Politics, life and drama

I write on trans, including summaries of law reports and parliamentary debates. I downloaded the EHRC letter, and read it, and have been unable to write about it.

A trans woman can use women’s services from the moment she decides to transition, by law, when she is expressing female, unless excluding us is “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim” (PMOALA). The EHRC says, falsely, that only trans women with a GRC have an entitlement to use women’s services, and that entitlement should be taken away- single-sex and separate sex services should be segregated by biological sex not legal sex. In 2016 the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee recommended partly repealing the PMOALA exception, so any trans woman with a GRC could not be excluded. The government refused.

It will be an election issue. The Prime Minister announces that “no woman has a penis”, effectively saying that trans is meaningless, and we are simply deluded. Now, society accommodates my settled and intractable weirdness, by treating me as a woman. The Prime Minister, the Conservative Party, The Times, Mail, Express, Telegraph and often the Guardian, parts of the Labour Party and even the Greens, say this should stop.

There is writing about “women’s rights” barely mentioning trans. Pithy statements such as “humans are sexually dimorphic” are all that need be said for some people, trans women are men and should be treated as men. Sometimes they say that we should be allowed to wear what we like and they don’t want us to suffer violence.

The enormity of this overwhelms me. I can’t write about it systematically. A friend has paused her transition because of it, and fears for her job. We talked and shared our fear and misery. Trans social media, where I find some social contact and support, is full of the proposed change, though my preferred group mostly shares action against it and writing condemning or mocking it. I’m thinking more of Etty Hillesum.

What could I say? Trans is no threat to women, children or anyone else. A trans ban would disadvantage cis women. Permitting harmless eccentricity benefits society. I could try to argue these points, or critique texts, but there is no joy in it, and my thoughts turn to anguish or ranting. And, life goes on.

On Sunday 17th I went to the Quaker meeting, then the Tate. At Friends House there was a Narcotics Anonymous conference, and people crowded the garden, happy to be with their tribe. I chatted with one about my own Steps, about the Higher Power and the Inner Light. He loves Friends House, the peace in the heart of London. He had tried Quaker meetings. He found silence for an hour a bit much, but sometimes the meeting “Opened up”. Then in the George Fox room there was lively ministry, and eight stayed talking until 1.30.

In the Tate Members’ toilet, a woman said, “Is it me, or is it very dark in those cubicles?” She might not have read me before asking. Well, the bulbs are dim, and the ceilings, floors and laminate doors and walls (floor to ceiling, for privacy) of the cubicles are dark. I agreed they are dark. I presume people read me when they hear my voice, but she did not faint or start screaming or report me to the staff, and I hope she will not be writing an article for the Daily Mail.

At the Tate, I saw H (Not to be confused with other H’s on this blog) for the first time since last Summer. We have hardly messaged since 2019. We talked of all sorts of things. We ended talking of the trans ban. She said it’s important to remember that women are frightened of male violence. How could I forget? I was triggered. Yes women are frightened of male violence, and so society should deal with male violence- maybe, prosecute some rapes, or refer potential coercive control cases to well-funded social services. A trans ban makes things worse. She insisted, I insisted and bored and frustrated myself.

On the train home, I read a circular email, including a note that my trans friend was working with gender critical Quakers and well-meaning uninvolved Friends to find common ground. That started me ranting in my head- my lips were moving, I was not speaking aloud-

THE ONLY WAY FORWARD IS TO GET EVERYONE TO AGREE THAT TRANS IS A GOOD THING AND SPREADING SUSPICION OF TRANS IS WICKED HATEMONGERING. And all the arguments. And expression of hate and fear of the haters and excluders. And lots of swearing and words like f’wit, traitor, quisling which I would not want to get between me and my sweet, gentle Friend.

How can I cope with my rage and terror when all this comes up for me?

