Death of a Teacher, Pt. 2 - The Journey to Zero F*cks

From Pt. 1:

The psychological and emotional toll this end has taken on me has been devastating.  I do my best to carry it silently and to cope with it in as healthy a fashion as possible, but oftentimes I feel paralyzed with anger, fear, and betrayal...

And now, Pt. 2!

I've come a long way since my last post. I still have moments of anger and fear, but I made a choice to be very intentional about my direction. Obsessing over jobs no longer interests me. Oh sure, I look almost daily, but most of what I see doesn't excite me. If looking for jobs were like Tinder, I'm basically left-swiping nonstop.

What can be hard about this situation is that it's akin to an abusive relationship. People can often continue to see themselves as the problem and forget that it's the abuser who has the issues. When I have encountered uncivilized people in my life, I have to actively work to remind myself that they have the problem (though it's still very difficult for me not to internalize negativity). My first year of teaching, I had three high school boys yell, "DYKE! DYKE! DYKE!" at me while their PE class and my middle school PE class shared the track between the two schools. I was humiliated and powerless since they were yelling it in front of everyone and with apparent impunity. Of course it is human to want to go punch people like that in the face, but ultimately they are the problem, not me. I also try to remind myself that many young people do actually mature and realize the error of their ways, so I do my best not to punish people for what they did when they were in high school.

So when I think about this last job, it was very much a sick situation. The whole system is sick. People who are drowning in the Kool-Aid over there will never say so, and the organization's Chief Talent Officer himself recently wrote one of the longest responses to a Glassdoor review I've ever seen. I found it to be a set of "Ye doth protest too much" kinds of things, but clearly he is brainwashed about the whole system and thinks it's perfectly normal. My guess is also that his ass has never been a teacher or it was a very long time ago, and if that's the case, it was for a very short period of time. But from his cushy perch as CTO, he chose to invalidate this person's experiences and I can't go for that. No can do. I'm perfectly happy being done with that place.

And look, I know no school or school system/network/district is perfect. This is America, where we've allowed the school system to be hijacked by fake SJW's who open charter schools that are all levels of successful and people who have never taught or have taught very little become leaders and key decision-makers. However, what I'm starting to notice in the world is that too many places in general are led by the chosen few. What they think, believe, and say goes. They deem themselves to be quite the end-all/be-all experts. They claim they love feedback and are humble, but really, they don't listen. As I've searched for new jobs, I've found other industries to have similar people in management and recruiting, especially.

EQ is the key ingredient I find to be missing from leaders. Not to be condescending to those who know what that is, but for those who don't, that's the shorthand for emotional intelligence. So many people today are just 100% void of this quality. My last boss was, and trust me, she was a boss (not to be confused with a bawss), not a leader. BIG, BIG difference between those two things. But when people can't even be human, how can they lead other humans? How can they utilize humility, the most important quality there is, when they operate from fear and control? They can't. They don't listen and reflect (but everyone else should). And this saddens me because it seems that places with leaders possessing high EQ are just so rare today, yet these are usually the places that will end up being the most successful.

I can't even get people to respond to networking emails trying to build professional connections, or simple requests for feedback after being rejected for a job. I understand everyone is busy, and I do not expect to be hired for everything to which I apply, but a quick bit of information about how I can improve on my next interview goes a long way. Maybe it's because I truly love to help people that I struggle with so many people's "me first" attitude. There is a time and a place to be "me first," but your literal life better depend on it (or it better be because you're putting your oxygen mask on before that little kid's), and even in certain instances of life and death I might question your judgment.

So how have I gotten to the place of giving zero fucks amidst all this cockamamie craziness? I just knew it was time to get on with it. No one who had any association with doing me wrong in that place deserves that power anymore. It's time to say bye, Felicia and move on. I wrote down two sets of goals, one around fitness and the other around writing, and I'm going to stay focused. I've got a book (or three) to write, people! No more time for what I call The Big 5: chicanery, tomfoolery, malarkey, shenanigans, and nonsense. Those are all things I simply do not have time for. If I'm going to be out of a job for a bit, I might as well focus on self-care, detoxing from my last situation, and being productive in ways that help me. Yes, I am allowed to have a "me-first" attitude in this regard right now.

