What a goddamn mess.

First off, let me apologize to those of you who've generously posted in my previous entry. I shall get to them when things cool off.

My mother called me about five days ago to tell me she was taking out a loan for me to have SRS. If I didn't want her to do it, I needed to tell her within twenty-four hours because she was going to add it into a home equity loan she was getting approved for general things in her life which I will not go into. How on Earth am I supposed to make a decision like that in twenty-four hours? I at first was taken back. After nearly four years of being full time and on hormones, I'd almost, almost given up hope of ever having it. It seemed far more like a pipe dream. That volume of money on a professor or teacher's salary, let alone a student, is nigh impossible to come by without a studious cover of your expenses. Whilst the pet and I have discussed doing pornography or webcamming to offset the income gap, that is not something we have done as of yet.

I hemmed and hawed. I clearly do not want to saddle my mother with the burden of paying that much money back against her house, as I hate getting or asking for money or gifts from anyone. It's partially pride, and partially I don't want to have owe someone that much money, nor do I want them suffer whilst I benefit. Call it the socialist in me. I told the pet about it and she, well, was destroyed. We had talked about wanting to get our surgery together, so we could go through the experience together. My mother had previously offered to also get enough money for her to get it, but unfortunately her credit wouldn't allow her to do it. The pet told me to get it, even though she said this through a veil of tears and desperate sorrow. It does not take much to realize her decision was somewhat conflicted. I was unsure what to do. I called my mother and attempted to negotiate maybe not doing it. She kind of insisted, because she felt she wanted to give me something. I told her she's given me twenty four years of awesome life and economic and emotional support stacked into a debt I'll never be able to repay. She told me I repay her daily. How can one argue with your mother when she pulls your heart strings? She is far too awesome and far too generous.

I acquiesced. I agreed to do it, and so she signed the agreement.

Over the next few days, the pet and I fought to such a volume that my head just pounded anytime I saw her. We screamed. We sobbed. We fought. The pet felt she might have to leave because the reality of me going through it all would destroy her and undermine her ability to even have a relationship with us. While she told me the whole time "do it, you should, you must," I can not help but notice she does so between gaps in her sobs. How am I supposed to handle that? If we do stay together on such a note, she'll be a wreck the entire time. The first time I orgasm, the first time I have sex, my first gynecological exam...she'll be a wreck. I'll never be able to be happy about it because she'll always be mopey when I bring it up. I'll never be able to talk about the emotional feeling it changes within me, the body wholeness, the sexuality it offers me, because she and I will always have to be forced to associate it with her not having had it, and her depression over it. It would utterly destroy our relationship.

The problem in it all is that, I think, it showed her and I, and Eric, the gaps in our relationship. It showed us that breaking up was a distinct possibility. She felt our D/s relationship was undermined and asked to remove her collar for a while to sort things out. It made (and still makes) me wonder if I can offer her the relationship she seeks? I am unsure that I can give her the kind of relationship she wants, and I am going to have to own up to this at some point to her and answer some very hard questions which she'll no doubt want to pose. Granted, this is something we've had trouble with since the start of our relationship with her. She constantly feels I am not dominant enough, that I don't utilize her submission and slavery enough, that I don't create for her in reality what her fantasies seek, that intense emotional, physical, bodily control of her, the modification of her mind and body. It flared up our old fights. And she's quite right.I am a sadist. I am poor at translating my domination from the bedroom into a relationship of control. She is poor at translating her submission from the bedroom into a relationship of manipulation. Together, we make a team fraught with problems. Eric catches glimpses of this, as he's had us both vent at him for it, but he rarely sees the fights. I think the whole situation made us realize we both have less ability to realize our D/s relationship than we'd like to think we do. She accused me in the heat of anger of possibly using the surgery against her, lording it over her, and that I needed to stop putting on the aire of being a dominant if I wasn't going to look at the long term views of our relationship. We'd agreed her pornography career could/would afford the surgeries/medical things we wanted, since I feel uneasy about doing it because of my body. My stretch marks/scars from being horridly overweight previously make me feel, validly, pretty uncomfortable doing porn at the moment. She felt my getting surgery now preempted that whole discussion. I explained that I could not entirely bet on the future, but I could seize the opportunity to get SRS now. This didn't help matters.

