Planned Parenthood/ FBF, One Day Late

Flashback to this post.

I hate needing to have the same conversation multiple times, but lately, it seems that's one of good old America's key tenets.

Let's talk about abortions again. Let's talk about gun control again. Let's talk about mental health again. Let's talk about suicide rates of LGBTQ individuals again. Let's talk about health education and care again. Let's talk about a living wage again.

For the most part, this is how those issues go: you find a couple people who are out there working incredibly hard to shape the face of change within their issue, and everyone else is standing around emulating their high school debate team practice sessions. They all hate politicians, but they all act exactly like them. The people who are out there working for it get exhausted because the politicians keep asking them, "why aren't you doing this," "why isn't anything happening," etc., but not actually offering to help them.

No wonder folks are frustrated. But as disappointed as I am about yet another mass shooting, that's it. Just disappointed. Not surprised; and this post isn't even about gun control. It's about Planned Parenthood!

I am the first to admit that Planned Parenthood, historically speaking, has its own set of issues; founded by Margaret Sanger, the organization has a colorful history of what looks an awful lot like eugenics, whitewashing, and eradicating poverty through sterilization. There's good and there's bad, and most of the time, they come in the same package. History aside, Planned Parenthood has become an integral part of the twenty-first century, offering medical care, preventative screenings, sex education, and yes...abortion...to those who would otherwise be unable to afford it, due to a lack of healthcare.

As a trans-identified individual, I have to admit some stuff upfront. I have never been very good and maintaining any interest in my biologically-female body. I don't go to OBGYNs, the last time I had a pap smear is when they thought I had ovarian cancer (three years ago), and it isn't necessarily a dysphoria thing. For most people, it is, and that's fair; for me, it's just that the vast majority of doctors no idea how to work with trans* patients, they're rude, they're insensitive, they're just plain awful. In the experiences I have had with Planned Parenthood, none of that has been present. They have a history of working with disadvantaged groups and they have a reputation that I appreciate. I know friends and acquaintances who trust them, and that's enough for me. If the mood ever did strike me to care for my body like I should, my first stop would be at my local PP. No doubt about it. But you can bet it isn't going to be for an abortion; in fact, for the focus the conservative right is claiming PP has, let's talk about how when you're growing up in the suburbs and in a right-wing family, one of the only places you can get information on being LGBTQ or queer-identified in any way, is Planned Parenthood. They don't even work exclusively with sexuality; they talk about gender identity, too! The trickiest part of that is actually getting to the Planned Parenthood near you.

So for all of you out there who are pro-life/anti-choice, but think we need to work on strengthening support for LGBTQ youth, leave Planned Parenthood alone..? Review facts for yourself, instead of just swallowing what your favored politician of the day is telling you. If you think that defunding Planned Parenthood is the only way to get what you want and prevent abortions, you're an idiot. Do you remember what happened the last time abortions were "illegal?" We now have people who make trashy Halloween costumes with wire hangers, they were done in secret anyway, and now we're here. If you defund Planned Parenthood, you're not defunding abortions. You're defunding the working class and lower middle-class of America. You're promoting racism by forcing your politics on disadvantaged groups (and leaving them in impossible positions), you're promoting discrimination based on socio-economic class, and you're endangering the lives of countless women and children, never mind the LGBTQ population who has nowhere else to turn.

Storytelling as a community-building tool.

On any of the alternative news streams, you can usually find commentary - whether in the actual articles, or in the comments posted by critically-thinking folks - about the importance of narratives, and the horror of those narratives being co-opted by "good Samaritans."

During my brief, but intense, tenure as a Women's Studies student at the local university, a lot of the reading I was doing focused on community-building through storytelling. The most common example of this is the consciousness-raising of first and second-wave feminisms. Quite a few of the narratives I read were those of POC in general, and WOC in particular - their experiences in America, a land of imperialist values and ethics, the labor issues they dealt with, family-raising, and identity issues.