There are certain aspects of this situation that are not ideal, but I know I can find solutions, and I know I will keep living. There are days when taking it one step at a time even seems overwhelming; more like take it one breath a time. I'd be lying if I said my mind hasn't been in some very dark places in the past five months. However, we all have to decide who controls the narratives in our minds. I've chosen to change my self-talk and to crystallize my goals in writing so that I can hold myself accountable. And that first book? I will write it, and it will get published.

The fitness aspect is something that I know I have to be extremely determined about. Years of self-loathing and self-neglect have taken their toll on me. Not to make excuses, but when you don't love your physical body it can be very easy to mistreat. It will be a process requiring full commitment, but it can, and will, be done. I have gotten some tiny nibbles from trans modeling agencies and I know I can turn those into full-fledged opportunities if I stay focused.

So there it is: I've put my main two focal points into the universe. Now that other people know, it'll be way easier to hold myself accountable. And don't be afraid to hold me accountable! Keep me in check, please. But for now, it feels so good to be at as much peace as I can be at this juncture. I have to keep on keepin' on and taking actions, and all will be well. I am tired of thinking about what I want to do next job-wise. I honestly don't know exactly, but I do know what I want to do with my life right now, so I'ma do that and just make some shit happen. It's not like I haven't already had to survive the world in this life, so here I go, y'all.

Oh, as a bonus prize for reading this, here is a video of my cat acting a fool in the litter box. She has issues...

Death of a Teacher, Pt.1 - The Last Sacrifice

“This is not a negotiation.”

Like a fed-up parent shutting down a begging child, my principal asserted herself as the one in control of this dialogue.  Except I was not a begging child, but a 43-year old trans man about to conclude his eighteenth year in education. And the dialogue was centered around what I assumed would be a discussion about how to find common ground around my salary and my roles and responsibilities (R&R) at the school.  Her tone and demeanor indicated so much more than that simple five-word declaration.

It was this past May that this conversation took place.  I left her office feeling defeated because with that little phrase she had slammed my back up against the brick wall of ultimatum.  Her terms were only this: I could remain at the school as the athletic director and keep my full salary but I had to resume a half-time teaching load.  I had fought hard to move out of the classroom in order to focus solely on athletics administration and also to assume some new responsibilities around teacher coaching and after-school management of students in the building. 

My terms, which were clearly moot at this point, were that I wanted to take a pay cut in order to trim the fat off my R&R so I could be dedicated to being an athletic director.  So here I was, put in a real conundrum by the person who had only been leading the school for one year and who had been hired there at the same time I had.  It was late in the school year and I had to decide whether a nice paycheck and good health insurance were worth the inevitable stress of overload that would loom if I agreed to her terms.  This boulder of a critical life decision sat on my shoulders as I left the meeting.

When I came to the second-year charter high school in 2010, I was teaching Literature I to freshmen.  Because the school was so new, there were no Physical Education (PE) classes or Athletics programs in place. But my principal assured me that the following year, I could transition (there has been a lot of transitioning for me in the past several years) into the role of founding PE teacher and Athletic Director.  Prior to moving to Brooklyn in 2010, I had been teaching in Texas public middle and high schools since 1999.  I am certified in Secondary English and Secondary Physical Education, so I had some experience under my belt in teaching PE, coaching sports, and teaching English.  Other roles I worked in were being a Team Leader and an after-school credit recovery computer lab administrator.  I was no spring chicken by the time I was hired in Brooklyn.

The 2011-2012 school year rolled around and here I was, given the chance to start and develop PE and Athletics at the school just as my principal promised.  It was undoubtedly the greatest opportunity I had ever received to show my capabilities.  I could feel that (quite expensive) Master’s in Sport Administration finally starting to pay off.  The PE part was easy for me because I knew exactly what I wanted the PE classes to look and feel like.  Students would be learning about fitness and how to manage their physical wellness by mastering a variety of workouts, using various implements, learning about their bodies, and setting short- and long-term goals for themselves.  These aspects would help my students attain better levels of fitness which would be measured through standardized fitness testing.  I told the students in regards to wearing a prescribed PE uniform that we were a team in this gym and we were going to look like a team.  I told them that when someone walked into this gym and saw them, that person was going to be so impressed with how sharp and focused they looked.  PE classes promptly materialized into kids working very hard and giving incredible effort every day.  My vision for PE classes was coming together quickly and beautifully.

