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Something That May Shock and Discredit You QUOTES

Something That May Shock and Discredit You QUOTES

1 " I mean, if I were thirty years younger—if I were twenty five years younger—if I were eighteen years younger—God, if I were just ten years younger—if I were a year and a day younger—if I were a month younger—if you'd asked me just five minutes ago, four and a half even, if I'd picked up on the first ring instead of the third, I'd transition. Hell, I'd transition. Oh my God, I wish I could transition. Ask me again, but sooner. Come back yesterday. Come back a week ago. What good are you to me now, when I'm—this? Where were you when there was still summer in my heart? Come back a month ago, a decade, but come back to before I had to forgive you. Just come back and ask again; I'll wait if it takes forever this time. "

― Daniel Mallory Ortberg, , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

2 " As my friend Julian puts it, only half winkingly: “God blessed me by making me transsexual for the same reason God made wheat but not bread and fruit but not wine, so that humanity might share in the act of creation. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

3 " Even if I never read another book, I’m still a person with intrinsic value, and later I’ll be a river. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

4 " Chapter Eleven: In Which I Interview Every Man Who Refused to Walk Through a Door I Held Open for Them Before Transition and Inform Them that They Are Retroactively Gay Now "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

5 " I had grown comfortable at the thought of my body as a public resource that I was responsible for holding in trust. I had been charged with its maintenance and general upkeep, and on the strength of such a relationship had been able to develop a certain vague fondness for it, while also maintaining a pleasant distance. Don’t ask me; I just work here, was my attitude. I can let the supervisors know when there’s a problem and they tell me how to fix it. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

6 " It was one thing to be a man, or wish to be a man, or live as a man, in a coffee shop or with a friend or alone in my apartment or out in public, but to be a man in relation with my mother meant being not-her-daughter. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

7 " Resolutely cheerful, unrepentantly sentimental, unfortunately prone to Peter Pan syndrome, in a bafflingly nonspecific relationship with a tall, beautiful woman, deeply enthusiastic about terrible hobbies, a tendency toward overdressing, neglectful or at the least careless of his health—Gomez Addams could have walked out of a pamphlet on trans-specific medical care from Vancouver Coastal Health. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

8 " I often described my sudden shift in self-awareness as feeling as if a demon had entered my room in the middle of the night, startled me awake by whispering, "What if you were a man, sort of?" into my ear, then slithered out the window before I could ask any follow-up questions. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

9 " Kids, Daddy used to have the greatest rack in the tristate area. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

10 " are you up
if so do you want to play frisbee and die for each other
—Hyacinthus to Apollo, ibid. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

11 " Everyone with a lick of sense loves Morticia, but what is Gomez Addams, besides “an obviously transsexual man”? "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

12 " On the one hand, here is death: stagnant, permanent, immobilized, silent, unvarying, inactive, formless, characterless, shrinking, constrictive, irreversible. On the other hand, here is transition: active, forceful, adaptable, energetic, animated, expansive, full of possibility, capacious, comprehensive, vital, ambitious. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

13 " Here is the other Mode of Gay Feeling: You still look fantastic, but your stomach hurts and you will never get out of bed. You have learned that rolling your sleeves up over your forearms is very useful to you, sexually speaking, but the person you love and the people you sleep with have absolutely nothing in common, including what they think of your forearms. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

14 " There is a certain type of beautiful boy who plays Ultimate Frisbee and invites you to come watch his game,” I said, “not because he is vain and self-centered, although he maybe is, but because it is the only way he knows how to invite someone to share in his particular joy, and I think maybe the only thing I have ever wanted is to be a very beautiful, very dead, gentle boy that everyone gathers around and looks at. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

15 " Chapter Thirteen: In Which I Rescue Masculinity by Taking Up Weight Lifting, Heroically It’s subversive and important when I do it. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

16 " A few years later, with a transition slightly less bed-centered, I might have described that feeling instead as this: after a number of years of being vaguely troubled by an inconsistent, inexplicable sense of homesickness, I woke up one morning and remembered my home address, having forgotten even that I forgot it in the first place, then grown fearful and weary at the prospect of trying to get back. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

17 " I also had the sense that there was something distinctly impolite about [transitioning], like agreeing to go out for pizza with a group of friends and, just as we were being led to our table, announcing, "I think I'd rather have birthday cake for dinner. Does anyone mind if we leave now and go bake a cake somewhere?" And my friends might agree out of politeness and affection, but their hearts wouldn't really be in it, and I would in fact have trespassed on their good natures by asking, making such an outrageous, selfish request. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

18 " Trying not to transition was the hardest work in the world. The nicest thing about transition was letting go. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

19 " As soon as I allowed myself to consider the possibility of transition, not as it related to other people but as it related to me, I had to fight not to transition every day. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You

20 " Transition had not always been true of me, but I found that the more place I allowed it in my life, the further back it cast its roots. Whether or not the birthright had been mine to begin with or ever intended for me, I found the burden easy and the yoke light. "

― , Something That May Shock and Discredit You