Transgender Remembrance Day

http://www.transgenderdor.org/

Hey there.
Did anyone ever tell you that sometimes people are born into the wrong body? It happens. It happens and for the ones it happens to there can seem to be no safe harbor. I imagine what being in a world so very wrong that simply taking a pee felt like cutting my heart out--because I had to do it with the wrong parts and in the wrong bathroom--screaming soundlessly as people around me constantly called me by the wrong pronoun and the weight of the whole flipping world crushed down on me...

I don't live there.

But someone I love does, and his journey has been impossibly hard and dangerous. In fact, I can scarcely believe he has made it so far in his journey. He tried to stop the world and get off not so very long ago.
my heart aches to write those words
He barely made it here to my home. I have so little to give to my brother, but what I do have? Is his. We're family, and families, one's worthy of the name whether they be families born or families chosen love and protect and support. Full stop.

So today?
If you know somewhere in your heart that you are in the wrong body?
Or even if you're just questioning your truth?
I've got a few things to say to you, baby.

Stay safe.
I mean when you play (and you older teens know exactly what I mean) use protection.
If the place you're in feels unsafe, get the hell out.
Find someone --and baby, they're out there--who will love and support you just as you are.
Get informed.
There are resources.
There are doctors and friends and support groups.
You don't have to tell anybody your truth until YOU are ready to.
And baby, please don't until you know you have a safe harbor.
I'm gonna leave a list of places that should be able to help you.
Just remember that people *yes, every damn one of us* are foolish sometimes. Scared by what we don't understand and needlessly hurtful toward what we fear.

So if you reach out for help and the straight person you ask rejects you--shame on them, baby, not you.
If you reach out for help, and the LGBTQQ person you ask rejects you--shame on them, never ever on you.
The second should damn well know better.
Keep reaching.
There are folk who will help.
There is information out here for you.
Who you are is who you are and it's more than okay, it's beautiful.
I'll get off my preaching platform now, and put up the list of resources...and tell you that if you can't find something to help you, if you'll just drop me a line I will try to find someone who can help you. A resource you can use, and if I can, a number you can dial.
And if you know a good resource, please leave a link to it in your reply. Cause someone else may need that info to save their life.

That's all.
Except to tell you that one day?
Transgender Remembrance Day will be a day to celebrate, not one to mourn.

Information:
A blog post by someone who has walked in the same brand of shoes as you.
http://supermattachine.wordpress.com/

A list of resources by my TwitterPal, Brandon Shire:
http://brandonshire.com/lgbt-youth-organizations/

And of course, The Trevor Project. 
http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

I will look for more resources. And remember, if you find them, I'd love to hear about them here so I can share them with whoever stumbles into this little corner of acceptance.

Be brave.
Reach out for acceptance and understanding.
I promise it's out there.
I know it's here on this blog.
And I know you can carve a place out for yourself in this crazy world.
My brother did.

Something to Think About When Words Fly From Your Fingers to the Page

Write, for the night is coming, babies.

Write, for the life you uplift may be your own.

Write, for the joy you give may never be known to you,  yet may be the world to another lost soul.

Write, write, write.

The words may never mean a thing.

They may touch the hearts of a thousand generations.

Write because you must, and write because you can.

Write about what you know and write about what you long to learn.

And babies?

Take a kiss from me, and know you have shelter here in my Writing Cave.
If you stop in and I'm not home?
Relax.
Light the fire.
Make yourself a drink *I have all your favorite brands of pop and such, lol* or brew up a little gourmet java.

I only ever ask that you play nicely.
If you don't?
I'll be disappointed.
I'll wonder why you waste your time being mean.
I'll reach out to those you seek to harm and drawn them into my fold of friends, and baby, we are legion.

So write a rainbow for yourself today.
Write a bird on the wing.
Write a happy ending to your own sad story.

And laugh, babies, laugh for joy.

It's what I'm going to do.

This Needed Saying Twice.

Raging at Specters and Hobgoblins

Raging at Specters and Hobgoblins

When will the world spin at a better angle?

I'm so hellishly tired of hearing stories of wonderful young people taking their lives.

And I fucking loathe trying to write through a veil of tears.

Don't you do it.

Not a single fucking one of you.

Don't you dare take your life.

You get on a damn phone and call somebody.

Get on a computer and throw out a line, baby.

Someone will pick it up.

It does fucking get better.

I know.
I know.
I used to be right where you are.
I cut.
I did all kinds of shit.
And somehow I hung on and it fucking got better.
Please, please don't give up.
Don't leave us all here, with giant YOU shaped holes in our chests, bleeding all over the fucking world because you didn't just say to us look at me. I'm being sliced to ribbons inside.
Say those things.
There's not a chance you'll go unanswered.
Somebody cares.
I care.
Dammit, don't you dare.
Cause if you do?
You'll break so many hearts.
You'll break them in ways that will never heal cleanly, baby.

We will miss you.
And I'll be mopping my heart's blood up off my fucking floor for years dammit.
You're another friend I didn't get to have, and another bright place in the world gone dark.

And my heart fucking hurts.

Tales of Rue and Woe

Being fourteen?

Sucks.

You’re too old to just chill with your toys, and too young to do anything else. Just riding bikes with your buds isn’t an all day event anymore, unless you’re some kinda freaky exercise nut. Not old enough to drive, not old enough to just tell the folks you’re going “out” without having to explain in minute detail just where “out” is, and thinking up the lies to tell them about study projects and wholesome activities when all you really wanna do is go hang at the rink and watch the cute boys play in the skate park.

Huh.

When my mom first took me to the park…I dunno. Maybe I was four? I found the prettiest boy in the park and told him he was my friend. He smiled at me, and to this day I compare every boy’s smile to that one. I find it hard not to compare everything in my life to that day. I can still feel the soft warmth his pouty lips and little white teeth instilled in me curling into my chest whenever I feel lost, or alone.

Of course, when I was four all I knew was I liked him. He was older, tall and strong. I thought he was the smartest, most beautiful person I’d ever met in my whole life and I asked his name. He smiled a crooked little smile, and let a jumble of letters fall from his lips.

When he told me his name I couldn’t make all the sounds come out right.  I know the very first part of the word was woe. My mother wrote his name down, I think because she couldn’t say it either, and to this day the letters look like an incomprehensible mishmash of consonants to me. I ended up just calling him Woe.

Woe was the very first boy I kissed.

At the end of a magical afternoon where he played the part of a friendly giant rescuing me from the clutches of an evil magician over and over again, he knelt in the grass to give me a hug goodbye. I recall clearly rocking up on my tippy-toes to reach his cheek, and pressing a kiss against the smooth surface with ice-cream sticky lips.

I asked him to wait for me to grow up before he married anybody.

“Woe, can you wait to gets married? ‘Cause if you wait, the you could marry me when I grow up. I don’t think nobody could never love you as much as me.”

Woe turned startled eyes on my mother, and then got up from the grass, patted my head one last time and walked out of my life. He’s been half a step ahead of me ever since. I guess not much has changed in my life in the past ten years. Boys are still running away after I kiss them.

Well, sometimes they beat the shit out of me instead, or stop talking to me. One tried to get me to bend over, but dude. He was scary. Plus, I heard Woe is moving back, and I’m waiting for Woe. 

Tales of Rue and Woe

Pardon the dust. The site is still under construction.
I have a contractor coming in to brighten the place up, make it easier to read and some teen advisors to help me decide what stuff is important to them.
Oh, and a brilliant press that's going to help me get these stories to people everywhere. While they facilitate the GLBT youth charity of each author's choice garnering 100% of the profit on the books.

It doesn't get any sweeter than that.