Cis people: the trans ban will not affect your day-to-day life in any way. If you see a trans woman, that is good luck for you, bringing you face to face with the strangeness and beauty of humanity. But trans and asylum seekers could be a major issue at the election. The Tory record on the economy, preventing crime and prosecuting criminals, the NHS and public services, are all a complete disaster, but hate and fear might grub them a few votes. Do we want to live in a liberal/”woke” society, or an authoritarian one?

One lesson from this is that while there is all this Threat- the trans ban- all the actual experiences were lovely. If I live the day I have now, it’s fine, and the Dreadful Things that might happen might not happen. And the quintessential Dreadful Thing- Death- will certainly happen, but maybe not yet.

Monday I was still prone to ranting. I was in a conversation with a man who did not perceive what was obvious to me, and I had a rant to myself about that; then I read an NYT article about Harlan Crow, Clarence Thomas’s billionaire benefactor, and had a rant about that. The heart of all my ranting is,

LISTEN TO ME!

I do not feel heard, and so I do not feel safe. Thomas will make administrative regulation impossible, the mass extinction will ensue, and the rats and cockroaches will take over. But I cannot have any effect at all on SCOTUS, no matter how hard I shout or pray. I was shouting and crying then shaking like a terrified animal.

“Feelings and buried memories will return. By gradually releasing the burden of unexpressed grief, we slowly move out of the past.” I hope that’s it…

Fierce joy

My spontaneous morning affirmation was,

I am an adult.
I shall live free.

Anger and the Inner Child

“Blessed is the lion that the human being will devour so that the lion becomes human. And cursed is the human being that the lion devours; and the lion will become human.”

I am destabilised. Under the tree, I look at that baby, rigid with rage and terror. Could I pick it up? It is a baby, but it is also chaotic blackness which might consume me.

Kate asks, can you hear its anger? Pick it up and hear it?
I can’t explain its anger, I say.
Can you understand and sympathise with its anger?

I don’t want this resolved, I say.
What is lost by resolution?
It’s not for me. It’s not to heal me but to silence me and get me to conform.

Well, it works that way if I am crying and someone says, Don’t cry. It’s not they want to console me, but to make me pull myself together. This is different: I don’t want resolution because that would mean accepting the angry part.

What does the angry part want?
Impossible things.
To be loved. Accepted.

What does the heart lose in accepting the angry part?
Safety? Control? But I have neither.
I lose the moral high ground illusion.
My self-image is that I am not violent. Others have assaulted me. But really, I just shout.
Others experience me as angry. The anger is there whether I am conscious of it or not.

What would the heart gain?
Cerberus, my guard dog. It sniffs out the threats, so that I see the world more clearly.

I need to love my anger.
Anger would become energy to confront threat or insult, rather than as a terrifying thing I must suppress. When I attempt to suppress my anger, people see I am angry, and I am paralysed. It is a disaster for me.

What’s under the anger?
Self-respect. A sense of my worth.

The only time I am comfortable expressing anger is when I am sucking up. Someone is angry with The Thing Which Angers All Good-thinking People, and I am angry too, to show I am one of the good people. I hate it afterwards. One such memory when I was eighteen causes me lasting shame, because the thing the Good People were angry at was my crowd, and my anger at my crowd did not make me one of the Good People, just divided me from my crowd.

Kate says the value of Internal Family Systems for her is to honour the voices within her. She treats them as people, with feelings and needs, which may be stuck somewhere with a limited perception of the world. The whole person is much more than that individual voice, but the voice is someone she can greet with compassion.

Then, I had one of my I Am experiences, and it felt the I Am- what I thought of as my Heart, or Inner Light, was absorbing the anger. Was able to admit anger to itself, perceive anger, not try to suppress anger, and therefore use its energy. That felt really good.

A Friend ministered on being spanked as a child, and gave a great deal of detail about how hard her mother’s life was and how good her mother was and how bad she had been so she absolutely understood her mother doing it- and then of how it has affected her whole life, believing that when something bad happened to her a vengeful God was punishing her. Then I watched a baby held by delighted grandparents as he tried to get his legs underneath him and push down with his feet, and my lovable, joyous, inspiring Friend in a hospital bed.

