Ask Mx. Zephy

Hello, beautiful people!

Mx Zephy here, pronouns xe | xem. Thank you all so much for writing to me with your questions. Reading through your letters brings me so much joy in connecting with you. I can only print a few of them here, but I do read each and every one of them. I will try to respond to as many as I can. Gentle reminder folks. I cannot take on legal cases as I am not a licensed attorney. If you have a specific ask about something, I could provide direction or very general guidance. Again, I am not an attorney so I don’t want to give any response that might get your hopes up. That feels harmful to me. Also, for me to file briefs or engage in lawyerly activities is outside what the Ask Mx Zephy column can do. Understandably, I also received a number of requests for me to be a personal pen pal with about 25 of y’all. While I would love to and flattered, there were so many requests that I unfortunately can’t honor that. Keep the questions coming, but please stay within the bounds of the questions I can provide guidance on.

Much love, Mx Zephy

Hi Mx Zephy,

I feel like I’m transgender inside. I feel like I am part female inside. I don’t feel right unless I am completely shaved. Why is that or why do I feel like that?

-TRANS Inside

All the love to you, TRANS Inside!

I honor your courage to sit with these uncomfortable feelings. Let me start by saying that your feelings are valid. Body hair, whether you decide to keep or remove it, is an essential part of gender expression especially when words can’t affirm what you feel inside. Removing it may signal that I have control over my body. I can not only make decisions and feel comfortable in my skin, but I deserve to. Body hair is also key to our social understanding of what is feminine and masculine. Having hair, whether on the arms, legs, or face, is one of the most socially powerful indicators of masculinity. Feminine bodies are socially seen as smooth and soft.

What you may be feeling is a desire to affirm your gender. We have been taught what it means to be beautiful with such a limited understanding of beauty. Check in with yourself. If you have a space where you can journal without it being read, write it down. If not, sit with the thoughts that come up. Don’t try to ignore them. Let them wash over you and pass. Respond to these two questions:

1. When I shave, I feel X. Maybe you feel empowered. Perhaps liberated. Maybe you feel more comfortable in your skin. Naming the feeling that you are experiencing is a great way to understand how you think and how you move in the world.

2. What can I learn from this feeling? Jot down or note in your head anything that comes up. The more you explore these feelings the more you will learn how to evaluate and respond to those feelings. Your feelings are like muscles, and need to be worked out.

Greetings,

I finally step up here in my prison & took the steps to start the process of my prison allowing me to be me and my identity as female. I really felt your words in your column. I am finally at long last chasing my moment to claim my power, my words & choices to be heard. I am a woman that is equal to all other women and to live happy at long last. How much of a battle will I be facing in finally moving to have my prison recognize my choice to be known as my identity of a woman?

-Hailey

Greetings Hailey!

Your power and your resilience are a beauty to witness. Thank you for sharing your journey with me. I see you Hailey. I honor your brilliance. I can’t sugarcoat what you’re about to hear. It’ll be a disservice to you. It’s going to be a hard, if not an impossible, fight. The Marshall Project, an online news publication, reported earlier this year that the process for a name change varies by state. Seventeen states automatically ban name changes after criminal convictions, ranging from any felony in some to only sex crimes in others. Some have lifetime bans, others up to a decade after the end of sentence. The process may also be difficult and take a long time.

This may not be what you wanted to hear Hailey. I can understand how difficult hearing this news may be for you. I also sit in this in between while I wait to change my name. It doesn’t feel good.

Here are a few things that might help you feel more connected to who you really are:

Ask people you trust and love to use your given name. Your people are your greatest support network. Don’t provide anyone who might cause trouble with that option, only people who really see who the real you is. Let it be your way to declare your truth in spite of the world trying to silence it. You have the power or privilege to decide who you are. Journaling is also really helpful. I like to think about my future self and ask who my future self is. It lends me a sense of hope and dignity for what will be. If writing isn’t your strength, try sketching or drawing instead. Find what moves your creative expression and indulge. A third option is to look at your reflection and have a conversation with yourself using your chosen name. Telling yourself what you like about yourself. It’s not the same as being able to fully and legally step into your truth, but it does give you the choice to be who you are. Having choice can make all the difference. Are there other options you can gift yourself?

