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sherwinarnott · 9 years

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Coming Out- Round 2

This isn’t the letter I thought I’d be writing. I made a promise to myself about a year ago that if I still felt as miserable, as empty, as lost as I’ve felt on and off for the past decade, I would write a heartfelt suicide letter on my 30th birthday. I pondered the details. Should I include pictures? Song lyrics? For as long as I can remember, I was always drafting and redrafting my suicide letter in the back of my head and sometimes even jotting down notes on napkins or inside journals. I even, perhaps morbidly, imparted hypothetical funeral instructions to my friends in passing:

“Fill the place with white lilies, Marie.” “Kara, don’t let them read anything from the bible. Only poetry.” “If I die first, Mom, please burn me up. You know how I hate insects.” “Karla, please play “Nuvole Bianche” by Ludovico Einaudi on the piano.”

To my surprise, months later, I spotted the sheet music on her piano bench. With my fingers trailing across the bars of music, I let my imagination wander off the page and to what my tombstone would look like—etched with that poem by Elizabeth Bishop. I felt relief. Finally, I would be able to sleep.

In the past year, a series of events placed themselves in my path. I am a believer in synchrodestiny, in the idea that the universe sends you signs and that you should listen (even when it feels impossible, especially when it does).

Sign 1. My best friend transitioned from female to male. I watched his spirit change and grow with the shifting of his body. I heard a confidence and security radiating through his conversations, features that were absent when we were two lesbians scampering about the mountains of Victoria, BC.

Sign 2. I watched two films: Laurence, Anyways and Mr. Angel (both available on Netflix). With my faced pressed to the wet pillow, I had two thoughts:

So this is me. I’m trans. -and- Oh, shit.

Watching these films made me re-examine memories—peeing standing up as a child, dressing in drag during university, and other too personal things to share.

Even after I quietly and internally accepted that I was trans, I still tried to theorize my identity. Until the day came when I couldn’t look in the mirror. For the first time, it was actually physically painful for me to examine my reflection. Looking at my hair, my breasts, my body, felt foreign. My eyes- I understood. They held all of me. Even still, I found myself intellectualizing this reality out of fear (like a good writer and academic):

Lots of women have trouble relating to femininity, they’re still women, I think. -Or- The problem is the system of binaries, not me. These justifications are true to a large degree. But whether or not these categorical boxes of ‘male’ and ‘female’ or ‘man’ or ‘woman’ are actually real or make sense or should exist doesn’t change the fact that we have to carry our bodies around in the world. And I couldn’t anymore. Not like that. Mine felt too heavy.

Sign 3. Life usually has a way of dumping everything on a person all at once. Struggling with the simultaneous illnesses of a parent and sibling, my own depression, and the financial and emotional stress of a graduate degree, I spent two days locked in my apartment, wondering how I could get out of this mess. Out of the fear of further hurting my already fragile family members, I planned to finish writing my suicide letter during Christmas break. And then the biggest something happened that I couldn’t ignore.

On December 29th, Leelah Alcorn’s suicide letter emerged on my Facebook feed. The words filled my eyes and pooled in my stomach, washing my heart along the way. In it, she said: “The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was,” she asked that they be “ treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say ‘that’s fucked up’ and fix it. Fix society. Please.”

I looked at Leelah’s letter and thought: that’s fucked up. I was heartbroken that a teen with so much passion, a person so likely to change the world, felt she had to leave it instead. It was incomprehensible. I thought about her parents’ religious fundamentalist response to her feelings and their outward denial and neglect of their child and I thought: that’s fucked up. I thought about all the times I’d entered high schools as a diversity educator and heard activists talk about queer rights or women’s rights but make little room for trans or genderqueer discussions and thought: that’s fucked up.

Now, with a bit of space, I can also see that the fact that we often hear about murders and suicides of white trans individuals first is very fucked up. With this acknowledgement, I would still like to thank Leelah for changing (and keeping) my life.

I don’t have the “typical” trans narrative if there is such a thing (and I don’t think there is). For my entire life, I’ve imagined that I was both (or neither) boy or girl and then, later, man or woman. Whatever the case, I woke up each morning and it was decided by society that I was a girl and at a certain point, I made the choice to keep the narrative going as a woman. At times it was debilitating. Other times it was joyous. Always—it wasn’t quite enough for me. I know it is for some people. But it never was for me.

