sisters not cisters

with the interruption of pride marches across the world this year (london, auckland, baltimore, the list goes on...) by trans exclusionary feminists it is time more than ever to establish that feminism without respecting trans women & nonbinary people is just patriarchy. reducing women to their genitalia & reproductive capacity is just misogyny. fortifying gender and sex binaries is not radical nor progressive, it is racist and conservative.

i believe feminism should be about liberating all people from the constrictive & coercive gender & sex binaries & norms that were imposed on us. i believe that feminism starts with intersex people of color, nonbinary people of color, trans people of color and all of the people they demonize & exclude.

in their efforts to resist male supremacy, these “feminists” have not accounted for how they are actually partnering with cis men to demean women (who happen to be trans).

this is not unprecedented or confusing, this is how the gender binary works. in the past decade we have witnessed hundreds of anti-trans policies introduced to criminalize & disappear gender non-conforming people advanced in the name of feminism.

now is the time for all of us to publicly denounce trans, intersex, & nonbinary exclusion. now is time for us to resist the manipulation of feminism in the service of anti-gender non-conforming discrimination. i have been harassed, ridiculed, & maligned by “feminists” for having the audacity to exist, let alone speak out against the pervasive violence me & my siblings endure. i have suffered in silence for too long! i need YOUR help — all of you! — in resisting the gender & sex binary and creating a world that affirms nonbinary people, trans women, and intersex people.

i need your help in ushering not just a new era of trans inclusion, but one of trans liberation! sisters not just cisters! sisters not just cisters!

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Illustration by Ashluka Draws

our lives are the art

• there’s this moment in a conversation where you ask a question & they start tearing up a little bit. their eyes glisten. time freezes. they look away. & when they speak it’s like the first time they are naming something. & there is nothing more beautiful than that moment: that dawning, the shedding. bearing witness to that. in that moment that something is the only thing that matters to me. this is my definition of joy: the collapsing of borders, the re-unification, us. the revelations that come from being together: every feeling dependent on its predecessor to exist. the things we don’t get to talk about, but need to. why is it the things that are most important & dear to us are the ones we rarely get to say? i like those moments because they remind me that we need each other to learn, to feel, to realize, to be. i don’t do small talk because i am tired of feeling small — i want to overflow. when i was in high school i used to turn on (mediocre, but deeply charming in retrospect) indie music & have conversations with my girlfriend & we would eventually stop talking & just look at each other in the eyes & start tearing up. we would say that one line from perks of being a wallflower: “in that moment / i swear / we were infinite” & we would feel like we were in a movie or a music video, which made us feel important & greater than ourselves. something about the simulation of it all made it feel more real. i swear i never loved her more. what i like about a good conversation is it is cinematic: the lives we live are expansive, dramatic, whimsical, dynamic. my favorite actors are my friends. & our living is the art. our living is the art! so i just want to take out everyone in the world for hot chocolate or dinner or both & i want to ask all of the tough questions & i want to figure it out together, take out a second to feel the poignancy & urgency of our becoming: how we got here, what we lost along the way. the things we know & need, everything. nothing. infinity.
  
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punished for existing

the other day i posted a photo of myself with a caption saying that nonbinary people are real. today i woke up to hundreds of hateful comments telling me to die, that i have a disorder, and that i want to be a victim.

this is how transmisogyny against nonbinary & gender non-conforming people works: on the one hand they say that we “want to be a victim” and with the other hand they beat us. on the one hand they make up gender binaries & norms and with the other accuse us of being fake. on the one hand they call us sensitive slowfakes & then with the other threaten to kill us. on the one hand they call us threats and with the other assault us.

all of this comes from having the audacity to exist! literally being told that we should be murdered simply for saying “i am real!” we are already always guilty. we don’t have to do anything, our appearance is weaponized by their projections & repressions. this is how patriarchy & fascism have always worked: scapegoating an extremely vulnerable minority for social/political/economic problems, manipulating discourse to render the people being attacked into being the attacker’s themselves, aggrandizing perceptions of our presence/power/authority to obfuscate our lived realities of violence.

