3102 In Reflection

2013 was the year the question "How do you feel?" became difficult to answer.

To me it seemed the answer was obvious. I could hardly be expected to feel happy that my husband was slowly suffocating to death could I? That I was glad that he was dead? That I like living every day without the man who made every day seem special?

Thus I would much rather have never been asked as I disliked feeling compelled to lie so as not to offend.

However, almost 9 months after he died, I now feel ready to answer the question.

The overwhelming thing I feel about 2013 is that I simply cannot comprehend all that has happened to me this year.

I do know, however, that I'm not the person I was at the beginning of the year because I'm now unemployed, a widow, a homeowner and financially well off.

I think my name's still Claire but I seem to be subjecting myself to analysis again at Charing Cross so who knows what they'll discover about me that I didn't already know myself!

What is strange though is that, even though I wept buckets and screamed at the walls, I feel happier now that my husband's died than I did during the last 6 months or so of his life. 

Adding to my confusion is the feeling of being overwhelmingly sad that he died whilst, at the same time, glad that his death brought an end to his suffering.

But, by way of contrast, I've refused to end my own suffering by dying and opted instead to live. Obviously, what was good for my husband isn't good enough for me!

My opinion on the world around me also seems to have changed this year. 

These days the warm glow I feel in my heart on seeing others in love seems to be accompanied by feelings of jealousy and bitterness.

And, now the answer has become less obvious, people have stopped asking me how I feel! Just what does that say about them exactly??

I also have to wonder why I still have so many good friends in my life when I've not been anyone even I would want to spend time with! Does that indicate extreme compassion on their part or extreme idiocy?

2013 has brought me few certainties.

I can't even be sure that I've been through the worst year of my life when I've achieved so much and found so many things to live for! Maybe it's actually the best year of my life in disguise? After all, this year I've qualified and gained work as an educator, been to 5 different Prides and hugged Peter Tatchell and, as mentioned, become financially wealthy and an outright homeowner! What's not to like about all that?

So what conclusions can I draw about 2013 when I'm not even sure what my reality is?

I can't be certain but I think the answer is I can't be certain; not about my past, not about my present and particularly not about my future.

So, as 2014 approaches over the horizon, I conclude 2013 with the thought that, if life is intrinsically uncertain, then it is best lived with a mind open to it's infinite possibilities - especially when life seems impossible.

Possibly!

Merry Christmas!

Last night I went to Midnight Mass with Tony and Julie.
Now before you all die of shock let me just say that I didn't go for religious reasons but in search of something heartwarming and meaningful for, like many, I am firmly of the opinion Christmas has become too commercial. I want my Christmas to mean more than a broken bank balance!
So I thought I'd go to Midnight Mass and see if it gave me what I was looking for.
On entering the church I was dazzled by the splendorous depictions of the saints and the towering ceiling. Being an educated person, I was very aware of the power plays being enacted upon me and they continued into the service itself: The congregation were sinners and were to ask Christ and God for forgiveness. The communion was to accept Christ, The Saviour, within oneself (a cruel person may jest that the communion is cannibalism) to purify their soul, etc.
I was left in no doubt that I was to consider myself lowly and Christ and God as infinitely superior but, more so, The Church was also superior since it was their messenger service.
Having been educated in the Christian faith, this rankles with me because, to my mind, Christ was a socialist. I believe he wanted to give the power to the people not any Church. But in the past 2000 years, no matter what Christian denomination you are or are not, The Church have very much muscled in on the act.
However in 2013, I would say there are also very many Christians who are not Church goers and, although it may annoy The Churches to see their power base slipping away, I am all in favour of that.
The Church gets in the way of Christians practicing their faith as Christ would want. With their bigoted pronouncements, they also give Christians a bad name. And, in short, I believe The Church (of whatever denomination) is about as anti-Christian as any organisation gets! (And surely it is a sign of how wayward The Church has become that many Christians are now nervous about being out and proud about their faith?)
However, I did have one revelation whilst at Midnight Mass - I am a Christian. I believe in the idea of Christ and that his legend was created for good reasons. I also believe the ideals he espoused (having love and charity in your heart, taking responsibility for yourself, etc) form all that is good about the society I live in.
Thus, when I returned home this morning, I outed myself as a Christian, summing up my belief as follows, "I believe in the idea of Christ and the ideals of Christ but no church of Christ".
Incidentally, I don't proclaim myself to be a Christian to be disparaging about any other faith. I do not believe Christianity is the one true faith. Rather, I claim myself to be a Christian because that is the one faith I was educated in and know anything about. I fully acknowledge that I could be a Muslim or a Bhudist or whatever if my circumstances had been different.
So, anyway, today is the celebration of the birth of Christ and, in good faith, I wish you all a Merry Christmas! xxx

