Salute to Misfile (and all my favorite comic strips)

Tags

Andy Capp, anti-coagulant, B.C., Batson D. Belfry, Bill Watterson, blood clot, Calvin & Hobbes, Canada, cartoons, Charles Schulz, Charlie Brown, Chris Hazelton, classic comic, comic strips, David Willis, Dilbert, Dumbing of Age, estrogen, fallen angel, father, For Better or Worse, FoxTrot, Garfield, Greg Evans, GRS, heart attack, heaven, Hell High, Indiana University, Johnny Hart, JumpStart, Luann, Lynn Johnston, Misfile, MTF, Murder, One Big Happy, Peanuts, risk, Robb Armstrong, Rose is Rose, Scott Adams, Shoe, Snoopy, TDOR, Transgender, Transition, transphobia, Transsexual, Wizard of Id

Lois Lane – my cartoon alter ego

Sometimes people ask me what I do for fun. One of the things I do is read comic strips. My selection of comic strips provides me with everything from a good belly laugh to insight about life, to a look at today’s world with a healthy degree of separation from the news media and today’s divisive rhetoric, to enable me to find a way to laugh at myself when needed. And in today’s world, laughter is needed more than ever.

There are a handful of strips that I read daily. Some are the same as will be found in the daily newspaper (as long as newspapers will continue to exist). One is a comic that used to appear in newspapers daily but now only on Sunday. A few of them are classic comic reprints.

I also read two web-based comic strips. Since they require going to separate websites and they are based on ongoing arcs, I prefer to read those once a week.

Chris Hazelton

One of those web comics, Misfile, ended its run recently. The author of the strip is Chris Hazelton. The basic story line is that an angel in heaven’s filing room screws up (as is his tendency), but really big time this time. His error causes one teen girl at a high school in NW Massachusetts to lose two years of her life and go from a senior on the brink of graduation to sophomore. The error also causes another sophomore to suddenly be physically transformed overnight from male to female. They are the only ones aware of the changes. Everyone else in their life has had their memories transformed so they only know this new reality. Somehow these two teens find each other and are joined by the screw up angel and a cast of other heavenly host characters and unwitting earthbound characters in the attempt to restore the original history and all the conflicts that brings.

Chris has started a new web comic called “Hell High” that seems to be based on the same universe, perhaps the result of what appeared to be the solution to the dilemma faced by the key characters in Misfile. I have just started reading it and will give it a month or two to see if it holds my interest.

Ash (Misfile)

Misfile premiered online on February 23, 2004 (I had a lot of catching up to do when I found it). On November 20, 2014, Chris revealed part of the inspiration for the main character who is transformed from male to female and frequently struggles with being in the wrong body. Chris’s father, one of his earliest fans of the comic, was a male to female transsexual who transitioned prior to the inception of Misfile. (I am identifying her the way that Chris does.)

http://www.misfile.com/?date=2014-11-20

In 2007, Chris’s father died. She developed a blood clot that led to a fatal heart attack. It is believed that the cause was the estrogen that she was taking as part of her transition. It was the worth the risk to her.

Doppler ultrasound to detect blood clot

It is also worth the risk to me. I suffered from a blood clot around the time that I had my GRS. I believe that it was a result of the combination of a trauma to my ankle and the changes in medication that were necessitated by surgery (removing anti-coagulants from my normal dosage, although also removing estrogen, except for a shot of Heparin while in post-op). I was taken off of estrogen and put on a strong anti-coagulant (Xarelto) for about 4 months. I began to suffer from curling fingers and loss of shoulder mobility and the symptoms were getting worse. To restore quality of life, I stopped the Xarelto and resumed estrogen. To minimize the risks I switched from sublingual to topical estrogen, take only half the dose that was originally prescribed (blood tests are showing high enough estrogen levels to justify the change) and faithfully take a baby aspirin a day (or more if I have a headache or body aches that day).

The date in which Chris made the reveal is significant. He did so on the official day to observe the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR). It is the day when we remember those who died in the past year because of their transgender identity (real or perceived) or alliance, whether through murder or lack of medical care. When my health allows, I participate in TDOR ceremonies locally and spoke at one a few years ago.

