Messages From Your Transcestors

Almost every day for the past two weeks, I’ve been waking up with messages. At first I thought that this was anxiety, because all the messages I’ve been waking up with were about trans people - supporting trans people, loving trans people, surviving this current crisis, etc. I figured it was because this is what I do for a living. I figured that this was waking me up early because this is the water I swim in all day, every day.

But the more I sat with it, the more I realized that the emotional core of these early mornings is not anxiety, and the messages are not ones of fear. What was coming through was trancestral knowledge, messages from trancestors who have faced all that we are facing now, who have wisdom, strength, and support for us. So I started taking notes, listening to the messages, and sharing them with you.

This morning I woke up with just….a deluge of these messages. Insistent with love, urgent with care. There’s more than I can fit on a cute Instagram slide show, so while I do intend to release these messages through that medium, I want to write them in their entirety here. For you, dear reader. Consider bookmarking this page. Consider printing this off, or writing it down somewhere. Consider returning to it again and again. 

Also, these messages are for you. When I say “trans” I mean that in the broadest sense. This is not about a label or fitting into a category. It’s not about being “out” or visible or taking social steps or medical ones. Its for you if it resonates with you. Its for you if you’ve questioned your gender, if you’ve explored your gender, if you’ve transitioned, if you’re out, if you’re stealth, if you are mother to hundreds of trans kids or if you’ve never met another trans person in your life. These messages are for you.

Transcestor Message 1

You have thousands and thousands of trancestors and they are all available to you. You have trancestors who were adored, revered, considered to be sacred by their communities. These ancestors hold divinity medicine. You have trancestors who have been through incredible hardship. These ancestors hold survival medicine. You have trancestors who were never able to change their bodies in the way they wanted, who were never able to fully express their truth. These ancestors hold persistence medicine. You have trancestors who hold the sweet medicine of community, and others who hold the deep introspection of isolation. They are all here for you, they can hold you through this time. They can offer you strength, support, and love, as well as their unique and vital medicines. Reach out to them, because they are already with you.  

Transcestor Message 2

Your trancestors want you to know that you are not alone. You are not the first to feel the way you feel, you won’t be the last. Your transcestors want you to know that there are no setbacks that we can not come back from, as a group, and that no attempt at eradicating us will succeed. We have always been, we will always be. We can be born at any time, in any place, to any family. No one can change that. 

Transcestor Message 3

Your trancestors invite you to sit with weeds, like dandelion, and know that we, too, will always spring up through the cracks, regardless of how others perceive us. We, too, hold deep medicine in our bodies, if one takes the time to look. We, too, can survive nearly anything, because we have the advantage of deep roots, persistence, and unpredictability. 

Transcestor Message 4

Your transcestors want you to know that when we work together, we are stronger. They want you to know that they know it’s scary, and they want you to know that they are still here and so are you. Community is as terrifying as it is beautiful, because it holds deep potential for pain as well as profound joy. This is a truth of human relationship. Turn toward one another with love. Allow yourself and your trans siblings to be human. Soak in compassion. Make space for messiness. Support accountability. There are so many people trying to eradicate us right now. Let us not make their job easy. Let us learn to link our arms together and fight as a group. Let us refuse to devour our own. Let us recognize our oneness, and commit to it. 

Transcestor Message 5

Your trancestors want you to know that the hate you’ve internalized for yourselves and one another is understandable, because it is the air you’ve breathed for all the years you’ve been alive. And also, it’s gotta go. You must tend to the parts of you that hold all that hatred, all that oppression, you must pull them into the light of your love and see them for what they are - the misguided protectors of a little one who was forced to conform to a transphobic world, to a world that couldn’t hold the fullness of their brilliance. You don’t have to live in that paradigm anymore. Those protectors can become the fierce advocates of that little one, and of your present self. So you must open yourself to the idea that your transness and all the things that this world have told you were too much, too big, too frightening….that these are your magic. That these parts of you must be loved, too. That when you learn to love them, and to love your community, you are unstoppable. 

Transcestor Message 6

Your transcestors want to remind you that you do not have to fix everything for everyone today, and that you are not alone. Many transcestors have burned bright for a short time while they took on the whole world at once, where they were unsupported and left to fight alone. Their sacrifices changed the world, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Alone we will struggle deeply. The fights will be more than any one of us can handle. But together we are unstoppable. 

Transcestor Message 7

Your transcestors want you to feel the truth of liberation in your bones. It is available to you now. Learn to feel it, to sense it, and then learn to feel it in community 

Transcestor Message 8

For every few names and faces of transcestors that we know, there are thousands upon thousands that we don’t. You have the support of millennia.