I Find Myself Trapped Within Myself And Thus Desire Myself To Be Myself

Unbelievably, even though I, myself, am Trans, I don't feel I know all that there is to know about being Trans! (I know! Unbelievable isn't it!)
So I like to educate myself periodically however I can in hopes I'll expand my knowledge and find some answers to my many questions. Certainly, I have never found a single thing said or written about Trans identities to be boring!
My Transgender Punk Rock Story, certainly was no exception. Presented by Paris Lees, (The Independent On Sunday's Most Influential LGBT Person Of The Year), it was an overview of Laura Jane Grace, who is a Punk Rock singer for a band called Against Me! and both Paris and Laura were informative and eloquent in what they had to say.
I came away with quite a different conception of Punk Rock (who seem far more tolerant of Trans identities than supposed "polite society") and a better understanding of myself for I now identify with the phrase "Trapped in the wrong body".
In the past, rather than feeling "trapped in the wrong body", I have felt trapped by expectations to be male.
However, with a train of thought started by this program, I have concluded that I am indeed "Trapped in the wrong body".
My own sense of self dictates that my body is male but my identity is female. Knowing that my body can be changed but my identity can not, persuades me that it is my body where the error lies rather than with my identity. Thus I conclude that I am trapped in the wrong body.
I am also persuaded that society - when it knows that I have a male body - expects me to be male even if my identity is female and that failure to meet these expectations does not go unpunished. And so, again, I feel that I am trapped in the wrong body.
As you might imagine, being trapped in a conflict within myself and with society isn't much fun and thus I have concluded that I must break free of the trap. In doing so, I have answered my long burning question about whether I really wanted to be on the "gender reassignment pathway" or not.
To that regard, I expect to be having a short stay in Brighton within the next few years.

How Life Is With Me Right Now At This Moment In Time Of My Life

An update...

At the end of November I moved to a new house. I have bought this house outright with John's life insurance so I am now a bonafide homeowner. 

Financially it is great as I no longer have a hefty rent taking a great chunk out of the only income (John's pension) I've had these past eight months. 

I feel better for the move emotionally as well. Having less financial commitments is part of that (despite all the money I've spent - and still have to spend - on the house) but so too is living somewhere without constant reminders of my loss.

It is not something I intended when I bought the house but it is happening none the less. Being me though, I worry that I am forgetting John but I should give myself a break because not constantly thinking of him is not the same as forgetting him. I will never forget John.

I will never stop loving him either. I still get emotional when I think of him and miss him hugely. I don't understand how life could treat him so cruelly and it still angers me greatly when I remember how cruelly it did treat him. So I try to avoid dwelling on that. Whether that is healthy or not I'm none too sure as it remains a problem unresolved ready to poke it's way into my thoughts at any given time but, on the other hand, not constantly beating my head against an unsolvable problem seems a sensible thing to do.

I also feel guilty (even though I know I shouldn't and feel others would probably agree that I shouldn't) that I am now a homeowner at John's expense (in the worst possible way). I have achieved one of my life's ambitions but it has only been made possible because my husband died and had life insurance. 

I'm sure most people when told that they're about to be given a cheque for thousands of pounds would be happy but I burst into tears when I was told how much John's life insurance was worth. It is not what I want. I don't want money. I want John. No amount of compensation is worth the life of the man I love.

I was tempted to never claim that money or to simply give it away but sense got the better of me. Having been born with deformities, having transitioned from pretending to be male to openly living as female, having watched the man I love get ill with an incurable disease and then not even being there when he died, I know life is not something I can control. That the only thing I can do with the life I have is to make the best of it. Thus, whilst I would much rather have John in my life than thousands of pounds in the bank, I can only make the most of the reality. So I claimed the money and spent the vast majority of it on a house, thus making my life comfortable for the foreseeable future.

