I had notions of doing something more intellectual with this post but life is what it is and as such I have delayed my effortpost about The Indigenously Produced Unmagnified Gunsights of Cuba once again. I’m going to talk about music again this time.
Oceanlab was a side project of Above & Beyond and vocalist Justine Suissa, who was also the primary songwriter. Sirens of the Sea was their sole album and it is very, very important to me.
Ok so it’s EDM okay? To be precise it’s some particular style of vocal trance but its singer-songwriter vocal trance. Above & Beyond does this really cool thing where they tend to actually collaborate with their vocalists by getting them involved with the creative process, writing lyrics, production and all that. Now, the lyrics aren’t particularly complex and they won’t impress any pretentious nerds but they resonate with me and that's what it's about yeah? Oh yeah and they do acoustic versions sometimes???? which is wild??
I was lucky enough to discover this group twice, the first time was on some lonely night when I was a teen. I came across Clear Blue Water (a single) on Grooveshark (rip), checked out the rest of their discography, thought it was pretty, and proceeded to forget about it for a decade and a half.
I am almost embarrassed to admit just how much Sirens of the Sea affected me when I rediscovered it in the autumn of ‘23. It was like a hug, a cup of coffee, and a sit-down with the Jungian archetype of the kind of woman I admired the most and wanted so dearly to become. The kind of woman who carried empathy, knew failure, was capable of struggle, yet always embraced the love and joy of life. I can’t really articulate how, but this album helped me lay down my grieving for the years I spent otherwise.
My favorite track is “On a Good Day”, and I consider it to be the theme song of my post-transition life. I just cried listening to it, like actually right now, as I write this I still got a little bit of tears drying on my cheek. “If I Could Fly” is a total bop and they did something to the rhythms towards the end of that one and it does really good shit to my brain. “Miracle” is about climate change, it slaughters me HARD because it came out over two decades ago and nothing has changed.
Under this spoiler there are the lyrics of “On a Good Day” because I thought I should include them.
a little bit lost and
a little bit lonely
little bit cold here
a little bit of fear
but I hold on and I feel strong
and I know that I can
I'm getting used to it
lit the fuse to it
like to know who I am
I've been talking to myself forever
and how I wish I knew me better
still sitting on a shelf and never
never seen the sun shine brighter
and it feels like me on a good day
I'm a little bit hemmed in
a little bit isolated
a little bit hopeful
a little bit calm
but I hold on and I feel strong
and I know that I can
I'm getting used to it
lit the fuse to it
like to know who I am
I've been talking to myself forever,
and how I wish I knew me better,
still sitting on a shelf and never
never seen the sun shine brighter
and it feels like me
on a good day
This is the end of this post. Take care of yourselves. Tomorrow needs you, as does the next day, and every day after.
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spoiler
dropping my worst take yet, US politics
I really only care about gay marriage getting overturned in the way that it means we are getting our shit pushed back further. Being able to sign a piece of paper and be "married" is so much less important then care for my medical condition, correct identification documents, all the other shit we as trans people have to deal with, marriage is so far down my list of things I gaf about. And I'm gay and trans so really cis gays shouldn't be able to say anything. Care for my life ruining medical condition just straight up is more important then my ability to sign some stupid paper and get a tax break and shit. My life not being a living hell is a bigger deal.But no one really gives a fuck about transsex people so fuck me I guess.
dysphoria
Like you cannot tell me that forcing trans kids through puberty, causing them perminant pain and dysphoria isn't a much bigger fucking deal but if gay marriage does get over turned and people do act like it's a bigger deal I'm probably going to lose my mind hating cis people forever tbhActually an amendum to that I've already lost my mind hating cis people and its definitely not coming back. I hate them for everything they have done and continue to do.
spoiler
It was a concern from some lgbt activists at the time. There was a whole lgbt separatist/liberationist faction, opposed to what they saw as assimilationism. Why should we go through all this struggle only to replicate the same oppressive hierarchy at the end of it? We had a chance to fight for a whole new world - we shouldnt strive to just get the right to marry! At least that was the thinking. I guess the assimilationists won that particular fight and here we are all that time later.I talked to a friend about it, and she likened it to a genuine social revolution between like 2000 and 2016 - LGBT became just accepted, and there was counter revolution during and reaction now but there was genuine progress and its hard to appreciate unless you talk to some queer elders or people in the know about the 90s and earlier.
But, yes, as always the struggle carries on. It shouldn't have ended with assimilation. And the struggle for our particular healthcare (gender affirming healthcare) is one we should continue - mind that its not just our fight. The number one users of HRT are cis men and women, the number one users of laser hair removal are cis women, Im pretty sure the number one users of puberty blockers are cis kids (for precocious puberty, but Id have to check the stats again), etc. Transgender healthcare is just healthcare, which means its a fight we can win because its something everyone needs.
::: spoiler spoiler
this seems like... idk, a strange way to frame things. Like, why is the concern cis people when the topic is trans healthcare? It's true that the medicines and procedures used in most trans healthcare are also used by cis people, and this can be helpful for pointing out that No This Is Not Some New Dangerous Drug pr Procedure People Are Using It All the Time and Have Been.... but I don't get how that means that cis people are affected by medical discrimination against trans people in the same way as trans people are? For example, in the US some insurance providers are dropping coverage specifically for treatments prescribed to transgender patients. This simply is not going to effect cis patients who are prescribed the same hormones in the same way.
yeah, we're going to need cis allies in our fight, but the fight for trans healthcare can't be about how it affects cis people. Any cis person who only cares about these medicines in terms of how they affect cis people is not gonna suddenly care about trans people when cis people have full access to this medicine and trans people don't.