Quarantine Diaries: Staying In & Alive

("Bedroom in Arles" #1 - Vincent Van Gogh, 1888)

CW/TW: mentions of suicidal grey ideation, mental health, interpersonal/collective trauma 

          Like a lifeless log on a cold beach rocking back and forth like a baby shaking from the waves urgency as it’s only motivation for movements... How can we not realize, that such panic is only a distraction: The virus is real, but the economy is not. 

          I thought I would be good at social distancing and staying inside as someone who routinely self-isolates due to one's mental illness, but how can one be good at something when they're not feeling good at all ? I've always said that sanity is a privilege, but how cynical is it to feel yourself becoming insane with only intervals of clarity. Such unsafe uncertainties with reality, I pray that submission is just survival and that salvation is only unfolding, slowly... They say public health and safety; I ask where, when, and for who ? Everyday my heart wonder and worry for who they have always and are still so ready to leave behind: undocumented folks, sex workers, working-class parents, folks experiencing homelessness, essential service and medical-care workers, elders/children/anyone chronically ill/with a compromised immune system, folks stuck in abusive households, folks incarcerated, refugees, as well as First Nations folks on reserves... etc. Colonial-capitalism shows itself with fragile systems of profit over people, and with such ignorant privilege that most only awake to injustice from a call of crisis.

          Like a wilting wallflower, with rotting soils and only watered desperately: a houseplant dreaming of a garden, a sick joke she's still learning to laugh at... Being suicidal makes me feel selfish, as there are people dying, risking their next breath, and here I daydream of me dying the next day. How unappreciated my breath must feel: unworthiness, a flower asking why she deserves to bloom. The worst phone calls are of those that go to voicemails, I don’t know what it is of me trapped in a basement room while the people I love are risking it all... Such privilege to breathe, such abundance to feel, and such complicity to even understand: They say stay home but what about those still searching ?

What we need more of is compassion

What we need more of is loving care

What we need more of is justice...

And yet my heart also aches for

Us privileged enough to self-quarantine but

Maybe not sane enough to

Survive... 

Some Community Resources:

Crowdsourcing Safety

COVID-19: Emergency Support Fund for Sex Workers

COVID-19 Black Emergency Support Fund

SCARBOROUGH FOOD SECURITY INITIATIVE

Undocumented Migrants COVID-19 Fund
MASKS FOR PINE RIDGE

Liberated Capital: A Decolonizing Wealth Fund

Why I Don't Have Friends

          What are friendships ? And how do they align/contrast/intersect with other forms of relationships through a shared socio-personal intimacy ? From birth and since the possibilities of communication/comprehension, we learn to navigate the world through socialization; we learn new perspectives beyond oneself along the way as we grow/develop in contexts of the socio-economical, personal/political, geographical, and even the historical/cultural realities that we experience both individually and collectively. Thus the question of friendship has always intrigued me, as an immigrant-settler moving from such family-centered/oriented/dominated cultural ideals to colonized Turtle Island built so violently towards capitalistic individuality. Yet on top of it all: how do you navigate being the only trans person in a room after being the only POC/immigrant in the room, while still being the only fat person in that room... Through the privileges of basic survival and safety in North America, I find myself building self-awareness, confidence, and actualization while at the same time becoming more bitter and discouraged with the socio-political realities that I witness and have the access of experiencing. It has been clear to me that bonds of friendly relations (especially through puberty/teenagehood: the most socially-impressionable ages of character-development and through cis-heteronormative society under a colonial-capitalistic context) are dominated by norms of binary-gendered behaviours, thus the paradox of friendship as well as its dilemmas with socialization beyond labeling/belonging continues.

