Any light in any storm

I grow increasingly cynical about this day, but maybe I am about all days. There was a time when it was so important to me. The perfect selfie that pairs with an inspirational caption. One that's perfectly self-deprecating, that edges sincerity. Words gathered in a mass that are a little sad, and a little hopeful to prove I’m happy with this life, despite all its hardships and shallow victories. This is not quite a performance, but it can prove performative in its own way. Building a gender out of practice and repetition, in hopes that the perception of might save me.

When I was a kid, I loved any hint of transness that appeared, even (and often) when it did not arrive with clear language. I loved Samus from Metroid, who was gendered male in the instruction booklet, but created as a woman in pixels on my television. I loved Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, despite never buying into the idea that Jim Carrey is the hero of it. I rooted for the beautiful and slightly unhinged woman with a Dan Marino problem, and unorthodox solutions to it. I loved The World According to Garp, the book and the Robin Williams movie, and that one episode of the Simpsons where Barney thinks that Homer is in the hospital for a sex-change operation. He was in for a triple-bypass, but any light in a storm will do. I loved that there was the idea of a body that could be changed, by science or miracle or both. My earliest relationship with visibility is flawed and imperfect because I was born before the internet and all things that could build bridges to where I might learn our names and stories.

I don’t think visibility serves much use an idea, as the branding of it taken and strip mined by corporations who no longer believe the ROI of us is as viable as it once was. I believe in the spirit of it though, that the ideas of us might carve a path. A trail beaten into the skin of the world, so that all the feet that follow ours might know where to go. I think that visibility has some merit, and in practice there is good in it. I am fortunate to be moderately visible by nature of the work that I do, and as with all labour, there is an opportunity to teach through the performance of it. When I read at events, I will engage with the audience, and tell them why I talk and write about being trans alongside words on work, and culture, and addiction, and all things. I do it because it makes me real, much more than any one single day draped in a flag will. In being real and out in the world, in a way that people can understand, I can occasional do my level best to open their hearts like one might an oyster. By a blade wielded with rehearsed confidence, perfectly twisted when a crack appears in its ardent defences.

The last time I did a reading, it was in the basement of an independent bookstore that doubled as an all-ages punk venue. I read about the time I came close to killing myself while living above a haunted electrical supply shop, and about being afraid to tell my parents when I eventually came out. I talked about how important it was that someone asked me, “so what do you need?” I also read about Bruce Springsteen because how could I not. That seems to be the phrase that sticks with people, as the conversations I had afterwards, and the emails received later, can corroborate. This simple ask, in the spirit of community and collective strength.

So what do you need? has always been an important question, one that almost betrays punctuation and becomes a statement. The veneer of visibility as a performance is nice, and it is also nothing. A film on the surface to prevent the body from too much damage. I am watching my trans friends lose their jobs, lose their documents, lose their families, their homes, their states, their healthcare. I am watching them struggle to find their feet on what was once such solid ground. I am watching them celebrate their transness all the same, despite what this world would take from them because of it. There is beauty in that that erodes the wall of my cynicism.

When I look at my industry and others, I see less trans people than ever before, unless it is a day like this set aside just for us. One that drapes our names in flags and honours our validity, only to forget we exist once the calendar turns. I see trans women celebrated as trans, but rarely as women. I see people put into boxes and held on display. I see fewer trans people in editorial positions or with regular writing gigs, and fewer opportunities for work that will be seen, that might help someone build a life. This is a problem not exclusive to transness, but this is our day, and you’ll have to bear with me.

Lately, when I see a viral clip of someone talking about transness, it is always a cis person. A cis person speaks about transphobia. A cis comedian has a really good trans joke they’re a bit too eager to share. Cis people talk about Harry Potter. I rarely see them share books written by trans people. We are headlines written about us in fear. We are the subject of legislation. We are monsters drawn by hands that have never known fear, although we have been lost in the conversation, as we are never the ones speaking. I have written about this before. People grouse about hearing too much about trans people, a complaint that should be filed with those that can’t seem to leave us alone.

Visibility is a simple idea. It’s the hint of a word that builds a world once absorbed. I get messages from people working through their own issues, asking questions and seeking hints for themselves anywhere they can. I don’t like to be defined by my transness, the trap of the Trans Writer, but I like it to be known I am a trans woman who writes for this reason. I am honoured to still be here, and to always hear of more people finding their way on a path that was bushwhacked for me and countless others.

We need countless things, and one of them is to be heard, and to be real in the telling of our needs and stories. To not have our work be solely about how Inspiring we can be, or how Challenging our truths can be. The validity industrial complex. To be truly visible is to be flawed, and scarred, and beautiful. To be visible, we need to have homes, and reliable work, and healthcare. To have documents that tie our names to ourselves. To have bodies with shapes and destinies we determine. To perform the genders of our choosing, and determine their every fluid movement for ourselves.

Also, one thing you can do to support trans people is by buying the things we make! You can still get copies of my book, The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman! There's no one stopping you!