What It Means To Be a Real Man, God Fucking Dammit

On Sunday, I attended an orientation for students who are planning on being involved in Greek Life. A man on a podium spoke of standards of excellence that we are to abide by. He demanded dedication to the highest ideals of manhood, ideals that resonate deeply with someone who has always dreamed of embodying a man.

I grew up hearing my grandmother tell stories about her brother, Wayne Bardy, a person that I am honored to call a relative. Before he was killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of fifty, he came out as gay to all of his loved ones at a time when homosexuality was considered a disease. He founded the first gay synagogue in Manhattan. He would don a tuxedo and fool everyone at celebrity parties into thinking that he belonged there-and with his charm and exceptionally good looks, he probably did. He worked an honest living on a cruise ship and consequently had lovers and friends all over the world. On freezing cold winter days, he would stock up on peanut butter, jelly, and bread so that he could give sandwiches out to the homeless, even though he struggled with his own living expenses. He designed original clothing, including a pair of jeans with an embroidered pattern so exquisite, I want to showcase it somewhere at Rutgers.

Everyone loved him not only because he approached life with an affinity for adventure and an unflappable sense of humor, but because he always, always, always treated other people with respect and kindness...

Right before I started taking testosterone, I swore to my grandmother that I would adopt the middle name "Wayne" when I have it changed legally because he is the kind of man that I want to become.

I carry every day in my heart not only his legacy, but the legacy of anyone who has ever called himself a man.

And every day, I strive to be worthy of the highest precepts of manhood, because that is not a title I take lightly.

Unfortunately, it means nothing to the majority of people in this world that I will always treat a woman better than I would treat myself. It means nothing to my doctors, my professors who accidentally call out my wrong name in class, and the people who don't understand what trans is that I will never hook up with a woman who is wasted or that I will give up a seat for her on the subway.

It means nothing to them that my transition was as much about getting to be a gentleman as it was about getting to be a guy.

And still, it means nothing to them that when my mom abused me my entire life, I never raised a hand to her, because I firmly believe that someone who calls himself a man should never hit a woman, ever.

I have to fight so hard just to be perceived as male from an aesthetic standpoint. It has cost me hundreds of dollars and hours of travel time. I'm risking cancer and all kinds of unknown and untested effects from the long-term use of a highly controlled and potentially dangerous substance. I'm destabilizing myself and exacerbating my mental health issues by throwing my body into a chemically imbalanced state of chaos, and seriously jeopardizing my own sanity and well-being, just to be able to call myself a man.

So when I hear nearly an entire room of people who have been designated male at birth laughing when the person on stage makes light of girls losing their right to say no if they are at a frat party late at night, I just want to fucking scream at the world. They do not deserve their chromosomes. They are not real men...and yet, their legal documents purport authentic maleness. And mine don't.

Why I Vehemently Deny That Gender Is a Social Construct-And Why It Is a Beautiful Thing That Women and Men Are Inherently Different

I feel just as threatened by theories that posit gender is completely social as I do by the transphobic individual. Both insinuate that my very architecture is not authentic, that the elementary particles of my identity are in the eye of the beholder, and not my own body.

My body is my body, and not a cultural category.

Social constructs might be human conceptions, but humans are not.

Even in the most enlightened of societies where gender stereotypes have been eradicated, the 10th grade me still would have cringed when adults told me knowingly that I would want to have kids when I was older. To them, pregnancy would always be a potential life, a protagonist, a gift that gentrifies the empty nests we all come to build following a secondary education.

To me, the conceptualized child that I would be expected to carry to term would still join the ranks of the monstrous, like the dead deer lying on the highway divider as my parents' car drove down Rt. 9.

The diagrams of vaginas and fallopian tubes in our health class textbooks still would not apply to me. The female-oriented support groups that were listed when I Googled "eating disorder" in high school still would not apply to me. Efforts on behalf of the staff at my Jewish sleep away camp to promote healthy body images among the female population still would not apply to me.

To imply that gender is purely social is to imply that the temple in which I spend every waking and sleeping second is at the mercy of whatever some postmodern philosophical quack decides to preach from the pages of the same insipid publication that proposes quantum gravity is a social and linguistic construct (yes, that actually happened).

Would you call schizophrenia a "problem of living?" I would hope that, given its universal distribution across cultures with varying degrees of westernization and the enormous progress that has been made in identifying the biological basis of schizophrenia, this assumption would never leave your mouth, let alone cross your mind.

Certainly, strong interpersonal support acts as a buffer against the worst symptoms, while lack of these same resources is associated with higher relapse and hospital admissions rates. But at the end of the day, if you are hallucinating, it is not solely because you lost your job. It is because a pre-existing genetic vulnerability to the manifestation of schizophrenic symptoms has been activated.

The point is that biology fucking matters. First, I am going to provide additional evidence to support my argument. Then, I am going to explain why I don't think it is a bad thing to say that men and women are qualitatively different.

In preparation for my own hormonal shift, I spent months consuming volumes of literature that described in detail the biological differences between the sexes and how this translated into behavioral differences.

For example, I read in one book that researchers from Cambridge University found that gender differences in what babies prefer to look at are present the day they are born. In their experiment, male babies fresh from the delivery room were more than twice as likely to look at a dangling mobile, while female babies were more likely to look at a young women smiling at them. Sex differences in the anatomy of the eye may suggest that boys are pre-wired to be interested in motion and girls are pre-wired to be interested in faces. The retinas of almost every male animal is significantly thicker because they contain a much higher concentration of "M" (magnocellular) cells, which receive input from the color-blind rods and detect motion.

On the contrary, female retinas are dominated by "P" (parvocellular) cells, which receive input from photosensitive cones and detect information about texture and color. They are more involved in object identification than "M" cells. At very young ages, even before they have any conception of gender, studies show that on average (although obviously, there is major variation within both groups), girls tend to voluntarily seek out dolls and boys tend to voluntarily seek out trucks or cars to play with. When they reach school age, girls tend to draw people and use warm colors. Boys tend to portray verbs, such as vehicles in motion, and use very little color. Given these discoveries, it might offer a possible explanation as to why more women receive degrees in fields that center around people and feelings, such as psychology and English (although social factors are also important to consider).

