Salute to Misfile (and all my favorite comic strips)

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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

Living Long Enough To See the Day

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Aircraft carrier, Bookends, breadwinner, butterfly, cause, children, cocoon, coffin, cold, dairy farmer, death, doctor's office, emergence, encouragement, epitaph, evil, face, family, female name, free, freedom, friend, friendship, generations, grandchildren, great grandchildren, hard work, health, heart, husky voice, Korean War, leathery skin, life journey, lifetime, live, long life, longevity, Love, military service, mind, need, new breasts, nick of time, nurse, ocean, Old Friends, person, perversion, pervert, Poetry, privacy, protection, provider, risk, salt water, sanctuary, seawater, self-worth, Senior Citizens, Simon and Garfunkel, statistic, stealth, sun, sun tan, sunblock, support, Transgender, Transition, truck driver, true identity, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, understanding, valid, waiting room, warship, weather-beaten, wind, winter, wrinkles

Based on something I recently saw: name and location omitted to protect privacy. To know how much this moved me, understand that I am one of the least poetic people on the planet, unless it is set to music. To move me to actually write poetry is astounding. Don’t expect an anthology in this century.

They sat together, backs to the waiting room wall
Two seniors, the younger on the left
The face on the right was weathered and wrinkled
Those lines hinted at a life journey

Perhaps the first lines were etched by the harsh Korean winter
Or was it from the salty sea air on an aircraft carrier?
Back home, that face greeted many a sunny day
Disdaining sunblock and protection from the wind

Dairy farmer? Truck driver?
Hard work wrought to provide for a family
Leading to one, two, even three generations more
Never getting closer to the heart’s deepest need

The nurse enters and calls out a female name
It could be Barbara or Melissa or Linda or Sue
The weathered person rises with a husky voice,
“Can my friend come in with me?”

After all she has faced in life as “him”,
She relishes her friend’s support.
“Sure,” the nurse replies. The friend smiles,
“Just kick me out when you need to.”

The faint swell of her new breasts under androgynous clothes
She disappears into the sanctuary of privacy
One more step into emergence
From a cocoon that was close to becoming a coffin

She is not a statistic, cause or evil pervert.
She is a person, a life nearing a lifetime,
Risking her aged health and the love of family
To finally live a few precious years and die as she really is:

A Woman in mind and heart.
A day she never believed she would see is here
She is Carol, Jeanette, Elaine, Nicole
She is finally free.

 

The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty;
He will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy;
He will rest in his love,
He will joy over thee with singing.
– Zephaniah 3:17

God bless,

Lois

Comparing Christianity and Transsexuality

Tags

born again, born transsexual, Christ, Christian, Christian identity, Christian salvation, Christianity, deathbed conversion, gender discrimination, God, Jesus, John, John 3, Kingdom of God, Martin Niemöller, martyr, new creature in Christ, Nicodemus, persecution, Pharisee, religious discrimination, risk, salvation testimony, TDOR, Transgender, Transition, Transsexual, transsexual identity, Voice of the Martyrs

I apologize for the long delay before this post.  I was partially done with it weeks ago.  Then we started to get snow, and my tax clients started to make appointments and send me their information (they seem to be contacting me sooner this year than last, which is good in the long run), then there was more snow to shovel and then a touch of the flu and then, for good measure, more snow. I am told that my area has had about 3½ times its normal average snowfall for the year, and we still have nearly two months when we could get significant snow.  And now, the long awaited post:

In my previous post (Importance of Christian Unity on 2/3/14), I discussed Christ’s prayer and desire for unity in the church.  I made the claim that unity springs forth from loving one another.  And I quoted two of many Bible verses that command brothers and sisters in the church to love one another.  Human nature being what it is, love is most likely to develop when we first see what we have in common with someone else.

There are some Christians and transsexuals who would be aghast at the idea that they have anything in common other than being part of humanity.  That very division, that so many of them would see each other as being on opposite sides, is a major reason why I started this blog.  Therefore this post will focus on what the two groups have in common.  Having found a way that both are able to co-exist in me without conflict, I am in an advantageous position to see and discuss the commonalities.

Perhaps the single largest area of agreement within the transsexual community is that we are real, our condition is not a figment of our imagination or a delusion. However, in terms of interests, beliefs, talents, occupations, ethnic background and so on, we mirror the spectrum of these things in the cisgender world.  And just as in the cisgender world, there are wonderful transsexuals, there are some who at the lower end of the moral spectrum and many in between.  What we have in common is that we believe that it is possible for people to be born with body of one gender and the mind of the other gender, because we have experienced it first-hand.  It cannot be changed and persisting in the attempt to do so is dangerous to the mental health and wellbeing of a transsexual.  This is what gives us our identity.

Identity is the first significant connection between Christians and transsexuals.  It is the fact that both are identities, not that there is much in common about those identities.  Just as there is a wide range of personalities, lifestyles, quality and beliefs among transsexuals, Christians are also associated with a very big tent.  Christians can be found among every defined race, almost every if not all ethnic groups, from the very poor to the very wealthy, throughout the functional IQ range, from conservative to liberal (whether related to theology, politics in general or any particular issue).  I have met or know the testimony of Christians who were born into families that were Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic, atheist, new age and so on.

