Transforming Regret

I was going through some boxes the other day trying to find something and came across many old pictures of me with the big Farrah Faucet hair. I look at those now like all of that was so far away and yet it really wasn't. I was playing a part to make others more comfortable for much of my life. These photographs have become harder for me to look at the further into being authentic I am. I learned a great deal from the experience of experiencing life from both sides of the binary gender world and I would not trade those lessons for anything. Because of that unique training I see things that most men don't see or understand about a woman's experience walking in this world.  I also understand things about men and the way men are treated that most women don't.


Part of the pain in looking back is thinking about why I allowed the worry of loss to keep me from being true to myself.  Not knowing for sure what would happen, but I knew that there would be some loss.  Family, friends, career which of these would have walked this break in the gender norm with me?  I allowed that fear to keep me from transitioning much earlier in life and there are times I look at that with some regret. I do work to turn that regret into good energy. I use that energy to help me as an activist working to create a safer more friendly place for others to feel supported in being who they truly are. When I was growing up in the south there was no support for a kid or young person who was LGBTQ. I am thankful to have the opportunity to be apart of creating change in this area. 


The next reason it is difficult to look at those pictures is that I see the inner pain, the loneliness, the celebrated young person who felt so misunderstood. This is the reason that suicide is so prevalent with LGBTQ youth and young adults. I could not see any light at the end of the tunnel. I did not see a way out of this charade I was playing. There was no internet to find community, no support group and I grew up hearing everything about what I was feeling was SIN. All of that combined becomes paralyzing. I am not sure how I was able to accomplish all that I did through that, all that I know is that I saw it as some kind of a way out.


I get asked all the time by caring people who want to help "what can I do to make a difference?" I believe that the most important thing that any of us can do is to give people a safe space to be their authentic self, whatever that is for them. To give people a safe place to explore that without judgments. Tell young people that being fully YOU is more important then fitting into the status quo.  To follow their hearts and that they are supported in that. If all we did was this, for just one young person, we could make an monumental difference. 

Way to Sticky - Labels

The way we communicate in society calls for us to label everything. When working with a child to learn language we help them label everything they touch, see and feel to learn how to communicate.  We spend a good part of our early years being taught to label everything in our world to identify it and even to put those things in categories according to those labels. Apple, this is a fruit and goes in the fruit group, category and so on. We also do this with people during our formative foundation learning process. This is mommy, daddy, grandma, teacher, and so on.  When our education system in mostly based on labeling and categorizing it makes it difficult to open our minds beyond this form of thinking and cataloging that we are so well trained in. When I teach about diversity I let people know that I have so much compassion for people struggling with all of this because we have all been brainwashed, conditioned by our education systems, families, churches and on and on. This is apart of that conditioning. We teach labeling and categorizing and then tell people 'don't put me in a box," and not to label people. That can makes people brain do flips. Labeling for the purpose of communicating is sometimes needed so what makes it turn negative.

Labeling gone bad happens when we attach things to those labels and then make judgements about who a person is or what they can and cannot do according to those attachments. This is the start of when and how we limit people according to labels.  Like "girls are not supposed to play football."
I had not idea you played football with your penis, but I have heard statements like this limiting someone due to things like genitalia my entire life. Another common one is something like, "wow, its amazing how well you dance and move for such a big guy."  Those are total judgement based statements about what a person has attached to a category and label they have given you. This is something we have to commonly examine within ourselves. WE ALL DO IT.  We were trained to do it. Forgive yourself, be aware of it and start paying attention when you do it and then examine how you are labeling and categorizing. Are you doing it in a way that puts limits on the person, thing, event or can you give those labels and still be consciously open to many possibilities.

 As a transman which is a label, that I many times detest but use as an activist and educator to help talk about gender. I usually don't like to meet someone when someone else has told them that I am trans. The reason is they already have these preconceived notions in their minds of what that means and I have found it is usually not positive. I would rather them meet me as a person then find out if need be and then I always love the shocking, "WOW, I had no idea."  "You are a nice guy."  I love when they act shocked that a trans person can be a nice person, or a regular seeming guy.  I find that label very limiting in others perceptions, in what people have attached to it.

