Don't let your schooling interfere with your education.
~ Pete Seeger

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Today I’m Beautiful

I looked in the mirror today and realized I am beautiful.

I understand that that sounds pretty cocky, narcissistic and conceited, but it's not. It's a statement of the simple fact that I like the way I look. Yes, I recognize that my jaw is too big to be classically feminine, and my shoulders are too wide, my hips too narrow. I see my physical flaws and I see that they are meaningless. I see strength and courage and gentleness and sweetness. I see love. I have come to like and respect myself a great deal. I don't want to be someone else, not any more.

That statment also recognizes that others may find me beautiful. Not everyone, no, but many may do so – some who would be surprised to learn that I'm transsexual.

More than that, though – I see that I am beautiful as being transsexual, as bridging the chasm between the sexes, as exhibiting an amalgamation of those characteristics that are divided among the sexes. I am male and female.

And I will stand here before the world and testify that it is good.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
~Helen Keller

Reading List for Information about Transpeople

  • Becoming a Visible Man, by Jamison Green
  • Conundrum, by Jan Morris
  • Gender Outlaw, by Kate Bornstein
  • My Husband Betty, by Helen Boyd
  • Right Side Out, by Annah Moore
  • She's Not There, by Jennifer Boylan
  • The Riddle of Gender, by Deborah Rudacille
  • Trans Liberation, by Leslie Feinberg
  • Transgender Emergence, by Arlene Istar Lev
  • Transgender Warriors, by Leslie Feinberg
  • Transition and Beyond, by Reid Vanderburgh
  • True Selves, by Mildred Brown
  • What Becomes You, by Aaron Link Raz and Hilda Raz
  • Whipping Girl, by Julia Serano

I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands even at the height
of their arc of anger
because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound
and it is His - the Christ's, our
Beloved's.
~Hafiz