I wish I had been more brave.

A year ago today I posted a blog and asked all of the people in my world to start calling me by a different name.

I look back now.. I read through… I shake my head.. I feel a little sad…

I want to go back to that person one year ago and say:

It’s okay.

You’re okay.

You’ve got this.

There are other people like you.

They are going to surround you so so soon.

Just hold on, Jackson.

You are not alone in this.

While there is no roadmap, there will be plenty of signs along the way.

Take a deep breath.

Everything is alright.

You are alright.

You do not have to be afraid.

I know you are anyway and that is okay, too.

I do not need to revisit the pronouncement and announcement and decision making process that let up to my becoming Jackson.

But I re-read my words and I thought of where I was and all of the fear and…

I wish I had been more brave.

I hid behind the name Jack in the belief that it would somehow be more acceptable to you, that you would find it easier to stomach, easier to adjust to, more understandable, not as much of a stretch.

It was, after all, my initials. Before and after the change.

I was asked to sign a birthday card for an employee at work that very first day and I signed it JAC. I froze. I was too afraid. I remember that day and my cheeks burn. I wish I had been more brave.

I am far too occasionally asked what pronouns I prefer, and I fumble and stumble and fall over the answer. Out of fear. Of how I will be perceived. Of what you will say. Of what you will think.

It is indeed a tightrope to walk when you are enamored with connection and terrified of rejection.

Love me. Accept me. Want me. But, please let me be me.

Whoever that is.

And I understand that my landscape is a rocky one. What was wanted yesterday has changed today and that may no longer hold true tomorrow.

I can only reiterate that there continues to be no roadmap and I sincerely do wish I had been more able to describe who I am and what I need and what feels right and what feels wrong. I wish I had been more brave.

I lied awake in bed last night and realized that I feel fractured, that I am walking in two worlds.

In one world, I am all Jackson and I am surrounded by people who see me as I am. People who hold space for me acknowledge me and do not feel unsteady around me. I feel confident and surefooted and grounded. I finally feel like who I was born to be. I finally feel free.

In another I am the person whose name used to be Jennifer. I feel whispered questions and misunderstandings and a divide that I do not know how to bridge. I do not know where to step and I always feel a little off kilter and out of sorts. I cannot find solid ground here. I did not do well in expressing who I am and what I need.

I wish I had been more brave.

I look around and cry out “someone needs to educate these people!”

And I remember that if there is no visible trail, maybe that means that I have to blaze it.

And I am afraid.

But you have to be afraid in order to be brave. Otherwise you wouldn’t need bravery.

So, here I am. A year later. Jackson. Unashamedly and unabashedly Jackson. There is no part of me that is not Jackson. It is as though I have always been this person.

It is that way because I have always been. I was born this way. I just didn’t know it yet. It took some time to meet this person that I really do love most of the time.

And I look back and I realize that it was not weakness or cowardice that led me to make the decisions that I made – the uncertainty and the insecurity and the trying to make MY transition easier on YOU. It was all just part of the journey.

My journey.

Jackson’s journey.

I’m glad I had not been more brave.

I did it perfectly. I did it exactly how Jackson would have done it.

I have never been on that side of the door.

I have been working at animal hospitals for 25 years now. The first for four. The second for nine. Finally, I have been at Roseville for going on twelve.

In that time, I’ve never once had to “take my pet to the vet.” It’s a perk of the job. We bring them to work with us and the doctors fit them in where there is time. Sometimes that’s good. Sometimes that’s bad. It is what it is.

I have gone to a few specialist appointments. Internal Medicine. Oncology. Etc.

But I have never experienced what you experience.

I have never been on that side of the door.

Walking into an animal hospital with my beloved pet as a client.

Until today.

I have had some sense of what you experience. I watch you. I deal with you. I try to figuratively hold your hand. I try to be gentle. I am firm when I have to be. I try to make this process for you as painless and as seamless as possible.

Today, I experienced it.

I walked into the lobby and looked around, trying to determine where to go. I was not sure which receptionist I was supposed to talk to, so I stood and looked back and forth at each one until I was greeted/acknowledged/welcomed.

I wanted you to know how special my girl is.

I wanted you to know how nervous I was about her procedure.

