Trans activism

Today I had to hold a five minute speech at my Swedish course. I am not out as trans in school, they "just" know that I have a husband. A few friends know but it has never been a good time to come out and I don't feel obligated to talk about my trans history. They know that I am Alex and that felt enough.

But then this opportunity came. A five minute speech about dialects, nordic languages, sociolects or something in that area. I choose to talk about my own body language and spoken language as a man and as a woman. I did is as a little show where Alex and the girl I use to try to be. It was the most scary thing I have done in quite a while but oh so fun!

This is the ms I had (translated though), the italic styled text was told with a very feminine body language another voice:

My minutes here in front of you will deal with body language from a gender perspective. More specific, my own body language as man and as a woman.

When I was born 27 years ago something usual happened. My parents didn't see that I was a boy. That can sound weird but there actually was not any single sign that said otherwise.

(at this point I turned on a overhead projector that showed my driver license with Oldname and a feminine photo)

I noticed the difference quite early but used very many years to cover up the tracks. I really wanted to be a normal girl.

To look as normal as possible I had to learn everything a woman was supposed to be. To be on the safe side I had to know how a man was acting so I could avoid that.

I think that it is remarkable that so many small things can make so much difference.

During about a year I lived as both woman and man depending on who I met. With some family and old friends I was Oldname and with my immediate family I was Alex.

No one misinterpret my signals. By the way I choose to dress, speak and use my body I could choose to pass as man or woman.

What is it that makes us think that someone is male or female?

When I walked up here I used big confident steps. I placed myself right here in the middle in front of you. I took a good look at you and looked calm. If Oldname would have been here she would stand a bit by the side, glanced at the teacher and then rearranged the papers. (said with a giggle and a blush)

Alex talk with a clear and slow voice
Oldname speaks faster, she almost reels off her words at a high paste that you almost never would hear Alex use. Oldname would need a much longer manuscript then Alex and she doesn't make pauses in her speech but marks points with different melody when she talks.(said in one breath)

Then it went on like that, when I described myself and just took a step aside when I was Oldname to reinforce that I was different characters.
After a while i paused and looked at them and said

The worst thing of it all
When Alex speaks almost everyone listens
When Oldname said the same thing she had to work twice as hard to get half the attention

Oldname took to much space
Alex gets authority

I do not tell you this just to pass this assignment
I do not tell you this just to give you something cool to tell your friends

I tell you this because I want you to know what a tremendous power body language can give you. That someone who act masculine gets attention that a classic feminine way to express one self goes without.

I did not only go from male to female
I went from under paid to over paid
I went from G:s to straight MVG:s (from C's to straight A's)

What I am sad to tell you is this: What we say is not yet as important as how we say it.

I got by far the most applause afterward. I was so nervous and had to force the words out of me afterwards. But now it is done. My first live trans activist performance. I know it will be many more and it feels good that I never have to do it for the first time again :)


(The photo in the beginning of this post is of me and my darling niece, taken a few days ago.)

Amateur - Lasse Gjertsen

I saw this a couple of days ago on a blog I never read before and today I stumbled upon it again. I think it is a sign that I should share this with you. I could really recommend his "Jeg går en Tur - A self portrait" too. I like his way of using his creativity

An unexpected ending

Today me and my husband is celebrating our last wedding anniversary. That is so weird. We have to divorce because only unmarried people are allowed to a legal sex-change in Sweden. When we married all those years ago I was realistic enough to know that it was a possibility that it wouldn't last forever but I did never, ever think about the possibility that the state was going to force us to divorce and that we wouldn't have any plan to separate when we divorced.

But now it is here. The last anniversary. Guess we are going to celebrate some other day in the future. The first date-day or something like that or maybe start celebrating our divorce day. But today we are going to celebrate. Presents, good food and good wine.

I have nothing to say but; weird...

Thanks for these years hubby-soon-to-be-boyfriend-again.

So now I know who I really am...

My favorite podcaster, the funny and way too bright Joe G just posted a entry called I am the hanged man where he told us that he became the hanged man in a What Tarot Card are You-test. He linked to the test and I took it...

You are The Devil

Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession

The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Maybe I have found my true self now. But i like goats and I can live with being "a powerful man who is hard to resist". I will just sit back and wait for that business success and some money. Maybe I will use my unresistible charm once in a while to.

