separate/together
had a really amazing time in DC. my first time leaving ny since i came back and as soon i was in the car on the way out i could finally breathe. i kind of don’t like that it feels better to be out of the city i love so much.
there is so much going here, so many choices, so many people i love and want to see, and it gets overwhelming. it’s not really anything one should complain about. but it is a lot to take, if you take things seriously. and i often take most things very, very seriously.
had this awesome discussion with students at gallaudet university. it was my first time working directly with interpreters and it was really cool. one student mentioned the parallels of how it feels to be with other hard of hearing people and then how it feels to be out of that community, and if it was similar with being trans. and there seems to be nothing but similarities between everyone. but i guess it’s something we have to look for.
sometimes when i walk out the door there is nothing to feel but separate. and it’s how it works i guess. and it’s easier to find what we don’t have in common than what we do. and my big thing lately has been (most) public bathrooms and locker rooms which are separate. and what do people who don’t identify as either gender or both do? we just choose whichever feels safer.
no matter how much i try to relate to everybody, if i’m out the odds are the second i have to pee i will have to choose between one or the other. and maybe some people don’t think about this or don’t care, or they’re secure enough in their gender that it wouldn’t even come up… so again, i feel separate.
i would like to be distracted, to have no problem with going along with everything, not questioning the way the world has been set up.
i realize all i can do to change things is to speak out about it, and hope i’m not alone. but i feel there is so much despair and fear and unhappiness around that i wouldn’t even know where to begin.
at the same time, i do think to a degree, this is all a dream, an illusion. once i am gone i will not witness any of this. this is not meant to be a downer, but just realistic. so how much energy should be spent on trying to change things? and would it actually work?
if we weren’t brought up and separated by what we were taught “men” were and “women” were.. how many less struggles would there be? there would be no need for anything LGBTQ because every person would automtically feel equal and included, as if gender didn’t exist at all. if female-bodied people were given full on medical coverage for everything, and i mean EVERYTHING… just imagine.
