tr*nnygate: i did something unkind and i wanna talk about it

I did something bad. The other day, on Thursday, I said the word tranny in a tweet and it upset some people. Then when these people said that was an offensive word my posture was "whatever, I'm going to say it even more." That wasn't nice of me at all. This was my tweet:

There are two elements of backstory on my part which are not excuses, not at all, but they might help inform some of my where I'm coming from: I only have four trans* (I'm using the term trans* because that's what these people on twitter said to use) friends but we use this word and we text each other "What's up, tranny?" if that informs a bit where I'm coming from. And those people's perspective doesn't mean that every person should have that perspective. Another piece of my story is that there are a few internet people in particular who have repeatedly had problems with things I say and because my story involves authority figures whom I could never make happy and who often critiqued my words, that sort of critique even now sends me to a primal place where I feel like my autonomy and identity are threatened and I feel like I need to assert the fact that I'm my own person, because some key players in my past were intent on silencing me. So when I started being told not to say tranny some of that panic came to the surface for me, that whole undercurrent of "this again, I'm being told to disappear and acquiesce." I didn't realize this at the time. I was like "eff that, I'm going to say it even more." It even encouraged me that no one expressing offense was an actual trans* person and that several trans* people expressed amusement and support. And here is another thing about me, and I am not saying this is an excuse for my behavior, but for some reason it's difficult for me when people who do not belong to a marginalized group take on that group's agenda and become deeply offended on that group's behalf. I wish I could explain it better and I know it's probably rooted in my story again as every last damn thing always is, and it also has something to do with the manner in which they take offense. @TwoFriars said it really well on Thursday, they used the terms "planting a flag of self-righteous indignation" vs. "encouraging virtue in each other." When someone acts out of what feels like self-righteous indignation and not in a way to try to make room for the backstory of the offending party, that is very difficult for me. It has something to do with my story and the ways that my motives weren't given credence but I was judged and punished based on my actions, and the people who did the punishing had boundaries that kept moving. I never knew where the line was. So all of that acts up in me when I see people who appear intent on being indignant for the sake of shaming someone without being interested in encouraging virtue in each other. And maybe the worst part is that I totally did this on Thursday. I didn't make any room for the offended parties' story. I only paid attention to my territory. I think this was a big part of the problem.

So when the tweets started flying all of this was acting up for me. I felt panic that my right to expression was being threatened in some way. It doesn't mean my right to express myself was actually being threatened but it felt to me very realistically that it was, because of my story. And this is what I think happened for the people who were upset by my tweets. I was reminding them of their abusers. I was being insensitive to them and to their story. I wasn't acting out of curiosity towards what they've been through and how my actions affect them. I was in survival mode, as dramatic as that sounds, because I was being strongly reminded of times I had to fight to maintain my sense of self. And this was happening on their side too. My words and my insistent posture were reminding them of when they had to fight to maintain their senses of self. It was a really bad scene.

I tweeted a question on Facebook and one of my trans* friends responded saying trans* people aren't offended by that word (the screencap of that is here). I felt affirmed and smug. Then a trans* ally tweeted me this:

and it contained a link to a story by the guy from MST3K about when he found out on twitter that the word tranny is offensive (link to that is here) and something clicked for me. I immediately felt the hurt I had caused these people and I kinda got it. And it had something to do with how self-sacrificing this Joe person was, he had every reason to be offended and yet he was so generous and really took it on the chin and gave me goodness and grace anyway. I tweeted an apology (here is what I tweeted across the space of several tweets: "I'm sorry. I was really insensitive and cunty. Can you forgive  me? I wish I could go back in time and undo those things I said. I want the best for you.  I just want you to know how deeply sorry I am to have  hurt you at all. I don't mean to imply you ever need to forgive me, I guess the main thing is I feel horrible I hurt you") and there was a Facebook discussion about all of this (you can see that here). Some of the people who had been offended said they wanted a direct apology so I gave that to them that and then I saw that one of them had a problem with the fact that in my apology I said my behavior was "cunty." This triggered another domino thing for me because part of my story is that my abusers would say it was my fault I made them harm me and then they would make me apologize to them, and then they would critique my apology. This was a pattern, so when I heard that this person didn't like my wording in an apology, that again made me feel panic about these old instances and they felt new all over again. So I tweeted some of this at this person and haven't heard back but that is okay of course, that's part of it. I mean, I'd like to have forgiveness but that's the thing about asking forgiveness, we can't demand it at all. I think in the space between asking for forgiveness and waiting for it to be received we feel the pain we caused, in a way, because that waiting is excruciating and if we're truly sorry we want that shalom so badly. An equally huge truth is that we all act out of what our story is, nothing is ever just black and white and cut and dried like that. So I want to remember to make room for this with all the people I interact with. And what really sucks is I know I'm going to screw up at this sometimes, I already did it this morning with my daughter, I got upset about something because I didn't make room for her context. This is one of the worst things about being human but I actually really think that because I've received grace that I'm able to give it. The past few years I've been working on soaking in grace people give me because on a base level I don't feel like I deserve it and I let goodness go over my head and don't let it sink in, there is something about me that feels like I don't deserve anything good, especially not sweetness and kindness. So when I am able to accept it I'm strangely able to give it. Well, I guess that's actually not strange, that kind of makes logical sense to receive something and then be able to give it. But there is some kind of paradox going on too which makes me think of the line from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and what Scott Peck said about it on the last page People Of The Lie: Hope For Healing Human Evil:

The healing of evil––scientifically or otherwise––can be accomplished only by the love of individuals. A willing sacrifice is required. The individual healer must allow his or her own soul to become the battleground. He or she must sacrificially absorb the evil.

Then what prevents the destruction of that soul? If one takes the evil itself into one’s heart, like a spear, how can one’s goodness still survive? Even if the evil is vanquished thereby, will not the good be also? What will have been achieved beyond some meaningless trade-off?

I cannot answer this in language other than mystical. I can say only that there is a mysterious alchemy whereby the victim becomes the victor. As C. S. Lewis wrote: “When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”

I do not know how this occurs. But I know that it does. I know that good people can deliberately allow themselves to be pierced by the evil of others––to be broken thereby yet somehow not broken––to even be killed in some sense and yet still survive and not succumb. Whenever this happens there is a slight shift in the balance of power in the world.

I feel like this is what Jon Stark did when he could have responded with indignation but instead gave me softness and acted in good faith. I want so much to absorb evil sacrificially but it sounds so scary, and the idea of it makes me once again go into panic mode where I think "I've been the victim of so much bad stuff, I can't take on any more, what about boundaries? Where do those come into play?" I struggle so much with these questions and I think I will for a really long time, but while I have these questions I always think of the Mother Teresa quote: "I have found the paradox that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love." That's such a gigantic paradox. But I've experienced it and I want to go with it. I want to know the ways I don't love well and how what I do affects people and I hope they can have that space for me as well and maybe this ancient idea can spread a little farther and deeper. I would like that! Thank you guys very very much for hanging in there with me.

love, stephy

(I also talked about all of this on this episode of Dongtini if you want to hear more.)

advent 2012

Advent is hard for me. It’s the active remembrance of 400 years of silence and suffering squished into 4 weeks and it feels concentrated and heavy in parts. I was dong okay with it up until yesterday when we had a meeting at church saying that we aren’t going to keep being able to pay our pastor if things keep up the way they’ve been going and I can’t internalize that quite yet because it makes me so scared. This community has been the biggest gift for me after we left our church of 12 years. Leaving that church involved a lot of heartache and now the possibility of my lifesaving community going away is breaking my heart. The problem is everyone in the community is broke. And money shouldn’t even be an issue. We (Wits’ End is the name of the church) live really low to the ground. The pastor is abhorrently underpaid of course and has three small kids (of course) and today I’m sitting with the memories from the church situation two years ago in which a family was removed from staff and treated as if the church didn’t want them to be their problem anymore. That's not what's happening here at Wits' End; quite the opposite - the pastor and his kids are very much wanted but we can't even afford to underpay them. It's a trauma stressor I suppose and is reminding me of the spiritual and emotional fallout from the church stuff two years ago that has been devastating for everyone who’s had to watch, and it makes me wish very much I was in the position where I didn’t have to see any of this if I didn’t elect to. I hope I would still elect to though. But these realities are ugly and I am feeling Advent heaviness even harder today. This Wits’ End community has been a livesaving godsend for me and they’re my only family nearby and I hate that their existence is at risk so this is what I’m sitting with now.