Conscious living is what I hope for in the world. I hope that through educating that people open their minds to examine what they attach to all labels.This work of living consciously is a lifetime journey and I believe the only way to live. Remember the way we were trained it takes work to retrain and remap our brains. Be patient with yourself as you do this work and even listen to the labels you use on yourself in your head when you are beating yourself up.  Examine those as well. When I facilitate diversity training's I do several exercises around labeling to cultivate deep examination of how we attach things to these labels we use. Here is one for you.  Write down every label you use to describe yourself and you have heard others use to describe you. Then write what each of those labels means to you. What thoughts come up around those labels and what feelings rise up within around those thoughts. How do they limit you and the full expression of who you are?  Try this exercise and let me know what it reveals to you.

PS:  When you are ready to shed a label - this stuff called "Goo be Gone" is great to get the sticky off.

Beyond 50 Shades Of Gray - Spanking, Safe Words, and Boundaries

Recovering From the Lie

I was on an LGBTQ panel a couple weeks ago and a friend who is a transgender woman said something that really stuck out to me. She said that when you are over forty and trans, basically society taught us to lie. We had to lie to be safe, we had to cover up who we were to survive. When a person spends their first forty years having to lie and hide who they really are, how does that effect every part of that persons life.


Wow, it is true that many people have had to cover up parts of who they are to be safe. What kind of lasting effect does that have on people?  What effects does that have on our relationships?  As I contemplate these questions, something inside me knows that this has had a deep effect on many aspects of my life and the lives of all who have lived that experience. The idea of don't ask, don't tell is even asking people to lie, to cover up. When we work and live in a world where others can have pictures of who they love in the work place and gay people could not, or have to play a game or a part that is not true to who we are each day by how we present in order to be safe and have or keep a job. Many people have had to hide who they are to be accepted. When anyone has to do this for years how can living a life of lies like this not change a person? Having to live like that is existing under a constant state of hyper-pressure. Living in fear of being found out and what the consequences of that would be. These are real fears as many have lost jobs, been kicked out of families, churches, circle of friends or worse.


I think of relationships that I had with good people who would say things to me like " you don't talk to me enough about the real stuff." How can you when as a trans person, different from many of my gay friends, I did not think I could even share with partners what I was dealing with inside. How do you share or expect a partner or even close friends in the south in the 80's to understand this? There was no support group where I was and the internet was not there yet to find community.  We were very isolated at that time and before.  This experience has stayed with me in many ways, like with trusting people or always wondering if people really understand you or accept you fully. Those parts of me that were trained for so many years to carefully navigate the world take a time to work through if one ever totally does, it is certainly a form of PTSD. 


 Then when I finally got out of the south and felt I was in a safe enough space to share there were close friends from the south who said things to me like, "why didn't you feel like you could tell me."  It is hard not to laugh when people say such things. No matter how nice you were to me, you were nice as I presented, fitting into certain boxes that you were comfortable with. If I no longer fit into those boxes how was I to have any idea you would still accept me. How was I, or anyone like me, to know who to trust? Then coming out about being transgender and being very public about it, I have seen that people respond in many different ways. Some have come through and been able to talk with me and accept it and some have not, which is alright. I have to give others the same room to walk whatever their journey is, as I have asked for the safe space to walk mine. 


It is a good thing that many young people today don't understand this because we have been riding the wave of positive change in many ways. Much of the world is much more accepting than when I was a young person and I am glad for that. It is still important to understand that many of us did not grow up with that freedom and it has had lasting effects on us and our community. No one should have to live a life of lies to be safe or be able to have a job, love who they want to and progress in the world. If each of us let the people in our lives know that we want all to have the safe space and freedom to live authentically we can change this.