Mx Zephy,

What kind of advice do you give a person that stuffs all their emotions on the inside?

- Emo Inside

Emo,

Do what I do and run! Run as far and as fast as you can from those emotions. Kidding! Honestly, that response was my go-to for so long. I only stopped running when I realized I was tuckered out and those emotions were still there. Not only that, but they had gotten overwhelmingly big, to the point where I no longer recognized them as my own. This led to a sense of panic and quite a number of anxiety attacks. It was the least fun experience to turn around and confront them, but incredibly healing. Stuffing down your feelings may protect you right now, but is it healthy? If you want to express them productively, read on.

The only way to start digging through your emotions is to go in. Go inside your feelings and sit with them. Treat them like long lost friends. Ask yourself, what excuse do I use to avoid hanging out with them? When they want to show up and hang out, do I say that I am too busy and slam the door on them? Do I chow down on any nearby food so I can stuff those feelings down too? What about sex? Do I use sex to distract me by focusing on what is pleasurable right now? Whatever your reason is, use this avoidance tactic as your starting point for getting in touch with your feelings. It shows you how you respond when you are triggered by something you think

blackandpink.org is unpleasant or leads to not so great consequences.

The next step is to name those emotions. Can’t remember their names because it’s been so long? Then give them a nickname that you can remember them by. Some ways you can do this is by noticing how that emotion shows up in your body. Do you feel tense? Tension is usually related to anxiety. Is your face hot or your heart beating out of your chest? That can be anger or fear. Check in with your breathing. Are you panting and struggling to breathe? That can be a sign of anger or fear or sadness too. Is your throat tight? That might happen just before the tears show up.

Think about what triggered the emotion. Maybe your cellie got a letter from home and you felt anger. Dig a little deeper. Are you mad at your cellie or at the situation? Maybe it’s not anger that you are feeling but sadness or disappointment. Sit with the emotion. We have a lot of emotions and sometimes it’s not so easy to pick apart exactly what you are feeling.

Be easy with yourself during this process. Sorting through emotions takes practice and patience. Try not to judge what you are feeling as either good or bad. Be curious and note what sensations the feeling brings in your body and then work to name how you feel. Allow yourself to feel the emotion without responding to it.

Hopefully, you have been writing down all these observations about the feelings that are showing up. They will be helpful for the next step, coping with those feelings. Feelings can get us in a lot of trouble. If we feel anger, we can react with violence. If we feel sad, we can react by shutting off our emotions. Those aren’t helpful because those feelings are still there unprocessed. Instead, try pausing in the moment.

Ask your feelings about what lessons they want to teach you. Sometimes it’s as simple as I feel angry because I am hungry. That’s great news! You noticed the feeling, named it, and its trigger. Now what do you do about this? Acting mindfully and eating something seems reasonable here.

Sure, that is a simple example. There are other ways to mindfully cope with your emotions. Try journaling. Write down your feelings and what triggered them. Think of other ways you can cope rather than just responding to the physical sensations that come up. Maybe you physically move through the emotion by walking around the yard, taking a quiet moment to yourself, mindfully breathing, or even crying. Everyone copes with their emotions in their own ways. Find productive ways that work for you. Remember the relief you feel from working through your emotion rather than responding to it. Focus on that relief to guide you when the feelings feel really big. Relief is a signal that you are healing. The more you practice working through your feelings, the more manageable they will feel.

P.S. Sometimes it’s not appropriate or safe to feel an emotion. That’s okay too! Just make sure that you make a promise to process it later. Honor that promise and work through that emotion as soon as you can before you trigger an avoidance tactic.