Katherine used to tell me quite frequently that she cared more for values than ethics. For a long time, I didn't understand what she meant. She would ask me thought provoking questions about what value people, activities and items held in my life. She would ask what the value of being a good person was. She explained that value was independent of feelings we attach to people, that value of an item isn't what service it can provide. How valuable are the people in your life? How valuable are your possessions? What value can you find in yourself?
A popular definition of value, is a moral code in which to live by. We may think of value as the price of an item, or the amount of money something is worth. Those are common ways to reflect the meaning of the word. I asked questions about value in social media groups recently, like "What does value mean to you" and "What do you value". People responded with a range of answers, like books, games, people in their lives. One person replied that the value of a person is what one can offer others, what one can do to give back. Another person commented they valued their intelligence and so did their partner. Whether value to you is the worth of an object, the goodness that comes from a person, or the morals one lives by, I believe value is important. Let's say though there is a person that is a non-verbal, paraplegic. They can't offer advice, they can't work a productive job, they only lay in their own existence. So, what is their value? If we define value as a moral guide then how does one find out the moral code of a non-verbal person that lacks any action to prove it? What goodness can they show that would benefit another person? What could they possibly offer to another individual or this society? In asking these questions, I have concluded the obvious answer. Being that these individuals are in this world and this allows their care team (doctors, nurses, aides, etc.) to have a purpose in their jobs. In pondering the harder questions, I had to take myself back to several years ago. While working as a contract nurse, I worked with the severely mental ill and disabled. I recall one client in specific. They were a vegetable since birth, their parents left them with the state hospital to be cared for from 6 until death. This person was 19 when I was caring for them. They were only able to move their eyes and head slightly. As I would go about tube feeding, administering medications, and their personal hygiene, I would explain my actions and speak with them about their care. I'm not sure they could understand, but maybe they could. What did this person teach me? Caring for them taught me the value of a person regardless of their contribution to my life, regardless of their beliefs, their actions, job, income or class. I realized not everyone can contribute on the level we would like, and that's okay. If we can learn to value others around us regardless of their ability to live up to our expectations, then we will be acting with unconditional love toward our fellow humans. This is why I've come to understand that value is more important than ethics. One person's standard of ethics may be completely different than another's. This can be due to circumstances such as unique cultural based practices, differing religious beliefs, level of education, life experiences, etcetera. During our lives we read workers' manuals, religious books, among others and learn substantially from the actions of those around us. To give an example of how a difference in religious beliefs can help shape the decisions, beliefs, and values we hold, I propose a birthday party. The appropriate way to respond to a birthday party invitation for a person that is a Jehovah's Witness, is to either politely decline or not be involved during the festivities directly. However, for an individual that is, say, an atheist, a birthday party may be a major event with no expense spared. After years of such varying experiences, each one of us has a set of values, which is a culmination of our own single reality. Ethics is what we say and values is what we do. Being ethical, is a lot like being politically correct. Of course, we have all learned it's not ethical to tell a lie. However, we then have to adopt this trait as a value, by putting the action of telling the truth behind the decision not to lie. By allowing ourselves to place importance on ethics we can take on positive values to navigate our daily decisions and lives. We can transform the view of value from what someone or something does for us, into what actions we can take to further our own positive set of values. To reiterate, value can have many meanings. The ethical or moral code one lives by. The importance we place on loved ones, items, and ourselves. The monetary amount of possessions. The use we get from our devices, tools, gadgets, and other materials. However, the value of all of these things comes from actions on our part. Whether communication to family and friends, gainfully working to attain items, or living by a good moral compass, all of these require actions to obtain. So, when I think of value now, I think of how my own actions can bring even more value to my life and the lives of others.