Male mumble

Today I got locked in by my inflexible personality and bad habit of questioning what should be unquestioned.

I referred to someone as "biomale". Then I got confused. Does a permanently attached dick right from birth or i a Y in your chromosomes define your biology for the rest of your life? What makes me less bio then others? Last week when I went into the men's locker room to change clothes and a whole lot of naked men walked around and was comfortable with me being there. Quite a few of them actually knowing I am trans. If I had only opened the door to the woman there would have been quite a few screams. My biological appearance as they saw it was all male. Or at least man enough. I am not only a man, I am a bio man. All male, even if my dicks didn't came at birth.

So what to call them? The male ones that never did any changing? Birth-males? But I have known forever that I wanted to be a boy and research tells us the transconfusion probably comes long before we are born. So transdudes are birth-males as well.

XY-men? Well, there are quite a few men that have Klinefelter with XXY or other variants. But just to call them Y-men, nahh, thats just not right ether.

Dickdudes? Well, most transmen has dicks of some sort. PenisRightFromtheStartMale? Doesn't really goes well with ether speaking or writing. And I'm tired with all the genitalia focus. Besides, having a penis doesn't make you male, I know lots of woman that had or have a penis.

I think I have painted my self into a corner. Non-transman-male? NtM...

Hate labels. Obviously I can't live with them and I can't really see a reality without them.



My spell check didn't know all words in this post. Never could have guessed...

The perfect democracy

So now we have it on paper. Sweden is the closest thing to a perfect democracy. At least according to The Economist and this article

Sweden, a near-perfect democracy, comes top, followed by a bevy of similarly virtuous northern European countries. More surprising are the relatively modest scores for two traditional bastions of democracy—Britain and the United States. In America there has been a perceptible erosion of civil liberties related to the fight against terrorism. Long-standing problems in the functioning of government have also become more prominent. In Britain, too, there has been some erosion of civil liberties but also a shocking decline in political participation. Britain’s score in this area is the lowest in the West and is reflected across all dimensions—voter turnout, membership of political parties, willingness to engage in politics and attitudes towards it.

US came 17th and GB scored surprisingly low: 23th place.

I have one thing to say: Welcome to Sweden!

I don't know what to do with my money

I like that title. But no, I am not as rich as it imply, well I am rich but not counted in money, my assets arent material.

Still, the title is correct, I do have a problem with what to do with my money.

My parents like their parents are pentecostals. Growing up inside that movement being trans or gay wasn't an option. Maybe as an adult I could go back and consider being open but I can't see that it was a possibility back in my teens. Jesus and Satan was all that mattered. They where both two very real persons lurking about all the time. Everything good was of Jesus and everything bad or great was of Satan. Yes, everything great. Not only was everything bad that happend evil, even the really good things was bad. I remember when a big role model to me said she wanted to eat a whole block of chocolate, they come in 100 gram/3,5 oz blocks here. She knew she was a model for me and the moment she said it got devastated that she had said something so stupid. Of course a Christian wouldn't and shouldn't do or even talk about something like that. So we prayed that Jesus would take care of her craving that Satan given her.

Now, I know that I have some different readers and I think I can devide you into three groups. The first group will shout out or maybe laught ot a "what?!" and if I tell you about the first exorsism I attended was to drive away Satan from a 13 year old boy because a pastor found a Metallica CD you will stare at me trying to see if I am making fun of you. The second group are the ones saying "wow" and think back on your own expiriences or people you knew who reasoned that way and remember the fear and frustration is gives to live with so much energy focused on living as perfect as possible. The third group are the "well"s and you will follow your well with a explanation how sugar is bad for you and that eating a lot of chocolate really are bad for you and that it is always good to pray. Her behavior was pretty normal to you and I am pretty sure you will pray for me today.

I don't have a clue how many of you what, wow and wells that reads this and thats why I have written 2169 caracters so far and not even begun to explain the title. I just want you all to follow me.

There was many sermons about giving and how you had to pay you tithes gross or net. There was a lot to learn. You had to give more then others who were in the same economical situation as you but it was never allowed to ask how much others gave. You had to give with a loving hart and was never to feel like it was a obligation but you where obligated to give at least more then you saved every month. If you felt obligated it was because you didn't love Jesus enough. Satan was in control of you. This was such a big thing that people made a habit of spending all money at payday and repent the day after just because it was to hard to understand what the Church really wanted you to do.