** I have labored over these words for too long. Ever since a trans friend told me that his hardest experience was coming out to each person in his life individually, I have labored over these words. I have wondered how to cobble my confession into a whole unit that could do something. I have spent many restless hours stitching these words into a letter that asks for a type of radical understanding. Between these lines, I have peeled off a lifetime of protective armor so that you might see me and love me anyway. Not for what you think I am, but for whom I know I am. I have labored over these words for too long because the Enter key feels like a locked door. Sending these words out into the ether for consumption means there is no space left for me to hide. Pressing the Enter key means that even in silence, I will feel the coldness of disagreement. I will imagine the brittle disapproval. Being a lesbian has taught me how to expect this hate, but not how to accept it.

I have labored over these words for too long because we live in a racist society and the fact that my story might gain attention while trans women of colour were murdered (and many more took their own lives) this year without any media coverage is part of the problem. Penny Proud (21). Lamia Beard (30). Ty Underwood (24). Yazmin Vash Payne (33). Taja DeJesus (36). Blake Brockington (16): I want to acknowledge that I am a part of this problem. I am a part of a world that disappeared you. That my whiteness should give this letter validity is the problem.

I have labored over these words for too long because trans survival is a real thing. The average life expectancy of a trans person is 30-32 years old. In a heteronormative, two-sex, two-gender world, queer people have to worry about how they will afford to eat. They have to worry if that guy walking too close to them has a weapon. They have to worry if he will rape and murder them. They have to live with the knowledge that few laws protect their abilities to secure employment or to navigate even simpler things like travel or using the bathroom without harassment.

I have labored over these words for too long because I was worried about your convenience. Even though it doesn’t make sense, I still blame myself for the question marks that will inevitably hang on to the end of your sentences, hooking into my real body and flesh, dragging along my small hands, finding my curvy hips. I shouldn’t, but I do.

But I cannot labor over these words any longer. I’ve spent most of my whole adult life in this safe cage with a finger hovering over the Enter key. I’ve only known exits. How to avoid being fully present. How to embrace the idea that my difference might render me permanently unlovable. I’ve only known how to fit in. How to grow my hair and hope nobody notices my other gestures.

** To my family: You’ve always given me the space to be my ridiculous, loud, crass, self. There are countless things you didn’t understand about me: why did I need all those piercings or tattoos? Why did I need to be gluten-free? A vegetarian? Why did I need three university degrees? Or to scream so loudly about women’s rights? Whether you understood me or not, you were always there unconditionally. And I hope that doesn’t end today. I hope that you know that I love you unconditionally and that I know you don’t have a context for gender politics. You don’t have a language for it or the resources or lived experiences. But you didn’t know a lesbian either until I came out as one. And you navigated that territory honestly and respectfully.

I’m still the person who made you laugh, held your hand, hugged you, sent you late night emails, brought you coffee, and told you how important you were.

I also need you to know that it has taken my whole life to gain the courage to bring this news to you, so if you reject me, I’ll pray it’s momentarily. And if you turn your back on me permanently, I will honour the time we had together and I will look for family in other places.

To my friends: I entrusted a small circle of women with my truth and you’ve kept it (and me) safe. Thank you. Thank you for asking questions with respect. Thank you for offering to sit beside me in the doctor’s office. Thanks for the bottles of Chianti. Thank you for making a Pinterest board of male fashion wardrobes and haircuts that would suit me. Thank you for practicing my new name. Thank you for reassuring me that I won’t be alone. Thank you for reminding me that in life we are gifted more than one ‘partner’. I’ve had a small team guarding my heart during this realization and I’ll never forget that.

To my friends that I didn’t tell: now is our time to figure out what we mean to each other. I understand that I will lose many of you in this process. My identity shouldn’t affect yours but for some it will and I hope that you find the strength and courage to work through that in the coming years as the world loosens up and makes room. For those others who are willing and wanting to follow me in this journey, I’m excited and grateful for your support. Expect a lot of the same things from me: dimly lit selfies, over-sharing on facebook, corny jokes, rants, and wellness quotes. Also, expect some new stuff: talks about my transition, things I learn through the process, and (I’m guessing) a lot more smiles.

