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@rhys260293
(and other non-french followers who either don’t understand the situation now in France, don’t want to understand it or give their opinion on the subject without grasping it)
On Wednesday morning in Paris, two armed men irrupted in the premises of the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo and killed...
Pick up your matt and walk/go and get therapy.
I've just been told by my psychiatrist that I will be referred for therapy with a group called talking space with MIND. She says they'll walk me through my issues with my parents, and with everything else. I'm not sure where it comes from, but I've been raised to bottle up emotions. I used to deflect serious questions with humour (and occasionally I still do). It is a habit I trained myself out of, and also something that became impossible to sustain whilst depressed. Even so I still mostly lie when asked 'how are you?' I assume most people aren't genuine, which is an insult to those people actually... I assume most people ask because of social etiquette and I say 'I'm good' and I get better and better at making that convincing. Sometimes I can't lie. I pretend to be much worse than I am so people won't talk to me and I won't have to lie or have genuine interaction. Church teaches you not to have genuine interaction with people. There are standards to which you must hold to, and your life must appear a certain way. So rather than living up to these impossible standards, you lie. I've never seen more lying done than in Churches. This is why it always surprises me when I meet up against tut-tutting for my honesty in my current Church. We pride ourselves as being 'not like those other Churches' but we're humble about it. We're not praying 'dear Lord, thank you that we're not like those other Churches'. We're 'praying to be inclusive' (as says our Church sign). For the first time in my healing journey I'm afraid. Whatever those issues are I don't want to deal with them, and for the first time in my life I *want* to be depressed and my depression is seriously debilitating. I've realised I've been putting so much hope into the idea that medication would work because I don't want to unpack my issues. To explain why I'd have to start unravelling those issues, which makes this post possibly seem a bit conceited or convoluted and possibly both. This is me on my journey. Jesus has said 'do you want to be made well?' I have many excuses, and I'm being told 'go and get therapy', the equivalent of 'pick up your matt and walk' and unlike the man at the side of the pool. I'm sat by the pool, having been there for a long time. I'm not ready to take the plunge so I'm still contemplating the waters into which I am about to plunge. Bible references can be found here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+5%3A1-9&version=NRSV
Academia, low self-esteem and me
I thought I might try writing a simple equation for my low self-esteem and this is what came out: People's high expectations > my achievements = assumptions that this was solely to do with effort = thoughts that there was something seriously wrong with me + thoughts that I was stupid incongruent with information around me that people told me I was intelligent = low self-esteem. When people tell you that your are intelligent and always follow it by 'so why aren't you achieving more?' And make this assumption that you just don't care and aren't trying when you have been trying quite hard on several occasions with zero reward. You start out by saying 'but I did try really hard, I was up all night doing this' and then slowly as none of your work is acknowledged then you wonder what the point is. Why should I even bother? And then that becomes a habit that you foster over many years of numbing yourself to caring about academic work... And so this is why I don't consider myself to be very academic even though people often tell me I'm intelligent. I've only ever felt stupid around University of Oxford students and it is my belief that you don't get into Oxford purely on intelligence. There is hard work involved. Their brains are much more trained than me... Later on, I did manage to find some subjects I enjoyed and put the effort into those subjects. History, English, Drama, Music, etc. I then went on to do those at AS Level at Giggleswick. Started out my year there brilliantly and just became increasingly clinically depressed, increasingly suicidal and increasingly I didn't care. I didn't have a long term plan and went to the university I went to on a whim because honestly I didn't really want to go to university. I've enjoyed the course but the depression has got worse and worse and worse until it has become completely debilitating. I went to get help, have seen a psychiatrist and am now about to start a drug called Setraline, who's brand name is Zoloft. Ultimately, I am not anti-knowledge or anti-learning but over the years have found that I prefer physical work. Challenging work that involves social interaction; this is something that is not natural to me but which I enjoy doing. Imagine someone with dyslexia who loves to read and wants to get over their dyslexia, and that is me and social interaction. I prefer work that physically tires me (not through extended stress over a long period, but because of doing physical things like sorting out a prop cupboard or going to find a particular costume). I am that ultimate of all clichees when it comes to being a young person who wants a job that isn't me being behind a desk all day. I've had it suggested to me that I go into academia. The