Further Thoughts

They say you should never read the comments on social media. Sometimes I do anyway, because I’m curious to hear what people are thinking about issues. As I’ve read comments on a couple articles related to Drumpf’s pronouncement on Wednesday excluding transgender people from military service, I’ve come away with some disturbing conclusions.

The issue here isn’t fundamentally about military service at all. On a personal level, I couldn’t care less whether I can serve in the military and can’t understand why anyone would want to, but that’s a different post for a different time. On a societal level, the issues at stake in this debate go beyond the specific question of military service.

First of all, I’ve read the argument that military service is not a right. Ok, on a simple level, I agree. Neither is shopping at a store of your choosing, or being able to use a public restroom, or even driving a motor vehicle. But having the opportunity to engage in those activities, to join clubs, to volunteer in your community, to serve in the military – these are all central freedoms that we enjoy as members of our society. When someone says that a person should be excluded from the military simply because they do not conform to an arbitrary standard to gender identity, how is that different than saying that someone cannot serve because their skin color or religion don’t meet a certain expectation? And if you can exclude transgender people from the military on that basis, what’s to stop you from making the same argument in other public domains? Where does it end?

I understood from some of the arguments I read that far too many people still do not view being transgender as a fundamental identity issue. They believe it is a choice. Therefore, someone who makes that choice must live with the consequences of it, even if those consequences include reduction of freedoms or rights. But transgender people do not choose to be transgender, any more than someone who is black or Hispanic chooses to be so. It is a fundamental part of their identity. How they choose to embrace and express that varies from one individual to another, but the core identity remains regardless. We have made some (albeit limited) progress in this country on reducing legal discrimination in public accommodations based on ethnicity, skin color and such. Gender identity falls into the same category.

Secondly, and corollary to the issue of whether being transgender is a core identity or a choice, I have read many arguments that the public should not have to pay the cost for transgender people to receive the medical care they need. When I read this, I inevitably detect an underlying current of “This is a choice, so the medical care concurrent with that choice is not essential, but optional.” With this mentality, the treatment some transgender people need to live whole lives becomes a luxury, a cosmetic convenience. And why should society pay for someone’s cosmetic luxuries?

If it were a luxury, I’d agree. But it’s not. Transgender people face legitimate medical needs just like many other people in our society. In trying to align our bodies with our identities, we pursue the medical care that is necessary and appropriate to us, just as anyone with a fundamental health issue would. Should society help pay for these needs? Well, that’s the nature of collective insurance. We all contribute so that each of us can have our needs met as they arise. We don’t get to choose whether Tommy should get the medication for his asthma, or Sally should get the eczema treatment she needs. That’s not our decision, just as it is not Tommy or Sally’s decision whether you should be subsidized in your allergy medications, or your thyroid pills, or whatever treatment you may need. When we look at the specific issue of transgender care in the military, we have to recognize and admit that the military pays for all sorts of medical care for its personnel, medical care that we may or may not consider legitimate. Should the military subsidize Viagra so male soldiers can get better erections? Hardly seems to be an essential need in my mind. But I’m not going to protest it, even though I think Viagra is more of a luxury than basic care for transgender people is.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by this attitude toward healthcare. After all, our representatives in Washington seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of collective insurance. That doesn’t make them right, any more than someone’s objections to their taxes subsidizing care for transgender service personnel are valid. If we’re going to start protesting all the things our taxes support, allow me to submit my list right now. Again, we’re a collective society, which means we all contribute to meet the needs of one another, even when we don’t always agree whether they are truly needed.

Reading the comments the past couple days has shaken my belief in the goodness of people. It has reminded me that I am fortunate to be surrounded by people who recognize and affirm the inherent worth, value and dignity of all people. Because of this I can sometimes forget that there are lots of people in this country who don’t think this way. If those voices prevail, I fear for the future of this country, and of our world. But I will hold on to my hope and confidence that inclusion will prevail, even through the dark night of the current climate.

