A Clockwork Heart

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here is an awesome new metaphor for being transgender.  It also works pretty well for being queer, transracial, species dysphoric, polyamorous, or other situations where your innate nature clashes with other people's major expectations so badly that it does damage.

Comments

[thnidu]

Oh MY yes!

(Typed while trying to keep the cat, and the remains of the roast beef sandwich and buttered broccoli, separate.)

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Oh MY yes!<<

That was my reaction.

Yeah, I know the contents don't match the packaging. It's also the wrong size, wrong color, wrong species, I could go on but you get the idea. I'm a shapeshifter; I may not be thrilled with it, but I can cope and these are not life-wrecking mismatches for me. You will all just have to put up with the fact that I laugh at the Three Stooges, my version of Moses is a black woman, and when I'm excited my tail wags my butt because my spinal column is a foot too short.

People often stop harassing me just to shut up my explanations. Because once I start really moving around, it tends to knock some of their blocks loose and they find that very uncomfortable.

>>(Typed while trying to keep the cat, and the remains of the roast beef sandwich and buttered broccoli, separate.)<<

LOL good luck with that.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Hoping that the sandwich and broccoli achieved their destiny for greatness, becoming part of you.

[redsixwing]

Ooh. That hurts really good. orz

*sigh*

[ng_moonmoth]

(from the link)

>> you start rebuilding your box to fit <<

...which only works OK as long as the box that fits isn't upsetting in its own right. If even showing other people the box is enough to get them to stomp the box and the heart inside into a wreck without even opening it, the stress of having a box that fits is (sometimes much) greater than the stress of keeping a heart in a box it doesn't fit.

This is where I am right now. For pretty much all my life, I have been very reluctant to show my heart to anyone, keeping it inside a box it doesn't fit well, but thereby keeping it intact. That way it will serve as a model in a future time when I can help design and build a box it does fit into and won't prompt destruction by its very existence.

The world is changing. I now feel that I can explore box designs, trying to work out one that will be a less stressful fit for my heart and not be too dangerous to show. It's challenging, but if I can figure out how to do it right, the people I can show my heart to will be the ones who ask to see it.

Re: *sigh*

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>...which only works OK as long as the box that fits isn't upsetting in its own right. If even showing other people the box is enough to get them to stomp the box and the heart inside into a wreck without even opening it, the stress of having a box that fits is (sometimes much) greater than the stress of keeping a heart in a box it doesn't fit.<<

This is true.

>>This is where I am right now. For pretty much all my life, I have been very reluctant to show my heart to anyone, keeping it inside a box it doesn't fit well, but thereby keeping it intact. That way it will serve as a model in a future time when I can help design and build a box it does fit into and won't prompt destruction by its very existence.<<

For me, I don't see any value in trying to reshape the box. I mean if it were just one thing and the process were easy, maybe. But it's everything. I mean people who get a look inside are all "What the fuck even IS that?" Well, most of it isn't even IN the box. The box just contains sort of a subset of parts. So yeah, I learned to keep it shut or preferably away from people who are shallow idiots. Because otherwise I scare them and they piss me off and then I wind up going "Nice little reality tunnel you have there, shame if anything were to happen to it" and that just gets unpleasant.

The fact that I don't feel compelled to reshape the box and it doesn't wreck my life doesn't mean they actually match. I'm a shapeshifter at heart. The fact that I'm morphlocked doesn't change that. It makes me flexible in some very unexpected places, is all.

>> The world is changing. I now feel that I can explore box designs, trying to work out one that will be a less stressful fit for my heart and not be too dangerous to show.<<

Yay for exploring designs!

>> It's challenging, but if I can figure out how to do it right, the people I can show my heart to will be the ones who ask to see it.<<

And I looked inside, and there was sky-iron and jewels of green and starfire.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Think outside the box.

I feel a better metaphor is another kind of box. You're inside a Windows PC but you're running Apple OS, or inside an Apple computer running a Windows OS, and people tell you to change the machine you're in, but you only have one computer, and even if you had another, the technology to swap hard drives does not yet exist. And maybe you like being an Apple in a PC or vice versa, who knows? Or maybe you dual boot Windows *and* Apple OS? Hell, maybe you triple boot Windows, Apple OS, and Linux, or you have one OS but you run virtual machines in other OSes. Maybe those virtual machines help you fake being the right OS, but anyone looking close enough could tell the difference. And then you get viruses for one OS and the IP guy won't help treat them because you're using the wrong OS, but you can't help what OS you are.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I've heard the OS metaphor before, and really like it.

And some of us are, well, you know how geeks make regular programs and get bored and consume waaayyy too much caffeine and donuts and the next thing you know the toaster is dancing and singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer weiner!" We were coded like that, at 3 AM, and there is no user manual. So deal.

Also don't push the red button. It has a plastic cover taped over it for a reason.

Re: Yes...

[zeeth_kyrah]

I'd be willing to push the red button anyway, but then I'm also the sort to figure out what it does first.

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

That's the verbal tac nuke. It is a life-wrecking strike that can do collateral damage. Hence the safety cover, to be removed only on occasions when someone's behavior genuinely warrants that level of appropriate force. Of course, if someone pries it off, then the karma's on them.