Starting a whole Athletics program, though, was going to be much more daunting than the PE classes and I knew this.  That year, I only had a handful of kids playing basketball.  I was developing/teaching PE, hustling to help my teams get into a league, negotiating a facility usage deal in order to play in the league for free, and coaching the basketball teams.  I have always known my lane and how to stay in it, and I knew that this type of spreading oneself thin was not sustainable.  People cannot occupy multiple lanes and do well.  But for the time being this was what I had to do to get the ball rolling (pun intended).  The only reason this particular year was manageable was because I only had to teach two PE classes a day, both in the afternoon.  Of course, my administration needed me to earn my keep so they also had me teaching a reading class in the morning to struggling readers.  Nothing like multiple preps to help teachers perform better (NOT).

My backwards plan for Athletics was to offer as many sports that we realistically could given our facilities and staffing so that we could someday compete in the Public School Athletic League (PSAL) with high schools from all over NYC.  I knew this could accomplish two things: keeping a significant portion our network's 8th-graders interested in our school and helping our athletes be more visible in order to earn athletic scholarships.  The school had an amazing gym so basketball was a no-brainer.  I wanted to add track/cross country because running is possible anywhere (and I had a staff member who was well-qualified to coach the sport).  We had a small play field on the roof so I developed a soccer league with six-player teams and a smaller goal.  Cheer was a “gimme” because they merely needed some gym space or any other large enough area to practice.  All of these sports also had low overhead and luckily I had found people who wanted to coach these sports.  In 2012 I still had to coach basketball while teaching PE full time and running the Athletics program.  Oh, did I mention I also created a small charter school league so my school would have a better league in which to compete and that would be more conducive to a burgeoning school like us?  Yeah, I did that, too.

So there I was, juggling all of these things but making progress.  More kids were joining sports and I had some solid coaches.  I had formed relationships with other new-ish charter schools who were in a similar situation to us as far as their athletic development.  Somehow, I was hanging in there thus far as I concluded my third year at the school.  Still, I could feel the toll all of this was taking on me.  I was perpetually exhausted and I had to work six days a week, 60-70 hours a week, in order to make everything happen.  I’m no quitter, though, and I had a vision so I kept chugging along.

In the midst of all of this, I began my transition.  On December 1, 2011, I got my first T shot.  On Christmas Eve, just three short weeks later, I had a hysterectomy which was going to happen no matter what due to severe endometriosis.  It turns out that condition was a blessing, if endometriosis could ever be called that, since insurance would cover the procedure.  I missed a minimal amount of work considering the level of that surgery.  In the summer of 2012, I was on this fast-moving transition express: getting my name legally changed and having my top surgery all happened over a two-month period in June and July.  Yet again, despite the intense surgery and the fact that I was a PE teacher and sports coach for a living, I missed a minimal amount of work (top surgery requires several weeks of basically no activity so the scarring is lessened).  I prided myself on being dependable because as far as PE and Athletics went, I was it.  My programs were not going to suffer because I was absent.

As I mentioned before, the 2012-2013 school year was where I could really start to feel the burn.  The one thing that helped me feel a little more upbeat was that I earned my charter school network’s Distinguished Teacher award by meeting certain criteria on the teacher evaluation process they had.  I soldiered on into the 2013-2014 school year where everything started to catch up to me.  My physical health declined: I gained weight, tore my right calf muscle, and threw out my back three times in an eighteen-month period, which meant three ER visits.  The signs were clear that there was no way I could keep up this pace.  Just like Elizabeth Warren, though, still I persisted.

