I'm done with my degree program at Everett Community College, done but for the technicalities of crossing t's and dotting i's. When I went to school, this time around, I did it on the Post-9/11 GI Bill. I earned this as part of my compensation package while on active duty with the US Army. The GI Bill paid tuition directly to my school each quarter, and gave me a monthly cost-of-living stipend on a sliding scale that adjusted for active weeks of school in session for any given month. It also gave me a book stipend, up to $1,000 per year.
While far from extravagant, the stipend did permit me to move out of the church parking lot where hashtag-my-favorite-mistake and I lived for about a year and a half. It allowed me to keep paying on my car to avoid losing it completely, ultimately paying it off as the loan finished amortizing while my only income was the stipend. It kept my cats fed, it let me eat while I went to school, and it let me pay rent, most months, to my landlord, who happens to also be a very good friend. A very good friend who let me stay in this room for about a year before he asked me for any money at all.
Now that I've finished my degree, the hard part begins. I need to find a job. I will get one last partial GI Bill disbursement in late December or early January, and that's it. Once it gets here, I will probably have about $1,000 to my name. And even though DSHS says my car is worth about $2,700, my net worth is still well below zero.
A photo posted by Seranine Elliot (@aggressivefrontpocket) on
Because it is and it isn't rough. For a trans woman, I'm doing remarkably well. I have shelter. A little bit of money. I've managed to finish a degree program, and I haven't been forced into sex work. Yet. If all goes well, I'll be doing some kind of administrative work within a month, and be back into technical work within another five, all while still pursuing performance opportunities, with the support of an amazing girlfriend.
Part of pursuing performance (including modeling, acting, singing, and dancing) professionally is demonstrating comfort with public scrutiny. This wasn't a formal consideration when I just up and decided I was a public figure. A lot of it is stuff that I already do anyway, and things like the daily outfit selfies evolved out of wanting to track changes in my body that resulted from HRT. The goal, though, has always been to provide a candid window into my life. That's why, when I do a modeling shoot, I snap behind-the-scenesshots, and don't just put up the finished ones. It's why you can see close-ups of my face before and after electrolysis, even though neither is particularly attractive.
Some people think of social media as a way to project the image of a better life than what they actually have. To hide misery and create the kind of veneer of happiness that causes people to be shocked when they hear about a divorce announcement. I'd seen some news recently about a model who went kinda Shia LaBeouf about her career and the mechanisms of achieving internet fame, and her whole angle was about how social media is a lie. While I get what she was saying for her own life, I don't see mine that way.
A photo posted by Seranine Elliot (@aggressivefrontpocket) on
I see my social media outlets as an intentional focus. For most of my life, I was incredibly ungrateful, and felt very entitled. I was very well-off in terms of survival needs, but I'd become so largely by accident. When the dot-com bubble burst and I found myself without proof of current skills in the form of any sort of degree or certification, I also found myself without professional contacts who wanted to hire me on the basis of having worked with me before, because they'd all lost their jobs, too. My entire professional network was out of work, and I sat around thinking, "why me?"
On paper, right now, today, my life is a train wreck. On fire. At the bottom of a cliff it just drove off of. I have thousands of dollars in actual debt spread across the last 20 years, probably thousands more in fraudulent debt assigned to me by a jilted ex, I live in a room in my friend's house which could be taken from me at a moment's notice, I don't have a job, I have uncovered medical expenses that I need to pay for out-of-pocket, girls like me are routinely subjected to discrimination that ranges from the absurd to the fatal.
Making all of those things into the defining aspects of my life would not be accurate, though. More and more, I've been developing my capacity to be genuinely grateful for the real bounty of my life. I have wonderful friends who respect me for who I am, and don't judge me based on my life circumstances. I've been able to rescue a number of cats who exist because of my mistakes, and, as hard as it will be, I now have the time and space and opportunity to start rehoming them. I have had the good fortune to have lunch with a state representative because I'd taken a paid performance opportunity. After we did our bit, I bent his ear for a moment about trans issues, and gave him one of my social cards. Isn't that wonderful?
One of the gentlemen at my table at this luncheon was the Director of Accessibility (or something like that) Director of Customer Service, Trusted Experience Team at Microsoft, and mentioned in his award acceptance speech how his team needed more good people; that if anyone knew any, they should refer them to him. So I referred myself. I gave him one of my social cards, and gratefully accepted his business card, along with his request for my current résumé. Isn't that wonderful? And, sure, I've now lost his card twice, each time because I'd very carefully put it somewhere where I knew I couldn't possibly lose it, but still. I'll find it, and send him my current résumé. And come back to this blog post and correct his title, if I've mucked it up. (Update: found it.)
