xy | silas

“In the body I was born with, I had been invisible as the person I considered myself to be; I had been invisible as a queer while the form of my body made my desires look straight. Now, as a dyke I am invisible among women; as a transsexual, I am invisible among dykes. As the partner of a new mother, I am often invisible as a transsexual, a woman, and a lesbian. I’ve lost track of the friends and acquaintances these past nine months who’ve asked me if I was the father. It shows so dramatically how much they simply don’t get what I’m doing with my body. The high price of whatever visible, intelligible, self-representation I have achieved makes the continuing experience of invisibility maddeningly difficult to bear.”
― Susan Stryker, My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage

“If you're a boy who plays with dollhouses, you're already dead!”
― Derek McCormack, Castle Faggot

“[...] the answer was simply to rise
in joyfulness, all their days.

Have I found any better teaching?
Not ever, not yet.”
― Mary Oliver, Thirst

“I wrote a pep talk recently to myself on a bar napkin: no matter which road you take, it will be both glorious and unbearable. Every road is lonely. Every road, holy. The only error is not walking forth.

Yesterday, a friend in California, when giving me directions, told me I could take the trail toward the tall pines or turn left and find a field of poppies, growing gold and savage at the edge of the valley.

When I asked which to choose, she simply shrugged and said: either way, it’s all heaven.”
― Joy Sullivan, Instructions for Traveling West: Poems