Now came time for the real test. Taking testosterone was going to teach me first-hand whether these differences actually mattered. Would they be profound, like the unmistakable effects of a prescription sleeping pill on the central nervous system, or barely discernible, like the tendrils of fatigue brought on by drinking a cup of chamomile tea?

The answer was delivered rather quickly. Within the course of a month, I found that some of the most enduring and defining characteristics of my psychological life had been dismantled and constructed into something entirely different. The manner in which I had experienced emotion and thought for nearly two decades was altered profoundly in a relatively minuscule period of time.

My meticulous documentation of the "new me" (which is still sitting in my Gmail drive to this very day) makes it clear that I am not the same person I was before taking testosterone. Fundamentally, I am the same. Qualitatively, I am so very not the same.

I changed so fucking much. To deny this is the name of political correctness would require turning my back on a nearly eight month roller coaster ride.

I went from being the kind of person who cried every day and was moved so easily by any remote vestige of sadness in the world to someone who was largely unable to cry (unless shit got real) and was no longer physiologically engulfed by emotion. Now, my body exhibited greater selectively when reacting to sadness or fear. My anxiety attacks became more centered around a cognitive appraisal of stress, and not the recurring autonomic arousal that I had learned to live with for years.

I had always approached problems logically, but prior to T, I felt my way around the world as much as I thought it through. Now, the ability to detach entirely from the emotional aspect of a conflict became possible, even habitual.

To say that my emotions were no longer expressed in a manner that was consistent with venting is not to say that they disappeared entirely. It was quite the opposite, actually. They were not destroyed-they simply changed form.
Now, I felt things deeply inside of me, and not on my face. Everything was so heavily internalized, in spite of my new outwardly reserved nature.

There were things about being male that just clicked once I started T that I never would have been able to understand prior to taking it. It suddenly made sense why women saturated the couches of therapists all across the country. It wasn't because society discouraged men from talking openly about their feelings. It was because something about testosterone made it impossible to discuss emotions and that much easier to act on them.

I remember telling a close friend, during a particularly dark moment, that it suddenly made so much sense to me why men completed suicide at a rate that was four to five times that of women. There was something about this inhibited male darkness that could be detrimental to one's survival.

All of a sudden, I really and truly preferred social isolation during my worst moments, and wasn't just saying that I wanted to be alone. For years, my first instinct during times of stress would be to talk to someone or surround myself with friends. I'll never forget the first time I experienced this foreign male practice called repression. After an intensely stressful night at work (I was a waiter at the time), I went to reach for the phone while I was waiting to hand in my tips so that I could call my best friend, as I had countless times before in similar situations.

Suddenly, talking about my feelings seemed like the most futile thing in the entire world. I could feel the unspoken sentiment being sucked back into my chest as I lowered my hand and marveled, honestly marveled, at how easy it was to swallow up the significance, bury it, and wait for it to build up.

Which leads me to the build up part. I had a lot of anger in the beginning, and while it died down, it continues to be the intrinsic motivation behind everything that I do, whereas my previous-and, up until this point, unchallenged-muse had been sadness. For me, this was huge. It was like a fucking paradigm shift. Instead of running into the bathroom and crying at work every time I was misgendered, I felt flashes of rage being internally directed towards the customer that had addressed me improperly. I began to hate my parents for everything they did to me over the years, and not just myself. The burden of blame became more evenly and fairly distributed. The tone of my writing changed as the pervading theme morphed from despondency into fiery passion.

I remember the stark understanding that registered in my head while watching the crime show Numb3rs on t.v. When a character whose daughter had been kidnapped knocked down all of the book shelves in his study as the time that he had to find her ran out, it clicked for the first time that this was a rendition of male sadness. Contrary to what a first glance might suggest, this man was not full of rage. Rather, he was full of despair. That never would have made sense to me prior to taking T. This is merely one of many ways in which I came to understand what it means to experience emotion as a male.

I continued to be affectionate with my close friends, but found it increasingly difficult to be indiscriminately nurturing. I simply was no longer comfortable with saccharine displays of affection unless I knew somebody really well. I went from being a big ball of love all of the time to someone who could no longer find the right comforting words unless it was a true crisis. Otherwise, on a day to day basis, I found that it required much more work on my part to sustain the quality of my interpersonal relationships. Emotional intuition became something that I had to exercise daily, or I would lose it.

I refuse to believe that the development of what would be deemed by society as male- typical behaviors progressed as a result of being socialized as male. This is due to the fact that although these tumultuous changes were erupting inside of me, it was a good two months before my customers (who, as complete strangers, serve as a valuable reference of progress) at work started addressing me as "he." In fact, apart from my customers and coworkers, who didn't even really understand what was going on and continued to treat me as a female, I barely interacted with anyone, as I had confined myself to self-imposed isolation until I could emerge from my chrysalis like the Butterfly Man that I was. Everything else in my life remained constant. The only variable that was being manipulated was the hormonal balance in my body.

This is why I believe that men and women are different. And you know what? That's a fucking great thing. People are special and have unique talents! We claim to live in a society that cherishes diversity, when in reality, there is an uproar any time a new scientific finding suggests that we all diverge just a bit from the basic biological template that underlies us all. This standard deviation is something to be celebrated, not suppressed.

While I absolutely prefer to experience emotion and thought as a male, simply because this is who I was supposed to be all along and I needed hormones to fix the awful disease that stunted my true development, my experiences have made me able to appreciate the sheer beauty that is exuded by women and all that they are capable of.

I spent my entire life resenting the womanhood that had been imposed upon me. Now that I am healthy, and my body is moving in the direction of where it should be moving, I am viewing femininity with fresh eyes. It seems paradoxical, but it is precisely because I have been imbued with male biology that I can start to see how my curse is someone else's greatest gift.