When I started to question Evangelicalism, that was about two years ago, I started to question the tithes, the shame I had regaring the requirements to give. I have felt shame regardless if I have given 2 or 20%, no matter how much I give there is always someone who has less and do I really need 12 forks? Maybe I should give some of them... When I questioned my guilty conscious about giving I stopped giving money and I was afraid that alone would chrush my faith but I was sickend by always thinking about giving. When I did my grosserys it made me go crazy. Should I by the more expensive local goods to satisfy my will to reduce the environmental pressure or should I buy the Brazilian honey to get some kronor (the swedish currency) over to give away to the poor, the poor needs the money more then the Swedish farmers. Okej, the Swedish honey, but what about the beans. Is it okey to buy Chinse soy beans? Soy doesn't grow in Sweden... It easily becomes 500 questions during one day and the two things I knew for sure is that I have to be obsessed in order to figure all the unwritten rules and that it is wrong to obsess. So I stoped giving anything. For the first time ever I felt blessed and money was given to me from strangers and I could feel that God liked that I put the fear of not giving enought behind.

Now when I have found peace with not giving anything a more healty need to share of my surplus has grown stronger. And at the same time I have realized that money is a small matter, what really matters is what I do with my other talents.

Now I do have a will to give some money, even if it is not much, but I don't know where to put it. During the last years when I have found out more about who I am I have gotten maybe too picky. I want to support some organisation that knows that woman are people. I want "my" organisation to know something about LGBITQ-issues. They don't have to be perfect but if I give money to a orpanage in some African country I want to know that a teenager can be openly gay inside the orpanage. Sure, I knoe that I can't have to high expectatios but at the same time, if nobody never had high expectations nothing would evolve and get better. Money is power and if I can I want to give that power to as good organisations as possible. I don't like the way it is now, giving my money to organisations I know haven't dealt with those issuses yet and just pray to God that my money wont go to some missionary who preaches that homosexual persons are demonic. I give some money to Swedish political organisations just because I know what they will do with it but personally I want to give my money to some organisation or just someone who are Christian. But I would get to sad if I realized that my money supported the opression I felt in my early years.

Maybe I have to buy fair trade chocolate for every single krona I have and just glutton. It would be stupid but I am glad to know that my salvation aren't at risk by the amount of chocolate I eat or how much I enyoy it.

Umeå

Yesterday I woke up around 6.40 am and had a looong day even before 4.50 pm when I started to drive for more then 12 hours and arrived 5.20 am the morning after. Then I got about* 3 hours of sleep before I had to wake up. I hope I will get some sleep tonight. On sunday night I am going to drive back home so I don't want to be this tired then.

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* today I am trying to speak like Ninja and Special K so the abouts are more like a boat. Love that accent (or is it a dialect, i have no clue where you draw your lines).
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So, driving for 12 hours with a car I hadn't driven before and a quite large trailer is enough to complaint about but I will go on for a while longer: It was foggy and the first 200 miles it rained and then it started to snow and got really slushy.

Well, I like driving my car, I will get some sleep tonight and I am happy to be here.

Here in this case is Umeå, the city I will call home in january. I moved to Umeå when I turned 16 and lived here for a couple of years and it feels good to come back. It is much colder here and I am not that in to cold, winter and such but it has other advantages. I like how people are up here, it is very different from Linköping. It is just (?) 500 miles apart but culturally the differences are huge I think. It's on the same latitude as Fairbanks, Alaska but the climate is more mild because of the Gulf Stream. It is covered with white snow but right now it is actually raining which is rare, usually it is below the ice point from middle october and then its covered with snow to late april or may when everything explodes in greens and the summer is short but very beautiful.

The dark side with Umeå is the dark... The sun doesn't really like being here and it is just sunlight for a few hous. At 3 am it will be dark again and unfortunally my body is a bit more continetinal, because it thinks that it is time to sleep when dusk had done its thing. It is hard to stay awake. But in the summer we get al the lost hours and it is light 20 hrs/day

Times are changing

I have some identity issues. Today I have done something that may affect me for ever. I don't really know how to relate to my self any more.