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Honestly, I have a bad habit of being enormously dreamy and positive about situations even though majority of time it turns out nothing close to how I expected, but I'm constantly hopeful regardless. For instance, maybe I will find a lottery ticket and it'll be the winner and we can finally afford a home with our children having their own rooms! Then the dream bubble bursts and reality sinks in. Another example, maybe my ex would pay child support and help us financially since he's the one that injured my back to the point that I can't work, then the dream fog fades and I recall how he's refused to pay child support or even send her small items like panties and socks since I left him. Since he didn't make an effort to help when we lived in the next town over and I found Jayden on several occasions urine covered, still in her crib at one in the afternoon; once I left her asleep with him there at the house to run errands that morning, when I came home after lunch, I discovered our little Jay sitting in her crib still, feces covering herself and the entire inside of her crib like it was finger paint!
During Calvin's and my relationship, we would drink alcohol, regularly visit bars, partake in research chemicals that mocked the effects of drugs like X and LSD. We would have our circle of friends over for parties, that would include drugs and polyamory. He was into bondage, threesomes and rough sex. Which is how my tongue got ripped and no longer has the skin flap that attaches it to the bottom of my mouth, which is how my right shoulder was dislocated and finally how my back became disabled. That's where the rough treatment of myself started to come to a slow halt. The extreme daily pain I felt after that injury has haunted me the last seven years. I was in a wheel chair, on bed rest for a year. I have done two stints of several months regime of physical therapy. When I had a compassionate doctor at one time, I was able to get a spinal nerve block which allowed the pain to be eased enough to do inversions and therapy, and overall helped me be able to walk again. The back injury occurred a month before I found out I was expecting Jayden. My long history of miscarriages didn't give me much confidence she would make it into this world. During the pregnancy with her is when I was in the most critical and excruciating pain I've ever endured. The growing baby was causing worse pressure on my newly injured spine. I tried to stay active, but used prescription pain medication on an ongoing basis during the entire experience. Mostly, I sat on couches, whether it was mine, or a friend's during the day, so I wasn't alone and had folks around to help me. After Jayden, recovery time from the C-section was a couple months at best. I hadn't much strength, energy, or relief from pain but my very hard earned first born child kept me going. This brings us up to 2011, when Calvin and I were living in the house his mother had, except she inherited a home when her grandmother passed and moved out to leave us her home. We had the entire home to ourselves finally. I was happy but also not looking forward to having to clean up after the bunch that moved out. We had our own wing we usually stayed in. Which had a bathroom, fridge, microwave, entrance door, porch and two bedrooms. We rarely would use the rest of the home until the other folks moved. Which would include a grandfather that moved to a nursing home, his mother, sister, brother in law and their two kids. To top it off, they left all their furniture, garbage, trash, even the feces filled bedside commode the grandfather had at his bedside. Yes, they were the most disgusting people I've ever known. Cat feces, urine and vomit covering surfaces like countertops, furniture and random items scattered across the floor. There were mounds of clothes and shoes intermixed with food and other trash. Every single room had the grossest, most putrid smell from the five cats that no one cared for enough to keep them with clean litter. At the time, I was just regaining strength. I had my mother, friends and Calvin to take turns to help me shower and bathe. I hired my friends to come clean out the house since I was unable to get around much. After a couple months of work, the house was looking and smelling much cleaner. When we moved to Texas we were leaving behind friendships that were damaged, parents that didn't want us to leave with their grandchild, and attempting to salvage what little relationship we had left. We decided to try to be monogamous. We were married to save car insurance money and went about our daily lives. Drinking continued to be the norm in our weekend lives especially, occasionally in the evenings during the week as well. I had grown so used to my friends and Calvin teasing me about random character traits of mine and him making comments about my role as a female. For example, "you're already barefoot and pregnant, now you just need to be in the kitchen cooking me some food". With a laugh and a dismissive "I'm just kidding" behind it. I would want to cut my long hair, get tired of it and desire a change