The TDOR ceremonies are quite moving. Even one person who dies this way is too many. In the United States, some twenty to thirty people die in this way. Around the world the number is approaching four hundred that are reported. The number is likely higher than that. Some are not reported because the family of the victim hides the facts.  In other cases, the police or the government hides the information. Russia and the People’s Republic of China are two of the larger countries that do not report this information.

Some deaths are caused by hatred towards gender variance even when the victim does not identify as transgender. In some especially heart-wrenching cases, the person doesn’t get a chance to identify. The saddest (and they are all sad) murder I have read about happened nine years ago. A sixteen month old toddler was playing with his mother’s clothes. The mother’s boyfriend (not the baby’s father) told police that he struck the child several times with his closed fist, “trying to make him act like a boy instead of a little girl.”

To end on a lighter note, here are the other comics I read regularly:

Andy Capp – The title character is a lovable layabout who is a perpetual beneficiary of the British social welfare system, his long-suffering wife and any friend he can sponge off of. I get my dose of British humor and slang. Andy is either cadging beer or ale at a local pub (and getting drunk), cheating at cards, darts or snooker (presumably to get some money as well as massaging his pride).

B.C. – One of two Johnny Hart originated comics I read, it delightfully morphs modern times and the stone age, but without the Honeymooners parallel that The Flintstones had. Some strips feature early homo sapiens, some feature critters (both extant and extinct), some strips combine the two.

Calvin & Hobbes (classic) – One of the most brilliant of all comic strips, Calvin’s adventures and insights stem from him being super-intelligent and very bored. At the same time we often see his vulnerability. His best friend relationship with his toy stuffed tiger, Hobbes, reveals a lot about Calvin. Hobbes only becomes animated when alone with Calvin. Calvin has a vivid imagination, but sometimes it seems like something more must be going on.

Dilbert (w/ Dogbert)

Dilbert – The inanity of the modern world as seen through the everyday life of a dysfunctional, fictional tech company. The title character exhibits the highest degree of job skill competence while dealing with the frustrations of being inept at climbing the corporate ladder and being socially clueless (sometimes because of his own intelligence combined with lack of tact).

Dumbing of Age (web comic) – Indiana University is the locale for this look at modern college life using characters brought forward from earlier strips in the same universe in shuffled roles. Many, but not all, characters are LGBT, including at least one T in the closet. One of the main characters, Joyce, finds her rigidly fundamentalist and legalistic Christian beliefs challenged on a regular basis. Her challenge is to continue to love her new friends (and one close friend from high school) even though some worship differently, some are atheist, some are in same sex relationships, some have vastly different scientific beliefs and some simply aren’t very lovable. Joyce’s world often gets turned upside down but she manages to bounce back up and hold onto her belief that through faith and her good works, she can help the people she cares about live happily ever after.

cartoon self-portrait of the author of “For Better or Worse”

For Better or Worse (classic) – Family life north of the border, it is loosely autobiographical. Over time the characters age and the family grows. Although these strips are reruns, here and there the author updates them. On gocomics.com, the comments section will include the author’s remarks about how something similar happened to her in real life. Canada isn’t that different from the U.S., especially since hockey is becoming more common here, and it can be just as funny.

FoxTrot (Sunday only) – Family trials and tribulations with mom, dad, two painfully average teens and a preteen brother who is a genius. Of course, this means the youngest is also a nerd. The strip ran seven days a week from its inception in April 1988 until the end of 2006 and classic versions of those strips are available online, but I am only reading current strips.

Garfield

Garfield – With apologies to Heathcliff fans, Garfield is the only comic strip cat for me (with occasional cameos by Arlene and Nermal). Supporting characters including a lovable pet dog (Odie) who barks but otherwise has only spoken once in a thought bubble (other animals in the strip speak regularly that way), a nerdy owner (Jon) of Garfield and Odie, and a veterinarian (Liz) who eventually became romantically involved with Jon despite his clumsiness (physically and socially) and lack of fashion sense.

