ok now I need a little help :(

[Trinity]

I shared about the rage thing earlier, the political thing too.

I feel stuck, there is just so much anger right now.  I suppose the answer will be found in prayer, in the psalms.  I'd be posting in the religion thread but I am in here instead.

The recent outbreak of persecution against trans has brought back old wounds I thought were healed.  I guess they aren't.  The memories of the bullying, the catcalls, the horrific abuse I suffered growing up, well they are back again.  Takikng me to a place that is no longer healthy.  The viscious rhetoric and targeting of our children, the nonsense over the bathrooms, the recent assaults on my friends, the rapes, the deaths, its finally getting to me and I feel like I am stuck in this rage thing now.

I watch in horrified fascination as the news continues on, I watch as the haters steal my religion and rip my God out of my loving arms to turn Him into a monster.  I wail in my spirit over what they have done.  It tears me apart.  I could scream, I can't handle the hate, I can feel what is out there and its just horrible.

I don't want these people to change me, they are changing me.... they are turning a loving, nurturing, maternal fairy into a raging and angry phoenix,  and I don't want that.  So I have to find a way to rise above it.  Walk on water.  I know I can do it.  I have seen someone else here on forum do it, and then give themselves completely to the service of others,  I cannot shame them by falling.

I was talking with a very dear friend last night about the journey, and they mentioned that we as trans seem to be the ones making all the sacrifices.  Maybe so.  If we want to avoid the collateral damage - collateral damage that is created by a mad society that calls hate love and twists what is good into something else.  A society bound in porn and broken marriages that demonizes us as part of the liscentious behavior when all we want to do is live a quiet life like any other man or woman or person.  They drive us out of church, bar us from their elite spiritual places of sanctuary, ask of us what cannot be done.  The Lord had many face to face conflicts with them in the beginning, they tried to kill Him, said he was demon possessed, tried to stone Him, but He would not let them.  Instead He faced them with great anger, and told them "their sin remained".  The most powerful and horrifying curse that exists, caused by legalistic hate in the guise of religion.

And so our young children are filled with no holds barred sex and wild partying.  But is that so different from a straight nightclub?  Who is really living according to the great law that was given us to stop the hatred and violence in the name of religion in the first place, the law of Love, Forgiveness, Sacrifice for others?  To seek to understand with the heart and not to judge?

I guess we have to walk on water.  Put down the sword and take up passive resistance.  Learn from the other spiritual leaders of the day.  Live the sacrificial life.

Rise above the pain, the abuse, the hatred.  Prove that unconditional love of all, everyone, cis or not, will triumph over the darkness surrounding us.

I have strong views about it all, I know, it can alienate some here, I am sorry, it is my truth and I cannot survive without it.  But we are all being put to the test now, it will test us spiritually, emotionally, physically.   Its more devious, the slaughter of trans.  Its being done through the mind, the poisoning of our hearts by the same people that drove me over the edge as a child, so many years ago, when I almost killed someone for calling me faggot.  It was close, I almost smashed their head in with my foot, it was too close, I never let myself get mad like that again, back in the 6th grade, in a stairwell, when I went over the edge.

No child should be brought to that place.  I was an innocent little boy that was different, I had feminine looks and emotions, I was so hated, so bullied, so scorned, so made a joke.  They split my gender in two, those people with their abuse.  Until the healing came, and that healing only came here, on this forum.

So I  guess in my ramble I am looking for solutions.  How do we protect the essence of ourselves, stay the loving and kind souls we generally are, overcome the bitterness, the fear, the rage?  We have to do it you know.  We cannot be slaughtered in our hearts by the hatred of other people.   We cannot become poisoned in our minds by the active psychic brutality that is being perpetuated now from the ignorant.  We cannot be killed off like the nazis killed off the jews.  They wont do that, not with their hands, but they are doing it with their minds.  And it is the same spirit that drives them.   

Yes there are real demons in this world, and real saints.  There is a battle over hearts, and that battle was won long ago.  But its not by rules or the sword that we win.  The battles are for hearts and minds, it has always been this way, from the beginning.

I am losing the battle.  It cannot be.  It is not why I was born into this world, not why you were born into this world, to lose the battle of your mind and heart.

Being a survivor and a warrior is more than survival.  Its walking on water.  Its rising above the madness around us, loving unconditionally, not allowing ourselves to drink the poison of these vipers tongues and pens.

Yeah maybe I just answered my own question.  It has to be seen as what it is, a war in the spirit, a war in the heart.  One that targets the innocent and kills the children, bringing rage, bringing hate.  They are no different from the barbarians of the past.  Only by rising above them can I survive, can you survive.

I dont want to be a bitter old lady.  I want to be pretty, and beautiful, in this life I am given.  I want that for all of us.  Don't let anyone steal your beauty away. Shame them with your love.

Trinity/Satinjoy

[Ayla]

TSJ

I also feel the attacks. It hurts. It isolates, demonises and mischaracterises us. Only by making ourselves more visible, more common, less curious and more real, will this change. Retreating into hiding, seeking protection in stealth, plays into the hands of evil. The only way to call out the transphobes is to 'be', to be authentic, open, human and respectful of ourselves and of others. Folk see the new generation asserting themselves and they think that the trans genie can be put back in the bottle. It can't and it won't. We are here. We are queer and we are not going anywhere. We expect, seek and demand equality and respect. Wars have been fought over much less.