Marginalized Again

I debated whether to write anything in response to the latest pronouncement from the idiot-in-chief in Washington D.C.. What difference will my thoughts make? However, as I have reflected on it this morning, I recognized that this is not the time to be silent. When the head of our government (I refuse to call him our leader, because he is not leading) decides that an entire group of people is unfit for military service simply on the basis of who they are, this is unacceptable. It’s an aggressive act of further marginalizing an already marginalized group. No, it doesn’t affect me directly. I’m too old for and have no interest in serving in the military, but there are many others in my community who are serving or would like to serve, who have just been told they are not worthy, that incorporating them would be too expensive (in a military that spends billions annually?), that it would detract from “decisive and overwhelming victory.” (What kind of language is that, anyway? Decisive and overwhelming victory against whom?) Once again our community receives the message that we are not entitled to full participation in our society.

I also realize that this is a classic tactic by the tRump to distract us from the other issues going on in the two-bit circus that he has created in Washington. Some might say that this is a minor matter, that we need to stay focused on the Republican threat to our healthcare. I would respond, “No” and “Yes.” In fact, we need to counter this latest attack while not lessening our resistance to their attack on our healthcare. Der Trumpenfuhrer is a master of creating so many distractions and issues that it feels impossible to respond to all of them at once. It’s tiring. I want to take a break. Probably many of you do as well. And we’re most tempted to take a break when the issue doesn’t seem to directly affect us. If you’re cisgender, you may feel like this isn’t your fight, that you need to focus your energies on other issues. I can understand that, but try for a moment to stand in the shoes of your transgender friends and feel what we feel as we are once again excluded from society. We will fight this fight, because we have to, but without the support of our cisgender allies, straight, gay, lesbian, bi or other, we face a herculean task. When it comes to defending our basic rights to live free and full lives in society, we don’t have the option of taking a break.

I appreciate the supportive responses I’ve seen online today. I appreciate the personal messages of support that I have received. I appreciate that I live in a community where the LG and B communities stand with the transgender community, as do many in the heterosexual, cisgender community. I am thankful that I know, at least here in my town, we are not alone. This gives me hope on days like this. It gives me hope that the resistance to this anti-government will prevail because we recognize and affirm the value, dignity and inherent worth of all people. The community I live in offers hope and promise of a better future. 

My Fitbit -- Friend or Foe?

I received my Fitbit for Christmas two years ago. It was a thoughtful present, though unexpected. I began wearing it that day. It fit well with my efforts to live an active, healthy lifestyle.

My Fitbit quickly became a standard piece of my life. In fact, I initially wore it all the time, except when I had to recharge it. I’d wear it to bed and in the morning look at my app to see how I’d slept. (Somewhat restlessly? Peacefully? Did I get enough hours?) I religiously logged my water consumption, striving to hit that target each day – and most often succeeding. I’d check my step count, though I ignored the stair count, since I would actively have to go find steps to climb in my city. I particularly liked checking my heart rate after dance class. After one particularly intense class, as I nearly collapsed from being light-headed, I looked at the data and learned that I had spent half the class in the “cardio” (or mid-level) zone and half in the “peak” zone. No wonder I was so tired. (Most classes will push into peak for a few minutes during the course of an hour.)

I took a small amount of pride when I’d earn Fitbit’s accomplishment badges, though I never made that my goal. I connected with a few friends and would monitor my stats against theirs, wondering how in the world they got in so many steps in a week. On occasion I’d finish the week with the highest number of steps, and feel a sense of accomplishment.

All this seemed well and good. How could it be bad to monitor my activity level, after all? If my Fitbit prompted me to be more active, that was a good thing. Until it wasn’t. Over time, I started to become enslaved to this device. I’d feel disappointed in myself if I didn’t hit my targets. I would compare myself to my friends and feel frustrated that I fell so far short of their step counts for the week. It started to become a chore, an obligation, a competition, and my results far too often left me feeling inadequate. There it is, that word again. My Fitbit, unintentionally, contributed to the message that I was not enough. I had become its slave.