JumpStart – The life of Joe the Philadelphia police officer, his wife Marcy, a nurse with a rising career, and their four adorable children: daughter Sunny an ecology maven, son Jo-Jo a budding politician and martial artist wannabe, and adorable infant twins Tammi and Tommy whose thought bubbles alone are worth the read. While the characters are diverse, the cartoonist and the family are one of the few successful ones in the industry that are black.

Luann

Luann – The life of an awkward young girl who is slowly growing into a young woman (aging, but in cartoon time).  Many story arcs focus on her family (but rarely her parents) and friends rather than Luann. Some of her public school friends have departed and were replaced by new friends now that she is in college. This is the most popular current strip that I read. It is as close as I have come to having insight into the life of a teenage girl.

One Big Happy (new comics but on time delay in gocomics.com) – An extended family who live next door to each other (grandparents, parents and children), they are Italian except for the mother. While all are featured, as well as some friends and neighbors of all ages, the central character of the strip is Ruthie, the youngest child, six going on fifty, who is super-smart, super-confident, and doesn’t let her lack of experience knowledge gaps get in the way of her mouth. In short, she is a pip! (I identify with the confidence Ruthie has, which I had before gender issues kicked in.)

Peanuts (classic) – Perhaps the best known comic strip of all time, all kids all the time, and a few anthropomorphic animals with starring or supporting roles. Charles Schulz stipulated that no one else would ever do the strip after his death (unlike other strips that have had successors). In Snoopy, he may have created the most lovable cartoon character of all time.

Rose is Rose – The strips about the nuclear family of romantic couple Rose and Jimbo and their adorable son Pasquale are great. The ones about the other characters and the anthropomorphic animals, not so much. I think the difference with the animals is that most of them are drawn realistically (unlike Schulz whose animals were caricatures) but are doing things that are not what an animal would do and not believable. This is the comic strip that I debate dropping from time to time, but the nuclear family brings me back.

Sen. Batson D. Belfry

Shoe – All anthropomorphic birds all the time, the title character is a sarcastic, given to anger, newspaper editor. Similar to Pogo, the strip often brings up the current state of politics (especially with Sen. Batson D. Belfry) with humor making it more palatable. The strip started in 1977 and after Watergate and the onset of economic malaise, it helped me think of politics and still be able to smile again. It is needed more than ever now.

Wizard of Id – The other Johnny Hart originated strip I read, this one conflates modern society with medieval times. In addition to the Wizard, the strip features a little king who is not at all benevolent. a troop of incompetent knights and a host of rabble citizenry (plus constantly attacking Huns who should have overrun Id by now).

And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven. In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight. – Luke 10:17-21

God bless,

Lois

A Dream Deferred … or Worse

Tags

1965, Bethlehem, birth of Jesus, Blacks, Canada, Charlie Brown, Christ, Christians, Christmas, city of David, deferred, denied, discrimination, Dodger Stadium, Dodgers, dreams, Duke Snider, Frontline, Gender Dysphoria, ghetto, God, Growing Up Trans, hatred, Holy Spirit, hope, hopelessness, Isaiah 9, Jackie Robinson, Jews, John Roseboro, Langston Hughes, Light in darkness, Linus, Los Angeles, Luke 2:8-14, Maury Wills, Messianic prophesy, Ontario, parents, Paul McHugh, PBS, Proverbs 13:12, research, social science, study, suicide, supportive, TDOR, throne of David, trans masculine, Transgender, Transition, violence, Watts riots, Willie Crawford, World Championship, youth

This is my 100^th post.  Thank you for your encouragement.

This is a story that begins about fifty years ago, jumps to the present and finishes with events many centuries ago.

When I was in college, majoring in government, it was a few years after the Watts riots.  As a 12 year old in 1965, all I knew about the riots was that black people had begun to react to the discrimination they experienced with violence: looting and burning commercial buildings, shooting at firemen trying to put out the flames.  And I knew that there were times when the smoke was visible about 8 miles due north at Dodger Stadium.  At times, the smoke moved over the stadium and the smell hung over the ballpark.  When the games were played during the riots, attendance suffered in the midst of a tight pennant race.  Fans were offered rain checks in case they were too afraid to attend the home games that week.