          A qualitative research on "Transgender Friendship Experiences: Benefits and Barriers of Friendships across Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation" (2014) reflects that "although participants were asked to describe unique friendship benefits and barriers with individuals of different identities, many of their responses resonated with the way friendship has been described in the general friendship literature. General features of friendships include having someone to talk to, emotional support, acceptance, and shared experiences (Duck, 1991; Rawlings, 1992). Participants described their friendships similarly but usually transgender specific experience was central to their definitions of support, acceptance, and experiences. For example, instead of having someone to talk to, a benefit expressed by transgender participants was can talk about transgender issues. Articulation of friendship benefits and barriers made it clear that transgender identity was salient to how participants were defining 'experiences.'" It is crucial to explore/analyze such socio-political relations/realities through marginalized experiences of "non-normative" perspectives not in the light of identity politics, but for the love of transformative justice/inclusion/community as well as dismantling systematic notions of "normality". Especially when experiencing social discrimination, marginalization, and/or levels of exclusion on a daily as well as even rejection/abuse from the biological notions of "family" through childhood/adolescence, the discussion of friendships complicates as we often view friendly bonds within communities of shared trauma to be our chosen families. So if my trans/gender-variant and racialized siblings are not my friends, who is ? And again, what are friendships anyway ? Of course I have many cis-heteronormative allies throughout the circumstances of life, some I would even feel guilty for when I say I have no friends... but what about the bonds and loyalties so rooted in gendered solidarity in the name of binary segregation ? How can I truly befriend and trust when most of times they mention "girls" they don't think of girls like me... girls like us ? Sure we can continue in respectful, or even friendly encounters, but if my woman/femmehood is not recognized/honoured, I can't help but wonder of my humanity when their privileges/comforts are challenged down the line.

          I remember when I first came to Canada starting middle-school: the only out-and-queer immigrant kid, chubby and feminine, being told that I would be gay if I befriend girls but told I was not masculine or "normal" to hang out with the boys. I remember coming out as gay and cis-white girls befriending me as their GBF, but then I also remember losing friends in high school after coming out as trans... From the results and discussions from the research cited above, there are about "eight benefits and six barriers... expressed in reference to cisgender and heterosexual (normative) friends when compared to transgender and sexual minority (non-normative) friends" (2014). Yet what is truly interesting is of how patterned the responses are (to me as a trans-feminine person anyways) between the listed benefits: "(1) helps me feel 'normal'; (2) transgender/sexuality issues do not dominate conversation and friendship; (3) validation more powerful from someone with normative identity; (4) more opportunity for friendship due to larger population; (5) emotionally stable; (6) helps me present as identified gender ('pass'); (7) offers more diverse perspectives and interactions; and (8) opportunity to educate about transgender experience" and the listed barriers: "(1) not knowledgeable on issues of gender, sex, and privilege; (2) insensitive use of language in reference to identity; (3) difficult to talk about transgender/sexuality issues; (4) fosters feelings of discomfort; (5) not understanding non-normative experience; and (6) fewer shared experiences". Such data is helpful to analyze the struggles of gender-diversity within socialization, yet again of the marginalization/tokenization in academia of trans experiences as subjects for research when the premise of normality and definitions of friendship are clearly set in a cis-binary context, perspective, and understanding. Most of the "benefits" listed are merely coping mechanisms of survival (social assimilation) while the "barriers" experienced with "cisgender and heterosexual friends" are still too similar to the violent microaggressions we face from the general cisgender public of majority/normality... So now I ask myself, is befriending the status quo worth the pains of mental marginalization ? Can the isolation of experiences be justified for the sakes of connection through socio-political/economical convenience ? Allies don't need to be friends but do friends need to be allies ?

          "Why I don't have friends" is a statement of challenge I propose to the public as I strongly believe that we have yet to understand what friendships are and have the potentials to be. And yet I must not neglect of the work that came before: the attempts of revolutionizing gendered relations and the strives towards intimacy beyond labels. I also have to give credit to the love and continuous (un)learning from allies around, even if I have not personally gotten the support that I need at times. "An opportunity to educate about [my] transgender experience" is not a benefit to me, but rather a labour of tokenization as it furthers the segregation of gendered experiences. Vidhya Rajput is "a transgender activist [who] has emerged as a leader in a gathering rights revolution in India but she still has an 'ache for love'" (2019). I wish to softly manifest her essence across the globe, sister to sister, my oceans rising passionately to her powerful moonlight: a declaration of how her "loneliness keeps [her] going"... As our loneliness keeps us going, fighting, and dreaming.