I still have my guitar, the same one I've had since the early '90s. My hands still work well enough for me to play it. The songs I've written and performed with it have won praise from professional working musicians who move in circles I never believed I'd be even remotely connected to, even after I spent years petulantly wondering why nobody had discovered me and my music while I mostly hid in my room and played songs for myself. I have the respect and friendship of former instructors from The Art Institute of Seattle, one of whom wants to collaborate with me musically, another who invited me to see a private screening of his current work, another who is building an art installation and fashion show concept with trans women at its core, and wants me to model for it, still another who wants me to come speak to their Gender and Sexuality Studies class.
I have an amazing, patient, stable, brilliant, geeky, loving, determined, thoughtful girlfriend.
A photo posted by Seranine Elliot (@aggressivefrontpocket) on
There's good and bad all around us, all the time. It's all gonna be there, no matter what. I spent about 25 years focusing on what was shitty, and I did it so well that I crippled my capacity to feel emotion of any sort, never mind just pleasure or gratitude. The shitty was limitless. I became a part of it as it became a part of me, and I. Was. Miserable.
Now, I've spent about a year really practicing focusing on what's wonderful. And I've come to realize that the wonderful is limitless, too. And now that it's become a part of me, I strive to bring a positive feedback loop with me wherever I go, instead of a negative one. I give a stranger a genuine smile, and get one back, and we're both a little happier for it. We both have one more thing to look back on, that day, and say, "that was wonderful." I get attacked on social media, and I reason with the attacker, wishing them well at the end of our interaction, no matter the outcome. People message me privately to say my compassion was inspiring to them, my refusal to fight at the expense of true engagement. We both have one more thing to look back on, that day, and say, "that was wonderful."
This is a trying time. My resources are now very painfully finite. But, I applied for SNAP, and they approved my claim. Now, if nothing else, I'll be able to eat. And that is wonderful. If I get a job in the next week, I'll look back and say, "that was a scary week, but now that it's past, it wasn't so bad." If I get a job in three months, I'll say, "that was a really rough three months, but now I can really get to work." And all along the way, I'll say, "here I am, today, smiling, because I am such a lucky girl."
It's not that I have had more luck. It's that I've been consciously focusing on it.
I found this on my Facebook somewhere. I'm going to actually answer them all right now:
1. "When Did You Decide to Switch Genders?"
I never switched. Therefore, I never decided.
What a person asking this question is usually trying to ask is when someone realized they were not the gender they'd been designated at birth, and/or when they acted on that realization by beginning physiological transition processes. I first began to realize that I'd been incorrectly designated male at birth (DMAB) on August 10, 2014. I began transition more or less immediately.
2. "What's Your Real Name?"
Seranine Elliot. I had it legally changed on September 3, 2014. The "nine" part sounds like the number. Most people just call me "Sera," which basically sounds the same as "Sara" or "Sarah." The full name rhymes with "Caroline" with a schwa for the "o," including stress and inflection.
Keep in mind that a legal name change is not free. Many trans people choose a new name for themselves, but do not necessarily have the resources to get it legally changed at the same time. Many trans people are also reluctant to release their previous name, because it is usually used to harass, abuse, and/or disrespect them.
3. "Can I See a Picture of You Before You Transitioned?"
Sure, here's a whole pile of them. Pre-transition and/or pre-realization pictures show trans people under
duress. A picture of someone who is not able to be their authentic self
can be painful to even think about, let alone share. I publish mine because I want to shed light on my own process, so cis people can see for themselves how ordinary it all is, how human, and so trans people can see that it can be done, even for someone who didn't realize she'd always been a girl until she was almost 40.
4. "I'm Impressed - You Look Just Like a REAL Woman!"
This is meant to be complimentary, generally, but it necessarily implies that trans women are not actual women, which is false. I haven't personally heard this one to my face, yet, but I imagine that I'd probably reply with a thank-you, followed immediately by an explanation of why that's considered an unkind thing to say to a trans woman.
5. "Have You Had the Operation Yet?"
