Yesterday was good, but today...bleh...

Yesterday was amazing (as you'd know if you read my last post). But today there are dark gray clouds everywhere in the sky, my "little monthly friend" came (but once I start testosterone, that will all be overwith), and I have a cold. Bleh. Major bleh.

But, on the bright side, on December 13th (which is the next half-day my school is scheduled to have) I'm seeing my friend Bear and we're gonna eat a late lunch and spend the afternoon together, I get the whole house to myself for a few hours after I get home from school today (because my mom's still working and my brother has basketball practice), and my Extended Literary Analysis for my English class is going really well! I'm not just doing it on Stone Butch Blues anymore, though--now I'm doing it on both that book and Leslie Feinberg's newest fictional masterpiece, Drag King Dreams.

So I guess I really don't have liscense complain that much, huh?

I've done it!

I've finally finished reading S. Bear Bergman's book, Butch Is A Noun! It was just spectacular. There were a few chapters that particularly touched me (namely, "Being a Butch with Young Men", "Virtual Butch Reality", "Passing It Along", "Where Butch Resides", "What My Daddy Taught Me", "Sticks and Stones Will Break My Bones, but Words Will Kill Me", "My Butch Brothers", "Faggot Butch", "What The Stone Is Made Of", "An Apology to My Mother", "Laying Down with a Butch", "Touch", "This Gesture", and "You"), but the ones that I've thought about the most today (I finished the book last night) are the ones about brotherhood, friendship, and connecting with other people who are like you or look up to you. The parts entitled "Touch" and "This Gesture", which are towards the end of the book, describe how important of a role physical contact played in the author's home-life as a child and how ze has brought that aspect of physicality over to hir adulthood, and how much a simple yet intimate backwards hug (meaning, a hug where the hugger embraces the huggee from behind) can convey in terms of love and trust, moved me very deeply because they taught me that Bear and I are the same in that we both welcome touch and find it extremely important in relationships, be they romantic or not. Some people in my life would find the openness that Bear expresses both in-person and in hir writing unsettling because they're just not comfortable with it, but not me. I think Bear is amazing, and I cannot wait to see how our friendship progresses and grows.

Ze's a Bear

In my post from yesterday, I talked a little about my new friend S. Bear Bergman, who describes hirself as "a good example of what happens when you overeducate a contrarian" and is also a writer, a theater artist, an instigator, and a gender-jammer. Hir book, Butch Is A Noun, is simply incredible--I bought it on Friday before I (quite unexpectedly) met hir on Monday, and I haven't read very far into it because it's really intense and in-depth, but from what I've read so far it's very, very good.

Ze is going on tour with hir book, but ze said that when ze returns, ze and I will spend some time just...talking. About...whatever, including everything.

Just to show how unbelievably incredible ze is, and how much ze cares about Trans. issues because ze is also a member of the Trans. community, I want to end this entry with a short quote from hir poem "Day of Remembrance", which ze wrote as a contribution to the Transgender Day of Remembrance and which I saw hir read at the services that both of us attended on Monday:

"I'm here with my tribe
this family's my wealth
and I would die without them
before I would live by myself"

Linkage:

• S. Bear Bergman http://www.sbearbergman.com

Transgender Day of Remembrance 2006: My Reaction

If you read my comment about Peterson's post about the Transgender Day of Remembrance, you'll see that I planned to go. And I did. It wasn't quite what I expected; in short films about it posted on You-Tube, I had seen people gathering in great groups on city streets to honor the past year's sadly departed. But our vigil wasn't quite the same. Instead of meeting outside initially, we gathered in a Unitarian church and discussed the plan for the evening, which included a candle-light march down and then back up Northampton's Main Street, some scheduled speakers, and an open mic. opportunity so the public could speak, as well.

While I was partaking in this ceremony, I had the chance to meet an amazing person. Here's a little back-story, so you might not be so confused as to why I'm jumping around a bit: on Friday of last week, I spoke after a film about Trans. teens (which, if you read the blog preceeding this one, I was freaking out about just a wee bit (but which actually ended up going really well)). Before the film, me and the friends I came to Northampton with decided to go to Pride and Joy, Northampton's store for specifically GLBT-related merchandise. At Pride and Joy, I bought a book--S. Bear Bergman's Butch Is A Noun. And last night, Bear was the person I was so overjoyed to meet. It actually turns out that ze* lives in Northampton! I was very affected by Bear because ze was so open and sweet, and even though I have met many authors who have since become my friends (or at least trusted acquaintances), I felt instantly welcomed and accepted by hir* into hir world.

Anyway, after the vigil/march and the speaking back at the church, our organizer for the night asked the 19 folks who had been given a description of an individual we were remembering to read their slips of paper aloud. They had flashlights that they had to read by, but what was particularly ceremonial, respectful, and beautiful is that when the people were done reading their descriptions, they turned off their flashlights, both to represent that they were finished reading but also to represent the sudden, untimely death of the person they'd just read about. During the reading of one of the first descriptions, I got completely unnerved and began to sob. A good friend, who is also a Transman, held me in his arms, tight against his chest. I felt a hand on my knee, and as I turned to look at the person who was reaching out to me, I discovered that it was Bear--ze was handing me hir handkerchief. I took it gratefully, and at the end of the evening, when I asked hir if ze wanted it back, ze told me to keep it. And then ze hugged me, and held me tight.

Though I don't think I have ever experienced such sadness as I did last night, I also don't think I've ever been so thankful for my chosen family, which grew considerably in just an evening. Bear said before ze read a poem during the time when ze spoke that we did not lose the people who died this year and who we were honoring--they were taken from us. Although I agree that this is very true, those who attended the Transgender Day of Remembrance ceremonies all across the globe last night forged a new bond as a chosen family in the largest sense, and I know that there is nothing more extraordinary and gorgeous than that.