Day of Remembrance

(This is my favorite picture of Harvey Milk. He looks so irrepressibly content. I hope to look like that again someday...)

I forgot that today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, honoring our trans-sister and brothers who have passed. While I was flipping through Metro Weekly, a GLBTQI publication in the DC metro area, I saw a full page ad taken out by the Whitman Walker Clinic marking this annual remembrance. It struck me, as not only did I forget about the date of this event, but I also forgot I posed for some photos that later became their ad campaign. In short: I was looking at a photo of myself, with a tag line that read, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

How humbling is that?

Yes. I must be the change I wish to see in the world.

Coincidentally, I am home watching the film "Milk," while waiting for a friend to come over. I remember seeing this film earlier in the year when it came out in theaters. It was so moving, as I have seen other documentaries on Harvey Milk, and knew his story quite well. Hearing him say that he didn't think he was going to make it to 50, and that on his 40th birthday that he felt as though he hadn't done a single thing of which he was proud. Suddenly I feel like I can relate. It makes me look back and wonder if I have done anything of worth, of value in this society.

Will my existence have changed anything? Will my life have positively influenced the world in any significant way? If not, how can make that come to fruition?

I think about the challenges that I've experienced in my life, and the times where my safety was directly threatened because of my gender or sexuality, and I remember thinking: "No, not yet. I can't die like this – I'm not done yet. I haven't caught my stride, there is still more for me to do."

...A few years ago, on my birthday, and also on the day of an art opening where some of my work was being displayed, I fucked up and took the metro forgetting that the train line was going to split and go in vastly different directions. Needless to say, I ended up in a pretty rough part of town, and it was clear to passers by that I was lost. I was instantly surrounded by a group of young men who began to aggressively antagonize me, and threaten me physically, as they chastised me for being so androgynous. I had started T several months earlier, which left me straggling in between stereotypical gender norms.

When I entered the train to take me back, my car was almost completely empty, and I feared that I wouldn't survive their attack. They continued to follow me after I got off the train, and I could over hear them describe what I was wearing as I ducked out of sight, hiding behind tourists, and immediately changing my appearance by taking off my coat and hat, to try to sneak away. I understood all too well in that moment that I was literally running for my life.

I feel very fortunate to have escaped, and my heart breaks for all of those who were not so lucky. Those of whom were caught by their captors or by their own internal demons, and whose lives were extinguished far too soon.

Harvey Milk's 'character' (meaning, I don't know if was an actual quote or not) spoke at the end of the film about his decision to run for office, and his choice to live as an 'out' gay man, that these choices were about the movement for queer rights. He said it wasn't about the ego, or the individual, but about the "us'es" of the world. That we "gotta give them hope." And I know exactly what he means.

My decision to live as an out transguy isn't about being a tranny poster boy, as flattering as that is... But it's about putting a face on an issue that many people might not know about otherwise. People like my suburban New England family, or the thousands of work-related clients I've known over the years of my transition, or the random people that I've met here or there. To me, it's not about an opportunity to speak up about this issue or that one... For me, it feels more like my responsibility, my duty, to represent this still seemingly invisible demographic.

We tend to associate trans people with cheese ball caricatures of from bad tv. These two dimensional characters that are all portrayed in the same dehumanizing way. I hope to be a part of the movement adding more dimensions, more realism and more humanity to what people see as transgender.

It's nice to pass as a guy, as I never saw myself as a woman, and felt stuck in my female body. It even feels much safer in many ways, since being misread as a butch lesbian, or mysterious androgynous person before I transitioned seemed to push too many cultural buttons. Those trigger reactions often morphed into personal attacks against me. And as much as I don't want to make myself a target, I refuse to step out of one closet to simply step into a different one. I don't want to hide my truth, the reality of my identity just because I can pass as a middle class white man now. I have always felt like I was an "other," an outsider, an alien. I don't want to hide away ever again. I need to be brave, commanding, and open.

My hope is that my candor and transparency can make my experiences accessible to those who aren't trans themselves. If we can seek out the humanity in each others' experiences, then we really aren't so far apart. It can no longer be us versus them, but just a series of us'es, like Milk had said. I am left hoping that this modest little life of mine can transcend its potential pedestrian antics, and really be one of value, or worth... I want to create a legacy. I want my life to be important, not from the center of an ego, but from the trenches of humankind.

An ex of mine once said: "You have a saturated, yet insatiable curiosity... Find your worth."

Lord knows, I'm trying...