#i almost stepped on one walking to class today ick

[thebabygronckle]

its tree screaming season you know what that means

*attempts to walk outside*

*sees dead bodies everywhere*

*goes back inside*

[theotherpages]

Cerulea and the Meaning of Everything

Episode 2: Hello, My Name Is

[trigger warning - violence]

I SHOULD probably explain a few things. Maybe more than a few. All right, a shitload of things.

I guess I have to pick one to start with. Here goes: My name is Cerulea. Ser-oo-lee-ah. Yeah, I bet you hear that one all the time. I looked it up as soon as I was old enough to Zoogle. Close but no kewpie doll. It’s almost a color, almost a disease, almost an ultra-skinny, excessively quirky, blue-haired manga character. But it’s not. It’s me.

So, next thing is, I don’t usually go by Cerulea among friends. I mean, yeah, that’s what my parents named me, and it’s on my student ID and driver’s license and all, but it's such a pain to have to tell everyone how to spell it. I don’t go by Cerul, because that’s a Trans thing, and I don’t want my Trans friends to think I’m a pretender. So, I go by Lee among those who know me well. (That’s what Binnie always calls me). When people write it down, my name gets morphed into ‘Sarah Lee,'' like some yuppie version of Billy Bob or Betty Sue, or maybe some kind of cheap cupcake from Maulmart.

After I Zoogled cerulean – I think I was seven or eight – I did ask mom to dye my hair blue. She wouldn’t, but when I was ten I did it myself. Not all the way down to the roots - that’s a good way to go bald (probably not a good look for me) – but most of the way. I liked it. And ten years later it’s still blue. 

Names. Right. Full name is officially Cerulea Daria Durning. My older brother Mariner goes by Mari, and my younger brother Anthem goes by Ant. And yeah, those end up as Mary and Aunt sometimes. People can be annoying about names. More than just names, but especially names. Sometimes because they’re ignorant or lazy, but mostly just because they’re dicks. Maybe I’m over-sensitized because my name was a gift from my parents, and they aren’t around anymore. So, it’s a special gift. So, I take offense.

There was this guy in fifth period my freshman year who said my name wrong every single fucking day, and did it on purpose, and then laughed, like he was making the world’s greatest joke. Mari told me to ignore him. “He’s just some idiot trying to get a rise out of you. He may be a jerk, or he may be so screwed up he actually thinks he’s flirting with you.”

Ick. Double-ick. And not just because I’m not into guys. (That’s a Binnie discussion - I’ll get around to that later). But eventually I’d had enough.

One day I walked into class (Ms. Bates, the AP World teacher, was out in the hallway, gabbing) and I could see that Comedian Guy was about to do it again. Enough. Not today, I decided.

As I walked past him, I wound up and threw a right hook at his stomach with so much behind it that his eyes bugged out and he sat down hard at his desk with an ooooopf, and almost fell on the floor. I grabbed his shirt collar just in time and pulled it up until it was sort-of gagging him. 

“Enough. You wanted to push my buttons? Congratulations. You did. The name is Cerulea. Ser-ooo-lee-ah. If you’re too dimwitted to say it right, keep your friggin' mouth shut, or I promise next time you’ll be swallowing your teeth. All of them.” 

I let go of him and he slumped down with his head on his desk and his eyes bugged out, drooling a little. The rest of the class got dead quiet. 

So, yeah, I can punch. Really punch. I always try to step into the swing. Pops taught Mari that, and he taught me. And we spar at least once a week in addition to sword practice, which gives me quick, wiry muscles. And, equally important, I know how to take a punch. Mari told me not to get in any fights, but if I did, swing with everything and don’t hold back. So that’s what I do.

Ms. Bates commented half-way through the period how impressed she was that class was so quiet and attentive today. Except for Comedian Guy. He managed to stay mostly upright for a while, then asked Ms. Bates to be excused and limped out of the room, taking the trash can with him. I could hear him ralphing in the hallway. He never said a word to me after that. Not a peep for the rest of the school year. The school, by the way, is Riparian High School, in North Broward, Florida. This is my last year. Mari is in his first year at Broward College, and Ant is two years behind me. 

There is one non-human member of our family – that’s Eeek, my pet attack squirrel. Aunt Rachel named him, or at least, she said Eeek! the first time he jumped off a curtain rod and landed in her hair. It seemed to get his attention, so it’s been Eeek ever since. Three e’s. I’m a stickler for spelling. 

Getting back to my anecdote – somewhere towards the end of class – AP World is heavy on Chinese history – Ms. Bates happened to comment that to the Chinese, the real unlucky number is not thirteen, but four (Suuh), because it sounds a lot like death (Suuh-ang). I knew that already, of course, but I like Shisan better, and I wasn’t planning on going after any Chinese gang-lords or anything. So, Thirteen has always worked just fine for me. Plus, since thirteen has no special meaning or feng shui in Chinese, there are no famous Chinese swords named Thirteen – I’m not copying anybody else.

