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with-all-my-heart-and-soul · 11 months

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The terrifying plight of a son, who was once a daughter

as a trans man, I very often view myself pre-transition as a different entity. Not all trans men like to do this, but I do.

When I remember the girl before the boy, I remember her wide eyes, her bright smile, her love for the world and all it held for her to discover.

When I remember the girl before the boy, I remember how she cast those eyes down, how unsure of herself she became. Those once wide eyes dulling with each passing day, the wide smile traded for one with her lips together, self conscious of her overbite. I remember how heartbroken she was at change, and how devastated she was with loss, and how mortified she was being alone and how she screamed and screamed and nobody came to help her.

When I remember the girl before the boy, I remember how hard she tried. How out of place she felt, how no matter where she went, it was like sitting in the middle seat on a plane, and being just too large to keep to yourself. How she started to know to be ashamed of her body, ashamed of her girlhood, ashamed of the space she occupied, ashamed of her interests, ashamed of her mind, ashamed of her heart...

When I remember the girl before the boy, I remember the shame. The embarrassment. The setbacks, the growth, the joy when she finally felt like she belonged, even though something was off. The fear, the shame, the anger, the resentment, the dread, the feelings that have no names that bubbled to the surface when she realized she was played for the fool. More than once. I remember she almost didn't recover.

When I remember the girl before the boy, I remember she began to understand the meaning of her girlhood, followed by more shame. Followed by another realization. Who said she always had to be a girl? And then, the girl became the boy.

And so, when I remember the boy after the girl, I remember more internal struggle than ever. I remember rejecting girlhood all-together. And then as the boy gets older, he sees that the girlhood transcends gender. He begins to see how he is now both a son, and a daughter. And how he is his mother, and how his mother was him, a daughter, once. So long ago. And how she is her mother, who was a girl who was a daughter, once, so much longer ago.

And then I remember the girl before the boy, the daughter before the son, and how her mother built her. How her mother ruined her. How her mother built her a cage of girlhood, of daughterhood, out of the pieces of her cage, and her mother's cage. And the daughter-turned-son knows that he is his mother, and his mother was once him, and how much he is still a daughter despite now being a son, and how he wouldn't wish it to be any other way, and oh god he wishes he never helped build this cage. Why can't you leave this poor future son alone! why did you build your past daughter this cage?

Don't you remember? The daughter? The daughter before she was a girl, or a mother, before there was a daughter to be a son. Don't you remember her? How she never wanted this cage of girls turned daughters turned mothers? But the girl, the daughter doesn't know it's being built. She doesn't know she's helping to build it. And the mother doesn't know that what she's building is a cage. Only that her mother built it for her when she was once a daughter, so so long ago.

I remember the girl before the boy, and I remember the boy after the girl, and I remember how safe the cage was for them. How lovely it was. How they couldn't see that it was made of the ugly viscera of girl-turned-daughter-turned-mother hurt, how the bars hurt to touch, and how you couldn't stand any way but with your head bowed. I remember the girl and the boy, the son and the daughter, seeing the cage, what it was made of. I remember their vow, to leave the cage together.

I remember the girl before the boy, and the boy after the girl, pushing the boundaries of the cage. Forcing it to let them stand, forcing it to let them lie comfortably, forcing it to take up space, and I remember the moment the girl and the boy, the son and the daughter, before and after and in the sight of their mother, did not curl away, and make themselves small. They demanded they be allowed space to take up, and they took it up without shame, and I remember, remembering the girl before the boy, and feeling so proud of her, wishing she could know.

I remember when the boy after the girl, carried the girl before the boy somewhere the cage was nowhere to be seen. I remember they had escaped the girl-turned-daughter-turned-mother gift to their girl-turned-daughter-turned-mother who burdened them with the gift of building the girl-turned-daughter-turned mother prison around themselves. And I remember the daughter turned son carried thst daughter so far that he saw something. The bars of the cage. He'd never left.

I remember being the girl before the daughter, and the son after that. The-girl-turned-daughter-turned-boy-turned-son. I remembered being them all. And I remember hating myself for not escaping this girl-turned-daughter-turned-mother created prison the way I'd promised.

But then I thought. In a cage, that's all you really can do. And i knew that this prison made of myself and my mother, and my mother and her mother, and her mother and her mother's mother, all of whom once were daughters, who were once girls, who once had mothers, was not bestowed upon me as a burden, but as a gift to understanding my mother, who was a daughter, who was a girl, who had a mother, who now is a mother, with a son, who was once a boy, who was once a daughter, who was once a girl, who has a mother.

And I remember how lovingly I hate my mother, and how terribly I love her, and how heavily I blame her, and how much I am coming to understand her, and suddenly, the cage is no longer a cage. This thing limiting who I was allowed to be was no longer in my way.