To break the chains of this bondage, I have worked to change my perspective on this simple device. I will check my step count to see how the day’s going, but I try not to evaluate it in terms of some arbitrary goal, nor in terms of how many steps my friends are logging. I stopped entering my water consumption. It had become a tedious task that helped me little, as I drink lots of water all day anyway. And I stopped wearing the Fitbit while I slept (that was, in fact, the first thing I dropped.) When I remember, I still log my sleep hours using the app, just to have an idea how many hours I’m getting during the week, but I no longer concern myself with the details of any particular night’s rest. Ironically, the office where I work recently moved into a multistory building, so for the first time since I got it, I actually regularly record flights of steps. I’m trying not to make that my new obsession.

In the end, my Fitbit is just a tool, a device that can help me in certain aspects. But because of my personality, I allowed it to exert an inordinate influence over me. I am not raising the flag of revolution against these type of fitness monitors. I’m not critiquing how others use them, (though I do still wonder how some of my friends log the number of steps they do each week!) I am, however, reasserting control over my own life and my own use of this device. I’m not going to let it, or the accompanying fitness mentality, awaken feelings of inadequacy in me. I’m doing just fine, thank you. I do still wear it most days, if for no other reason than I like the convenience of being able to check the time without pulling my phone out. But sometimes I just leave it laying on my dresser and blissfully go through me day completely unconcerned about how many steps I’m taking and whether leaving it at home is going to put me in last place in my friend group for step count this week. And at the end of those days, I lie down to rest without a single worry that I didn’t hit my step count for the day. 

Enough

I recently added these two words to my wall.

If you are familiar with Brené Brown, you’ll recognize their significance. If you’re not, well, I recommend becoming familiar with Brené Brown. I’ve wanted to write these on my wall since moving into my own place last summer. Finally, thanks to an amazing woman whom I met when we shared the stage at Female Storytellers a few months ago, my vision has become reality.

They seem like simple enough words. For me they carry so much significance. I have spent most of my life feeling like I was never enough: not a good enough parent, not successful enough, not smart enough, not talented enough, not disciplined enough, not strong enough… The list could go on. Sadly, this mindset overrode even my strengths, robbing me of my self-worth. No matter what I did, no matter how well I did, I heard a voice inside telling me that it wasn’t enough, that I had failed. And if I had failed, then I was a failure.

That voice inside my head was, at times, reinforced by outside voices. My dad, as much as I love him, did not freely bestow affirmation. My former spouse, for all her positive qualities, at times reinforced this message. It became a tape that played in my mind all too often, robbing me of life, of joy, of self-acceptance, of the ability to take risks. When you feel like you are not enough, you’re unlikely to step out and try something that you don’t feel confident at. Heck, even when you are fairly confident that you can successfully do something, you mentally focus on the ways in which you didn’t do it well enough.

One of the reasons I left Christianity was that this mentality enslaved me. I spent my life trying to be good enough for god. My inherent worth as a child of god was entirely overshadowed and destroyed by the sinfulness of my human nature. Sure, god would save me because god loved me, but would do so despite my being a miserable wretch. (Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…) I would strive to let Jesus transform me. I sought to live a good life, to respond to god’s love with love. I went halfway around the world in service to god’s kingdom. But it was never enough. I could never measure up. I felt the painful awareness of this all the time. I imagine some readers might be thinking about now, “Doesn’t she understand grace?” Sure I do. Grace is a lovely concept, but underlying grace is the idea that I am fundamentally inadequate, unworthy, not enough. That god in grace might choose to overlook that, didn’t change the fundamental idea that I was all those things. It was an unhealthy, destructive theology.

I’ve been working on breaking this thought pattern, on discarding that old tape in my brain. (I’m showing my age here a bit.) It’s hard to change a mindset established and reinforced over so many years. I have made amazing changes in my life. I have found empowerment, life, joy, fullness, and happiness that I had never dreamed of. I have built my confidence. I have recognized my self-worth. But when I encounter failure, when things aren’t going the way I want them to, when they don’t work out quite right, that old message is right there, ready to repeat itself. Just recently it started playing as I worked through some parenting issues that had arisen, leaving me feeling once again that I wasn’t a good enough parent, that I had failed, that I am a failure. Thankfully, I was able to share my feelings with a good friend, who listened thoughtfully, passed me tissues to dry my tears, and gently but firmly reminded me of the truth: I am enough. I don’t have to prove myself. I am enough. I don’t have to earn my self-worth. I am inherently worthy.  

