Knowing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the issues revolving around being transgender makes me feel vastly unprepared. I am a very nurturing person and I would like children to be a big part of my future. I want kids and I want to raise them well. Studying and researching third gender, transgender, binary vs. non binary makes me feel very anxious. I am petrified to have a child that identifies differently than how they are born.

This is not because I believe it’s a disease or immoral, it’s because I know that I will love my child. And I want to love my children correctly. I don’t want to handle a situation with anything less than care, compassion, and understanding. However I know that I am human and I make plenty of mistakes. So I am both afraid that I will do something harmful to my child’s development by saying or doing the wrong thing simply because I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m afraid of individuals out there who do stand on platforms believing these things are wrong.

A couple years ago I felt like I needed to prepare something for my future children in order to be able to connect with them. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to speak to them candidly for one reason or another, so I wrote the following letter. This was drafted February 24^th, 2014:

Dear child,

            I don’t know if you are a boy or girl. I haven’t had you yet. I’m writing this on February 24^th of 2014. I’m a freshman in college, VMI to be exact. I wanted to write this while I still have it fresh in my mind; before I get married, before I have you. I want to be able to tell you exactly how I feel right in this moment, before I begin to forget what it’s like; and most importantly before I feel like I have some kind of moral obligation to not be completely and 100% open with you.

            If you’re reading this, it’s because you’ve come out as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or unsure. As of this moment in time, eighteen years old, a freshman in college with my entire life ahead of me, I identify as bisexual. I hesitate to say this because I’ve grown up seeing trashy girls at parties call themselves bi to get attention. It almost seems fake, but it’s not. I am attracted to both men and women, and I’ve been hearing how wrong that is for a very long time. My girlfriend Sarah and I just broke up. She is the second girl I’ve ever really had feelings for, and she made me feel like I could conquer the world. I could take care of that princess, and I miss her more than I can express in a letter. She is near perfect to me, and I have to move on from her. But the heartbreak inspired me to write this, before I become too prideful.

            I am still in the closet to almost everyone. My closest friends know, but I feel like I can’t tell my parents because my dad doesn’t even believe in bisexuality, and my mother is a very conservative Christian. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Christian too, but I can’t deny the way that I feel. I am absolutely terrified of coming out to my parents. But as I’m writing this, I’m even more terrified that someday I will have you, and you will be just as terrified to come out to me. Let’s get one thing clear, I love you. You haven’t been born yet, but I know you are somewhere inside of me, and I know you are beautiful. I will love you no matter how many tattoos you get. I will love you no matter how big you stretch your ears. I will love you no matter what color you dye your hair. Child, I will love you no matter who you fall in love with. If you are my daughter and you fall in love with a girl, I will still love you. If you are my son and you fall in love with a boy, I will still love you. If you were born as my daughter and you believe you are my son, I will still love you. If you were born my son and believe you are my daughter, I will still love you. I ask, in advance, for your forgiveness if I call you by the wrong name once you’ve changed it. Forgive me if I ever approach the subject with anything less than love for you. Please remember that I probably haven’t had much experience with having my child come out to me, just as you won’t have any experience with coming out to your parents. I will probably be a little unsure and I will probably say the wrong things, not because I don’t love you, but because I’ve just never done this before. No matter how I handle the situation, know that I love you and I will ALWAYS love you.

Love,

Your mother

Two close reading essays added.

The second poem I chose to close read and analyze was the piece “Flowers – Well- if anybody.”

First published in 1890 and originally written on a page with another poem, “Flowers – Well – if anybody” is a dedication to one of Dickinson’s favorite subjects and themes. This poem transparently expresses a deep love and appreciation for something incredibly pure, beautiful, and of the natural world. If anything, this piece gives us an insight into the simple purity of Dickinson’s appreciations.

In the first line, she immediately takes a step back, seemingly redirecting her thoughts on paper. The subject is initially and clearly one that, for her, requires focus and complete thoughtfulness. By incorporating hyphens, she demonstrates a pause or redirection in her thought process. At the time, this speaks what ecstasy or “extasy” was noted as; a pleasure so complete that it absolved thought or reasoning. So defining the ecstasy of this beautiful thing is inherently contradictory, because ecstasy defies definition. It’s clear that this one small pleasure to anyone else completely raptures the speaker.

She further emphasizes the overwhelming sensation, the idea that she cannot actually withstand the beauty and pleasure that she is brought through these small gifts. The severity to which she enjoys them elicits questions symbolism: is she actually referring to flowers or is it potentially a symbolic subject? The specifics of origin suggest that it’s not, but limiting Dickinson is not a mistake I’m will to make as others have done.