and would be met with discouragement and he would express a dislike of women with shorter hair. I would desire to loose weight but not be able to do much activity, I would express my feelings about it, to tell me he liked "heavier chicks with big boobs and ass" so it wasn't a problem. Well, it was to me. I had the internal desire to be completely, radically different than what I had allowed myself to become but he made excuses to enable the inactivity and so I encompassed those in my myself. I allowed myself to Netflix and chill, veg and game, have the stay at home work gig and a stay at home parent role. Which is absolutely great, if it makes one fill fulfilled, but it didn't make me feel wholesome. Living that way made me feel trapped inside four walls, constantly replaying the same motions everyday. I was stuck inside a loop of my own hellish creation. Internalizing verbal abuse, misogyny and lack of bodily autonomy, because that's how every male I had a relationship with was like, ever. They treated me like property, someone to control and put under their thumb but still do as they wanted too without regard for my feelings. I ended that relationship. When Katherine came back into my life, suddenly and by sheer coincidence, she taught me about my own inner value. She really put a mirror in front of my face which allowed me to see myself in a different aspect. She enabled me to see the hurting shell of a person, stuck behind their own constructed walls of lies, self destruction and sorrow. She carried me to protests, she had the important conversations with me others wouldn't have. We talked about politics, belief structures, world religions, customs, cultures, music, art, history, genetics, feelings, sufferings, injustices, intersectionality, philosophy and other random subjects through the years. Katherine dug out an actual person from the ruins that had been left behind. The horror story that was my childhood, the dramatic tragic ending to my first marriage, the epic ways others had influenced my actions and decisions, all seemed to be less obtrusive inside of my mind with her around. The fact that she too had been through similar circumstances in her life, made it feel easier to be inside of my own skin. For the first time ever, I was beginning to make sense of myself, through becoming her friend again. I asked my new best friend, Katherine if she would come with me if I left Calvin and she said yes. Eventually, we decided we wanted to give it a go ourselves since we were forced to end things as adolescents. We were living in Austin, trying to make it into a new home. We both were working for grassroots campaigns, fundraising and educating for Planned Parenthood, which ended abruptly when I had a car accident traveling to the work cite one day. A lady rear-ended me at a red light, an off duty police officer saw the accident, rushed over to assist and call 9-1-1. When the impact occured I suddenly felt a snap in my back and horrible pain. I tried to get out of the car but the pain was so great the officer advised I let the paramedics come to remove me. The emergency room did an x-ray, gave me oral pain medications and sent me on my way. Katherine has driven the car behind the ambulance, since we were commuting together. After this wreck, was when the second round of physical therapy took place. I was able to get my nursing license in Texas and I began working as a contract nurse. Shortly after this, we found out we were expecting our youngest child and once again the pressure of the growing little one, began to increase my back pain. Another car accident at five months gestation, when a man came over on top of my car in a truck, to change lanes. I went to the doctor directly after with pain and concern for our unborn child. They were fine and I was too but the impact had still flared pain that was radiating all across my lower back, into my hips and down my right leg. I couldn't work as a result and we lost the new apartment. We returned to Mississippi, to live with Katherine's folks while awaiting taxes to get a place in Hattiesburg, where she had a landscaping job waiting. Once we settled into our place, she returned to the landscaping company; she actually had worked with them previously. She would come home extremely worn down, over-worked, sore from head to toe, covered in filth and sweat. It was hard for her to not feel constantly dissonant while working in such a laborious job. After a few months, and post the birth of our newest addition, she asked to be changed from the labor crew to the greenhouse crew and was denied. Shortly thereafter, we both came out, she as a transgender woman and myself, as non-binary gender fluid individual. She came out at work to a couple of co-workers, asked again to be assigned to the nursery and was again denied, told she wasn't hired for that position. After she was approached by a co-worker welding a shovel and threatening violence, she realized Mississippi may not be the place to begin transition. I'm giving more detail to shed light on why things didn't work out between Calvin and myself. Also, to shed light on how I managed to get into this