I suspect that most of the people who ask this sort of question are so overwhelmed by their curiosity about something they are usually completely unfamiliar with that they forget they are asking these questions of another human being. And human beings, broadly speaking, do not enjoy talking details about their genitals with most other human beings.
Fortunately, I am a cat.
I have not had Genital Reconstructive Surgery (GRS) or an orchiectomy (removal of the testes). (UPDATE: I had my orchiectomy on January 22, 2016.) If you really care to know when I have either, the best way to find out, honestly, would be to follow my social media. I'd go with my Facebook Public Figure Page, if I were you, but if you don't care about a by-the-minute level of detail, and just want to read a nice summary of it all whenever I get to writing about it, following this blog will do.
6. "Can You Still Have Orgasms?"
Much like #5 above, this is generally not good acquaintance-conversation fodder. The general rule is that if you wouldn't ask it of anybody else, you should probably not ask it of a trans person, either.
I am, in most arenas, an exception, because I have publicly and repeatedly said that I welcome questions as long as they are civil and respectful. My short answer to this question is, "yes." My long answer is probably another entire blog post, at least.
7. "Do You Take Hormones?"
Like most medical issues, this is usually considered private and personal. I am, again, an exception, because I am deliberately sharing my progress with as wide an audience as possible.
A photo posted by Seranine Elliot (@aggressivefrontpocket) on
My specific drugs, doses, and changes to either are usually not too hard to find. I tend to post about them on my Instagram, and share those posts to my Facebook Page. Right now, my Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) regimen is 2mg estradiol, 200mg spironolactone, and 5mg medroxyprogesterone daily.
8. "Wow, I Actually Find You Kind of Attractive - Great Job!"
I've actually heard this one, or some variant of it, a few times. Like #4, it's meant to be complimentary, but it's not hard to see why it isn't. It's objectifying, for starters, and it also makes a pretty bold assumption about someone's motivations for presenting themselves in whatever way. Whenever I've dressed up and put on makeup, which is most of the time when I leave the house, I've literally never done it with the intent of pleasing anyone else in any way. I do it primarily because it feels right.
It also says that you believe that the trans person you are saying this to is not normally seen as attractive by anyone, so they should be happy to hear that you, at least, find them somewhat attractive, so their future will not be as loveless and bleak as you had imagined it would otherwise be. This is kind of a horrible sentiment to share with anyone, for any reason. Even if someone is conventionally "unattractive," pointing that out to them in this kind of backhanded manner is as cruel as any other way of pointing it out. Chances are, they know how they are seen by society at large.
For myself, yes, there is definitely an element of trying to present to the culture, but since I'm a trans ambassador, I worry less about maintaining that presentation than I imagine most trans women do. I'm also fortunate enough to be slim and have relatively little body hair, on a body that was kind of androgynous to begin with, and is also white enough to be treated as capital-W White. Which means people more readily accept me as a woman, all other things being equal, than a trans woman who is comparably dressed, but darker, or with more body hair, or broader shoulders.
9. "Is It Okay to Still Call You 'He'? Sorry - It's Just Confusing!"
(I adapted this question to me; their version shows a presumably trans man to support the text.)
It's not okay to call me "he," because my gender is not male. I appreciate how it could be confusing for people who were around me before I knew who I was; until August of 2014, I'd never directly questioned the gender I was designated, either, so we all just moved along acting as though I was a guy. If I'd been called "she" then, or some other female pronoun, I would've been upset. That's because people tend to not like being called a gender other than the one they think they are. (Which is not necessarily the one they actually are, and yes, I realize that that opens the door to the idea that a trans person only thinks they are a gender other than the one they were designated at birth. But I basically used to think I was male, whereas I now know that I'm female. I've done the work in challenging and examining my own gender, so I'm no longer operating on an assumption. I'm dealing with an absolute truth.)
If you are a cis male, imagine that everyone, everywhere called you "ma'am," or "miss," and referred to you with she/her/hers, instead of he/him/his. As someone who knows himself to be male, and who understands that to be an absolutely true part of your core identity, that would be immediately distressing. It would feel frustrating and degrading, and if you had no way to get most people, most of the time, to gender you correctly, it could even feel overwhelmingly hopeless. And all of that is the very common trans person's experience.
Some people honestly do not know trans people's pronouns, and are visibly agitated while they try to figure them out. I suggest simply asking someone what their pronouns are. Not what they prefer, but what they are. Just like your pronouns, they are simple fact, not preference. Once they've told you what their pronouns are, do your best to respect them, and apologize if you fuck them up. If you do those things genuinely, it will be enough.