To the academics/writers/feminists in my circle: You are the reason I’ve survived for as long as I have. You are the reason I wake up. You are also the reason I can’t sleep, my mind swirling with ideas and plans to change oppressive structures and systems. You are the reason I feel safe doing this. I hope that you will feel safe engaging in open discussions about trans issues with me. I have always admired your passion and will not quiet your voices (even when it hurts to listen. And it will sometimes. And that’s okay too).

I’m hoping this process or relearning myself will make me a better feminist, academic, researcher, and writer. Being more in touch with my voice, I will be able to think, write, assist, and love others from an open and vulnerable space. I believe that patriarchy is the heart surgery we need to attend to most fully. When we repair the structural inequalities between men and everyone else, we will drain the world from the countless oppressive bloodbaths that have been pouring over all parts of society, clouding the bigger picture.

For this reason, I don’t imagine I will ever feel comfortable calling myself a man, at least not in the way that we’ve grown to know the term. Heteronormative masculinity is not a safe space for me or anyone (even heterosexual, straight men). Halberstam said masculinity is what we make it. My brand will mirror me: incredibly queer, feminine, sensitive, and romantic.

To the femme lesbians: may the universe always shine brightest on you. You let me sit at your tables even though I didn’t wear heels or give a damn about pencil skirts or lipstick. You let me sit at your tables when nobody else in the queer community would have me because I didn’t fit. You let the length of my hair stand in for femininity knowing that femininity is never simple. I owe my courage to you. I watched and listened as each of you talked about feeling invisible and I understood, but for different reasons. You talked about how painful it was that the world assumed you were something you weren’t (a heterosexual woman) just because of how you looked, and I understood. Thank you a million times, fierce femme warriors, for teaching me about guts and grace. It wasn’t your job to do so, but you did it brilliantly. And I appreciate that.

To my neighbours: Well, as far as I see it, you have two choices. You can accept me and go against everything people believe about you or you can reject me and I’ll move to Toronto or New York or Vancouver or LA. Obviously, I’d like to stick around. My family is close by and I’ve always had a weird love obsession with you. It might just be my penchant for flannel or gritty accents, but I find you irresistible, New Brunswick.

Everyone says that the Maritimes aren’t a place for queer/trans people, and that the people of these provinces aren’t great at change. I don’t buy it. If you aren’t great at change maybe it’s because nobody sticks around long enough to provide you with opportunities to relate. So I’m going to try to do just that.

To the World: I’m really excited to reenter you and I hope to make friends across the globe and help out however I can.

** Answers to some questions you might have

Are you going to change your name? Yes. I’d prefer to be called AJ. I’ve always preferred that anyway. I would rather you call me AJ than any other pronouns, but if you absolutely must gender me, I feel that ‘they’ would feel best (sorry, grammar friends…it’s a symbolic thing…suck it up).

Won’t you be lonely? I can’t be any lonelier than this. And—cats.

What about sex? I’ve never seemed to have trouble in this area.

Don’t you worry that you won’t find love? I spend my life worrying about things. Tar sands. Fracking. If I ate too many chips. Wars. How to properly cut mangoes. My lower than low blood pressure. Reproductive rights. When I’ll get around to doing my taxes. Love is consistently the one thing I try not to worry about. My theory is that if you’re a good person, love has a way of showing up, sneaking in, wrapping its arms around you before sleep.

Will you have a penis? Respectfully, that’s none of your business. And do the three in my closet count?

Finally, you may be asking HOW CAN I HELP?

Here is exactly how you can help me:

At the end of this week, I’m going to reopen a new Facebook account and add only the people I know are supportive and loving of my process. I’m doing this for my personal wellness because creating a safe online space matters to me. How will I tell?

You can prove your support by doing one (or all) of the following: 1. Like this post 2. Share it. Visibility is why I’m doing this today. Keeping trans identities visible will challenge public opinions and continue conversations. 3. Donate $1 to my project. There are two ways I can make the world a better place for people like me— academia and art. You can’t buy me a bigger brain, but you can fund my comedic webseries, which aims on providing complex representations of women and queer characters.

It may seem strange, but I’ve decided to keep the last line of my other drafted letter to close this one:

“Whenever things get hard, whenever you’re in pain, whenever you’re scared, I want you to remember the good stuff. Always remember the good stuff. Remember how I’ve loved and will love all of you. Forever. Your love will keep me alive.”

Xox, AJ

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