Now that I’ve said all this I feel better, thanks.

things uncle richard said during thanksgiving 2012

“It would be freeing for you girls to walk around in a burqua so you’d get to be appreciated for your minds. Maybe.”
“I have no idea what my wifi password is. Don’t ask me. Why do I even need to have a password? Anyone who wants to use my internet is welcome to.”
“I’m just trying to make you uncomfortable till you get out of my seat.”
“See, because they don’t have Obama’s birth certificate they aren’t sure he was born.”
“You’re writing down what I’m saying again? How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?”
“I was getting concerned that I have empathy for Mitt Romney, but I could tell he has Aspberger’s too.”
“I don’t look people in the eye. I can tell you all about their teeth, though.”
“I don’t want to get on Facebook. I’d feel like a traitor to my race.” Me: “To the Jewish race?” R: “No, the human race!”
“I’m not good at it (sex), and it’s as simple as that.”
“So that law passed! Are the streets of Seattle all filled with dope smokers now?”
“I’ve always known I wanted to be old. You don’t know anything till you’re old. I want to have done everything and have nothing left to do.”
“You never tell the truth when a woman asks certain questions. I mean, come on.”
“YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF LAURA NYRO?!”
“I’m an Asperger’s survivor. I feel great, but it’s how other people feel about me that’s the problem.”
“We haven’t locked our front door in 36 years. I wouldn’t live in a place where I had to lock my door. But I did stop leaving my keys in the car after it got stolen twice.”
“If you read your bible carefully, you’ll learn that Botox adds to your time in purgatory.”
To Conney Mae: “I’m not going to get that platter down, I just got up from my nap!” Whispering to us: “I just defused a volatile situation.”
“Two things I did in my life I did right: I got the right bathtub and I got the right TV.”
“You know how it excites me when you say whipped!”
“We need a designated coffee fetcher.”
“They make stuff badly on purpose so it breaks and you’ll actually say ‘Oh good, I get to buy another!’ It’s vicious.”
To Judah: “Commercials allow people to make money off you, which is the only reason you exist.”
“I can’t imagine what kind of pervert would want chocolate ice cream on their pumpkin pie.” (this was said by Conney Mae)
“You guys are making me want to be religious. You’re so hateful about religion that it sounds fun.”
“Just pack that gluten in.”
(looking at the remnants of pizza) “Boy, what a bunch of rapists.”
“I was confident Obama would win but at the end fear overcame belief because the prospect of Romney as president is horrifying. 48% voted for Romney? That’s a hate vote if I ever saw one. You think the Civil War has ended, just look at the election results.”
“You should reserve daviddruryisanasshole.com.”
“In the ‘50s I’d go to the annual charity game on the polo grounds in Manhattan. There used to be little bridges you could walk across the river from the Bronx to Manhattan. Roy Campanella was my favorite. Played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, he was a catcher. He was in a car crash and was paralyzed. Ended his career, of course. Man.”
“I’m good! Well, I’m grumpy but that won’t affect you. You just asked how I am.”
(Sets down an orchid from his greenhouse in front of me.) “This orchid just opened today, so this is in honor of you guys. Look at that guy. He’s got a little purple lip. Not all orchids smell, but some smell like the ocean to me.”
Me: “Judah was 9 lbs 12 oz when he was born.” R: “That must have smarted.”
“I used to get sick to my stomach after kissing girls because I was allergic to their lipstick. I was worried! What’s wrong with me? I’d kiss a girl and get nauseous.”
“I always wanted to die on the pitcher’s mound.”
“Well, I’ve decided that you can’t go. I’ve always wanted a biographer.”

i love this sketch. that is all.

peter rollins & jay bakker

Here is a talk that Peter Rollins had with Jay Bakker a few weeks ago and I just loved it so much. The audio is here but I wrote out my favorite parts for posterity and also interested parties. 