thought makes me want to cry. I would rather stick pins in my eye. These qualities that I admire, enjoy practicing and so on, quite frankly are not qualities that it has been expected I would pursue. It has been expected that I would be quite book-y and academic and over the years my lack of attention span has had me falling in and out of love with reading. People talk to me and sense that I am intelligent, or that my neural connectivity is high or whatever the case may be (I know nothing about brains so I'll just stop here) but what they don't know: - my memory is in the 25th percentile, that percentile that brain damaged people's brains are in - it takes me about a month to get through reading a book (on average) and that is if I finish it. I finish about 5% of the books that I start reading - I do everything incredibly slowly, whatever the assignment is it will take me about twice as long as everyone else in the class I get very frustrated by all of the above. What makes it worse is that people are surprised to learn this about me and expect, from talking to me, that I'll be able to: - remember everyone's names and faces (something I used to be good at and is increasingly being robbed from me by my stupid brain), be able to store and remember masses of information, basically to be in the 75th percentile memory-wise, or have a healthy adult brain whose memory is that of a healthy 21 year old - read really quickly, finish all the books I read, and take no longer than a week to finish a book - finish assignments during the same time period that it will take everyone else in the class to, maybe finish marginally quicker Sometimes people who know me, and know me well, still expect me to be able to do all of this. The reality is incongruent with their expectations and their expectations, for some reason, override the reality. All of the above, the expectations and their incongruence with reality, the fact that the kind of job I really want to do involves skills that we view as lesser in our job-hierarchy and the fact that it has been expected of me from a young age to do something brilliant with my life, or societally understood as high-achieving, slowly chips away at my self-esteem. Honestly, it makes me feel shitty and makes me want to strangle people when they're shocked when I tell them these things. It is a frustrated sort of rage because I want the anger to supersede the feeling shitty about myself but I know what they've said or how they've reacted will chip at my self-esteem and therefore that's why I'm angry. So I've just thought of a response to the usual expectations and so on, I will explain this as I normally do, and then go on to say, but the fact that you think I'm well-articulated and intelligent upon social interaction proves to me that I ought to do something involving social interaction, so thanks! - and then watch their well-to-do faces to see their reaction to this horrifying news.
Yes, transphobia is real but...
we need to stop seeing transphobia in places and situations where it isn't. The world is hard enough, and transphobia-filled enough without inventing transphobia to keep our minds occupied. I don't know about you, but my current lot keeps me occupied enough. Once I finally get a break from it, I make sure to acknowledge that. I breathe, I have big long hugs with the people I love, and long chats over many cups of tea. At no point during these encounters do I think it is a good idea to pretend that they are transphobic to add to the turmoil of life because I'm bored. Actually, the people I know who see turmoil and strife where it isn't, aren't bored, they're addicted to conflict. It is easily done. Every situation requires confrontation. No problem can not be solved in a warfare-like manner. Back in the day, I may even have started my confrontations by saying 'I don't want to start an argument' and the next word to follow was 'but' and many more words contrary to my original statement after that. And, here, is where I'll get to the crux of the problem. We have instigated a war, and as armies go, just a toe out of line and you are the enemy who must be either assimilated or branded an enemy and shot. 'WE ARE BORG. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.' And what are our terms? Here is where I get to the crux of the problem. My terms are actually fairly straight-forward. Maybe you don't understand? Fine. Try to understand. Ask me questions. If any of what you have asked is offensive, I will say so as calm as I possibly can. I will correct you when you've done something deeply hurtful. So long as you are malleable to change and willing to listen. Now that's the base-level of terms that you'll ever see from any trans person. I doubt you'll see much lower than that unless you are a family member. If you're a family member and you are reading this, however, you are clearly wanting to understand so first of all: 1) well done 2) this really isn't the blog post to start with, sorry 3) the best place to start is with my own personal story, it might help you understand trans people better. It starts here and continues on in parts. Back on track. What are the terms of the army? Well this gets to the crux of what I really want to talk about, essentialist/reductive language or as it is termed by some. What do I mean by this? Having a discussion about female biology and using terms like 'women'. When women get their periods, etc. There seems to be an attack on this sort of language that I think is misplaced for a number of reasons. 