Tag Archives: trans

Grief, Healing, a New Book, and Other Updates

These past few weeks have been difficult. A friend died, and it’s unclear whether it was suicide or accidental. What is clear is that she is gone. As an atheist, I don’t have the comfort of believing that she’s still around in the afterlife. With a single bullet, her energy and the light and love she carried within her dissipated, and that is a true tragedy.

The same day as that lovely human took her life, I found out another friend has inoperable cancer and an unknown amount of time left. This activist and inspirational human told me what matters is the fight to make the world a better, more equal place, but all I could feel was grief. For the past few weeks, I’ve been cycling through depression, anger, denial, and numbness, but I’ve finally begun to find the peace he told me about the cancer with.

The turning point was not what I expected. Grieving, broken, sliding from numbness to depression to crushing anger moment to moment, I drove my way home from a discussion at the local humanist center far from at peace. When I walked through the door, though, my roommate introduced me to “When Marnie Was There.” His favorite Studio Ghibli film, it was a moving, ultimately healing testament to overcoming tragedy, and when it ended, I felt lifted up with hope, the first hope I’d felt since the day of bad news.

Day to day, I’m finding my healing.

There’s been good news, too, though.

On July 20th, I put out a new book. Raw and honest, “Seven Ways to Break a Heart” deals with themes of heartbreak, addictive love, and tragedy in a deeply moving, transformative manner.

There will also be a book release party for this book on August 16th. Taking place at Maya Pizzeria in Mesa, Arizona from 7pm to midnight, there will be fantastic musicians, wonderful friends, my books, and some of the best pizza on Earth.

Later in August, I will, for the first time in years, be going back to college. I’d dropped out with only 4 classes left before my associate’s degree when I needed to appeal my financial aid suspension (I’d dropped too many classes due to a series of traumatic events that had severely exacerbated my PTSD) and been too overwhelmed and stressed by the appeals process to complete the steps to have financial aid returned. I finally took the necessary steps to appeal, and will be registering for my classes shortly.

Also, in February of next year in Bisbee, Arizona, I will be doing a workshop on “Navigating Gender Identity” as part of a series of workshops to help provide more information and support for the trans and non-binary community in Cochise County. I feel incredibly lucky to be part of this transformative movement toward a brighter future, and especially in as lovely of a place as Bisbee.

I’ve recently begun working again on my dystopian YA science fiction novel entitled “Crimson Class Rebel,” and I am 138 pages in. I recorded the first chapter as a little sneak peak for you guys, and I’ll be releasing that chapter soon.

The last bit of news is personal, but something I’m incredibly proud of. I’ve been struggling with weight gain for years, reaching 300 lbs at my highest, and feeling hopeless about my ability to lose any of it, but in the past couple months, I’ve managed to lose 28 lbs. While I’ve still got a way to go to reach my personal weight goals, I am proud of myself for overcoming my despair and stress to take steps that improved my health. Though I do believe that no one should be shamed or judged based on their weight, I personally was unhappy with mine, and am proud of what I have achieved on my own weight loss.

What have you achieved recently that has made you proud, and do you have any advice or things that have helped you to overcome your own moments of grief?

Poem Interlude: Stage Fright

final rainbow

Stage Fright

It was June 2013 when I first told the world
the doctors were wrong. I’m not a girl.
I said it from the stage, the educator’s way;
then I stepped down as my entire life changed.

When I think of fear I think of success,
of turning points where there’s no going back.
Of my first Open Mic when I forgot my own words,
yet people cheered and I still was heard.

The deepest fear I’ve ever felt on stage
was the end of a festival, the day I told my best mates,
“I am male. I want to go by James.
Respect it or not, it is still my name.”

See, none of the musicians I spoke to knew,
and when the camera turned off, my shaking grew.
I didn’t expect the hugs and encouragement.
They admired my strength, and I’m better for it.

I keep seeking the stage to fight my fear,
and two years later, I’m still here;
my own books in my hands, words on my tongue.
They’re how I fight back, written, spoken, or sung.

But I no longer fight alone.

Bisbee Pride, Pt 1

Bisbee Pride, Pt 2

Bisbee Pride, Pt 3

Bisbee Pride, Pt 4

Poem Interlude: Stage Fright

Central School Project: Interview with Pete Goldlust

Sidepony Express Music Festival: Interview with Anamieke Quinn

How I Chose My Name (And Why You Should Use It)

final rainbow

Every name has a story.

I was born with a different name than the one I carry now, in an Ohio suburb that I only vaguely remember. Growing up wild and mischievous, the intensely feminine name that I had been given made me uncomfortable. It never felt right.

That wrongness was something I thought about more and more over the years. I don’t think my parents ever noticed the discomfort, but then again, I don’t think I ever talked about it. It was just one of those things that there weren’t set words for, or at least words I knew how to express. I’m only finding them now, at 25, sitting at the computer in a body that often feels like it belongs to someone else.

