This was first written on August 8, 2008...which was one day short of 14 years after my reassignment surgery.
And I'm still talking about finding a place where I can belong.
My adult life has been built around teaching, which to me is about helping others find a place where they belong, where they are valued. I've spent most of my life being told I should go away because I didn't fit in, that if I had any value, it lay elsewhere. Or at least that's the impression I received. As a kid. As a hippie. As a spiritual person. As a PFLAG parent. As a GLBT person. As a human being. As a woman. As a lesbian. As a transgender person.
Yep, I've even been attacked by my own communities from time to time because I was somehow different, sometimes based on issues like emotional sensitivity or body morphology, but more often because of my views on life. And my views on who belongs. And where. And why.
The image to the left is entitled Not Doorway.
Pencil and Wax
Words
The words take control
demand to be written
I help guide them
dress them up
slim them down
searching for
clarity, brevity, emotion
hopefully all three
I'm not sure
where they come from
perhaps from the pains
and joys of my life
The words are the blood
in the vessels of my mind
just as feelings are
the blood feeding my soul
Is there any separation
between me and the words?
--Robyn Elaine Serven
--January 10, 2006
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In the last 15 years of my life I have learned that I can address that. I found the value of my words, which I mostly confined to the classroom in the middle half of my life. I wrote emails. A wise woman (
Kate Cummings) told me I was writing poetry. I was stupid enough that I began to believe her. And I tried to explain what they meant. I'm still doing that. You may have noticed.
And here we are in the midst of a pair of poems, written at two separate times, over a two month period, but covering almost the same subject.
Brain Scan
The Words
The words have control
command I attend
Through my mind they must flow
I am their vessel
They require writing
demand creation
Pushing boldly forward
whenever I pause
The words I give you
that they may be read
and spread their infection
into the future
--Robyn Elaine Serven
--February 16, 2006
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I've found some of those places where I can belong..at least for a time. It took most of my life and a huge investment of self, but I have found places where I could just be me and not be told to go away. And I've had to build some places of my own. I've always hoped that my diaries have had the feel of Me in them, that they resonate with my Voice (Kate's term).
Always in the back of my mind has been the thought that it is not enough that I find the doors to those places, but that I should also make sure that after I pass through them, they remain open for whomever else wants to follow. Just like Kate did for me.
I've found where I belong. For now. I've created bridges when there appeared to be none, out of the words I've found to express who I am. I've listened and learned when it was needed. I've taught when it was necessary. I've asked for help when I've needed a hand. People...mostly women, but a few men...have seen fit to extend me a hand and help keep me from losing my way. I know enough that I can never repay those folks for what they have done for me in any better way than to try to help someone else behind me. We don't live forever. New Voices must be found.
And being admitted into those places has cost me some friends from time to time. Some have thought I should leave one community behind when I have become accepted as part of another. It certainly did not go down well at the 1995 Seattle Gay Pride Parade when I marched with my transgender friends rather than my lesbian ones, even though I had marched in the Dyke March with them the night before.
And it didn't go well with some of my transgender friends when I found acceptance in women-only space, apparently since entry seemed to still come with limits...like learning how to behave in women's space. Partly since I didn't need the vitriol, I chose to leave the online gender community when I moved from Arkansas to New Jersey in 2000. It was also partly because I felt new Voices need to be created and I was getting old.
Even here at Daily Kos I've been told that I should get over being transsexual and just be a woman. I don't even know what that means. I cannot forget who i am.
My brand of feminism informs me that wherever there are boundaries placed on the human condition, people need to push against those boundaries. Even when they are not my personal boundaries.
Having found or created places where I belong...and hopefully leaving doors open for others, where do I go from here?
I've got a few more chapters. On Becoming. On Being. and yes, on Belonging. I would guess that Doing comes next. I've lived in my head for so long, I'm not certain what that means.
But I'm willing to listen.