Good luck, LBT! I hope it goes as smoothly as possible, even if you’re going to avoid sugarcoating things.
I know that I’ll probably have to write something similar one of these days to my father, and I think it’s the right thing to do. It’s probably way easier said than done, though.
Enh, I dunno that I’m even going to send it. They’re just going to forget it ever happened anyway, and they have NEVER handled this kind of shit well, and we’re dragging alllll the black hole crap out into the open. Plus, I don’t want to give them the lesson that all they have to do to get us talking to them is push our buttons in a specific way.
Still, it felt good to just write it. I was always so used to their behavior that I never expressed anger to them about keeping us around a child-molester, or suspecting we were getting raped in their own house and choosing to do nothing about it, or any of that. It felt immensely cathartic to write, “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU FUCKING PEOPLE?”
LBT – sent or not, good on you for writing it. I can only say it gave me great satisfaction to tell my idiot father exactly what I thought of him when he tried the “I want to get to know her” BS (he hadn’t even the courage to write to me: he wrote to my mother). I don’t know if you’ll ever be in a place to do that and have an effect, since your family are far, far worse than he was, but I’m really glad you got it down on paper screen anyway.
I see. That really doesn’t sound worth sending, then. I’m happy to hear that it was cathartic for you, though. =]
One time I wanted to write my father a very cathartic email about how abusive he has been to me and the people closest to me. I decided to not send it because he doesn’t listen to me anyway. Every time I try to criticize him, he accuses me of trying to unfairly shame him and make him feel like the “enemy.” So I can definitely relate.
Believe me, kitteh, if I try sending such an email to him before I’m away from him and safe, I’ll most certainly get another one of those panic attacks. And I don’t know what kind of ableist shit he’ll do to me if he sees me go through a panic attack.
About the “enemy” thing, he has the same bullshit notion for many people who are critical of his behavior. It’s a form of implicit self-pitying that he uses to manipulate people.
Oh, and those rape jokes? My brother once told me that his friends’ humor is entirely “deconstructive” i.e. doesn’t make oppressed people the punchline but rather makes fun of racism, sexism, etc. Well, excuse me, but I don’t think making a joke whose punchline is me (yes, me) getting raped by someone who has a fetish for transgender women is “deconstructive.” Pardon me for being a little critical of his assertion!
Anyway, I should get some sleep now. Night everyone! ^_^
Okay, having slept on it, I gave the letter an edit, but not as much as I figured it’d need. I still haven’t decided whether to send it or not, but I’m going to talk with a trusted friend about it in a couple of days, which’ll help me come to a decision. Especially since I added a postscript that was pretty much, “Just because I chose to respond to this email doesn’t mean that I, or any other system member, will respond to anything else. All of your correspondence will be sent, unopened, to a friend, who has kindly volunteered to filter it for me.”
It would be immensely cathartic to say it, especially since our father is LITERALLY asking for our reasons for why we aren’t speaking to him anymore. And the thought that if they do flip their shit, I won’t have to look at it or read it, or even notice its existence, is very nice.
Also, I admit, part of me hopes that maybe it’ll be a wake up call for them. Being polite and civil and passive didn’t work; maybe actually circumventing the family rules will be more educational for them. But I also realize that they very well may learn nothing at all, and I’m okay with that too. If I send them the letter, it won’t be for THEIR benefit.
Happy news from here: I had lovely clear memories of last night at Home this morning. There’s a hint of autumn not being far off; the morning there was very mellow. Louis and I did something quite different, having breakfast on the back terrace (we usually eat in the kitchen). Pancakes, syrup, cream (me), ice-cream (him), strawberries and bananas (both). And one pissed-off cat: Katie arrived for her usual helping and was Not Impressed that we weren’t having bacon and eggs. Didn’t stop her helping herself to my cream, but when I pointed out that she could create her own bacon and eggs if she wanted ’em, the reaction was like a little black thundercloud of a thought bubble. 😀
I also commented on cats having no manners and Louis said they’d taught him. Rubbish, I told him, your manners (or lack of) come from your era, you can’t pin that one on the kitties. He conceded that but said the cats do reinforce it … true enough, lol.
It was sweet as sitting there drinking our coffee (his coffee is the BEST) and holding hands and having a cuddle. We spent the day outside. He had some woodwork to do – just for its own sake – and I decided to do a watercolour of him working. ::Sigh:: … perfect way to spend the day.