As the days rolled on, I told her if she needed to leave, I would understand. Being a transsexual who wants SRS, I understand that watching others have it, go through it, can be goddamn painful for yourself when you feel unable, hopeless to achieve that. Many of us struggle intensely to deal with the emotional hell of having to do mental gymnastics to avoid the depression that comes with not having had SRS. Not every trans person feels this way. I, and many others, do. It's a personal decision to have it, and frankly anyone who tells you to have it, or not to have it, is an asshole. Being non-op is perfectly fine, and I see no reason why someone should ever be forced or pressured into getting SRS. I do, however, have issues with people who inform me I shouldn't, especially men who feel I need to keep it for their sexual satisfaction. Fuck you.

I began to think, though, about my skin, my breasts. Everyday I wake up, I feel horrible in the mirror because I feel ugly due to the excess skin and marks I have on account of previously being overweight. Society's image, personal opinion, well meaning people aside, it's a personal image I have trouble with. No amount of people telling me "it doesn't bother me" is going to make me feel better about it. It's something I will have taken care of because it drives me to feel uncomfortable every day, especially during sex. I would like to be more shapely. Tighter.

Both SRS and my skin bother me intensely, and I thought perhaps I could avoid the intensely struggle with the pet over the SRS and also get my skin/breasts 'fixed,' thereby killing two birds with one stone. As I mentioned before, its a hard decision for me. Both of them equally bother me. The tummy tuck/implants would make me feel beautiful. The SRS would make me feel whole. I'm torn as to which is more important to me right now. One could argue that my beauty is temporal, and that I should get the SRS because it's more long term. One could also argue I'm young and should live up my sexuality/beauty whilst I can before this culture squeezes it out of me.

I'm also afraid of hospitals. Any surgical intervention into my body makes me cringe at the thought. I'm terrified of needles and operations. Blood makes me freak the hell out outside of the sexual context. I know this sounds ironic for a person who's had estrogen injections nearly for years now, but really, every time I get one, I have anxiety. The idea of having surgery done on me period makes me scared to hell. Something invasive like SRS makes me so scared at the thought of it all. The idea of looking at the sutures and all that scares me. It's worse when I think about wanting to go to Thailand to Suporn, because I'll be flying half way around the world to a country I've never been, lack cultural familiarity with, and being American in South East Asia. I fear social reprisal. I fear something going wrong.

That fear has driven me to consider more local surgeons, like Menard or Brassard. While I've heard a number of bad things, I've heard a number of good things about them both. I've spent more time looking at neovagina results and anecdotes in the pass five days than I think I ever have before. I've been researching more surgeons to make sure, since its on the wire now, I really want to do Suporn if I do this.

My mother called me this morning to find out why I'd been questioning getting SRS and instead doing cosmetic work. It did not help that I was hung over. With papers and shit piling up, drinking has become the new habit. I would have been a bit nicer to her, but her "Spanish Inquisition" style tone of "why are you giving into what your partner thinks?" brand of 70s feminism kinda pushed me off. I was kind of snappy with her. I apologized later because I know her questions came out of love. And she's right. While somewhat hypocritical of her, she informed me I should not let others dictate to me what I should, can, and will do with my body based upon their emotional distress. It is me who has to look into the mirror everyday at myself and live with the consequences of my actions. It is I who has to make the decision between bodily autonomy and sexuality vs the needs and interests of myself. It's the same thing I tell every trans person I meet. If people don't accept you and love you for who you are, who you're going to be, and who you want to be, then tough shit. It's their fucking problem. This goes for family, friends and partners.

But the pet isn't bashing me over the head not to get SRS. And my mother isn't bashing me over the head to get SRS. It's a lot more grey than that. I'm not sure what to do just yet. With papers, school, work, friends and community shit all conspiring at the moment to stress me out, there's a lot more at work here. I'm torn between my skin and my genitals. Either one will make me a far, far happier person. I will feel far more beautiful to have my skin changed. I will feel far more whole and female to have SRS. Both of them are integral to me for me to feel "happy" in my own body. Which I want first, I can not decide. I've never been able to choose between them.