1) By saying things like 'when women get periods', you have not suggested that all women get periods, nor have you suggested that only women get periods, you have merely made a statement which is a generalisation. 2) It is much easier to speak in generalisations. As human beings we often do it. Our language does not account for statistical outliers, and we shouldn't expect it to. Transsexualism is a statistical outlier. The estimated percentages are between 1-5%. In any case, a rather minute portion of the population, and thus not one that is going to be taken into account in our generalised way of speaking. 3) The population of women who can not and do not menstruate is much higher than the population of transmen who menstruate (if the population of transexuals is 1-5%, then the population of transmen is even smaller, and the population of transmen who menstruate is *even* smaller). Women who do no menstruate or can not, for whatever reason, never get irked by people using language such as 'when women get periods' for example. 4) The people I know who use such language are not meaning it to be against trans people. The people I know who use such language are some of the most understanding people when it comes to trans issues. That is not to say that some people who use this language aren't transphobic, but the use or not of this language is not a clear indicator of someone's transphobia. To assume, as some do, that the use of this language which generalises means you are transphobic is a massive assumption. It shuts down any ability of both groups (trans allies who use language some would say is essentialist and trans allies who do not use such language) to dialogue and discuss things with each other and to fight issues that trans people face that need tackling. 5) The effort it expends to change our language around biology is not worth it. Using such language as 'assigned female at birth' when it comes to these things is easy enough. Try speaking a sentence when it comes to basic biology without making any reference to gender OR sex (that's reductive too by many people's standards because sex is a social construct in their eyes; That is a longer argument, the details of which I don't think help enlighten this post). I'll give you some leeway and allow you to use AFAB and AMAB (assigned female at birth; assigned male at birth). Was it easy? Perhaps it was. Now try adjusting *all* of your language around this when you talk about these issues and do so constantly. I can tell you from experience that it is exhausting. 6) There are more important things we could be doing with our time. Let's start here, or here, or even here. 7) The other argument I hear is that some trans people get incredibly upset over this kind of language being used. My response to that was that they need to grow up. I'm not sure how they haven't gone mad if this language bothers them that much. This may, on the outset sound harsh, but I mean it literally. The language we're talking about is very prevalent and is used by nearly everyone I know, some who are supportive of trans people, and tackling trans issues, and others not at all supportive. I encounter this language daily. If I was upset every time I encounter it, I'd drive myself mad. Furthermore, a few experiences of transphobia, out in public with strangers, via your family members, or however it makes your way to you, and you can not be upset by the fact that people (many of whom understand trans issues) use the language they were brought up with, which is by and large correct, to explain issues of biology. You won't have the energy to expend on getting upset over this, and it will seem a minor issue. If you've had horrific experiences of transphobia and still get upset by this language, then I can tell you this, you will burn out eventually. I'm guessing you're already exhausted. Now, intellectually I've come to a place where I genuinely don't see a problem with using this language, but you may not and I respect that. Emotionally we have to find a way to deal with the things we face. From my perspective, even if you disagree with it, it seems a minor thing to get upset over in comparison with other forms of transphobia transgender people face (I say other because some may view this language as transphobic, I do not view it as such). In a bright room, with a triangular ceiling, and long queue, hot food, metal, wood. "You only won the debate because Mrs. Wilkes was judging. It's sexist.' Anger rises, the cup in my hand is flung across the room. It narrowly misses his head. I re-imagine that it hits him squarely in the head, but for the purpose of honesty, retell the tale as it happened. I have shit aim. In a warm and cosy living room, a fire is burning and crackling, Mrs. Wilkes sat on the sofa opposite me. It is evening, and getting dark. The end of a long conversation, a confusing conversation and I am tired. 'And one more thing, I heard you threw a cup at Matthew Broadbent in the dining hall, is that true?' 'Yes, it is.' '*sigh* Is that to do with this transgender thing?' 'No, it isn't. He said that Bulmer and I only won the debate because we're the girls house and you were judging. He said it was sexist, and it made me angry.' 'Right okay, I'm glad it isn't to do with this because you need to keep your head on your shoulders. There are many people in the world who have some pretty awful things to say about people like you. If you get angry and throw a cup at someone every time someone says something minor you will drive yourself mad.' I couldn't see it at the time, but this was very good advice.
I love Reese. I love him even more now...
That thing you think will break you? Do it.
It won't. I promise.