I suddenly have this insane respect for women and a deep reverence for everything that they do. I absolutely love women like I can't even begin to express. I even consider myself a feminist now.

I think that it is amazing, all that women have to offer the world, as women, and not as men. Because even though I was not meant to be female, I can still acknowledge the merits of femininity. It saddens me when I hear radical feminists vehemently denying all that makes them unique and special. They denounce traits that I used to possess-traits that I coveted highly and struggled to part with on the eve of my transition-and speak of them as though they are deplorable.

I haven't a single regret about how things turned out for me, but I can still acknowledge that a loss was sustained.

It saddens me when women deny all that makes them valuable assets to society and truly magnificent members of our species. It saddens me that our idea of praising women is glorifying men, and that the only way a woman won't be seen as a traitor to her chromosomal tribe is by emulating a traditionally male role.

I think that women are fucking wonderful and I refuse to demean them by saying that they are the same as men and that there is nothing, nothing that sets them apart in the most positive of ways.

You are doing everyone a disservice when you deny that gender is biological. You undermine the deeply painful existences of trans people whose lives are centered around trying to fix what nature fucked up.


You undermine the experiences of anyone who is a gender non-conforming individual by insinuating that who they are is deeply societal rather than deeply personal and fixed. Males and females are exposed to vastly different sex hormones prenatally as well as during puberty, when secondary sex characteristics emerge. Because the brain has numerous receptors for these hormones, development may diverge based on which chemical is being secreted. In fact, studies have shown that girls who are exposed to abnormally high levels of androgens before birth tend to have male-typical toy preferences, play patterns, levels of competitiveness, occupational preferences, facial perception skills, and mental rotation abilities.

You deny the beauty in every woman that blesses this earth with her presence.

You hurt men, too. There also exists a stereotype that boys don’t like to read when actually, they are alienated by English assignments that focus on role-playing, analyzing character motivations, and discussing feelings. This does not appeal to most boys. One reason for this is that in men, the amygdala, which plays key roles in emotion regulation, has fewer connections to the prefrontal cortex, which is the epicenter of articulation. Women have many more connections between their amygdala and cerebral cortex, so they are equipped to verbalize what they are feeling. Generally, men are less capable of coherently addressing emotion. In school, boys score significantly better in all areas of comprehension when they are assigned nonfiction reading, newspaper articles, and assignments that play on their strengths. Literacy and the ability to communicate effectively are lifelong skills that are more important than ever, regardless of profession. By ignoring innate gender differences, men are subjected to disadvantages, too.

Basically, everyone is hurt when you say that gender is entirely a social construct, and nothing else.

Biology allows us to breathe a sigh of relief. It lets us know that we are born this way. And that there is nothing wrong with that.

How To Date When You Are A Trans Guy

For my creative writing class, we had to write a short piece in the same style as the author of an assigned reading. It has to be a two page "How-To" guide about something personal, and it needs to be written in the second-person. The original work was "How to date a brown girl black girl white girl or halfie" by Junot Diaz. This is my version. I poured my heart into this, so enjoy!



Sneak it surreptitiously into small-talk all week when acquaintances inquire about your Friday night plans, because the chance to do so does not arise often. Ideally, you'd be a man whore, or better yet, a devoted lover, but your carefully planned aspirations to be the eclectic blend of British, metrosexual, and G.Q. model that is so highly coveted by straight women and gay men clash with your incongruous anatomical ensemble. And so, you embrace this blue moon with every inch of your biology, or lack thereof.

If the date is with a girl, brace yourself for the high fives and one-dimensional dialogue of straight men as they vicariously channel their voyeuristic lust into your dinner reservations-even though your involuntary participation in the female role for seventeen years of your life has primed you to view their misogynistic comments with repugnance.

If the date is with a guy, brace yourself for the furrowing of brows from the same people who have just been cajoled into tentative acceptance by your heartfelt rendition of what it means to be a man in spite of what it says on your birth certificate, only to have their conception of masculinity challenged even further as an additional tier is cemented onto your irrevocably queer identity.

While you debate on what to wear, be sure to disassociate every time you look down, or your dysphoria will trigger an inconveniently timed panic attack. Luckily, the psychological saran-wrap that your eyes utilize as they glaze over reminds you to grab a condom on your way out the door. At the last minute, you stick a knife into your coat pocket, not only because it offers the illusion of security from belligerent drunk people on Easton Avenue when they take note of your effeminate features, but because you might need to seek refuge with the blade in a bathroom stall when your date inevitably makes some remark that reminds you of the components that are covalently bonded below your belt.

When you arrive at the restaurant, give your date a hug and pull out their chair for them because it has taken you a lifetime to earn your unalienable right to be the chivalrous one. There is a 95% chance that they too are a member of the LGBTQIA community, so there is never a dearth of conversation topics and the sexual innuendos flow as freely as international trade.

However, you are well aware that-ironically enough-participating in acts of sodomy does not mean that someone has been enlightened with original plumbing etiquette or that their vocabulary has been enriched with “nice-t words.” If it is a first or second date, you try not to feel completely violated when they inevitably ask you about the sordid details of surgery or menstruation and instead steer the conversation in the direction of a mutual intellectual interest or favorite movie. It is not a matter of whether or not they will disappoint you and end up being like everyone else; it is a matter of when.

You bristle as an incendiary circuit sends a powerful charge coursing through your entire system when they use language that, in no uncertain terms, elucidates the feminine etiology of your past. The stormy sky inside of you invokes a simile involving idiots and electrical outlets. They might even ask you when you decided to be trans. You have to remember that this isn’t Facebook and you can’t sardonically call people out on their ignorance by responding with a string of song lyrics such as, “Oh what a night/Late December back in ‘63.”

The two of you head back to either your place or their place. All you want to do is hook up while watching a Mel Brook’s movie on a used sofa that has been mottled by mystery liquids and the asses of savory characters from Craig’s List like every other person your age. You are not some radical queer who feels the need to point out that the binary is perpetuated by the use of black-and-white film screening techniques in Young Frankenstein.