physical condition. I want you to understand the emotional burden I carried while living and identifying as a woman. I felt trapped, I felt I was living a lie and no matter who I was with, I felt that way. Until I was able to finally be free of the constraints of the image that was my former self. Being friends with Katherine, helped me to uncover the truth about myself. She had no reservations or expectations that she placed on me as a person. Just to be there no matter what and that's just what we've done. Becoming a better version of ourselves is what we set out to do when leaving Mississippi. We had no idea what was is store for us, we just knew we had to change and now. We swore off alcohol, pills and drugs. We became vegetarian. Katherine began medical transition. We moved to Colorado, in search of something better. Eventually we travelled further west to the Pacific Northwest, and now to California. Recently, we've been studying about the Donner Party and the emigrant trail to Oregon and California. It's sure produced a solemn atmosphere of appreciation for us surviving the trip westward. There are still days where we aren't sure how we will get our next meal, perform a simple oil change, or afford our next months phone minutes. Overall though, we've managed to successfully complete the journey thousands before us attempted as well, yet many didn't make it. They sought out on the trail for many of the same reasons, having a desire to be different than those around them; dreams of making a better life for themselves out west; pursuing happiness at the risk of loosing everything. We've fought hard to live, struggled through oppression to be ourselves, and endured pain from ourselves, each other and others before. We strive daily to ensure we have the resources we need to continue to maintain ourselves until a steady income returns to our lives. With a current disability application pending approval and the possibility of a work from home option, we may just have what we need soon enough. Being out of work these last eight months have really taken its toll. Although, I did write two articles for Trans.Cafe, now Translator Media. Those were the only two accepted before the company changed directions and the writers were let go. We haven't had steady income since I was able to work at the call center in Portland. We have been able to maintain with public services, help from Katherine's father occasionally and help from strangers I've mentioned before. We are hopeful about the future with the changes we are still investing ourselves in. With me being physically weakend by fibromyalgia, the back injury, the car accidents and mentally and emotionally effected by subsequent anxiety and depression, plus the PTSD from past trauma and not being on disability yet, can be extremely difficult to make strides in our life. Katherine suffers from social anxiety now since the experience with the landscaping company. She is no longer able to feel comfortable or at ease around a group setting, like a work place. It is hard for her now to speak up about how she feels at work and is hesitant about making friends at work since the last ones turned out not so friendly in the end. Sometimes this leaves her feeling alone, left out and isolated. Which is even more crippling, but it's hard for her to say these things herself. We help each other, we hold each other, we cry and remind ourselves it won't be like this forever. Being in a position to have to rely on organizations and donations to survive, we have a new found humility and different views of humanity. We also now have an increasingly overwhelming passion to help those in need that has been a result of our oppression, traumatic experiences, and one way we could pay forward the kindnesses and generosity shown to our family. In closing this time, I want you to know we are truly grateful and continue to pay it forward in as many times and as many ways that we can. We have many goals set forth and dreams we want to pursue. However, we are stuck in the survival loop until an unforseen time, hopefully in the not so distant future. California is the place to be, the governor's invitated the lgbt so we packed up our stuff and moved so eagerly! California has had its own unique challenges. We found there aren't many truck stops through the bigger cities in the northern part of the state. Which is where we shower, do laundry and use the septic facilities. Unlike Oregon and Washington, the roadside rest areas don't include RV dumpsites and water facilities in the Northern half of the state, that we've seen thus far. There are less shower facilities however, the laundry mats here commonly have free dryers, which is nice to save that change. More cities here have criminalized living in campers and outlaw stopping for longer than two hours in their limits. There have been sweeps of entire streets where campers were residing near public places. We've had to flee from several areas since being here due to the police and city ordinances not allowing us to stay. With this treatment it has made residing anywhere long enough to begin filing for services very difficult.