It was in April 2005 I did it for the first time. I didn't really know how to do and I didn't have any experience but it came sort of natural and it felt so good. But now what? Everything just feels up side down. I thought I knew who I was and that things were going to be the same forever.

Well, I know that change can come and that you have to try not to understand it to much but just to follow and work your way through what ever comes ahead.

But who am I? How will this affect me? Am I the same today as yesterday? What am I suppose to write in my profile?

Maybe it doesn't really matter. What matter is that I love him more then I ever loved my first and that he has almost everything I ever dreamed about. I will pick him up in two hours and tomorrow we will hit the roads and go 500 miles up north. Me and my new car, a Chrysler Grand Voyager. I am no more proud owner of a 18 year old Volvo, I don't even like him anymore. I loved him so much when I bought him last spring and it was great to finally have a car. Before that we always used public transport, which is much better in Sweden then in other parts of the world but still quite hard with three kids. Today I'm going to pick up our Chrysler with seven seats, a lot of space and with roughly the same milage as the old Volvo.

First time with a automatic instead of stick shift for me. I had to ask the salesman how to do but I think I will get use to it. It is very unusual with automatic, it mostly taxi cars that has that.

Helsingin Valituskuoro

I found this video at Neil Gaimans blog and I love it. The complaints choir of Helsinki really shows a lot of the mentality of the Nordic countrys. Enyoy!

Viability

This post is dedicated to everyone you'd think that I would despise. The ones who tried to change me to please them. To you who never liked me for me but just wanted me to shut up and fit in.

I have something to say to you: Thank you! Your lies, your despise, your contempt, your superior bullying. Everything that your fear made you do to me. The behavior that almost drained me of my life, it made me so much stronger. You are wrong and I am so grateful that I called your bluff in time. That your shallow reasons for reasoning your way became transparent to me.

You have so many excuses to live by fear and hate. I am so grateful that you pushed me away so I can't be no where close to you. Now I am finally breathing fresh air.

You tried to threw me down in the gutter and I just let you do it. I am so grateful that your world is upside down so I went to the stars instead.

Your hate made me stronger
Your lies made me smarter
Your contempt made me learn humility
You tried to push me down and that made me learn to run faster and try harder

I let you cover my back and you back stabbed me. If you hadn't how would I have known that I'm a immortal superhero?

I would never have come this far without you. I am not the victim anymore, I give that back to you.

You failed, you lost. I gained, I won. I hope life will help give you the lessons you have to learn, I hope your lessons are more gentle then the ones you gave me. Mostly; I hope I never will see you again but that I always will remember never to be like you.

The difference between you and me is that I know I have a long way ahead. I know that I don't know anything, you are trapped in your cave. Thank you!

manic monday

Today I just had no energy. I have been angry, frustrated, irritable and annoying.

I had noooo energy and had a irritating day at school and when I came home I just sat with my laptop and screamed at the children to shut up (even when they were polite and nice to me).

I became so bored hearing my self scream so I told the kids to go to their room and make it look really good. Half an hour later they came out, smiled and carefully said "it's done".

I don't know if they did it out of fear of their incompetent father but I'm impressed that they got anything done with my depressing energy in the apartment.

Their energy infected me so I got up and took out acrylic colors, brushes, sponges and some canvas panels. Then me and my three kids sat down and for the first time today really talked. We all started to paint and after a while my oldest child, soon to be six years old, started to make some really rotten comments about the two other children's capacity to paint as detailed as her. I really heard my own tone in her voice. Am I really that unbearable? Well, I had to do something more constructive then to yell at her so I took a panel and poured out a lot of green and blue color on my panel and started to smear it out with my hands just to get their attention. Then I took some bright red, yellow and orange and sponged it and started to tell a story about a Tuttelituta (just gibberish in swedish too). It was a lonely monster that was so angry it started burning and it grew out horns. It was very ugly and so boring that everyone who talked to it just turned to stone.

It was very therapeutical for the four of us and we had a blast. The four year old decided that the Tutelituta wasn't to blame for its anger and that we could help it with some rain.