Your lust for their body overpowers your disgust for your own, and the clothes are peeled off in rapid succession. The clamorous course of your heart as it races towards satisfaction is intercepted by the pain of being perceived by someone other than a bathtub. Every antecedent is exposed between the sheets. The necessary truth ex nihilo nihil fit-out of nothing comes nothing- makes it inevitable that you will end up having to educate him or her while you are naked.

That testosterone has transformed you into the more reticent of the sexes in a matter of mere months is hardly evident as tears automatically spring to your eyes like a reflex. If you are with a girl, recover quickly from the divisive slice as she separates you from other men by saying that you are different and not like other guys. If you are with another dude, ignore the stab of envy as your pupils widen to accommodate the girth of his manhood.

Try not to feel like your body parts have been outsourced from basements and that your skin was constructed from the second-hand upholstery used by Coach bag vendors in China Town. You have needs and are determined to form an interpersonal union in the absence of dulled senses, partly because you cannot emotionally afford to grow dependent on masking the pain and partially because you have been advised to abstain from drinking due to the hormonal therapy.

You pray that they refer to your junk with gender-appropriate language and cringe when they don’t. It requires your most sincere efforts to feign confidence and take them on the ride of their life without falling off the edge of the earth in the process.

You are just getting acquainted with your erection when they use the word “woman” in reference to your former self. It takes everything in your power to not pull a hysterical Gene Wilder and cry during sex, even though this cruel conjugation is enough to deploy the air from your lungs and consolidate your chest into a neatly crushed soda can. If you are horny enough, it is possible to undergo a hot-blooded rebirth and achieve a born-again boner. Despite the lump that has formed in the back of your throat, you fight to reclaim the intimacy of the moment the way you would muster five more minutes of reading as the sun goes down in the summer because you don't want to go inside just yet.

After an unsatisfying fuck, you roll over and try to make light of the situation. Indeed, even authentic copies of Leonardo da Vinci's greatly detailed, highly accurate anatomical depictions had wine stains.

Neuroscientific Grounds For Studying the Relationship Between Cannabis Use and Schizophrenia: Potential Therapeutic Applications

Thinking about my paper: So, clinical trials show that psychosis is exacerbated by marijuana use, but also that people who display schizophrenic symptoms naturally gravitate towards marijuana.

Perhaps, in its entirety, marijuana poses a risk to people that are already susceptible to schizophrenia. However, perhaps when it is broken into its constituent compounds, marijuana can be a useful remedy for these patients. For example, in one preliminary clinical trial, cannabidiol, which is posited as being responsible for weed's anxiety inducing effects, was found to treat schizophrenia as effectively as antipsychotics. The drug was devoid of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, which is what imbues it with psychoactive properties.

Marijuana also has a wide range of effects that, given the neuroanatomy implicated in schizophrenic patients, might possess psychopharmacological potential when it is compartmental based on what properties of the plant are desired.

For example, cannabinoids have been shown to elicit anti-depressant behavior and activate serotonergic neurons through the medial prefrontal cortex. Additionally, several studies have indicated functional interactions between the cannabinoid and 5-HT (serotonin) systems in the brain. For example, the dorsal raphe, which is a significant source of serotonin in the forebrain, expresses the enzyme amide hydrolase, which catalyzes the inactivation of anandamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol, the endogenous cannabinoid neurotransmitters that the brain naturally produces. Basically, anytime a neurotransmitter (chemical messenger) is present in the brain, they eventually need to be terminated by enzymes so that they aren't acting upon the brain for too long. So it is important to note that the same systems in the brain that mediate mood involve cannabinoids to come capacity-indeed, cannabinoid receptors are also abundantly expressed in the prefrontal cortex.

This is important because depression is a comorbid occurrence in many schizophrenic patients.

Studies have also suggested that marijuana can stimulate neurogenesis, or growth or new neurons, in the hippocampus. Not only is reduced hippocampal volume a common observation is depressed patients, but in one study, it was also bilaterally reduced in schizophrenic patients compared to controls.

Hence, marijuana, or at least some of its constituents, might be able to alleviate some of the symptoms experiences by a schizophrenic patient.s

Now, it has certainly been demonstrated that marijuana can worsen symptoms in this same population. But again, no conclusive statements can be made as to whether or not people with schizophrenia naturally gravitate towards marijuana, marijuana increases the onset of psychosis in people that are already vulnerable, or a combination of the two.

There is something to be said for vulnerability. Very few of us have an optimal genetic ancestry. Everyone's family history is riddled with dark spots. Specifically, a recent study isolates the NRG1 gene as a susceptibility gene for marijuana dependence. It is also found to be implicated in schizophrenia risk.

It is a correlation that requires further exploration. Currently, young people are taught to avoid marijuana like the plague due to the associated risk of developing schizophrenia. But as the evidence for any type of relationship remains correlation and also elucidates the role of prior susceptibility, advising every human being to stay far away from the drug is not practical. A recent statistical analysis that examined available data regarding cannabis users and schizophrenia found that it would be necessary to stop 2800 heavy cannabis users in young men and over 5000 heavy cannabis users in young women to prevent a single case of schizophrenia. Among light cannabis users, those numbers rise to over 10,000 young men and nearly 30,000 young women to prevent one case of schizophrenia.

Rather than condemning this mysterious and potent herb to scientific squalor, we must subject it to rigorous empirical study and be open to the idea that the connections between marijuana and psychosis, specifically schizophrenia, are not as simple as they may seem. Knowledge is power, and by perfecting pharmacodynamic parameters such as the ideal dosage and exactly how much exposure makes marijuana dangerous for these patients, we can increase the chances that this drug will be used in ways that are conducive to well being and while avoiding potential risks.

This, coupled with the fact that there aspects of the marijuana plant that demonstrate potential for therapeutic application for schizophrenic patients, demands that scientists investigate the matter further. Maximizing safety, reducing harm to vulnerable populations, and possibly improving the quality of life for the approximately 2.5 million Americans who suffer from this debilitating illness, makes the relationship between marijuana use and the schizophrenic brain worth studying.