I wrote a letter to the governor's office stating that the lgbt were given an invitation to come here, they also should take into consideration that many LGBT and especially transgender folks are unemployed. With that in mind, even impoverished lgbt should have a space provided for them to be safe as well, even on the street, instead of being targeted by the police for being here. I have yet to hear a response and was contemplating writing in again. We've had to swap insurance now from one county to another which has now caused Katherine to be completely off her medicines twice and had us paying out of pocket for two and three days of medicine at a time. I've been able to file again for disability and have filled out the second round of paperwork. Finally, in the last week we were able to get insurance and medications straightened out, thankfully. Slowly we are progressing. We've found low income housing here for families and plan to apply once income is stable for us. I am beginning a stay at home position soon, more details as that unfolds. These are the ways we are progressing and I hope you're able to see progress in your situations as well. It's important to me to keep a schedule, a to do list and goals. I set small, obtainable goals to start and I even have other dreams that are much larger I aspire to achieve but ultimately, I'm only able to do small steps to get there. Northern California is filled with breath taking views. We've been to Lands End, Berkeley, Oakland, San Jose, San Francisco, San Leandro, San Mateo, plus the others filled in between. We've yet to drive over the Golden Gate bridge due to the requirement of a toll tag. However, the view from the I-80 bridge is amazing! The bridge itself is astonishing! I thought Portland had a lot of bridges, which they do, but not on the scale of the bridges spanning the entire bay at San Francisco to Oakland, from Redwood City to Hayward. It's a creepy feeling to know you're driving over water with sharks in it. The sunsets here are magnificent, gorgeous hues of purple, pink, orange and yellow blended together in a grand mosaic against a perfectly sky blue background. The weather here is probably the biggest benefit. We have to slide into a hoodie after the sun goes down but generally, during the day it's been comfortable for just a long sleeve shirt. Some days even a tee shirt is tolerable. We're thankful we made it out of Oregon before the snow storm visited. Since moving to the Bay Area we've encountered many new strangers. Some kind, some not so kind. Many people proudly affirming their solidarity with the lgbt and specifically transgender community, countless others strictly enforcing their views and beliefs of it being an "immoral and sinful lifestyle", one even telling me "It's something I don't believe in and don't agree with". This is astonishing to me as a transgender individual, for a person to say they don't believe in transgender is to say they don't believe in science. Almost like our current administration defunding scientific research programs across the nation. Science backs up the transgender experience. Many articles, youtube videos and medical research papers to say that their is a scientific explanation for people who identify as transgender. Recent research no longer suggests it's a mental disorder or delusion, which is unfortunately the stigma being transgender carries. Although, a large portion of transgender folks also suffer from perceived mental illness, it's often stemmed from abuses they've faced for being seen as "different", and a background of being misgendered their entire lives. I've seen in so many lives of my fellow trans identified people being harassed, assaulted, victimized, abused, emotionally neglected, consistently misgendered, and invalidated in their experiences of identity. This makes a huge impact on emotional and mental health. Continuing to devastate a transgender person in these ways are acts of violence. I can't express how concerned Katherine and I are about the current administration and affairs in our country. In response, we are reaching out more than ever. Katherine has ramped up her volunteer hours with the Lifeline. She's been having a higher call volume and much higher incidence of difficult calls. Some folks are afraid, some people are revolting, some are over joyed. We are supporting humanity. We are being there for folks and you should too. In our country today, we have a president that has been found to report lies, promote bigotry, hire CEOs and CEO affiliates with no pertinent qualifications for the positions they are now holding. This, to me, is also scary. That's why I urge everyone to turn to your communities. Show your support to your neighbors, show kindness to strangers and just be there for one another. There's already plenty of people making the world an ugly, scary, sad place. Let's do our part to progress ourselves and lift up our fellow humans. For instance a new acquaintance of mine is wanting to start visiting elderly people in local nursing homes. This is a wonderful idea! I've volunteered many hours and even was presented a nice certificate of appreciation for my time given. It was a sweet gesture of the establishment to have such a treat for the folks that give time away from their own lives to give to others. Once, I read an article about a hairdresser that gives free haircuts once a week to homeless individuals in their town. There's even a dry cleaners I saw with a sign that read "free cleaning of interview clothes for homeless". There are even Facebook and other social media groups devoted to outreach, sharing and donations, as well as free exchanges and give away groups. Whatever you can do, do it. Please show your solidarity with humanity. Some people.. you ever have that thought? Some people are really great examples of a good person. The people that talk about the important issues, the people that lend a helping hand, the people that volunteer their time, the people that care. Then there are some people that really make you question reality and humanity. Do you know any examples of these types of people?
