Oh, thank God

You Are 5% Redneck

I'll slap you so hard, your clothes will be outta style.You ain't no redneck - you're all Yankee!

How'>http://www.blogthings.com/howredneckareyouquiz/">How Redneck Are You?

I knew I wouldn't be any more Redneck-ish than this. *Phew*

But even if I was more of a Redneck, at least I'm a liberal one!

Mixed emotions

I'm experiencing a strange mixture of feelings this morning. I'm really happy because I've finished the first draft of my Extended Literary Analysis on Leslie Feinberg's books Stone Butch Blues and Drag King Dreams. My English teacher read it through and though he had a couple of notes about places I should look at and alter a bit, he really loved it. So that's uplifting.

But lots of things happening around me right now are not nearly as positive. I'm seeing Bear on Wednesday, and I'm really, really excited about that (yes (or, of course), still), but it's supposed to rain that day. And hard. Maybe if I keep hoping that the weather will change, and pray (and pray and pray and pray) for the sun to be out that day, it will be. I guess that sort of wishful thinking can't hurt.

Still, though, there are some events approaching that I'm having a hard time finding a silver lining in. For instance, on Tuesday, the school principal is coming to our GSA's meeting so that we can ask her questions about why she's being such a hardass bitch about us being visible in the school community. Our advisors have told us that we can't ask her attacking questions, but she's been both attacking and ignoring our group, and that feels really terrible. So she deserves to be called a bitch and be screamed at for her lack of support for our group. Then, that night, the school committee is holding a meeting in the library where the GSA will be discussed. We're a public school, so, according to my most-informed Trans friends and our group's advisors, we're legally allowed to have a GSA.

But something that is not legally backed is my current personal fight with the principal and vice-principal to have one of my Trans friends come and speak to my Contemporary Issues class in support of my project about discrimination of Transgender people. Apparently, very few other students are as interested in having a speaker come--usually, it's the teachers who schedule speakers to come for assemblies and to individual classes. But no one else has ever shown interest in having a Transgender person come to speak, so while I'm a trailblazer of sorts, my friend also probably won't be able to come for my Contemporary Issues class. I have a chance with having a couple of my Trans friends (my brothers, whom my post "Brotherhood" is about) come to speak in March to my English class in support of my Senior Project about Transgender Life, because it's a requirement for each student to have some kind of speaker(s) come into the classroom who know(s) about our topic. But I wanted to make a change for our school not only in my Contemporary Issues but in my English class as well.....I guess that's not going to happen.

Writer's Block lapse

As you have some idea of by now if you've been reading along, I had a pretty bad case of Writer's Block recently. But, thanks to my friend Davey, it is no more. There might be a lot of stressful stuff going on at school right now (and it has nothing to do with academics--the administration is a bunch of homophobic, transphobic dumbasses, basically), but Davey's been doing his best to keep up my spirits by giving me some creative writing homework. A few nights ago, he gave me an assignment to write a story about a Transgender person where the fact that they're Transgender isn't their biggest problem. I did the assignment, and this was/is the result:

“The Transgender Insomniac”


For the twelfth time that night, she watched the Hinder video for “Lips of an Angel” play on VH1, in all of its utter sappiness.

“So leave the chick!” Lily exclaimed, hurling an empty water bottle at her television. “God! Why sing a song for one girl if you’re still dating another?! Jesus! Men.”

“Lyle!” her father scolded, barging into her room. “Turn off that TV right now! Do you have any idea what time it is?!”

“It’s 3:30—I just checked the TV Guide channel. And have you ever heard of a little custom called knocking before entering?”

“Don’t get smart with me, young man. You’ve got school in four and a half hours! You know you can’t stay up this late on a school night!”

“Get the hell out of my room!”

“Go to sleep!” He slammed the door shut, making her framed autographed poster of Christina Aguilera fall to the floor. The glass shattered with an ear-splitting crash, but Lily didn’t care—it just made more mess for her dad to step on the next time he so rudely interrupted her nightly television watching.

