So, a Week In Prideful Eldering (SWIPE): Week 1
A triple-shot of TransJoy for y'all, from this morning:
- Saw my transition doctor (who is also trans), Dr. Thomson, this morning. She's wonderful - has an amazing idea for an investment she's trying to set up - and started crying herself when I explained the levelling up/61st level thing (explained in a separate post, coming next week to this blog). Former WOW player, so yes, the metaphor had resonance. She said at one point how lucky she felt to be able to help me, that it would be something she thought she'd tell her kid about someday. Which made ME cry. So, ESNAW. (Estrogen Situation Normal, All Wet).
- While there, saw a trans woman, very, very early, SUPER nervous, and really struggling to avoid taking up any space in anyone's lives. Visibly. A level of anxiety beyond anything any of my friends have described - which has been a real revelation to me, to learn that people live with that level and type of anxiety, and still function and have friends and all kinds of things that have to be made SO MUCH HARDER by anxiety, , so thanks y'all for that, genuinely - a needed bit of learning on my end. I spoke softly to her - only two staffers in the waiting area aside from us - and said, "Hey...it's gonna be okay. You can do this. And while there may not be everywhere you can do that safely, this is one of those places. These people really want to help you. It's what they get paid to do, and they love their work. You're never going to be 'bothering them' by asking them anything trans-related. This is a genuine safe space. (The place is the SHORE Centre in my town, former Planned Parenthood, and a clinic specifically made for gender-affirming care.
And then I dropped the big one.
"You are allowed to take up space here. You don't have to hide anything about you. We only see the beautiful in you. We want you to succeed, and be happy, and living a safe and comfortable life as yourself. As part of that: You are allowed to take up space here."
Her turn to cry a bit. She couldn't respond, I told her she didn't need to. Wished her a good day.
- Took a cab home (cf. bus route designers being stupid dickheads who wouldn't know a disability until they had one), and as I got in, this lovely older fellow, Ethiopian as it turned out, was so wonderful. Genuine kindness. I said thanks for moving the front seat ahead a bit, and he said "Anything to have a beautiful lady in my cab for a while." And we went on to have a lovely conversation, I mentioned being a translator, and we got talking about language. He asked me suddenly, very seriously, "How do you keep your languages over so long a time?" I admitted it was the hardest part.
He said he'd been in Canada for 23 years, and had been so ashamed the last time he saw his father on a visit, and was unable to answer his father in their native language (I think he said the nation was "Azer", largest in Ethiopia, a language named - best guess - Orumina or Orumine?). He could still understand him perfectly, but his synthesis skills had rusted solid, and he was very ashamed. Clearly deeply affecting, his voice shook.
I said, "Well, are there people around you who speak it?" He said there were, and I said, "So, how about you and they, all having the same problem, work on it together? Make a date to have lunch or breakfast or something every couple of weeks, and make a simple rule: he who speaks English at this table, pays the whole bill. Talk about anything, whatever you have in common. Sports are good, but probably not super useful in a country so haunted by war. But just talk."
He said he'd think about it. I said "No! Do it!" (with a big smile). "You want to keep this skill. You've got kids, right? Grandkids too? So do you want them to not know their language, because they'd never heard it?"
He looked away from the mirror. I will protect his dignity by not speculating why.
I said that my grandfather had done this with his language (Scots - he only spoke Scots to his family after he left the Army when Korea started), and that while I didn't learn to speak it, I can understand it spoken or written, because of what he did. It survives in me. His voice got soft, and said he was very lucky I took his cab.
(a friend asked: I wonder if anyone had ever said that to her before in her life?)
She said no, when I asked the same question. If she'd not looked so deeply anxious, I'd have offered a hug, but I had a feeling even offering would put her into a spiral ("I don't want to!" "But she's being so nice!" "But I don't want to!" "But people will think you're a jerk if you say no!"...),
But with my friends' experience in my pocket keeping me informed, I didn't offer. I just smiled and stayed where I was. And she calmed down a bit, and spoke up a tiny bit more, and the staff encouraged her in doing so. So that felt like a good morning of community building. I done some damn good eldering today.
SWIPE posts will be coming every Friday, I hope. Y'all have a good day. :)