10. "What Does Sex Feel Like for You?"
Just like #6, there is a short answer ("fucking amazing"), and a long answer which is far too complex to dump into a survey-level post like this. It would also require co-authoring, or at least getting an okay to talk about some experience(s) in detail, which is, again, way too much for this particular post.
Rest assured that I am not personally shy about talking about sex and my own sexuality. However, I do want to be respectful to past and present partners, and I am also determined to present a balanced picture of who I am as an entire person, so I am reluctant to focus too intently on these topics before I've delved into plenty of other things that are only related by being parts of me. That is, you will probably see a post about my return to World of Warcraft long before you see the post about what sex feels like for me.
11. "Wait - If I'm Attracted to You, Am I Still Straight?"
If you are a woman, then, probably not. If you are a man, then, probably yes. (This is a much more complex question than it seems like, and it's got an answer even more complex than that. As soon as I've developed or found a better model for explaining it, I'll share, but in the meantime, these are more or less correct responses.) If you are unsure about why this could be considered offensive, then consider the same question posed by a person of the opposite gender to you.
12. "Which Bathroom Do You Use?"
In public, gender-segregated bathroom situations, I use the same bathroom as all the other women. Just like #11, it's easy to see how this question is offensive if you imagine someone asking it to you.
13. "So What Surgeries HAVE You Had?"
Like #5, this is usually considered private, personal information, like any other medical information. And as in other questions here, I'm not generally shy about answering them for myself, while explaining why the question is usually considered offensive. I've had no surgeries yet, per se, although I have been getting electrolysis on an hour-a-week schedule since November 7, 2014. The only major surgeries I intend to definitely get as of now are GRS, and a chondrolaryngoplasty, also known as a "tracheal shave." That reduces the appearance of the Adam's apple.
Just like most of the things I share about my life and my transition, if you want to keep up on details, my Facebook Page is a good place to start. If you want more long-form analytical kinds of pieces and don't care about knowing that I've had GRS the instant I've actually had GRS, then this blog is all you need to track.
14. Using Words Like "Tranny" and "Shemale" (Even Jokingly)
Yeah, these are slurs, which means their primary purpose is to degrade and dehumanize people. You should avoid using them, unless your purpose is to educate, as I'm doing here. I suppose if your goal is to actually degrade and dehumanize someone, then these are appropriate words to use, but if that's your goal, that's kind of awful, to be honest.
15. "What Did Your Family Think? I Mean Really... It's Kind of Selfish."
My immediate family, to my knowledge, is fine with it. I know firsthand that my brother, his wife, and all of their children are very supportive, and have been from the moment I told them. My parents, though I still very rarely speak to them (I've actually only called them once in the last few years, on Mother's Day 2015), are also, at worst, fine with it, as far as I've been able to tell.
My kids know by now, I'm sure, because their mother knows. She found out at some point after I started publishing this blog, since I found out that she found out when she posted an unsurprisingly very-off-topic comment on the latest post at that time. What any of them truly think of it, I don't know. Whenever I'm finally able to actually see my kids again, I will probably write about it here.
There is nothing selfish about being one's authentic self. What is selfish is to demand that someone else deny their very identity so that you can feel more comfortable. The whole idea that it's necessary to "protect the children" from uncommon genders and gender presentations is absurd for two reasons: one, kids don't have trouble wrapping their heads around them until or unless they are programmed to by their adults, and two, cis kids don't need protection from being uncomfortable because someone failed to model empathy and objectivity for them; but trans kids need protecting from misinformation and ignorance about trans people in general, and from violence, whether they do it to themselves, or someone else does it to them. They also need to be able to see healthy, happy, and safe role models. Role models like me.
16. "How Do You Have Sex?"
Just like #6 and #10, there is a short answer ("usually lying down"), and a longer answer which requires other people to be okay with me sharing intimate details, and for me to simultaneously have the time and energy to do so, and for my social media presence to be in general showing a relatively balanced and accurate view of who I am as a whole person, not just as a sexual being. So, I'll probably write about it eventually, but I wouldn't suggest you wait around for it with, dare I say it, bated breath.
17. "Are You Sure You're Not Just Gay?"
Oh, I'm very sure I'm very gay. I mean, I could be gayer. But I'm pretty fucking gay. This isn't a very good question to ask someone who's come out to you as trans for a couple reasons.
