Emerging

Hi everyone,

It's been a while, hasn't it?

     If you've known me for a long time, I think you understand why that sentiment rings true as you look at the text in front of you. How long has it been since I've posted anything like a long-form essay or blog entry? I used to be unable to separate the process of thinking even remotely deeply about anything from writing a post about it on a LiveJournal, or Xanga, or a Facebook note, or whatever my medium of choice was at the time. It's been at least ten years since I've publicly opined about a topic of any real importance aside from some one-off posts in the last year or so. I'm writing this post to explain what changed, and why I'm finally flexing this muscle again. For many, this will be a lot to take in, so bear with me, because I think this is ultimately great news.

Part 1: A Spiritual “Coming Out” of Sorts

     In my peak writing days, while I wrote plenty about video games or books or what have you, I was most commonly writing about theological topics - commentating through my Bible reading plan, reacting to the weekly sermon, and other such musings. I definitely liked to think of myself as a "thought leader" among peers on these topics, and church leadership appreciated, encouraged, and made use of the knack I displayed for thinking deeply and communicating clearly about spiritual topics in our youth group days. After high school, I headed to Bible College with dreams of being a preacher - using these skills to spread the ideas baked into the core of our culture.  But the next few years would see tensions that would slowly stay my pen.

     I don't intend to use this post to walk through my whole mental and spiritual journey, as it is a process that is never-ending and the point is not to make a "case" for anything today. Growing up, while questions about the fundamental assumptions of Southern Evangelicalism were never explicitly discouraged, the posture of the whole culture was very clear - you may ask brief questions, but good standing in the community is contingent on them being assistance in connecting specific dots and not from any truly deep doubts about the inherent morality or completeness of the overall worldview. I understood that I may "have the assurance of my salvation divers ways shaken," but that infallible assurance of faith meant the goal was understood to be getting back on the wagon of spreading our cosmology in the way that we all a priori knew to be correct. The only reason someone may question or reject the fundamental goodness of the culture that Evangelical Christianity creates and the beauty of its propositions were needing a little more info to polish up some internal consistency in the best case, or because they are a deceived agent of Satan used to assault all that is good and right in the worst case.

    So that's the reason there's a moment you can mark in my public life where I essentially ceased discussing anything of significance. I wasn't finding a way out of the amount of squinting required to make a lot of basic assumptions work; I was a good soldier and believed the missing piece that makes it all feel less like gymnastics was right around the corner and that moment never came; as I encountered more ideas and met more kinds of people, it was harder to buy that the one true line of correct thinkers even existed, much less lead to us and us alone; and as the church abandoned her prophetic duties in favor of becoming a mouthpiece for the powerful, the selfish, and the cruel, it became harder to believe that this tree was ever going to bear good fruit in the society it envisions. And the Evangelical cultural machine did its job - fear of rejection made me hide my thoughts about even the banalest of topics to avoid "tipping my hand" and changing my standing. And even more deep-set, the emotional blackmail of the absolute necessity of Chicago Statement-level of Biblical inerrancy made pulling on any thread come at the risk of complete existential crisis. So I was afraid of the gift I was most proud of, fearing I had been corrupted by the Devil and terrified that my words would lead others to destruction. I'd seen the rhetoric, particularly in the rancor that was used for other Christian traditions and the exile of people like Jen Hatmaker and Rachel Held Evans, and for fear that they had been deserving of such derision, began despising my own thoughts and looking with disgust on the gifts that brought me and others so much joy and value.

     It took a lot of work, a lot of study, and frankly, a lot of therapy to free myself from the prison I'd been convinced to put myself in. I see it now for the manipulative silencing tool that it is, and I refuse to be silent anymore. The way I follow God, the way I relate to the Bible, and the very basic way I think humans ought relate to one another in a just society look very different than what I was given, and I'm no longer ashamed of that. I'm working through what my posture is on a lot of topics, as it was this upbringing that gave me the basic tools of thinking about the world and being a good person, and there's no shortage of things I'm thankful for and will carry with me forever. But I'm not scared of my understandings evolving anymore - the world is bigger than I've been told, God is bigger than I've been told, and I'm not going to continue to pretend that I don't see what I see and pretend I'm not in the place I am just because it upsets the entrenched cultural leadership. So I'm not deluding myself that I'm starting some kind of media empire or am out to change the world or anything so grand, but I'm not convinced of the need for self-censorship anymore and I'm going to exist in public in an honest way I haven't done in nearly a decade.

     And there is one big thing I need to start with. So take a break. Refill your beverage. Let this sit for a minute. Thanks for sticking with me.

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Part 2: And…. yeah.

     As a reminder, I'm not going into specifics right now, because making an "argument" for any particular idea isn't the goal here. But there was a parallel series of doubts running inside of me growing up, even earlier than the proper spiritual questioning began. These doubts I can trace back to the age of nine before I even really knew what it was I was doubting. In short, I have never felt real peace with the kind of person I've been trying to be, with a way of presenting myself, of speaking about myself, or with any sort of social posture with which to carry myself. There was never really any particular activity that I felt was forbidden, and between family and leadership I had a pretty diverse set of role models for ways to navigate the world as a "good Christian man" that were more compassionate and thoughtful than the chest-beating Wild at Heart church conferences, but my whole life I've felt at best like I'm playing some kind of a bit in a show instead of being the kind of person I'm supposed to be. Looking in the mirror and at photos always felt like a low-key dissociative experience. It was often a dull roar - a sense of discomfort that lived perpetually in the background, like radio static in a station you're not quite tuned to correctly - and some nights it was unbearable.