it is important to recognize that these people are not “trolls,” they are not “a few bad apples,” they are not “extreme,” they are painfully normal, and ruthlessly honest. this is what the majority of people think of us: that we are interchangeably frauds, mistakes, threats, cry babies. this is why hundreds of anti-trans legislations are being introduced with little moral outcry. this is why the trump administration continues to repeal protections for trans people with no resistance. this is why harassment, physical/sexual violence against trans & gender non-conforming people continues to escalate with little to no resources or support to combat it (let alone survive under it).

imagine if tomorrow cis “men” & “women” were told that they were making it up, that they should be killed for being visible. imagine the outrage. now remember that this is what they do to us every day. all for having the audacity to exist.

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nonbinary is the present

Nonbinary people are not just the *future* we are the present! Relegating us to the future erases how we are here NOW living & creating. It absolves people of their complicity in our active erasure. We are not theoretical or metaphorical, we are real! With little to no institutional support we design our own fashion & make our own media & write our own scripts because the beauty & entertainment industry remain wedded to the #fakenews that there are only two genders & sexes. What (little) progress trans representation has made has been by appealing to the gender binary & actively suppressing gender non-conformity. All the while our aesthetics are mined for the mainstream while our bodies continue to be maligned. We are not the problem — a society which disappears & demonizes gender non-conformity is! When will you see images of us beyond your news feeds? When will you see us beyond your jokes & memes & projections? When will you recognize our beauty, our history, and our worth? We have been here. Now it’s time for you to catch up darling.

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affirmations for trans & nonbinary people

there is no such thing as “fake trans” or not being trans “enough.”

gender is not necessarily what we look like, it is so much more expansive than our appearance. there are infinite ways to be & your narrative and body belong to you. harassment, discrimination, and violence are very real so no one has the right to judge you for the decisions you make regarding visibility & safety.

you do not have to take hormones, have surgery, change your name in order for your identity to be legitimate. you do not always have to have known, you do not have to dress a certain way, you do not have to wear makeup (or not wear makeup).

there is no one way to transition, there is just your way!

clothing, shoes, accessories, makeup, hair, pronouns, names should mean what you want them to mean, not what other people say. you are allowed to be confused, you don’t always have to have known. you can change your mind, your identity, your pronouns any time you feel like it.

i love & admire how complex you are & how you contain multitudes. you do not have to downplay your masculinity for your femininity to be legitimate; you do not have to compromise your femininity for your masculinity to be legitimate.

you are not a fad, trend, or aesthetic. there have always been people like us. you are not an imposter, joke, or prop. you are not a delusion, burden, or mistake. you are not a problem — the gender binary is. you are not a joke — gender norms are. you deserve people in your life who experience you for you & respect you for your entirety.

you are the way you are & that’s enough! 

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fight for the excess

what i need you to understand is that violence against gender non-conforming people works precisely by saying “this is not about gender, this is about your choice to look like a fool.”

our genders are already always understood as superficial, excessive & illegitimate. we are already rendered as props, caricatures, mistakes. we are presented as character foils for *real* womanhood/manhood & *real* transness. they are authentic because they are not us.

the narrative becomes that we “choose” to be this way whereas others just “are.” not only do we “choose,” but we “enjoy.” we ask for it, we want it. why else would we look so “ridiculous?” “i’m ok with women but this is...too much.” we are always positioned as the problem & never their transmisogyny.

how impossible it is for them to realize that maybe we are “this” for OURSELVES. how impossible it is for them to realize that maybe their own genders aren’t as natural as they think?

i wonder often what it would feel like to have the privilege of essence? to not have to argue for my existence? i wonder what it would mean to be believed for the constant harassment i endure & not ridiculed when i name it? i wonder what a feminism that actually cared about we — the abject, the failed, the undesirable — would look like?

i believe that people should be able to look like whatever they want without sacrificing their body autonomy. i believe that how we dress & adorn ourselves does not give permission to others abuse us. i believe that we should be able to be as queer, as gender non-conforming, as flamboyant, as effeminate as we want without fearing for our safety. i believe that we shouldn’t have to be normal, respectable, or conventional in order to be worthy of protection & respect.

i believe in fighting for the excess, the absurd, the peculiar, the “ugly,” the “too much” because i believe that these norms are the joke not me. i believe that our freedom should not be contingent on conformity. we are complex, weird, celestial. we are evolving, becoming, manifesting. we do not fail, we transcend! why do you fear your transcendence?

why have we been taught to fear the very things that have the potential to set us free?