In 2014, I got to hire a full-time men’s basketball coach and PE teacher.  I also had a women’s coach who had been with me for a couple of years so those responsibilities were finally off my plate.  And because basketball was the marquee sport at the school, these were the critical programs that had to be built in order to drive interest in other sports.  The basketball teams were definitely setting the tone.  The basketball coach teaching PE was nice because I had a genuine teaching colleague.  Still, teaching PE (and Health), managing the school’s Athletics program, and running my charter school league was still an intense combination.  I also spent the first month of school in the fog of a cocktail of prescription drugs to manage severe muscle spasms in my back after the third ER trip of the aforementioned ER fun.  However, I could see a ton of progress on all fronts so I kept pushing.

When the 2015-2016 school year came, the school’s founding principal departed and the principal from a different high school in the network stepped in.  Throughout the year he and I discussed our shared belief that the Athletic Director role was better off being solely administrative.  I was thrilled that he shared my vision for this!  Meanwhile, PE classes were going well and all of our sports teams were rocking on all fronts: grades, behavior, and performance successes were piling up.  We added a volleyball team to the mix.  My program was starting to become the juggernaut I envisioned from the outset. 

Finally, in 2016-2017 I was no longer teaching.  I was really able to focus on every detail of taking the Athletics program further.  We were coming off a great season from our men’s basketball program where the JV and Varsity teams won league titles, with the Varsity team recording our first-ever undefeated season so basketball was poised to dominate.  We also finally entered the PSAL so that we could start gunning for hanging with the big dogs in the public schools.  Student-athletes’ grades were steadily improving and they were staying out of trouble.  Kids were staying eligible for whole seasons and committing to the expectations I laid out for them so that our teams would be stable.  By the end of the 2016-2017 school year, my teams amassed eight league titles in three different sports across seven different teams.  The volleyball team also won our inaugural in-network showdown with one of our sister schools.  I also coached electives teachers and worked to be the after-school administrator on duty in our school.

But just as I felt like everything was coming together in 2015-2016, the 2016-2017 school year was where the wheels started falling off.  The school got its third principal in three years (the one mentioned at the beginning of this post).  A total of six teachers did not complete the school year, which I have never experienced in my entire career.  Things had already become strained between my men’s basketball coach and I for various reasons, then he told me eleven days before the JV season was set to start that he was taking a D-II college assistant coaching job.  I had been working hard to coach my teachers, one of whom was one of the teachers who left during the year.  She was brand-new and despite my continual pleas to my principal for additional support for her, the new teacher was not further supported and quit in October.  I was juggling Athletics, teacher coaching, running my league, managing the school after hours, trying to support the departing teacher’s class (French) until we hired a new teacher, and then on-boarding that new teacher (Art).  I was still wearing many hats and though I was less exhausted overall, I was still having to operate with the needle in the red all the time.

To truly encapsulate the seven years I gave to that school is incredibly difficult but hopefully I have successfully provided a glimpse of the sacrifices it took to build my athletics program.  Many people understand what it takes to build something: a business, a career, a work team, a family.  But to build something that somebody essentially ripped from my hands is difficult to cope with.  It negated the better part of a decade of my life, time I cannot get back but that I would feel more glad to have given if I could still direct my program to its fruition.  Currently, it feels like a life cut tragically short.

The psychological and emotional toll this end has taken on me has been devastating.  I do my best to carry it silently and to cope with it in as healthy a fashion as possible, but oftentimes I feel paralyzed with anger, fear, and betrayal...  (To be continued in Pt. 2) 

Losing JR

It always seems to happen on the train.  I find myself forced to be still, basically alone with my thoughts, and they seem to drift to you on just about every subway ride now.  It's one of the few times that I'm both awake and not doing anything.  There aren't the usual distractions of life that essentially only serve as the giant rug under which everything is swept.  Sooner or later, though, I have to address what all is under the rug.

This last trip home I found myself in the grips of a despair that hit its peak as I drove back to the Metroplex from Houston.  As I drove closer and closer to where you no longer were, mile by mile my chest tightened, my breathing was sometimes labored, and tears came to my eyes.  Driving had to become the distraction so I would not crash.  These things hit suddenly and I realized that I was heading straight into the reality of your absence for the first time since right afterward.  Trips home always meant seeing you, and the harsh, immutable truth was that those reunions were never going to happen again. 