Dear past-Rhys:
I recently shared an old blog post after reading it. My thoughts were this blog post was really immature and whiney. I shared it on facebook, with the caption: 'I wrote this a year ago. Reading it now, I sound amazingly immature. Dafuq happened in the last year. I can't be that much different... Read at your own risk. I sound like a self-righteous entitled little prick. The tiniest bit of difficulty in life and I start raging at everything. Fuck man...' Here is that blog post My friends responded saying I was being too hard on myself. We all need to vent sometimes, and that is just life. I was going through stuff and needed to off-load some steam which is fair enough. Another friend of mine asked me what I would say in response to my past-self, if I could talk to past-me, what would I say? So I wrote this letter to past-me. It might not make sense to anyone but me. It might make more sense if you read the old blog-post linked above (fairly short in length). I hope you get something out of it, and it you don't, I actually found it really useful to write it anyway... Dear past-Rhys:Being honest is worth it. Present-Rhys can tell you that people's responses have formed you as a person, but that is more in terms of people you know and care about. Enough public harassment over your androgyny will help you unlearn your habits of caring what everyone thinks. People your age or older will tell you it is impossible not to care what people think. They are right to an extent, and wrong on some levels. They are wrong in the sense that: It is possible not to care what the people you don't care about think, random people on the street, other people you have no time for. People may think that by saying 'I don't care what you think' you actually care a lot. They'll forget to listen the tone of what you've said. You literally don't care. You're aren't saying this in anger; You just don't care. Enough of these public tauntings and abuse and you'll learn than in order to survive it is necessary not to care. You develop it as a form of self-preservation. Other people, perhaps, do not need to develop this survival tool, but you do and it is a precious gift and you will value it. By valuing this gift, you need to also, on some level, value the experiences you've been through or are going through past-Rhys. They will make you stronger. A lot stronger, and you will need that strength to deal with things that are much more important, like the reactions of some of the people you love. In a year's time you will be able to go through the experience of some of your Christian friends abandoning you and never talking to you again; You will be fine. You will be disappointed and hurt, but you will keep walking. It won't mark the end of your existence. These practice runs with strangers on the street were necessary and helpful, I promise. The people who say it is impossible not to care are right on the level that: You'll always care about what the people you love think, but you get to choose your friends and if necessary your family. You will both choose your family though, and keep your family because in a years time, you'll find you have two definitions of family: The one you choose, and the one you were given. You won't abandon the family you were given. You'll view it as worth the long-hard slog of getting them to come around and you'll stay in that tension. Hard to believe? You're angry at them now. You'll come around. You'll start to see things from their point of view. You'll start to be angrier at people with simplistic black and white views of things who tell you that *you* should disown your family... You will learn that love is more important. This seems wishy-washy at the moment, but you learn that love is your fuel, and you learn to embrace that and search for love wherever you can find it, and shed yourself of all the negativity in your life. This is a stringent process, and part of how present-Rhys (or future-Rhys to you) is currently growing as a person.Don't give up. There is a lot to come, some of it good, and some of it not so good. It is all worth it. Present-Rhys is much stronger, and remember past-Rhys, present-Rhys is future YOU. Do yourself a favour and stop watching those 'it will get better' videos. Listen to this instead: It stays the same, and you learn how to deal with it. You become stronger, and grow as a person. That probably seems daunting, but I promise you, that in the future, it won't feel daunting at all.
I just posted my previous blog post on fb.
I just shared my last blog post on facebook. It took a lot of strength for me to share it there. I know that some might read it and be fuming. Such is life. It takes strength to be honest with your friends knowing they may completely disagree with you, but I couldn't suppress what was inside of me anymore. I let it out on Tumblr, and now I want them to know how I really feel. I made a request for people to be gentle with me. I hope it is respected. I tried my best to be gentle in that post, but said a lot of things that will be very hard to hear so I think people might think me a hypocrite. They won't think I'm being gentle with them, so why should they honour my request? And a bunch of other things people on the left often say about being kind to people which I'm sick of hearing, and increasingly sound, to me, like the excuses of school children. 'HE STARTED IT!' Nope, it won't do. Except a more adult complex 'He started it'. 'We need to speak out against OPPRESSORS', 'we need to start shouting because they aren't listening', 'Why should I be nice to these people? They need to be shouted at angrily' and so on and so forth. Yes, the world is just that black and white, didn't you know? Oh well, now you do... Just a little hint, it is impossible to listen to someone whilst shouting at them, and yes, you, progressive leftie, may have to do some listening too. I'd google the word 'dialogue' if you're confused by this. (If you're intrigued by this, I suggest reading the blog post I wrote linked above, it talks about this sort of thing). Okay, that last paragraph wasn't gentle at all... I'm a human being. It is cathartic. In the same way lefties find it cathartic to mouth off about white cis het men in sweeping generalisations, I find it cathartic, at the moment, to do the same thing when it comes to leftists. Sue me. Either admit that 'the cathartic logic' is faulty, or don't, but don't have double standards. I like 'the cathartic logic' but engage with it cautiously, lest I start to believe that all people from x group are actually like that. I apply the cathartic logic to all groups of people, and I wonder if some people who identify with the left would be comfortable in doing the same. And then I wonder why not, and then I wonder, is it because when you mouth off about straight people you really do mean all straight people, or you secretly start to feel like that. Well, to start using the cathartic logic on LGBT people and to start feeling that way about all LGBT people would be unacceptable and homophobic. Possibly... I do need to finish this post, but I'm getting the urge to duck as people hurl abuse at me and angrily shout things about power dynamics, and history of oppression, and other such things... This is my problem with the left at the moment. I wrote a post being honest about how I feel about everything, and I'm now ducking for cover waiting for people who I care about to start throwing things at me, and to start being emotionally manipulative because they need to make me agree with them again or else they can't be my friend. It is not a pleasant place to be in. And yes, I'm scared because I was just honest and shared these thoughts on facebook, which my friends might read now... Ouch.