Prior to switching my major (or really doubling up, because I never left the English department, I just added another one), I worked briefly for an after-school program that partnered with a local center for underprivileged youth. This program focused on educating these students on the importance of storytelling as a strength tool. We tried to instill the value of narrating one's own experiences as a critical tool for developing identity, and finding strength in a source that most middle- and upper-class folks would consider a weakness (they're poor and lack access because they don't work hard enough for it, etc.). We would have the kids pick a point in their life that they thought of as "critical" to their development; keep in mind, this can be a lot to ask for from kids between the ages of 9 and 12.

Ultimately, this program failed those students. A part of that was because the kids had so much going on at home and school that the last thing they needed was to focus on telling stories. A majority of the kids hadn't volunteered; they had been signed up by the center's staff, and thus, lacked the personal interest they needed to commit and use the program for its benefits. A bigger part of it was due to the center staff (the folks in charge, not the Public Allies intern who initially brought us in) pulling the rug out from under us at every turn. They would hold the participating kids upstairs during the sessions, claiming that they needed to finish homework first, clean up, help the younger kids, etc. They would cancel certain sessions without notifying us first. All of these things that if you think about it, you can justify, but not when these kids are critical situations who just need someone to listen to them talk, and really, could accomplish major things if someone would just hear their stories.

That experience changed my life more than I usually admit, and there isn't actually a day that goes by that I don't think about what I could have differently for those kids and for that situation. I long to go back to it and figure out a way to make it work. I want to find those kids and make real relationships that last, and watch them grow up, and help them apply for colleges and scholarships and win competitions with critical essays that use storytelling as a way to communicate to admissions boards why they want to go to college, that college, to study this subject. I want to help them grow into young adults who believe that they can change the world, regardless of where they come from or who society has told them they need to be.

And now we come to storytelling.

There are a few common themes that arise around the criticism of storytelling. One is the theme of the "White Savior," also seen as gentrification, or charity, or whatever else you want to call it. Too often, when a community is overtaken by a group of "well-meaning" upper-, or even middle-class, citizens, who want to come in and turn the community around and rehab the dwellings and add more access to fresh, healthy foods - remember, I'm writing from Cincinnati, where all of this is happening right here, right now (and admittedly, some of it is AWESOME, like using food aid at farmers' markets, the rest of it is just standard gentrifying eliminations) - what they're really doing is re-investing in a space that was only affordable to lower-income families - primarily families of color - because no one else was interested in it. With these well-intentioned folks, property values and cost of living expenses are rapidly shooting upwards. This is also what has been happening in New Orleans since Katrina. Those lines get blurry in any economy that's as tight as ours, where the middle-class is rapidly shrinking and more people are sinking towards the poverty line, debt is outrageous, and normal folks can't even afford to own their own homes.

This is all "normal."

What isn't, and what desperately needs to be corrected, is that we generally only hear from the people moving into these areas. We never hear from the ones who are being forced out, because suddenly, their cramped residences with bad electric work and mold and pests, that were once affordable but still forced ends to be stretched so they could meet, have now sky-rocketed as premium spaces for new, modern loft areas for young professionals, who buy these buildings at a price of anywhere from 20k-100k and totally rehab and flip them as condos for upwards of 100k a piece on a regular basis.

I understand the hypocrisy here, because I'm an identifiably white person writing about the injustices of gentrification and class bias. I get that. I acknowledge that, though, which is a huge difference.

I heard an interview on NPR recently (within the last two weeks, commemorating the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina) of a presumably white woman who had moved into New Orleans. I missed the first half, so the portion I heard was largely about how neighbors (the majority being disadvantaged, lower-economic folks, primarily POC) initially reacted to her presence in the neighborhood, her position on the community board not long after relocating there, and how they felt about her now. She initially received responses of blatant irritation, hatred, or was simply ignored. There was resentment when she landed a position on the community board, which was dealing with a lot of combat on a gentrification issue (bulldozing old buildings to erect new apartments, and so on), but she was one major opponent towards redeveloping the ward she now saw herself as a resident of. Slowly, her neighbors came around, began accepting her. I can appreciate this interview because she was very careful to not sugarcoat or dance around any of the issues she seemed to be fully aware of upon her arrival. She was honest about the moments she felt doubt, and even a little guilt, about her presence in this neighborhood. It was refreshing after so many interviews of wealthy white people who are really doing nothing more than taking advantage of low property prices in lower-valued settings and viewing them as "investments."

