Smokin out like Chief Wahoo hoo / Chase it down with the liquor and brew brew / Pass it round that’s the way we do do ~ Project Pat, Smokin’ out

I’ve had an epiphany again, so I thought I would share it with all of you. Cuz that’s how I roll, yo.

See, in the trans community, we have a bunch of women who were raised as men. It’s not unlike children raised by apes or wolves- they can grow up and survive, but they tend to end up, well, a little bit different. And when they are reintroduced to the society they should have been raised in, their behavior is seldom instinctual- instead, it tends to be an imitation of what they have observed from watching the humans.

Now, in many cases, the pack mentality is a boon and blessing to them. They know instinctively to circle and protect, because it is the pack of them against a hungry and vicious world. However, should the world not be hostile enough or the pack large enough (or both), theytend tol turn on one another and begin snapping and snarling and fighting for dominance.

Funny how well these analogies can apply sometime.

But today, I’m here to move us to a slightly more evolved level of that pack mentaility in our discussion, wherein we move from the wilds of Canada or the deepest jungles of Africa to a vicious landscape with which we all have a bit more intimate familiarity, having survived it ourselves at one time or another. The often cruel, seldom forgiving and always dangerous savage land men call… the chalkboard jungle.

That’s right. Let’s take it back to high school.

We all know the rule… real life is just high school with more money. The social paradigms and conventions that we learn in high school really don’t change as we get older, they just mutate somewhat and get infused with more money. The accountability tends to remain the same, the social rules really don’t change much and the cliques really do not alter much in adulthood, save that money changes everything. The nerd who came from poor will likely end up the IT guy at your company, the smooth slick kid will still be an idiot but be your boss, and the pretty girl is still kinda immune to a lot of things, yet vulnerable to drama. You get the idea.

So, early on in our relationship when Wendie was exploring my world with me and marvelling at the sights, at one point I expressed to her that we had evolved and mutated in the social scheme. No longer were we the Art Room Nerds or the Weird Kids… now, we were the Cheerleaders. We had become the Hot Chicks Who Folks Wanted To Be Around. We were It Girls. Go us for having found a way to change our social status, right?

But I was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.

A recent exchange of heated words in some online forums brought me around to the realization that the Cheerleaders, god bless ‘em, are still the same- a social pyramid with one at the top who all support one another in their uniformity. Key being that uniformity. Like …from the Oblongs, they move as a herd, speak as a herd, and communicate in a language all their own. That which is different, ie unique or unlike them, is to be abhorred and disdained. Looked down upon and judged to be detrimental to the herd.

Now, I am a judgemental bitch… this is very true, and I freely admit it. I don’t care for narrow-minded bigotry or discrimination or people attacking me or mine. In fact, all of these things tend to bring my judgemental bitchiness into very sharp focus and direct it, like a laser beam. And in that focus I found inspiration, and an epiphany.

We are not Cheerleaders.

I watched as the Head Cheerleader distanced herself, and how some of her lessers made a huff about leaving. I saw them take up their pom poms and shake them vigorously, making very little actual sense but leaving shreds of hypocrisy all over the floor as they rah-rah-ed righteously and then departed the auditorium in a flourish of ‘never-to-return’. And as I watched all of this, it occurred to me that we are not the Cheerleaders, me and mine.

For our strength is not to be found in our uniformity, but in our diversity. Our people are not the jocks, but the stoners and the freaks and the nerds and the weird kids in the back of the room. We do not all follow that singular beat and move to its cadence, but instead we thrash and jerk and bounce chaotically across the landscape. We dress in a style uniquely our own, our makeup is everything from conservative to outrageous and our one common credo is “Whatever makes you happy long as it don’t hurt nobody”.

We are the girls out back, smoking behind the gymnasium. We are the ones the jocks look at and think of when fucking a cheerleader. We are the nerd boy’s wet dream, the freak’s fantasy and the ones the stoners invite to be in the circle. We are the ones cleaning our compact mirror in first period who borrow your shades, because we partied too hard the night before. We are the girls who use old torn pairs of fishnets to make gloves with cool holes, who rub graphite onto paper then use it to change our makeup in the middle of class. Our lipstick is too red, our hair is too big and out iPods are always too loud, especially when we want to ignore you.

We’re the Rock and Rolla Chicks. And damn proud of it.

Heathers be damned.