Peter: “The law says ‘no, don’t don’t don’t’ with the idea that that’ll make you a better person. Some people in the church seem to think that love is an uber-no, you get these churches that have these discipline contracts and all of this like “if I say no enough that’ll change their behavior.” Whereas love is really kind of a big yes. Everything is permissible. Not everything is beneficial, but everything is beneficial. It’s a huge yes. Don’t feel guilty, don’t feel bad, just bring to the surface everything in a community of love that accepts you. [Then people go] “What? No, then people would just do anything they want.” No no no, the trick is this: the very place that you start to overcome the guilt that you’re not doing something is the very point that you’re more able to enter into the doing of it. So where you think the guilt is the very thing that’s making you do something – “I’d feel guilty so therefore I will do the right thing” – you actually take away the guilt and you are actually able to live into a more gracious and beautiful life over time.” (At about minute 29:00)

At about minute 33: “Sin for example is nothing to do with morality. …Sin comes from the term separation so it’s a sense that I’m separated from something that will make me whole and complete. … The law then comes in and it makes that even crazier. …The sense of separation which makes you want something combined with the prohibition that says you can’t have it generates the idea that that thing will really make me happy. It’s the core of the work that I do, right?  …Any object that makes you think you’ll be whole and complete is the idol so if you think God can make you whole and complete, God is the idol.”

At about 39:00 “I think what the role of the leader is is to say ‘I don’t know, we’ve got to work this out together. Let’s create a mature environment in which we can confront the very real issues that surround us and how best we think we can respond to the call. What is the call? The call is the other person’s face. The call is the other person’s humanity. How do we respond to that call?’”

At about 41:00: “Singer/songwriters and professional comedians, these are people who confront us with ourselves. So when you listen to a musician who is singing about brokenness, they’re not destroyed by it, they’re singing about it, they’ve in a sense robbed it of its sting. And as we listen to them sing about their brokenness, we come into contact with our own. We begin to work through it. If we had a direct confrontation with it we might crack up and die, but somehow the singer/songwriter is the one who weeps through music and like Kierkegaard says their lips are formed so that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music. And we then come into contact with our own brokenness. Comedians do a similar thing, they talk about the brokenness of their lives and laugh about it and help us encounter it. For me, the role of the church collective is that prayer and music brings us to a confrontation with ourselves. The idea that we are haunted houses, that we are full of ghosts of the ones we’ve loved and lost, the ones we’ve hurt, the ones who have hurt us, and it helps us confront the fact that we’re haunted houses and that the ghosts are there not because they can’t let go of us but because we can’t let go of them. And that’s the kind of community that’s offensive in all of the right ways.” Jay: “But without anxiety?” Peter: “Well, you bring the anxiety to the surface. You know, the things that you try to hold down, the false narrative that you use to talk about yourself, the ‘I’m all right, I’m fine, I’m sorted, everything’s good’ which you see cracks in when you’re dreaming at night, you have nightmares or you have a few drinks and see the stuff that seeps out. Our waking life is ironically our dream life, right, so this dream life that we’re in, the rule of the collective is to wake us up a little bit from that. Not so that we get depressed about our brokenness, but so that we overcome it, rob it of its power.”

46:00 Jay: “The church has become a place where they say ‘Be transparent’ but as soon as you are you know you’re going to have to pay a price for that transparency, which causes you not to be honest anymore.”  Peter: “If you are just able to repress one part of you through the sheer knowing of the law and sheer self will, it will come out in other ways. But if you begin to work through and bring it to the surface the idea is it is not going to manifest in other unhealthy symptoms.”

Peter was in town this week and we saw him yesterday
and my daughter drew him a picture of a toilet.

my 7 yr old's complaints about her cereal this morning

I hate that kind.
I didn’t hate it when I picked it out in the store but I hate it now.
I can’t pour it myself.
I can’t pour the milk myself either.
Daddy always pours it right.
Daddy pours gooder than you.
Stop when I say stop.
Okay, stop.
THAT’S TOO MUCH!
(crying) You ruined it!
No, you CAN’T make it even by putting more cereal in.
I’m NOT eating it.
NOW YOU PUT IN TOO MUCH CEREAL!
(picks out wet cereal and puts it on the counter)
I can’t eat it.
I need a new bowl.
No, don’t call daddy.
Daddy, mommy pours it awful.
I can’t eat it unless I get a new bowl and start over.
Okay, I’ll eat it. But I won’t like it.
*scene ends with everyone in tears*

i stole a rosary

I talked about it on this podcast episode, and also about spending with with evangelical people and how that is for me these days. (Ugh. But...yeah.) And on the subject of my illegitmate rosary, I wrote my own rosary for it and I told my friend Heather last night that I assigned a bead for her on there and she said "No matter how bad a day I'm having I can always remember i'm a bead on Stephanie's rosary!" That made me so happy. The end.