I identified the I Am as my heart, my higher power. And yet, I could be knocked out of it. I lied: my ego produced a plausible falsehood to make me look better. My heart had no access to my anger and fear. I take Thomas’s Jesus to mean, if my anger devours me I am cursed, but if I absorb, accept, use my anger I am blessed.

At the Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families (ACADF) group, the question was, “What do you do to improve conscious contact with your Higher Power?”

I thought what I called my Inner Light or Heart was that higher power in me. The ACADF group is studying the Loving Parent Guidebook, based on Internal Family Systems, and I thought, that is not for me. It is too rigid. I have an Ego and an Inner Light, which does not map on to this system of Caring Parent, Critical Parent, Inner Child and Inner Teenager, so perhaps I should look elsewhere. However I got the kindle sample of the ACADF 12 step book, greatly expanded in 2016, and Claudia B’s introduction destabilised me again.

We honored each other with acceptance for where we were, precious children and now adults struggling with what is called our false selves. We learned to project this false self to the world in an attempt to hide our inner thoughts and feelings. The preciousness of the Inner Child was tapping from within, asking and hoping to be heard and acknowledged.

Not inner light- inner child. That makes total sense, and turns my world upside down- again.

So what now? I learn more about IFS. I seek my Loving Parent. I identify the Heart as my Inner Child rather than Inner Light. The Inner Child had already this week been shown to be wanting- lacking access to my fear and anger which it is now seeking. Now the aim is to parent my inner child.

Anger and sadness

I am getting lots of affirmation for my anger. I wrote, “Utter contempt for human life, for the rule of law, for the truth…” of the They, the amorphous Bad, or actually “The Johnson Government”. Utter contempt for human life? Really? They don’t ever admit the slightest misstep, and their mistakes have caused deaths, and their target of 100,000 tests a day has led to some deservedly ridiculed lying, but-

And that got a Guardian pick, a coveted pat on the head from the Guardian! Woo! And 122 upvotes. Two days later it seemed like bullshit posturing. My sarcasm- “London is a small, backward place, completely without expertise in caring for an autistic four year old”- got 191 upvotes. Lots of anger is being poured out at Cummings, who despises it, and may get off on it. I face many nebulous threats, though no concrete and immediate ones demanding fight or flight action. I read righteous NYT pieces on the efforts to steal the US Presidential election, and that is a real threat I can do nothing about. So, be aware of it, but don’t read all the NYT articles. And there is Covid, and the Covid Recession, and looming Brexit…

My anger seeks an outlet. Comments can make it seem Righteous, even effective, but it is just me and hundreds or thousands of others letting off steam. Yet when there seems nothing I can do about the many horrors, letting off steam is tempting.

I wish I had not watched Suburbicon. It is George Clooney directing a Coen Brothers script, but it is a mean little film, in which a man murders his wife to shack up with her sister, and in the ensuing Coen strangeness and coincidence six people die. Also when a Black family move in to a 1950s town, protests escalate to riots. Trying to see value in it, I could put too much weight on its last scene, when the sons of the Black couple and the murderer get out their baseball mitts and play catch. “Children can adjust to anything” or something, or even “Life goes on”. Then I see it is a script from the 1980s, a misfire from their early development. The murderer threatens to kill his eleven year old son just before dying from a misunderstanding.

Here, I am bewailing my unbearable dissatisfaction, a bit like Roger Scruton: “In our polluted passions, seeking pleasure and excitement rather than respect and love, we scorn the Redeemer’s suffering and surrender to the basest form of control.”

The answer is to acknowledge the Sadness, to dive into it, drink it and swim in it. It is only a threat if dammed up. Flowing smoothly it can douse the flames of anger. The energy of anger is necessary if something may be done, but anger without outlet becomes rage, hurting the rager. There is so little I can do.