I haven’t had a lengthy (fifteen minutes playing out, here) clear memory like that for ages.
Those times are always the best! (Though obvious I lack the memory issue.) Now that things are looking up again, me and hubby are being able to actually give each other more attention, rather than just fixating on base survival.
True… though seeing as we officially became homeless again today and are back in That Damned Closet, I suspect we’ll get our energy cut again soon. But oh well, it’s only for a couple of weeks. Then… THE ROAD!
Ally S, if you ever need to rant off to a fellow anarcommie about Stuff, this profile links to my Twitter so you could DM me. Maybe. I think we need to both follow each other for DM to be available. But that’s basically the best I can do without divulging personal info on a public venue.
Sure! I actually do have a Twitter account, although I haven’t used it in a while. And I believe I’m following you already.
Also, tomorrow I’m heading to Out Boulder, which has a weekly support group exclusively for trans* and genderqueer people – unlike my previous support group, it doesn’t have only trans* women and trans* allies. I think it’s the only LGBTQ community center in Boulder, CO, and it looks pretty nice. They seem to be committed to intersectionality and such.
OK, hi, looking for a bit of advice for a friend of mine from those of you in poly relationships or know people in poly relationships.
My friend separated last year from her husband of 12years. It was an enormous decision that pulled her emotions in every direction. She has made enormous efforts to move on and felt ready for some fun after a while. She said she would like to meet a guy that wasn’t in town, that she could have sexy times with, that wouldn’t be around her family (she has 3 kids). Lo and behold, she met such a guy and sexy times commenced. He seems like an OK guy, I have met him. He is 1 year out of an 8yr relationship and looking for a woman to have sexy times with.
She said she was cool with the whole concept of friends with benefits but she has always been monogamous at heart. They did have a conversation at the beginning of the relationship about this not being a monogamous thing but when he mentioned hanging out with other women, she became uncomfortable and brought up her feelings with him. He was clear with her that he wasn’t ready to commit, despite having strong feelings for her but didn’t want to hurt her.
She initially said she had decided she couldn’t be in a non -monogamous relationship after all and it was over. However, circumstances dictated that he ended up living relatively nearby for a bit so they talked and sexy times recommenced.
Recently, he slept with someone else but came to tell her about it. He was honest that he would like to see this other woman again but had strong feelings for my friend and wished to continue their relationship.
My friend is examining her life and her pre -conceptions, she’s been talking about her perception of her ego. She’s open to trying to a poly relationship but unsure what that could mean and if she can handle it.
I’m putting it out into this thread cos you guys are cool and know stuff about this.
How does her story sound? What expectations and boundaries can she have and set? The guy seems cool but I simply don’t know enough about poly relationships to sniff out any bullshit. Is this even a poly relationship?
Any help, manboobzers, is always appreciated.
P.s. she knows I’m posting this.
tenya
11 years ago
Sounds like a fairly standard scenario, actually – although I predict that eventually your friend or her current person of interest will settle into a monogamous situation rather than what they’re currently doing because it sounds like monogamy is their ideal, but not what works for them right now. What they’re working on right now is negotiate sexytimes with other people that is the least harmful to all – if your friend is cool with that, that is fine, but not everyone is. And further, it is completely valid to not be cool with that! Here is how the current scenario shakes out to me:
Friend gets to have a friendship relationship with Guy and sleep with him
Guy gets to have friendship relationship with Friend and sleep with her, and other women
If everyone is happy there, Friend, Guy, Other Woman and future Other Women – hooray! If not, something needs to change.
What concerns me is your friend’s decision that something must be wrong with her and that she wants to try poly (which nope, this doesn’t really sound like) because of Guy’s strong feelings for her, when it doesn’t seem like anyone wants a committed relationship and further that she wasn’t really interested in sharing her Guy with other women in the first place. That is an entirely legitimate way to feel! Although, granted, those Guys will probably eventually want to move into either a more open relationship, so they can have sexytimes with other people, or into a more monogamous relationship with her.
