There is a part of me that would like to rename this, “How to Estrange the Love of Your Life” or even “How Not to be Trans” but I think Katherine’s original title, “8 Easy Steps,” is a touch more delicate. Katherine is an mHB boards veteran.
I’ll teach you all this in 8 easy steps
A course of a lifetime you’ll never forget
I’ll show you how to in 8 easy steps
I’ll show you how leadership looks when taught by the best
–Alanis MorrissetteOne: My trans-needs and experiences will always be more exotic, painful, and interesting than your existence.
Two: Excessive narcissism can look like, “Hey, I’m just finally taking care of myself here!†but is every bit about creating the I-It relationships that Martin Buber warned us about.
Three: “I’m trans. You don’t understand me. I am complicated and, like—for sure, you’re not,†so you don’t have permission to judge me even when I am fully deserving of your judgment, even when your life is equally if not more complicated. I scored the ultimate “get out of jail free card†in life’s version of Monopoly. “Do not pass ‘Go,’†etc., and get your ass back on Baltic Avenue. My life is Boardwalk and Park Place, special.
Four: My martyr complex is so much fun for others! Thank you for hating me and disapproving of what I am doing; it makes me so much more special than you and is the ultimate buzzkill toward having a meaningful conversation about how and what I am doing is scaring and confusing to you, is scaring and confusing me.
Five: Let me be wonderfully sympathetic about your weight gain, about your angst, about your doubts, about your sense that this isn’t right for you, but let me still manage to appropriate your feelings and help you feel guilty again for having them.
Six: Oh, you want something to say about how my identity change is affecting your identity too with our friends, family, and co-workers? How shallow of you. Let me make you in these matters too feel guilty about caring for such things.
Seven: Let me attempt to appropriate the womanhood experiences you spent a lifetime living, reacting to, and making peace with in this sexist culture and act as though your role no longer matters and that the space you earned as wife, daughter, and sister can be appropriated by the “How to be Transsexual for Dummies†manual.
Eight: Let me shirk my responsibility to you by spending more time online, on the phone, and in person with my trans acquaintances than I do with you, designing for example cutesy posts about eight steps, while you are in the other room alone and afraid, facing as you do so often another day with bravery and grace.
I’ve been doing research for years
I’ve been practicing my ass off
I’ve been training my whole life for this moment (I swear to you)
Culminating just to be this well-versed leader before you
–Alanis Morissette