Storytelling and narratives are not just about low-income communities or communities of color. Those are the two communities that need it the most, I could argue, but intersectionality is everything here. Trans* communities also need to take control of their own stories. I spoke to this in an earlier post, and the frequency with which cisgender white people are taking over trans* narratives, and frequently, damaging the real people behind these stories. Even when trans people are telling their own stories and the media begins listening, it is usually only trans people (specifically women) with high income, and they are primarily white. Laverne Cox is an exception, as is Janet Mock, on a slightly lesser scale. Both of these amazing women, though, are still the idealistic portrayal of trans women. They are WOC, but they are beautiful. They have access to the healthcare they need, they don't live as transients on the fringes of society, and the society they thrive in accepts them and hears what they are saying. This is not how the much larger portion of the trans community really is. Our voices go unheard, our bodies are victimized - not only by hate crimes and violence, but by the medical industry and politics, and for simply existing, we are told we should not. We are told we defy laws of nature, and we are too invested in simply surviving to be bothered with making sure the rest of the world knows that inside, we are powerful.

This is the first post in what I can only hope becomes a much larger series, and if you read this blog frequently, or even infrequently, I want to hear your stories. I don't care if you comment, I don't care if you want to guest-post, I don't care if you want to message me, like so many of you do. I would prefer that this storytelling takes place on a public scale, where we can all talk to each other, as opposed to one-on-one conversations, but I do want to hear it, in whatever form you want.

Story-time, folks.

"Tell me who I am"- medicalizing identities. *TW abortion, rape, trans issues, body politics, bodies

This wasn't the original topic for this post. It was going to be all about my experiences working in a story-telling program designed to empower kids, and how I translated that into my experiences as a trans*, non-normative, confused-POC-type person. Essentially, how storytelling acts as one of the many tools in the fight to dismantle the master's house (consciousness-raising is going to be the most recognizable example for those of you who focus on historical feminisms).

This isn't that. That one is coming, but requires a lot more research. This post is something that has been bothering me over the last week.

For the last month, each week when I go into my therapist's office, he asks me why I'm there.
My answer is uniform, practiced, and simple.
"I'm here because I have to be. I'm trans, and because of that, doctors and senators think I'm inherently unstable. So I need your signature on some forms saying I've been seeing you for a year."

He never responds.

Last week, I yelled at my therapist and left his office.

Last week, I expressed my frustrations about trying to do everything right, and still never getting ahead. I told him about the same fight I've been having with myself for the last six years - how unaffordable and unattainable an education is, how I worked hard to get ahead for a house, only to have the house fall through and set me back even further. How screwed up our economic, political, and educational systems are, to the point where the American Dream (if it hasn't always been) has finally become something more of a mirage, constantly moving further and further as we try approaching it.

All of these things that most 20/30-somethings generally express anxiety over.

He then did a 360 and instead of sitting absolutely silently (which he usually does, unless he takes a break to express one of the seven opinions he's rotated through my entire time seeing him), he asked what my identity as being a transgender male had to do with this.

...

What does it have to do with this?

Nothing.

I tried explaining that. I told him that being trans* is why I'm in therapy, but not what I actually need therapy for (if I need it at all - which I'm still ambivalent about). He went on to object and say that, of course, being trans* is this huge, all-encompassing deal that affects how I inhale and blow my nose because how could it not?

That's when I started getting angry and not simply agitated.

When I tried to explaining to him that I thought about my gender about as much as he did when he woke up and got ready for the morning, and he continuously interrupted me to tell me I was wrong, I obviously thought about it more than he ever did - that's when I left.