In fact, one of the basic tenets of Christianity is that you cannot be born a Christian from your mother’s womb.  In contrast, the only way a person is truly transsexual is to be that way from your physical birth.  You cannot become a transsexual.  And despite those who think we choose this path, that is impossible.  Unfortunately, because I and so many transsexuals of my generation felt the need to repress and deny our true identity, it can appear that we are making a mid-life change that came out of nowhere.  But if we are truly transsexual, that change came from deep within us, from a knowledge that we became aware of in childhood.

And yet, both identities come from birth.  In the case of Christians, however, that birth is spiritual, not physical.

There once was a man named Nicodemus.  He was a Pharisee, one of the Jewish religious rulers, and he was an adult contemporary of Jesus.  Unlike most of the Pharisees, he acknowledged that the miracles that Jesus performed were evidence that He came from God.  Nicodemus wanted to know more about Jesus, but for fear of the other Pharisees’ censure, he visited Jesus at night.  When Nicodemus greeted Jesus, here is part of the dialogue that ensued:

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.  Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?  Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. – John 3:3-7

Unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God; he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  One must be born again to become a child of God, adopted into sonship as a joint heir with Christ.  This is what makes someone a Christian.  There is absolutely no wiggle room on this point.

The sad irony is that some of the same Christians who whole-heartedly embrace the fact that a person can make such a drastic mid-life spiritual change from fairly early in childhood to an elderly person’s last few breaths, refuse to understand and accept all the growing evidence that transsexuals are born this way, cannot change it, and have every right to make a mid-life transition to their true gender identity.

You will not find anyone who loves to hear a Christian salvation testimony more than I do.  For over twenty years, I was a member of a ministry whose sole purpose was to bring the Gospel to the nations so that the power of the Holy Spirit combined with God’s Word could save men, women, boys and girls.  We delighted to hear testimonies of how God used our ministry as part of His salvation process in a person’s life.  It was a great encouragement to us to continue in the work.

Far be it from me that I should question any person’s salvation testimony.  God knows their heart and it is not my place to judge.  And especially in the case of a deathbed conversion, I would always side on the side of hope, for the sake of that person’s loved ones if nothing else.  And yet from a dispassionate point of view, which is more questionable, a deathbed conversion where the dying person has nothing to lose and no chance to demonstrate the authenticity of their conversion (and no chance to fall away), or a mid-life transition in which a person may risk some or all of the following: the love of family members, the loyalty of friends, career, status, finances, position in their community, and health?

I am not saying that I doubt the deathbed conversions, but that there is even stronger evidence to believe those people who have risked so much to transition.  When you add in the fact that most transsexuals have been vetted by a gatekeeper and the vast majority have demonstrated a successful, satisfying life in their “target” (i.e., authentic) gender, there had to be something very powerful and real to bring a person to the point where they risk all to take the path of transition.  Indeed, it is very similar to how James and John and Simon Peter and Andrew walked away from successful fishing enterprises (James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are recorded as having servants or employees), and Matthew and Zacchaeus walked away from lucrative (albeit despised) positions as tax collectors.

Why am I so quick to accept any salvation testimony?  Because I have experienced it myself.  I know first-hand what an amazing, life-changing, spiritual event it is.  And rightly so should it be called “born again”, because it is a spiritual rebirth: one who was spiritually dead is now alive.  “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2^nd Corinthians 5:17)

Having been born transsexual and born again a Christian, I can testify to two things: the first survived the second and neither one can be changed.  And if either of them could be successfully changed, then that identity wasn’t true about me at all.  Whether it was wishful thinking or a delusion or whatever it might have been, it wouldn’t be real.

At this point it must be noted that many of those who are born again do risk a great deal to make it known publically that they are now Christian.  And this leads us to the second major connection shared by Christians and transsexuals: our experience in living out our new public identity.  Here, the commonality runs deeper.  There are many places in the world where it can be dangerous to be known as a transsexual.  And there are many places in the world where it can be dangerous to be known as a Christian.  There are some countries where Christians are a small minority that if a member of the majority religion converts to Christianity, both the person converting and the person accused as the instrument of that conversion are guilty of a crime punishable by death.

If we visit websites such as persecution.org (Voice of the Martyrs) and transgenderdor.org (Transgender Day of Remembrance), the stories are similar.  People are murdered for being Christian.  People are murdered for being transgender.  Sometimes it is official policy, sometimes death sentences are handed down by a court, sometimes it is mob action and sometimes it is the result of hatred by an individual or a few.  In every case, it is reprehensible.  To take our understanding of the common experience a step further, there are some countries where it would be a tossup as to who is more undesirable, Christians or transgenders.

In addition to murder, members of each group also face official and unofficial discrimination in many places.  At any time, both Christians and transgenders around the world face the real possibility of long term imprisonment, torture, beatings, loss of job, loss of one’s business, loss of property, even loss of their own home.  Christian churches and meetings are attacked; so are LGBT rights’ offices and demonstrations.

German pastor, Martin Niemöller, spoke or put into print a number of variations of his oft-quoted poem.  According to a 1971 interview, this was his favorite version of his self-indictment for his failure to speak out against the Nazis:

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

I pray that someday, more Christians and transgenders will speak up for each other.

God bless,

Lois

Related articles

• The Transsexual Character
• John 02:23-03:15 You Must Be Born Again