I captured many photos from your Facebook page the day you died (two of which are below).  I was in a panic, worried that maybe your page would come down and I would not get a chance to select photos that I felt illustrated your now-ended vitality.  These are often my riding companions on the subway, the same subway we once navigated together as you soaked in every moment of your only trip to NYC.  You bravely wore the mask of happiness when maybe somewhere inside was the cancer that was eating away at your soul.  Given what happened, this must have been a more regular occurrence than you were even willing to admit to yourself, let alone to allow others to become aware of the dark ocean you always fought to be near the top of so you could see some kind of light and pop your head out for a breath on occasion.

But I know that as you slowly sink, the water is too heavy.  It has a mass that can crush a man at the right depths.  You can keep trying to fight your way back to the top, but your legs can only kick so much until they tire.  Your heart can only pump so hard before it must quit.  Your lungs can only burn for so long with the strain of requiring air.  Your mind can no longer feel hope when in all directions: black.  The sheer terror of residing in this place for a moment would terrify most, but you must have lived there often.

I'm only guessing at this, of course, given your fateful decision that very early morning.  I'm only surmising that you spent more time in the dark than you let on because to feel at ease with that fateful choice, you must have believed it was the only one left.  The light that is your family and friends could not even reach your heart's eye because of the leagues and leagues of black ocean that you found yourself in were so far down that all light, all hope, was shut out.  Many would shudder to think of the weight and blackness that is found so far down, but you knew of it, and sooner or later it's no place to be.  You did not believe there was a lifeline to grab onto because when it's that dark, you can't see where it is to even try for it.  You don't believe one is there because most people don't believe in things they cannot see, but there were in fact lifelines all around you.  Still, the weight and the darkness robbed you of being able to know that, and you stopped trying to find the light and the lifelines that awaited you.

I wish anger was never a part of this equation but it is.  I feel its slithery fingers wrap around me sometimes like a giant hand with snakes for fingers.  The boiling inside me starts but I don't allow it to spill over because that's not how I want to think of you.  Just know that it's difficult for me, for your parents, for your friends, for anyone who loved you, and that number is enormous, cousin.  Those left behind often repeatedly grapple with this situation knowing no answers will materialize.  It's the worst kind of paradox: the more one ponders it the less resolution is achieved.  Of course most of my recollections bring joy to my heart for what they were, what they represented, but the flip side of that is the ones that never will be.  The anger arrives again for robbing so many of so much.  It's never about me the way it is about your parents.  They lost a wonderful man who hugged someone's soul just by being in the room with a roaring laugh then followed it up with the real thing. They will never forget a son who made them incredibly proud, as proven at your funeral when people had to be stand outside because the chapel was too full.  It's hard not to be angry at you, but I know you would never do do something you thought would hurt others.  I remind myself you believed this to be the only option left.

As I finalize this piece that I originally started back in April and worked on over the course of several subway rides and then did some editing to today, I will at least know that I kept my promise to myself not to change my Facebook profile picture for an entire year.  After today, I feel I am allowed to do that.  But it doesn't mean I will not fulfill the other promise of never, ever forgetting you or never to stop thinking about you.  It's impossible to not think of you.  And as much as today hurts, as if this is happening all over again, I know it can't feel for me what it feels like for my aunt and uncle.  I know that anyone who took the time to read this loves you, though.  I stayed pretty quiet about your death but I needed (and still need) a TON of processing time.  Some days I feel like I can manage, but there are others where I'm forced to be completely numb in order to cope.

I miss you every day, Cuzbro.  It's never easy, but I know somehow we will find each other again.  Please watch over your parents who I know agonize over this every day and at whom I marvel for being able to keep moving forward.  And while it has been incredibly rough today, two things happened that let me know you were with me:

1. "Under The Bridge" randomly came on my Amazon All 90's station today on my way to work;

2.  A FedEx truck just like yours was parked in front of the school making a delivery when I arrived to work.

Rest easy, my dear friend and cousin.