     But I did it. I found a character to play that was as close as I could get to feeling honest. I put a lot of effort into explaining why I felt this way - from narrow-minded cultural expectations restricting what it meant to be masculine, all the way to demonic oppression planting seeds of rebellion and perversion (with the latter being closer to the line I was given the few times I did tip my hand about these feelings to someone else.) And while I never talked directly to spiritual leadership about it (knowing the social and spiritual consequences of revealing this struggle) I wept at the altar many a night, begging for these feelings to go away, and learned the party line through tangential debates on masculinity and Gender. Ultimately I had resigned myself to this thorn in my flesh - a low-key current of self-hatred and forbidden fantasies of a different life that were my battle to overcome in perpetuity. This "discomfort with gender roles that need to be reformed" was the only explanation that fit nicely into the Evangelical worldview where Adam and Eve were understood to be eternal archetypes of the perfect 50's Leave It To Beaver household that any deviance from was an affront to God's natural order. I bottled this pain as a deep well of energy to study these topics to understand better, the self-disgust is useful for driving piety and I did my best to prove to myself and to God that I was better than this impulse.

      But as my world got bigger there came a day a few years ago where I realized I didn't have to be afraid of the directions my mind would go when I lowered my guard. I didn't have to block out the testimonies of people who had found peace with similar feelings outside of the options I was permitting myself. I didn't have to ignore the voices all throughout history that have felt the way I felt, and who we were hearing from more and more. When I allow myself to live in a world where there are more kinds of people than just the ones that cultural leadership are comfortable around, what's happening is almost painfully obvious. This burden I have been living with has a name: as we understand currently, it's called gender dysphoria.

     Put simply, gender dysphoria is an incongruence felt from the gender one is "assigned" and the gender one intrinsically identifies as correct for oneself, and usually refers to the resulting psychological pain. An overly simplified theory is that hormonal imbalance in the womb makes the brain get one signal for the sexual blueprint and the body gets another. It's definitely more complex than that and the hypothesis does not explain all experiences, but what it means to be a man, a woman, both or neither, is beyond the scope of this letter, as it is far too long already and I don't pretend to understand fully (and don't trust anyone who claims to). But without an existential need to explain away this phenomenon, the growing evidence of medical science and the testimonies of trans people across history and cultures make it clear - this is real, the suffering it causes is real, and the ability to correct this incongruence physically and socially is the closest we have to a cure. So for the last three years, I have been experimenting honestly and talking to people close to me, and I have finally found moments where the static has stopped. When I am presenting and posturing in the role I've always suspected I was supposed to have, I am present in my life in a way that I did not think possible, and I am happy in a way that I assumed happy people were faking. I can't continue to ignore the pain I'm in, the things I feel, and what I have learned about the world and myself. The gender I was assigned at birth was incorrect for me, and as long as I try to perform it I cannot have true flourishing. Living in quarantine has given me an unprecedented opportunity to spend a large amount of time living truly as myself, and as the return of the world is in the near future I simply cannot go back. I have to be honest with myself and everyone else. I am transgender. I am a woman.

     I know this will be an adjustment, but in exchange, you get a happier, more honest friend, and I get to be finally fully alive. I know people enjoyed, befriended, and even loved the masculine character I built to survive in the world, but don't worry - I put a lot of myself into him, and getting to know the real me should be very easy if you knew him well. I am so looking forward to meeting all of you again without this fog of false identity between me and everyone I love.  I'm excited about the future, and this is not a feeling I thought was available to me anymore.

     I would be remiss if I did not mention how legal and social attacks on the very existence of transgender people are on the rise across the United States and all over the world. Our opponents are trying to restrict the available methods for us to alleviate our suffering, and any and all spaces that can be made impossible for us to exist with dignity are being attempted. Especially for youth, lawmakers are making it very clear for them and for all of us that they permit two options: the closet, or the noose. And so I choose neither. Realistically my dysphoria is at a level where I feasibly could manage it with some non-conforming fashion choices, hobbies, and cosplay, but I refuse to compromise my happiness anymore just to assist in these erasure campaigns run by people who feel they need to keep the world as small and familiar as possible. And I want people growing up in the same situation, feeling things like I felt, to know that they're not alone and that there is hope.

     And that's why I'm choosing, in my worldview, my writing, my silly opinions about video games, and in who I know I am, to resume living in public, out loud, and unapologetically. I was silenced for effectively my entire twenties, but I've broken through the chains that I placed on myself and that the powers that be forged for me.  So thanks to everyone who read this whole thing. Endless thanks to those who supported me as I was working through this as I know I've been an emotional handful and that keeping a lid on this was a major burden that was not fair to place on anyone; I would not have made it through this process without you. For those for whom this is a shock and a new or difficult concept, I hope we can grow together in our understanding. For those who can't walk with me down this path, I pray you at least listened for a moment with compassion and that you count the cost of the world you want to create. I'll go into more details in future writings, and I'm sure there are good conversations ahead with those who want to discuss things in good faith, but for now, I just need to clear the most urgent of a decade's worth of buildup. But I'm happy now, and I have not been in the past. I am making the calls I need for myself to flourish, and I have never felt better.

It's good to be back.