You may not relate to this internal struggle. You may possess enormous amounts of self-confidence and self-assurance. If so, I envy you. But I suspect I’m not alone in this battle to affirm that I am enough. We live in a culture that regularly assaults our sense of adequacy. How often do we see articles on social media or in magazines or elsewhere telling us how we just need to do X to be better parents, lovers, friends, to be more successful in our careers, in our relationships…the list could go on for a long time. Those are all messages of inadequacy; subtle, or not so subtle, reminders that we’re not really enough. They slowly but steadily erode our sense of self-worth. They are lies.

I’m not saying I don’t have room for growth and improvement. I do, and I’m actively working on areas that matter to me. But I don’t want to do it from a sense of not being good enough. My inherent value remains whether I get that new job, nail that interview, bake that perfect cake, create a Pinterest-worthy living room, write that perfect blog post(!), find that perfect someone, raise the ideal child. My worth is not measured by how well I achieve some arbitrary standard foisted on me by others. My adequacy is not based upon my ability to measure up to some ideal. I am worthy and I am enough because I exist, because I am a woman, because I am alive.

I hung these two prints on my wall such that they are the last things I see before going to sleep at night, and the first things I see when I wake in the morning. I want to emblazon them on my mind as constant reminders of the truth that defines me, rather than the lies that have controlled me for so long. I am worthy. I am enough.

Stalked

I acquired my first stalker recently. It happened at an open house I attended last week, a social mixer for the local GLBT Chamber of Commerce hosted by one of the member organizations. A man came up to me and started telling me how beautiful I was and how he’d love to get together. Umm, not interested. Unfortunately, my innate inclination to not be offensive misled me in my initial response, which was too mild. I did not try to lead him on or indicate real interest, but my expressions of disinterest were clearly not enough to dissuade him. I drifted over to sit with some friends, hoping to indicate that I wasn’t interested. But no, he followed and sat down next to me. Eventually I indicated that I needed to be leaving, stood up and prepared to depart, at which point he finally drifted away. I hadn’t actually intended or wanted to depart at that point, but my pretext at least freed me of his unwanted presence. I lingered and talked with my friends, who had all been aware of what was happening, all the time keeping a watchful eye on the man’s location in the room and staying close to a friend so that at any point I could place them between me and him if necessary.

I felt frustrated that none of my friends had more actively intervened. Apparently, they figured I was wise enough to know how to handle the situation, not realizing that I’m pretty much a rookie in this regard. I really would have appreciated one of them taking the lead and rescuing me. They were sympathetic and after the fact offered lots of helpful (sincerely!) advice that I shall store up for the future. One transgender female friend quipped that I should be flattered by his interest. She meant it in humor but I let her know that I didn’t find it funny. As someone who has no attraction to men, having a male stranger rate my physical beauty will never be a welcome compliment.

Afterwards I felt dirty, violated, icky. I had not wanted this man’s attentions. I had not invited them or encouraged them. What gave him the right to approach me in that way? But I also felt ashamed that I had not done more to draw my boundaries more strongly and clearly, that I hadn’t asserted myself. I felt like I was to blame for his violation of my personal space. Thankfully, as I chatted about the experience with a friend, she reminded me: “We are not responsible for the way men treat us in public! Being attractive women does NOT mean we deserved to be harassed!” She helpfully encouraged me to not be so hard on myself and not to allow myself to feel like I was to blame for his actions.

Now my stalker has started calling me at work. I have no intention of answering or responding to his calls. I talked to my office manager about it and she promptly showed me how to block his calls on our phone system. She also assured me that if, somehow, he should find his way to our office and start harassing me, she would act decisively on my behalf. I appreciate that kind of support. It’s nice to know that other women have my back.

I keep coming back to the thought that my reaction was one of shame, that I felt responsible for this situation. What a messed up world we live in, in which we women are made to feel that we are the guilty ones when someone violates us. Having largely put the shame behind me, now I’m pissed off at the men of this world who feel entitled to our attentions, as if we exist only to please them. Next time I hope I’ll be bold enough to say what I should have said this time: “Fuck off.”