Are we really born in the wrong body? A dissection of the language that defines the trans movement

As transgender related issues receive increasing amounts of media exposure, I encounter more and more criticism within the community about the use of generalizations such as, "S(he) felt that s(he) was trapped in the wrong body." Many trans* individuals feel offended by and uncomfortable with the dissemination of a narrative that focuses exclusively on the dominant conception of assigned sex rather than the fiercely personal sense of gender identity.

To an extent, I agree with these arguments. Indeed, the default statements that precede the appearance of transgender guests on daytime talk shows such as Oprah and The Tyra Banks Show demand a diluted and digestible rationale for transitioning that will not break the thin ice that is already being tread upon. They serve to remind us that acceptance is scant and thus, we must rapaciously consume the few bread crumbs that are thrown our way as a token of acceptance. In this manner, the media facilitates a trade-off between the indispensable dignity of an autonomous individual and reaping the privileges conferred by the masses when our story is more palatable to them.

As transgender writer and activist Janet Mock puts it, "Why don’t I like it? Because it places me in the role of victim, and to those who take mainstream media depictions as truth I’m seen as a human to be pitied because I’m someone who needs to be saved, rather than a self-determined woman with agency and choice and the ability to define who I am in this society and who I will become in spite of it."

That being said, I have major reservations about the implications of insinuating that transgender people are able to acquire the tools conducive to this agency of which Mock so highly speaks. To prime you for this discussion, consider an article that I read just a few days ago written by a lesbian woman who hesitates to introduce her long-term partner as "wife" to co-workers and friends, in spite of them having recently obtained a civil union. Although their relationship certainly resembles a marriage when framed in terms of level of commitment and devotion, the author feels that it would be a disservice to imply to others that she and her partner have been allotted more federal protections than the law really allows. Thus, she draws attention to the importance of using nomenclature that keeps things in perspective and does not undermine the nature of the injustices that marginalized communities continue to be subjected to.

I will never condemn a fellow member of the Trans Family for their views. Far from it-of all people, no one is more entitled to state an opinion regarding trans issues than a trans person. This is why I hold the stances of all trans people in the highest esteem, whether I agree with them or not.

That being said, I think that while Janet Mock means well, she is promulgating the Transgender Dream, a journey that is delineated with sidewalks paved in gold. The harsh reality is that for many people, the means for transitioning, even partially, continue to be unattainable.

Stark classism is evident in a community that is already disproportionately impacted by unemployment, poverty, and lack of familial and social support. Quite frankly, taking the initiative to live full-time as one's true gender costs a lot of fucking money. Really, the cost is astronomical.

First, you have to buy a whole new wardrobe. You are basically building a whole closet from scratch instead of purchasing a few articles here and there as old items become disposable. Then, depending on where you live and what health care providers are in your area, you have to invest in therapy for months in order to receive a diagnosis of gender identity disorder so that you can receive a letter of recommendation to go ahead and start the process. If you don't have health insurance, you are fucked.

I was incredibly lucky, for I just so happen to be able to get to Philadelphia by train, where the Mazzoni Center is located. Mazzoni is an LGBT health care and wellness center that operates on an informed consent model, which means that there is no requirement for a letter from a therapist or specific requirements about about how long you have to live as your true gender. And those letters can be expensive-I have one friend who paid $600 for a lousy piece of paper that granted him permission to make decisions about his own medical care. And depending on what part of the country one resides in, there might not even be any gender therapists located in the vicinity. Some trans people travel to other states just to attend weekly therapy sessions, which again costs a shit ton in gas money.

Then you have to pay for the doctor's visits so that you can receive a thorough examination and have a full blood panel done in order to ensure that your state of health is optimal before starting the transition. Again, if you don't have health insurance, you are fucked. There are bound to be several appointments, so there are more co-pays and travel costs, as well. Then you have to pay for the actual hormones themselves. With insurance, they can range anywhere from $50 to over $100 a month. People without insurance have to pay out of pocket. This is why some trans people resort to buying hormones off of the black market. They might also consider illicit means to attaining their goals if therapists deny their letter if they find out that their transgender client has a history of sexual abuse. Unfortunately, it is (erroneously) believed by some in the field that these experiences influence one's gender identity.

I cannot speak for trans women, for I am simply ill-informed about the surgical means that are available to them. What I do know is that chest reconstruction surgery for trans guys is anywhere from $7,000-$10,000, and a full-fledged phalloplasty can cost anywhere from $50,000-$150,000. And for most trans guys, the current limitations of medical technology do not even make it a viable or safe option.

There is the cost of changing one's legal name, which is around $300 after court fees. There are the various fees associated with updating one's driver's license, passport, and other government issued documents and forms of identification.

So...is the age old narrative of being "trapped in the wrong body" over-simplified? Certainly. But is it inaccurate? I am not so sure. Of course, I cannot speak for all trans people. We are as diverse as we are numerous and well dispersed throughout the population and among all walks of life. But I think it is safe to say that agency must be backed up by currency in order to have any real value. And until trans individuals are able to take the steps that are necessary for being recognized as who they really are, well...the body isn't exactly going to feel like an ample ecological preserve imbued with opportunity, open spaces, and life-affirming experiences.

Maybe it would be more accurate to say that we were born into a bloody liberation front.

What It's Like To Be Home And Trans

Kurt Vonnegut once said, "Pictures are known not for their pictureness, but for their humanness."

The same can be said of mirrors. What I would give to see myself as a potential contender for the Fairest, a resident of the land instead of this amnesic state. I have forgotten all too quickly the coordinates of the embassy that we carry inside of us as an indication that second class citizens are not exceptions to humankind-they are inexcusable.

This happens every time I come home after being away for several months. I forget what I have learned at Rutgers about self-love until I am looking upon myself with the unaccustomed eyes of a layperson. The mirror occurs and I am affronted by a face made of fingerprints-no one has ever seen anything like it before and no one ever will again.