The speaker sets the seen like a challenge with a reward, implying an actual desire for an answer, while maintaining a disbelief that it’s possible to find one. She challenges “men” and “him” however it is unclear whether she is actually focused specifically on men or that is more of a general term referring to people overall that would have fit the time period.

She goes on to humanize and personify the flowers she speaks about, giving them “faces” with “pathos.” Also, similarly to her poem “Nobody knows this little rose,” she makes travelers out of the flowers, or pilgrims, traveling from St. Domingo.

Ultimately, she ends on a note of high esteem, holding the flowers to a beauty that is beyond her own. She humbles herself and elevates her subject drastically with the ending. One of the original manuscripts shows this last line written on the next page alone, adding to a sort of visual finality.

The questions this piece elicit have to do with Dickinson’s message. Is she emphasizing floral beauty more so than her own lack thereof, or is the final line almost like a footnote? The separate published versions of the piece differ in stanza length and line breaks, as well as hyphen placement in length. What do these small mechanical changes add or take away from the poem? Why change it at all?

The best way to approach getting to know Emily Dickinson is getting to know her work, in conjunction with as much of her correspondence and personal history are available. To begin, I close-read several of her poem and analyzed themes and meaning, beginning with “Nobody knows this little Rose.”

First published in 1945, “Nobody knows this little rose” encapsulates several of the common themes Dickinson used in much of her work. In order to get a sense of what Dickinson really wanted to say and, more importantly, the way in which she wanted to say it, it’s important to go almost word-by-word and closely analyze the different literary pieces of the poem.

It is obvious that Dickinson had a fascination with the botanical, and this particular poem emphasizes her loves and captivation of flowers. She immerses the narrative into the world of the subject, the little rose. “Nobody” is likely referring specifically to human “nobodies,” seeing as she goes on to list the things and creatures that would miss the rose were it gone. Her use of “pilgrim” in the second line could be speaking to the eco-systematic nature of the flower, hinting at pollination as a pilgrim at the time she wrote the poem most often meant a traveler.

She goes on to discuss an alternate reality, indicating she has picked the flower and created a new controlled existence for the flower. By pointing this out with the phrase, “did I not,” she offers both herself and the audience a sense of what could have been.

At the end of the forth line, she creates a receiver in the narrative, or a “thee.” She stays focused on her narrative but points her words to a second individual or entity that the audience cannot easily deduce. Lifting the flower upwards, as she explains she does, implies she is giving the flower to a God or a heavenly being of some sort. If this is the case, she offers a new filter through which to see herself because she becomes childlike in nature with this simple act. Offering a flower to God would be arbitrary and pointless because the more common belief, especially in her background, is that God is the creator, therefore He wouldn’t need or have any use for the gift. This simply emphasizes the speaker’s naivety.

The addressee, however, changes in the second-to-last line, in which she shifts her attention and dialogue to the flower, now reminiscing on the fleeting nature of the flower’s life to the plant itself. Whoever or whatever “thee” originally was has lost her interest or dismissed her during her narrative. This could be a refocus of her heart from God to the flower, implying that she holds his bit of nature to a higher esteem than any heavenly being she has been taught to love.

By listing out the ways in which the flower will be missed, she still emphasizes that this small plant plays a large a role in the ecosystem she’s taking it from. This offers a theme of control over life, having the power to either nurture or take something, and clearly exercising it. Even so, there is clearly remorse in the narrative.

A close reading renders more questions. Was Dickinson remarking on the fragility of life, God, her work? In the original manuscripts, the poem was not written in stanzas, but in one continuous narrative. The Franklin variorum edited the poem to four-line stanzas, so what purpose did these editorial changes serve, standardization? Ideally, a better look at the historical context of the poem along with possibly accompanying letters in disclosure would help this analysis.

Out of almost 200 countries in the world, #28 seems pretty good when looking at the global gender gap. The United States is doing relatively well in the big race, right? As an American, I like to think that I hold myself to a higher standard than that, and I do so for my fellow citizens as well.

28 isn’t so bad, but we can do better. Before we try, though, the biggest issue in returning accurate results from the index would be to universalize the system. Different countries measure this index differently, offering skewed statistics. After a certain point, the data becomes labeled as arbitrary.

Take, for example, the category of “political empowerment.”  A country is given the scored of 1 for a high number of years that a woman has been head of state. This is 25 or over. This means that if one country has had a woman as head of states for 25 years and another country has had a woman as head of state for 60 years, they received the same score.

I think American political ambassadors should put at least a small amount of effort/resources into adjusting this measuring tool, improving it’s accuracy. If we do that, we can get a better read and a better idea on what to fix and how to fix it.