So, you know, you can help with examining her priorities:
How important is having sex with this guy to her? How important is having a friendship with him to her? Is it worth the feelings of misgiving she is having when he is going to be with other women? It is clear he isn’t going to stop sleeping with other women (nor check with her first) so it cannot be about how his feelings for her, it all needs to be on her. And, if she’s been in a long-term relationship, it can be difficult to disregard someone else and only think about herself, but encourage her to try. If this scenario doesn’t feel really okay, all around, there is no need for her to try to work on feelings and negotiate and adapt and change like one does in an invested long-term relationship – say screw this and move on and find something/someone else that does make her happy.
The other thing to remember about “real” poly relationships that the openness is all about negotiating times, places, people and commitments and I get the impression your friend would really not be comfortable with discussing her friend’s intentions to sleep with someone else.
Do you think she’d be comfortable in such a conversation – or being introduced to one of his other partners?
If she wants a don’t ask, don’t tell, let him do as he wants so long as he keeps it to himself style of uncommitted relationship, he’d have to agree to not be “honest” about his other activities. She’d have to see if she thinks he’d be happy with that. At least for a trial period, say 3 months? That’d be up to the two of them, or maybe her on her own to see where she thinks this is going by some set period and then discuss it with him.
Unrelated, and uber-mono so can’t really give good advice on the poly arrangement. I just wanted to share that I decided to send my email to my folks. I put up a bunch of filters in my emails so unless they have ANOTHER account I’m not aware of, I shouldn’t get any nasty surprises, and my friend is going to filter all the content. I feel kinda relieved with this decision, and content; I’m ready to get on with my life.
Oh, I don’t really plan to them responding pleasantly. I pretty much shoved in their face all the dirty laundry and horror that our family has been sweeping under the rug for decades, and told them that because they refused to acknowledge or deal with it, I was leaving. I expect them to be highly upset. Now, I told them up front that all their responses would be filtered through a friend, so whether they flip their shit or tone it down for friend’s sake is up for grabs.
However, I am absolved of the burden of caring. These are the folks who thought it appropriate to have their kid spend lots of time with a known child-molester without any warnings or prepping, who when we DID get raped (by someone else) just pretended it never happened, and then when we went irrevocably multi in response, refused to deal with THAT. Sure, it’d be nice if they finally learned something, but they’ve been doing the same horrible shit for decades, and I’m at peace with the idea that they’ll never figure it out.
I’m going to post here since it doesn’t fit anywhere else:
Ever since I started my DreamWidth journal, I’ve focused a lot on trans* issues, sexism, and cissexism. But I don’t want to make the mistake of giving lip service to intersectionality and then talking about only two axes of oppression, especially since I have my own set of privileges. So I want to write more entries about other forms of oppression.
I started with an article about racism, which seemed to be well-received by everyone except the MRA troll who lurks at my journal. Nevertheless, there are probably a lot of things I don’t know when it comes to writing about forms of oppression that I haven’t really wrote about or even experienced. So I’d really appreciate if it anyone here (particular people who have read my journal entries) could give me suggestions, tell me about some things I should know before writing about some form of oppression, etc.
@BigMomma
I’m afraid I’m not able to offer any advice regarding polyamory, either, since I probably don’t know enough about it.
@LBT
I see. Well, I’m glad that it won’t be distressing or have any kind of bad impact on your well-being!
Hmmm. Well, speaking for myself, I’d really like to see class issues addressed more in general. A lot of the queer/trans shit I read comes from a VERY middle-class perspective; these are folks who went to college, read their literature, and know about the statistics of homelessness and such among queers and trans folk, but don’t actually have it in their own lives.
Also, just the way shit can stack. Being homeless was pretty bad… but mental illness compounded it, because it meant I couldn’t get a job and had no hope of pulling myself out of the homelessness hole, until disability came in. (And I knew the moment I started that it’d be at least a year. A year can be a long, LONG time when you’re living in a closet filled with rotten fiberglass and rusty nails.) Being trans stacked with being mentally ill, in that our parents thought that it was just a symptom of us being crazy, rather than a different thing in its own right. And so on and so forth.
We Hunted The Mammoth
Good luck, LBT! I hope it goes as smoothly as possible, even if you’re going to avoid sugarcoating things.
I know that I’ll probably have to write something similar one of these days to my father, and I think it’s the right thing to do. It’s probably way easier said than done, though.
Enh, I dunno that I’m even going to send it. They’re just going to forget it ever happened anyway, and they have NEVER handled this kind of shit well, and we’re dragging alllll the black hole crap out into the open. Plus, I don’t want to give them the lesson that all they have to do to get us talking to them is push our buttons in a specific way.