Safe travels

Aisla

[EchelonHunt]

I wasn't bullied as a child but I felt alienated from my peers. The earliest memory I had was two friends (girls) from primary school who came over to my house, I saw them looking at me, whispering to each other and giggling. I asked them what they were whispering about, they said nothing. I didn't like that, it felt like they were laughing at me and mocking me. I didn't fit in with the girly girls or the boyish boys. I fit in with the "quirky" kids, the tomboys and the sensitive boys. There was a mutual understanding we never spoke of, we didn't need to. We drifted a part when I had to move schools due to family moving from the country to the suburbs.

Hatred is rife in the world. It's sad how much the "us vs. them" mentality poisons everything, making people forget that we are people.

The younger generation are very aware, open and accepting. I have classmates in my class and I have to pinch myself sometimes because the way they talk and understand a wide variety of topics, you wouldn't know they had recently left high-school. I'm always thoroughly impressed.

The rage, the violence, the hatred, it won't last forever. It will be snuffed out eventually as tolerance, respect, equality and acceptance tower over them.

I generally dislike the word activist but I do want to bring awareness to transgender and/or non-binary issues. Hence why I want to start seriously committing to my Youtube channel.

[Shan]

Feb 23, 2016 19:39:32 GMT 8 Ayla said:

TSJ

I also feel the attacks. It hurts. It isolates, demonises and mischaracterises us. Only by making ourselves more visible, more common, less curious and more real, will this change. Retreating into hiding, seeking protection in stealth, plays into the hands of evil. The only way to call out the transphobes is to 'be', to be authentic, open, human and respectful of ourselves and of others. Folk see the new generation asserting themselves and they think that the trans genie can be put back in the bottle. It can't and it won't. We are here. We are queer and we are not going anywhere. We expect, seek and demand equality and respect. Wars have been fought over much less.

Safe travels

Aisha

My amen to that line of thought!

[Taka]

it's not like the attacks are a recent thing, except for the most recent attacks.
reading the news just to get enraged by them is pointless.
the more they kill, the more you should love.
and loving starts with loving the lord so he can teach you to love yourself.
and when that happens, you can answer all that violence with a love so pure it can change the world.


and don't go thinking you can be a phoenix.
that's my job. and my zodiac sign.

[Shan]

Feb 24, 2016 2:03:58 GMT 8 Taka said:

it's not like the attacks are a recent thing, except for the most recent attacks.
reading the news just to get enraged by them is pointless.
the more they kill, the more you should love.
and loving starts with loving the lord so he can teach you to love yourself.
and when that happens, you can answer all that violence with a love so pure it can change the world.


and don't go thinking you can be a phoenix.
that's my job. and my zodiac sign.

1 John 4 "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love."

[Deleted]

Trinity, my view of this question is perhaps even more depressing than yours in a way, but I stick with it because it does offer me some consolation and it helps me keep things in perspective. It is this: we transpeople are widely hated, but we're hardly the only ones. Lots and lots of people down the ages have been hated.

I've read a fair bit of history in my life. It's one of my hobbies. One of the depressing lessons you learn from history is just how cheaply we hold each others' lives. To give you one example: when Caesar conquered Gaul in the first century BC, the estimated casualties from his eight-year campaign run from several hundred thousand up to a million. And why? Why did he do this? One reason was that he was a typical man of his times. More specically, because it was politics. He wanted to be top dog in Rome and he had some rivals. Conquering a foreign country would gain him a lot of popularity back home. (You see, he wasn't the only guilty one. Lots of people play their part in little ways.) And it worked. He soon gained sole power in Rome--which he quickly lost when he was assassinated. All of that killing and misery so that for a few months he could say, "I'm Number One!"

It's insane. And history is full of stuff like this, which is why it's so depressing. But it's also encouraging in a way: because we are a bit better people than we used to be. Slavery used to be the norm. It's not any more. There's still a lot of child labor out there, but we do recognize it as wrong. We recognize racism as wrong, religious bigotry as wrong, any sort of bigotry as wrong. We haven't eliminated this kind of stuff completely, of course. Still a long way to go. But we have taken the first few steps. We've recognized it as wrong and we've succeeded in eliminating a few things.

Trinity, this is real progress. Horrors that were the norm a few centuries ago are now seen as horrors. History is slow, evolution is slow. We're not going to become perfect creatures in the space of a few years or even a few centuries. We need time. But we're doing it. We all play our part, we all make our little contribution.

You're one of those playing your part, making your contribution. You are changing history, you are changing people. Over my lifetime there has been some progress. We never see as much as we'd like simply because we die quickly and history moves slowly. But this is what faith is for. You do what your heart tells you is right. You see others joining you, and you have faith that the movement will continue and that in the end we will be better people than we are now. That's why we keep going--because we have hearts full of faith and hope and love. Voilà!

[Shan]

All of this is attributable to the "Power of this World" which is death, and more precisely the fear of it. Every ruler both good and evil has employed this power to control their own people and other nations. And so it goes on down to the most insignificant type of malicious jerk who wants to demonstrate their power over you. Like Taka says when we overcome such fear then it has no hold on us. It also is used via the media as a means to depress and kill one's spirit and alienate trans-folks from the social fabric as an abomination which is just another type of death.

[Trinity]

Im gunna do the love thing. Thanks for the wonderful comments.
☺

[Shan]

Feb 24, 2016 5:14:08 GMT 8 Trinity said:

Im gunna do the love thing. Thanks for the wonderful comments.
☺

I'm working on it myself, but some of those jerks out there can be mighty unlovable, so I'll just finesse it!

[Trinity]

Preserving the beauty of who we really are, never being defined by others but rather by our heartsongs...isnt that the heart of trans?