Why I no longer claim the label of 'radical intersectional super cool feminist' and am now a self-described 'hippy-dippy liberal' instead (in which I say shit a lot):
I’m writing this down with pen and paper. Actually I’m not. I’m typing it on the ‘notes’ section of my phone. I imagined that I wrote it down on pen and paper but then I realised I needed to be with friends so I left the house, and I am journeying my way towards my friends house.
Transient. In transition. In between and on a journey. I am young. So of course that perfectly describes where I am at. I even know older people who are in this same space. There is something humbling about it. I’m not quite ‘there’ yet but I will be some day, or maybe I won’t be. That’s life. Life is the journey. Here is the thing: I need to be ‘there’ now. I’m so done with in between spaces and I’m emotionally exhausted.
I am not a perfect human being. I can be: sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, femmephobic, ableist, and other things I’m forgetting that some may get mad that I’ve forgotten. It seems that these are the yard sticks by which we measure people. I used to be right there with you. I used to judge people like that too. I judged my parents by those yard sticks and forgot to remember how privileged I am to have my parents. My parents who have clothed and fed me and financially supported me since before I can remember. My parents who have always and will always love me. I forgot about *that* love.
What can be so toxic that it makes you forget about that sort of love? Something powerfully toxic. As I pen this (or type if you’re into pedantry) I know some may read it and rage, and really rage against it. ‘WHAT ABOUT THEIR RACISM, SEXISM, TRANSPHOBIA??!! WHAT ABOUT HOW PROBLEMATIC THEY ARE??’
Let me tell you, I have heard this so often that I now equate it to ‘WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ??!!’ which by the way, I’ve seen to critique all sorts of things, and have not agreed with every criticism I’ve seen. So that when people sarcastically write ‘WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ???!!!’ this reads as being as ridiculous as men derailing conversations about women.
To clarify I will give you a number of examples, on Facebook a feminist page posted an article about men’s underwear models and a fantastic campaign set up to show how unrealistic images of men in magazines are. They took ‘average’ men and had them pose as underwear models striking similar poses to a number of underwear model adverts. The responses in the comments? Horrendous. ‘Why is this on this page?’ ‘OH NOES THE MEN’ ‘I don’t give a shit’. Really? The details in which patriarchy also oppresses men is not important to feminists? Feminists ‘don’t give a shit’ about men? See, I’d always been told different. If you don’t think there is anything particularly bad about that then listen to my next example.
A man posted a photo showing his self-harm scars with a sign about how his girlfriend abused him, and now he has to hide his self-harm scars from the mental illness triggered by this abuse. This was one of many pictures of men holding signs with comments about how they’d been abused. That particular example was picked on as being ‘pathetic’ and he should ‘man up’. Many comments were made that abuse is primarily instigated by men towards women; they took this to another level. Therefore, they don’t give a shit about this. It is a minority of abuse cases and so it doesn’t matter. Blimey, all this on a feminist page. Not to mention the inherently patriarchal messages in the phrase ‘man up’ but I thought intersectional feminists were ardent about defending minorities, so using ‘but this is a minority’ argument wouldn’t work on them because that is completely faulty reasoning (which it is). Regardless of which on an individual basis I can tell you that people won’t give a fuck. If your case to case response to abuse against men is ‘I don’t give a shit’, then I don’t want to listen to your reasoning about ‘bigger picture’ and ‘majority of cases’ because basically it is clear to me that you are just not a very nice person. Hmmm, indeed, what about the men? Who gives a fuck about the men?
And that is the problem here, there is no emotional connect. There is a lot of discussion about ‘bigger picture’ and a lot of political theory, and explanation of people’s privilege, but really if the kool aid you are drinking is so toxic that when a *male* survivor posts an incredibly strong and brave photo of himself on to a public platform to say to other abused men ‘I have survived. I am surviving.’ all you can say is ‘WHAT ABOUT THE WOMENZ??!’ and quote statistics at someone who has been abused instead of love them, and hold him, and cry with them, then that is some toxic shit.
'But Rhys, you're fighting a straw man! [sic]' (I think if we're being massive pedants that ought to say woman or at the very least person).