If not, let me explain by giving you a few examples of how NOT to be. For instance, one night while at the store, our van died and we needed a jump. The first person I asked said they couldn't it wasn't their vehicle. I can understand that completely. The second person I asked, said they had to get home quickly. I can see the point of being in a hurry. The third person I saw and decided to try to get a jump start from, stated "I don't have cables." To which I replied, " I do." Then they said, "Okay, where's your vehicle?" Once I pointed out our camper, they then recanted the offer to help and stated "I have my reasons." Then proceeded to drive away. Katherine had been charging her phone for the next day at work on the lifeline. We had the inverter running and it went too long without being cranked. I searched in the rain that night for 45 minutes and finally a person named Rod who came over with a truck and attempted to jumpstart the the van. The only thing it did was make the cables hot. After Rod's long winded story of how two "women" should defend themselves and arm ourselves with mace and a knife, he followed me to the next person I asked and convinced them they wouldn't be able to jump me either. After that happened, that person was then rude to me and took this stranger Rod's word that his van couldn't jumpstart our van. Three more folks I asked all said no, then finally a couple in a tiny, silver car said yes and successfully let us connect cables to their battery for a few seconds to give ours a boost. Now, I ask myself why it would take so many tries to help out a person in need? Is it because I'm visibly transgender? Is it because it was dark and raining? I think that would be an important time to help an individual asking for help. What would you do in a time like this? I could have tried to explain that we are transgender, we work volunteer jobs for the trans/queer/gnc community and spend our time teaching our children and surviving. But, I spend many hours a day doing just that already. It was late, I was tired and ready to get the children to bed, so us adults can have quiet time that doesn't involve finding the children digging through food, painting themselves and trying on all our clean clothes because they just "want to be like the drone ups". We are a family. We laugh, we cry, we love, we experience. We need friends to talk too, we need a helping hand once in a while and we lend one when we can and sometimes even when we can't. We push ourselves to do better, strive for better everyday. My dream is that all people will not settle for less than they want and deserve. That's what we are doing. We are doing what we love, me writing and reaching out to encourage others, Katherine helping people in crisis. We are putting our family and outreach first and have received scrutiny, judgement, even at times scorn and chastisement from strangers. What lies on the inside may not be what it appears to be on the outside. Another example of how not to be is as follows: a person appearing male and having male genitalia approached the living area of the camper today, exposed themselves and proceeded to void their bladder of urine while standing against our bumper. Why? Some people really leave me scratching my head. Yesterday, during Katherine's work shift, I needed to charge my phone. I went to crank the camper and plug in the inverter and charger to find it wouldn't start. It kept turning over trying to crank, but wouldn't. We began troubleshooting. I attempted jumpstarting it, I thought perhaps it was our frequent "no bus" indicator so disconnected and reconnected the CPU cables. Neither of those options worked. Knowing we have replaced the battery, thermostat and water pump in the last year, we've had the alternator checked recently, we could hear the fuel pump kicking on and the starter was obviously working; that left only one thing I knew to check. I took the dash apart, checked the carburetor, cleaned the air filter and casing, reassembled it, still nothing. Then, like I always do when something happens and we can't fix it ourselves, we turned to the people around us for help. I began inside. I asked a person playing an arcade game, four folks watching television, one doing laundry and two more at the dining area. One by one they either didn't claim to know how to work on vehicles or seemed disinterested in helping. Finally, I saw a fellow camper-van dweller, walked straight toward them and asked did they know how to troubleshoot or work on vans. They replied yes. Said their name was "Mannie", grabbed a can of starter fluid from their rig, and accompanied me to ours. They figured it was corrosion on the distributer and used wd-40 as a penetrating fluid to clean it. It started right up. The three of us chatted for a while and discovered we had traveled the same areas in Colorado, since their mom lived there. These experiences we carry with us through our lives, whether good or bad. This is the way I will always remember these people. First impressions really do last. Let's all be the better end of "some people". This world isn't getting better alone. We have a duty to one another. We have to band together, stand up and do the revolutionary acts of kindness. Together we must rise above the "some people" and live by a more advanced moral compass. Humanity needs more loving kindness shown to our meek, our poor, our minorities and down-trodden. Discord and derision is what our new leader of the United States is ushering in. WE have to get uncomfortable, push ourselves