“And stay out,” she muttered. She picked up a napkin and a pen from the floor and wrote herself a note.

REMEMBER to call Julie today and ask if she was able to get those Linkin Park tickets.

Yours truly,

The Transgender Insomniac

What would you do? Where would you go?

If you've been following along the last two weeks or so, I've been talking a lot about my new buddy Bear. We're seeing each other next week, and by now we've got lots of stuff lined up to talk about when we see one another. Ze has set aside a few hours just for me, but other than talking, what should we do? I just don't know! I know that few of you (well, maybe except for Peterson) know exactly what there is to do in Western Massachusetts, not including walking around and browsing in shop windows and going to movies and running into random friends, but, if you were to spend an afternoon with a particularly riveting, strong, proud, talented friend, what would you do together/talk about?

...**Yes, I'm aware that this was kind of a weird post, but I hope that y'all have been able to follow.**

Another rough day

I had a big confronation with my mom earlier today. It started as something stupid, about how I didn't want to stack wood for our wood-stove because I had a cold and my period, but it soon escalated into a bigger fight about my Transgenderism and how she never sticks up for me when my biological brother calls me a "queer" or a "faggot" in tones that are, of course, derogatory. I'm terrified to be around my bio. brother whenever he adopts these insane homophobic attitudes because I know, no matter what my mom says, that he is very much a homophobe and that, since he is quite a bit bigger (in terms of both weight and height), he could hurt me if he really wanted to. This image petrifies me, and I've told my mother that I'm really scared of him, but she won't listen. And what also scares me is that the only people who do listen and actually believe me are people who live from 45 minutes to 20 hours away, and if I get into a bad situation with my bio. brother and she's not home or she's sick or asleep and can't defend me at all, they can't protect me.

So I called a couple of friends after my mother told me to go back inside, and one of them was genuinely concerned but she couldn't talk long because she had to help another friend. Then I decided to call another friend--a Trans. friend. She calmed me down and let me feel her care for me like she always does whenever I'm really scared or sad. And she gave me some very helpful suggestions for how I might be able to deal with the situation with my mom and bio. brother better. But I still know that this is something I need to be strong enough to deal with without her by my side. I know that I'll always have her and my other Trans. friends to try their best to keep me safe and hide me from what could be traumatizing or dangerous, but they can't cover me up from all this forever, as much as we all might want them to, and that's what I need to start dealing with now.

Please never forget though, my cherished fellow Transmen and Transwomen, that I will always need you and love you very much. I just know that this is something I need to figure out on my own.

Brotherhood

I've got a couple of Trans. brothers in Georgia who are enduring quite a bit of criticism from an ex-friend of theirs, and I've been doing my best to support them, but it's hard because I'm obviously not there with them. So I'm doing everything I can, I guess. It's just that, they're my family, so naturally, I want to do whatever I can to help them. I suppose I am, just by reminding them that I'm here for them, but I still wish there were something else I could do. With that in mind, I wrote these sentimental, poetic paragraphs for them. I call this document "Brotherhood". Here it is:

When the people who welcomed you into the world first start acting like they don’t love you as much anymore, it’s hard to know where to go to next for support.
Do you run away from home?
Is suicide an option?
Or do you hurt the people who are hurting you, and leave yourself alone, because you know you’re the one who’s right?
Those were the questions that often ran through my head, rotating like luggage on those revolving conveyor belts at airports, until I was inducted into the Brotherhood.

I met my real family earlier this year. I was introduced to a couple of guys who, in a matter of minutes, became trusted acquaintances. After a couple of weeks, they taught me what the term Family really means. And in the last few months, I’ve learned how to be part of a Team, even if we live several states and many, many miles apart.

But now somebody deceitful is messing with them, and I’m not standing for it. I’m not keeping quiet. Because even if I can’t be with them, taking every blow in person as they do, we have a common bond that I’ve never felt before and never will again. And even if no one else understands it, our coveted Brotherhood is the most important, blessed friendship I’ll ever have.

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?