Add on top of that her threats of leaving, the possibility of having to pay for this apartment on two incomes which might not add up, papers due in less than two weeks which I've not started, me trying to figure out what to do with work, me skipping class to get papers done and getting flak for it, friends telling me I don't hang out because I do home work all the time (I've been researching nonstop and writing for weeks), and two partners who tell me I don't have sex with enough, its all kind of adding up on me at the moment. I've not done laundry in two weeks. I've not cleaned the house and its a MESS. I'm keeping my cool fairly well under all of this. I've not sobbed, I'm not cried, I've not bitched. I've stayed focused and gotten the research and paper stuff on my schedule done. I've been reading nonstop. I have not, however, showered often.

I guess that's not entirely true. I've done some sobbing. Just not to the volume I did before.

For those of you who've had SRS, who did you go to, was it all you hoped for? What did it cost you, if you don't mind me asking?

Clearly, I don't want to hurt people. Clearly, I want to be comfortable and whole in my own body. And clearly I don't like false dilemmas, and whenever I sense an "either/or" situation I tense up and hope for a third option to arrive. Doesn't mean I'll pick that third or other options though. I just like having more choices than two. I don't know that there's an easy way out of this. I keep going back and forth between the options. It's not easy coming across this amount of money, and I could easily go and get my SRS now and pay for the cheaper options of cosmetic surgery in bits later. Or I could get the cosmetic stuff now and hope for another chance in the future, and I don't like betting on the future for either.

Fuck.

I am horny.

And not in that "I need to orgasm" kind of blandness.

No, I need to be riotously fucked. Hard. It's one of those passions that comes over me from stress, being several days late on my estrogen shot, and pumped full of white wine from writing papers. I always drink wine when I write, it greases the neurons, so to speak. Overcomes the writer's block.

I've been watching pornography while writing nearly all day. Sounds a bit perverse, but really, I love watching people have sex. There's something powerful about two people engaged in an intensely powerful and pleasurable pursuit. Professional pornography, by and large, bores the hell out of me. They don't fuck for the pleasure of it. It's been reduced to a kind of "going through the motions" that kind of robs sex of its raw, raunchy power. Amateur porn is amazing to me. People having sex simply for the joy of it is so intensely erotic to watch. It's also so much dirtier than professional porn, with the exception of German Goo Girls, which I must admit, never fails to arouse the inner bukkake slut in me.

But I guess the question I have is, does lesbian porn exist? Real, hot, lesbian pornography? And I don't mean that lame ass hetero girl's having sex thing. I mean real dyke as fuck, tattooed to hell lesbians going at it. Girls going at it like no one's watching, lost in their own world. I love lesbian erotica, but its hard to find genuine porn with it.

Normally trans porn does nothing for me. So I defy you to find some stuff that does turn me on. If I felt more comfortable with my own body, I would do my own trans pornography. I do like trans porn with the girls being penetrated, so I'd be curious if any of you have anything to recommend.

Do any of you out there have any interest in trading some BDSM pornography? Or Fetish stuff? I have a huge collection of asphyxiation and rather intense BDSM stuff, but I'm always interested in new stuff. Or interracial. And I don't mean just black guys fucking white girls. That's getting stale. What else is out there?

Let's talk about sex. It's been a while since I've had a riveting sexual discussion on this journal. What are you into here lately? What's getting you off? what's not? This includes everyone mind you. Those lurkers out there who read and never post, here's your chance to engage in a discussion.

I have this recurring sex dream I have consistently where Eric and I are meeting these two guys for dinner. They tell me to sit between them. We're in a back corner at a circular table with a green table cloth. I'm wearing a business skirt suit for some reason. We're discussing that these two guys want to "borrow" me for the night as their pet and slave. Eric discusses my safety and limits with them while they run their hands over my body. The three of them agree on some terms, and then I'm at a posh hotel where these two guys strip me naked save my collar. They remark at my 'slave' tattoo and my 'plaything' tattoo on my body, and delight at my slavery and submission. We have extremely erotic sex until the two of them are done. It's intense. They trade off, double penetrate me, make out with me and treat me quite elegantly, yet very dominantly. I wake up before I return to Eric, but this dream has actually caused me to orgasm in my sleep twice, the only two times I've orgasmed whilst sleeping.

Amazing.

I must jump the pet. She has that wild look in her eye.

Also, I am drunk.

