1445.  Musings on life, work,  hypocrisy and the toxic sisterhood

Life has been dealing me many chances to examine things of late: friendships, family, assumptions.  Though at times painful, when we are given cause to pause, and to look behind the curtain, it behoves us to take that gift for what it is.

What we do with insight is ours to live with, or not.  When we are forced to look at things which are painful, we can pretend they are not there or can act upon them.

My life is at a turning point.  It feels like a moment of intense alchemy and transformation.  I have been outed as a whore in business and personal circles, some of it by choice, but others not.  I have jettisoned friends through unkind words—though I question whether “friend” can be friend if they are but snakes in the grass waiting to bite me.  We can lie asleep in a pit of vipers and never notice the danger until we make a move that displeases one, only to find them bare their fangs or worse, attempt to bite.

I am most struck by hypocrisy.  I am all for views which attack the prevailing power structure.  Justice serves only the rich and powerful, those with the means to be seen.  While the laudable ideals enshrined in constitutional protections seem lofty, some countries are poignant case studies in “do as I say, not as I do.”

My optimism for the age we live in is boundless.  But this is measured in millennia, not in lifetimes.  On a human level, when people are no longer willing to die for a just society, they become victims through passive acceptance.  When you can be lulled into a state of acquiescence by a mixture of sitcoms and junk food, then you are a model citizen.

Right now I am surrounded by “religious” people.  Those kind that sit in judgement.  That is religion by process.  A bit like table manners.  A set of rules designed to exclude, to provide reassurance of belonging.  There is nothing like the smug middle-class satisfaction of being able to look at how someone holds a fork and think how well you were raised.   

That kind of thinking reveals a deeper truth and one which the smug never pick up on.  Wealth, not necessarily material, but also spiritual truly does accumulate with the haves, and not the have nots.  But the haves are not “in possession”, they are living instead with a state of being, one which measures essence through conduct.   The “how” of life.

Strivers and class-conscious warriors, those who seek to climb the social ladder, those who notice and fight over such things, including those who stand deliberately to the side and take potshots at the system whilst still enjoying the fruits of others or the table scraps of the system itself, miss the point.  It is our conduct which is our measure.  

“The meek shall inherit the earth,” is a self-serving Christian tenet delivered before you empty your pockets into the collection basket.  But you are not exempted from doing good works.

Recently a woman called me a capitalist as an insult.   I know that capitalism is a dirty word in her mouth.  And by that, she most probably refers to its tendency to produce unjust outcomes, that it favours the accumulation of capital, that it is a system which accrues undo advantage to those who already have means.  It is a profound truism that “it takes money to make money.”

Meanwhile, my writing coach has told me that writing is my purpose in life.   That I was put here to write, and that I need to prepare myself for penury, for an existence without money.  Writing, sadly, does not pay.  At least not to most of us.

The irony of the anti-capitalist’s words was that they were thrown at me indirectly whilst she was enjoying my hospitality, and is someone who has frequently enjoyed my hospitality.  The hypocrisy galls.

I ask whether a trans woman is capable of being a capitalist.  The stats would suggest otherwise.  We are as a whole, on average, the most economically disadvantaged collective of people in the Western World.  We earn less than anyone.  So to call any of us a capitalist, is a pretty absurd notion.  Even the reprobate Caitlyn Jenner is not capable of being a capitalist.  

Survivor might be a better word.

I was also recently called a patriarch.  That was a way of saying that my former genitalia shall forever define me.  And while I appreciate the notion, and how undecipherable the concept is, eg. could a black ever be a white supremacist?  The notion seems absurd.  No matter.  The misguided thinking was served with intent to hurt not to make a point.

And that leads me to the white middle class woman.  I was always warned about lesbians and how they would be unwelcoming to trans women.  The warnings were so dire as to make me fearful of contact.  And yet, so many of my amorous liaisons are with queer women, with bisexual women, and I find them to be profoundly and deliberately inclusive.

It is the straight white women one must watch out for.  This is my largest friend circle.  Like so many gay women, I seem to be drawn to the straight ones.  And mostly they pay lip service to my membership in their midst.  But even the ones who profess love for me are quick to pull out that card of non-belonging to the sisterhood.

Indeed, it is the first place they go.

One woman recently said to me over and over, in a dispute between a man and a woman I will always take the side of the woman. I do too, and there are good reasons for it.  But in this instance, it was clear from the reference, that I was lumped into the man bucket.

This same person has expressed my resentment for taking up space.

But when I decided to stop living my life as a paid-up member, albeit a faker, of the patriarchy, I did so with full knowledge of the consequences.  I have become unemployable in the world I built a career in.  I have become a pariah in some of my former social circles.  I cannot go outside without being stared at, and reminded that my existence makes people uncomfortable.

One of my besties was getting upset walking around with me about how people stared at me.  She said how much it bothered her.  Apart from it not being about her, I asked her to stop talking about it, because my way of dealing with it is to not notice it.

I live in small cities or even tiny villages.  Over time, they get to know me, and eventually I begin to feel that they aren’t all ready to slit my throat.  The acceptable alternative is the mascot.  “She’s our trans/intersex person.”  And if that helps them be inclusive, yay.  But I know that as soon as I step out of line, put my trash out on the wrong day, then the tongues will wag.  In other words, acceptable when invisible.

But what is it with the straight white woman who feels the need to go for the jugular with me in casual conversation, to express a hidden resentment.  Is their existence and sense of identity so fragile that dipping into the politics of identity the only place to go?  If we are having a discussion about such and such, and she might not like my take on the topic,  is it suddenly fair game to call me a man?  How thin the veil of civility.

Such people eventually become ex-friends.

I have often jettisoned people in my life without mercy.   Blood ties are no excuse for mistreatment and ill behaviour.  And sadly, like the elephant, I don’t forget.  A friend is never nasty.  Nasty people are broken inside.   I am broken enough, I don’t need that energy in my nest.

I have written about being someone who fires people.  The kindest way is the way without mercy.  Absence of mercy is not about dignity.  To let people go with dignity is one thing, but to be firm, without mercy, in the end is easier.

A friend is asking me to “do the work”, but I know that what she really means is to negate myself and come over to her point of view…but I know the cost of that.  It is more than self-denial or the pain of learning, it is all about stepping into her shortcomings, hypocrisy, and prejudice.  I won’t do it.

I respect people who work hard, make sacrifices, pick themselves up and try again, but above all, I respect those who treat others with generosity of spirit the highest.

A very cherished loved one has said often how supportive they are of the queer and trans community.  But when it came time to do that beyond platitudes, they left the stage.  They were shocked when I called them on their bullshit.  Lip service is worse than opposition because it shows the collaborator’s mindset.

No.  Instead, my heart reaches out to the man on the London underground who without knowing me stood up, walked across the aisle, and faced down another man who was bigger than him and potentially dangerous, and got in his face, getting him to exit our car, and shove off.

Are you one of those men?  A man who fights for justice, even when it isn’t your own backyard?  What of these women?  Which one are you?  Are you the kind who doesn’t just examine your own biases, but who stands up for others even when their existence might threaten yours, because the sisterhood comes first?  Or are you a gatekeeper, the kind who thinks her manners speaks to class.

Let me tell this.  It’s all our backyard?  Everything.  When it comes to decency, there is no such thing as the right to privacy.  That’s just a cloak for abuse.