I wanted you to know that I was afraid of what you were going to find.

I wanted you to know that I really should have groomed her before I brought her in, and that I know her nails were kind of long, and that I’m embarrassed that she is a bit overweight, and that I really am a good pet owner.

I have never been on that side of the door.

I wanted you to know that she is not just a dog. Not to me. She is my child.

I wanted you to know all of that. Instead I gave you her name and my name and why we were there and you handed me the clipboard of paperwork and I sat down and filled it out. How old is she again? Emergency contact? What do I put here? I sat and scratched my head and pored over a form that I have handed to clients 1,000s of times over the years.

Then I was in a room and I was waiting and my girl and I sat on the floor and I loved her and talked to her and tried to act like I wasn’t nervous.

I have never been on that side of the door.

It is lonely there. It is scary there.

We talked about risk and we talked about best and worst case and I wanted to tell you “Hey, she’s super special. She’s beaten cancer twice. She’s amazing. She’s my good girl.”

I signed the waiver and kissed her head and leash in hand I walked to my car.

And I waited.

I have never been on that side of the door.

When the phone rang I excused myself from my business meeting and took the call.

It’s a mass. It’s about 2 centimeters long. It’s filling her nasal passage. I’m very sorry. She’s waking up. You can pick her up in a couple of hours.

He was kind. He was gentle. I could hear the compassion in his voice.

I took a deep slow breath and walked back to my meeting and did what we have made so many of you do so many times. Process. Grief. Fear. Loss. Without us and without your pet and without us having any idea of where you are or what you are doing and what you have to return to immediately following the phone call from us.

I have never been on that side of the door.

In a hazy daze I drove to the clinic to pick her up. Music was playing but I couldn’t hear it. Work was piling up but I could not seem to care.

I walked in and walked up to the counter and I had to fight back the tears. They were so sorry to hear. Maybe it will come back benign? She seems like such a sweet girl.

Money? What is money? Processing becomes hard when you’ve received bad news. I hand you my card and it is declined. I do not know why. Embarrassment and nervous explanations and tears threaten to escape and I just want to get my girl and hold her and carry her home and leave this place of bad news and never, ever come back.

Another form of payment and I am being led back to where she is sleeping. Lots of information all at once. Lots to hear. Lots to take in. Lots to remember. Lots of apologies. I am so sorry but now we know. Now we know.

I have never been on that side of the door.

My poor drunken girl was sleeping soundly. Blood oozing out her nose and legs wobbling and let me pick her up and carry her and hold her close to my chest.

The only thing I could think when I was carrying her through the building was “not yet. Don’t let the tears come yet. Let me hold it together for a little bit longer.” Somehow I was afraid that you would judge me. You would think less of me. You would not understand the pain I was feeling at hearing the news and hearing your apologies and hearing the death sentence in your voices when I haven’t even sent in the biopsy sample yet.

Trying to maintain my poise and composure as I navigate through all of you. Those who know and are somber and kind. Those who do not who smile happily at me and my beautiful blue eyed girl.

I have never been on that side of the door.

I was treated with kindness and compassion and respect. There is nothing I could have asked any of them to do differently or better to have made it easier on me and my girl.

It is simply hard. Very hard. To be on that side of the door. 

I love you, Cheese. 

There are so many things you don't know.

There are so many things you don’t know.

You don’t know that when I pulled up to the rest stop and there were only two cars there, I grew nervous. You see, I was born with female genitalia, therefore I have been conditioned from birth to be afraid. Afraid of men. Afraid of empty public spaces. Afraid of the risks that all women on this planet take every day.

Despite my gender representation, I have the same fears as women in dresses, women in heels, women on the subway, women walking by empty alleyways, women who hear noises outside of their homes in the middle of the night.

I also carry a different fear. Fear of men who think I am a threat. A threat to their wives and daughters. A threat to their masculinity. A threat to every way they believe the world should look.

You have no way to know this. I understand that.

So when I pulled into the almost empty rest stop and got out of my car, I was already on alert.

But I needed to pee.

As I approached the glass doors, I saw you standing there against the narrow wall in between the doors to the men’s room and the women’s room.

It wasn’t your shaggy hair. It wasn’t your dirty t-shirt. It wasn’t your ZZ Top beard. It was the fact that you were a man and you were standing less than a foot from the door that I needed to walk through.