Thursday I had my dialogue, which was unexpected, after Wednesday with Tina over skype. I wanted to speak from the inner voices, and welcome them. There’s the feminine self which I strongly value with words like Authentic Self, and one that, terrified, tries to suppress that self. I am aware of what may go wrong- speaking the thought I have had before rather than from where I am now, which would be falling short of what is possible, retreating into the familiar. All of it is good, and none of it is mad.

I feel nervousness. Then I am conscious of arrogance, and then of feeling sick. Anger at expectations. That thing about “where is it in your body”- well, feelings are in my limbic system, in my head. Others insist on this, and it does not work for me. Anger. But then, on Saturday it did.

I fear creating a soap-opera. If the only meaning I can find in my life is this untwisting, then I create more bizarre stories of that. But no. It feels real. Judgment: I am my own enabler, allowing myself to fritter my life.

I am arrogant and self-effacing. Having so little money humiliates me.

It feels like things are coming to the surface, real, discrete parts of me, seeming to have separate personalities, which have been long buried. Some seem in pairs- sadness against anger, the drive to achieve and a self-protecting No, and the femininity and the terror that suppresses that.

I crave reassurance. Does this make sense? Yes, she says. Some people give their configurations names, ages, or genders. Some place them in time. Dialogue will bring integration.

They might not talk to the opposite but might to a neutral arbiter, I say. I feel my character manifests in my actions whatever stories I tell about who I am. I fear I will not get the configurations sorted in time, I need to be more functional now. All the voices have value. I have not recognised their good will, always.

A Covid Death

Britain has a thousand deaths a day from Covid, because of Government incompetence, and in the US 7% of deaths had Covid-19 listed as a cause of death, from Trumpian incompetence, and I thought that by now everyone knows someone who knows someone who has died of this thing, and by the end we will all know someone.

On 27 March I met a man for the first time, in a Zoom social gathering. Over the video I saw a man in a mask deliver oxygen to his house- he needed it for health reasons unconnected to the virus, and I thought how vulnerable he was. He died on Good Friday. On Sunday I heard of some of his achievements, and why people admired and loved him. They knew him, I did not. He was over ninety.

It seemed to me when my father died his life was complete. I could think of him, his gifts, his career, two marriages, political work, and achievements, and feel admiration and gratitude and love. And this man (I don’t say his name here because it is almost to me like any other covid death) I can’t say that of him. Something killed him which first killed last year, which was not heard of before December. He would be alive, but for this randomness.

I feel more horror at the man’s death than that of Colin Morley. I knew Colin through Community Building, so we had shared some deep personal things, and in the sharing felt we were growing as human beings and as a group. I knew of Colin’s start-up, “Be the Change”, seeking to bring that growth to more people, and when he was killed in the London bombings of 7 July 2005, I had a slight personal link to that horror, though less than his family who loved him, less than hundreds of others.

The horror I feel at this death is my horror at what is unfolding. He would not have died if the rich did not flaunt their wealth by spending $150 on a pound of pangolin meat, whence the virus emerged, and if the Tory government could have stopped public gatherings a few days sooner, when it was clear what was happening in Italy and Spain would happen here. I met a friend for coffee on 6 March. The coffee-shop had boxes of tissues on the tables, and I was unsure whether covid caused a runny nose as well as a cough. I proposed we meet again in April, not really admitting to myself what was coming, and my friend knew that would be impossible. I would have hoped the British Government would have known too.

The Tories have caused untold deaths- only deaths in hospitals are yet known- by underfunding the NHS, and by cavalier failure to impose precautions timeously. We are social distancing too late. Johnson has been in intensive care because of his personal stupidity, shaking hands with covid victims and holding face to face meetings, and infected his partner and colleagues. The Tories have caused NHS workers to die by their failure to provide PPE.