The entire time I've been going through this process, I've been frustrated with the degree of "accepted" stamps we need on us to be who we really are. I know I'm not the only one who finds out they need one more form, one more letter, one more doctor, to get the prescription or the surgery or the validation they need to step back off a ledge.
I also know I'm not the only one who became frustrated with one-issue politics long before I came out as transgender, quickly realizing the injustices of pushing one issue in a community forward, only to neglect the majority of folks in said community doing the grassroots and leg work.
You can only imagine how ironic I thought a lot of my own issues were when I realized my body had been wrong all along. It suddenly felt like a big ole easy button had just magically appeared. I said it, and it was. Then came the paperwork.
We need a doctor (PCP), and another doctor (an endocrinologist) and a head doctor (psychotherapist, for me), and eventually another doctor (or two!) to give us the prescribed surgeries - some of which we are required to have, even if we don't want to, if we're unlucky enough to be from certain states. I certainly got sort of lucky here - the state I currently live in doesn't change birth certificates for any reason. Ever. The one I was born in, though, only requires a minimum of one out of two irreversible surgeries. Luckily, there's one that is manageable.
So, let's talk about the government dictating what individuals can and cannot do to their bodies. The government is going to tell me it is not only okay, but I am required to sterilize myself in order to be legally seen as the gender I already  identify as every single day. The only catch is, this way, all of my papers will all say the same thing - instead of my social security and birth certificate saying something contradictory to everything else I own. But then, the government will turn around and also say: "oh, you're carrying a child you don't actually want? The child was a product of rape? Drunkenness? Too bad, you're going to have to keep it, just try to look at the silver lining!"

And my therapist thinks I'm angry with our government...

So why don't we change it?

I know people who have been out there for years working on not just LGB issues, but T issues, and queer issues, and racial and social justice of all kinds, and they are amazing people. They've changed my life. They've made me a better, stronger, more confident, smarter person, and I would never change that. But it's time we got serious. It's time we stopped letting celebs and millionaires narrate the experiences of trans folks who can't afford prescriptions and are injecting unsafe concoctions, who are living on the streets, who are being shot for walking home while black and trans.

As I've said before, I love Janet Mock. She is beautiful and brilliant and she does our community a great service. I've never met Laverne or Caitlin, but I'm sure they're amazing, too.

They don't look anything like us.

They aren't us. 

We don't have that kind of money, those kind of surgeons, that kind of lifestyle. And our lives aren't public in the sense that we're appearing on talk shows every single day, or magazine covers (unless it's a queer magazine or you're Aydian - congrats on the top 5, by the way!), or in tabloids, but they are very public in the sense that we get gunned down for existing and the major news outlets won't talk about it, we get cyber-bullied and real life bullies, we're threatened with physical violence in a room full of people and no one will stand up to it for us, and that when we die, our "allies" talk about changing things and rarely ever do.

We need more of our own to stand up and tell them what it's really like, to tell big pharma we don't need stamps of approval, to tell the government we're not a box full of Pinocchio puppets making wishes to the good fairy Congress so we can all become real people (this isn't that kind of drama, sorry folks).

Let's show them we're angry.

About Stonewall (the movie), about not existing, about being interrupted when we're just trying to get by, about being told we're different when we're really not.

The instability of trans* identities: a response to Caitlyn Jenner's latest blogpost (TW: SUICIDE)

I have yet to actually listen to any of Caitlyn Jenner's speeches or interviews, but today I read my first blog post she had written, in HuffPost's "Gay Voices" section. In this article, she touches on some issues facing the trans* community (and particularly trans* youth) at an alarming rate. Most of the article is spent with a block quote from the mother of a trans* youth who recently committed suicide. I won't say I love hearing narratives of other people's hardships dealing with mental health, trans* identities, and the intersectionality between those two, but I am always refreshed when I see a variety of faces telling their stories, and those stories being heard. That being said, Jenner's article reads more like a rattling off of statistics, which acts as a forward for a block quote. Where is Jenner's context? How does she feel? Prescott "was (and is) absolutely amazing," but is there more to that? Did it hurt your heart to hear her tell her story? I guess the article just seemed a little distant to me.