I'm sitting and reading “The Last Generation” by Cherrie Moraga. As I read I find myself going, “fuck this, I hate poetry.” Few things put me to sleep quite like “creative writing.” Fiction usually serves to awaken a part of my brain that says “this didn't happen.” This is quite the case with historical fiction. The mind recoils in horror at the idea of someone romanticizing history. Which is funny, because its what we historians do. We write a narrative we call truth, and idolize it as the only, but in a way, it's at least dancing around “what really happened.”

Poetry is much like art to me. It's a nebulous construct whereby a person attempts to convey some deeper meaning, which I often feel could frankly be conveyed in a paragraph or less. “Get to the fuckin' point,” I mutter. The only poetry I've been able to really sit through was E.E. Cummings and Edgar Allen Poe. That's pretty much it. I generally can not stand to read fiction. It bores me.

As a creative writer myself, that comes as a hypocrisy. How could you possibly dislike the very thing you do? It's a conundrum I fear I'll never be able to resolve.

I question whether or not I'm a really a feminist sometimes. Certainly, I don't hate men. How on Earth could I? In fact, if I were forced to throw my lot in with “hetero vs homo” debate where we bisexuals are seen as “fence sitters” and “not making a political claim,” I fear I would probably throw my lot with the straights. I see myself as a woman. A woman who more or less likes men. But I also like women.

I'm not a nationalist. Nationalism and patriotism are to me nothing but rallying calls for people to stand up behind leaders, regardless of their racial/culture/ethnic/gender/sexual heritage, who manipulate people for their own personal use. Certainly, I stand up for my rights as a citizen of this country, but I feel these rights, and many others not yet enumerated here, should be world wide. I'm not American. I'm human.

I support abortion. But I don't really support marriage as the only state sanctioned, nor socially privileged, way to have a relationship between people. I would much rather have state socialized medical care so that we no longer had to worry about getting married to have health care coverage for our partners or children. I'd rather be able to designate my heirs and those to whom I would wish power over my health and well being should I be incapacitated by a simple document which laid my wishes out. And I don't need some authority to validate my relationship as “authentic” before I can feel it, taste it, relish it, love it. I don't need a “clerk of the court” or a “person of the cloth” to validate it either.

I think there should be a way, an acknowledgment, that children need more than just two people to raise them. We raise children as a community, regardless of what you may think. The food you feed your child, the education they are taught, the day care you place them in, the clothes you cover them with, and car you drive them in, every bit of it, comes from people other than yourself. This may come as a shock to some people, but it is true. We need every single person on this planet. We all rely on one another and children are no exception. This obsession, nay, fetishization, of children as somehow needing only two parents of opposite gender, and sex, as the only possible way for a children to be born, raised, and become a member of this species is absurd. Countless of us have been raised by our aunts, uncles, grandparents, sisters, brothers, adopted families, whomever. What each of us needs is compassion, love, and a good home. And goodness knows many, many of us in the LGBTQ community have good homes, and are eager to help raise children caught in adoption homes, or worse. But we're held back because of a culture war being waged in this country that is tearing the very fabric of who we are, and what will be, apart. The level of political polarization in this country is disturbing to me. The idea that families are only forged through blood, through marriage, through kinship is fallacious. Anyone who has a godparent, stepparents, adopted parents, or “families we've chosen,” know this. Any of us in this community who've had our friends or family leave us on account of our gender/sexual identity are aware of this. Who do you turn to when your own mother and father feel you're the biggest disgrace ever? Where do you turn when your siblings feel you're a freak? What do you do when youre entire family disavows your existence and refuses to even talk to you as a person and respect you? You turn to others. You create your own family. We forge our own or become parts of others. We have to.

I support the right of every person to act upon their own agency for their own choices. Gender, sexual, social, etc.

Obviously, I love and support pornography. It's a double edged sword, I know. It can be exploitative and condition people. But it can also be a great way to make money, explore sexuality, display an inner exhibitionism, enjoy your own voyeurism, make statements about gender, sexuality, self expression, and quite frankly, have mind numbing orgasms.