Then they put down both their brushes and their stress and just had fun and let their creativity flow. They did their own stories and they painted with their whole beeing. At the end their panels was red with some golden shimmer. I think we emptied eleven tubes of color and we ended up with four pieces of art I will treasure for ever. I am not a model parent but my kids sure makes the parenting fun. I love their way of thinking, I can get Jesus on that point, the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. Today I saw a gleam of heaven.

In the middle of the town square there suddenly was a pillar with three buttons on it.

No sign, no hint of why it is there and what it is there for. Just a metal pillar with three buttons.

People noticed that it was there but nobody wanted to be different so everybody just tried to mind their own business, try to look on top of things but at the same time as discreetly as possible trying to glance around to try to get what it was.

I looked around to make sure nobody I knew was around. Like everybody else around I am afraid that I will look stupid. I walked up to the buttons and I pressed one of them. Suddenly a five story building changes colors from yellow to red. There was a impressed murmur from my audience. I pressed another button and the building turned blue.

I took a few steps aside to take some pictures and immediately a few other steped up, first some teenaged boys and then people of all kind came up and wanted to try.

I love the idea of changing something big with the push of a button. The most interesting I think is how people are curios but how every single one wants to fit in. Great art!

I have searched lokal newspapers and Linköpings home page but I haven't found any info about the installation.

More on fear, love and hate

Lets continue my thoughts about fear, good, evil and what this is all about; me. Yeah. I won't even try to pretend that this is something else then my raw thoughts. You get them fairly uncensored and no bigger points is guaranteed.

Back to my fear. I am struggling with my who I think that God is. This is very personal and to reinforce the personal aspect of this Im posting a quite naked picture of myself taken a few minutes ago. If you get angry with what I write just look on the picture and imagne me, a naked and confused person just trying to get a hunch of who God is. You don't have to worry, I'm not compleatly naked and you don't have to imagine that, just the frank kind of naked.

Right now I have got tangled in Jesus Sermon on the Mount. Have you seen Monty Python's Life of Brian? Well of course you have, I don't know if I would let you read my blog if you hadn't seen it.

When I saw that movie the first time and the scene with the beatitudes came I froze. I don't know how old I was when I first saw it, I think I was 14. Already back then I had big problems with what Jesus said on that mountain so I guess that I don't have to feel all stressed out about it. If I have felt weird about what Jesus said up there on the mountainside for the last 13 years then I can struggle with them for a while longer. I don't mind the beatitudes they are strange but I can accept them just because they are so poetic and they actually make some sense.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

I think that what Jesus says is weird. Not only is it weird, it is stupid and impossible.

Love your enemy... The first times I read that it seemed sort of nice. It sounds good to be loving even to those that does not deserve it. But then I grew up and I don't get it any more.

Of course love is good, I am all for love. But wait. Love your enemy? If I try to be perfect like the Father for a while... I have a son as well so I guess me and the Father has something in common. Good to know if I would be placed close to him at some dinner party and run out of things to say. But to love my enemies like I love him? I don't get it. I can understand why revenge isn't the best and I can easily be friendly to my enemies and wish them well. But to love them? To be willing to sacrifice my life and let what is best for them define me, that sounds weird.

I know a few who loves their enemies. One friend of mine comes to my mind, she loved her enemy and he beat her up as soon as he had a problem he didn't know how to solve or whenever he was drunk. She really loved him and tried to do what was best for him. After a couple of years she realized that she didn't love him any more. She said that the moment when she stopped loving him was the moment when she could start to really help him. She moved out, didn't put up with his bullshit and when he did something wrong to her she didn't do that overrated other cheek-thing, instead she called the police. She kept the contact with him, he was physically disabled and she did his laundry and got his groceries. She did it with a smile on her face and was so happy that she didn't have to love him any more.

Her actions was loving but she loved her self and God, not her enemy, she showed him compassion and she never followed her bitterness and she never took her revenge. That sounds so much more healthy then how she responded to his actions when she loved him.

I love my son. If anybody would deliberately hurt him I would get wrathful. I have no intention of loving that person. I wouldn't hurt the person I would try to get her to understand how I or more important my son felt but I would never try to love that person. I can't se the point of loving a enemy. Not be revengeful and feeling love is not at all the same thing.

