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transstudiesarchive · 4 years

Text

Voices (content warning)

I was so angry, and I tried to figure out why

I could not stand who I was, I made lists about who I wanted to be

When I was a child I wanted to die

“If I had not been raised to give my life away, would I have made such and effective, self-sacrificing revolutionary?“ (p.31)

Feeling safe is really sexy

“There was no place as a safe haven for a gay kid. The only option you had was a bar or to pick up a john to find a place to stay for the night” (7:29)

“Feminist and radical lesbian organizer” (p.17)

“I lived in terror that I might suddenly be seen again as what I knew myself to be” (p. 21)

“I stopped [wearing dresses] for a long time because the boys next door used to try and get fresh with me, you know, try and have sex“ (4:22)

I tried so hard to change

“Having learned the habit of hiding, I found I had also learned to hide from myself” (p. 13/14)

“I started wearing dresses at five years old” (4:20)

“I know that suffering does not ennoble. It destroys.” (p. 36)

“‘Just use that smile’” (p. 26)

“Resist destruction, self-hatred, or lifelong hopelessness” (p. 36)

“The reality of self-hatred and violence” (p.17)

“I could not see all the stuff they could use me for less than a book of matches” (45:58)

I often had to fight off my brother as they tried to touch me. They towered over me and they were laughing

“Those who cannot change their own lives have every reason to be ashamed of that fact and to hide it.” (32)

“But I think I liked the thought that someone would want to pay me, that’s what kept me in the business for such a long time” (45:48)

“[Jesus] listens to all my problems and never laughs at me” (6:05)

“I found out that boys do that when I was raped by this boy who was about, he was about 13 years old” (4:34)

If there was a god I would want him dead

“I had so much trouble, it’s a miracle I am still here I mean, honey, people used to come and bring guns . . .” (33:10)

I will not have sex unless I really want to and at any moment

“Throw off conditioning of being despised” (p. 36)

“[Claim] the embattled sexuality I had fashioned on a base of violence and abuse“ (p.34)

“I have never been able to make clear the degree of my fear” (p. 14)

“My first mental breakdown started in 1970. It started falling down hill and it’s been falling up and down hill ever since” (20:09)

I will not be used

“I may be crazy but that don’t make me wrong“ (0:16)

“[Jesus] takes me very seriously” (6:05)

“Never expected to live forever” (p. 37)

“They want to give you nothing. Nothing. Not even a cigarette or a cup of coffee nothing whatsoever” (46:04)

“I believed completely that by remaking myself I was helping to remake the world” (p. 22)

“I have come closer to knowing myself as real” (p.14)

I had a sexual relationship with my psychology teacher in high school for a year while at the same time going out with my piano teacher. I was still afraid of boys.

“I could not believe that my body would ever be worth anything to anyone” (45:55)

“I did not think people had sex – period” (5:17)

Marsha was harassed and thrown into the river (Hudson River)

I was the strong one

I am demanding and uncompromising

I was my dad’s favorite, they said

“My mother said being homosexual, she thought I was lower than the dog” (46:52)

“He shot all of this sticky stuff all my over my legs” (4: 51)

“I hated the rule makers” (33)

“Claim my families pride and tragedy” (p. 34)

“I tried to become one with the lesbian feminist community so as to feel real and valuable” (p. 16)

“When I was five, Mama married” (p.18)

“I have loved my family so stubbornly” (p. 15)

“He [Jesus] is like a spirit to follow me around and he likes to help me out in my hour of need” (6:01)

“I never had to have to have sex with anybody for money ever. I just did it because I wanted to see if I could get away with it and I pretty much succeeded” (44:30)

“The prettier you looked as a little boy made up as a girl that’s the most money you’re gonna make” (17:46)

“I stopped talking for a while” (p. 18)

Marsha talking about having been shot “I’m dying, dying, dying but I ain’t dead yet” (45:24)

To save the world from self-destruction I need to understand my own

Degrading sexual phantasies was my body going to what it knew in a situation that did not fulfil my safety requirements

I have been fighting for my life ever since I remember

“Being a hooker is no easy business for no one, it’s one of the most dangerous businesses that you can be in. but if that’s the only thing you know how to do I’d say it’s a pretty sad story for anyone, you know, including myself” (45:27)

“The rage was a good feeling, stronger and purer than the shame that followed it” (p.13)

Making money “with just a little bit of makeup and have little hormone tits” (18:10)

I had to dissociate and make up stories in my head in order to have sex with a real person

“I have not married anybody in church since then cause I think he [Jesus] is the only man I could really trust” (5:53)

“I have known I was a lesbian since I was a teenager, and I have spent a good 20 years making peace with the effects of incest and physical abuse” (p.14/15)

“Butch/femme and leather fetishism is widely viewed with distaste or outright hatred. . . presumed to be misguided, damaged by incest and childhood physical abuse” (p. 24)

“I got married to Jesus Christ in church when I was 16 years old” (5:48)

“We had generations before us to teach us that nothing ever changed, and that those who did try to escape failed.” (p. 18)