One, gender is not sexuality. I've always been predominantly attracted to women, and ever-so-slightly-but-mostly-just-theoretically attracted to men. My sexual preference didn't change. (I had thought it might, but it's shown no real signs of shifting.) All that changed was my understanding of my reference point to it. That is, I'd assumed I was male, so I saw my self as straight, or straight-preference. I've always actually been female, so I've been gay or gay-preference all along.
Two, it presumes that they've not considered this angle themselves. And that's pretty presumptuous.
18. "So, You're Transgender - That's Like Being a Drag Queen, Right?"
No, because drag queens are men who are pretending to be women, because entertainment, while trans women are women who are actually women, because reality. There can be some physical commonalities between some trans women, and your average drag queen, so I don't actually find it to be completely impossible to understand the origins of this question. That said, I hope you can all understand why it is usually going to be hurtful, and is definitely ignorant.
19. "Why Don't You Try Harder? Nobody Can Even Tell You're a Woman!"
(I adapted this question to me; their version shows a presumably trans man to support the text.)
I haven't gotten this question yet. Mostly because I "pass" pretty well when I've shaved and done my makeup and put together a decent outfit, which is most of the time when I leave the house. But also because, at least in fairly liberal western Washington, people tend to realize it's a shitty thing to say.
A photo posted by Seranine Elliot (@aggressivefrontpocket) on
I've seen some raised eyebrows as people worked to determine what I was without being told during this current quarter back at the community college. Since two of my three classes each day are arts classes involving paints and clay, I haven't bothered doing makeup or dressing up ever, for the most part. I've also stopped scheduling electrolysis around massive time windows, to allow for me to grow out enough facial hair for my electrologist to actually get ahold of and remove, without being seen in public. But even so, everyone here just seems to get it.
The short answer to why this is a horrible question is best summed up in this Erin McKean quote: "Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female.’" The long answer, which is a much broader concept, but which answers this question, and many others, is the subject of a future blog post on where gender is.
20. "So You're a Transvestite?"
No. As in #18, these are different things, although they can be understandably confusing from the outside. A transvestite is a man who enjoys dressing and presenting in ways most commonly associated with women, and not men. Another term for "transvestite" is "cross-dresser." A woman is a woman who dresses however she dresses.
21. "Stop Trying So Hard - You Look Like a Drag Queen!"
This is definitely disrespectful, and shows a pretty profound lack of empathy. Nobody's said anything like this to me, but it should be easy for anyone to see why this kind of statement is problematic. Just like #19, it gets into society policing appearance to a nearly-codified extent; but gender isn't determined by clothing. Clothing can help you figure out your gender. It does not actually make gender.
You can test this, if you don't believe me. Or if you are bored. If you are a cis man, go put on a dress. If you are still a man, congratulations, you have confirmed that gender is not determined by clothing. If you think you are or might be a woman, congratulations, you're probably trans, and you've got me to talk to about it. If you go change back into "guy clothes" and you feel like a guy again, congratulations, you are probably genderfluid, which is, itself, a gender, and is not determined by clothing, although clothing may influence your perception of which expression is more prevalent to you at any given time.
My best advice in general for approaching a trans person with your curiosity and questions is to ask yourself a few questions, first. Questions like, "would I be okay with someone asking me the same thing?" and "can I probably look these terms up myself, and not bother them with questions they probably get all the time?"
I definitely murdered a bunny with my car yesterday morning.
I'd woken up about two hours before my alarm was set to go off, so I had a comparatively lazy morning. I was doing all of the things I normally do to get ready, but at about 80% speed. Even though I got up two hours early, I didn't leave two hours early; I left about 90 minutes early.
There was some back-and-forth, as I checked and double-checked to see whether I'd forgotten anything. I came back into my bedroom to grab the novel my girlfriend had just bought for me, and headed towards the car. Then I remembered that I might need my tablet, so I turned around again and grabbed the tablet. And again to get a charger. And again, and again.
But I did eventually get out the door. I drove up to the gate, and got out to unlock it. Once I'd swung it open, driven through, parked again, and almost gotten it closed, I noticed that I'd neglected to put on any rings. I normally wear at least one, just for the look of it; a simple accessory. I only have a few, and they were all gifts, but I like trying to match them to whole outfits. But whatever fingers I'd put any of them on, I never put them on my left ring finger, because it has a cultural significance. When Kim asked if I wanted to be her girlfriend, after I'd gotten over flailing and squealing about that, one of the consequences of my "yes" answer was that I started making sure I wore a ring on my left ring finger every day.