Another thing. If everyone felt true love to everyone, how could I ever be special? I would rather have 10 people hate me and 10 people love me because they could help them self then 20 people trying to love me because their religion forced them. If a friend of mine express great contempt for someone I feel affirmed. I don't surround my self with people that express a lot of contempt, the only thing in common for all my friends is that they are positive and loving and I love that about them. But I also like their ability to like me more then their enemy.

I think you have to be emotionally torn to love your enemies in the same way you love your friends and family.

I think Jesus was wrong. Don't love your enemy. Be empathic towards your enemy, try to do good, remember that it is a person loved by God, a brother that could have been you. But love only your family, friends and a handful more. The ability to love is a gift and give it to people you like.

I pray for the people who expresses hate towards me, but I do pray that they will change. I don't like them och what they do. I can greet them nice and give some of my time to them. But love is a different thing that I am more careful with.



Over to something different. A poem about how fear can take over the part of you that probably would be better off filled with some love. Don't get me wrong, I am all for love and showing love. But I think love is to special to devaluate to what you can feel towards your enemys. This poem is not my ideal or anything near, it is just a way of handeling all of my thoughts about fear, love and what's right.

I want you
I need you
I need you to long for me
So I can feel that I belong to you
To something
Anything

Everything I want from you is to prove myself
Always myself
Want proof
Need proof

I am everything I ever cared about

Please prove that I am special
I failed when I tried
I want you
I need you

I need to know that someone think that I do
Because I know that I don't

My friday

I have a bad cold that will never leave. Unfortunally, when my immune defense is down, my anxiety has plenty of room for maneuver. I know it is a physical defect and I try to not listen to much to the voices of dread and worry that fills my mind. This cold too will pass and then the sick part of my anxiety will rest for a while.

This morning I had a small attac in school and I got nauseous, dizzy, my hart was beating to fast and my breath was short. A couple of years ago I would have been sure it was a demonic attack or maybe some cardiac problems. Now I know more about myself and when my body tells me to panic I just feel bored and disconnected.

I got a new assignment in my history class. I three weeks I have to do a 20 minute dramatization of a person or a event of my choice under the subject social history. A fun challenge.

At lunch I followed my only weekly routine and went to friday mass at the cathedral.

I attend the Church of Sweden, an evangelical lutheran denomination. Its structure is the same as in the 11th century when sweden became a part of the Roman Catholic Church but when Sweden was reformed in the 16th century we ditched the pope and the confession but kept most of the other customs. Nowadays the Church of Sweden is affirming and liberal.

Our bishop conducts the friday service (if he is in town) but a layman almost always reads an extract from the Epistles. The layman is often one of many priests or deacons (a clerical title you get ordain to) in the audience not in duty, but today a nervous, stressed out but very honored transguy got asked to read the Epistle text. It was a nice but weird experience. Our cathedral has a.. hmm, I don't know the english word, lets use resonance time... of 9 seconds. The time it takes from that when you let your tongue deliver a word until the huge church is done with juggling your voice across every corner in the cathedral it takes nine seconds. It is about 800 years old and back then people really knew how to build a building to reinforce a single voice to something truly impressive. It was fun that I, a openly gay transdude was asked to do the reading and it was very nice to get to speak up and fill the Church with my voice. I wonder how many of my kind that have been silenced in that place during the millennium it have been a place of Christian worship.

the night of broken glass

Tonight 68 years ago almost every synagogues i Germany was set on fire, 30 000 jewish men was put into concentration camps and several jews was beaten to death. Tonight I think about Kristallnacht, the persecution of Jews and racism in general. I try to remember but I also tries to forget. I can't believe how little we have learned in the last century.

Today I met a arab friend of mine. We talked about how racism is getting a bigger problem. Since 9/11 he gets more segregational remarks then ever. When people harasses me for being trans or gay it hurts but still I can choose when to show that parts of me. When I go out at night I put my rainbow key ring far down my pocket and walk with a butch walk. When he goes out at night he takes a deep breath, thanks Allah for saving him so far and steps out. He doesn't stay at home because he think that the only god he can serve is Allah and if he surrender by fear he worships a false idol.

What is it he does out at night then? Well, he goes home to his grandmother and helps her to bed. He do her dishes and sets her coffee maker so she will wake up to fresh coffee every morning.