Research/Article References:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0959353514526218
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/world/asia/india-transgender.html

The Truth: University/"Higher Education"

          I am a trans woman of colour standing at the intersections of visibility and violence; I am surrendering my strength to softness, humbling myself for the magic of my heart and spirit would not be in its glory without the black and indigenous mothers and femmes, as well as the 2SLGBTQ+ elders that have came and fought before me... As a settler-immigrant surviving in a colonial-capitalist state, I wish to acknowledge the complicity of my being, the privileges of my access, and the possible violence of my ignorance as I continue to learn/unlearn/grow. It is the aim to come together as a decolonizing collective to dismantle institutional powers of the patriarchy through socio-political freedom of the mind, reform of education, and a firm foundation of compassion politics for the equity and justice of all marginalized peoples.

          I am exhausted, of fighting for belonging within a system that's not built for equity and inclusion; I am tired of defending complicity for the performative possibility of change; I am disgusted with shallow lip-services of identity politics, with diversity being for the sake of exploitive representation, and with justice being said for the sake of expression but never action... Education towards Liberation loses its meaning: when they handcuffed a student for feeling suicidal; when they teach critical thinking without knowing action; when students die for believing their worth as GPA numbers; when they say higher learning without knowing unlearning; when they say transphobic violence is not for discipline under student code of conducts; when more than enough students of the ranked "top University of Canada" have experienced instability of housing, food, (mental) health, and the social/medical/psychological resources of support needed but they still say congratulations.

          I would understand even if fellow youths/students of academia disagree, but I dare to state the truth as what we know as institutional higher learning is not real: it is not the education built for unity and collective liberation. Yet with acknowledgement to my traumas with systematic oppression, I urge for those able to survive and thrive under such systems to let go of the false powers of knowledge productions and the connections/privileges of colonial-capitalist/elitist access. And if access is truly needed, then may we not lose a second of strive to decolonize/dismantle the institution while navigating through such systems for change. I believe in education through compassionate politics and equity, thus why I say such violent and labouring fight for resources/access is not true education/higher learning for the emotional and empathetic intelligence needed of liberating impact... 

          Though on a self-reflective and confessional note: I am still fighting to keep myself in academia, for perhaps foolish and hopeless potentials of change and "success", but still failing and hurting from the battles/ barriers of visibility as violence. Maybe I'm afraid of leaving this war with the institutions; perhaps the uncertainty of social dynamics as well as the socio-political and economic stigmas against those "uneducated" still haunts me and my generational lineage... as no matter how she screams death to systematic violence, she has been made part of them... The truth is that the people are not relating to her words no longer, even if they understand and feel the struggle. She asks herself of how she can truly serve the people without knowing their language and sharing their struggles ? bell hooks once said that she "came to theory because [she] was hurting," and as I came to the philosophical studies of humanities on gender and social equity/justice for the pains of surviving as a trans woman of colour, I soon realized that theory is there indeed for us to comprehend the struggles of our existence; however, theory is not of healing nor liberation. I am a femme giving birth to myself, a storyteller searching for softness and for where the light pours in... And I am afraid that such compassionate justice is not buildable through the rotting hierarchies of complicity, that it is not sound for flowers forcing blossoms when showered with acid and planted in poison, that students deserve better, and that youths must begin to build our own tables, creating access and possibilities for the sanity of ourselves, for the honour of those before, and for the glory of those after us...

"Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference -- those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older -- know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. 
For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. 
They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support." - Audre Lorde

20th: Birthday Blues

          19 still surviving 2019; turning 20 now, and then... what ?
Birthday: what is it really ? We come together to celebrate one's first and last breaths, while we ignore the reality of those struggling to breathe, to live, to survive with dignities through such cruel modern humanities... It is difficult for me to celebrate another cycle of survival when it feels as if my next breath could be my last and me being okay with it. A dead girl walking, still trying to appreciate life...

