As I continue to come to terms with the fact that I have indeed done what seemed to me like impossible–I graduated from college, I am faced with a new set of responsibilities. Not least of these means choosing for myself how I want to go about my life as a trans person. While in college I felt a certain pressure to fall in line with a certain dogma and I took comfort in that dogma as a safety net and foundation for my lifestyle. I don’t regret the time I’ve spent doing what I’ve done because I was able to accomplish some meaningful work, but my approach has been a bit of blunt knife when I need to have the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. Now I am alumna and the rug has been swept out from under me and I must find my footing or fall prey to lions of ideology. I’ve been contemplating this for some time, even prior to graduating, but I feel like today I reached a turning point.
After reading this article, I had a bit of an revelation about the direction I need to go with my work as minister for queer people. In order to minister to others, it means I need to lay aside my personal comforts and needs for the sake of larger communities of queer people. I cannot afford to burn bridges in the name of pride and intellectual integrity (even though I would not previously admit that that’s what it was). I’ve seen this in effect in my work with Trans Lifeline, but I only got a sense of it then whereas now I’m feeling like a whole new world has been opened up for me to explore. That doesn’t mean there won’t be times I’m hurt, times that I’m angry, but those are the times where I need to practice my own advice about self-care. It also doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of learning, in fact this is only the beginning of my journey to crafting the kind of person and the kind of minister I want to be.
About an hour ago, I read this article which solidified everything I was thinking and feeling after reading the previously linked article. There is a lot of work to be done towards trans liberation and if that is to be accomplished it can’t be done “every person for themselves!” This is a time for cooperation, reconciliation, education, and humility. This has to start with me. It’s counter to everything that I’ve seen in the online communities I’ve frequented, but I suspect that it is the way to a better and more wholesome life syncing up my personal, professional, and spiritual beliefs.