This was not to say that Kim and I are destined to be married, or any other sort of farcical teenage dream. It was just a way for me to strongly suggest, to anyone who might want to hit on me, that I am no longer available to anyone else, romantically or sexually. Got it covered.
I hesitated by the gate, but then decided that I should just get going, because it wasn't a huge deal. I locked the gate, got back into my car, set up my GPS, and started driving. And before long, a bunny came shooting out of the brush to my left, and I made the tragic mistake of braking and changing my course slightly. Since the bunny did the same general thing at the same time, instead of being able to dodge where my car had been going, it got directly under the tires.
I suppose it died instantly. I certainly hope that it did.
I became extremely upset. I slowed down tremendously and agonized through tears over whether to turn back around, to see if the bunny had survived at all, to maybe take it to a veterinarian. I kept on driving, though, telling myself that since I'd been so sick the previous week, and not even at school (or blogging!), that I could not afford the time. I felt awful committing to that path. Committing to busywork while a creature I'd gravely wounded or killed was lying on the road.
A photo posted by Seranine Elliot (@aggressivefrontpocket) on
And then my mind did the thing that it's always done. It started suggesting reasons why this all happened. If I hadn't woken up so early. If I hadn't convinced myself that I could get into the school a couple hours before my usual time, and get some things done. If I hadn't forgotten to put on a ring. If I hadn't hesitated while debating whether to go back to the house and get one. If I'd just gone back to get one.
My mind invented this fantasy, that because I had neglected to put on the mildly culturally significant ring, I was being punished in some sort of cosmic, karmic sense. I had gone off course, and needed to be pushed back onto it by any means necessary. Sacrifices had to be made.
All of which is obviously absurd. But it does speak to our need to make sense of the world, and the events in it. People want to be able to say that everything happens for a reason, and to believe that utterly. It means that when commercial jets are being smashed deliberately into skyscrapers, there is some larger purpose. It means that when a kid you thought you knew starts shooting up your school, they're not just bitter or angry or from some kind of broken home where none of their emotional needs are being met, they are an Agent of God.
This is how religions start, by the way. And also bigotry. Someone somewhere sees something that needs an explanation. And in a particularly non-scientific way, they deduce reasons for that thing, and then select the most appealing one. I am positively bonkers about Kim. I suppose that means that on some level, I'm afraid of fucking things up, I'm afraid I'll lose her. How? Well, most likely by forgetting a trivial token accessory, apparently.
So this narrative gets constructed in my head, one where I am closing the gate and locking it as the bunny is kissing its family good-bye before charging across the danger zone to get to the really good food on the other side. Where I hesitate for some reason, and the bunny turns back and gets something it left behind in the warren. Where I depress the accelerator, and the bunny sees the looming clearing of the road on the other side of some brush, and a glorious field beyond that. Where I kill the bunny because there is a reason for it.
But the bunny didn't die for me. It didn't die for anything. It died because it could not survive the way the world works right now. It did the thing it was born to do — it died, and ultimately the best that would come of it would be that its body would be eaten by something else. And then passed. And then absorbed. And then absorbed again. And then eaten, and then eaten again.
Tragedies are called senseless, because they are. They are utterly without purpose. And so, inherently, are we. But we are also sentient, and can decide upon our own purpose. We can make our own meaning of life. Our own Meaning of Life, rather.
I calmed myself down by the time I got to Everett Station to jump on my bus downtown. I chatted with Kim a bit, I let myself be where I was, on the bus. A man with a bike got on after two other people had already loaded into the bike rack, filling it, and the bus driver let him just roll his bike into the front area of the bus. He told the man that if someone in a wheelchair boarded, he would have to kick him off, and the man said it was fine. The bus driver laughed, and said he was kidding. I smiled.
I went to both of my classes, checked in with my instructors about having been out sick the previous week, and left. My mildly transphobic friend Rich, and his wife, gave me a ride to Westlake Center, so I could catch my bus to Everett Station without having to walk anywhere dark or unsafe. As usual. Right as I rounded the corner from where they dropped me, I saw my route pulling up, so I ran. I got to the bus in plenty of time to board, and plopped into my seat, feeling fortunate to have gotten there right when the bus did.