PS - This was written with minimal editing.  Sometimes I'm trying to keep it unpolished and raw.

Everyone is the "Other"

Just a few minutes ago (well, when I started writing this), I looked up the world's population.  I sat fascinated as the site I used counted and tracked this number live.  People were being born and dying all over the world every second.  The primary purpose of using the site, though, was to put some things in perspective:

• The population of the United States is currently around 324 million
• The population of China is 1.382 BILLION
• The population of India is 1.326 BILLION
• The combined population of just these two countries is 2.708 BILLION
• (It's OK if you keep wanting to pronounce billion as "BEE-lee-un" as Dr. Evil might do)
• The population of the world is 7.429 BILLION
• The population of the United States makes up 4% of the entire world population
• The population of China and India combined - just two of the world's countries - comprises 36%, or just over one-third, of the world's population

So one in three people on this earth is either Chinese or Indian.  America, it's time to learn your place in this world.  Only one in every 297 million people on this earth is an American.  I don't say this because I don't love my country or want people to scoff at the non-patriotic, bleeding-heart liberal they must think I am because I'm not making 'Murica number one in something.  This does not mean that I think China and/or India will or should dominate the world.  Clearly population size is not the criterion for a country subjugating the globe (see: British colonialism, American presence all over the world today).  I am stating facts and math here.  Even when you think of our country's age in the grand scheme of Earth, America is maybe a zygote.  I'm calling out America because our populace tends to be the most myopic in the world.

I have always felt like the "other."  I am a transgender person (the term "trans" will be used from here on to indicate transgender people), and we only comprise an estimated 700,000 (.002%) of the United States population.  Let's say for argument's sake there are an even million trans people in the U.S. since lots of people do not publicly reveal their identities as trans for a variety of reasons, but actually do self-identify as such.  A million is still only about .003% of the U.S. population.  Put that on world population terms, and the current estimated number of 700,000 American trans folk make up .00009% of the population of the whole world.  Yep, I really am the "other," and golly gee whiz have I felt it every second of my life.  Or...  Is 99.9% of the whole world's population (we'll factor in trans people from all over the world) the "other" to me!?  Hmmm...

We use words like "normal" to define what the majority of people do or find to be correct in a given society.  The term heteronormative means "denoting or relating to a world view that promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation."  This is an example of how people subscribe what's "normal" or correct, but on the flip side of that coin is someone who does not find that scenario to be normal.  I personally identify as heteronormative because I am enamored with this incredible beautiful woman in my life.  However, I am fully fine with the fact that someone who does not identify as heteronormative would find that situation odd, possibly revolting or disgusting.  People who are attracted to other people of the same gender cannot fathom being intimate with someone of the opposite gender.  Who is the "other" here?  Who gets to decide?

Just as Americans think our way of life is awesome, and for the most part it is, people all over the world, the other 94%, thinks otherwise.  94% of the world thinks America is the "other," and many in this country think the other 94% of the world is the "other."  You know what's crazy!?  It's all true!  Everyone is the "other" to someone.  Yes, you, Citizen Good Guy with your gun ideals and white, male, heteronormative, Christian suburban lifestyle, you are the "other" to someone.  You may currently be on the side of "right-thinking" in this country, you may be the best-represented demographic in our government right now, but trust me: somewhere in this country and certainly around the world, you are the "other."  Yes, YOU!  I assure you that there are BEE-lee-uns of people around this world who do not or would not "get" you, just as you don't "get" queers, Muslims, liberals, vegetarians/vegans, Blacks/Latinxs, non-football fans, hybrid car drivers, and anybody else who does not operate exactly like you do within the exact same construct you do.

The main difference between you and me is that I (and scads of other people in this country and around the world) have massive empathy for the "other."  When you spend your whole life being the "other," you know how it feels.  You understand what it feels like to be hated for merely existing.  This includes but is not limited to: all women, all people of color, all LGBT people, and so many more.  So while white Christian heteronormative males in this country experience the luxury of being in the group we as Americans have decided, whether consciously or not, is the most "normal" group, I can empathize with you when you are feeling singled out merely for being born white and male and suddenly feel attacked for merely being who you inherently are.  It really sucks, doesn't it?