And I needed to pee.

I knew that you were waiting for someone. I could tell. You were finished and you were waiting for someone who was behind that door. Perhaps you watched me walk the whole way up the sidewalk. Perhaps you did not see me until I took a deep breath, reached down, and pulled open the door.

One of the things that you do not know, is that you looked like a member of the Gestapo, standing guard against the “perverts” and “queers” that might try to sneak in and abscond with your woman.

But I have also been conditioned to fear these things. To fear them from you.

Likely that was not even on your radar. Likely you were just waiting. Likely you were just enjoying being vertical, stretching your legs, ready to get back into your car and get back on the road and get back to wherever you were heading.

That’s all I wanted, too.  

You looked at me and I looked at you as I walked in. I tried to maintain my tallest, most casual, not a care in the world stance. I was just breezing in the door.

Because I had to pee.

When my trajectory took me a little towards the left, towards the door that your brain told you I was not permitted to walk through, your eyes got a little wider. In retrospect, I think you felt a moment’s fear as well. What you were witnessing was against your natural order of things. A man was walking into the women’s restroom.

Except I am not a man. I use the restroom consistent with the gender of my birth, not because it is illegal in some states for me to do otherwise, but because I feel safer there.

But you did not know this.

It was not the words. It is not the first time I have heard the words. It will not be the last. It was the motion.

When you stepped forward and to your right and put your body in between me and the door that I needed to go through, you moved beyond the realm of what is acceptable, beyond the limits of what I can accept, beyond the barriers that society has set for us. We do not bodily interfere with other people.

But I had to pee.

Your face hardened and the words came out of you like a growl “this is the GIRL’S room!”

I do not know how I did it. I do not know how it happened. I am grateful for the grace with which I sometimes stroll through life with because nothing in me would suggest I would have responded the way that I did.

I simply said “yup” and I kept moving and skirted around you and through the door I went.

I saw her at the sink, washing her hands. She had to have been your wife. You LOOKED LIKE husband and wife. If she spared me more than a moment’s glance (like most women I encounter in a multi-stall women’s restroom) I did not notice. I was too busy trying to find what felt like the safety of a stall. With a door. And a lock.

There are some other things that you do not know. For all of the straight backed confidence that I maintained as I breezed past you, I was afraid.

I was afraid you would move further to side and block the door entirely.

I was afraid you would raise your arms and grab or strike me.

I was afraid that you would follow me in and confront me.

I was afraid as I locked the stall door and heard the restroom door open that you had decided to follow me in afterall.

And finally, I was afraid to leave. I stayed in the stall. I waited.

And that’s the part that pisses me off. I sat in that stall and waited and I was afraid and I was ashamed. Ashamed of my fear. Ashamed of hiding. Ashamed of wanting to make sure the coast was clear before I made my way back to my car.

But you have no way of knowing that.

Likely you were embarrassed of your mistake.

I took a long time washing my hands and I exited the restroom, trying to look everywhere at once. Trying to ensure that the risk had passed. I did not see you anywhere and I am grateful for that. One of the two cars was gone. I was so relieved to climb back behind the wheel and lock my doors. Sanctuary.

I stopped at another rest stop several hours later. The lot was full. Cars, people, dogs everywhere.

I was relieved. I might still have had someone stare open mouthed. I might still have had someone try to bar me from entering the restroom. But there were people everywhere and I felt safe. Safer.

There are so many things you don’t know. 

Pride

Forty Nine of my brothers and sisters died today.

Forty Nine of our brothers and sisters.

I do not have any more claim to pain or sadness or fear than any of my heterosexual brothers and sisters.

You see, these victims are not my brothers and sisters because I am one of the letters in LGBT. They are my brothers and sisters because they are human beings on this planet.

And 49 of them are dead. Another 53 are wounded. Early estimates stated that there were 320 human beings in Pulse when a young man began shooting them. Began shooting all of them.

Almost thirty percent did not make it out uninjured. Thirty percent.

Let that sink in for a minute. Think of how many people were in church with you this morning. Think of how many people were in the restaurant where you last ate a meal. One. In. Three. Dead or wounded.

