"I am haunted. All trans women[/femmes] are. Behind me stretches a line of ghosts - trans women[/femmes], killed before their time by the hatred of a society that does not know how to love us. Perhaps this is why trans women's[/femmes'] words are so powerful, in those rare moments when we are allowed to speak: we speak with the voices of those who have come before... Perhaps this is why trans women[/femmes] dream so deeply - because we walk hand in hand with those in the world."
- Kai Cheng Thom (2019)
(Art by Rana Mehanny @_rourri 2021)
TW: sexual violence
I engaged in survival sex work back in June of 2019, while struggling as an university student repeatedly facing and enduring transphobic violence on campus, I ended my engagement after being rap*d on my twin-sized bed in August - just about 4 months after I co-hosted a conference where I spoke with Tarana Burke, founder of the 'Me Too' movement on stage for an hour... As Kai Cheng Thom writes in her essay, 'Where Did She Go ? A Trans Girl Ghost Story' from her book 'I Hope We Choose Love' (2019): "There is something that happens to brilliant trans women. We don't seem to talk about it much. A story that keeps repeating itself: We burst into being; we give birth to ourselves. We burn like stars in the fight to survive. Like mayflies, we soar ever so briefly, then fall... Over and over again, I come across the names of trans women who have come before, only to find that they have left this world - either by death or by suicide or by a madness that takes them so deep into themselves that they are lost to the rest of us". And "I attribute this not to any inherent tendency toward mental illness in trans women but rather to the intense public scrutiny, violence, and other forms of trauma that infringe upon our lives. Trans women are brilliant; we shine because we have to in a world where our futures can seem overwhelmingly dark. I have always loved this fire that lives inside trans women... But sometimes, I think I can hear them whispering to me. And I wonder: How long can it last ? And how long until I disappear too ?"...
You can say I'm choosing sex work, but I say we're all selling ourselves one way or the other... I’ve grown too bitter in the not-for-profit systems of delusional saviour-complexes and moral hierarchies; I’ve grown too tired to profit off an identity with the risk of killing my soul to feed the ego. I'm exhausted of the ways we have to compromise our hearts to sustain this work of "community care". I wonder if anyone actually cares enough to remember if another coloured tranny disappears, and as cynically as it is, I can't help but wonder if I was meant to survive here at all while being an immigrant youth alone here. If I leave, will this land miss and mourn ? Will the lakes cry in my absence, as I worry my blossom not worthy enough to root. I fear my contributions of softness not enough to seed for change... Again, my mermaid inner-child feels helplessly abandoned and hopelessly lost...
Thus I'm back in sex work, during a pandemic where it feels impossible to get clients respectful enough to have awareness for both sexual health and COVID-19. Does capitalism really come down to either exploitation, tokenization, or fetishization in 2022 for a mad trans-femme of colour ? There are still so limited access to by-trans-for-trans care and opportunities. Unless work places become safer for us to simply exist in as well as having actual plans and protection against discriminative practices, no systematically oppressed or socially marginalized folks deserve to "work" while breaking our souls - we deserve to stay soft even as we serve... And no matter how cynically unrealistic I may be, I choose to believe that a return to collaborative trades and thrives are possible. I believe that the only way for us to survive, is to kill the dreams of "success" if it doesn't include all of us thriving. The currency of capitalism presses to present our presence, our life skills, and our interpersonal values to a socio-economical mission of capability vs capacity. After years of surviving violence through softness, I witness moons after moons how my capability blossoms while my capacity rots. I offered my words when the world thirsted for tears, and I cried in silence. I offered my (he)art when the world felt lost, but I was left uninspired. Now I offer my body when the world is horny, and I smoke cigarettes still hungry... Some consider sex work for survival not because they enjoy or feel empowered by sex, but because capitalism has forced us into just bodies, and “sometimes bodies don’t always feel like bodies but like wounds” (Billy Ray-Belcourt)… Some are made to feel as if their physical or sexual possibilities of desirability (even through fetishization) is their only or “most productive” currency. Yet what really is the difference, with all of us trading in labour, time, and even values at times for a paycheque, why rule out sexuality ? After all, I embrace the anti-capitalistic pride of experiencing some of the oldest professions beyond industrial-economic timelines: the philosopher/thinker/public speaker, and the prostitute. As staying soft may truly be the hardest work, I choose to love the world as I unlearn myself; I choose to love myself even when I am none, thus I teach the world...
I remember a man offering $5 to get a blowjob… I remember a man face-fucking me in his van until I had a nosebleed then panically pushed me off, dropped me off in a hurry with his last words being over and over again asking if I had AIDS… I remember a man paying me to spend time with him thinking that being trans means a crossdresser, then he gave me $100 and showed me out… I remember a man agreeing to buy me food but then forcefully ripped my leggings apart… I remember a man paying me $150 to eat my ass for 15 minutes without me ever taking my mask off… I remember a man ubering me to a fake address at night and tackled me into the bush, it was the only assault where I had the energetic rush to really fight back, and it ended me bruised, tasting blood and him walking off whispering that I was a "disappointment"...
Yet I still choose love. I choose to continue breathing and writing, even with fear, grief, and uncertainties I choose to remind this world of our collective wounds, thus hopefully in this place call softness that we may finally seed to heal, together... And I still remember the softer lessons I take away from survival sex work, as challenging stigmas against sex work starts with us too, as the people who seek sex workers are often shamed or marginalized too, as we all survive this colonial-capitalistic patriarchy that disposes those not ideal or "normal" - as many disabled men search for sex workers to feel desired. I remember men crying after sex, I remember men apologizing for "bad" sex or the moments of erectile dysfunction due to anxiety, and I remember men sharing their deepest insecurities because they felt safer with whom they think is a transactional body with ears, but I remember still wanting to always offer a soft escape with all my heart... It is true that men are violent in this world, but how they may suffer the most from such cyclical violence. At least I will die knowing myself through my softness. And as much as I wish to kill all (cis-)men, I believe in rehabilitation through love. Though I put a spell on every man who have accessed my trans pussy: May ego-death be the only fix to their dick-rot... And I stay soft to survive, moon by moon and meal by meal, I still work on love to survive this life. There's always more work to do, as there's always more love to give and more care to consider. As perhaps, there can still be love or time from me to share; and just maybe, we can feel enough love to live.
"Dear sisters and mothers who came before:
Someday I shall know you. In this world or the next...
But for now, something keeps me here: hope, I think, or maybe love. I wonder, can you have hope, or love, without faith ? The faith that things will get better, that we will live long and happy lives, that some benevolent force in the universe will give us better endings ? I think perhaps we can. What I hope for is to live as brilliantly as the mothers and sisters I've never met. I want to live for the ones who don't, for the ones who went before. I want to live as long and lovingly as I can."
- Kai Cheng Thom (2019)