In the gorgeous sunshine my life is comfortable. I cycled 9.5 miles in 45 minutes (280 ft of climb) and sat outside in the back yard reading. I am used to being alone, and while I would like to see friends am talking to more, actually, by screens. And the economy is sliding, the virus continues as a threat, the government still fails to test for it, and there is a tiny chance I could be one of those gasping for breath on oxygen in a hospital, alone and terrified. Intubation means a hard road of recuperation, learning to breathe again, coping with scars and wastage. And a chance I could get the virus and shrug it off in a week as a woman I know did.

I would feel a slight sadness at the man’s death, had it not been from covid. I would be sad for his partner (whom I have not met) and his friends whom I know. And I attach the death, it becomes a focus, for my own fear, my discomfort at uncertainty. My day to day comfort makes the threat seem distant, yet it is not, or I would not be affected by the death of a man whom I met once. I hear of his death and feel horror at the chance of my own.

I dislike the term “afterlife,” like “afterthought”. There is continuing life.

I wrote that I hoped Johnson recovered, and blamed him for his misfortune, and someone reacted with horror. “Shocking”, she said. “Appalling bad taste.” She could not make the distinction. I wish Johnson no harm, but I want him called to account for the deaths he has caused.

Quakers say, Accepting the fact of death, we are freed to live more fully. Blithely I denied it, and now face it. As always, my resistance to reality makes it more painful for me: I will not claim to have learned the spiritual lesson yet.

Being a Trans Activist

How can I cope as a trans activist with all the hostility to trans people, especially in lockdown with all the uncertainty?

Someone shared an Etty Hillesum quote: Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world. In Occupied Amsterdam under the Nuremberg Laws, she put that into practice.

Someone wrote, And to claim peace, we must excavate our shadows, make the unconscious conscious, reclaim and accept all parts of self.

Contrast Hilary Mantel’s description of Stephen Gardiner: Master Stephen resents everything about his own situation. He resents that he’s the king’s unacknowledged cousin. He resents that he was put into the church, though the church has done well by him. He resents the fact that someone else has late-night talks with the cardinal, to whom he is confidential secretary. He resents the fact that he’s one of those tall men who are hollow-chested, not much weight behind him; he resents his knowledge that if they met on a dark night, Master Thos. Cromwell would be the one who walked away dusting off his hands and smiling. I know resentment. I know threat and conflict, even fleeing down unknown streets at night. Resentment is curdled anger. Anger may do something about a situation, resentment cannot. Resentment focuses on the “things we cannot change”, but the “wisdom to know the difference” is hard practice, especially if there are few things we can change.

I read that rights for trans women are rights for sex offenders. I object, and read that the statement is unobjectionable, even though I feel anxiety in the supermarket, partly feeling fear, unjustified at the moment, that I might be abused as a trans woman. Etty Hillesum bought toothpaste in a pharmacy, and a public spirited citizen challenged her: as a Jew, was she entitled to buy that? She replied she was. And there are public spirited men wanting to stand up for the rights of women against perverts, by which they mean me, and so far I only meet them on line.

I sat in the Quaker meeting, on Zoom, in my exercise. It is possible to challenge an ASA ruling: can I do that? I want the people who pay to tell everyone that I am dangerous, or might be so that no-one should take the risk, rebuked. And I can’t face doing the reading or the writing to make that happen. The answer comes: I can do it, if I can let go of attachment to outcomes. Taking advantage of a video call where I can mute the microphone, I repeat that to myself aloud. “You want to cling to it, and you stop further messages,” my friend said. Perhaps; and I want to accept it, take it into myself, and act on it, because surrendering the need for a particular outcome is difficult. I have seen that with benefits appeals: if people could accept the loss, and make the appeal because it was the thing they could do at that time, they would be far less stressed; and some of them won their appeals! But that is easy for me to say, and instead, often, they resented. I have seen that expressed as a Law of Change: The individuals and the group may have goals, but they may not have cherished outcomes. It is a hard lesson.

