I first remember becoming aware of the Transgender Day of
Remembrance four year ago. I was very
active as a volunteer with Equality Ohio and some friends were going to attend
a Transgender Day of Remembrance Service.
My work schedule didn’t permit me to be able to go as I usually work in
the evenings. At that time, the notion
of someone being transgender was something that I was still becoming
comfortable with. I feel like I almost
want to yell at my former self as I write that because it isn’t for me to have
to, or not have to, become comfortable with someone else’s journey, but, at the
same time, that is as honestly as I can express where I was at that time, and I
want to share that here because, somewhere, someone might read this is who
struggling to accept someone as transgender.
That someone might even be themselves, and I want them to know that it
is okay to honestly wrestle with where they are in an effort to find a place of
greater acceptance and understanding.
I met up with the friends who went to the service four years
ago afterwards to get dinner. They tried
to explain to me what transpired during the service. Despite their best attempts, I couldn’t fully
visualize it, but I did get a grasp of the fact that it was a very weighty
service.
As time has gone on, and I have continued to do work in the
LGBTQIA community, I have gained more and more trans friends. As I have done so, despite the fact that I
have still yet to be able to attend an actual service due to work commitments,
this day has increased in weight for me tremendously. Now, when I think about this day, I see the
faces of the trans folks who populate my life.
I see their faces. I hear their
voices. I think about the things that
they contribute to my life and to the lives of others. Then, I try to imagine the world without
them. Even now, as I write this and
intentionally put myself in that space, the thought of their voices being
suddenly silenced is enough to bring tears to my eyes.
As I think back over my own journey, as I reflect on the
struggle to accept myself as a gay man, it took me a long time to work through
the internal questions of my sexual orientation, and it took an even longer
time to be able to articulate that to others.
I cannot imagine that additional layer of complexity that comes into
play by adding factoring in one’s gender identity being out of alignment with
what everyone else sees and working to accept that and then to work through
it. That isn’t my struggle to have
though. It isn’t my journey to
take. That journey belongs to my trans
brothers and sisters. My commitment is
simply to journey alongside them and to be an ally in any way that I can.
No one could have taken my journey for me, and I am thankful
that no one has taken from me the ability to continue on this journey. My trans brothers and sisters deserve the
same opportunity. We all deserve the
right to work through our own questions of identity, and, once we have found
our own truth, to live it out.
~ Culbs
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