I am a farmer, I do grow stuff and I need writers and dancers musicians and actors and other artists because I want to know more about the world than my tiny cis male farmer experience can ever provide. So thank you for writing, I owe you one.
Given the deluge of anti trans, and more broadly, anti queer legislation in last few years, we are not the ones asking the cis society to pee in a box outside. Moreover, it comes down to this concept:
I do not need someone to fight my battles for me, I am capable and committed to my own fight for my own liberty.
All I NEED from the cis society is, for them to Not Ban my rights to autonomy, and Not Erase my individual freedoms and choices.
Another thing they don’t realize is that these laws have already taken rights away from them. Namely, the right to go privately about their lives and business in the public sphere. No
I don’t understand how most cis people think that trans issues don’t affect them. Any right that can be taken from one group of people can be taken from others.
They have made themselves, their loved ones, and innocent people of all genders targets of their own hatred and transphobia.
They have taken their own privacy and self-determination and made them subject to, and arbitrated by, the whim of the bigoted, prejudiced, transphobic mob to which they belong.
Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore,
And when you destroy them the ocean laughs with you.
Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent.
But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and man-made laws are not sand-towers,
But to whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with which they would carve it in their own likeness? What of the one who cannot dance who hates dancers?
What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer of the forest stray and vagrant things?
What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?
And of him who comes early to the wedding-feast, and when over-fed and tired goes his way saying that all feasts are violation and all feasters lawbreakers?
What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun?
They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.
And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?
And what is it to acknowledge their laws but to stoop down and trace their shadows upon the earth?
But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?
You who travel with the wind, what weather-vane shall direct your course?
What man’s law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man’s prison door?
What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man’s iron chains?
And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man’s path?
People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?
I am a farmer, I do grow stuff and I need writers and dancers musicians and actors and other artists because I want to know more about the world than my tiny cis male farmer experience can ever provide. So thank you for writing, I owe you one.
Your writing is just heartbreakingly beautiful. Thank you.
You're very sweet and always welcome.
Excellently written CD.
Given the deluge of anti trans, and more broadly, anti queer legislation in last few years, we are not the ones asking the cis society to pee in a box outside. Moreover, it comes down to this concept:
I do not need someone to fight my battles for me, I am capable and committed to my own fight for my own liberty.
All I NEED from the cis society is, for them to Not Ban my rights to autonomy, and Not Erase my individual freedoms and choices.
Another thing they don’t realize is that these laws have already taken rights away from them. Namely, the right to go privately about their lives and business in the public sphere. No
I don’t understand how most cis people think that trans issues don’t affect them. Any right that can be taken from one group of people can be taken from others.
They have made themselves, their loved ones, and innocent people of all genders targets of their own hatred and transphobia.
They have taken their own privacy and self-determination and made them subject to, and arbitrated by, the whim of the bigoted, prejudiced, transphobic mob to which they belong.
Madness.
Then a lawyer said, But what of our Laws, master?
And he answered:
You delight in laying down laws,
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore,
And when you destroy them the ocean laughs with you.
Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent.
But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and man-made laws are not sand-towers,
But to whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with which they would carve it in their own likeness? What of the one who cannot dance who hates dancers?
What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer of the forest stray and vagrant things?
What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?
And of him who comes early to the wedding-feast, and when over-fed and tired goes his way saying that all feasts are violation and all feasters lawbreakers?
What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun?
They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.
And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?
And what is it to acknowledge their laws but to stoop down and trace their shadows upon the earth?
But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?
You who travel with the wind, what weather-vane shall direct your course?
What man’s law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man’s prison door?
What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man’s iron chains?
And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man’s path?
People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?
Crip Dyke: your writing is as important as farming! Believe it. And Kahlil Gibran got it right (again!). Thank you for this offering....