Still, it felt good to just write it. I was always so used to their behavior that I never expressed anger to them about keeping us around a child-molester, or suspecting we were getting raped in their own house and choosing to do nothing about it, or any of that. It felt immensely cathartic to write, “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU FUCKING PEOPLE?”
LBT – sent or not, good on you for writing it. I can only say it gave me great satisfaction to tell my idiot father exactly what I thought of him when he tried the “I want to get to know her” BS (he hadn’t even the courage to write to me: he wrote to my mother). I don’t know if you’ll ever be in a place to do that and have an effect, since your family are far, far worse than he was, but I’m really glad you got it down on
paperscreen anyway.@LBT
I see. That really doesn’t sound worth sending, then. I’m happy to hear that it was cathartic for you, though. =]
One time I wanted to write my father a very cathartic email about how abusive he has been to me and the people closest to me. I decided to not send it because he doesn’t listen to me anyway. Every time I try to criticize him, he accuses me of trying to unfairly shame him and make him feel like the “enemy.” So I can definitely relate.
Sending that email will only be for when you’re physically away from him and safe, Ally (if you ever want to do it, that is).
So ironic: he is your enemy.
On the friends and their rape jokes, I just don’t know what to say. So disgusted with them.
[Content note: rape jokes, rape]
Believe me, kitteh, if I try sending such an email to him before I’m away from him and safe, I’ll most certainly get another one of those panic attacks. And I don’t know what kind of ableist shit he’ll do to me if he sees me go through a panic attack.
About the “enemy” thing, he has the same bullshit notion for many people who are critical of his behavior. It’s a form of implicit self-pitying that he uses to manipulate people.
Oh, and those rape jokes? My brother once told me that his friends’ humor is entirely “deconstructive” i.e. doesn’t make oppressed people the punchline but rather makes fun of racism, sexism, etc. Well, excuse me, but I don’t think making a joke whose punchline is me (yes, me) getting raped by someone who has a fetish for transgender women is “deconstructive.” Pardon me for being a little critical of his assertion!
Anyway, I should get some sleep now. Night everyone! ^_^
Niters!
Okay, having slept on it, I gave the letter an edit, but not as much as I figured it’d need. I still haven’t decided whether to send it or not, but I’m going to talk with a trusted friend about it in a couple of days, which’ll help me come to a decision. Especially since I added a postscript that was pretty much, “Just because I chose to respond to this email doesn’t mean that I, or any other system member, will respond to anything else. All of your correspondence will be sent, unopened, to a friend, who has kindly volunteered to filter it for me.”
It would be immensely cathartic to say it, especially since our father is LITERALLY asking for our reasons for why we aren’t speaking to him anymore. And the thought that if they do flip their shit, I won’t have to look at it or read it, or even notice its existence, is very nice.
Also, I admit, part of me hopes that maybe it’ll be a wake up call for them. Being polite and civil and passive didn’t work; maybe actually circumventing the family rules will be more educational for them. But I also realize that they very well may learn nothing at all, and I’m okay with that too. If I send them the letter, it won’t be for THEIR benefit.
“especially since our father is LITERALLY asking for our reasons for why we aren’t speaking to him anymore”
“Because you’re an abuse-enabling piece of shit, Dad. Bye now.”
Happy news from here: I had lovely clear memories of last night at Home this morning. There’s a hint of autumn not being far off; the morning there was very mellow. Louis and I did something quite different, having breakfast on the back terrace (we usually eat in the kitchen). Pancakes, syrup, cream (me), ice-cream (him), strawberries and bananas (both). And one pissed-off cat: Katie arrived for her usual helping and was Not Impressed that we weren’t having bacon and eggs. Didn’t stop her helping herself to my cream, but when I pointed out that she could create her own bacon and eggs if she wanted ’em, the reaction was like a little black thundercloud of a thought bubble. 😀
I also commented on cats having no manners and Louis said they’d taught him. Rubbish, I told him, your manners (or lack of) come from your era, you can’t pin that one on the kitties. He conceded that but said the cats do reinforce it … true enough, lol.
It was sweet as sitting there drinking our coffee (his coffee is the BEST) and holding hands and having a cuddle. We spent the day outside. He had some woodwork to do – just for its own sake – and I decided to do a watercolour of him working. ::Sigh:: … perfect way to spend the day.