In case you’re wondering, after the two anecdotes I’ve given so far, no, I’m not anti-social. Or at least, not that anti-social. Yes, I do have friends. Actual friends. Even a girlfriend (the marvelous Binnie). But most of the school (the smart ones, at least) figured out early on that I was someone who needed space, and generally they gave it to me. Fights have been a rare thing. It’s a good school. I have no complaints. Well, not many.

I know I have a temper, but I can keep it under wraps. Most of the time. Mari says it’s a tool, and like any good tool, you have to know when to use it and not to over-use it. Maybe it’s a good thing that I can’t take my sword to class. 

And no, I’m not nuts. Just focused. I have to be. We have to be. Mari, Ant and I. Because we’re such a small family – there’s just the three of us. We have to look out for each other, and we have to think about and do all of the things our parents would normally do if they were still here. That means still alive. I don’t want to make it sound like they’re in the joint or something. And I don’t want to hide from the truth. That’s not how I am. 

And no, I’m not someone who lives in an imaginary world inside my head. Yeah, there’s lots of shit inside my head, but it’s not planet-sized. My problems are real (mostly), and only partly my fault. I’m just telling it like it is.  I guess I’d better do some explaining.  I’ll start where everything began to go haywire, and then I’ll figure out where to go from there. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Apparently Cerulea is the kind of person who won't take crap off of anyone. A firm believer that if you allow someone to disrespect you without challenging them, they think they have power over you.  There's some truth to that. 

This is Episode 2 of Cerulea and the Meaning of Everything, my current Serial on Kindle Vella. The first three episodes are free, and if you’ve never read a Vella story before, you may get enough tokens to read the full story for free.

More episodes coming soon. –Steve

[chriswhitewolf]

Okay so this is really only because it occurred to me earlier today, and it's relevant to the issue of Transphobia in our society.

I will start by saying that I am not Transgender, I am CIS, and that this is something that happened to me that I feel works as a relation point for other CIS people who don't really understand the feeling of being in the wrong gendered body.

It was July or August of 2016, and fifteen year old me was on vacation with my family. My parents (mom and dad) and three brothers and I were staying at a remote cabin in the woods somewhere in California. I was starting 10th grade in a few weeks, and was excited to be in a new building (my district had 9th graders in the jr high building).

I was on a short hike with my mom through the woods around the cabin, when I brought up this topic. I told my mom that, after having spent almost a full year internally debating this (does it matter? What are the reprocussions of this?), I was going to start going by my middle name as opposed to my first. And of course, my mom asked why.

I explained that "Sydney" (my first name, which I had always gone by) didn't feel...right. It didn't feel like who I was, and it honestly caused some discomfort to me. My middle name, however, was the opposite. It fit, and I felt more like a Christine than I ever had a Sydney. There was a few moments of silence as we walked through the trees, before my mom responded.

"We've already registered you for school," she said, "So you'll have to inform your teachers of the change personally."

I beamed. So what if I had to tell each of my teachers on the first day of class that I went by Christine. I WENT BY CHRISTINE. That's what mattered, and having that be a reality was like finally having the sun rise after a lifetime of just the moon. My mom and I finished our hike and returned to the cabin where the rest of our family was. Because I suffered very severe anxiety disorders, my mom helped me break the news to everyone else.

At that time, my bothers were 17, 16, and 11. Other than my explaining again that Christine was just who I was, and Sydney didn't feel right or comfortable, that was that. Of course, we acknowledged that none of us would suddenly switch and never call me Sydney again, but I said as long as everyone tried to remember, and didn't get angry when I (or another family member) gently corrected the name, it was just fine.

So, a few months later I'm in the middle of first semester of my Sophomore year of high school. I'd told all my friends, teachers, and any classmates who didn't know, that I was Christine, not Sydney. For the majority, everyone was very kind and took the news in stride. One of my friends, upon hearing the news, immediately swore to not mistake my name. Was absolutely certain he wouldn't mess up and call my Sydney, because that's not who I was. (I thought it was funny, but he went like four months before slipping !once!, And then bemoaning his mistake and apologizing overly much)

Discussions among my friends became riddled with myself or someone else correcting a friend who used my dead name. If I didn't catch the slip up quickly enough, another friend would jump in and calmly go "Christine", to which the speaker would then respond "Right, Christine, sorry" and continue.

But there was one friend (not a great friend, really), who was adamantly against the change. I couldn't understand why it was such a big deal to him that I use my given first name. This friend, just a while after I told him and everyone of the change, came up to me in private and demanded, yes, DEMANDED, that I give him a valid reason for changing it.

Now, aside from the overall "Sydney is uncomfortable and Christine is who I am" (which he said was not valid), the reason for my name change was INCREDIBLY personal. I think there are maybe four people, besides myself, who know the story behind that reason. I informed said friend that Christine was just right, it was me, and Sydney simply wasn't anymore.

He did not take that well. He told me, and I'm paraphrasing here, I mean it's been four years, "If you can't give me a valid reason, then I refuse to call you Christine. You ARE Sydney."