I think people's sexuality is their own game. Whether it be fetish, S&M, gay, straight, bi, poly, whatever. So long as it is consensual and between people of age, who am I, and quite frankly, who the fuck are you, to tell others what they can, should, be doing with their bodies. This goes for both the feminist who informs me my sexuality demeans women, and the fundamentalist religious person who informs me I am a “sinner.” Fundamentally, they are the same person. They feel the need to dictate to me what I can and not do. It's an apt description. Closed minded people operate in the same way, even with vastly different ideologies.

I'm willing to admit I am, I could be wrong with my beliefs provided someone, something, some book, some literature proves me in my own mind that I am wrong, that there is yet a better way to see something, that there is a better knowledge, way of being, to hold on to.

I don't understand people's problems with “loss of culture.” I don't understand what is so precious about my culture, your culture, or anyone's culture that we need to lock it up like some kind of museum piece to stare at it. I think people who dislike “Western culture” being strewed about seem to have the arrogance to feel that people in other countries wouldn't want our culture. I've seen people bitch about the “exportation of Western culture” and all the evils its thrown about. Oddly enough, I don't see them protesting Anime conventions, Chinese restaurants, foreign music, French wine, or any of the other various sundries that we import here into America which are made else where, and are “exports” of people's cultures. I feel it's only fair that we protest this “invasion” from others if we are to protest our “invasion” of other's countries, don't you? And yes, this is biting sarcasm.

As someone who doesn't feel particularly American, but yet acknowledges my social privilege as middle class and educated and realized I am essentially “Western,” I have to ask, sometimes, about the ways in which our country warrants the criticisms it gets, and yet doesn't warrant some of it. America is not full of evil people with evil intentions. We are a people just as mislead by various authorities as any other. We are a people with good hearts, good minds, just as any other. We are not the vile creatures the left may some times point us out to be, and we are not the gifted, justice-motived, democracy spreading people the right may like to narrate us to be.

I sometimes wonder whether I am a feminist. I say this because as a person involved in the sociology of gender, I'm sometimes gripped with “forbidden questions” that one dares not to ask in the scope of academia. Such questions like “when I look across the globe and see women at a marco level in a virtually universal subordinate position to men, how do I reconcile this?” At first glance, it seems important. At a second glance, the answers, or potential answers, you stand to receive on asking it are volatile. And I don't mean in the “we're going to have a problem” way. What I've found, time and time again, in academia is the consistent problem where if the answer you may receive would cause you to fundamentally change your world, it's time to put up the delusion blockers and retreat into your own world. I know, because I fell victim to the same mindset. The sociology of gender flatly refuses to acknowledge any biological or psychological explanation for women's and men's behaviours. It likes to talk about the plurality of gender and sexes and sexuality, which I of course completely agree with. I agree highly with most of the social constructionist arguments I've heard. However, I can't help but notice the way that sociology, biology, psychology, and to some extent, philosophy, just talk past one another, and when they do talk to each other, its often confrontational, rude, territorial, and closed minded. Perhaps there are biological reasons for some of our behaviours? Perhaps there are psychological structures that make us act the way we do? What about group theory? Our personal drives, and quirks? What about mass psychology? I feel at times I am one of only a few people who seem interested in combining these academic dialogues to see if there's something there, something we can use to explain our social worlds by looking at humans not just at their social interactional levels, but also in the deeper ways we act. This is, I've noticed, a dangerous ground to tread. When I bring up these ideas, I feel a hostile environment from sociologists, biologists, psychologists.

I've been told a number of times that my lust for men, my love of sexual domination of men in bed with me, compromises my politics, my gender, my sexuality. I've been told I can't claim the gender of “woman” as my own, because I'm propping up gender stereotypes, the patriarchy (what is it exactly? What does it really mean?) and “women's oppression.” I've been told my S&M lifestyle demeans women, and is characteristic of me being “a transsexual.” I've been told my love of femininity, of my enjoyment of being attractive (to both women and men) is disabling. I've been told that naked photography of my sexuality, the raw power of my sexuality and gender presentation, are threatening to my politics, my career future, my life. My “ownership” of another trans woman seems to only further this debate along. I've also been told that I could never claim to be bisexual, because that's not political. It's wishywashy. I'll just claim to be hetero. Or homosexual. I could go either way. I think for people who are “strictly” hetero or homo, someone like me is a scary concept. I'm proof they're not the only things in the world.