As I got into high school, I started thinking very seriously about what name I’d pick, if I only got the choice. It was a hard battle, hampered by unacknowledged discomforts with my body and orientation, and I didn’t manage to settle on anything concrete during those four tumultuous years.

Time continued to pass, and what the right name for me (the one I just hadn’t found yet) was remained a mystery. Then, in this past year, I began intensive research on what two names would label my soul in a concrete, accurate way. I couldn’t keep walking in a name that made me cringe. It was bad enough being trapped in this body when the dysphoria hit. A false start or two later, I finally settled on James Avery.

James, to me, has always been confident, extroverted, and a little mischievous. James can stride into a room and join a conversation without fear. James radiates calm and humor. James is the best parts of me and the things I want most to be. James is me at my fullest potential. Every time I am called James, I am reminded of my best self and pushed to continue striving for it.

Is it any wonder I chose the name?

How about Avery, then? I like Avery because it reminds me where I came from, and to never forget the inequality women face. As a gender-neutral name, it reinforces the message that though I am leaving behind my birth sex, I shouldn’t forget what I have been through, and what women go through every day. It also keeps me from forgetting that I don’t have to always be masculine to be male.

When I pick a name with that much meaning, is it strange that I want to be called by it? And yet every day I get comments like, “You’ll always be [deadname] to me,” or “I’m sorry, but you don’t look like a James.” Yet if I had gotten married and changed my last name, there would be very little problem.

Why do some people refuse to call someone by a name that has meaning to them and instead insist on one arbitrarily assigned at birth? It takes people time to get used to a new name, but why do some completely reject a person’s right to define their own identity?

I think it’s because, unconsciously or consciously, the people who insist upon misnaming others realize that calling someone by a name that they chose, a name that means something to them and describes them, requires you to acknowledge their humanity. Misnaming is a way of denying someone’s personhood, and that is the worst kind of crime.

Man

From Gasoline and Winter

I became a man the day I stopped being a boy,
not the day I first bound my breasts to ease the ache inside.
It wasn’t when testosterone hit like hope,
or the first time I kissed a girl.

I became a man the day I stopped being a boy.

I’m not a freak or fairy or a lesser man
because my body differs from yours.
My name is James, not “Miss” or girl.
I became a man the day I stopped being a boy.

How to Respond When Someone Tells You Their Body is Not Their Gender

  1. Thank them for trusting you. It isn’t an easy thing to talk about. It takes people a long time to come to terms with gender, and it’s often dangerous to bring up. Even when it isn’t, people are scared of the reactions of others.
  2. Respect their gender identity. Call them by the gender and gender pronoun they prefer, and ask them what they are.
  3. Do not tell anyone they have not given you permission to about their gender. Not only is it a betrayal of trust, but it can, again, be dangerous. Along with this you should ask if there are people who don’t know, and how you should refer to the person confiding in you when those who don’t know are around.
  4. Realize that everyone’s experience with their gender identity is different, and remember it is not the same thing as sexuality. Not everyone wants to transition, and not everyone views male and female the same way. Some people may act in “typically masculine” ways and still be female, and the reverse is true as well. And then there’s the difference between gender and sexuality. Gender is the gender of the person. Sexuality relates to the gender of the person they are attracted to. Don’t assume they are interrelated in any way.
  5. Treat them the same. They didn’t become a three-armed monster bent on destroying the world when they told you about their gender. They didn’t change who they were, either. They just let you get to know them better. Same person = same treatment, outside of respecting pronouns.
It’s as simple as that.

If you wonder why this is so important, read this survey’s results. (Since replaced with this 2015 version)

If you wonder how I came up with this specific method, it is an aggregate of the best reactions I’ve had, the best reactions a number of people I’ve surveyed have had, and this post.

Call Me Gentleman

final rainbow

My little brother was the first to call me a gentleman, and my eyes lit up like electricity. I’d just discovered that I liked male pronouns, but I hadn’t yet realized what a powerful word gentleman could be. It’s more than just a word for a man. It’s praise.

My gender is still up in the air, but there’s something undoubtedly delightful about the combination of “gentle” and “man”. It implies that the typically underrated quality of gentleness in males is in fact something to aspire to, not mock. And the way it feels in the mouth as my tongue rolls out the word… It’s beautiful.

It has such exquisite meaning, too. It brings to mind holding open doors and pulling out chairs and taking the time to listen. I can’t say I’m a perfect listener, but these are things I desire to be.

Perhaps, after all, gentleman is simply an ideal that leaves us striving to better ourselves, and isn’t that why we are here? I want to be a gentleman in the fullest sense of the word: not just on Tuesdays, or with someone I love, but always.

Call me a gentleman only when I’ve earned it, but call me a gentleman.