The formal term is freak.

My mother is my mirror-a hybrid of blank slate, acclimation, and ugliness. Her disapproving glare is like lightning that splits everything around it into a before and an after, into a dark past and an endless attempt at reconciliation. Whatever signs of long overdue acceptance she displays when I first arrive home are imbued with brevity, the kind that makes a bride last for but a day. Love of a child is not enough to impel her to enter the inverted world that hovers above a puddle, to liquidate her highly coveted way of viewing the world, to convert her contempt into its antithesis, to be a mother instead of an oxidizing agent adding fuel to a fire.

As we are driving in the car on the way to my grandfather's house, she says, as a way of holding my minor infractions against me, "You think I'm going to treat you like a boy? You have another thing coming." This comment takes me aback, as she has been referring to me as “Jordan” for days and making legitimate attempts to correct herself when she uses the wrong pronoun.

At my grandpa's house, she thinks nothing of having an open and frank conversation about my body parts and medical care related to my transition not only in my presence, but without my permission and as if I am not in the room.

The burden is on me to remove my person rather than on her to avert her gaze. This is because she is the primary source of perception and I am the reflection on the surface.

Mirror that she is, she makes my most salient feature my comorbidity, until layer after layer of flaws are wrapped around me like a cobra. She cuts off my circulation with the hysterical stridency that she uses to string together insults. Her esophagus has the wing span of a gargoyle as she screams obscenities so loudly that I can hear them through the front door of the house and from halfway down the driveway.

I understand now what it means to be a source of shame, a plague that has descended upon the family and defied their expectations of what it would be like to raise a child. I must bear the dishonor of waking up one day and realizing that I am loved in spite of who I am rather than because of it. When my parents speak of their child's accomplishments, it will be with affection that is soft and fuzzy, diluted by the anesthetic that dishonor draws up. As a drunk mind speaks sober thoughts, my mother in her endless slew of angry moments participates in the form of Truth. Her sentiments are distilled in a stream of consciousness, ostensibly unedited-and that is why I trust them, sadly.

But I must choose to be uncensored, too. It would be easy to go through life surviving, to be moderate, to speak in morse code, to reiterate what she says to me in a manner that is simple and to the point. It would be easy to communicate with enough marks to recreate the moment, and nothing more, to be detached and do only what I need to get by.

Instead, I must relearn the language that has been handed down to me. But being self taught requires enduring the turbulence associated with taking back the words that have been used to demean you. The reclamatory sense is more heightened than that of sight or sound. It is painful and amplified, but that is why our experiences can be used to create an even better masterpiece than can paint and pencils and instruments alone.

As Jean Paul Sartre would say, "Suffering is justified as soon as it becomes the raw material of beauty.." It is not easy to take a pastel to the precipitation and describe in every detail this vicious, relentless struggle with the pretty terminology that we use to classify the rain cycle, and yet we must. For although it is inexorable that the storms and the preceding calms we allude to will make cynics out of us, at least through the effort to allude at all can sorrow manifest itself as something that is more than a coincidence.

And so, I vow to paint pictures that are more than pictures. When I speak, it will not be for aesthetic purposes. When I speak, it will be my way of suing for all of the lost time due to transphobic comments and the disparaging parts of speech that she utters on a daily basis. It will be for, not eviscerating the bond between mother and child, but avenging the fact that it has to be there at all. My accounts will be full of eidetic imagery but also novel meaning that wasn't initially there. It is time to take back what is mine.

She should be the one living vicariously through me, but it is actually the other way around. It is I who is living through her. I see myself as she sees me, as her friends and colleagues must see me, as her family members must learn to. I understand what it is like to be them. It is the type of person that I was before I grew up and learned to think for myself, when ideas were handed down to me with antecedents and sacrifices made on my behalf.

It is like childhood, the lives that she and people like her lead. They are innocent and that is why they are troublemakers. Their ideals are less damaging than mine, less threatening to the stability of the world as we know it, while I disrupt the balance between all beings like ideas that were first espoused in the 1800's and the world hasn't been the same since. I am the hair that is let down, the corsets that are loosened, and the morals that follow suit. I am the bathtub gin that launched a thousand court dates. I am the conscientious objectors and the interracial couples. I am everything that was once an abomination. But always, always am I on the desirable side of the bell curve.


I have no need to do anything spectacular with my life. My only aim is to see something I can be proud of when I look into a mirror-when I look into my mother's eyes.

But this doesn't require winning her approval. What it means is that I can use her criticism constructively. I do not have to elicit her praise when I can use her as a source of inspiration instead. Her failed attempt at parenthood will be the victory that I gain on behalf of an entire community. It is in this manner that my appearance will no longer be an aberration. In fact, it might even be beautiful.

It is not an accident that portraits are one of the most popular forms of art, and that after that comes depictions of war. It is as if the capacity for violence is associated with looking at ourselves.

"Pictures are known not for their pictureness, but for their humanness."

So is hell.

Will The Real OCD, Please Stand Up?

Our vernacular conception of obsessive compulsive disorder is disgustingly divorced from the formal DSM-IV criteria. Lay people have somehow managed to reduce the archetypal OCD sufferer to a hygiene freak whose preoccupation with preventing contamination is a mere embellishment of Western society's increasingly meticulous sanitary movement.

This stereotypical portrayal of OCD diminishes it to a desire for sterility. Nothing could be further from the truth. OCD is not synonymous with germ phobia in any way, shape, or form. Furthermore, this behaviorist approach, which singles out merely one of myriad compulsions that may be presented, illustrates OCD as an overly simplified stimulus-response relationship that is exhibited when the individual encounters a manifestation of the universe that does not resonate with his or her immaculate expectations. This representation of OCD completely ignores the profound internal mental events that define the disorder.

