The Burden of Trans Grief: Finding Solace Through Spite

Grief is a reaction to loss, and in that regard, it puzzles me that the mere act of claiming my autonomy causes such a feeling in others. In the eyes of our family and friends, the prospect of someone they know transitioning can often be the same as them dying. Maybe it is for this reason that our screams, cries, and pleas for help are ignored or met with indifference- our living bodies are put on display in an open but soundproof casket, anything that happens to us after no longer mattering. Dead bodies decompose, and so it should follow that living trans bodies do as well. To cis society, the mandate of our suffering needs not be stated. Instead, it is assumed to be a natural consequence of our transition, for we have already submitted ourselves to death through the desecration of our sex.

I don’t quite know how best to describe the strange, deeply uncomfortable experience of being alive while simultaneously the object of grief. I remember with intense clarity the tremored voice of my mother, desperately pleading for me to bring her baby boy back, trying to claw a nonexistent spirit from my body. I am still haunted by the disappointed, deadened and distanced expression worn by my father in all of our interactions after coming out. My parents had never left the denial stage, doing whatever they possibly could to maintain a semblance of control.

At 15, after having come out to friends at school and online, I was forced to detransition and institutionalized. Strict limits were put on my friendships, connections were forcefully severed, and I was made to change schools multiple times. My parents had openly declared that their love was conditional upon my compliance to their rigid expectations.

faint.

When I thought I couldn’t lose anything else, I did. Over and over and over and over again. With each passing day, my parents became more and more emboldened, encouraged by men and women in suits and lab coats who couldn’t give less of a fuck about the well-being of a me, a mentally ill faggot child.

Though the water appeared increasingly boundless, my ability to traverse through it was not. In some sense, I do think I experienced a death; a death in my emotions as I feared yet more loss and clamored in an act of self-preservation. I lost during that period some of my ability to love, accept love, and form close bonds with other people; the immense dissociation I was forced to utilize to avoid suicide cannot be understated. It is only recently after two odd years of separation that I have begun to fan out the haze clouding my every feeling.

I often find myself now referring to my parents in the past tense. I think that just as much as they view me as having died, maybe I too view them as having died on some level. After I came out, they forgot to be my parents, instead insisting on becoming my savior, releasing me from the gripping hold of the “transgender cult” I unwittingly walked into. However, it was never me that was in the cult, it was them.

When I became a teenager, we moved from a diverse small town in the southwest to an evangelical rural suburb in the Deep South. Despite my agnostic parent’s conservatism, they didn’t quite fit in with our neighbors. They chose to assimilate into evangelism and become born-again Christians, in some part I suspect increasingly motivated by their discomfort with my coming out. They chose the convenience created by blindly accepting the hate, transphobia, homophobia, and racism of our community, heightening their distaste towards what they viewed as their ever-increasingly immoral son. My begging them to open their eyes, ears, and heart, recognize not only my humanity but that of my friends only inspired further contempt against me, against the evil ghost that they were convinced had stolen their son from them. To them, none of my words could possibly be my own, for I was an easily manipulatable child, incapable of making any decisions for myself. The only plausible explanation for my desire to transition was that I must have been overtaken by a spirit or social con. I killed their son and was their son, and thus became the simultaneous object of both their grief

My own grief at the loss of my parents was rendered invisible to them by their own over my constructed death. They repeatedly chose to ignore the pain they were inflicting against me and construct their own narrative of my life. As their child, I was their property, and any act of self-actualization was to be interpreted as a punishment against them. As far as they were concerned, not only had I taken their son from them, but I was a threat to their social status, a belligerent challenge to the ignorant values imposed on them by their parents, and their parent’s parents, and so on. My refusal to accept their beliefs and bend to their will meant I was doomed to become the black sheep of our family. I hope by doing so, I have begun to break the sickening cycle of harrowing dysfunction, senseless hatred, and irrational fear.

Unfortunately, my story is not unique. Nearly 13.5% percent of trans youth experience conversion therapy nationwide, with the rate being as high as 25% in states like Wyoming. Among the trans friends I have, parental rejection is the norm, acceptance is the exception to the rule. Transitioning often means having to pick between constant dissociation and having a family, shelter, and food to eat. I would have become homeless were it not for my queer friends up north. Even people who are usually otherwise indifferent or even somewhat supportive of trans people frequently become bitter and hateful upon having one of their family members transition.