I also feel that John would approve of me making the best of my circumstances. Even though he faced his illness and death with great acceptance, he worried greatly about how it affected me (and to think I was his first concern, even when faced with his own death, is hugely humbling). Thus he went to great lengths to ensure I was as comfortable as could be and instructed me that I was always to make the best of my life. 

However, I was hugely reliant on John. Whenever anything went wrong, John was the person I asked to fix it. Now John is no longer here to ask. My support network of one person has disappeared. So who do I ask now? Who can I rely on to be there for me at any given time? Everyone has their own lives to live. So I manage as best I can and of that I'm sure John would approve but, being wet behind the ears, not everything works out as I hoped. And, again, I would've gone to John to comfort me but now he is no longer here so, again, I have no one to comfort me when things go wrong. So I'm struggling with life.

But that is the important thing - I am struggling; I'm not giving up. Even though I have been tempted more times this year to do just that than I have in the entire 40 years before it. However, as well as not wanting to let John down or create two tragedies out of one, I quickly realised that I didn't so much as want to end the misery as rediscover happiness. There is no happiness - or much of anything! - in death. I want desperately to be happy and I am far more happier now than I've been for the previous 8 months (The worst has happened. As miserable as I get, I can never be as miserable as I was on April 5th 2013 when my world caved in) but I do not believe I will ever be as happy as I was when I shared my life with John. I also feel that I can never be in a relationship with anyone else ever again as to do so would mean pushing John out of the space in my heart he currently occupies and I do not believe I can ever do that.

So if I'm never to be as happy as I once was and am destined to remain without someone to hug and comfort me for the rest of my days, what is the point in continuing with life?

The answer I've come up with is: Life is unpredictable so why not strive for the possibility of what I desire instead of responding to certainties I do not have? And, besides, if I give up on life I am and have nothing and that is to lose everything, not just past glories.

Open Letter To The Ghost Of Lou Reed

Dear Lou,
I heard yesterday morning that you had died and it saddened me not just because you were one of my favourite songwriters but also because you influenced my life for the better and I never got around to thanking you for that.
You see, Lou, I am Trans.
And, yes, Lou, it was Walk On The Wild Side that struck a chord with me and, yes, Walk On The Wild Side was the song that got me into your music and encouraged me to rent out, and subsequently buy, the Transformer album.
But I didn't stop at the Transformer album. I also got your greatest hits and the Coney Island Baby album and the Berlin album (which, for me, is your masterpiece) and the New York album (The Great American Whale and Strawman are still some of my favourite songs) and the Magic And Loss album (You should've seen my gran's face when she heard the lyrics of Harry's Circumcision!) and then I investigated the Velvet Underground recordings and then I checked out some more of your other recordings like Metal Machine Music and The Raven and The Bell and...
Every single one of them gave me a feast for my ears and also my brain!
But the song that always stood out above all the others from the moment I heard it; the song that struck a chord, lit a lightbulb, and knocked me sideways(!) is a song on the Transformer album.
No, not Walk On The Wild Side or Perfect Day or Satellite Of Love - all undoubtedly great songs - but a song you entitled, Make Up. 
You see, Lou, where Walk On The Wild Side was a document of gay and Trans culture in New York, to me, Make Up is more than a document - it is a song of love. A love of being feminine; a love of wearing make up; a love of wearing pretty clothes.
And, Lou, when I heard that song as a 15 year old boy, I understood the love of being feminine, wearing make up, and wearing pretty clothes...
But I did not understand that I could also be loved. 
I believed I was a freak, at best a curio, but on Make Up, you, Lou Reed - one of Rock's infamous tough guys - sang about your desire for a Trans girl!
And then, for the chorus, you sang

Now, we're coming out
out of our closets
Out on the streets
yeah, we're coming out

So not only could I be an object of affection but I could also stand proud in the spotlight as well!
You did more than rock my world with this song, Lou. You gave me hope! You gave me a dream!
And now I'm living that dream and I feel, in some way, I owe you my life because you let me know my life didn't have to be a dream but could, in fact, be real!
So, Lou, I am sad that you are no longer able to create music that I can hear but I am indebted to the music you've already created and can still hear.
I am also thankful that your music has been recorded for posterity for others, a little bit like me, to discover and be similarly rescued from the darkness.
So thank you, Lou. Thank you!