My dad wanted a girl, my mom was relieved when it finally happened

I liked being in love and I went along

I wanted to be a woman, but I felt like a sex-less thing

“Victim of physical, emotional and sexual violence” (p. 36)

“I don’t think like that, but I know they would” (5:33)

I give and receive nothing that my body, my mind and my heart do not love all at once

“I would tell them I was a boy in drag” (34:18)

In kindergarten I was hiding in corners

“My sexual promiscuity” (p. 34)

Any indication of sexual entitlement is an immediate turn-off

“I am not only a lesbian but a transgressive lesbian—femme, masochistic” (p. 23)

“My sexual identity is intimately constructed by my class and regional background, and much of the hatred directed at my sexual preferences is class hatred“ (p. 23)

I regret having sexually pressured a partner during a hard time. I am sorry

“Her whole life she [my mother] never wanted to know” (47:19)

I was not safe at home. Thank you Frau Wieser for letting me sit at your kitchen table for hours

“The geographic solution. Change your name, leave town, disappear, make yourself over” (p. 19)

I was married three times and I refused sex over long periods because the love was not right, and I did not know the nature of my sexuality

I never got over my abuse but that’s because I get reinjured by the world

“[Police] always treated me like I am the worlds murderer” (36:07)

“After my stepfather beat me so badly it caused a family scandal” (p. 18)

“I began to suspect that we shared no common language to speak those bitter truths” (32)

“Mama miscarried, and while we waited out in the hospital parking lot, my stepfather molested me for the first time” (p. 18)

“The fundamental me had almost disappeared” (p. 16)

He molested me when my mom was in the mental hospital because of a nervous breakdown

I have a body now that belongs to me

“you should not have sex until after you’re married” (4:30)

I don’t hate my family at least not at the moment

A lot of space, no guilt trips and unconditional positive regard is really sexy

“Mama told me she really had no choice” (p. 18)

I love my mother when I can afford to, I feel pain about my father’s nightmare of a life

I had sex for the first time because I wanted to get it over with

“I had separated my activist life from the passionate secret life in which I acted on my sexual desires” (p. 16)

“Honey, I don’t believe you should have sex until after you are married” (5:45)

I might have been a pretty little girl, but I thought I was ugly

“Nobody promised you tomorrow” (0:18)

I want to walk around with no shirt on and be seen as a person

“I have been arrested about a million times for prostitution” (35:24)

I will not be used

I take myself very seriously and fuck you if that is a problem

“I was young and naïve” (4:17)

“I found out the prettier you look as a little boy or a pretty little transvestite, you can make a couple of little dollars“ (17:38)

“Some people could not believe I was not a real woman” (34:34)

I was afraid they would think I was frigid

Feminist and angry woman

They were 5 and 10 years older than me

“I don’t have to do the streets any more. Because I decided, darling, that it was not worth it” (44:24)

My father beat my brothers with a steel spring rod

“I found out that my body was worth some money those days” (17:33)

“Something he continued to do until I was past thirteen” (p. 18)

I love to live

They “pulled guns on me ‘I can’t believe you are a boy’” (34:13)

References

Allison, D. (1994). Skin : Talking about sex, class & literature. (pp 13-36) Ithaca, N.Y.:

Firebrand Books.

Kasino, M. (2012, October 15). Pay It No Mind - The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson.

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjN9W2KstqE

Voices of three women: Dorothy Allison (page numbers), Marsha P. Johnson (minutes and seconds) and I (none)

(cited in this way to keep it simple, my color coding did not transfer to Tumblr)

My goal was to create access to the experience of child sex abuse through the creative voices of Marsha P Johnson, Dorothy Allison and my own. I prefer to have the words speak for themselves and I do not encourage readers to bother reading beyond this point. That said, I will give some explanation about my motivations to collect these words and let them speak together by presenting them in randomized order. My partner who understands computers and loves math, especially Bayesian Inference has randomized the lines for me based on the random number seed 56 (maybe you know what that means) which was the third lucky number of a fortune cookie I received today at a Chinese Restaurant.

What I wanted to get at was something Marsha, Dorothy and I have in common: a specific form of socializing feminine bodies which is childhood sexual abuse. Although I do hold my father accountable for what he did I see his actions and the actions of his male ancestors as deeply socially conditioned and part of his own curse. The effort of making childhood sex abuse into an individual problem rather than a societal way of disciplining bodies is a convenient smoke screen. All around us we receive messages in words, pictures, sounds that tell us that it is ok to objectify women. The fact that increasingly other than female bodies are objectified is not a consolation.

Why is this important in a trans archive? I belief that we are all trying to understand how we can escape the trajectory we are on and I hope that people who have genders outside of the norm might have a heads up in understanding the alienation that happens when femininity is disciplined to erase itself, to hate itself, to have no needs, and to be deeply confused about its own purpose. I belief that all feminine bodies are subjected to a measure of the same disciplinary action and that we are flailing to grasp who we are underneath all that. I am appealing to you because I feel deeply alienated outside of the circle of safe people who work hard to create a safe place.

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