Actually, I've been ready for some time, in a sort of submerged, subconscious way, but haven't had the time to consciously sort through my thoughts on the matter or write a post about it. Now that I'm so wrapped up in depression that it's hard for me to work on music writing or any of the five zillion other things I'm supposed to be doing, it seems like a good time to sort through my emotions and get this one put to rest.
Being angry - attacking others, sarcastically sniping at them and their beliefs, fuming over perceived wrongs to myself or people whose struggles I identify with - is not a way I want to live my life, and also not the way I want to write this blog or the message I want to send about the people and causes that I defend. It is also not productive, as it makes "the other side" defensive and so more entrenched in their beliefs, or even divides people into opposing sides when they really weren't in the first place. For instance, the person whose comment set off my first angry post is far from transphobic, yet my anger could have made her an enemy.
Anger, ultimately, causes us all to suffer more, both the people who express it and those who receive it, and so expressing it doesn't really help make the world a better place.
And yet, I couldn't bring myself to apologize, because, as I wrote back then:
...a part of me still thinks, if I don't express myself, explicitly and vociferously, then how will cis people ever know how I feel? How will they be able to have compassion for trans* people if they don't know how we suffer? And if I have to hold back my anger, doesn't that make me complicit in my own oppression? With the sort of things that happen to trans* people, don't I have a right to be angry? Shouldn't everyone be angry, when confronted with the alarming numbers of attacks and murders and suicides that happen to the trans* population?I was still angry. I was still attached to that "us vs. them" mindset. Cis people are oppressing trans* people. When the reality of it is, we're all oppressed - by gender norms that set unattainable ideals of what's "masculine" and "feminine," and that limit us to only one side of that spectrum based primarily on our genitals at birth. That doesn't sound fair to just about anyone, does it?
I'm not saying we should do away with binary genders altogether (a lot of people like them), but just that the gender system should be more open and relaxed, with more freedom for everyone to decide where they fall and how to express themselves. And I'm saying that this is a better mindset to approach these issues, as an effort that will benefit everyone, than as a battle between cis and trans* people.
The comment I received about how "hard" it was to gender me correctly before I started HRT could have been an opportunity to discuss these issues, but I shut the discussion down by launching into an angry tirade. (I didn't yell at the person at the time, but I yelled about it later online, and the next time I talked to her about the issue, I was still venting frustration rather than engaging in dialogue.)
There was an article by Buddhist nun Thubten Chodron which was central in helping me dissipate my anger and think about alternate ways of dealing with situations like this, but it seems to have disappeared - I have the link but it doesn't work anymore, and I can't find it by searching. At least I saved some quotes from it, although I think there was more to it that I can't quite remember now. She has a book called Working With Anger which I should probably read. I'm also re-reading Thich Nhat Hanh's Anger, which was actually the book that got me started on Buddhism in the first place.
In that now nonexistent article, Thubten Chodron pointed out that expressing and suppressing anger are not the only options. If we try to look at the situation from a different point of view, "we will find that there is no reason to get angry to start with. Then there is no anger to express or to suppress."
Oftentimes, we trans people get upset when others' view of reality comes in conflict with our view of reality. We very clearly see our gender identities one way, while some people see them another way which is to them just as obvious and clear. Sometimes, people who are otherwise kind and respectful people just don't know how to be kind and respectful to trans people. This is through no fault of their own, but because their experience never included anything other than cis male and cis female. There's no reason to get angry about that; these people can usually be turned into allies by kindly and respectfully making them aware of our existence and what are and aren't nice ways to treat us.
Sometimes, people can't stomach the view of reality where sex and gender are more complicated than cis male and cis female, and they get angry (and hateful, and violent) first. Leaving aside the question of self-defense (cause that's a whole nother blog post I need to write at some point..) I don't think anger is a constructive response here, either. It seems so justified - someone may have been assaulted or killed; isn't that worthy of getting angry about? Certainly, feelings of anger are likely to rise in such a situation. That can't be denied, and we would need to deal with them. But taking them out on others, even on society as a whole, won't bring back a person who was killed, and won't do as much to prevent another person being killed as would efforts based on building compassion and mutual understanding. I don't, of course, have any data to back this up, but I feel it in my gut. Appealing to people's sense of compassion and fairness will be more effective at spreading tolerance than yelling at them, even if the yelling is generalized.
The thing is, we are all human, and sometimes we screw up - sometimes in small ways, and sometimes in bigger ways. Getting angry about it doesn't help anyone, but only makes things worse. Again in that lost article, Thubten Chodron writes,
It is clear that living beings are imperfect. So my expectation that they be perfect is totally unrealistic. When I accept this, I understand why they act like that and am more compassionate regarding what they do. They are caught in this dreadful prison of cyclic existence. I don’t what [sic] them to suffer, and I certainly don’t want to inflict more suffering on them by getting angry.When someone hurts me, it may seem natural to be angry - to protect myself from further hurt, to call attention to the wrong that was done. But these things can be achieved in other ways, without causing more hurt as a result of being angry. In fact, they can be better achieved if we find ways to work with people instead of fighting against them.
So does that mean I will never go on another angry rant? I dunno. After all, I am imperfect too, and very forgetful to boot. But at least for now, I'm calm enough to say I'm sorry for taking my anger out on the internet, and that I will make an effort to talk about things more benevolently and compassionately in the future. That is the way to less suffering and more happiness for all of us.
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