There were seven people in my class this morning. One dead. One wounded. Five running in fear.

Twelve people at my office tomorrow. Two dead. Two wounded. Eight running in fear.

Where is the world where we do not have to fear? Being in a club. Being in a school. Being on a plane. Walking down the street.

As soon as I saw the initial reports, I said to myself “do not, under any circumstances, read the comments.”

It is hard to not succumb to that temptation. There is a part of me that wants to seethe and burn with the type of anger that caused a young man in the early hours of this morning to walk into a nightclub and start shooting everyone. The same type of anger that says I am right and you are wrong. The same type of anger that says I somehow have more of a right to be on this planet than you do.

Facts are still coming out. We do not know anything yet but his name and numbers and, frighteningly, the numbers are subject to change.

I will tell you that I looked. I did click the comments box. I did see.

Hatred. Blaming. Anger. Disgust. Racism. Homophobia. Islamophobia. 

Make. It. Stop.

Stop stoking the fire. Stop blaming someone else’s religion. Stop hiding beneath the virtue of your own religion. You do not get to say that I am going to hell because I am homosexual and in the same breath cry out that the shooter was a Muslim and therefore a terrorist.

And please do not begin shouting from your soapbox “now the liberals will use this to further their anti-gun agenda.”

You are right. They will. As they should.

While I am not a gun owner, I have been. I do believe that individuals have the right to own guns, provided that they know how to safely use them and, more importantly, know how to protect their children from them.

I refuse to believe that any individual in this country has the right to an automatic weapon that has the capacity to shoot 102 people in the length of time it takes to listen to a song.

There is no reason for this.

There is no reason for any of this.

Sometimes it is hard to find love in my heart. The man who walked into that club and started shooting people is a human being also. I do not know where to go with that. What to do with it. How to cope with the ache and sadness and hopelessness of yet another senseless tragedy.

Tell me who to vote for. Tell me who to donate to. Tell me where to march. Tell me what flag to fly and banner to bear and sign to hold. Tell me where my voice can be heard so that my brothers and sisters and I can stop living in fear.

I am proud. I am proud to be queer. I am proud to be a yoga instructor. I am proud to do needlework. I am proud of my gender expression, my tattoos, my ridiculous dog. I am proud that I am a good person, a good friend, a good lover. I am proud to be a human being, sharing space with all of you.

And I am sad.

Forty nine of our brothers and sisters died today. 

I don't want to have to be brave.

Masculine presenting women are being forcefully removed from women’s restrooms by police.

Men are walking into women’s restrooms to confront women whom they believe do not have a right to be there.

Transmen are being beaten by men. Transwomen are being beaten by women. And vice versa.

A woman is beaten by a man for looking too masculine. “I’ll beat you like the man you want to be.”

Verbal assault. Physical assault. Sexual assault. Murder.

“I don’t want to have to be brave to use the bathroom.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

“I don’t want to have to be brave to use the bathroom.”

A child said that.

I say that, too.

I do not want to have to pause, take a deep breath, and brace myself to walk into a public restroom. And I am not a child. I am six feet tall, two hundred pounds. I should be perfectly capable of protecting myself.

But there is no protecting ourselves from what is happening in the world right now.

North Carolina’s House Bill 2, which requires me to use the women’s restroom (which I typicalky do anyway), has made it LESS SAFE for me to do so.

Because now I am on their radar.

Not yours. If you are reading my blog, you are my friend and you love me and I am not friends with transphobic bigots. Facebook is a wonderful tool for weeding those people out of our lives.

But their radar. Those who think that it is permissible for me to be the target of their abuse because of what is or isn’t between my legs, or because of my haircut, or the clothes I wear, or because of how I walk and carry my frame through the world, because of my pronouns, or because of my name.

The people who believe that a life is disposable and worthless because of the color of that life’s skin.

The people who think that a woman has no right to her body since she does not have a cock swinging between her legs.

The people who think that a person is less of a person because of the god that they choose to worship.

And Trump fanaticism grows and grows and grows.

And I am frightened.

I am frightened, friends.

This country is becoming a bad dream I cannot wake up from.

Create change.

Speak.

Vote.

Move.

Act.

Protect.

Please.

I don’t want to have to be brave to use the bathroom.