As someone who has been identifying as queer much longer than they've been identifying as trans*, and as someone who has struggled with mental health issues for a majority of their lifespan - which I feel is relatively short, but not when compared to those of my queer counterparts whose lives were cut much shorter - I tend to approach the subject of suicide and depression a little hastily. I'm typically a jumble of thoughts where I am half-offended when people jokingly say "I'm depressed" and the other half remains awkwardly silent, because if I'm already out as trans* and queer, do I really also have to come out about my weird mental stuff? That hardly seems fair, make the people I'm interacting with come out about something first!

I'm pretty fortunate in that my life has taken a dramatic upturn since the last time I tried committing suicide (I was sixteen, junior year of high school). There were several attempts before that, but that was my first real commitment to anything. Obviously, it didn't work. For a little bit immediately after that, things got much worse, and I was, for lack of a better word, bummed I had failed. I hate to use the cliché , but to really see a difference, I had to hit the absolute rock bottom - I just didn't know it went deeper than that moment. So no, I haven't tried again in nearly eight years. That isn't to say I haven't thought about it. I think about it all the time. That's one of the side effects of depression, anxiety, and existing as I do in a world like this, in a culture that is so vehemently hostile towards folks like me. Most folks that don't suffer from some form of mental health problem won't understand this, but - you get used to it. You get used to having incredibly dark thoughts in the background of your brain imagery and not needing to act on them. I'm so well-practiced at not reacting to those thoughts that I can almost comfortably read incredibly triggering material and think nothing more than, "yeah, I get that." It's a weird dynamic.

That being said, there's a lot of discussion being left out of the current conversation about trans* depression and suicide. I know the big one that came up with the passing of Leelah Alcorn is the one that really came close to home for me - and not just because Kings High School is my own alma mater. Granted, I am incredibly disappointed that Kings still seems to harbor the same toxic environment towards non-conforming students it did during my time there. When I moved on from that hellhole, I hoped that kids like me would have it easier; I expected that half a decade later, they would have made some progress. I'm disappointed, but not surprised.
The reason Leelah's passing hit so close for me is altogether different. If Leelah and I had been in school during the same period, I expect that our parents would have been very good friends. For those of you who don't know the background to her story, Leelah's parents are incredibly religious, zealous, even, and would lock her in her room for days at a time, restricting communication between her and her friends, the internet only a dream. They did it on the premise of "love," although love never looks like that (and don't let anyone tell you differently). Leelah decided she couldn't go on in that environment, and that was her right. It sucks that she couldn't find another way out, and we all get that, and we've all accepted it. That doesn't mean it isn't sad.
I didn't come out as trans* until I had been out of my mother's house for several years (coincidentally, I'm now in my mid-twenties and back in my mother's basement temporarily - that's a different story), but I did survive her during my teens as a pretty butch baby dyke. My mother is a sort of hybrid between a fundamentalist Christian and a conservative Jew. There's a name for people like these, and it isn't Jews for Jesus. This denomination works about the same as any other - a portion of them are great, a portion are indifferent, and a portion of them are horrible, callous, belittling, hateful people. I grew up around this different configuration of folks, and, consequently, left the movement as soon as I got my license. Throughout high school, my mother and I had our issues. We fought, I ran away, I lived with friends, she prayed and read her Bible, there was an incident with school counselors and CPS, and I was placed on suicide watch for quite a while during my high school years. I was a pretty angry teenager, although most people wouldn't have noticed. I drank, I partied, I dropped out of school, I lived in my car for a bit. I was hurt. I was hurt by my faith and the people who claimed to practice the same as me. It took me an incredibly long time to heal from those wounds (see my earliest blog posts about queer spirituality and faith), and I still don't claim to be entirely okay with it. I've finally arrived at a point where I can be comfortable around people who profess a faith, and I am able to accept that without feeling like I am walking on glass or being force-fed needles. I'm grateful that my own prejudices were only temporary, and while I'm still pretty conflicted about what I believe, I can only say I'm happy that my past injuries haven't prevented me from making some pretty amazing friends in the spiritual community around me.
How this all ties in to suicide and depression:
I was first "diagnosed" with depression and anxiety attacks around the time I was nine years old. My mother adamantly refused to believe mental health was a valid field of medicine (she might still, for all I know). She would not send me to therapists, would not pay for my medications, nothing. For years, I was denied to right to the help I needed because of my mother's old-fashioned sense of medicine and her religious beliefs. Instead of giving me what I needed, she "lifted me up" in her weekly prayer meetings, had her cohorts pray for me in tongues (something I still see as spiritual assault - I cannot stand the idea of being prayed for if I don't consent to it...generally because those people are praying for me in ways I don't see needing prayer). This denial played a huge part in the bouts of depression I would experience - I would frequently lock myself in my room for weeks at a time, only leaving for the restroom and a bowl of cereal, I suffered from eating disorders, I did a copious amount of recreational drugs, etc. - and would always eventually end in another suicide attempt or existential crisis. If you aren't locked in a physical room, you can always be locked in a mental one.

