I always believe that family are the people that come into your life along the way and inseminate themselves into your heart & soul.
At the beginning of last year, I had decided to do an internship at PT Foundation, because everyone was doing internships in hip and cool corporate places, and I wanted to do something different, that maybe would make a difference. Little did I know it would be making a huge difference in my life instead.
All too quickly three months passed but I never seemed to leave. I always hung around the office, moving from my table downstairs to being a vagabond upstairs in the IHP office, where I'd float from one person's table to another, or just park myself on the sofa with my laptop. I was commissioned to document workshops, and found myself in cold conference rooms with multiple tea and smoke breaks that I spent lounging about in someone's room, or taking an insane amount of selfies with multiple people. Suddenly I was propelled into a community that was so much more, a family.
The defining moment of my acceptance was when Mama Tini sat me down during a workshop & told me words that almost made me cry. She had said that she had been watching me since I had arrived, and in the many months she had watched as I laughed along to the jokes, effortlessly learned the trans lingua franca, and she liked how open and accepting I was of everything and everyone. She said she had also watched my personal transformation, and how open and accepting I had become of myself, and my sexuality. She said I was one of them now, and she sees great things for me, and she hopes that I will always lend my support where needed and help them achieve great things too. It wasn't a privilege, being accepted, it was an honour.
This community of wonderful women, of varying ferocities and personalities took me in as one of their own, and to this day watch over me and support me and love me just as I am, pushing me only when they feel I am short changing myself, and demanding of me only my best, and perhaps a little more make-up, on occasion. Every meeting, however brief, is one filled with love, affection, concern, and support. We play on each other's strengths and fill each other's weaknesses so there won't be gaps. We love. Oh, do we love.
And so, it upsets me when news of abuse and mistreatment of transpeople reach my News Feed. It angers me when trans events are raided, and transwomen in particular are arrested. It infuriates me that my transsisters can't walk the streets openly sometimes because the possibility of them being arrested at random is very real. I have never lost a transperson close to me, and I pray every day that I won't ever have to.
I couldn't imagine a life whereby I can't have a teh tarik with Mok Danisha in between her running from one place to another, because she's always busy saving the world and its people. I can't imagine not planning impromptu meetups with Kak Manis at Nu Sentral, or life that isn't filled with open houses at Camellia's, or doing make-up with Kak Jane, or listening to Suria FM in the office that Mama Tini will play from her computer loudly to counter Nanny Noel's Whitney, until it is "enough". My life has now been coloured by all of these people, and so many more, and a missing shade would make everything incomplete, and incredibly dull.
I couldn't imagine a life whereby I can't have a teh tarik with Mok Danisha in between her running from one place to another, because she's always busy saving the world and its people. I can't imagine not planning impromptu meetups with Kak Manis at Nu Sentral, or life that isn't filled with open houses at Camellia's, or doing make-up with Kak Jane, or listening to Suria FM in the office that Mama Tini will play from her computer loudly to counter Nanny Noel's Whitney, until it is "enough". My life has now been coloured by all of these people, and so many more, and a missing shade would make everything incomplete, and incredibly dull.
TDOR 2016 reminded me that there is still much to be done, there is still much I can do. It reminded me that no matter how busy life gets, I need to make time for the things that matter. The people that matter. The community that matters. To contribute as much as I can to the cause, to the people. Because the community loves, and accepts, and gracefully fights for rights that I bask in every day without quarrel, and that isn't right.
It reminded me to do more. So much more. Because I can, and I should. Because the love of my transmothers and sisters, as well as the brothers that are actually sisters at heart come unconditionally but I should always remember that the world is conditioned to hate them, and change that. Every day, I remember not to be complacent, not to laugh off the wrong terminology used, or to normalize a stereotype, and to fight for the community of people.
My people.