The Challenge of Transgender

SEX US GENDER SIMPLIFED
COLLIN WILLIAMS | Email
COPYRIGHT © 1999

Our hearts are clear: We are not simply men or women, neatly matching the expectation attached to our genitals. We feel the call to cross gender boundaries to find symbols and choices that express something deep inside of us. We are men born male and women born female who feel a call of spirit.

Our society is clear: Genitals define the boundaries of what is appropriate. To violate those gender expectations which tie pantyhose to females and neckties to males is to be exposed to shame, harassment and humiliation, in an attempt to push us into what others are comfortable with. In an attempt to paint transgender behaviors as a destructive and damming choice to children.

To express gender in a visibly transgressive way is to live in a minefield, where we can be reduce to a thing, and it's where we can be abused and despised for simply showing the contents of our heart. In the way we dress, the way we act. To be visibly transgendered is to risk hatered, fear and danger in every moment, to have people see us as circus freaks, less than human.

This is the challenge of transgender: We can appear normative, as opposed to humans with uniquely formed bodies, by birth or by accident.

To be true to ourselves, however, we must make the choice to show on the outside what we feel on the inside. To express how we are as unique as a snowflake. There is a high cost to this expression though, in the lost of families, friends, opportunities and safety. To walk between, to not simply be man born male or woman born female, is to be without refuge. For example, going into the men's or women's room is uniquely unsafe.

We face the impossible choice of: Facing the pain of our heart or the pain of our culture. The cost of destroying our standing in culture. Every transgendered person, every gay or lesbian person, knows the pain of the closet, the challenge of hiding and feeling destroyed by ourselves or being exposed and feeling destroyed by culture.

What defines transgendered people is the way we find to deal with challenges. We balance what we face, the pressures we have, and find a solution. Do we live as fetishist, a drag queen/king, a crossdresser, a transgenderist, a transexual, or some other choice?

The maturing process for transgendered people is simple yet difficult. We need to learn to remove the stick from our bum and become more and more trusting of our spirit of singing the song our Creator taught us.

We have to find ways to expose ourselves enough to give the best of us, in all it's Glory.

The way we do this is by finding powerful ways to stay centered and safe while also expressing our spark of spirit. For me the only way to do this is to trust in the spirit that made us, trusting that God doesn't make mistakes, not even when he puts a feminine heart in a male boy, or a masculine heart in a female one.

Believe in a political action, but more than that, believe in personal action. The ability to be out, mature and grown up as transgendered. Believe in doing the work to find who we truely believe ourselves to be, our spirit, and then find a way to express that in a world which doesn't want us to act from spirit, because the challenge of spirit makes the world uncomfortable.

The world wants people to fit in, but the Creator wants each of us to stand out and give what have been given in our own way.

Be wild, free, individuals, while also being tame, civil and social is the challenge we each face. We need to be responsive enough to others to work together with them, but also true enough to ourselves to feel whole and centered. This means we have to find a way to express ourselves with Grace, to be confident enough to hear what people have to say about us, even the negative and the nasty stuff, to accept that, and still trust in the spirit we have, to boldly and gracefully play our part in culture.

This is the challenge of transgender, but it is also the challenge that every human face.

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