Well, at this point all I can say is ‘I AM NOT!’ and sound all defensive. Some people reading this will just get it. Others won’t. People who won’t may shout this in response. There really isn’t much I can say in response to this except from I want to care about people based on their humanity not any specific socially constructed category. I’ve literally had people say things like ‘I don’t give a shit about men and their men tears or cisgender tears or straight tears, or white tears?’ Really, you don’t give a shit about cis-het white men’s pain? You don’t give a shit about them because of things they didn’t ask for or choose. You may even deride them. Their experiences mean jack shit. This sounds far too familiar for comfort. Except that the difference is people who do this openly admit it and act on it. Because we live in a cis-het white world and now you want to create a trans-queer BME/PoC world to claim as your own and that is fine (for now). But I think someone put something in the kool aid, and this shit is toxic. At some point, we want to create a world free of any dominating groups. I mean, personally I thought that was the point of this left-wing politics thing. I thought that was the goal. What has been said has been said, and what has been done has been done. So to create an equal balance, to create a world with no dominating oppressive groups one of two things could happen. We create a power balance in the opposite direction and then swing back around again OR at some point someone is going to have to *forgive* someone for an awful lot of shit. I mean A LOT of shit. Do not get me wrong, I get that there is A LOT of shit. And you can’t demand forgiveness and you can’t expect it. You have to apologise and wait. Personally I would just like to forgive, right now, the wrongs committed against me, the wrongs currently happening and the wrongs yet to be committed against me. All the wrongs that are ‘problematic’ and politically incorrect. Other wrongs do not exist and/or obviously don’t matter. Here is the thing. I am so done with confrontation and quarrel and argument. I have no pride left. I don’t need pride. All I know is that people are hurting in this world, all people. And there probably are some seriously fucked up people who just are malicious. But I’ve not once had someone sit me down and explain their story, to have me say ‘yes, you’re just a dick’. People have shit, all people.
Maybe this explains my hippy tendencies. When I got asked to choose my saint in primary school I chose Veronica. Jesus revealed himself to Veronica, a pagan woman. He revealed his face on the cloth she wiped his face with on his walk towards being crucified. The message I took from this was that there is a little of Jesus in everyone, and I want to recognise the humanity in everyone. I don’t want to have a long mental list of how x,y,z person is politically problematic to use against them in online Facebook debates or to guard myself against them to not get hurt. I’m done guarding myself. I’m ready to be vulnerable. I’m ready to live and work in communion with people who profoundly disagree with me and who people with leftist political tendencies might label as ‘problematic’. I’m willing to get hurt, over and over. I’m wiling to listen to cisgender people and hear their story and really listen to them. I want to engage with the nitty-gritty of their thinking because I am so tired of building brick walls between myself and ‘the problematic people’. I thought it would break me to engage with such people. I was wrong, it is breaking me to view the world in black and white instead of shades of grey. Heck, I might even learn something from ‘the problematic people’. Wouldn’t that be horrendous?
So how does this relate to how I’d like you all to relate to me? Well, some of you might be so pissed off at this point that you just stopped reading. Some of you might have found that this post was too long (I wanted to read another treatise on everything that is wrong with left politics so I wrote one).
Well to be honest, it all relates back to journeying. I’m nearly there now. I’m nearly at my friend’s house I mean. It is pissing down with rain and miserable. I’m not sure if I’m ‘there’ though and if I’m being honest I probably never will be ‘there’ if being there is about being a perfect human being. Not perfect in the sense of making no mistakes generally, but politically perfect in every way. I’m learning and on a journey and in a sort of transition. I probably always will be about one issue or another.
Please be gentle. If at this point your response is ‘I don’t give a shit if you want me to be gentle’ then your response is what I’m criticising. That right there. What is that? That’s some toxic shit.
We all have shit that means we respond to other human beings in messed up sort of ways. So many emotions and experiences are the undercurrent of what we say on a day to day basis. I try and remember that with everyone I talk to and sometimes I forget, because my own shit seems more prevalent, because I’m pissed off, because of a whole list of reasons. The problem is right now this sacrificial exchange seems rather one-sided in a lot of my interactions. It seems like whilst I am willing to try my best to sacrifice my personal thoughts and emotions in these situations in which I’m found to have made a ‘political mistake’, if you aren’t able to do the same in your interaction with me at some point I will have to say ‘enough is enough’. I value myself more highly than that. I’m done sacrificing my emotions so that you can explain ‘the truth’ to me.
And on another note, there may be times when we just don’t agree. When I think that what you think is ‘politically correct’ is actually just bullshit. Can we still be friends? Are you willing to stand side by side with me and live and work in communion with me, someone who disagrees with you. If not, then I’m done.
I’m over surrounding myself with people who are ‘politically sound’. This is code for ‘people who agree with me’ and I’m over it. I’d like my world to be a lot less black and white, because if there is a single truth it is this: life is messy.
I’m happy to engage with that messiness. Are you?