I was mad, of course, and disappointed in him, and also felt rather violated. What right does he have to my msot personal moments and stories? Why should I be expected to share a very vulnerable and personal experience with him before he is expected to address me as I am?

I brushed the issue off, and started avoiding him more. Every time we did talk, be it alone or in a group, he would outright refuse to use my preferred name, which I'd been going by for almost half a year at this point. So I talked to him less, and he slowly became less integrated in my close group of trusted, genuine friends.

Then he went a step further.

It was in the school cafeteria one morning, about fifteen-twenty minutes before first bell, and one friend of mine, Caleb, who wasn't really close to me but was very kind, was introducing his new friend to our group. My closest friends were there, as was the not-friend who refused to use my preferred name. As Caleb introduced this new girl to me, I held out my hand with a smile, and shook her hand as I introduced myself.

"I'm Christine, it's nice to meet you!"

She responded likewise with her name, when not-friend pushed his way between our handshake with these words, which I will never forget.

"She's not Christine. She THINKS she's Christine. She's Sydney."

Like da fu?? I'm sorry, but I spend a full YEAR debating on how people might react to the name change and agonizing over not wanting to be yelled at or ridiculed for it, and I've now been using my name for half a year. Sydney is my dead name, it's not my name. But here you are, with your stuck up attitude and ludicrous ideas on your entitlement into my personal life, interrupting my introduction to inform this new friend that I changed my name, SIX MONTHS AGO, and that Sydney is my dead name.

And I know this is long af, but here's another short thing from that year to think on. I was in band class when a boy, who I'd never talked to and who's reputation wasn't great, came up to me as we were putting our instruments away. In short, he clarified that Christine was not my name at birth, and then asked,

"Isn't that disrespectful to your parents? Changing the name they gave you?"

But he said it in this "I'm right and you're being dumb and rude" tone. To diffuse the situation, I responded with two things.

First, I told him it was my life, my name, and I had no obligation to my parents, who chose my name before I had become who I was. They chose a name that had no basis on who I was as a person.

Second, I was unnecessarily kind in telling him that Christine was, in fact, my given middle name, and that my parents had no issue and had never had issue with me using it, because they understood that I was my own person, not their puppet. (I didn't actually add that puppet part cause that would've been very passive agressive and might've started a verbal fight.)

But here's my point. If you were born with a name that, as you grew, you started to hate. A name that made you uncomfortable every time someone called you by it, wouldn't you want, and actually need, to change that name?

Would you willingly choose to go by a name that sent a cold chill of 'ick' down your spine everytime you were called it? For life?

Probably not. If you were that disturbed, that uncomfortable, with this name, you'd feel like you had to change it for your own sake, sanity, and comfort/happiness.

That's how I see Transgender people as feeling. Again, I don't have personal experience with being Transgender, and this is just my understanding of that feeling.

But can you image, that you were so uncomfortable with your name that you change it to something that doesn't set off those feelings, only to have like half of everyone you meet (parable statistics here, don't quote that as a transphobe number) tell you that you can't use that name because it wasn't the one you were given as a two-hour-old infant?

Can you imagine how you'd feel if you went through life with people screaming at you that you are not your chosen name? That you are and will always be the name you were given at birth? That you have no right to ask or expect people to give you the basic decency of using a name that doesn't make you feel gross in most senses of the word?

That's what's happening in our society with Transphobia. People are out here on social media and in the streets, screaming at people that they are not themselves and cannot be themselves, because that wasn't who other adults decided they were at birth?

The child was like two hours old, it couldn't even SEE. Babies do not actually have the ability to see things that aren't very, very close to their faces until a good while after they're born. (I believe the number was about two weeks, but I'm not sure and don't want to research it just for this.)

But totally different people, who are not this person and at the time had no knowledge of who this person really was, gave the infant a name that, *gasp*, they don't absolutely love twenty years later.

That Trans person was born with a genetic code that gave them a kind of genitalia before they were even born. They couldn't see, they couldn't think, they'd never even taken a breath. They were, by complete chance, given that specific chromosome set. That doesn't mean they'll grow up to be that chromosome, or to be defined by that, or to not be incredibly uncomfortable being referred to as that gender.

They know they weren't born male or female, that's why they transition. They're perfectly aware that they will never be biologically the gender they associate as. A Transwoman knows she will never have been born a woman.

She's still a woman. Same for Transmen.

Just because they aren't the same as you, or they don't believe and feel and think the way you think they should, doesn't mean they aren't right. You aren't them, you don't know them. You can never know what it's like for them, to be them.

You can't pretened to know someone better than they know themselves just because their beliefs don't match yours. Stop telling Trans people, or any LGBTQ+ people, who they can and can't be. You aren't them, you don't know them, and you. Don't. Own. Them.

You cannot control them. They aren't your property, and they aren't your puppet.

They are themselves. And if you can't handle living in a world where every single person doesn't agree with you perfectly, then that's on you for being a jerk.

We are not meant to be the same, nor are we meant to agree on everything. That's the POINT, y'all.

Don't be a dick.

This has been a PSA.