Creative Therapy

I began doing cross-stitch a number of years ago, when I lived in Russia. Long, cold, dark winter nights, small children and a limited budget meant many an evening was spent in front of a miniscule tv trying my best to follow the Russian tv shows. While watching, my spouse would regularly work on some type of needle-work project. I grew tired of sitting idly, so I asked her to teach me to cross-stitch. Besides being a way to pass the time, I wanted to take up an activity where I could express creativity and see the fruit of my labor. My various tasks at work provided little satisfaction in this area, as they involved pestering co-workers for reports that no one wanted to submit. I desperately needed an outlet where I had a definite goal and could clearly mark my progress towards it.

In retrospect, cross-stitch was a natural fit for my nature. At the time, those who knew I did it generally looked at me a little like they would a misfit child. I appreciate that my spouse supported me. She taught me the basics, then helped me when I’d get confused, or when I’d get a knot in my floss, or any number of other problems that I’d encounter. My early works were quite small. I eventually progressed to this somewhat larger, slightly more complex piece.

 

Completed somewhere around 2005

 My spouse bought me a kit that looked like an ancient world map. It took me a couple years to complete. I began working it in Tajikistan and finished it after returning to the United States. My daughter bought me this design, which took me over a year to complete. Both of those projects now hang in my parent’s house.

Creating beauty through cross-stitch has benefitted me beyond providing a way to keep myself occupied. As a recovering perfectionist, working cross-stitch designs has challenged me to let go of my intense desire for perfection in every detail. I don’t think I’ve ever finished a design without a single mistake. I won’t say it’s impossible, because maybe some other cross-stitchers can do it. But not me. I inevitably make mistakes. The more complex the project, the more mistakes I will make. I had to learn, and it took a lot of time to do so, that the mistakes don’t destroy the beauty of the pattern. In fact, the mistakes are what make my project unique. Otherwise my finished cross-stitch would look just like every other example of the pattern, since these are mass-produced and marketed. My mistakes take a generic product and make it personally my creative artwork, and that’s pretty fucking awesome. I will correct some mistakes, but many times they cannot easily be corrected without causing greater damage to the work as a whole. Sometimes I’ll leave them simply because they are part of my unique work.

March 2016

July 2016

October 2016

About the time I started my transition, I also began working on a new cross-stitch project, my most complex design to date. This project has become a very personal one for me, because of the specific design and because the process of seeing that design emerge from the canvas has paralleled my own journey seeing myself emerge. The blank canvas reflects the background of my life, out of which something amazing and beautiful is emerging. Are there flaws in this beauty? Yes, there are. Neither my cross-stitch project nor I am flawless. But our flaws are part of what makes us unique. I don’t have to be perfect, because I never have been and never will be. I still have to remind myself of this message regularly, because perfection has always been a piece of armor for me. On top of that, I came out of a religious background that told me simultaneously that I had to be perfect, but that I could never attain perfection, leaving me with a lifetime of frustration and self-disappointment.

January 2017

I’m not saying that I don’t strive to do my best in my life, just as I always strive to do my best work to realize the pattern in the cross-stitch. But I’ve made great progress in showing myself gentleness when I don’t succeed, when I don’t get the design just right or when something in my life doesn’t go just the way I wanted it to. Life is full of beauty, and part of that beauty lies in the unique imperfections of each person and situation.

March 2017

Just like my own journey, this project moves forward in fits and starts. Sometimes I make great progress. Then I have periods where I make very little. Sometimes this frustrates me, because I feel like I should be making steady progress all the time. But life’s not like that, whether we’re talking about a cross-stitch project or a major life transformation. As someone has said, life is a marathon, not a sprint. I have to remember that and allow myself the freedom to adjust to the rhythm of life, whatever it may be at the moment. I do look forward to completing this project. It’s going to take a while, since I’ve been at it over a year and a  half and still don’t even have it halfway completed. My own journey will never be fully complete. I want to always be growing, learning, emerging more into the woman I am, the woman I for so long didn’t recognize or accept, the one who is imperfect but beautiful nonetheless. 

June 2017