Guest Post by MJ Lisbeth
You should not be reading this.
In fact, this piece should not appear on your screen or any form of paper. It should not exist at all. If you believe that the words you are reading—and the person who wrote them—are real, you are suffering a delusion or actively denying reality. Perhaps you are drunk or high. Or, maybe, those illicit, uh, transformative, substances you took in your youth produce flashbacks for even longer than you ever imagined possible.
Whatever the case may be, you must disabuse yourself of the notion that what you are reading is real. It isn’t because its author isn’t.
That’s right. I do not exist.
Who made such a determination? Not the folks who investigate paranormal phenomena. Nor did the American Psychiatric Association or American Medical Association. Members of both august bodies, in fact, have confirmed my existence share your delusion.
Understandably, they would. After all, they don’t know what the highest authority in this land knows. He’s had more hands-on experience than all of them put together. So, who is more qualified to say whether or not I exist?
According to the FuhrerTan Fuhrer President of the United States, I—and people like me—don’t exist. Whatever a doctor decided I was on the day I was born, that’s what I am. Now, to be fair, that OB-GYN on a military base where my father was stationed late in the Eisenhower Administration had no other means but my external anatomical features for determining my sex. He would have had no way of knowing about the hormonal imbalances and other “problems” that would manifest themselves later, sometimes much later, on.
Of course, our Dear Leader, with his Bachelor of Science in Economics, and such respected advisers as Dr. Oz, knows more than that army doctor could have. (Oh, and he has more military training.) Moreover, he has seen more of those “immutable biological realities” of female anatomy being a woman than, well, most people.
So who better than a self-proclaimed king a duly elected leader to tell you what’s real and what isn’t.
According to him, I don’t exist.
That means, not only this article, but everything else I’ve ever written, is an illusion. So are all of the knowledge and skills my students acquired in my classrooms, or later when they applied them in the “real world.” Oh, and I never worked the other jobs I had before I became a college instructor: artist-in-residence, high school teacher, journalist, copywriter, publicist, tour leader, bicycle messenger (in New York City), bicycle mechanic, and sales clerk. And my service in the Army Reserves never happened. No, all of the work that got done and all of my interactions with students, colleagues, co-workers, editors, clients, and customers is as illusory as I am.
Of course, that means I never earned the degrees and diplomas or won the citations and awards that have my name on them. And that child my parents thought they were raising—well, I was as much an illusion then as I am now. That means they must have been just as delusional in believing that I was their child as you are for thinking that you are reading something that, because I don’t exist, can’t exist.
So, remember: You didn’t read this. Even if the previous sentence is self-contradictory.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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M.J., I always enjoy reading your posts. It’s great to get your take on this issue and so many other subjects. Thank you.
Same here, MJ. I’ve always found your posts to be quite intelligent and on point. I value you as a person and fellow fan of Bruce Gerencser.
I know this is easy for me to say, but don’t lose hope. Tyrants like “Dear Leader” and his supporters seem invincible..until they’re not. He and his political machine will out of power one day. Hopefully, a more enlightened leadership in our country will help us move forward.
I am so glad I read this. Thank you for existing MJ.
Thank you, MJ. You exist.
You and your words do exist in spite of a malignant organism denying that you do. Thanks for a thought-provoking essay.
MJ (and all other trans folk out there): thank you all for just being you, and having the courage to access all the potential of the real you.
MJ, you in particular are a wonderful, thoughtful writer, and I’m glad you write pieces like this for this blog.
Thanks MJ, well said. The absurdity of not existing while actually existing is a strange, and quite frankly, terrifying way to exist.
And very hard to explain so people truly understand.
You certainly exist in my world. A neighbour of mine whom I’ve known since he was about three or four and now is 45 is trans and not a single person, at least in my awareness, bats an eyelid. He used to be Dawn and now he’s Adam. Big deal.
I might say that I’m not sure why Republican politicians are quite so transphobic considering not one of them has any balls!
MJ, you exist. Your ideas and words are always exquisitely on point. It is horrible that mean-spirited, bigoted people are attacking you and others like you. I wish they didn’t exist, or at least that they weren’t in a position to enact their hateful bigotry on others.
Thank you, everyone who commented, for your kind words and validation. And thank you, Bruce, for posting this.