Trans Spirituality – April 2022

Friends, as I have mentioned before in this column, as trans women go, I have a tremendous amount of privilege. I’m white passing, I appear cis-normative, I’m highly educated and I am financially secure. That comes from a combination of military pension and disability compensation as well as inheritance from my mother and mother-in-law.

At one time I was extremely proud of my military service. Over the last twenty plus years that pride has tarnished significantly, and most trans vets that I know feel the same way, yet we still carry all the battle scars and disabilities. Sadly, too many of us can’t get adequate care at the VA or military treatment facilities because of budget issues and transphobia. Do I have regrets? Yes, but as Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) says, “you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.”

I was recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia. It’s not a new problem, just that I have a smart doctor who realized what was going on. Trans vets who went to the sand box know this condition all too well. In my case this is a gift of my continuous neck problems.

Fibromyalgia is mostly diagnosed in women. Patriarchal medicine means that doctors tend to disbelieve their patients, and think these women are “hysterical” (a word that comes from the same Greek word as uterus). Thus, they send the women patients to behavioral health instead of dealing with the issues.

Even when they DO confront the issues, in my case, none of the first line medicines work for me. We already know this because of my neck problems. And because of the current war on opiates, they won’t write for opiates for my pain. So basically their answer is “suck it up.”

Last summer, the medical journal Lancet, one of the most highly respected medical journals, released a set of articles, which in sum, stated that chronic pain is LITERALLY KILLING US. So, that leaves me, as a chronic pain patient, in a terrible place. I can be a good patient, and play their mind games and suffer interminably, and die an early and horrible death, thanks to the government, the medical industry and Big Pharma, or…

I can do what many have done. I can buy heroin on the street. For chronic patients like me, regular H isn’t strong enough. That’s why the cartels took to cutting it with fentanyl and then carfentanyl (for elephants). As an example, at my last colonoscopy, they had given me 200 mcg of fentanyl IV bolus. A normal person would be out cold and possibly in respiratory arrest. I was WIDE AWAKE! This is because of tolerance after years of use of prescription narcotics. I never abused, just used as written.

And I know people who have turned to the streets for H to control their pain. If these folx are queer or BIPOC, the likelihood that the medical system will blow them off is far higher. When they end up hooked on H, they will probably end up living on the street.

The straight community sees the unhoused and judges them. They have no clue whatsoever that THEY have done this to us, by ignorance, bad policies and greed. They just don’t want to see it.

The Torah teaches that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, and that we are not to oppress strangers because we were strangers. Further, it teaches that saving lives overrides EVERY other biblical commandment.

Thus, the so-called religious people who don’t want to pay taxes or do anything to fix social problems need to go back and actually READ their bibles. The New Testament says the same things. And then they need to actually do good works to help actually fix these problems.

The cynic in me fears that this is a deliberate ploy by the government right now to kill off the weak in society – the retired and disabled veterans, the queer, the BIPOC who have health and substance problems. It’s a very cheap eugenics program. Do nothing to fix the problem, we all get killed off, and all of a sudden, you have a much healthier, “straighter” whiter society.

We cannot let that happen.

Peace out,

Rona

Like to make a comment? Login here and use the comment area below.

Tags: featured, religion, spirituality

Category: Transgender Body & Soul