So I wrote my challenge, and sent it off, and now see that it would have been better had I spent more time on it, and read it over and revised it before sending. But I hated it too much to do that. I hated the advert and my hate extended to the work I did against it. I would rather not have to do that work. Or I hate my work because I anticipate it will be inadequate, it will not achieve the goal I desire. I will not work well if I hate what I do, only if I can pour love into it. I read that there is an infinite fountain of Love, which I can bathe in, draw strength from, send to wherever I see needs Love. For example, Etty: I should be quite unable to do the work were I not able to draw each day on that great reservoir of peace and maturity. I read that, but I am not sure I trust it or have learned how to do it yet.

Etty Hillesum is of course my teacher and not my comparator. On 15 July 1942 she was given a job with the Jewish Council, and wrote, Tomorrow I must betake myself to hell, and if I am to do the work properly, I shall have to get in a good night’s sleep… Despite the deadly fear I saw in all those faces. All those faces, my God, those faces! And later, They are merciless, totally without pity. And we must be all the more merciful ourselves. I love her ironic prayer: “Have You any other plans for me, O God?”

A last Géricault. Though this woman is in a room, her desolation is hardly less than the shipwrecked man’s.

Social Conservatism

When people object to immigrants, and my American-born friend says “I’m an immigrant”, they often say, “oh, we don’t mean you”. She has British nationality, but not all those people would know that. It’s the same with a Canadian woman I met. I wondered what the difference was from my German friend, who has a slight accent, noticeably foreign if you’re listening out for such things, who is a successful professional woman whose grown up sons are English, who has been told to “get back where you came from”. Is it because Canada, US, Australian and New Zealand citizens speak English as a native language? Is it because Germany has won the World Cup more than England, and we fought two world wars against them?

I think it’s because no-one’s been taught to hate the Americans.

There’s certainly no real distinction other than nationality at birth, and I am not sure why that should be a distinction.

So what does social conservatism achieve for the average social conservative? It gives them someone to look down on. It gives them someone to blame, even to hate. It gives a symbol, like Brexit. We, the 17m, matter because Parliament is at last giving us what we voted for. I may be struggling from wage to wage, never knowing I will have enough, but at least I’m not gay. (Irony ALERT!) It gives them a cat to kick. When their manager has humiliated them and they can’t speak back, they can take out their rage on Immigrants (which includes Black people whose parents were born here).

It gives them something to care about which will either make no difference to their lives, or hurt them. Brexit is no good for anyone unless they have a spare £500m to short the £. But it is made a symbol of Democracy and the value of Leave voters. It’s what they are told they want. Similarly with gender self-declaration: no woman will be any safer if all trans women are excluded from all Single Sex Spaces, but it is something they can campaign for to show they matter. Equal pay would be better, but the Tories are not going to do anything to achieve that.

Social conservatism is corrosive to the soul. It lets people judge others harshly without even knowing them, by stereotypes divorced from reality. It produces the sensation of righteous anger, but you cannot warm yourself by the frigid flames of this hate.

It achieves nothing. It may make others’ lives more miserable, LGBT folk, BAME folk, immigrants, with no gain to the average social conservative.

It gains something for the plutocrats and the conservative politicians who serve them. It increases anger, and the angry and fearful are more likely to vote conservative. Don’t come here expecting handouts. Don’t change our country to suit your way of life, ranted someone on facebook, and I imagine him puce with anger at a myth. People want to work and better themselves. No-one just wants handouts. It suppresses votes on the other side, which have to be votes for hope for something better. Someone else ranted, Our country is run by the major capitalist conglomerates and vastly wealthy individuals worldwide who politicians merely serve. Lets not fall into the trap of believing that politicians of any persuasion actually “care” about the common man. I think John McDonnell, for instance, went into politics to make life better for people. Possibly even John Major. Voting for better public services means voting for hope. It’s not “free stuff”, it’s basic services which make everyone’s lives better and build communities.

So Labour should make no concessions whatsoever to its “traditional voters’ reasonable concerns” about immigration, gay-inclusive education, or “streets where no-one speaks English”.

