Taking a Breather

Just in the last week, we’ve had two more trans women murdered here in the States. Last Friday night, Bri Golec was stabbed to death by her father, who left her body out on the porch and made a false 911 call saying that they were attacked by members of a cult that his “son” supposedly belonged to. And just a couple days ago, Christina Grant Infiniti in Miami was murdered by her boyfriend. This one has barely been acknowledged, even by media sources that would normally cover these murders, such as the Advocate. Couple this with the fact that on Wednesday, I had a hostile (but thankfully not violent) encounter in the ladies room on campus, and I need a few days for myself. I’ve even skipped my LGBT studies and activism classes for this week because of this, and my professors were told why before either class. As such, I’m not going to really write much today. Instead, I leave you with a couple of essays I wrote about a year or so ago for a human sexuality class, discussing the media influences that existed while I was growing up, and what I would like to see changed. Think of these in light of the recent murders that sometimes, more knowledge of a topic, or more visibility, is not always a good thing. I risk my life every day just by being open and honest. As Laverne Cox said during her speech, there isn’t a moment when I leave my home that I don’t wonder if I’ll be coming home at the end of the day alive.

I’ll be back next week. Stay safe out there.

Military Service and Trying to Be a Man

A reader asks, “why did you go into the military? Did you want to make a man of yourself? If so, why?”

This is a two part question (three parts really), so I’ll address all three in turn.  First, the reason I joined the military is nothing so interesting, nor so noble as to fight for the American Dream.  That’s not to say that I’m not patriotic, I’m just not the female Captain America.  When I was in basic training, one of our first nights when they got all of the new flights together for orientation, they ended it with a video of various military weapons systems (helicopters, missile sites, tanks, destroyers, etc) doing a show of force (i.e. firing off all their weapons, chaff, etc at one time) with the song “God Bless the U.S.A.”playing, and I cried patriotic tears watching that.  I got made fun of by all the guys in my flight for a week because of those tears, but I was still proud of them.  That said, no, I’m not so patriotic that I joined for that reason, nor was it an attempt to be a man.  I was out and taking part in activism back in high school, starting with my junior year.