What I find disconcerting is that even the DSM-IV criteria does not, in my opinion, accurately depict what constitutes a case of severe OCD. It is due to this very reason that it took me seven years to figure out just what the fuck was wrong with me, in spite of having consumed a deluge of empirical and anecdotal literature regarding psychopathology, receiving an associate's degree in psychology, seeing four therapists, and possessing the vast wealth of knowledge concerning the symptomatology, behavioral markers, and biological etiology of mental illnesses that are conducive to keen diagnostic skills. However, even the OCD inventories that are generated by mainstream psychological organizations do not even begin to capture the complexity and hallmark features of OCD, especially in its more severe forms. Consequently, the diagnosis evaded me for years.

Hence, I am going to propose a new way of understanding OCD. It involves acknowledging the remarkable amount of commonality between OCD and schizophrenia. "Although OCD and schizophrenia are distinct diagnostic entities, there is considerable overlap between the two disorders in terms of clinical characteristics, brain areas that are affected and pharmacotherapy" (Price, 2005). Indeed, the co-morbidity between schizophrenia and OCD is high. Studies have directly compared their clinical features. In fact, clinicians are frequently hindered by the difficulty in differentiating between the two.

While more enlightened sources devote a considerable amount of time to further addressing the psychotic component of OCD, most general clinicians don't even come close to tapping the surface of what OCD is really about. I firmly believe that if we analyze OCD in conjunction with its close cousin, schizophrenia, we can elucidate an essential understanding of the suffering endured by people with the disorder that would otherwise be impenetrable. My aim is to elicit compassion and support for people whose struggle is compounded by the trivialization and ignorant attitudes that undermine the disorder known as OCD.

Let us proceed with the comparison.

At the heart of the two disorders lies a gargantuan disturbance of thought. In the case of schizophrenia, this disturbance is often marked by the improper sensory perception that is characteristic of hallucinations, including (but not limited to) auditory and visual distortions. However, in the case of OCD, it is not incorrect information about the external world that is being imposed upon the sufferer. Rather, the individual is beleaguered by recurrent and relentless intrusive thoughts that materialize of their own accord, injected by a foreign jurisdiction rather than having been conjured up by one's conscious volition.

These internal mental events arise spontaneously, like pop-up ads, and are completely unresponsive to suppression efforts. Agency is usurped entirely-while you are at it, suspend the idea of agency entirely- as the individual is forced to share a space in his or her head with a volcano that erupts content of a disturbing and bizarre nature. It is as though a presence has been implanted in one's skull, and the intensity with which this presence asserts itself warrants the status of personhood. Think of the movie Inception, when the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio literally plants an idea in his wife's head, and the consequences of its germination are entirely out of her control. These thoughts serve the foundation for beliefs that, though they are false, are tenaciously held and against all resistance to modify them.

In an individual with schizophrenia, these unshakable beliefs are called "delusions." In an individual with OCD, they are called "obsessions." The nomenclature might differ, but both are characterized by a deeply held conviction that does not have a basis in reality.

The crucial distinction between the presentation of delusions in an individual with OCD and an individual with schizophrenia is that the OCD sufferer exhibits a degree of insight into the validity of their beliefs. That is, he or she is aware that their version of reality is twisted and warped. This lucidity adds an additional layer of horror as mutilated mental processes unfold. One reality is not being substituted for another. Rather, one reality is being supplemented by another. The individual's mind is superimposed by a lens that adds an additional element and another shade of meaning to one's existence.

In the grips of stress, this introspective advantage is lost, and the OCD sufferer operates, on an emotional level, as if they are absolutely convinced that their delusions are derived from a credible source. Hence, during these moments, the veil between firm ground and fantasy adopts a transparency that, for all intents and purposes, imbues falsehood with fact. For the time being, the delusions might as well be true.

The presentation of OCD and schizophrenia share a cognitive appraisal of the external world that has no basis in reality, and this appraisal is accompanied by persecutory themes and emotional components such as intense paranoia. Hallucinations are absent from OCD. Hence, the convergence lies in the misinterpretation of other peoples' intentions, as opposed to the insertion of erroneous sensory phenomena. It is almost analogous to intercepting and subsequently damaging the delicate genetic code that comprises DNA before it can be translated into the amino acids that serve as our biological framework. The entire meaning can become demented not by adding anything new, but by altering in some way what is already there. During severe episodes, namely ones exacerbated by stress and the deprivation of basic biological needs such as sleep, the OCD sufferer can experience episodes of paranoia that resemble a marijuana induced high in which the smoker "bugs out" and lapses into psychosis.

The individual with OCD is convinced that everyone is out to get them. For example, the obscure whispering of complete strangers across a room might be interpreted as negative commentary about the individual, tainted with a malice so incessant that it interferes with any and all attempts to supersede it. A crowded dining hall might prompt a magnetism that directs the eyes of everyone in the entire arena towards the individual. Casual glances of acknowledgement as people enter each others' realm of vision are converted into harsh glares and stares laden with daggers. A public space filled with random bouts of laughter is transformed into an orchestrated effort to destroy the individual with taunts.

The emphasis here should be placed on the judgement of others as it pertains to the individual, precisely because it pertains to the individual. This mindset arises not out of narcissism, but due to a deeply rooted self-directed enmity that results in an affinity for incorporating every surrounding stimuli, no matter how irrelevant, into a grand scheme to achieve self-deprecation at every turn.

Next, we will consider the OCD obsessions that are concerned with classic self-loathing. Again, keep in mind that the OCD sufferer is sharing a space in his or her head with a vicious presence that feeds him or her bellicose criticism all day long regarding every detail of their existence, and that the mercilessness with which this presence asserts itself is equivalent to a draconian, drug induced commander. To the OCD sufferer, every aspect of the self becomes a source of vicious scrutiny. One's gait might be perceived as incredibly stupid. The angle at which one moves his or her arm is a monstrosity. The inflection of one's voice mid-sentence makes one deserving of an execution. Like a topographical map, every perceived slight becomes an additional layer of imperfection, until the intellect of the OCD sufferer has constructed an atmosphere pervaded by inadequacy.

