Kuebiko.
The first time I came across this word I was 15, and scrolling down a list of words. Why? Because in this day and age, everything is on the interwebs, why open a book when I can google it?
The second time I came across this word was in a manga, where the deity themself came out and offered guidance to Main Character A.
And the third time I came across this word, is me saying it right now.
Kuebiko.
The Shinto deity of knowledge and agriculture.
Because without knowledge, how would there be agriculture.
And without agriculture, can there be anything?
That vine that grows on that tree. Those cherries that are an almost seductive shade of red. That Vietnamese phở, Not pho, phở, that is just mouth watering, THAT is because of agriculture.
Agriculture and knowledge goes hand in hand. Because agriculture is about change and growth.
Like the change in your voice when the hormones are finally kicking in after months and months of injecting a needle into your person so you can feel like you.
And the growth of acceptance when you finally realize that it’s okay to not fit within a binary. That it’s okay to be different. That it’s okay to be strange and weird and feel out of place.
And with the changes of your body and with the self acceptance that you have that just grows and grows and grows until you get SHOT. Because in 2017 alone, at least 9 of my trans siblings have been murdered in cold blood, for embracing who they are. For loving themselves and the changes that made them them.
The “acceptance” that we get has lulled everyone into a Dream, where they can ignore the blood stains on the carpet where Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow lay dead on her own apartment floor. It has made people turn a blind eye Mesha Caldwell and Tiara Richmond, found dead and dying on the side of the road. It has made people silently put the tarp over Jojo Striker’s body without even acknowledging that she died in her own garage. It’s ignoring that Jaquarrius Holland not only ended up dying over a verbal argument, but that SHE WAS 18 when she did.
It’s people forgetting that Chyna Doll Dupree “didn’t do nothing wrong to nobody” and that Alphonza Watson was “the sunshine of our family”. It’s forgetting that Ciara McElveen was stabbed and left to die and closing our ears to Dandara dos Satos who was tortured and shot in the face by 5 men in South Africa.
The “acceptance” that we got is an illusion, and It tells us that we are not newsworthy. That the death of my sisters isn’t enough to hear about. That we, as trans people, don’t deserve to be talked about, even when murdered. And that is exhausting.
It is exhausting to have to look for the deaths of my people. It is exhausting, to realize that these murders were targeted to trans women of colour. It is exhausting to realize that we are only 4 months into the new year And 9 of my sisters have been killed.
Kuebiko is the Shinto deity of agriculture and knowledge. But Kuebiko is so much darker than it first appears. For knowledge leads to exhaustion. And kuebiko is a state of exhaustion.