My point in all this, though, is not to bash all people who belong to the aforementioned "normal" group in this country, and in the world for the most part.  Many members of that privileged group are superb, hard-working, fine examples of humanity.  My point is to say this: everyone is the "other" to someone else.  We spend a lot of time deciding how everyone else is different from us.  And different is not a bad thing, really.  If I went to Baskin-Robbins and they only offered vanilla, I'd be pretty pissed.  Different is what makes everything about this world awesome: food, music, culture, nature (biodiversity and therefore perpetuation of life, anyone?), and so forth.  Groove Armada has a song called "If Everybody Looked the Same" and after this main line in the chorus, the next line is "We'd get tired of looking at each other."  Boy wouldn't we!!  Whether we know it or not, we thrive on difference, on choice, because of variety.  It is OK to both discern that others are different, because to not acknowledge difference is to lie, as well as celebrate that difference at the same time.  But merely labeling others as different purely to further affirm oneself and proclaim "right-ness" is unacceptable.  You can still be you, and be totally happy with you, without having to decide that I am not as worthy of that same affirmation, love, and celebration.  You do not have the right to do that to anyone.

Even as we recognize and hopefully celebrate differences and the "other" in everyone else, we have to remind ourselves that all 7.429 BILLION of us on this planet do have that one magical thing in common, and that one magical thing will be the tie that binds us for better or for worse.  Once we learn to accept and embrace this one magical thing - miraculous, actually, given the scope of the whole galaxy - perhaps we can also improve the world we all have to share but that we also all have a right to be in.  You don't even have to raise your hand if you know it, just shout it out, because it's all that should matter when deciding why we all deserve respect, dignity, affirmation, life, liberty, and love:

HUMAN.

I. Am.

Every time I return to Texas I think about the complexities that make human beings who and what they are.  Of course I reflect more specifically on my own life and my own intricacies as a person.  It made me think about those universal questions that the Greeks invented their myths to answer: Who am I?  What am I?  What is my purpose here?

Don't worry, I'm not going to delve into all three of these questions but I am going to hybridize the first two somewhat and discuss those a bit.  I also hope to help what may be seen as a blurry line between those two questions (the "who" and the "what" questions) become clearer.  It does seem as though who and what we are are one in the same but I don't think so.  This will be my attempt to sort all that out.

When it comes to who we are, I think these are innate things like our gender, our bloodlines, our race, our sexuality.  I AM a straight white man.  This is who I am.  I am a Frank, and though I don't know our exact ancestry just yet and will probably have to resort to some nifty website for that information, I know that even if I'm not very connected to my forebears my family lineage does play a role in who I am.  As much as we don't think so there are some characteristics we exude that are embedded in our DNA and our body's chemical makeup.

To some degree, it can even be argued that some of who we are can be things like how we choose to make a living or the passions we pursue.  These areas are the more gray ones or that fun football-shaped middle part of a two-subject Venn diagram.  I admit, this is the tricky section, but you have often heard some people say things like "I AM an athlete" or "I AM a musician/dancer/actor" and so on.  Sometimes what we pursue in life stems from who we are through the character traits we develop.  If you believe that you cannot live without expressing yourself and creating things, you can safely say you ARE an artist of some sort.  Often people do find it hard to exist in total wellness without being able to live as a professional athlete or a teacher or whatever their true passion is.  We've all seen it: the people who become lost without that piece of themselves being actively expressed.

Shifting to the "what" we are is also more easily defined.  Just because it's easily defined, however, doesn't make what we are simple.  People are a conglomerate of so many things that make them what they are.  Just as easily as I can say that who I am is an athlete (or more like was an athlete), I can also say it's what I am (or was), too.  But when I really started to reflect on what I am, a process prompted by returning to Texas, the place that for the majority of my life shaped me and helped mold me into what I am, I realized it's a complicated story.  And one of the biggest travesties in life, to me, is how so many people seem to want to simplify all of humanity into a few neat little categories.  Man.  Woman.  White.  Black (or some other "color").  Republican.  Democrat.  Liberal.  Conservative.  Gay.  Straight.  All of these delineations help people figure out who is "us" and who is "them" so that they can also then apply their society's rules to decide how to treat the people they encounter.