In fact, I'm a pretty scary concept in general. I'm a socialist, libertarian, atheist, bisexual (or pansexual), transsexual, liberal, woman who is well spoken, well read, articulate, and not afraid to tell you, you, or you to go fuck yourself, or argue you down. I offer my humility to people who humble me. I admit when I'm wrong. I'm passionate, attractive, alive, real, exhibitionist, authentic, sexual, sadomasochistic, strong, vulnerable, voyeuristic, aggressive, and human. This is scary.

I am me. I am labels. I am identities. I am a paradox.

Am I a feminist?

I'm not sure yet, I guess. I deeply oppose racism, sexism, class oppression. And yet, I can't deny that difference creates sexual tension in me. I am deeply aroused by people who are different than me. Ask people in interracial, intercultural, intergenerational, or heterosexuals. In difference, there is sexuality. In sameness, there is sexual. Ask lesbians, gay men, transsexuals who are partnered, or any other of “same” partners. There is a validation and a recognition in both being different and being the same. It arouses us. It's the subjugation of difference, therein lies the problem. But obviously, I horrendously dislike racism. I get bothered and confrontational when people make racist statements. I get defensive and argumentative when people attack lower and middle class. I wish at times we had better social narratives to bring us together. I wish we had a social narrative, a national (ugh I hate that word) narrative that would bring us together as one, regardless of our backgrounds. Goodness knows, the one(s) we have now certainly don't.

I've been told I'm not a feminist because I'm transsexual. I can't claim being a woman because I wasn't “born” that way. Arguably, I was born this way. I might have taken estrogen on board a bit late, but I hate to be the one to crash the party, but since I live “socially” as a woman, I am subject to the same unwanted sexualization, bigotry, misogyny, fear of rape, and lack of respect as any other “birthed” woman. I wear the same clothes. I sound the same. I look the same. I fulfill, more or less, the same social roles as any other woman. If I live to some ripe old age, I will have spent the vast majority of my life as a woman. Perhaps then I can earn the “honorary” title of woman from those people. Probably not. They need their definitions to hold onto their hate language and separatism and anti humanism. Perhaps I need to have SRS, and get raped. Perhaps then I can earn it. Probably not, as they'll tell me it's not the same, my vagina is “fake” “plastic” “inauthentic” or “man-made,” the most ultimate slaps in the face. Perhaps if I get breast cancer, I'll earn it. Probably not. They'll tell me my breasts weren't real. Perhaps I could adopt a child and be a mother, maybe then I'll earn it. Probably not. They'll tell me it's not really my child..The reality is, I'll never be able to convince them of my authenticity. It's like an atheist and a Christian arguing. In the end, neither of them will “win.” In the end, they have to accept that they will just simply have to agree to disagree, realize they're both human, give each other a hug, admire them for their ability, and move on with life. And hopefully have a beer together in a bar, and talk about stuff they actually can agree on, instead of focusing on the negative differences.

I support the legalization of marijuana. I don't think I'm the first, certainly, and not the last to stand up for this topic. Anyone who's gotten high off of the stuff is well acquainted with the fact that the fuss that the judicial system has about marijuana is quite ridiculous. Unlike liquor, one doesn't get that nauseous feeling from smoking too much. It alleviates pain, mellows you out, brings down one's mania, cheers you up, etc. Granted, you're just as useless on it as you would be on liquor, but the two, personally, are somewhat equivocal in their effects, mentally. I don't find them too terribly different, but the side effects of liquor can be kind of disgusting. Which isn't to say that smoking isn't, but I think if I were given the choice, I'd much rather be high thank drunk. It's a far better high. I'd rather laugh, commiserate, enjoy life, and spend time with good people, good friends, good partners, and simply bask in the beautiful world, which marijuana seems to bring about for me. Getting high with friends is a fun way to be social, blow off steam. Getting high with your partners is beautiful. The love I've made, the sex I've had, the way I've been fucked on marijuana defies the language of English to give it meaningful enough words. It was beautiful. Every goddamn minute of it.

Am I a feminist? I'm not sure.

I find it funny, because really, I'm very torn on a lot of these things I read, hear, and experience. I don't always agree with feminists. And I think its important to note that not every feminist agrees on the same things. In fact, the definition of feminism isn't static, and each person has their own view on what it means to them. So I find it funny that I was called a “feminazi,” when I think even for a feminist, I'm pretty radical. I'd argue there's certainly a lot of feminists would cast me out of their exclusive groupings.