Sympathetic portrayals of our plight, our grief remain scarce in corporate media, with many of these companies seemingly in a competition to see who can kill the most of us. Much of the mediascape primarily depicts trans adults as rapists and predators, or trans children as the victims of “grooming” by outside forces (often trans adults) nevermind that with each trans adult preceded a trans child. This grooming narrative serves as the perfect fascist apparatus: If any exposure to transgender people is “grooming”, then lawmakers are justified in censoring textbooks. If teachers are “grooming” trans children by not ostracizing them, then lawmakers are justified in cutting funds and undermining our educational system. If trans children are the product of “grooming”, then the term “grooming” loses all purpose and power for child victims of sexual abuse.

These conservatives believe themselves to be free from bias, their opinions informed by only the most objective of evidence. They position themselves in sharp contrast to hystericism, to progressivism, mocking any pro-social positions as utopian. One of their catchphrases, “Facts don’t care about your feelings” has become something of a meme for them, a masturbatory celebration of their supposed commitment to “hard truth”. However, those who utter this phrase are, ironically, also subjugated by their own intense feelings towards us, fueled by disgust and fear. They rely on highly emotional, manufactured narratives of our lives that serve to support their bigotry.

Every accusation by these politicians and pundits is a confession. While attention is increasingly drawn towards transgender children, many of the states imposing the harshest trans laws are the ones most lenient on child marriages. If proponents of the groomer narrative genuinely cared about children, they would not continue to allow them to be groomed into marriage with adults. They also would not be ignoring the role of favored institutions in child sex abuse, like the SBC and Catholic church. The fallacious linking between trans women and sex offenders is a very intentional deflection from the real-world harm they enable. Unfortunately, this baseless fear mongering is as deadly to us as it is financially lucrative to them. With the media reinforcement of the public’s worst biases against us has come hate crimes, increased stigma and suicidality, further perpetuating the systemic and interpersonal violence that cause us so much of our grief.

Unfortunately, indifference to our humanity, to our feelings, to our grief is the default. It is imperceivable to our cissexist, ableist society that we could possibly be the bearers of true emotions, for we are supposedly wrapped up in delusions. Delusions about ourselves and our bodies, we are regularly denied the right to tell our own stories. Our words are lies unless proven otherwise. Our lives are de- tailed in only the most grotesque language, every aspect of our existence pathologized. Life-saving surgeries and treatments are described as mutilation; our transitions framed as acts of self-hate. That transitioning could be an act of self-love is impossible, for transsexuals are not deserving of love.

Our grief, our stories, are ignored; we are much too unreliable narrators. For trans women, our validity (if any is afforded to us at all) is determined by our fuckability and availability to cis men as sexual objects. Either we are depraved, dangerous perverts getting off to the idea of being feminized, days away from victimizing a cis woman in a restroom, or a man so effeminate and beautiful that our caricature is just substantial enough to approximate “real” womanhood. Inherent in our feigned acceptance is misogyny — our beauty becomes the necessary threshold upon which we are accepted into womanhood, our legitimacy based upon our availability for cis hetero men’s consumption (and disposal). Nevermind our feelings, our thoughts, our love, for our love cannot be anything other than twisted and self-serving, fulfilling a sick fetish. We are expected to be grateful for any minuscule amount given to us by cis men cheating on their cis wives and girlfriends, for we are not even deserving of that.

I am of the opinion that if we are denied even the most universal of emotions, grief, love, belongingness, maybe we ought to turn to spite. After several failed suicide attempts, I began to find solace in this feeling. Spite is often seen as a negative emotion, but I reject this; I believe it has been a powerful motivator for me. My desire to spite our corrupt society, to spite everyone who has ever made me feel like my existence is wrong and unwelcome has done much to keep me alive in the moments I felt closest to my coffin.

When I felt like nothing mattered, like my life was meaningless as I had been told so many times both implicitly and explicitly, I had spite. Spite was there. Spite and anger over the injustices thrown at me, at my trans siblings, and every other wicked oppression in the world have been a constant, unrelenting force that energizes me, bringing me life and purpose. As such, I had no other option than to declare that I would make every effort to become the best person I can, claiming my liberation and happiness despite societal pleas that I end my own life and cede my narrative.