So as for what I am, well, it's a hodgepodge not many people could or would want to understand.  As I said, who I am is a straight white man of some type of Germanic and probably Eastern European lineage.  But what I am is a mosaic of life experiences.  I am a Texan AND a New York City man.  I love guns, the outdoors, fishing, good BBQ, football, wide open spaces, up to 85 MPH speed limits, giant grocery stores, and friendly people.  I also love subways, people moving with purpose, good sartorial choices, walking places, having everything delivered, and more clearly defined seasons (relatively speaking).

I am a fan of the way Texans value their individual freedoms and don't want the government telling them every little thing they can or can't do.  I like that Texans think of themselves as very able to take care of their own business.  I always joke to my girlfriend that if we had to survive in the wild I feel confident I could do it having my outdoorsy background and all.  On the flip side of this, as I watch the Texas political machine from a very different political landscape, I scratch my head at why my state still seems to be a place where folks still want to tell certain people what to do or how to live.  All of this individual freedom seems to only apply to gun rights, not uterine or relationship rights.

I am a fan of the way New Yorkers value diversity more and think more progressively about gender identity or sexual orientation or relationship rights or trying to find ways to provide programs that help people who need it.  The resources I found in NYC to help me transition are basically non-existent in Texas.  I do applaud people who live in Texas and stand strong in their beliefs about who and what they are because it's not an easy thing to do in Perryland.

This makes for a good segue into more about what I am.  I'm not a Republican or a Democrat because those two things are more of those neatly defined boxes people seem to love so much.  Say you're a Republican because your key ideal is fiscal conservatism and the next thing you know you are a gun-crazed, abortion doctor killing, xenophobic Creationist.  We have only the current "Republican" nutjobs to thank for this because those people are simply hateful, bigoted, insecure white men who just don't know any better.

Say you're a Democrat because your key ideals are equal rights and governmental recognition for all American citizens  and suddenly you're a knee-jerk liberal who thinks the government should redistribute wealth while everyone runs around in their Birkenstocks having abortion parties and taking away every last gun in America so as to destroy a large percentage of the population's way of being.  I just don't like these labels, and neither of them works for me in isolation.  I'm a little of this, and a little of that.  Usually that means you have to say you're a Libertarian but then everyone thinks all you want to do is smoke pot and dismantle all government agencies so that's not good, either.

What I am is a human being, a person who is finally comfortable in his own skin.  I'm a HUMAN BEING who happens to be a man who happens to like the show Sex and the City, and who happened to cry when the chimp hugged Jane Goodall goodbye then found her way back home in the wild, and who happens to curse out the TV when the Cowboys lose close games they should have won.  I will tell my female friend her manicure looks awesome and tell my male buddy that his wife should not try to rid him of his new paisley tie because it rules and well, it's a man's right to have his own favorite tie that bugs his wife.  I'm a man who likes to cook and make silly songs about my cats and play ball and lift weights.  I'm a guy you can't box in and I love that, because if you think about it, a box is a prison.  I'm a guy who is outside the lines and that means I can run and skip and jump like a Sparkle Pony singing "Everything is Awesome" from the LEGO movie if I want to and no one's going to make me feel badly about it.  Sometimes I'll just lumber around outside the lines with the grace of a caveman, but either way I'm free to move about as I wish and that's a freedom that so many people will never know.  They'll never know it because they're too busy building their little boxes to live inside so everyone can just read the label and know what they're getting.  If that's the case, why get to know someone?  Boooooorrrriiing!!!!

Of course all of my readers know I am a trans man but that's only because my body didn't get the memo.  As I said before, who I am and have always been is a man.  There will always be people in my life who refuse to accept that and that's OK with me.  They like their cozy little boxes just fine.  But the real bottom line here is the ultimate WHAT in terms of what I am.  I.  Am.  HUMAN.  And that's the only label we should be worrying about in this life.