I will light a candle, think of Kristallnacht, my friend and many others. Then I am going to once again listen to beppespodcast podcast #60 where Peggy Senger Parson shares a very important and insightful message about fear and safety.

Cute Swede

Got a tip from my sister to check out Tingsek and listen to some music at his mySpace site. As usual my sister has good taste in music and I have already played this quite a few times.

Fear

I believe in good and evil but even more, I believe in love and fear. It is easier to understand good and evil from that point of view. Love, peace, trust and fearlessness is godly. Fear is evil if it gets you or the people around you to feel afraid, frightened or scared. Fear distracts, undermines and confuses. Love drives you to long for understanding, it builds up trust and gives patience to really listen.

But at the same time, a life with out fear and darkness, would it even be a life? Can a person grow up without facing darkness? Many big artists and especially comedians use fear and even hate to feed their creativity. Is that wrong? Would a world where everyone was driven all by love be heaven on earth? Maybe. But it sounds boring as hell. What would comedy be like if there was no fear? Doesn't most funny things include something that at least other fears? Can comedy exist without bordering on what society by fear has forbidden?

The most fearful thing of all I think is indifference and apathy. It is to easy to make everything someone else's responsibility. But it is hard to do something good when it is impossible to know what is good and what is bad.


I stand up and clear my throat
what to say
I do not know

everything I do know
is that something is out of order

I long for order
but have seen the seamy side of regulations

every agenda closes doors
but
no agenda at all means
never even open any door at all

I clear my throat once more

never mind
excuse me
I did not mean to bother you

The gender is more important than your genitalia

I read that New York has plans to allow transpeople without surgery to legally change sex. I think it is great and once again I feel blessed by living in Sweden that already have that possibility. In Sweden you have to have be on hormones but surgery can either wait or if you don't want it you don't have to undergo any surgery exept the weird thing that you have to be sterile.

Read the article about the plans of changing the laws in New York here.

Not good enough

I don't suffer from stage fright, I like being on stage and in the spot light. My performance anxiety lies in my writing. I really don't like to show others what I have written. I don't know if you knew but blogging actually includes other people reading what I have written... I think I missed that myself when starting my blog.

Today I got a paper back in school. I saw that she had written "VG" on it. VG is our next best grade, like a B would be for you Over There. I got a small anxiety attack, blurry vision, my hart was pounding and I got very self-conscious. Everyone got to go outside the classroom to get a few minutes of private comments from the teacher. I had a hard time even getting up and go outside. She smiled at me and said that this was the first paper I have written to her that wasn't perfect so she wrote "VG" just to separate it from the others so I would know that she really notice what I write and that the "VG" just was a way to say that she knows that I can do better and if the paper was by any other it would be marked as a "MVG" (top grade) and that my grade in her notes said "MVG".

I think I was the only one to get a MVG but still, a couple of hours later, I feel embarrassed and think I should have worked with the paper a few hours more. I don't want anyone to read what I have written if it isn't perfect. I still feel bad for the only VG I got the last semester and this was the first time I got even close to get a VG this term.

When I am writing this I feel really embarrassed about my perfectionism when it comes to writing. I don't like perfectionists. Perfection kills inspiration. I really believe that. With creativity you have to open up for making mistakes, if you think you can do everything perfect you limit your ability to grow and develop.

Why did I start a blog when I can't handle my short comings? I know my english isn't perfect. It is understandable. I really don't know. I know that I have seven different drafts of posts I never published because I had to high expectations myself. But I know that this is a great way for me to get better at English and by conquering a foreign language my whole world grows.

I wonder if my high expectations on myself is related to being as far away from the norm as I am. In Christian circles I am obviously not normal as trans and gay. Gay people often don't like transmen or Christians and transpeople think I am weird being happily married with three kids. The more I think about it the more I think I want to be perfect in order to give my self the right to exist even if I am a freak. I think that reveals a few ugly sides I have. 1: I think that the prejudices of my surroundings shall define what I do and 2: I think that people outside of the norm has to be successful. I am just as bad as the ones calling me a freak or a monster. I get frighten by myself. I despite myself and others like me. That is just wrong on so many levels.

If I just had written that paper perfectly I wouldn't had thought about this. I should have worked on the paper some more...

To dare myself I am acctually going to post this. I have to work with both my self image and my view on others.

