The Present: Something Wrong - And Right - With The Village
"It's a lot harder to mourn the living than the dead."
Hello! Miss Dee Jay here, for Trans Pirate Radio. Happy Holidays, to all those who are celebrating. And to all those mourning, my deepest condolences.
We talked about Boston's "A Man I'll Never Be" for the Ghost of Christmas Past. Well, it's time for a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Present. In this case, WRABEL's "The Village".
"The Village" is explicitly trans, in particular transmasc (there is a transfem version if you would prefer). I included the version with the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles. This sends chills down my spine every time:
"The Village", performed by WRABEL with the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles.
I'll be honest; I didn't find out about this song until a couple of weeks ago. It hit - it really slapped - but perhaps not for the reason you might expect.
I started crying after the opening lines:
No, your mom don't get it
And your dad don't get it
Uncle John don't get it
And you can't tell grandma
'Cause her heart can't take it
And she might not make it
See, there is such a thing as a comment hitting perhaps a bit too close to home. This one was a direct hit - well, maybe not the Uncle John part, because I don't have an Uncle John, but I do have other aunts and uncles...
Which is what this post is about. It's about aunts and uncles. It's about parents. And yes... it's about grandmothers, too.
This year began with a tragedy, and in one way or another I've been mourning since then. On New Years' Day this year, I received news that my grandmother's health had taken a turn. Her health continued to deteriorate, and she passed a few days later.
And... she never met me in person.
Not the real me, anyway. The last time we saw each other in person was at her 100th birthday party. (Yes, my grandmother was quite old when she passed.). All her surviving kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, etc. converged on this one park, where we all celebrated.
I went to the party presenting as male. By this point, my hair had grown quite long, the 5 o'clock shadow was long gone, and - if I was presenting as male, which was less and less often - I wore clothes to disguise my more-than-budding breasts. At that moment, a court had my request for a name change, and was considering it. I was already publicly out at work, to the point that I had presented as myself at official functions; it was common knowledge, and pretty much everyone knew.
The only people that didn't know? My relatives. My immediate family knew, my aunt knew, but most of my cousins did not. And, of course, my grandmother did not. And, frankly, a grandmother's 100th birthday party is not the time to publicly come out. Come out a couple of weeks before or a couple of weeks after if you must, but coming out at or near the party would be very bad form.
So, I went to the party as male. Gave my gift; hung out as part of the family. But my aunt... she took me aside and hugged me and said she was proud of me. It's little moments like that - moments that say, "I see you; I'm here for you." To this day she has never deadnamed or misgendered me - one of the very few people I can say that about.
This would not be the last act of radical allyship she would perform.
A few days after my grandmother's death, I went to her funeral - as myself, of course. By this point, I was out and open. Name was changed, driver's license changed, all of that changed. I'd reached a peace of sorts with my transition, just as it seemed the world was ready to tear itself apart.
This was January 2025, after all.
At the wake, this same aunt came over to me, asked how I was doing in general. I mentioned my fears; even though things were good in general, this specter hung over everything. And... I didn't have to explain anything to her. She knew why I was scared, knew why I was worried about the future. And my grandmother had known as well.
To use the language of the song, my aunt got it. My grandma got it. And I will be eternally grateful to them for that.
But not everybody did. Talking with other relatives, other family made that painfully clear. Some people were just fine with the anti-trans rhetoric. Some people would take the horrible, bigoted lies that conservative media and politicians were spewing as gospel. And that this was family... family! ... willing to sell us out for... for what? Tall tales of "gangs invading the border" and vague promises on reducing the price of eggs?
No, my mom don't get it and my dad don't get it and so many of my aunts and uncles don't get it.
A trauma that is commonplace to many of us in the trans community is betrayal. We think of betrayal as a conscious action, and sometimes it is; the trans child cast out of their family for being trans is almost cliche. But there's a more insidious form of betrayal that has happened in recent years, and it's time to talk about that.
What does it mean when a parent or relative claims to be supportive of us, then turns around and supports organizations that want us dead? The nature of politics in recent years has changed; where once polite disagreement was a possibility, several political and religious movements have transformed into something darker, something more overtly fascistic, something deadly to trans people such as myself.
And... on this one, I have no answers. Only that a whole bunch of people have a whole bunch of beliefs and belief systems that are toxic to others. (I've heard the term "death cult" used more than once.). And asking them to challenge those belief systems means challenging how they view the world, and how they view themselves.
Which brings us into the second verse of the song, which gets to the other heart of the matter: Belief. Belief that we somehow have to sacrifice ourselves for... what?
Well, I've been there, sitting in that same chair
Whispering that same prayer half a million times
It's a lie, though buried in disciples
One page of the Bible isn't worth a life
As you might guess, my family is quite religious, devoutly so. And that guilt of being trans nearly led to my death. I struggled for a long time, sitting in that same chair, praying for... for anything, really. That I would become a woman. That I would be "cured" of being trans. Anything but the conflict inside me, tearing me apart. It took a long time to realize that, for all I'd come to see in my religion, most of the religious authorities in my life had seen this issue very, very wrongly.
I recently watched the documentary 1946, about how the word "homosexual" first entered the Bible. (Spoiler alert: it was a mistranslation; the initial words indicated an imbalance of sexual power and sexual abuse, something closer to what Epstein's Island was about. Given the abuse scandals that have rocked Christianity, it certainly brings the Bible into a fascinating light, doesn't it?) The people who made that mistranslation tried to fix their mistake with the next edition, but by then the damage was done: the mistranslation had spread, particularly into translations used by what would become the Religious Right, forming the basis for religious - and, by extension, societal - homophobia and transphobia today.
There are pages of the Bible that are life-giving. But when the Bible is twisted as a weapon, to take life rather than give it, it is no longer Good News; it is no longer Divine Word. I tried being the good little trans Christian after my transition. I ultimately stopped going to church, because I didn't know who in that congregation gladly wanted me dead.
There's been a lot to mourn this past year. My faith was one of them. I'll still be in the pews with my family this Christmas... but I'm wearing my own forms of protest as I pray with them.
I've been told this is fairly common, to wear our own little forms of rebellion if we're ordered to go to church.
In the end, with all of this... there was a lot of mourning this year. As I mentioned earlier, there was a lot to mourn this year. Mourned my grandmother. Mourned the country I loved. Mourned a lost faith. Mourned a lost future. And mourned so many people lost to violence, trans people especially.
But most of all in terms of time... I mourned living members of my family, who tried to make excuses for supporting monsters that would inflict such violence.
It's a lot harder to mourn the living than the dead.
What finally gave me peace, what finally ended my mourning this year, was coming to a decision. I think my time in the United States is done. I'd been making preparations since April to at least have the option to leave the country; those preparations will continue. And I will probably take those preparations to their logical conclusion, and leave once I am feasibly able to do so.
There's a lot of pain in that. A lot of hurt. Patriotism is a church just as much as religion is, and I was a patriot and loved this country for a very long time. But, well... I've studied my history. I've seen how this goes. And every moment to come is going to make things so much worse.
But I know my direction. I know which way to go. And knowing how to set my sails... that makes a world of difference.
For those celebrating this holiday, I wish you joy. For those mourning this holiday, I wish you consolation and peace. And for those trying to navigate a hostile family... all the hugs, if accepted.
So far we've gone through two of the three Ghosts of Christmas. Which leaves one more. So... what does the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come Hold?
