leadership Retreat with) and now joined by Edxie Betts, Buff Butch is oppression-free fitness, queering fitness as a revolutionary tool. I've been on the program for over two years now and it has brought a new found love for my body and been a consistent (at least when I'm being consistent) source of release from the daily grind and the depression and anxiety I live with. Buff Butch does workshops all the time on how to queer fitness. Now on their QT, Fit, & Lit Tour, folks at colleges and universities should bring Buff Butch to help make your campus gyms safer and more comfortable for queer, gender nonconforming, and/or trans bodies.
With love and in solidarity #TransLoveNov |
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