Unforgetable art

In a recent post on jaywalking some questions was brought up from Isabella about art that made a difference in your life.

is there a book that you want the whole world to read?
a movie that changed your life?
a piece of music that makes your heart swell every time you hear it?
a special play?
some other creative work that you can’t forget?

I tried to answer them my self, I really did! I went out on side tracks. Do I even want the whole world to be able to read? I like diversity and to force all people to learn how to read, well, I'm not sure. For a while I was sure and I was close to post something about me wanting the whole world to have read the whole Bible. How many wars have not been fought in the name of Jesus by people not even taught well in the Book...? But then, there are quite a few who know every last letter and still don't know the first thing about God and Love so I wont take the Bible, and is it really a book and not books?

Then I started to write about the book I read most recently, Middlesex, and I praised it for quite a while. Then I remembered that I always love the book I have read last and that I have to read another book until I can talk about a book so I abandoned the idea of recommending Middlesex until I have read another book.

Then I hit google and terms like "amazing book" and "wonderful book" and was amazed about what books people likes. So many people thinking that the best book in the world is a cake recipe book with cakes that takes more than 10 hours to do or people that think the most wonderful book is a book on bookbinding in the 20th century.

Now I am caught up with my thoughts about if I even want everyone to be able to read.

Next question: a movie that change your life
The hours is one of many movies that really changed my life. I did not know anything about the movie when I borrowed it. I was alone when I watched it and was just stunned. When it was over I sat with my phone in my hand trying to phone my partner Noa. But I just couldn't dial the numbers. I had no words. I sat in front of my TV for a while and then I watched it again.

I think it was in october 2004 I saw it. I had just began to understand that my life as a stay at home mum was a dead end but I had no idea how to understand what road was the right for me and I had many suicidal thoughts even if I never was near follow them thru. When I saw the Hours and the character Laura Brown played by Julianne Moore I finally understood that I had to change path before I abandoned the family I really love.

A piece of music that makes your heart swell every time you hear it?
K's Choices song Virgin State of Mind. It actually was played in a episode of Buffy and I had to get online and order every album they ever done. It is still one of my biggest favorites and Noa uses that fact and play it when he wants me in a better mood. No matter how angry/sad/frustrated/bitter I am, 10 sec of that song makes me happy and mellow.

Another song that has that effect on me is Hallelujah sang by Rufus Wainwright.

Other art work that makes a difference in my life is often photography and names that comes to mind is Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin, Gunnel Wåhlstrand and
Brutus Östling

Solitare?

I have tried to write a new post for four days. It seems like I can't finish it. The subject for the post has changed a few times but it circles around what sexuality is. One of the big problems is that I don't have any idea at all. Most people seems to know who they are attracted to and I actually do not have any idea of what sexuality is and who I am. If you don't have guessed this already I have to warn you: This will contain details of my sex life and feelings regarding sex. If you are not comfortable with this, wait a few days and read another post.

I guess the trans-thing makes life a bit different even in the matter of sexuality. It is harder to know who you want to have in bed if the only thing you know for sure is that you don't are enough. I don't want my body to be a part of my life. When I fantasize about sex my actual body never is a part of my thoughts. During my life I have suspected my self to be a lesbian, a heterosexual female, gay, a heterosexual male, bisexual and pansexual. Nowadays I just says "queer" if any one asks and hope that nobody ever asks anything about what that means.

I really try to like myself and in most ways I do. But when it comes to sex. I have heard a quite a few gay men describing really trying to have sexual relations with a woman and wanting to like it but just hated it. I think I feel the same way but regarding myself. It is not like I am asexual and don't have a sex drive, God most certainly gave me enough of that, but when I have sex I always has to fill up my thoughts with other images so I don't get to turned off by being so close to myself.

I don't hate myself, I like myself. I like my body in many ways. I am not ashamed of myself but still I have this problem.

I wonder if I'm alone with this sort of feelings or if this is common for transgendered people. Or does it occur even with non trans people? If you have some thoughts about this and don't want to post a comment please email me at alex at resare dot com because right now I am just fed up with being this confused on my own.

I always thought not liking your self in this way was connected to low self-esteem. I feel frustrated discovereing that I was wrong on that one to. I miss the good old days when I knew almost everything. :)