Sometimes, obsessions take the form of repetitive and morbid images. These extremely distressing and disturbing images, often involving themes of death, violence, and suicide, are completely unwarranted and erupt without the slightest provocation. While most people entertain dark notions from time to time, in the case of OCD, these obsessions can occur thousands of times a day. Additionally, it should be noted that these thoughts are entirely unwanted. To the OCD sufferer, it feels as though the spatter of a malevolent artery has extravasated into the compartment of the body that harbors their character. They mistakenly conclude that they have gruesome personalities. They take responsibility for their intrusive thoughts, an impossible feat for a human being, and grow terrified when they try to attribute meaning to these unwanted appearances.

It is worth clarifying that these images are not hallucinations. Rather, the OCD sufferer is forced to confront scenario after scenario in which the darkest elements of human existence are considered as a not so distant possibility. The vicious presence mentioned before taps into the primordial depths of one's deepest fears and exploits them.

Most importantly, it must be noted that the overwhelming majority of those afflicted by these thoughts, while terrified that their true desires are being represented, are so deeply disconcerted by these shocking images precisely because their disposition directly opposes that which is being presented to them. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of people with OCD never inflict acts of violence upon others. Quite the contrary, the afflicted individual often retreats into isolation and secrecy, a perpetuating behavior that further plunges him or her into a steepened state of despair.

Again, the emphasis should be placed on the prevalence of these thought processes. OCD is as debilitating as it is due to its exhausting stamina. Dozens of these thoughts are fired per second so that it is impossible for the individual to experience any semblance of respite. During a severe episode, these thoughts can cycle rapidly, as often as every second of every day. Additionally, it is important to note that the language used by this negative presence is ruthless, unforgivable, and asserts itself in no uncertain terms. The constant state of autonomic arousal that ensues in response to this intensity escalates into panic attacks, as the OCD sufferer is plagued by the calamitous effects of extreme anxiety. It is not uncommon for people with OCD to experience numerous panic attacks during any given week.

At this juncture, I would like to make an analogy that compares OCD and schizophrenia. I do this so that people with OCD might inherit some of the solicitousness that is reserved for those who suffer from a purely biological phenomenon. At this point, I think it is safe to assume that most (educated) people will not condescend to telling someone with schizophrenia, "Just don't think about it," or "Try your hardest not to let it bother you," or "You can ignore it if you really make an effort to do so." It would be silly to say any of these things to someone with schizophrenia. Neuroscientists, geneticists, and other relevant researchers have pinpointed a plethora of biological factors and neural circuits that are present in someone who is experiencing schizophrenia. It has been widely accepted in modern psychopathology that schizophrenia is a neurodegenerative disease, much like Alzheimer's.

Schizophrenia is the sole mental illness that has been observed across all cultures and during all points in history. This strongly suggests that schizophrenia is not influenced by social factors. Interestingly, reviewed studies from a diverse array of nationalities yields the insight that OCD also looks remarkably similar across cultures.

At the present time, I will not discuss the implications of an overactive orbital frontal cortex, abnormal brain cells in the basal ganglia, or insufficient levels of serotonin. Just take my word for it that OCD is biological as fuck.

The analogy that I would like to make alludes to the fact that the brain runs on electricity. Schizophrenia involves a total degeneration of the neural circuits that facilitate full blown visual and auditory disturbances. In the case of OCD, it might be useful to imagine a light bulb on a sign at a store that needs to be changed so that it flickers constantly, and every time it flickers on or off, images of death and irrational thoughts pop into the head, every second, all day, every day.

These obsessions, as they are described above, serve as the foundation for the emergence of compulsions, designated as such because they signify a mental mandate to behave a certain way, no matter how greatly this behavior may serve as an affront to the individual's conscious wishes. Compulsions emerge in an attempt to assuage the smothering din emanating from the obsessions, and because their function serves the purpose of dispelling potent fears and sources of disquietude, engaging in them is part of a contractual agreement. There is no backing out.

Compulsions are not habits. They are an army of addictions. Imagine not one alcoholic occurring within the same body, but countless alcoholics. A continent of alcoholics.

Compulsions can take many forms, and in some cases, one individual can exhibit dozens of them. Compulsions can mean having to breathe a certain way, such that the lungs expand the same width every time. Sentences might need to be read such that an equal allocation of time is devoted to every word. Sufferers might need to engage in activities for certain periods of time, if specific numbers have been deemed as "wrong" or "unsafe." For example, studying for a number of hours that does not end in a quarterly denomination can prompt an individual to believe that he or she is a failure in school. A person with OCD might need to check things, such as outlets, alarm clocks, and windows, as often as several dozen times. He or she may feel that surfaces touched with one hand need to be touched with the other while exerting the same amount of pressure delegated by the initial hand. Movements implemented on one side of the body may be met with the demand for exact replications of that same movement on the other side.

In some cases of OCD, self-injury develops in response to the need for symmetry and "balancing things out." Cutting and burning become motor outlets in addition to actions that signify self-loathing due to an inability to meet the incessant demands of one's mind. The very act of speaking can become a breeding ground for nervous breakdowns as the OCD sufferer scrupulously scans every possible vocabulary choice for imperfection and every potential word pairing for error until it becomes impossible to string together coherent sentences. To the OCD sufferer, it is better to remain silent than to utter a sound that can even remotely be construed as stupid.
Deviating from these irresistible rituals produces agonizing results. Violating the compulsory attendance statute devised by one's impossible expectations leads to utter despondency.

The interfering nature of compulsions with everyday activity and the associated anxiety and depression can lead to a total decomposition in functioning and prevent the OCD sufferer from meeting his or her basic needs, such as sleeping and eating.

The obsession-compulsion cycle takes place all day, every day. It does not cede itself to evenings, holidays, or second hands. It is unfolding during every wrinkle of time. Someone who has OCD may be consumed literally every second of their life by obsessions and compulsions. This is why OCD is one of the most incapacitating mental disorders, and is often met with treatment resistance.

So next time you go to make a joke about having OCD, please, refrain. Chances are, you don't actually have OCD, and your facetious remark is only serving to disconnect somebody who actually does.