The previous evening, Kim had been talking about friends of hers, and mentioned another trans girl who lives in Seattle, whom she'd met a few times in a few ways before finally just establishing a friendship. And when I saw her picture, I knew I'd seen her before, but I couldn't place where, at first. But then I remembered; she had written to me on my OK Cupid awhile ago, just reaching out to be friendly. And I'd written her back, more or less saying that I'd be happy to meet up some time, but that I was absurdly busy. But we had never really talked. When I got home, I messaged her from my OK Cupid, with my personal private Facebook URL, and told her that she knew my girlfriend, and that we should definitely hang out soon! So she added me.
We chatted on and off a bit throughout the day yesterday, mostly mundane stuff. But when I was riding the bus back to Everett Station, she asked me about confidence. She asked how I was so confident, how I could seem so cool and calm no matter what, because she did not feel that way, herself. My response, perhaps somewhat predictably, was to ask if she had seen Avengers.
With this conversation fresh in my mind, with the clarity of having put a major component of my life philosophy into words, I walked back to my car, alone. I saw a man standing by the Swift terminal, looking somewhat lost. I try to avoid mentioning this next thing, in general, because I think it's kind of bullshit that people insist on mentioning it when talking about someone even when it's not relevant, but it's actually kind of relevant, here. He was a black man. Relatively young, dressed in something that is probably close to what you are imagining right now. A lot of loose, draped clothing, and pretty nice headphones.
He said, "hey, excuse me, do you know how late Swift runs?" I went up to the map on the opposite side from where he was standing, found the schedule, and told him it looked like he had just missed the last one. It runs until 10p, and it was about 10:15p by then. His face fell. He was fucked. Proper fucked.
"Where are you trying to get to?" I asked him. "There's like a Home Depot near here," he began. "Near 128th? Airport and 99?" I said. "Yeah. I don't know. I think so," he replied. He didn't seem to be listening too closely. He was clearly distressed. As anyone might be if they were stuck at a bus station more than five miles from where they were headed, alone, at night. He was trying to call or text someone with a flip phone. A phone just like the one I had before I finally managed to fit a smartphone into my budget, albeit a shitty smartphone.
"I know where that is, do you want a ride? It's not very far, and my car is just over there" I said, pointing, smiling. He froze. I don't think that he necessarily even expected me to still be standing there talking to him, once I'd pointed out that he missed the last bus. But he recovered quickly, composed himself, and said yes, that would be great. He asked me to pull around and pick him up near where the bus we'd just gotten off of was, because he wanted to ask the driver something first (probably if there was any way he could get himself out of Everett Station at that time of night). We started to part, heading in opposite directions.
Turning, I said, "hey, what's your name?" when he was about 30 feet away. I couldn't quite hear him. "Kim?" I said, laughing to myself. Did this guy seriously have the same name as my girlfriend? "KEN," he said, louder. "Oh! Hi, Ken," I said. "Yeah, what's your name?" he asked. "I'm Sera," I replied. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Sera," he said. We both smiled and continued our separate directions again.
On the way back to the car, alone, in the dark, in a wide-open space that usually fills me with dread and isolation, I felt very alive and connected to everything. I was not really afraid. Fear was with me, as always, but that's the rest of the secret. I don't run from it, anymore. I sit with it and hold it and let it know that I'm here, and that everything will be okay. I was alert, don't get me wrong, but I was not on edge.
I got back to my car, and it occurred to me that, according to the precepts of American culture, I was making a huge mistake. I was a tiny white trans girl, and I'd just invited some random black guy to get into my car and let me drive him someplace. I thought, maybe he will kill me and take my... what, $20 or something. I don't really have anything much worth taking. Not that can be taken, anyway.
Maybe he will forcibly take my car from me, I thought. He was almost certainly stronger than me. I'm misleadingly tough, but also made of cupcake. Not the shitty, cloying, sweet kind. A nice fluffy kind that cannot actually hold anything up because it is basically just baked air. I supposed that if he did take my car, it would probably be because he really needed it.
I thought that, if I did die, people would notice right away, especially if the circumstances were awful. They would notice because I have been connecting with them. With so many people, especially in the last month or two. People would see the story of this trans woman who had been reaching out to everyone, everywhere, trying to help them all feel even just a little more okay. To help them feel safe and happy, to help them stay healthy.
