#trans resilience

[m0rb1dc0rv1d]

“Republican leader celebrates as a steep decline in Americans identifying as trans emerges from new study” as if they aren’t threatening the lives of queer youth on the daily.

I do not blame the youth for denying themselves in the name of self preservation. Ten years ago, I was trying to do the same

However…I have no reservations left. I’m a proud trans man! I work with my hands, and I serve my community. I show up for my chosen & found family at every opportunity. I continue my education for education’s sake, and I raise my little family with an amount of pride, joy, and love that the Republican Party collectively couldn’t even fathom if their shallow, pretentious lives depended on it. I love music, art, poetry and old cheesy movies. I have friends that have died for who they are. I have friends who wake up every day and make the choice to carry on. I show up with a smile on my face, and some knuckle-dragging hick trying to intimidate me is just going to make himself look foolish and small.

There is something so freeing about taking that need for acceptance and chucking it directly into the sun, kids, I promise. There are loud people that hate their idea of who you are violently. There are people who will show up for you, hold space for you, admire you, and care for you. Those are the only folks you need to concern yourselves with.

We are resilient, folks. We’ve fought this fight since long before Trump and his piss-poor circus came to town, and guess what? We can continue to fight by not shying away from their discomfort. The hatred they show us is not our concern, nor is it our responsibility to resolve. We must remember the power we hold to stand toe-to-toe with these bastards, and still find the courage to remember to live.

[tontherocks]

What transition means, revisited (~7.5y out)

Recently, I came back to one of those questions that haunted my lingering closeted thoughts re transition: Should I do it, and what does it mean?

It’s among the first things one learns through counseling and community resources that transition can, to a varying degree, mean changes on a physical level (hormones, hair growth pattern, body shape, for instance) as well as social (differing gender roles, adapting to shifting social expectations and opportunities, ....) and psychological (linked to aforementioned changes).

For me, transition turned out to imply, indeed, changes on all three levels. Changes in one aspect oftentimes asked for and resulted in adaptions in different parts of my personality.

Lately, I read a thread over on reddit where someone wrote that transition for them meant also growth and change on a spiritual/developmental level. I read statements that expressed similiar thoughts before, but this is the first time where this actually resonated with me.

Because there are some core beliefs and perspectives on being a man, being a man of transitional experience, being a man undergoing profound medical changes really are different (and for the better) than the thoughts I initially got into transition with.

Transition improved how I relate to other men. I didn’t stop comparing myself to cis men altogether (what a bliss that’d be), but the more I keep transitioning (thus discovering more levels of my very own masculinity) the less important this comparison gets.

I’m really getting to the level where I’m ready to change how I think about myself (as a man, as trans, as queer) and how I relate to other people (especially fellow men). I never thought I’d get to a point where I actually can touch and change beliefs so deeply ingrained into my gender and that there’s a level left where I can still grow so much and transition into a better man than I already am.

[transstudent]

Help support the ONLY national organization led by trans youth this Giving Tuesday! You can donate at www.transstudent.org/donate

[buzzfeedlgbt]

For #TDOR2017, we mourn those we’ve lost, but we also make time to celebrate trans resilience.

[thisoneshade]

“All Out”

I'm all out.

I'm all out of emptiness.

I'm all out of tears as I've cried for weeks because I'm all out of shovels, I've broken them all digging the graves of my sisters.

I'm all out of vigil prayers and candles and mournings to burn at them, I'm all out of memory trying to keep each of their names etched onto my heart.

I'm all out of arms to hold the walking wounded among us and I'm all out of stitches in time trying to save nine on myself.

I'm all out of space dreaming of stars and wishing to pull their peace down to earth. I'm all out of hope for their silence and its solitude to soothe us soon.

So I'm all out:

I'm all out of patience.

I'm all out of restraint or what little was holding me back. I'm all out of every closet and I'm taking axes to their doors.

I'm all out the niches that were carved by those before me and I'm all outside trying to make canyons of space for those with none.

I'm all out for justice for those who's killers walked by its blindness I'm all out for the blood of the prejudices that are at its roots.

I'm all out and swinging wild and fighting till I fall because

I can be all out.

While some of us can't, and some of us will never get the chance to be. So I'll keep raging, and I'll keep screaming and I'll keep dead breathing and the future bright.

I'll keep writing these all of these poems

until my words

run

all

out.

[transstudent]

Anti-trans bathroom ballot initiative defeated in Anchorage

A ballot initiative in Anchorage that would have removed transgender protections from the city’s non-discrimination ordinance has been defeated, transgender advocates against the measure declared Friday night. Although the city had yet to declare the results officially, 57.3 percent of voters had rejected Proposition 1 in the ballots that were counted as of Friday night. With

"A ballot initiative in Anchorage that would have removed transgender protections from the city’s non-discrimination ordinance has been defeated..."

https://pridesource.com/…/anti-trans-bathroom-ballot-initi…/

[transstudent]

“We keep living this hell of false firsts over and over because cisgender people continue to get off on a voyeurism of trans lives,” Gapin wrote on her blog. “They treat it like a spectator sport. Something that happens all the time isn’t very interesting, but a first makes for a story.”

There are many strides we have to face just to do the things we love.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/04/15/us/boston-marathon-transgender-participants/index.html

[transstudent]

Doraville swears in Georgia’s only transgender elected official

Stephe Koontz officially became Georgia’s only transgender elected official on Friday night when she was sworn in as a Doraville City Council member.

“She likes to stick to the issues of local government, but she is proud of the ground she’s breaking. She said she was inundated with support after the victory and was pleased some seemed to see her as a role model for trans youth.”