On the Holy Spirit

As a Pentecostal the idea of the Holy Spirit, a swift wind inspiring change and freedom is central to my understanding of myself and my Christian Faith. As this weekend was Whitsun and the time when the Spirit first fell on Peter and the other disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem I will write something about breaking free, like a swift wind, about finding one's own voice even if it's in a language you haven't been told. About speaking and thinking in tongues. This new process is still very vulnerable, but it is forceful and it's happening right next to me. Getting to witness it is a great honor.

There was a time when I would shiver from the cold in my bathroom when I showered, now I place my feet longingly on its chilly tile. My white concrete walls glow from heat and the black floor of terass sizzles, when she shows up, to work.

I watch her in her white t-shirt and black shorts, her boyishly blond hair, those God-given arms, red from yesterdays tanning session on the sizzling terass.
I do a little bit of reading on the concepts of body modifications and the notion of the skin as a closed envelope for the self, freed from imprints caused by roaming postmodern identities of contemporary life. I rant a bit about narrow minded middleclass assumption of femininity and skin, and we end up talking as we usually do – about abilities, scars, clothing, butch, femme, girls, crushes, power, exposure, pain…

We talk about visibility, how she often passes as able-bodied, me often as a little nice girl, we compare scares. I show her the one at my loins (hardly visible she says) and she the one at her shoulder, it is wide and deep and the skin is leather-ey.
I show her the one at my Achilles tendons, bluish, thick and cold.
What does it mean, the skin as an unbroken envelope for the self? Does it mean that our selves slipped out somehow when they cut us up? Must I like the mark of the exit on my body?

We come back to butches and being read as male. I show her pictures of trans-men I know, cinnamon skin, piercings, blue shirts. And she says, all of a sudden, and in effect, with sadness to her cocky tone of voice.
It's UNFAIR!!
What do you mean, I say, why is it unfair?
Well look at them…they are beautiful, hot, strong, well made self-made men…

I take her hand in mine as I giggle.
But they have altered their bodies, they take T…
She interrupts me.
I...I want to look like that.
My smile is wider, I am so happy she would finally say
Oh…tranny boy!
Now she is the one giggling, but she has a fierce spark to her eye.
Boy, she says, yeah –boy!

We talk about identities again, the notion of being forced into a femininity that neither of us could have chosen. How I have used it, how I have known from involuntary changes of my body what it is like to be trapped underneath one's own skins, underneath the sealed envelope that 'protects' the self.

He doesn't understand, she says. That I am offended, when he says he thinks it's annoying that others read me as male. He can't figure out that that is at least partly what I want.
Have you told him? I ask.
No...
Well perhaps you should.

We make our way out on the terrass. I make a silly joke about her carrying the nuts and she calls me boss.
I lean out over the rail and admire the busy street below us, the stout houses with black roofs and royal icing ornaments.

Ze looks at ease beside me, as if ze is finally come all the way out.
We talk about energies, how I knew a long long while ago, what a boy she was…
And I tell hir kindly but sternly that ze mustn't be fooled by the gender binary, or by any false notions of what transitioning is. That it is only import to be comfortable in ones skin. Underneath the safely sealed envelope.

Ze tells me about yet another gay man, insisting "she could carry her baby herself…" hir eyes spark again…
Was he really that clueless? ze fairly shouts.,
But darling boy, I say. You must tell them…."I don't think I'll ever carry any babies and I don't like my tits that much!"
Ze laughs, loud and hir eyes glistens as ze says YEAH, just like that.

Hir shift is over, ze's barley worked, or at least ze doesn't think ze has. You're my gender boot camp ze says and I laugh inside, thinking of the femme, cis-gendered woman I am, how I am always the one who cries: NO FUCK GENDER! I DON'T CARE!

When ze is about to leave I make another silly joke. Ze say something about hir balls, and I point to hir chest and ask, which one?
Ze laughs. Oh, that's not okay, ze says. You don't make jokes about tranny boy's breasts.
My heart swells. Blessed boy, blessed, blessed little boy.

So yes. The wind has struck. The spirit. The wind of change and freedom, and we speak in tongues, we speak the truth. And the wind strikes. Like a paperknife it rips the envelope that confines our true selves.

Walk on tranny boy, walk on into glory and I shall cover your broad back with mine, until it bleeds.

On getting down to the nitty gritty...

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang!

I am sorry but I am getting a bit fed up now. Slightly sick and tired of how incapable people are of seeing what this is really about. The fact that what I do still evoke so many strange feelings. Why is it that there are so many things we handle better than this…
Why is it so hard to respect personal choice, why is it so hard to respect that the consensual choices of others might not be what you like. But, the opportunity for others to make those choices and turn away from lives prescribed to them by gender, class, race, age, size…whatever you would like, is what makes this world worth living in.