past our own safety nets. Sometimes, that includes not assuming the homeless person is "just some loser". Sometimes, it's letting our guard down by talking with strangers. Other examples of being revolutionary would include: buying a card for a sad friend, visiting the sick, donating goods to the needy, befriending folks of different backgrounds, stopping to help a person with car trouble. This is just to name a few. I've been that person stranded on the side of the road needing a $6 part to fix my vehicle, jumping up and down waving, yelling for help, on the side of a very busy interstate and one single person stopped out of thousands. But they said they were taking their wife to work and couldn't stay to help. Our only phone at the time had less than ten percent battery life. We hadn't been in Portland long and we knew no one. Then, I got the idea to put out a post on social media. A couple hours later, two fellow transgender folks came to the rescue, we had never met, but they had AAA tow our vehicle to their place. We stayed the night with them, they made us breakfast and drove Katherine to the parts store the next morning. They were a tremendous shining light, that came to our aid. Just because they had been in a position to need help before as well. I choose to live by accepting the blessings of others as well as being a blessing. We may not have much money, but the blessings are continually flowing. Get rid of your excuses, let your guard down, get out there in the world and get active! Start helping today! .Many days have passed since I've gotten a chance to write. I've tried several times over to use my phone, but its a cheaper smart phone available through a prepaid plan, so there's no wonder. My heart has missed this. I'm attempting on my phone once again. Heck, if it doesn't work, I can at least email it for future posting. A local person told me about an electronics thrift store, that supposedly has chargers for ten dollars or less. Resources and funds have been so tight however, I've not gotten the chance, sadly, to go there either. Coming soon. I wish I could go tomorrow, maybe it will come true.
Katherine and I have been working hard for the trans/queer/gnc community, even more so than before. Katherine has worked the last twenty-three days straight and I've been dedicated to outreach through the online support group I moderate. Our community members have taken many blows last year. In 2016, the transgender community lost more folks to murder than any other year. We face a whopping 40% that complete suicide in our community. Whereas the rest of the national population faces 4.6% of their members completing suicide. That's a detrimental difference. Transgender persons are 8 times more likely to encounter trauma and abuse. There are 27% of our population living in poverty situations. And this isn't including the ones that aren't reported. Now, more than ever we have to step up to the plate in our local communities, in our online communities and bring 2017 to a much higher standard of living for all of our citizens! We have new concerns as the coming inauguration day approaches. We are living in critical times, where people are harassed on social media, bullied to the point of completing suicide; where folks are raped, murdered and abandoned like road kill for their color, religion, beliefs, or lifestyle. Caring for one's self is definitely needed, but caring for each other, I believe is needed much more. Last night, a homeless individual was enjoying a spot to rest on a left behind tan bench seat from a vehicle, that rested between two head high bushes. I said hi, approached them, asked if they had eaten and needed water. To which, they replied "No, I've eaten real well, a person just dropped off a homemade cake too, that'll do me through the night." I looked around to see their pack and gear beside them on the ground and a sign, that all helped them along the journey. Then they commented "You know what I could really use? A blanket. I'm going to be out here sleeping tonight and want to cover my head." I told them no, I have two kids to keep warm and we don't have spare ones. However, after seeing rain clouds, I donated one of our blankets anyway. I can't stand to see anyone without a blanket and sleeping outside. We may not have a lot, but normally are willing to share what we do have. For instance, a couple truck driving friends we have, came to meet us for the first time, while we lived in Oregon. We had them for dinner twice and even went ahead to cook the second time, when I originally said no, since it was dark, rainy and chilly out. We wanted to be sure they felt appreciated for stopping in with us. We wanted to show them our best efforts of reaching out, because that's what we should all be doing. We all had a nice time chatting, sharing experiences, and enjoying a freshly cooked meal together. These connections we make can truly make a difference in someone's life. I recently had a friend tell me they were so thankful for the past 6-7 months of friendship. Which is exactly how I feel as well. Having good, positive, helpful connections, can help the world a lovelier place for us all. |
Authors:James and Katherine are a transgender couple raising two kids. They were southerners when coming to understand themselves as trans. Ultimately it lead to a nearly three year road trip to find home. Now they are re-housed and still focused on outreach in the transgender community! Archives
October 2020
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