I haven’t had a lengthy (fifteen minutes playing out, here) clear memory like that for ages.
RE: Kittehs
Those times are always the best! (Though obvious I lack the memory issue.) Now that things are looking up again, me and hubby are being able to actually give each other more attention, rather than just fixating on base survival.
And yeah, pretty much.
Yay, Rogan!
Isn’t it a relief to have the time/mental energy to spare, too? That’s a bonus all by itself.
True… though seeing as we officially became homeless again today and are back in That Damned Closet, I suspect we’ll get our energy cut again soon. But oh well, it’s only for a couple of weeks. Then… THE ROAD!
Ally S, if you ever need to rant off to a fellow anarcommie about Stuff, this profile links to my Twitter so you could DM me. Maybe. I think we need to both follow each other for DM to be available. But that’s basically the best I can do without divulging personal info on a public venue.
@BlackBloc
Sure! I actually do have a Twitter account, although I haven’t used it in a while. And I believe I’m following you already.
Also, tomorrow I’m heading to Out Boulder, which has a weekly support group exclusively for trans* and genderqueer people – unlike my previous support group, it doesn’t have only trans* women and trans* allies. I think it’s the only LGBTQ community center in Boulder, CO, and it looks pretty nice. They seem to be committed to intersectionality and such.
Oh, and here’s my Twitter: https://twitter.com/mxe354
OK, hi, looking for a bit of advice for a friend of mine from those of you in poly relationships or know people in poly relationships.
My friend separated last year from her husband of 12years. It was an enormous decision that pulled her emotions in every direction. She has made enormous efforts to move on and felt ready for some fun after a while. She said she would like to meet a guy that wasn’t in town, that she could have sexy times with, that wouldn’t be around her family (she has 3 kids). Lo and behold, she met such a guy and sexy times commenced. He seems like an OK guy, I have met him. He is 1 year out of an 8yr relationship and looking for a woman to have sexy times with.
She said she was cool with the whole concept of friends with benefits but she has always been monogamous at heart. They did have a conversation at the beginning of the relationship about this not being a monogamous thing but when he mentioned hanging out with other women, she became uncomfortable and brought up her feelings with him. He was clear with her that he wasn’t ready to commit, despite having strong feelings for her but didn’t want to hurt her.
She initially said she had decided she couldn’t be in a non -monogamous relationship after all and it was over. However, circumstances dictated that he ended up living relatively nearby for a bit so they talked and sexy times recommenced.
Recently, he slept with someone else but came to tell her about it. He was honest that he would like to see this other woman again but had strong feelings for my friend and wished to continue their relationship.
My friend is examining her life and her pre -conceptions, she’s been talking about her perception of her ego. She’s open to trying to a poly relationship but unsure what that could mean and if she can handle it.
I’m putting it out into this thread cos you guys are cool and know stuff about this.
How does her story sound? What expectations and boundaries can she have and set? The guy seems cool but I simply don’t know enough about poly relationships to sniff out any bullshit. Is this even a poly relationship?
Any help, manboobzers, is always appreciated.
P.s. she knows I’m posting this.
Sounds like a fairly standard scenario, actually – although I predict that eventually your friend or her current person of interest will settle into a monogamous situation rather than what they’re currently doing because it sounds like monogamy is their ideal, but not what works for them right now. What they’re working on right now is negotiate sexytimes with other people that is the least harmful to all – if your friend is cool with that, that is fine, but not everyone is. And further, it is completely valid to not be cool with that! Here is how the current scenario shakes out to me:
Friend gets to have a friendship relationship with Guy and sleep with him
Guy gets to have friendship relationship with Friend and sleep with her, and other women
If everyone is happy there, Friend, Guy, Other Woman and future Other Women – hooray! If not, something needs to change.
What concerns me is your friend’s decision that something must be wrong with her and that she wants to try poly (which nope, this doesn’t really sound like) because of Guy’s strong feelings for her, when it doesn’t seem like anyone wants a committed relationship and further that she wasn’t really interested in sharing her Guy with other women in the first place. That is an entirely legitimate way to feel! Although, granted, those Guys will probably eventually want to move into either a more open relationship, so they can have sexytimes with other people, or into a more monogamous relationship with her.
