Oh Reddit, just a picture of a man who looks feminine can so quickly devolve into an orgy of downvotes, privilege mongering, lecturing, transphobia, and offense. Yay 2014! Seriously, I’m pretty well adjusted considering how much I have to see people like me treated as garbage all the time. What other minority than trans women get to be painted as psychopaths, serial killers, freaks, weirdos and disgusting with a straight face in modern society? Well yeah, there are other groups that get shit on, but our lot is pretty bad.

I’m too fat
I’m too tall
I’m too butch
so I fall
I’ve got lipstick
but this stick
is in my ego
maybe mistrust
laced with disgust
up to my bust
is the must fuss
for the loud sluts
in the moneyed huts
of the yuppie crust
bring the pitch fork
to the queen dork
I’ll remember
back to New York
when a cold hark
from a cop’s bark
was the first shot
in the long war
for the trans us

Actually, I just don’t want to shave. I’m lazy.

I am a valuable person, but it’s hard to feel valued in my life. I can’t really get any help from people because I’m pretty much a weirdo. I burn bridges because I’m well dumb and emotional, but I usually have this feeling that someone else started the fire and just didn’t want to know me.

I’m good at art. But no one wants to buy my art. Most young people are pretty broke, and the arts come last I suppose. It sucks having your top demographic be so poor.

Anyway, I’ve been writing a ton of music. I have an EP out called Millennial Me, but I’m moving way beyond that sound now. I’m trying to craft songs on a much higher level now.

My name is Toria. I’m a struggling musician with mental health problems including Cyclothymia and Major Depression who is trying to make something of herself. Being trans, clinically depressed, and having been attacked with emotional trauma for coming out is a lot to handle.

I’m just trying to make it day to day.

Music is my savior. It is my drug. I’m so addicted to it.

I’m lonely.

Hey friends listen up! I have a new project, and I want to make it a total killer. I’m going to be doing a kickstarter campaign, and I need your help!!

So two things that are really suffering in America are the arts and transgender children. Well I want to kill two birds with one stone. Well help two birds anyway :D.

I want to finance my next album for Europa Sunset, and I’m going to donate a portion of the proceeds to a charity that is really making a difference for young transgender and gender non-conforming people. We have to bring down the suicide rate! It’s something very near and dear to my heart, and I can’t just sit by.

I write music to try and help people that are struggling in this world, and I want to take my music to an even bigger audience.

So, I need to know what are some great charities that are helping trans people out. Can you drop me a message here on Tumblr or to my email at ToriaSaintJames@gmail.com?

Thanks so much! Let’s do this!

I need my testosterone. It’s very motivating. I should get it today. Otherwise I’m a depressed blob. Gotta balance that estrogen.

Who said I can’t be cis level sexy just because I’m trans? Fuck that loud noise. Pull that shit’s power cord out. You can be sexier than any woman on the planet if you’re trans. No fucking doubt about it. You can use surgery or not; it doesn’t matter. You are beautiful, and you are brave, and that can make all the difference.

Oh and you get to be smart while you’re doing it too.

So if you’re transgender or queer or disabled or different in a statistically significant way, you probably have some armor on, or you have in the past. I did. I was bullied, ridiculed, harassed, demeaned, and belittled all because I wanted to wear some different clothes and emote a little differently. What a drag!!

Well, I’m well into my thirties, and I just joined the 41 club. What’s the 41 club? Well, the popular statistic found by The National Transgender Discrimination Survey says that 41% of transgender identifying people attempt suicide in their lifetimes. What?! Yep. Almost half. And I’m about a week out of my dance with the devil. 

Now, I might sound rather cavalier about the fact that I just attempted suicide, but the fact is that I had been thinking about it for a long time. Being transgender has colored my experience so darkly that I got a tattoo of a “Scarlet T” on my shoulder to prove it. I basically was saying “look I know I’m trans, and you think I’m a freak, but I love me! So suck it!” Anyway, so here I am trying to start over, again…

Being transgender means being a pariah. What is a pariah? Dictionary.com defines it as “an outcast or any person or animal that is generally despised or avoided.” We know what it means to be always ready to have to hit the streets and move on. We know the drill. We get it. We’re the problem, and you have the answer.

Well, I’m tired of being an outcast. I’m tired of being rejected. I see the world a little differently, yes, but I’m human. I’m not sorry that I’ve also used drugs and seen the light. You know who else uses drugs? Everyone! Every finger wagging motherfucker in this country is on some kind of drug, and if they aren’t on drugs, they’re on food. Food is a drug. Fast Food is a good drug.

I’ve taken better drugs than the idiots who thump the books, and I’ve also read better books. I’m not afraid of you anymore. I’m not a “druggie;” I’m a citizen. I fucking know how to use a semi-colon and write a pop-rock song for fucks sake. I can handle society. People who smoke weed or drop acid or do any other kind of psychedelic are not the problem. They are part of the answer. Humans have been using psychedelic drugs longer than your books have been around from the Bible to the Bhagavad Gita.

Also, someone born with male genitalia who wants to wear a dress or a skirt is not the problem. Again, transgender people are part of the solution. It’s just clothing. Society is so obsessed with uniform that it makes you think that The Planet of the Apes society was actually more advanced than our shaven ape society. It’s just clothing. Grow up already people. We’re all stuck here on this rock, and we have to get over this stuff.

So I’m gonna be me. I’m gonna walk, yell, scream, parade, and proselytize the good word to everyone I meet. We’re here. We’re queer. We’re not a degenerate cabal bent on world domination. Get over it!

p.s. if anyone knows who runs the transgender degenerate cabal bent on world destruction, could you forward me their email? I can’t get a job, and it’s getting pretty lame since I have all these magic, converting powers and all…