The Invisible Woman in Plain Sight Speaks Up #1

The Audacity of Wearing Pants...With Pockets

 

I have always been a Nebraskan woman, even when Nebraska has had issues with me.  When I transitioned over 8 years ago in my hometown in Nebraska, it wasn't exactly a welcoming or even comprehending space.  Some people got it, others were confused to the point where they thought I was the one who was confused.  One eloquent quote came from one of my lovely neighbors when he yelled "Do you want me to cut your dick off you fucking drag queen?" at me while I was riding my bike down the street.  My major offense?  Just wearing regular women's jeans and a swoop neck t-shirt.  I doubt any self respecting drag queen (All of whom I LOVE and appreciate whether they be Queens, Kings, or Others) would be caught dead in such a drab ensemble.  But, since early youth I've been a shit magnet, don't know why, just always have been.  No victim-hood here, just pointing out the facts. I must give off a beacon for various dipshits of all stripes, because ever since Kindergarten it's been like that. 

So, since my freakdom has always been apparent, I decided to magnify it just a little more.  I started wearing Loud and Proud trans and dyke buttons on my punk rock vest whenever I went out, mixed in with D.O.A, Clash and New York Dolls patches, plus a Rocky Horror Picture Show one for some levity.  AND I'm also a practicing Catholic, so to add to the confusion I also wore my St. Christopher cross and St. Dymphna (Patron Saint of People Struggling with Mental Illness) medallions.  And I shaved my head.  And I'm covered in tattoos.  So basically in early transition I was really, really pissed off.  

Some people got it, like old friends I've had since high school or some great friends who I met in a trans group like my badass High Femme friend Josslyn, or my 'trans-sponsor' and good friend Mike, trans male leather daddy extraordinaire, and some others.  I would like to thank them now if they're reading this, because I wasn't exactly a peach in early transition, and they were very validating.  And patient. 

Butch trans women do indeed have a visibility problem.  And I lost my 'ragin' tranny vest' in the move from Nebraska to my current state of New Mexico.  And you know what else?  I really, REALLY missed pants with pockets.  My favorite type of jeans are Carhartts, double fronted and black so I can't stain them with my sloppy tomboy eating habits.  They also last forever.  I missed being able to fit a pack of smokes, keys, lighter, and other random crap in ONE pocket instead of those one inch deep pockets that come with most 'women's' jeans.  I would like to state right now that CLOTHES ARE CLOTHES.  It doesn't matter what you wear to be validated as a trans person.  No, I'm not 'deep stealth' or 'closeted', I just like clothes that fit me.  White V-necks, Carhartts and Chuck Taylor All Stars are all part of my daily uniform.  And I shouldn't have to explain that to anybody, besides my partner who (politely) points out when there are too many cigarette burns and/or coffee stains on my clothes to wear in public.  She's the only one I listen to.  

I also had a stroke about one year into transition, so no more estradiol and spiro for me for the last 7 years.  And no, I'm not interested in any suggestions or methods to get back on hormones.  Do I miss them?  Yes.  I was a hell of a lot happier on them.  But, you know, THE STROKE kinda woke me up to learning how to re-frame my outlook on how to be my own person without them.  What small breasts I had, and they were always minuscule, are pretty much gone now and the weight distribution has returned to 'dude' proportions.  I'm never called my correct gender, and don't really care.  I know who I am, and ignorance from others, whether accidental or assholey, is not going to affect my self esteem or knowledge of my female gender.  I refuse to let it.  

And honestly, we're in the beginnings of a Civil War in America, an unchecked global pandemic, with environmental disasters all over the globe, so being misgendered is the least of my concerns with all the shit Trump and his white supremacist minions are doing.  I'm thinking about Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore (Surrealist Artists) during the Nazi Occupation of France, and their activism and art during that period.  I'm also thinking of Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, and Peter Maurin, and what forms of REAL Catholicism (Pacifist, social justice, feeding the poor, helping each other regardless of religion or race) that I can do. 

And after this shit storm of a last year it's time for all of us to put our 'big girl pants' on, and get to work, and whatever that work looks like I'll be shuffling along in dirty jeans and being as big as a freak as I want to be.  With pockets.

 

Thrifty Free Poetry Thursday

 An excerpt from the collection 'Lighting Saints on Fire To Ignite The World':

Their Soldiers, Our Soldiers.  Brothers Sisters Mothers Lovers.  And the Fathers Are Absent (Prayer for Saint Joan of Arc)

 

In this poem I won’t use the words colonialism or imperialism or terrorism or fascism.  I will only use the word murder.  It’s quite the cop-out, to be a Catholic during war time.  My uncle Jerry was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, due to his spirituality and, you know, RELIGION.   My dad was an atheist who hated nuns and priests but was going to jump the border to a small town in Canada if his number got called, my mom sneaking up later to meet him in the Big North, my dad knowing that the war was bullshit during the consciousness raising late sixties.  Rock and Roll saved his life with CCR and the Stones, my mom the glee shrieking Beatles fan. 

After all my angry years I’m a cop-out too.  I wrote enough kack-the-president poems to last a lifetime or life-term, but Elohim has something else planned for me.  To type weakness, to sing surrender, my cheek shall be turned from side to side until I’m beaten into something beautiful at last.    

 /

 Excerpt from 'Your Lips Are Like a Scarlet Thread':

 

To Be of Service

 

The goblet between your cathedral thighs.

The copper penny stiffens between my crooked teeth.

My tattooed hands like blunted scissors

keep your legs silken spread and St. Andrew’s crossed.

 

The meadowlark grunting

behind your clenched teeth

betrays your mammal self.

 

As your spastic flesh calms,

the motion of cigarette collaged sheets

ripple

like the gorged swell of a river

eating the edges of welcoming shores.

 

/

Excerpt from the out of print 'Odyshape' published by Bent Press

 

It’s Mine 

 

My mind and body have both belonged

to a lot of other people before they belonged to me,

old hands gripping too tight

and yes there was darkness

and unwanted everything

but

who cares anymore

I’m a grown woman
and childhood demons

have lost their poetic allure

so I just focus on how it is now

with hard bones and awkward limbs

like steak knives in the kitchen sink

sticking out at dangerous angles

and I search to find the mystery

of this six feet of bone and muscle and a round ass

that gets me cat calls on the street and slaps in the bedroom

and this body has always served a purpose

by  carrying around this scattershot mind

with dirty feet always moving moving moving

and so I stare at myself naked under fluorescent lights

and I’m dirty old lady voyeur

and grin lewd and possessive

at this body that is mine and no one else’s

and it hasn’t changed that much

just minor swelling and shrinking

so it’s not like it looks that different

it’s just that my eyes have finally adjusted to its charm.

---