I smiled, coasting slowly along the outside walks of Everett Station, and then I spotted Ken. I stopped to let him in, having already programmed my GPS to go to the Home Depot I thought he was trying to get near. He was on the phone with someone, asking about the cross streets. "On 128th?" he asked them. "Off of 99?" I asked him. "Off of 99?" he asked them, in turn. The destination confirmed, he said he'd be there soon, and hung up.
He started thanking me profusely, saying things like "God is great," and that my coming to help him when he was literally lost had some kind of greater significance. I of course do not believe any of that, but there was no value in my arguing the point. It helped him to understand his world and the way that it works, and it seemed to keep him happy and in a state of gratitude. I'm all for that, and I kind of don't care how people get there, as long as they're not hurting anyone else with it.
Ken asked how my day had gone, and I started to laugh. I explained that the day had been tiring, and that the entire last month or so had been such a whirlwind. Not a bad whirlwind, just busy and very much not at all what I'd been prepared for. We talked about how I learned my lesson about engaging with trolls on Twitter over the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag. In typical Sera fashion, I did not really ask him much about himself, which is something I need to keep working on. I'm very good at talking at people, but I'm still kind of crap at talking with them.
As we approached the Home Depot, he said, "I think this is the street I need right here, actually, if you wouldn't mind turning here." It was into a residential area, not terribly well lit. My terror levels did rise, I must admit, but it was by about a hundredth of a percent. By that time, Ken had heard about how I was going to go speak in Pennsylvaniasoon, to try to convince high school students that they should be nice to each other, basically. He had offered some suggestions about things to say, things very close to what I'd essentially already been planning to say.
It occurred to me that I felt more or less safe around Ken by that point because we knew each other's names. I'd given him one of my social cards. I didn't know every last detail about him or his life, I didn't know about the best or worst things he'd ever done, but I knew that he was there in my car with me because I'd invited him to be there. I'd invited him to be there because I did not want him to be stranded seven miles from his friends or family or whoever I was taking him to, and the thought of a lone black man having to walk that far alone at night terrified me. For him. It seemed like a great way for him to get himself dead in ways that keep happening for Black America, and that breaks my fucking heart every time I hear another story about it. And I think he knew that, too. I think that's why he was so genuinely grateful.
I dropped him at the entrance of the parking area for the complex he was trying to get to, and with the door open and the cab light on, I looked at him pleadingly, and said, "please stay safe." And he smiled and thanked me again, shook my hand, promised to look me up on Facebook later. And then he was gone.
The black man I'd invited into my car about 15 minutes earlier, whom I had not met or known in any way prior to that, did literally the opposite of everything our culture tells us that black men do. He was polite. He was kind. He was engaged and engaging. He was interested and interesting. He cared about trans people dying. He cared about black people dying. The common theme, of course, is that he cared. About people. Dying. He seemed grateful to me not for just giving him a ride, for helping him personally, but for the fact that I exist at all, and that this is what I am doing with my life. He was absolutely not threatening in the slightest, in any way — not in his body language or speech or manner, nothing. Nowhere. At all. And I wonder how many people can actually see that when they see a person who, at a glance, looks so very different from them.
All of this was possible not just because I am afraid all the time, but because I know it, and embrace it. I don't run from it. My response to fear is not to turn away, but to lean in. And lately, when faced with the possibility of doing something, anything, my response is, "that sounds terrifying. Let's do it." This is not thrill-seeking. This is accepting the worst possible outcome (or whatever I imagine that might be), accepting fear, thanking it for the warnings and advice, and then living my life anyway. Doing what I think matters anyway.
I want to help people. I want especially to help people who are often overlooked and underserved. I want to change that balance. It's a huge scale, and I surely cannot make it move much on its own, but maybe other people will see me trying, and join me. That's my Meaning of Life. To make the biggest and most positive difference I can before I die.
When I was finally almost home, I started to feel a bit agitated again. I was almost to where the bunny had been struck about 12 or 13 hours prior. I wondered if any good at all had come of its death. I wondered if my conclusion would be proven sound. I
wondered if the body would be gone, most likely dragged off somewhere to
nourish something else, something grateful, inasmuch as it could be,
that the work of catching and killing had been done for it. That it
wasn't so much that anything happened for any particular reason, but
that whatever happened was ultimately going to work out.
The body was gone. Nothing has a purpose. But everything is going to be okay.