I’ve often thought that political mistakes are comparable to Christian sins. There are definite cross-overs. The portion of the Church I participate in and with do a good job of recognising: 1) sin is very serious and harms people 2) not everyone will agree on what sin is and we have to learn to live in communion with people who have different ideas about sin 3) compassion cures more sins than condemnation
If the radical left could mimic what my Church tries its best to do (and does it well), I’d be more than happy to identify as a radical. As of yet, this is not the case. So, this is me, self-declaring myself a hippy-dippy liberal.
I quite like that last stanza as an ending to this manifesto but I thought I would enact a thought experiment, so this has to be at the end of this. How many of you assumed that I had certain privileges? How many of you made assumptions about my life and my life experiences? What do you think I am based on this treatise? Well, here is what I am: a transgender pansexual white man with mental health difficulties (depending on how you categorise mental health I am either able-bodied or not, I’ll leave that to you).
Oxford LGBT Christian student event
Anyone in the Oxford area? Come and join us: https://www.facebook.com/events/605827346131381
utter garbage
I read all of this and so many of it is dated last year. If you cared to read the apology from Stephanie Drury, SHE APOLOGIZED FOR HER USE OF THE TERM TRANNY. She is also not the heartless bitch you make her out to be. You make it quite clear that you cannot tell when someone is being sarcastic. The entire post of yours can be rightfully called “shithead in social justice activist’s clothing.” People change. I’ve learned a lot of things in the past three years that took my getting in trouble at first. So instead of acting as if the only thing that matters is a feeble attempt at destroying a Twitter user who consistently criticizes what is wrong with Christianity, how about you take the parody and criticism and see the signs of what’s around you?
However, let’s quickly start at the beginning as a conclusion to this post - you mention “let’s start at the present,” which is last year, defined by your first evidence snapshot. In the same breath, you try to call out Drury being “manipulative,” but your own posts are manipulative and otherwise out of context, lacking the understanding of the situation and authors. This is very much how spiritual abuse happens.
So apparently, no high profile white UK feminist has rejected intersectionality according to Helen Lewis. I find the wording of this tweet odd because of course, there is a little semantic gem hidden therein: a no true Scotsman argument disguised under “the concept” so that we cannot...
I don’t know where exactly to begin. I’m frustrated with what appears to be a gleeful response by some feminists in response to Hugo Schwyzer’s recent suicide attempt, and I am especially raw with the way the core issues intersected for me last week when I emotionally broke down because of...
On prioritising my life:
A friend of mine had a good day recently, see here: http://mollienorth.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/a-day-in-my-life/
This was the first post of her blog about her depression which I have read, and this got me thinking. Recently my days have not been quite as successful as my friend's day was. I use this comparison solely as way to start this piece. I am not bitter. I'm actually really happy that she had a good day. I have miles of work that I should be doing instead of this, and places I should have been had my physical health been up to it, but no, today I was fine this morning even if running on four hours of sleep, and ba'am, I had a 'power nap' that turned into slightly longer than your average power nap, had hit 'snooze' about three times it was actually a coughing fit that woke me up in the end. Annnnnddd ILLNESS. I couldn't sleep last night. Apparently, physical and mental health are inextricably linked. Bad mental health can cause bad physical health. Physical health problems can cause mental health problems. I suppose these things must cycle in a loop so that bad mental health causes physical health issues causes mental health issues and so on. Not quite sure what it would take to start this cycle, diagnosis of cancer leading to emotional problems triggering depression which suppresses the immune systems and makes disease rather hard to fight off, making you feel physically ill much of the time affecting your mental health, etc. You get the point. Big messy cycle. I'm glad it's a cycle. See, I let myself take a break when I have physical health problems. It's almost like I will myself to become (physically) ill so I can finally just stop for a moment. Whereas, mental health issues I feel 'bad' about taking a break because I'm supposed to just 'man-up' and 'deal with it' and that's a message I've internalised, but also that exists externally to myself. So my heart is telling me these things I know aren't true, and my head is battling with my heart. I know my head is right, and then in swoops 'the world' and they confirm what my heart says. Mental health issues are not real issues. I need to man-the-fuck-up, seriously bro. So, if there did not exist this physical vs mental health cycle then I wouldn't ever let myself stop and this would likely end with my complete mental breakdown. To be perfectly honest, I'm incredibly surprised that this hasn't already happened. I think it likely has to do with the fact that I lean on my friends a lot. I need from them, and they're happy for me to do that. I don't do it with a clear conscience however. In a way this is a silly thing to complain about, not having a clear conscience, when you are raised Catholic having a clear conscience is impossible. Even when you're not guilty about something, you feel guilty about the fact that you don't feel guilty and wonder if what you are doing is wrong constantly. Raising a child Catholic is an interesting way to torture them. Personally, I think water torture would work faster, and would definitely be less cruel.
