a belated TDOV newsletter
Yesterday was Trans Day of Visibility1, which is, hmm, something I have complicated feelings about. Like, I'm celebrating my visibility in a society that has forcibly, publicly scrutinized my gender many times? Occasionally with violence, or the threat of it? Yay.
But on the other hand, every step of my transition took years of build up, catastrophizing forEVER before clenching up, holding my nose, going to the courthouse or surgical consult, and emerging an hour later being like "That's it? I thought I'd have to complete a quest or solve a riddle or something."2
And while I don't regret transitioning in my fourth decade, sometimes it's a good reminder that I didn't do it earlier because it always seemed impossible. Until I realized that I was essentially living in a haunted house, my body inhabited by dysphoric poltergeists that were throwing metaphorical pictures off the walls and tossing furniture around. There was only so long I could "this is fine.jpeg" my way through it.3
The week before that, I spent a lot of time at the bookshop I work at filming myself talking awkwardly about books by trans authors that I love and think are cool. Reading books by trans authors always feels like coming home, you know? In the way that home, the very concept of it, is fraught and spiky as much as it's comforting and nourishing;
in that I spent a decade wandering in larger and larger spirals away from home, but still finding it incidentally, impulsively;
in that strangers live there now, which is sometimes confusing but mostly delightful: the living room is now a master bedroom, the kitchen full of different food smells, the backyard scattered with toys, new holes dug in the dirt by new pets, and I wonder if they ever encounter the signs we left behind (the doodles I drew on my bedroom walls while stoned, the box of keepsakes my sister left in a crawl space), and if they do find those signs, if they find them delightful or just wonder what the heck is this?;
in the way that home shrinks sometimes, painfully contracting until I have to hold it protectively in the palm of my hand;
in the way that home expands outward, throwing out awnings and overhangs to shelter more and more people in ever-shittier weather.
Home in all its dimensions is something I'm always writing towards and reading for -- those mirrors that are also windows that are also doorways into someone's heart. It feels good to read other trans writers' feelings about it, sometimes for the validation of things I feel but can't articulate, sometimes to have my mind blown up by perspectives I never would have come to. It's nice to take a walk through other people's haunted houses, compare and contrast the ghosts that follow us around.
NEWS/LINKS
Zin Rocklyn, a Black queer horror writer and a friend, could use your help getting out of a bad situation.
The news coming out of Gaza and the West Bank is really fucking grim. You can help by supporting E-sims for Gaza or through Operation Olive Branch, participating in the boycott/divest/sanction movement, and by connecting with local action groups.
E-arcs of Dead Girls Don't Dream are now available to read/request/review on Edelweiss and NetGalley. You can also mark it as "Want to Read" on GoodReads, which is helpful to me and my publisher.
If I'm thinking about haunted houses a lot, it's probably because I'm trying to write my next YA horror novel that's basically the Breakfast Club in a haunted "troubled teen" facility. Current favorite bit:
“Look, this isn’t my first troubled teen rodeo, so if you want my advice—Caro didn’t, but didn’t have the energy to stop Frankie from talking.
“—Just straight up dissociate,” he finished. “Just float away from your body. Let your other personality deal with it.”
“…I don’t have another personality?” Caro said.
“Not with that attitude, you don't. But I got you.” After a quick look around, Frankie dug in his sock and pulled out a baggie with a couple of pills in it. It smelled like feet.
Frankie IS my favorite, if you can't tell. He's a tumblr-poisoned chaos gremlin.
1 It is has been a great week to be on Tumblr, with Trans Day of Visibility and Easter on the same day, followed by April Fools Day. "trans girlies roll stealth with disadvantage" memes and Jesus/Judas jokes and discourse about how pranks are really actually violence.
2 The major exception being HRT access, which has had obstacles that range from "minor inconveniences" to "major shitshow" while trying to just fill a testosterone prescription.
3 If we're continuing this metaphor to its logical conclusion, transitioning didn't, like, cleanse the house or dispossess the ghosts, but they're now chilling in the basement Babadook style, eating my intrusive thoughts and going ooh, that would make a fun horror story.