It was an event that took away some of the luster of the Dodgers World Championship season, although when you are 12, you try to focus on the game and team you love.  These players were my heroes.  It didn’t matter what color they were.  After Duke Snider was sold to the Mets and then retired, my favorite player was Maury Wills.  I was prejudiced … in favor of the “little” players.  (Wills is black.)

It affected the team directly as well.  Willie Crawford, still a teenager, was a young black player from the curfew area who had signed for a $100,000 bonus the previous year when he graduated from high school.  He was mistakenly arrested, one of the 4000 people arrested during the week-long rioting.  Catcher John Roseboro spent a night sitting on the front stoop of his house with a gun, when protestors marched past his house.  Although very few residences were targeted, it was a tense and volatile time and no one could be sure what would happen.

Some black players drove to and from the park in their uniforms, hoping it would spare them problems from rioters and police.  Some had routes to the park that took them through the affected area.  Some white team members watched National Guardsmen patrolling in their neighborhood.

Former Dodger Jackie Robinson offered this assessment of the cause of the riots:

“Riots do not happen because … a crowd seeks to restrain an officer from making an arrest.  Riots begin with the hopelessness which lives in the hearts of a people who, from childhood, expect to live in rundown houses, to be raised by one parent, to be denied proper recreation, to attend an inferior school, to experience police brutality, to be turned down when seeking a decent job.”

By the time Robinson passed away in October 1972, social scientists had refined their understanding of the riots.  While the riots started in Watts and its name was attached to them, they spread beyond the 4 square miles of Watts into other black impoverished neighborhoods, about 50 square miles in all.  Researchers expected that the instigation of the riots came from the very worst areas.  They were wrong. The primary fomenters of the riots came from the edge of the black ghetto.  The explanation offered was that those in the very worst areas were so affected with hopelessness, there was no incentive to initiate action.  (This does not mean that they didn’t participate once the riots started.)

The neighborhoods along the edge were somewhat better.  But they were still inside and that last leap out of the ghetto to the more affluent white neighborhoods a short distance away seemed to be always just out of reach.  Looking back at riots two months later, the Los Angeles Times interviewed a 46-year-old black father of six, and quoted him saying, “If I ever made enough money, I would move out of Watts like all the other big shots. So I’m here, so what the hell. Los Angeles isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Wherever you go, you’re black – that’s all there is to it.”

Over forty years since college, I still remember that lesson learned about riots being fueled by a combination of hopelessness and the prize always just out of reach.  It was a lesson that came back to me when I heard the 300 names read at TDOR last month.  Something different caught my eye.  Acknowledging that it is too soon to show a trend, I still searched for an explanation.  It was the lesson of Watts that came back to me.

At the TDOR where I spoke in November, the program committee has adopted a broad definition as to which transgender people and allies to honor and remember as “victims of hate, intolerance, ignorance and prejudice during the past year.”  Therefore, we have been including the names of those who were bullied and harassed into committing suicide.  This year, the number of suicides, the majority of which occurred in the United States, seemed higher this year.  Especially notable was the number of trans masculine teens who committed suicide.  What had previous appeared to be nonexistent was now significant.  I was at once intrigued, saddened and puzzled by this development at a time we appear to be making solid progress in helping trans youth.

The next day at another TDOR event, I watched the video “Growing Up Trans” (originally aired 6 months ago on PBS’s Frontline).  While the vast majority of the parents were supportive (albeit with reasonable questions and concerns about the appropriate way to be supportive of their child), one father was resistant to helping his child transition out of sincere concern for his child’s future welfare.  This trans masculine teen was already punching holes in walls at times out of frustration.  It appeared that the documentary would end with the impasse unresolved.

But then, an unfilmed postscript was added.  A voiceover noted that this teen had been suspended from school for starting a fight.  The student he attacked had just begun taking prescription testosterone.  It was at that point that the father agreed to the let his child begin to take cross-gender hormones.

It’s not my purpose to address whether or not the father did the right thing.  I am shining a light on a level of frustration so great that it would cause an attack on one of the very people this teen should have related to the most.