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how to heal when hunted?

every time i pick myself up i am shoved down again. how can you heal when you are hunted?

there is a direct correlation between loving myself & being hated for it.

they tell us to practice self-love but they do not defend us when we are punished for it.

i have been trying my best to eliminate the distance between the world i want (need) & the world that masquerades as normal. trying my best to create my own intimate revolution in my self & with my friends, to value the degraded & demeaned — vulnerability, interdependence, imperfection — to demand reciprocity & intimacy & complexity. to delight, no relish, in our contradiction & superfluousness & our often fraught & relentless attempting.

but to do this work of becoming, to have the audacity to say “my body belongs to me” in a world that believes my body belongs to the gender binary...often feels impossible.

it feels impossible when the feminists sound like the misogynists sound like the doctors sound like the politicians sound like the police sound like the parents sound like the voice inside our head: reducing us to our genitalia, making us the problem not them.

feels impossible when beauty becomes a prerequisite for empathy so that we must turn our screams into song to be noticed, let alone believed.

feels impossible when we are pushed & spat on & told to die simply for going outside & saying “i am here.”

so when i am feeling impossible i take a moment to breathe & push myself to be a little more audacious. there is a direct correlation between their attempts to malign me & my commitment to materializing what i know to be true & dear & just. i

find worth & dignity in that which they dismiss as ugly, i find magic in that which they dismiss as messy, i celebrate gender non-conformity in myself & others, i dream & i dream & i dream of a day when we are no longer bodies but stories & ideas & poems.

i swallow all of the insecurity deployed as hatred & i spit out love letters to everyone & everything, say, “i do not know you, but i love you. because i am you.” i am you.

Impossibility of Gender Non-Conforming Life

i’m going to try to express something deeply painful for the first time so please be patient with me. as a brown gender non-conforming transfeminine person, every day when i wake up i have to decide between two unbearable options

1) wear what i want...& inevitably experience relentless harassment & potentially lethal violence at the hands of strangers in public with no support from others or
2) wear clothing associated with masculinity (pants, button down shirts, etc)...and inevitably experience extreme dysphoria & anxiety from being misgendered.

often people tell me that i should just “butch up” in order to experience less violence. this suggests a fundamental dismissal of the severity of gender dysphoria & mental health more broadly. violence isn’t just physical, it’s so much more than that.

i am so saddened by the constant belittling of mental health as always already “less than,” so frustrated by how much language i have to articulate the physical violence that happens to me but not the psychological. due to being constantly misgendered i experience severe anxiety & chronic pain. my body locks up, i feel unable to engage, disassociated. i can’t sleep. i spiral & spiral & spiral and want to disappear.

this is not because i have a *disorder,* this is not because of *my* shortcoming its because of THEIR transphobia, their willful ignorance, their bigotry. so every day we have to confront the reality that there are no safer options for us. and the gravity of that — knowing that there is no escape, no safety that is not temporary, no guaranteed stability...that permeates into every realm of our lives & holds us back from so much.

i want to do so many things but i can’t. i want to be so many things but i can’t. the rhetoric of choice gets flung at us: “well if you choose to look that way you have to accept the consequences”

...but do we have choice? we don’t change our appearances & we get misgendered & we do & we still get misgendered. we don’t change our appearances & we experience incredible pain & we do and we still experience pain. this is the impossibility of gender non-conforming life — that the things that give us life have the potential to give us death.