Trans joy, trans love, trans empowerment are a threat to our manufactured traditionalism, to patriarchal power, and it is for that reason that society attacks us so aggressively. If a man can become a woman, a woman can become a man, and men and women can both transcend the gender binary, what does that say about the validity of our social constructs? What does that mean for the delegation of gender roles and the nuclear family, created to empower cis white men, maximize capital and create generational wealth for the ruling class? Inherent to our existence is proof of the fictitious naturality of our fragile gender norms. Within each of us lies a beam of light, not one that we ever asked to wield but is inherent in our composition nonetheless. Through our mere presence alone, our collective glow shines brightly to the eyes of patriarchy, blinding it and making evident its decrepitness. We terrify these “traditionalists” because our joy, liberation and empowerment expose cracks in the structure that forms the base and justification of its power. Transphobia is based just as much in ignorance and hatred as it is in fear, fear of difference, fear of change, and fear of our strength.

I was born in 2002. My generation, Gen Z, was promised a better future. Six years before my birth, HIV, an illness that had long been ignored by those in power and was responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths of queer people, became a manageable condition with access to the right medication. Under a year after my birth, sodomy laws, which criminalized same-sex intercourse were made invalid through Lawrence v. Texas. Twelve years later, gay marriage was finally made legal through Obergefell v. Hodges. Two years after that, the World Health Organization declassified

The Burden of Trans Grief: Finding Solace Through Spite by Anonymous

“gender incongruence” as a mental illness. All of this was only made possible from the tireless work of queer people before us.

Unfortunately, only eight years after marriage equality, states nationwide are now passing laws that ban public trans existence. Queer youth, like me, are still subject to dehumanizing conversion therapy, and as states criminalize transition, victims of the practice are likely to increase. It would be an understatement to call the rapid erosion of our rights infuriating and cruel. But just as those before us have done, it is now our duty to bear the weight of the mantle. We cannot afford to lay docile and permit the degradation of the hard-earned rights by our queer elders.

AUTHOR BIO: (She/Her) I’m a 20 year old trans woman from the southern US. I hope you enjoy this piece! If you did, you can find me on medium under the moniker "TransFem Essays" where I will likely be posting more of my non-fiction and faux-academic writing/ rants in the future.

WEBSITE: medium.com/@transfemessays

I know it is tempting to give up and end it all. I have become well acquainted with that temptation; unfortunately, it’s as alluring as it is vain. That being said, death is an inevitability and rushing it is fruitless. If we are ever to improve our conditions and achieve true liberation, we must not give credence to the lie that this fight is futile. We are worth fighting for, as is the next generation of queer people that will come after us. The political pendulum may be swinging further and further to the right, but we can come out triumphant, empowered by righteous spite and anger.

ARTWORK TITLE: Where are the Trans Angels?

ARTIST: Shanisia Person

ARTIST BIO: I am a NonBinary AfroLatinx Multimedia Artist. I try and do things as DIY as possible, mostly because it is what I’ve had to do my entire life, because of this my art takes on whatever medium or shape it must to express what I need in the moment. My main focus is the erotic, which to me is not about a raunchy or hyper sexual viewpoint, but instead encompasses almost everything corporal and spiritual about the way we connect with our bodies. Our gender, sexuality, sensuality, aesthetics and practices. It is intimacy, instinct, it is from my point of view how we identify our own individual.

STATEMENT: In the same vein as ‘Why aren’t there any Black Angels’, there also aren’t any Trans Angels. For the queer people sent to an early grave from being forced to be what they are not, for the queer people who see their physical form as ever changing beings of light. Two bodies encompassing diversity holding each other up as they stand in their truth. I am painting these trans bodies as deities, Angels being the kind of heavenly bodies I grew up knowing. Not just because being made to detransition, being sent to places that try to bend your mind and body until you do not recognize it, has literally ended the lives of so many Queer people. Not just because I hope someone seeing a body like theirs in divinity might help them if they are being told that they don’t know who they are, that they are wrong about who they think that they could/should be. But also to show that our conceptions of our physical bodies are surrounding these incomprehensibly dynamic beings of pure light. Sacred ever changing souls that are all godly and worth showing off in any stage they may be in.

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Instagram: shanisiaperson