I remember the moment, when the girl-turned-daughter-turned-boy-turned-son broke free of the cage. Never was it a cage at all, but a reminder of his mother, and her mother, and her mother's mother, and the ugly verbal, mental viscera that comes with being a mother and a daughter and a girl all at the same time, and a protection from abandoning this long repeated path of girl-turned-daughter-turned-mother before he was able to understand that he is his mother, and his mother was him, and that all along, she was never meant to be right or wrong, or perfect in all the ways you can be. She was meant to show him the pain and joy of daughterhood, so that she too could give the gift of motherhood, and the knowledge that daughterhood is forever.

Someday, I'll remember, that I am a son, who is a daughter, who is a man, who was a son, who was a boy, who was a daughter, who was a girl, who had a mother, who started it all, and started it right.

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feministdeathparty · 6 years

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could you talk a bit more about hereditary and your thoughts on it and its themes? your thoughts on it are really intriguing, and i agree completely with what you've said about it.

So uh, this is very belated, but here are some of my disorganized thoughts on Hereditary:

So right off the bat I’m going to link to NyxFears’ analysis of Hereditary. While her interpretation of the film isn’t exactly thesame as my own, I think the interpretation of the film as an Annie’s own artpiece is brilliant and seeded by thefilm itself (I’m specifically thinking of how Annie defends her miniature ofCharlie’s death as a “neutral depiction of the accident,” as if sucha thing could exist, never mind be made by her.) The film is Annie’s artisticinterpretation of her family and “what went wrong.“

A lot of people seem confused by the occultaspects of the film, but I interpret the use of the occult as a way torepresent the enduring effect of abuse in a family across multiple generations,most obviously in the lingering "ghost” of the grandmother“haunting” the family and the cult that seemingly plots their destruction,but also in the ways that Annie is also abusive. I really think thepresentation of the occult is a brilliant representation of familial abuse. Theoccult elements of the film are presented as seemingly off but almost neveropenly commented on visions, experiences and set pieces (I’m thinkingspecifically of the ritual that Charlie sees at the beginning of the film, as well as the symbols thatare inserted throughout). The cult’s motivation is bizarre, needlesslyconvoluted, and irrational similar to how abuse is experienced by its victimsand, alternatively, to how abusers justify their actions.

On a related note, the people who think that Peter is the villain of the movie and that the dinner scene is “badass” absolutely horrify me.

Gender and misogynistic abuse are essential themes of the film. Motherhood and daughterhood are the battle grounds for all sorts of dark, cosmic, and interpersonal forces. I think it’s very important that even the grandmother, “Queen Ellen,” powerful enough in her magic to persist after death and continue to influence and control her family, can still only aim to be the mother/grandmother of Paimon, never Paimon himself.

The miniature in which Annie tries to breastfeed Charlie while the grandmother stands over them baring her own breast really reminds me of the cover of Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch but I haven’t been able to parse my thoughts about that other than that the grandmother is a very traditional, misogynistic witch figure: an old woman who, having lost her fertility, now targets younger women to steal their children/fertility.

#Anonymous #hereditary #hereditary spoilers #horror #child abuse///////

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with-all-my-heart-and-soul · 11 months

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I need everyone to know how proud I am to be the son of a mother. I was once the daughter of a mother, and so often, in so many ways I still am. She did so so much for me to be here today. I'll hate her forever, she's my biggest fan, but heaviest suppressor, I love her dearly. I'm not just proud to be the daughter-now-son of a mother, I am proud of her. So much she did for me, so I could be me, in ways that she could never be her when she was me. She grows with me, she opens her mind with me, she puts me through agony and pain and hellfire, and she feeds me cinnamon toast when I am sick and kisses my ouchies and helps me right my wrongs and clean my room when I'm too depressed to think. Her comments hurt the worst, and they heal all wounds, and she doesn't understand anything, and she understands everything because she's not me but she was.

If you're a mother with a daughter; she will love you, she will hate you, she will mourn you even when you're sitting across from her. She will know that you don't understand a thing, and then she will know that you used to because you were her, and your mother was you, and she will know how hard you're trying, and if you did everything just right enough, she'll know what she thought you forgot and she'll know you never forgot at all. And she'll always be angry, just a little, and she'll always be frustrated, just a little more. But hopefully, she'll always be proud to call you mom... Even when she's no longer 'daughter.' And that's when you'll know you did it right

#love poem #poetry #does this count as poetry?#going thru a lot rn #trans guy #I love my mom so much #she didn't do everything right #but she did enough things right #the plight of a daughter-turned-son #daughterhood #daughterhood is experienced across all genders

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