This 85 minute film is still available online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/growing-up-trans/

The pieces were coming together.  One more bit of evidence that came my way soon afterwards would make things crystal clear.  There was a study done in 2012 of 433 trans youth 16-24 years old who live in Ontario, Canada.  The parents of these trans youth were categorized as either very supportive (34%), somewhat supportive (25%), or either not very or not at all supportive (42%).  By many measures of mental health and life conditions, those trans youth who saw their parents as very supportive were statistically significantly better off than those trans youth whose parents were only somewhat supportive, not very supportive or not at all supportive.

For those who prefer text to charts, the well supported trans youth were more than twice as likely to be satisfied with life (72% to 33%), approaching five times more likely to have very good or excellent mental health (70% to 15%), more than twice as likely to have very good or excellent physical health (66% to 31%), about five times as likely to have high self-esteem (64% to 13%), more than three times less likely to have symptoms of depression (23% vs 75%), about half as likely to have considered suicide in the past year (34% vs 70%) and over 14 times less likely to have attempted suicide in the past year (4% vs 57%).

Perhaps the saddest statistic of all for those whose parents offer lukewarm to no support is the finding that well supported trans youth were more than twice as likely to be living in adequate housing (100% vs 45%).  There may be no clearer statistic to show that while a young person’s view of parental support may appear subjective, adequate housing is a very objective measure of how parental support is demonstrated.  Truly supportive parents either allow their trans children to remain at home or they provide continued support for their trans children to make it through the educational system until they can begin their career and find adequate housing of their own.   Parents who provide either lukewarm or no support at all appear to be either kicking their children out of the house or driving them out with abuse (including verbal), bullying and harassment.

For those who prefer charts, I have provided them here.  (There is also some additional information in them.  It appears that those who considered suicide in the past year should also be listed as having a statistically significant difference.)

For those who want to see the full report, here is the link:

http://transpulseproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Impacts-of-Strong-Parental-Support-for-Trans-Youth-vFINAL.pdf

The survey results are part of the light that exposes the lies of Dr. Paul McHugh and others who claim that transition is ineffective in dealing with gender dysphoria and transgenderism in general.  It is diametrically opposed to their claims that the lives of those who transition are not improved by doing so.  This shows that the level of support for the transition is as significant as transition itself.

But what about the 2/3 whose parents are not strong in their support?  How do they react when they see transgender peers progressing towards life in their target gender, but their progress appears to be denied?

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. – Proverbs 13:12

Hope deferred is not hope denied, but when a person reaches the point where it appears that one’s desires will never come, heart sickness can and has become fatal.  Impatience is typical of most youth, and it magnifies hopelessness.

Many trans youth will draw hope from the success of their peers that someday it will be their turn.  Any meaningful progress will stir the fires of the optimism of youth.  But when progress is not only stalled but crushed, it is more than a dream deferred.  It becomes a dream denied.  Many years ago, mindful of his first-hand experience in a different marginalized group, Langston Hughes wrote the poem that inspired the title of this blog post, and was in turn inspired in part by Proverbs 13:12.

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

To avoid these results, especially dreams exploding inward, we need to find a way to reach those trans youth whose parents are found wanting in support.  We need to keep their hopes and dreams alive, not crushed or dried up by hate and ignorance, not rotten and diseased by those who would prey on them and steal their dream, not covered over by vacant smiles hiding a time bomb.  If necessary, each one reach one.

We leapt from fifty years ago to today.  While keeping our finger in today, we leap back in time many centuries to the prophet Isaiah.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. – Isaiah 9:2,7-8

There is a group of people who have persevered for over 2700 years to keep that hope alive through many trials, tribulations, hardships, heartaches and tears.  I am one of the members of a different group: a group whose people have hope because we believe that this prophesy was fulfilled two thousand years ago by the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  My relationship with God, the love of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit was the number one reason for the success of my transition, especially during those times when I was pretty much going it alone as far as people from my former life being supportive.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. – Luke 2:8-14

And that’s why people find hope in Christmas, Charlie Brown!

God bless,

Lois