I am sorry but we must get personal now. This here world of assumptions of femininity is not big enough for the both of us. I am telling you, dear creators of “open” and “accepting” spaces, do not fuck with me… and beware, cute is a scare!

……

I am in the tackiest of clubs. I have told her to sit up straight to make it is easier to endure the strange feeling of being a zoo animal, little girls don’t come here. Little girls with frames don’t come here. They don’t wear silk blouse. They don’t wear silver crosses. Amongst leather pants and whips hanging from a belt, amongst eyes that measure me as a falsely conscious little girl not yet having found her place at the feet of the patriarchy.

I survive that evening because I cling on to her physically. When they look at us I look at her. There is a fatigue in her eyes the same as mine. A tire of those eyes that invade us, that measure our bodies and what we do.
When she is preoccupied with other things and I roam the vast club on my own I seek the eyes of other Ladies.
A woman with her boi on sofa…the knife slowly caressing hir fingers… She looks at me with that same fatigue, we sigh and I nod at her. I know what it’s like.

That’s when he approaches me. I must confess I didn’t like him that much prior to this either. He is the invasive kind, the exploiting kind, everyone in a space like this are vehicles for lust and that is his lust, he thinks.
I have been waiting for her which I clung to, who I told to sit up straight so that something would be endurable in this place, he looks at me with that icky middle aged man smile.
“Aaaw, little miss…” he says. “How are you?”

I am shocked. I am shocked at how easy he does it. How easy he belittles and ignores me. I am sure he knows what I do. I am sure his partner, who has seen me work stripes into shivering strong backs many a time before, have told him what I do. I am sure he knows that even if I am a girl I am no one’s girl.
I hope my eyes burn with that famous black soot I have been told they have when I tell him that I feel fine although I haven’t been able to play here since I didn’t feel safe.
Yet when I leave I am turned off, furious, hurt and sad. My invisibility was so hard to face. His, the middle aged man’s, part in that so obvious it stung my eyes.

…..

Let’s talk a bit about what he couldn’t cope with. Power. Girls with power. Let’s talk a bit about why the idea of the dominant woman is still scary. What have I done? What are we doing?

I grew up in an environment that respected my femininity, and the power I ascribed to it. I call my upbringing a matriarchy – my mother and her sister, my cousins and me, formed a bond of femininity and power. It stemmed from my grandmother and her sister, from a strong sense of survival and belonging.
I never knew of no patriarchy, I never knew that women were not allowed to have power. I never knew I wasn’t allowed to decide for others if they wanted me to do that.

And I was always just as puzzled when I saw the mindfuck in their eyes. In the eyes of men and women alike, when it didn’t match. When my body didn’t match my mind.

Or that’s not right, I match perfectly find with all my expectations of myself. It’s their expectations that I don’t match.

You see it’s not about exploitation, not about abuse and not about oppression. The way she cooks for me and the man, always a man, peeks in at us and asks me if I shouldn’t do that – as the girlie girl.

I don’t tell him to fuck off. I tell my glorious butch girl to tell the “nice” man that that is not how we do things. And she does because she loves me. She loves me when she squirms under my touch, when she bends her neck for me. And I love her when I do it, I love her the most when she gives all of her to me – I love her the most when we rip that patriarchy up by the roots, when I insert the matriarchy that fed and clothed me into the void that the loss of man-made worlds made in her.

I never understood why this was challenging. I never understood why women, girls, I, couldn’t do this? What prevents me? What would force me to do otherwise?

I am sorry but my mother, the Pentecostal, married, heterosexual mother of two, never taught me any of this. She taught me to hold my head high and give myself with love to others, and they will love me too.

So please, put your assumptions, your false notions of female sexuality and femme identities elsewhere. Please don’t put them in my lap – and mind you, don’t force them down my throat. I don’t really do that shit you see.
Ask the girls who have been mine, butches, femmes, bois and grrls alike what they felt when they were with me. What we did when we shared that love my mother told me to share. How we catered to one another.
Ask the patriarchy if it hurt when we ripped its roots.

…..

I leave that club numb. We agree it was bad night, a really bad night. I give her a quick hug before I get in the cab. I tell her she will pay for dragging me all the way there…. She knows I am more serious about then I look. I giggle as she blushes.
On my way home I write a letter of memories and paths travelled for all the women and men that ever giggled sweetly at me assumed I was nice and humble only because I was cute.

To patriarchy with love, best wishes - little girls of the matriarchy!