Labour could have made real differences to people’s lives, making Britain better for everyone, but now we have a government of the reptile overlords, “unchained” from Parliamentary scrutiny by their huge majority. The choice as always is rage or hope. The Left can only win through hope.

being valued

What could be better than a Margaret Atwood when you’re feeling low? The characters are guaranteed to be having a worse time than you. I am loving The Testaments. The tale of Aunt Lydia’s breaking is terrifying and if I don’t want to believe it’s plausible I can believe it would work.

And it’s full of wonderful writing. A substitute culprit will not do in this case. A what? I get what she means immediately. Someone must be seen to be punished, and normally it’s OK if it’s not the responsible party. That someone would name the concept, use the term so casually- there’s so much darkness in two words.

I received a compliment, in writing, on Wednesday. It was from a Quaker, so it must be true, and it was a reference to my “very real gifts”. Unfortunately there was quite a lot of bad stuff around it.

So I asked Facebook for more. “Is there anything that you value in me?” It sounds disbelieving, and I soon changed it to “what do you value about me?”

-Insight. I find your thoughts enrich my understanding.
-warmth, wisdom, intelligence.
-You’re mysterious and unpredictable. You’ve always got something worth listening to, to say, that comes at things from a different angle.
-your friendship, writing, insight and creativity.
-100% honesty and a different point of view to mine which can only be balancing/enriching.
-your wisdom
-your friendship!
-twinkle in your eye.
-your integrity and concern for others.
– your calmness and spiritual nature.
-your sharp mind, vulnerability and kindness. And you’re fun. And you have beautiful eyes.
-You are a great listener, soft voice, warm eyes. You post a lot that I agree with.
-honesty
-integrity
-tenderness tenacity boldness
-openness, honesty and willingness to keep plugging away at loving relationship with others when it is bloody difficult. Also Quakers who it’s ok to be sweary with are a valuable resource.
-so interesting to talk to. Witty, shrewd, good listener. Great writer, determined. Etc!!!
-Openness and courage.

I note these things here to treasure them, because I need to hear them.

It has me reeling that people collected “observations” on how I irritated others. In five pages that phrase “very real gifts” was the only positive. I am suspected of being potentially physically violent, and accused of being manipulative, deceitful and completely lacking in empathy. I had to right royally irk several people to provoke that reaction. I did it, in part, by this. We realise these comments will be difficult to hear but we need to see signs that she acknowledges these concerns and commits to making appropriate changes to her conduct. Um. I am rueful. I am not sure I am confident enough to commit to changing conduct. I was angered before, might I be so again? It is humility rather than arrogance making me hesitate.

She who cannot control herself cannot control the path to duty. Do not fight the waves of anger, use the anger as your fuel. Inhale. Exhale. Sidestep. Circumvent. Deflect.

I wish they had asked, what do you think of Abigail? Then there might be a few positives.

Oh God! Perhaps they did!

Highlight of Facebook today was a post on a trans support group. Above a picture of an attractive woman it said, Am I the only romantic lesbian/transgender admirer left on this planet. If it’s love affection and 100% commitmen you’re looking for then I could be just that woman.

I took this too seriously. As some people seemed to be taking the bait (I was tempted) I wrote I am sorry to say I am suspicious. I had a look at your profile, and find your oldest cover photo and profile picture are from 29 October, which I think means that is when you started using the account, yet you have over a thousand fbfnds. There are some vulnerable people here. Are any of your fbfnds trans? Perhaps someone here has fbfnds in common with you.

Someone replied to me, “Stop moaning and send her your bank details”.

The Testaments ends with the words Love is as strong as death.

Howard Thurman

If I never feel confused, is confusion that terrifying emotion which I must always suppress below conscious awareness? If the distance between how things are and how they ought to be is so great that I cannot see how things are, being just confused, how can I do what I need to do? If my anger is always directed at myself- do better, try harder, keep going- how can I survive a world unless it is designed to fit me and support me? When do I realise that it isn’t?

