when I said that I was lying in bed in
my parents Chevie Chase apartment when
those words left my lips I sent them out
loud I want to go home I remember it was
it was dawn and the air was buzzing with
uncertainty what did I mean I was home I
was home when the organizers of Ted came
to me and asked me to craft something
about this topic of home I thought well
I laughed and I thought to myself well
as a drug addict I was homeless more
times than I cared a recount and as a
person of transgender experience I
wasn’t at home in my own skin for
decades so I’m I’m not exactly sure what
I bring to this homey table for me
before there was home there was
displacement before I was a transgender
man recovering alcoholic an artist
writer and activist a queer I was
apparently alone and not home how does a
three-year-old child know that they are
not home is home something like like
love that can be defined by its absence
is it like love and that it’s it’s
experience is universal personal
outlined by actions and feelings for me
as a transgender child I had no true
north my body was elsewhere and my
feelings were there to be altered
enhanced or erased I can tell you what I
know that by three I had already bumped
up against the assumption that other
people made about my relationship to my
my self which is that I was a girl and
therefore supposed to act this way or
that way and that there were behaviors
and desires that I wasn’t actually
entitled to whether I felt them or not
by six it had begun to become clear to
me that I was a little different than my
peers who apparently did not want to
spend their morning crafting mustaches I
did not want to spend their afternoon
lovingly recreating the live and
athletic torsos of Archie Jughead and
Reggie by six I already knew I’d have
what it takes to be a boy I have the
goods the birth of my brother
successfully erased any fantasy I may
have harbored of transcending this body
somehow it was also the birth of a
heartbreak so catastrophic and absolute
that I tucked my heart away and I never
looked back I became nomadic and I left
my body and my mind to roam now if
you’ve ever been in 12-step recovery
groups and by now most of us have no
judgment you may have heard this
narrative which is that we alcoholics
and drug addicts have this this feeling
it
it’s this feeling that you got the
manual it’s the sense that most of us
have this feeling from a very early age
that we are somehow unique isolate alone
the hallmark of addiction is this
distortion of perception this means I am
only ever two bad ideas away from a
complete break with reality
now if you’ve ever experienced road rage
or jealousy and discovered that that
thing that you were absolutely committed
to believing that you were certain and
righteously sure had taken place had not
actually happened at all then you to my
friend have had a complete break with
reality it this might be the hallmark of
being human for me this two steps to a
mini psychosis starts with this idea I
have no home and homeless I was without
a grounding in the body without a sense
of community with an ache to always
already be somewhere else feel something
else that in fact home was somewhere
gender can be a part of this experience
of home even as we begin to unpack
gender as personal not dichotomies
non-binary there is something essential
about it if I can’t get there be there
then where am I and please do not
mistake me for saying that male and
female are essential because oh boy oh
girl I am NOT we have an Alcoholics
Anonymous there there’s a
saying that only you can identify
yourself as an alcoholic well this is
true for gender to your gender is for
you to claim but if your happy meal
isn’t on the menu what he order I had I
have been injecting testosterone for a
couple years when I had this experience
I suddenly realized that I felt in the
world fifty years old and I’m walking
around and I my feet are touching the
ground it was remarkable and disturbing
I felt like I belonged in the world it
was a little thing but it was a big
thing imagine if you will having finally
landed on earth and discover I’m in
hostile territory there are those who
would brand me and my kind a deviant a
sex monster a lurker of public restrooms
preying on the innocence of women and
children they would deny me protections
in housing health care and employment
all with this sense that you need
protection from me I thought when I
became a white man I’d be on the top of
lucky for me I pass out there as male my
trans sister brothers whose gender is
personal and not culturally obvious are
shunned and killed for theirs
this is where the whole identity as a
piece of home can go truly awry if
you’re the safety component of your home
depends upon protection from others then
I’m I’m screwed
if not me someone else I don’t know if
this is a I don’t know if this is a
common experience for trans people I I
suspect it is but I don’t want you to
think this is somehow representative or
universal and here’s what I haven’t said
to you yet but I want you to hear now
I love being trans I love it
I don’t love being an addict but I love
everything that recovery from addiction
has bestowed on me
transgender might be the single best
thing that’s ever happened to me can you
imagine this kind of travel you’ve been
to Egypt I’ve been to woman you did a
cruise of down the Amazon I switched my
neuro chemistry from female to male
winning now as a as a drug addict I was
homeless not once not twice but at least
half a dozen times and as a trans man my
experience of my gender meant that I
could not fully situate myself in my own
skin nonetheless because I was forced to
turn my welfare over to a peculiar
amalgam of similarly minded people I
fell into a community who genuinely
wanted the best for me I think shouldn’t
all communities want the best for one
another my people said to me we don’t
understand what you’re going through but
we want you to be whole and we want you
to be happy and we want you to feel at
home here in Carrboro and we want you to
feel at home
in Chapel Hill and we want you to be at
home in Raleigh and in Durham and we
will protect you from harm and we will
show up for you as best we can and we
ladles and jelly spoons it’s exactly
what happened I’m home thanks