Claire xxx

In Peace And Intolerance

This letter makes me sad. It makes me sad because a mother has chosen to disown her son. It makes me sad because her father has followed her example and chosen to disown her. The hurt and anger contained in this letter makes me sad.
However, as part of the human existence we will be hurt. Things will happen to us that we find painful to endure. I don't believe that will ever change.
Some of those things will leave us powerless. We will not be able to change them no matter how much we try.
My husband's death is one of those things. I can not bring him alive no matter how I try. So what is the point of me being angry at his death? What does my anger achieve?
Well, the fact is, not everything in life has a point to it. Some things are downright senseless! But just because they are senseless does not mean that they do not exist.
My anger exists and I can either contain it or release it. As I would rather not hold onto my anger, I allow myself to release it. 
However, my way of releasing my anger in the wake of my husband's death hurt my friends which in turn hurt me. I am fortunate that my friends are forgiving and that I also discovered a more positive way of releasing my anger through art journaling.
Through my art journaling I am able to release my emotions without harming anyone else.
Through my art journaling I am able to use my emotions to create "pretty pictures" which people can admire for their aesthetics and perhaps, also, for the message they contain.
Through my art journaling I am able to be "peacefully intolerant"; I am able to refute what I know to be bad without resorting to anger or violence.
"Peaceful intolerance" is not a new concept. Mahatma Gandhi and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr were fine exemplars of it. But we need not be human rights campaigners; there are many ways for us to be "peacefully intolerant".
We can choose who we socialise with, which political causes we support, which activities we partake in. The options are infinite.
For example, if we wished to protest at Guido Barilla's homophobia, instead of, as has been encouraged, spending our money with one of Barilla's competitors, we could perhaps learn to make our own pasta and increase our self-sufficiency.
Or, returning to the letter above, why has it's author not opted to enact a course of action other to one he states he does not approve of?
There are always choices to how we deal with life's events no matter how challenging they are and it is thus important that we choose the right one.
We do not create peace by creating war and we do not create love by creating hate. So we need to be mindful what kind of intolerance we wish to impose.
I would prefer an intolerance of war and hate but I can not sway the whole of humanity by myself.

To Hell With Tolerance!

On the face of it, tolerance is a good thing. After all, tolerance is meant to be a virtue, isn't it?
Surely it's not a good idea to get into an argument with someone just because I disagree with what they say? Surely, it is better to tolerate differences of opinion?
Well, not really. What if that opinion was that all Muslims in the UK should be deported? Tolerating that would not be virtuous.
What if that opinion was that all children should get a good education? I could hardly tolerate that because toleration is a frame of mind formed from allowing disagreement to occur. I do not ever recall thinking, "That's good but I wish it were bad but I shall tolerate it anyway"!
So tolerance is always about allowing things we don't agree with to happen.
How is that a virtue? Bad things - whether we or anyone else is the originator of it - need to be challenged.   
So why are we taught different?
To my mind, there is only one reason why a society needs to be tolerant - to allow the bad people to get away with it.
So it may seem odd that I, as someone who wants to make a better world, am now calling for society to be intolerant but I hope the above explains why.