          20 years ago today, a baby was born not a boy. She has died, so many times... rebirthing again and again. 20 years later, a woman was born, from herself and to herself. 20 years old, I am so exhausted... of our lives not being ours, of our love not being ours, of our beauty not being ours, and of our death not being ours... I am tired of surviving as a commodity and not living as human. I am trying to learn/unlearn joy, in the means of my heart and not others. 20 years of a broken heart, trying to learn/unlearn notions of happiness through the full spectrums of humanity. 20 years of crying, wondering of myself in light and of healing through the dark. 20 years of searching for softness, slowly realizing that she holds the softness in which she needs to not only survive, but thrive...

          I will forever hold gratitude and space for the queer/trans coloured women/girls/femmes that came before me, specifically for the 2-Spirit/Trans Indigenous folks and their native teachings of gender diversity. And I will continue to survive, learning/unlearning to hold love and space for myself, as I owe my thrive to the queer/trans coloured women/girls/femmes after me. It becomes difficult for me to celebrate the life of self when often it has felt as if theres not a deserving self at all. Yet when one drowns in her own shadows, she survives through breathing for not herself but for us... Healing, is loving you all so much that I start loving myself too. Happy Birthday, stay alive sis.

Concerning Violence & Survival

CW/TW: violence

          "Are you okay ? What's wrong ?"
Define "okay" and tell me what isn't wrong... I have been staring at this blank draft, wondering of the meaning to my words, and the purpose of my story. Yet I must write, for then I might finally stop crying...

          Capitalism forces a sex worker who’s just been raped on Saturday to seek more work on the Monday after. She knows of crying on the weekends for rest and crying on the weekdays for work. Colonialism taught us that there was no freedom compared to the development of some, Capitalism now teaches us that there is no freedom compared to the development for some.

          A trans woman of colour, a miracle for how she drags a dead body to class. Crying uncontrollably from her bed to the bathroom, she promises herself that she'll be okay, even knowing the possibility of peace within if she just drop dead. Yet guilt is what makes it unbearable, the guilt for mourning a body that still breathes with other trans women/femmes being murdered. As a survivor from times and times again, I feel as if someone else is wearing my body. I do not know of where I am nor why I am... Yet I am already so privileged and lucky, and I apologize to my next breath for I do not give this life justice. I am so sorry to the world, for my incapability of spreading love and life that so many around me deserve. I am sorry as I wish to give this stolen soil more than just my tears, to give the hurting more than just safe spaces, to give the breaking more than just solidarity, to give the loving more than just me. I apologize, as I wish to give so much more, still waiting for the world to embrace me back, softly... And perhaps it is too selfish, to imagine love, to imagine safety, to fantasy a home, and to seek for softness among such cruelty.

          Capitalism forces the meaning out of friendships, out of relationships, out of love, and care... as no one is able to even save themselves. What do I say, to "friends" when they ask if I'm okay ? How do I answer, to "lovers" when they ask me what's wrong ? They have nothing to offer, but to share my pains and burdens. As I have told my psychiatrist, speaking of my circumstances does not seem productive... I wish I can shake off the teachings of Capitalism, but like a disease it eats you from the inside out. I wish to not feel worthless when I have not sent out at least a job application a day. I wish to not feel useless when I can not pay for my own meal. I wish to not... feel such heaviness for simply just breathing.

          concerning violence and survival... are you okay ? 

          Life, feels like it's only meant for some. I wonder of the people enjoying their summers, traveling, with what is known to be families and friends. I wonder of the people, working and trying to enjoy their summers, appreciating the weekends and the little money sustaining their social lives. Is that happiness ? Is happiness as we know it even accessible ? I wonder of the people struggling, but still enjoying their summers, trying to forget, trying to cope, trying to be, happy. Or as happy as we can be I guess with the uncertainty of tomorrow. Thus I wonder of myself, as I don't know how to go to class, appointments, write essays, seek for jobs, for shelter, for love, for myself, and for happiness all at the same time... Maybe I've just been weak and lost. I have no one to blame but for myself, as no one takes care of me but me. I'll be okay, I have to be...