So, I get physically ill and I stop for a bit. Okay, cool... This made me wonder, how much have I actually done recently that I need to stop for or take a break from. Not that much. I've fallen off the face of the planet for many people and yet I'm chronically more exhausted than I've ever been in my entire life. With all of my 'responsibilities' I have been doing less and less. Instead of prioritising, as my mentor suggests I ought to, with my own urgent pressing needs at the top of the list, ie. coursework deadlines, etc. I prioritise slightly differently. When you base much of your emotional self on how other people perceive you that can leave you being deeply fucked up. It's also a fairly natural thing to do, or so I'm told, when you're young and in your twenties (lol, these kids tho). When you are a transsexual, yes, even in the progressive country of England, and you spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about other people's perceptions of you, well, that alone can leave you with massive emotional problems. This urge to create your current reality based on the reactions of others as if you are not your own free agent really does exist both on a microscopic and macroscopic level and it controls your life. It destroys your happiness. You give in to the lie that being approved by others, something you crave daily will make you happier. It doesn't. Or if and when it does this doesn't last very long. My priorities have recently been shaped around other people's reactions to what I am doing and how I am choosing to spend my time in my life. I am writing less, reading less, engaging less, switching off more, watching inane tv shows and films more, and well enjoying life a lot less really. I make these decisions both on a micro and macro level that I think will make other people happy, and I am drained by these daily decisions so that the spare time I have I spend switching off.
I talk a lot of talk about many things, but I don't follow through. I am called brave by some because of this talk but mostly I feel like a coward. The major big life decisions, the one's with potentially devastating consequences have been on hold for quite some time now. I have been living in a sort of twilight zone. Letting Rhys out to play wherever and whenever I can, and receding back into myself, allowing people to rob me of my dignity (this is how it has felt allowing family members, who aren't even trying, to repeatedly misgender me and birthname me), putting myself in these (non-kinky) chains, and withal switching off completely so as not to think about my life properly which may invoke change.
It is quite possible that whatever it is I am currently experiencing, possibly depression, curable through my own words and actions, rather than clinical depression, curable mostly with medication, whatever it is would easily go away if I made a conscious decision to prioritise my life in such a way that put my own needs, financial, emotional, physical, and so on, first in lieu of prioritising my life for the benefit of others. Thus, in the next few months, I know that, since I'd quite like to be rid of this thing, that I'm going to name 'Jonathan' from here on, I'm going to have to make some decisions that mean the way I prioritise is kind of different. I have more thoughts on this honestly. I'm already anticipating various responses from 'the world' telling me that I'm just using various excuses to be selfish and self-centered. So I will blog on future responses, and on the things people say to me about mental health issues, and decision making, happiness, depression and prioritising. I don't think this will invoke overnight change. To be honest, one of the reasons I need to start prioritising differently is the fact that, much to my annoyance, I have limited energy (google 'spoon theory') and I need to make use of my energy in the most efficient of ways so that I get everything done that I need to get done, academic priorities being rather high on that list. That is what some might call a 'selfish' prioritisation, but one that I seriously need to learn to enforce. Anyway, I hope that those of you who enjoy my writing will follow me on this journey. I shall be moving my blog from Tumblr to wordpress when I have time, and putting everything in a much more ordered fashion, minus the fandom reblogs in between all of my posts. In the past I used to end my blog posts with pieces of music, and I'd like to start doing that again so: Something for the metal heads which I believe fits in with this post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBHjd8j3sec For those of you who enjoy less heavy music, the following really describes how I've generally felt over the past few months (more blogging to come on what these past months have been like): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxRTwoHfmgc
Comradezoned: when a girl immediately loses interest in you because you think intersectionality isn’t that important in the class struggle.
Gender Dysphoria Blues: pt. 8 - To Conclude
Gender dysphoria sucks. If you’re cisgender be happy you don’t have dysphoria. If you’re trans, I know, it’s awful. Pretending gender dysphoria doesn’t exist isn’t going to make it go away. That goes for pretending it doesn’t exist in general, pretending you don’t experience it, pretending your close friend/family member doesn’t experience it. It doesn’t work like that. You can’t wish it out of existence. Honestly, the best thing you can do is listen to the person about their experiences and try and understand it from their point of view. If it’s yourself you’re struggling with, take some quiet time and listen to yourself. You might not want to hear what you have to say to yourself, but you need to hear it.
It does get better but it doesn’t go away. My dysphoria has been alleviated to a certain extent, pre-hormones, just living as a guy, presenting how I want to, and letting go of my concerns about what other people think (yes, even my mum). But even post-hormones, living full time for years, post-every operation, trans people still experience dysphoria. It doesn’t go away, but it does get a lot better.
