BirdSong

After the convening of the birds, a gentle rain. As if the feathered ones called these drops to bless the space following their righteous, insistent chorus. Where have they flown? The next point on their journey to warmer lands for winter? A drop-by at another convening? I know not those answers, though do know this moment following their music, this gap filled with slight sound from other sources. This loud quiet. 

I miss the chorus though ponder this quiet while awaiting the next recital by a different chorus of birds to begin. This span when the resounding echo of the bird song drops in, drops down. Settles into my BEing.

The birds teach me how to draw from the quiet of my life lived. All that I carry that longs to be told. The raw material of what I have seen, heard, felt, tasted. That which I know. Postcards from the road. So many roads. Stories longing to leap from heart to page to voice to ear to…

the heart of another.

I ask so many times, over and over, “How shall I serve?” Differing ways at differing times. Circumstances create the mode and method. So now? How to serve now? The message rings back the same, over and over. Serve from the loud quiet of my life. 

Today is November 20, 2024. International Transgender Day of Remembrance. My spouse and I honor our 25th wedding anniversary today. The human-made gender boxes named us male and female on our wedding day and onward through the years. Until another November—this one in 2020—when, in the darkest days of global pandemic, both of our mother’s dying—not from COVID but other maladies—and while separated by thousands of miles as we walked with our moms in care to their ultimate deaths. Yes. That’s the November we stepped into the new boxes of SHE and SHE.

I’ve written and spoken our origin story. How we met, fell in love at first site and married within the year. I’ve written and spoken our second origin story when my spouse awakened unexpectedly to a deeply suppressed sense of gender dysphoria and embarked upon male to female transition. Some of those postcards reside here. One called “Rising From the Mud.” Another titled “We Lived Our Lives.”

And we both share from our ongoing path in the media, in supportive circles, one to one. A recent media appearance was unlike the others. The invitation came from one of our regional news stations (WTAE). The anchor woman Michelle Wright, really wanted to open the doorway to a conversation. The kind of conversation that can illuminate, teach and lead to understanding. Her producer, Nick Matoney, welcomed this and us. A half hour edited down from our talk which was much longer than that, isn’t time enough to bring all the many layers of this complex human occurrence forward, yet it serves exactly as she intended…as a start. 

Regional news programming reaches beyond like-minded silos to a broad community of viewers. And that’s exactly where the seeds of change deserve and, quite frankly, are called to be offered up. Watch it here:

https://www.wtae.com/article/local-love-story-4-the-record-speaks-with-adrienne-wehr-and-jessika-janene/62839004

When upwards of $215 million dollars were spent by Republicans in anti-transgender advertising during the 2024 presidential campaign, targeting a most vulnerable group of Americans that comprises just slightly over 1% of our entire population, let us ask…WHY? 

And that target broadens to include the parents, partners, families, friends, other loved ones and supporters of transgender individuals. My spouse is among the targeted. I am among the targeted. Our family and friends are among the targeted. The entire trans community within this country and those who stand in solidarity with the trans community…targeted. Despair amplified by fear pushes hard like a relentless weight towards its intention of silence and disappearance. And our community is but one among far too many targeted by the broken nature of the souls who bring their delusional wrath. Yet it is the one I know for being member of it. So hear me when I sing out that sharing from the loud quiet of my life, in this current climate of egregious and wholly unwarranted cruelty, is exactly how I intend to serve, much like that righteous, insistent chorus of birds who sang me into this song today.

Then I took pause, just like the birds do.

November 21, 2024

International Transgender Day of Remembrance hits hard on the level of the soul. Weighs heavy within the heart. I really needed to sit with the swirl of difficult emotions that arose before completing this offering and setting it sail. I also needed to sit with my spouse Jessika Janene whose deep grief around trans lives lost and threatened, which is what the day of Remembrance is all about, was only compounded by the hysterics of the political theatre that our current Congress is playing in, aimed at newly elected Representative Sandra McBride of Delaware who just made history as the first openly transgender person to serve in Congress. This new discriminatory federal bill pushed by the GOP is teeing up to extend well beyond Representative McBride, towards all trans identifying individuals in the US. This was no “loud quiet” yesterday. This was simply loud, ugly, harmful noise.

So today I discovered the press statement that our Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, issued in honor of the 2024 International Transgender Day of Remembrance. A true shame that this supportive stance and call to collective compassionate action was not amplified by the media alongside of the vile clamor. Since you may not have heard it or seen it, I offer it here:

“Each year on November 20, the world recognizes Transgender Day of Remembrance –a day that commemorates the transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming persons who are killed or targeted with violence, discrimination, and abuse simply for living authentically.  Transgender individuals exist in every country, every culture, and every faith tradition.  The United States recognizes Transgender Day of Remembrance to affirm the dignity and human rights of transgender persons globally.

Transgender persons face discrimination in their pursuit of education, housing, work, and health care.  They hear rhetoric that threatens them and their loved ones.  They experience disproportionately high levels of homicide and assault.  Yet, despite these existential challenges, they continue to face the world with courage every day.

It is our collective responsibility to ensure transgender persons can live full lives, without fear of harm.  The United States is committed to fighting for a world that accepts and respects transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming persons.  Until then, we proudly advocate to end transphobic discrimination, violence, and homicide.” 

So said our Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in his press statement issued November 20, 2024. https://www.state.gov/transgender-day-of-remembrance-3/

Additionally, sobering facts reside in the less than loud quiet. Here’s one you may not have heard. In 2024, 665 anti-trans bills were under consideration across 43 states, more than any other year on record, as reported by the Trans Legislation Tracker (https://translegislation.com/). All rife with discrimination against trans individuals, their families, their loved ones. All designed to inspire fear and despair within the trans and trans supportive community. Again, let us ask that most essential question….why?

It is no exaggeration to state that most people do not even know a single transgender individual let alone the actual lived truth of the processes of social as well as medical gender transition, and exactly what individuals and families are experiencing along these extraordinarily complex and nuanced journeys. The disinformation feed reigns as a monster spewing heinous lies that force feed and shape outrageously cruel opinion. Ignorance is not bliss. It harms, it hurts, and in far too many instances, it destroys. We ever delight in stating LOVE is LOVE. Yet so too HATE is HATE.

The real facts are out there, though far too quieted by the disdainful noise. The truth of this lived experience is being told by trans individuals as well as trans advocates. Lean in. Take the listening tour. Ask questions. Learn. Get to know a trans person. Get to know a parent, a partner, a friend of a trans person. Hear their stories. Truly listening and genuinely witnessing, opens minds, expands hearts, allows for the boundless grace of LOVE to flow freely forth.

And so again, I offer in closing, my personal dedication towards raising my voice from the loud quiet of my life. It is my BirdSong and I sing it for you.

More songs ahead and down the way upon The Golden Boat.

all photos by Adrienne Janene Wehr