I am wary of using Black experience as a way into my own as their oppression is greater than mine, except that mine matters too. I am a trans woman, conveniently available for anyone to punch down at, relieve their feelings on, use as a scapegoat or ridicule. We get screamed at, assaulted, killed by casual acquaintances or strangers, and painted as perverts or predators when any need is felt to justify that though often it isn’t.

So I read extracts from Howard Thurman, Black mystic and spiritual adviser to Martin Luther King.

“The stirring of the will of man to action, the dream of humanity, developed and free… is God.”

God speaks through my survival instinct and the occasional, fleeting desire I have to be equal, not to be that whipping-girl. I will not wrong others, and I will survive.

God lives in each person, we are each the outworking of God’s love, power, creativity and beauty, each hair on our head is numbered and God wills our flourishing- yes, even trans women.

The Black man, used by whites for the most menial work, lynched- murdered- by whites to keep all Blacks in a state of terror and subjection and satisfy those whites of their own righteous superiority, finds that in religious experience “I hear His Voice in my own tongue and in accordance with the grain in my own wood. In that glorious and transcendent moment, it may easily seem to me that all there is, is God.”

God is a real me, more real than I can conceive. This is not a matter of dogma but immediate experience, to be captured in feeling not prose or theory, perhaps to be glimpsed in poetry. Then I am my full glory as my part in God’s outworking of creation.

Thurman’s God and mine is transcendent, eternal, all-encompassing, and personal and intimate, caring for me like God’s child in self-sacrificing, motherly love. So, I will show myself the love God shows I am worthy of.

Christianity is an ideology of empire, for security and respectability for the strong and powerful, giving grudging “charity”, sometimes, to deserving outsiders but teaching us our obligations to our betters. This makes those betters feel good about themselves. No, God requires that we are brothers and sisters, equals. I claim my equal worth. God in me seeks not to serve or dominate but to hear and communicate.

Why do I call myself Christian when Christianity oppressed me? To create it anew!

I am a human being among human beings, not for anyone to categorise or judge as “a trans woman”, for no-one’s stereotypes classifications or perceived understanding- even my own. That is love of self in my incomprehensible beauty, a love worthy of loving others with. I am my part of Life, as you are. Each Christian encountering another Christian as an equal, a beloved fellow child of the loving Mother would be an example to all other people. “See how they love each other!” We would win souls for Christ.

Gender is as oppressive as race and we who do not fit gender stereotypes or are not served by them must come together. So I take Richard Rohr’s questions and apply them to gender:

Where in your life do you feel numb, shut down, dismembered, disrespected, or disconnected? What is your earliest memory of feeling this way? What events or circumstances do you believe gave birth to these experiences? What do you believe such feelings keep you from knowing?

What gender identities or stereotypes have shaped how you have come to know yourself as a person?

What views did your ancestors, elders, parents, or caretakers have about gender? How did their views impact you? In what ways were/are your views similar or different?

This is what to do with my anger, whether directed inward or outward- transmute it into a sense of self-worth: which becomes understanding, then love.

What I probably don’t want to write to elders

The question is, can you trust me. The answer may be No.

If I had wanted to be on time for this meeting I would not have stopped at the parish church to spend some time with God. One likes to talk to ones equals occasionally. I was kneeling at the altar rail, looking at the symbols of death, a plain wooden cross, and power. About one in four of the floor tiles around the communion table have little heraldic lions.

I probably don’t want to talk of quantum superposition, but even if I don’t understand it my idea of it makes a good metaphor. Until you measure them, electrons have several different positions, momentums, and spins, at the same time. Only when they are measured do they have one particular position. The idea of an atom like a solar system with electrons orbiting a nucleus is inaccurate.

In the same way, we look at each other, and evaluate. I look a bit rueful. Can you trust me? It could go either way. If we use words too soon,