I get that Caitlyn may not be the most spiritual person on the face of the planet (or spiritual at all) - that's her prerogative, and I don't want to pretend otherwise. But if we're going to talk about cis adults bullying trans* kids, let's not pretend that faith and tradition and situational upbringing don't play a part in it. When someone denies your identity, it's not "just because." There are always a million reasons they refuse to acknowledge us, and there are a million ways to solve those problems. So instead of talking about statistics, let's talk about solutions. Instead of lingering in the memory of people we've lost, can't we use those memories to push us forward? It's been a huge year for trans* and queer rights, so why not make it bigger?

#blacklivesmatter, #translivesmatter, and whether or not they really matter (to anyone but us).

In sum:
Over the last year, we've seen the ranks of two hashtag movements swell and split. #blacklivesmatter took off with the shootings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, and grew exponentially with each following death of a POC at the hands of the "American justice system." #translivesmatter, while a seemingly more private community - more constrained to the bounds of the LGBTQ (one could argue solely the transgender community at points), at least aside from the recent surge in popularity thanks to Caitlyn Jenner, Leelah Alcorn's passing, and others, frequently shadows the shouts of #blacklivesmatter, as an estimated 45% of hate crime murders are those of TWOC (trans* women of color), although they make up less than 15% of the population that is victimized by hate crime (http://www.glaad.org/blog/violence-against-transgender-people-and-people-color-disproportionately-high-lgbtqh-murder-rate).
This is all good and well. I am thrilled that minorities and groups of people that are frequently erased from existence and ignored and silenced are finally getting attention that they deserve and need. I am thrilled they are finally tired, that they have finally had enough. Hell, I'm even thrilled that gay marriage is finally a federal decision of legality.

What am I not happy about? I'm not happy that it took being chopped down in the prime of youth for these movements to come about. I'm not happy that murder is making demands for justice. I'm not happy that institutional racism or cissexism weren't enough. I'm mad that I spent years working for gay marriage and my trans* brothers and sisters are still being murdered in cold blood, because who cares, if the rest of the community has marriage now? Not most of them. The good ones, sure. But not the vast majority of allies, who don't even show transgender folks (especially those of color, unless it's...y'know, Laverne Cox or Janet Mock), as a blip on their radar. Those who don't realize they probably know someone who is struggling with that identity and is terrified because they have no one they can tell. That the allies of racial justice tend to ignore the LGBTQ community on a grand scale, and the allies of the LGBTQ community tend to be one-issue-minded drones and are here for the gay white people (the pink economy), but not the rest of us.

Things at the federal level frustrate me, and things at a personal level frustrate me, and really? I just have no idea what to write about or who I'm writing for, or even who is doing the writing anymore.

I had bigger plans for this. I had a better post to write. I had goals, and now I'm just content waking up in the morning for my coffee and others' blogs.