i learned as a child that riddles are almost never funny + they are, instead, games intended to change the way you think about things + children love riddles for wordplay, as tools for grasping the abstract + as adults, we tend not to have time for such diversions, the abstract and indefinite

the sphinx, a beast of greek legend, offered riddles to passing travellers + those who could not answer correctly were killed + to the sphinx, there was no truth + only his mortal questions + the border he policed was arbitrary, his authority maintained by brutality + only a "hero," like oedipus, could best the sphinx at his own game and live to tell the tale

nebraska 1993 + john lotter and thomas nissen appointed themselves sphinx to traveller brandon teena + their riddle: "what are you?" + brandon had to know that there was a price to be paid regardless of whether he answered "boy" or "girl" + since neither answer could satisfy this sphinx, brandon was killed + since sphinxes never share their answers, we may never know what answer would have been satisfactory to save him

my own transition occurred in 1993, when i moved to santa cruz + i knew no one; i had no money, few friends, no family support + while brandon was being hunted, i spent oblivious holidays with hippies in felton, reading the autobiography of malcolm x, a book every tranny should read

a week or two later, reading about brandon's murder, i got my first taste of todesangst + literally, death fear in german, a language with a word for every occasion + this flavor tainted everything, especially because i kept finding sphinxes of my own: in my temp jobs, on the buses, in downtown santa cruz, in the lgbt center, in the feminist spaces + no protection, no safety, and the knowledge that the frequent verbal assaults against me could turn physical, which could turn mortal

today, before reading about ukea and stephanie, i had two separate conversations regarding the relatively small number of transwomen i meet who are my age, or younger + with tonight's news came the reminder of why our numbers are so small + we are easy targets, killed brutally, and this keeps us from coming out, from organizing + police, paramedics, reporters and families reject and shame us + killers are pursued and prosecuted without vigor + we often cannot get "normal" jobs + as it is, women still have glass ceilings and pink collars + and when the price of visibility can be death, organization can be near impossible + it is a challenge of fortitude to enjoy life with todesangst lingering acidic under the tongue

any tranny knows that no matter how easily individuals pass in our chosen genders, when we get together we become obvious as trannies, which is hard for those of us who try to "go stealth" + there may be strength in numbers, but i still don't know how many of us it will take for us to be strong enough

the street on which i live has a greater concentration of trannygirls than any place i have ever lived + almost all of them work the streets at night + there were beautiful trannygirls galore tonight - more than any single night since moving here + as if to say that despite merciless slayings of our sisters in the next town + despite the daily harassment from passersby + despite the cops who remain parked at green lights in hopes of keeping the property values from plummeting + they would not hide, even from the law

"the law" is arbitrary, with indistinct boundaries + there are rules for behavior as policed by police, whose primary function is to defend the economic order+ rules conceived by "nature" or "god," and policed by family, friends, legislators and random gunmen with 20 bullets to spare + as a transsexual, i know i have a much more complex relationship to the laws of nature than most + but until we can reveal our ideas about the "naturalness" of sex and gender to be as arbitrary as are our laws against littering or telling risque stories in mixed company, we trannies will remain outlaws

and while being an outlaw can be kinda romantic, it gets tiring to keep watching my own back all the time + and bulletproof vests really don't work underneath strapless dresses

my friend marisol won a santa cruz queer youth award this year + her acceptance speech was a beautiful testament to her work as an activist and to her family + she said, in my paraphrase, that what others call activism she usually calls survival

i don't know how it is for other folks who fancy themselves activists, but marisol's speech revealed my truth as well + as an activist, i no longer have the time to sit in board meetings while colleagues work out petty disagreements + two of my sisters died yesterday because they were trannies + because they are part of our movement away from the gender binary + they had the bravado to become true to themselves while in their teens, a luxury many of us could never afford + then again, something tells me these girls didn't think so much about the price of their freedom, or else they may never have become the girls they became

they could not respond to the riddles of their killer + and this is where my sphinx metaphor breaks down + the sphinx of legend was in it for the sport, not simply for the punishment + and this is why, as trannies, and as allies of trannies, we need to be ready to turn the tables on every potential sphinx with a riddle of our own: what are you willing to die for?