"It's the imperfections that make us whole."

Heroes
What can I learn from you
In your lifetime, in what you've been through
How'd you keep your head up and hold your pride
In an insane world how'd you keep on tryin'
One life can tell the tale
That if you make the effort, you can not fail
By your life you tell me it can be done
By your life's the courage to carry on

Heroes
Appear like a friend
To clear a path or light the flame
As time goes by you find you depend
On your heroes to show you the way

What can I learn from you
That I must do the thing I think I cannot do
That you do what's right by your heart and soul
It's the imperfections that make us whole
One life can tell the tale
And if you make the effort you cannot fail
By your life you tell me it can be done
By your life's the courage to carry on
-Ann Reed, "Heroes"

The inspiration for the name of this blog comes from Ann Reed's song "Heroes." It's a really powerful song, both in terms of lyrics and music.

I first heard "Heroes" at the Minnesota Trans Health and Wellness Conference last spring. It wasn't officially part of the program; I had slipped into the auditorium slightly before the ending ceremony was about to begin, and this song was playing on the iTunes of one of the conference's coordinators' laptops. Nevertheless, this song struck me as...just really fitting for the conference.

My heroes. Yes, my heroes include people who are famous. And my heroes include people who, though perhaps not famous to society as a whole, are well known within certain circles--people like Kate Bornstein, Riki Wilchins, and Leslie Feinberg, all noted transgender theorists/authors.

But more than that, my heroes are the everyday transfolk and genderqueer people and other gender nonconforming people who show immense courage and strength merely by being who they are in a such hostile world. "By your life you tell me it can be done."

I'm in college. And while my college is by no means perfect, it is in many ways a bubble that shields me from a lot of the ugliness that people face outside the protection of my campus. Even at my college--a liberal, queer-friendly, generally open-minded place--it is sometimes difficult to be myself. Even at my college, it is difficult, and scary, to come out to people as trans, to attempt to move through the world as neither man, nor woman. It is one thing to transcend gender intellectually and theoretically; it is quite another thing to do so in real life.

It is hard, sometimes harder than I can manage, to stick to my convictions and be who I am, expressing my gender as I wish to, even at my generally accepting, supportive, "live and let live" sort of college.

It is terrifying to think about life after I graduate, just a few short months away. People there, outside my college's bubble, won't have the general understanding of gender that many of the people here have--the knowledge of the sex/gender distinction, the acceptance that not everyone has to fall within the gender binary, the respect to generally let people be who they are, whoever that is.

People will view me as a woman, dismiss me as a woman. People will tell me that I'm going to hell, that I'm just confused, that I'm going through a phase, that I must be a man if I'm not a woman, that of course I'm a woman, that I'm a freak, that who I am and how I see myself doesn't matter. People will laugh at me, call me names, pretend that I don't exist. People will dismiss the legitimacy of my identity because I look too female, or because I haven't "picked a side' (i.e. woman or man), or because they just don't want to deal with any deviations from the assumptions they've made.

And I don't know how I'm going to deal with all of this. Sometimes, I don't know how I can. But I think about the song: "What can I learn from you / That I must do the thing I think I cannot do / That you do what's right by your heart and soul / It's the imperfections that make us whole." I can learn from the people I met at the conference, the people I read about and from online, the people I know. They somehow manage to live their lives in this incredibly transphobic world, and I respect them more than I can say. "I must do the thing I think I cannot do." I will dig deep within myself and find the courage and strength to live my life as myself. I know that being true to myself is what's right by my heart and soul.

"By your life you tell me it can be done"

All of the transgender, genderqueer, gender-neutral, bi-gender people I've met, all of the transfolk and genderqueers and other gender-nonconforming that I've read about--their very lives show me that it can be done. It is possible to not remain in the gender category that society has placed us in. It is possible to live outside the gender binary entirely.

"By your life you tell me it can be done"

My heroes show me the way.