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Missing Grandma

i woke up today beneath one of my grandmothers paintings. in the corner lies her signature: Champa Vaid. i find it difficult to write about her now because i have to use the past tense. which is another way of saying: language mourns insufficiently. how callous it is to make something past with no ceremony? when she was (...) alive she used to make me turn her paintings around over & over again, ask: “which way do you think it should go?” “you know best grandma.” and that she did. she would decide and then etch her signature in the corner “so you know which way direction to put it.” 2017 was the year i remembered how to believe in magic. grandma died (...) & over night i saw her signature written on my chest. maybe so i knew which direction to go. maybe so i knew where i came from. i used to call her mostly inbetween things: meetings, classes, shows, destinations. she always answered. & i imagined her sitting in her bed & she imagined me going somewhere & we would talk about ‘nothing’ but it felt like ‘everything’ & it just got me there, where i was going. i rarely said goodbye, it was mostly “i have reached.” with her gone i feel lost. disoriented even. i r.i.p. at my chest, tear pieces out, look for the compass, the signature, the magic but all there is me. do her paintings miss her like i do? does art grieve more adequately than language? i think they do. i think it does. i think i make art to be remembered, like she did. maybe that’s the only thing women can do: write signatures like spells say, “i was here.” no: “i am here.”

Saying Bye to Achamma

for my past few days in Kerala i had stomach bug & in some perverse way i found myself enjoying the sickness because it meant being doted on by achamma. she spent hours on the phone calling every relative keeping them abreast of my bowel movements. she made me porridge & steamed banana, checking on me constantly throughout the day & the night. she told everyone how sad she was that i was sick. on my final night she offered to sleep on the ground next to my bed in case i needed anything. i am constantly thinking about the things i have lost to oceans & this is one of them: the ability to love like that, as if the boundaries between ‘her’ & ‘me’ are non-existent, as if me being sick was her being sick, the porousness, the refusal of individuality. at the same time, the failure of language to express what i felt — to say i am alive because of you. after leaving achamma I thought about the last time i said goodbye to my other grandmother. she died 6 months later. how i recorded a short video from afar for her on her death bed — me fumbling through another goodbye, a bunch of words to say: “I will remember.” why do we say bye instead of i will remember? when my sister left for college i cried every night for a month. at her graduation party i made a slideshow with a poem & cried so hard i had to leave the venue. how do we go on knowing it will never be the same? how do we say goodbye to the people we love? how come it’s goodbyes that let us know just how much we love them? i keep thinking about all of things i wanted to say/could have said/couldn’t say to achamma, to nani, to the people i love or rather, the people who keep me alive. so i write poems & letters & notes from afar miss everyone & everything, regret the limitations of a tongue, the vulgarity of a hand waving goodbye.
 

ode to the small town gay bar

after my 18th birthday i convinced a friend to drive me down to halo. i grew up in a small town in texas which is a polite way of saying i survived (we love euphemisms down here) which is another way of suggesting that almost a decade later i find it difficult to swallow when people say ‘happy birthday.’ it feels like a stale piece of cake in the fridge: beautiful until you bite. like im living on stolen time. 

halo was a gay bar downtown: a folklore passed down from high school seniors, a place of whispers, nudges, innuendos. i couldn’t believe it until i went. nothing like that could exist ‘here,’ & by here i mean the town i learned magic tricks: how to disappear myself, how to make them think i was still there. & by there i meant the baptist church around every corner, the persistent drone of ‘faggot’ ‘pussy’ ‘sissy’ flung at me like a morning prayer. a baptism in their spit. in god’s name, a-man!

i have never understood why they call it “coming out,” as if removing their arms from my neck is about my emergence & not their erasure. but at 18 i clung onto words like ‘gay’ to hold up a white flag among the wreckage. “i surrender.” less about the accuracy, more about indicating a sign of life. 

& i found myself at halo week after week too shy to ask anyone to dance (still am), that 18 year old messy girl on the stage getting her life (in more ways than one) until close, that flaming queen from texas, setting the stage on fire. it was me & “britney bitch!” & the goths & punks & rebel middle school teacher & old cowboy from 3 hours away, & that lady i recognized from the grocery store - it was “us,” one of the first times in my life i remember experiencing “us.” halo was that place where ‘we’ the discarded things, the children they did not talk about, the misfits, the queers, where we came to dance — or rather, live. 

here i am almost a decade later with a new gender & an old shirt. & so much of who i have become is from this bar & this town: learning to love difference in myself & others despite everything we were taught, saying “hello” like our lives depended on it, needing each other because we had nothing else.

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