Working Towards Wholeness

All my life I needed someone to listen to my story. It seemed almost like an obsession; I would tell everyone, again and again, looking for something, I didn't know what.   I thought it was sympathy that I craved, but in hindsight I realized that what I really needed was to be heard, understood, and accepted so that I could then move beyond that need. 

My search led me to my Unitarian Universalist church, and even after 6 years of attending, every time I hear my Ministers speak of acceptance, connection, belonging, understanding and love for all..., tears stream down my face. Mostly now it's because I am deeply touched by our interconnection and common need for such things, but there is still deep healing happening in me; I can feel it. 

Now as a Worship Associate, I have been given the opportunity to tell my story, but this time the reason I am telling it is so that others like me will feel that welcome and the sense of belonging that I was given, so that they might also find a place to heal and become whole.  There is nothing more meaningful that I can do in this life than pass on that gift, and that too helps heal what was broken in me. 

In my church we speak about ministry as being what we as individuals can contribute to our larger community. My ministry is to work toward healing, to help make whole that which has been broken.  I share my stories now, not for kudos or personal gain, but to help dismantle the walls of otherness and the division they causes in this world. Even if those listening do not relate to my experiences, I hope that they can relate to my vulnerability and and our shared humanity.  For it is my belief that if we allowed ourselves and each other to be exactly who we are with all of our differences and imperfections, we will shed our disconnection and disassociation, and slowly, but surely, our world and all that's in it will begin to heal and become whole. 

Today I Will Be Peace

Boys and Girls, Ladies and Gentlemen.....

Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, his and her’s, ... when I hear these words, I hear a list of expectations that I have never been able to quite live up to.

 "Boys are made of snips and snails, and puppy dog tails, and girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice." 

Ladies and gentlemen behave as perfectly acceptable examples of their socially assigned roles, with ladies being quiet and demure, and gentlemen being strong and supportive, politely opening doors and generally offering assistance to the weaker sex. ... I never really liked the idea of being weaker.

And the 'his and her’s', well those are our assigned clothing and accessory choices: his are practical, durable and comfortable, and her’s are frilly, pink, patterned, tight and revealing. … Let me tell you, ‘real men’ are much better at wearing pink than I am. 

I’ve always had difficulty fitting my whole self into the expectations of my birth assigned gender. … Snails and puppy dog tails seemed much more appealing to me than sugar and spice, … and quiet and demure, well, you can forget that one altogether. 

 

My gender expression tends to be fluid, somewhere in the middle and leaning a bit more toward the masculine side,  just as my personality contains both masculine and feminine  characteristics.

 … It’s not rocket science though; I should have figured it out a long time ago. I am  

what many Indigenous people call two-spirited. I now identify as transgender, but it wasn’t until recent years that I discovered that I had a choice; not until all these brave young trans people started to speak out about who they are and about how gender should not be dictated by the binary opposites of male and female. 

He and she were the only options our language gave me, and I believed I somehow had to make myself fit into those boxes, and I tried. I really did.

Now that I’ve tasted this new freedom, I can’t go back.  I can no longer call myself a woman without somehow feeling that I am telling a lie, and I’m really big on telling the truth. 

So what do I do now? What pronouns do I accept other’s using when they refer to me, ... what pronouns do 'I' use, when I’ve never really seen those that I have been using as being mine in the first place?

How are you? I am fine, thank you.

Recently I've caught myself asking the how are you question as a greeting and not waiting for a real answer, and I hope I caught this in time to stop it from becoming a habit. ... I want my exchanges to be real. When I ask, "how are you", I want the one I'm asking to know that I care enough about them to ask, and that I am wanting to hear their answer. ...It doesn't have to take long; we can all judge how much time we have to connect with each other and then gage our exchanges accordingly, and we can continue the conversation at a later time if need be...

But more often than not when I ask such a question I receive the standard "I'm fine, thank-you". And so I'm not exactly sure what it is I'm being thanked for.

If I had a magic wand I think I'd eliminate ALL this kind of false talk so that 'real' communication and connection can take place. ... It's becoming common knowledge that disconnection is one of the most common ailments of our time, and possibly one that causes so many others. ...We also know that it's possible to be kind and considerate without lying, and seriously, I think if someone finds that difficult then they need to take a look at the reason why.

I think our wanting to make things expedient and less demanding of ourselves is one of the reasons we end up feeling disconnected and unfulfilled. And then we all go off and look for something else to fill that need, something quicker and more imediately gratifying....

I believe that real exchanges are a good place to start to healing our broken world.