Then again, there's a lot of trans groups that would cast me out, as well. I don't feel the need to exclude gender queer, androgynes, bi-gendered, two spirited, autogynopheliacs, transvestites, fetishists, cross dressers or anyone else who disrupts gender/sexuality norms from our political base. To me, in arguing that any or all of those people disarm us politically is just as insidious as the Michigan Womyn's Festival leaving trans women out because of our potentially disarming political power, or even how the HRC dropped us from their campaign for the same reason. Oh we transsexuals. We gender rebels. Sexual rebels. We always seem to disrupt everyone's political power, and in the midst we're the forgotten rags no one wants in their movement. We're the freaks not even the fringe wants around.

And yet, here I stand. What am I doing? Where am I going? Is this really the right discipline for me? Or is it exactly the one I should be in? “Should” implies a correctness, a right fit. Do I believe in this? I've given thought to seeking a PhD outside of this, maybe media studies, cultural studies. I've given thought to being a sex/gender therapist. Goodness knows I'd be good at it. Do I have the emotional strength to pull through that? Where should I go?

Do I have the ability to even make it out of this alive? Can I really pull off all these papers, ideas, articulations, these disagreements? Would I not have been better as a historian? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps these are the very questions, the very points, I should be asking and stating. Maybe this is what I have to offer the world, the community, academia.

Maybe I'm the queer, the paradox, that academia needs. The conundrum. The “how can someone like you exist?”

Well I do. And I am. And I'm not alone. And we're coming for you.

And you're not going to disarm us. We're going to disarm you.

Why is our community so highly affected by depression, rejection, avoidance, loss, maltreatment, abandonment? How many of us have to be cast out of our homes, ignored by our families, turned away from medical care, or have therapists refuse to treat us because we don't meet heteronormative views of gender?

In the almost four years now that I've been living as a trans woman, I've talked to a number of trans people in a variety of unfortunate situations. Gender and sexual minorities seem to find me, more or less, quite frequently. At one point I had over a hundred and fifty trans people's numbers in my phone, and I still have over three hundred people on my AIM and Yahoo who message me at various points.

For a while, I had trans girls calling me so frequently that I used to comically go by "TS-411/911" because I had people calling me at all hours of the night to cry about their loss of friends, family, any support network whatsoever. People would call me to ask about hormone doses, how to date, who to date, what their sexuality was, how to pass, what to wear, how to act, how to come out to their parents, friends, the world. It's interesting how far I've come.

I've talked countless girls out of suicide and known about others attempting it. I've had to intervene in the personal lives of a few in order to find them the help they needed, to find the strength to continue in a world that still continues to view gender and minority along such cruelly strict lines. This world is horribly unforgiving at times to those of us who don't go along with the status quo, who stop to question the madness of it all, and simply want to be ourselves, unconditionally. Have you ever had to call the police on a friend? Have you ever had to stop someone, in their living room, and get their head straight enough to get them to put the knife down?

Have you had someone call you in the middle of the night, crying, asking for reasons they shouldn't pull the trigger? Do you know what its like to find out someone has AIDS and its only their second or third time having sex? Or that someone has lied to them, and they have HPV, and are struggling with costly, painful surgeries?

While I myself have only been touched by slight issues of trans phobia, I've come across people who've been in fights for their very lives. We're part of a minority community that not even other minority groups often treat with any respect. We're caught under the medical and psychiatric institutions in often abusive, gender restrictive ways, and yet these gatekeepers lord their power over us.

I've had my fair share of times pulling trans women out of the depths of their Hell. I know women from all walks of life...lawyers, pornographic models, a CEO, college professors, activists, mechanics, college students, programmers, prostitutes, escorts, sales clerks, scholars, small business owners, marketers, telecom workers, engineers.

Our community needs to pull together more. We need each other, and we need allies. We can not, and will not make this on our own. It is impossible to assume that anyone is "independent" or "on their own." We all rely on one another for nearly everything, regardless of what we may think. We are fragile, vulnerable, social creatures who need social recognition, love, compassion, honesty and decency. Without it, we will struggle and go down in flames.