So, you know, you can help with examining her priorities:
How important is having sex with this guy to her? How important is having a friendship with him to her? Is it worth the feelings of misgiving she is having when he is going to be with other women? It is clear he isn’t going to stop sleeping with other women (nor check with her first) so it cannot be about how his feelings for her, it all needs to be on her. And, if she’s been in a long-term relationship, it can be difficult to disregard someone else and only think about herself, but encourage her to try. If this scenario doesn’t feel really okay, all around, there is no need for her to try to work on feelings and negotiate and adapt and change like one does in an invested long-term relationship – say screw this and move on and find something/someone else that does make her happy.
The other thing to remember about “real” poly relationships that the openness is all about negotiating times, places, people and commitments and I get the impression your friend would really not be comfortable with discussing her friend’s intentions to sleep with someone else.
Do you think she’d be comfortable in such a conversation – or being introduced to one of his other partners?
If she wants a don’t ask, don’t tell, let him do as he wants so long as he keeps it to himself style of uncommitted relationship, he’d have to agree to not be “honest” about his other activities. She’d have to see if she thinks he’d be happy with that. At least for a trial period, say 3 months? That’d be up to the two of them, or maybe her on her own to see where she thinks this is going by some set period and then discuss it with him.
Unrelated, and uber-mono so can’t really give good advice on the poly arrangement. I just wanted to share that I decided to send my email to my folks. I put up a bunch of filters in my emails so unless they have ANOTHER account I’m not aware of, I shouldn’t get any nasty surprises, and my friend is going to filter all the content. I feel kinda relieved with this decision, and content; I’m ready to get on with my life.
That’s awesome, LBT! ^_^ Hope the response is pleasant in some way at least
Oh, I don’t really plan to them responding pleasantly. I pretty much shoved in their face all the dirty laundry and horror that our family has been sweeping under the rug for decades, and told them that because they refused to acknowledge or deal with it, I was leaving. I expect them to be highly upset. Now, I told them up front that all their responses would be filtered through a friend, so whether they flip their shit or tone it down for friend’s sake is up for grabs.
However, I am absolved of the burden of caring. These are the folks who thought it appropriate to have their kid spend lots of time with a known child-molester without any warnings or prepping, who when we DID get raped (by someone else) just pretended it never happened, and then when we went irrevocably multi in response, refused to deal with THAT. Sure, it’d be nice if they finally learned something, but they’ve been doing the same horrible shit for decades, and I’m at peace with the idea that they’ll never figure it out.
@LBT, Good for you. And glad you’re friend is filtering for you.
@BigMomma, Cliff has written a bunch about poly relationships over at Pervocracy:
http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/search/label/poly
I’m going to post here since it doesn’t fit anywhere else:
Ever since I started my DreamWidth journal, I’ve focused a lot on trans* issues, sexism, and cissexism. But I don’t want to make the mistake of giving lip service to intersectionality and then talking about only two axes of oppression, especially since I have my own set of privileges. So I want to write more entries about other forms of oppression.
I started with an article about racism, which seemed to be well-received by everyone except the MRA troll who lurks at my journal. Nevertheless, there are probably a lot of things I don’t know when it comes to writing about forms of oppression that I haven’t really wrote about or even experienced. So I’d really appreciate if it anyone here (particular people who have read my journal entries) could give me suggestions, tell me about some things I should know before writing about some form of oppression, etc.
@BigMomma
I’m afraid I’m not able to offer any advice regarding polyamory, either, since I probably don’t know enough about it.
@LBT
I see. Well, I’m glad that it won’t be distressing or have any kind of bad impact on your well-being!
Hmmm. Well, speaking for myself, I’d really like to see class issues addressed more in general. A lot of the queer/trans shit I read comes from a VERY middle-class perspective; these are folks who went to college, read their literature, and know about the statistics of homelessness and such among queers and trans folk, but don’t actually have it in their own lives.
Also, just the way shit can stack. Being homeless was pretty bad… but mental illness compounded it, because it meant I couldn’t get a job and had no hope of pulling myself out of the homelessness hole, until disability came in. (And I knew the moment I started that it’d be at least a year. A year can be a long, LONG time when you’re living in a closet filled with rotten fiberglass and rusty nails.) Being trans stacked with being mentally ill, in that our parents thought that it was just a symptom of us being crazy, rather than a different thing in its own right. And so on and so forth.