I Am Not A Penguin

Dear reader,
If I were to tell you you aren't you, you would probably correct me and state that, yes, you are you.
Somewhere deep inside you, you know who are, don't you? You don't need proof of who you are. You just know it! Certainly, the least likely of all scenarios is that you would agree with me that, indeed, you are not the person you know yourself to be.
For example, should you happen to identify as a penguin then you are a penguin. Just because you are not my idea of what a penguin is does not automatically make you not a penguin. Perhaps I am misinformed or simply don't have enough knowledge to recognise you as a penguin?
So who am I to argue with you? You are you and I am I and we are not the same. So who am I, when we have two separate brains, to argue and attempt to force my opinions on you?
Our knowledge of who and what we are is what defines us - not the knowledge of any other person.
And that, I feel, is the deep flaw within the NHS's "gender reassignment pathway".
Far from allowing the psychiatrists to assess whether they're suffering from a mental illness or not, a patient will be required to justify their identity.
And, yet, we know deep within ourselves that this is just intrinsic knowledge. And how on earth do you convey intrinsic knowledge when a person does not share that knowledge?!!
Thus a psychiatrist does not share my intrinsic knowledge of who I am any more than a bus driver does! And, yet, a psychiatrist's opinion of who I am is given credence because of what exactly??
Because they judge me sane??? Well, perhaps they can judge me sane but they can not judge me a liar (without, perhaps, a lie detector test which, as far as I know, are not used at Gender Identity Clinics!).
They can even judge me insane but doing so holds no sway over what my gender is. I can be an insane woman just as easily as I can an insane man! 
Thus, it baffles me why psychiatrists are used to judge a person's gender. More so, it baffles me how any psychiatrist feels qualified to argue with any patient's self-definition of who they are!
But this is exactly what is happening. There is ample evidence that psychiatrists in the UK's Gender Identity Clinics regularly: 

• Decide for you what your gender identity is and argue how you succeed or fail to fit into their perceptions of that gender identity.
• Decide for you what your sexuality is and argue how that succeeds or fails to fit into their perceptions of your gender identity. 
• Argue how your name does or does not fit into their perceptions of your gender identity.
• Deny the existence of non-binary gender identities even when there is ample, worldwide, evidence of their existence.
• Argue that anyone who disagrees with them is in denial/delusional.

And I suspect that there are many who think this is reasonable behaviour. After all, a psychiatrist is an expert on the way people think. So who better to judge transgender people than a psychiatrist?
Well, when the population as a whole feels it acceptable to allow a psychiatrist to judge their gender and/or sexuality perhaps I will feel it acceptable for them to judge mine.
Until then, for the reasons I give above, I can only conclude that to single out transgender people for this treatment is prejudice with the cloak of acceptability that the psychiatric profession gives it.

"It says so in The Bible"

Thanks to this video, "gay marriage" is once again being debated.

Now, although R.E. was one of my strongest subjects at school, I'm no theologist and my knowledge of The Bible is limited but it has occured to me that Christians overstep the mark if they use The Bible to justify their homophobia.
To explain what I mean, here follows, in my experience, the most quoted Biblical texts used to decry homosexuality and defend prejudicial acts against it...

Leviticus 18:22 "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."

Leviticus 20:13 "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

Romans 1:27 "And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."

So, using popular interpretation of those texts, it looks pretty clear that The Bible has some pretty grim opinions about homosexual acts.
Those opinions are:

1. A homosexual act is an abomination.
2. The expected outcome of a man commiting a homosexual act is for that man to be put to death.
3. A male homosexual act is unseemly.
4. Males commiting homosexual acts shall be punished.

However, nowhere in those texts does it encourage any action towards homosexuals.
Those texts merely state opinion - divine opinion, perhaps, but opinion all the same.
So no person, Christian or not, can use those texts to justify their action(s) towards homosexuals.
Leviticus 20:13 does not say that it is justified for us to put a man who has committed a homosexual act to death and neither does it encourage any of us to put a man who has committed a homosexual act to death. It merely states that this is the expected outcome and, because The Ten Commandments forbade us from killing, presumably God is the one to carry out the action rather than ourselves.
Similarly, Romans 1:27 does not justify nor encourage us to punish any male committing a homosexual act. It states that such a person shall receive in themselves punishment for their act. So, again, we are required to do absolutely nothing towards homosexuals.
In fact, if any Christian were to look a little further they would find sandwiched in between Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13 the following instruction...

Leviticus 19:18 "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself."

and if we looked a little further past Romans 1:27 we would find this instruction...

Romans 13:8 "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another"

Now, I am not a Christian and nor do I believe in the Christian God and so The Bible is all words to me. Some of those words form sentences I agree with more than others but, really, they're all just words. However, none of those words justify homophobic action and so I can only conclude any homophobe claiming to be Christian is a heretic.
I don't want to be a doom monger but it stikes me that a heretic pining for the times of Christ is a bit like a turkey pining for the times of Santa Claus. Sure, Santa Claus may bring them lots of presents and general happiness but others may want them at the supper table for another reason.

Bopping