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.
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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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