Relief

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  People come to the new covenant already stained with the sins committed under the old covenant, for which the old sacrificial system was powerless to atone. So, the writer to the Hebrews has a tremendous thought and says that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is effective retrospectively. That is to say, it wipes out the sins committed under the old covenant and inaugurates the fellowship promised under the new covenant. All that seems very complicated; but, behind it, there are two great eternal truths. First, the sacrifice of Jesus gains forgiveness for past sins. We ought to be punished for what we have done, and to be shut out from God; but, because of what Jesus did, the debt is wiped out, the breaking of the law is forgiven and the barrier is taken away. Second, the sacrifice of Jesus opens a new life for the future. It opens the way to fellowship with God. The God whom our sins had made a stranger, the sacrifice of Christ has made a friend. Because of what he did, the burden of the past is rolled away, and life becomes life with God. It is the next step in the argument which seems to us a fantastic way in which to argue. The question in the mind of the writer is why this new relationship with God should involve the death of Christ. He answers it in two ways. (1) His first answer is – to us almost incredibly – founded on nothing other than a play on words. We have seen that the use of the word diathēkē in the sense of covenant is characteristically Christian, and that its normal secular use was in the sense of will or testament. Up to verse 16, the writer to the Hebrews has been using diathēkē in the normal Christian sense of covenant; then, suddenly and without warning or explanation, he switches to the sense of will.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  By the aid of Staupitz and the old monk, but especially by the continued study of Paul’s Epistles, be was gradually brought to the conviction that the sinner is justified by faith alone, without works of law. He experienced this truth in his heart long before he understood it in all its bearings. He found in it that peace of conscience which he had sought in vain by his monkish exercises. He pondered day and night over the meaning of "the righteousness of God " (Rom. 1:17), and thought that it is the righteous punishment of sinners; but toward the close of his convent life he came to the conclusion that it is the righteousness which God freely gives in Christ to those who believe in him. Righteousness is not to be acquired by man through his own exertions and merits; it is complete and perfect in Christ, and all the sinner has to do is to accept it from Him as a free gift. Justification is that judicial act of God whereby he acquits the sinner of guilt and clothes him with the righteousness of Christ on the sole condition of personal faith which apprehends and appropriates Christ and shows its life and power by good works, as a good tree bringing forth good fruits. For faith in Luther’s system is far more than a mere assent of the mind to the authority of the church: it is a hearty trust and full surrender of the whole man to Christ; it lives and moves in Christ as its element, and is constantly obeying his will and following his example. It is only in connection with this deeper conception of faith that his doctrine of justification can be appreciated. Disconnected from it, it is a pernicious error. The Pauline doctrine of justification as set forth in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, had never before been clearly and fully understood, not even by Augustin and Bernard, who confound justification with sanctification.137 Herein lies the difference between the Catholic and the Protestant conception. In the Catholic system justification (dikaivwsi") is a gradual process conditioned by faith and good works; in the Protestant system it is a single act of God, followed by sanctification. It is based upon the merits of Christ, conditioned by faith, and manifested by good works.138 This experience acted like a new revelation on Luther. It shed light upon the whole Bible and made it to him a book of life and comfort. He felt relieved of the terrible load of guilt by an act of free grace. He was led out of the dark prison house of self-inflicted penance into the daylight and fresh air of God’s redeeming love. Justification broke the fetters of legalistic slavery, and filled him with the joy and peace of the state of adoption; it opened to him the very gates of heaven.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  t an old-fashioned, Kensington luncheon party, not very long after Raftery’s death, Stephen met and renewed her acquaintance with Jonathan Brockett, the playwright. Her mother had wished her to go to this luncheon, for the Carringtons were old family friends, and Anna insisted that from time to time her daughter should accept their invitations. At their house it was that Stephen had first seen this young man, rather over a year ago. Brockett was a connection of the Carringtons; had he not been Stephen might never have met him, for such gatherings bored him exceedingly, and therefore it was not his habit to attend them. But on that occasion he had not been bored, for his sharp, grey eyes had lit upon Stephen; and as soon as he well could, the meal being over, he had made his way to her side and had remained there. She had found him exceedingly easy to talk to, as indeed he had wished her to find him. This first meeting had led to one or two rides in the Row together, since they both rode early. Brockett had joined her quite casually one morning; after which he had called, and had talked to Puddle as if he had come on purpose to see her and her only—he had charming and thoughtful manners towards all elderly people. Puddle had accepted him while disliking his clothes, which were always just a trifle too careful; moreover she had disapproved of his cuff-links—platinum links set with tiny emeralds. All the same, she had made him feel very welcome, for to her it had been any port in a storm just then—she would gladly have welcomed the devil himself, had she thought that he might rouse Stephen.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  What he could not do in person, he carried out through others.23 In the year 596, Gregory, remembering his interview with the sweet-faced and fair-haired Anglo-Saxon slave-boys, and hearing of a favorable opportunity for a mission, sent the Benedictine abbot Augustin (Austin), thirty other monks, and a priest, Laurentius, with instructions, letters of recommendation to the Frank kings and several bishops of Gaul, and a few books, to England.24 The missionaries, accompanied by some interpreters from France, landed on the isle of Thanet in Kent, near the mouth of the Thames.25 King Ethelbert, by his marriage to Bertha, a Christian princess from Paris, who had brought a bishop with her, was already prepared for a change of religion. He went to meet the strangers and received them in the open air; being afraid of some magic if he were to see them under roof. They bore a silver cross for their banner, and the image of Christ painted on a board; and after singing the litany and offering prayers for themselves and the people whom they had come to convert, they preached the gospel through their Frank interpreters. The king was pleased with the ritualistic and oratorical display of the new religion from distant, mighty Rome, and said: "Your words and promises are very fair; but as they are new to us and of uncertain import, I cannot forsake the religion I have so long followed with the whole English nation. Yet as you are come from far, and are desirous to benefit us, I will supply you with the necessary sustenance, and not forbid you to preach and to convert as many as you can to your religion."26 Accordingly, he allowed them to reside in the City of Canterbury (Dorovern, Durovernum), which was the metropolis of his kingdom, and was soon to become the metropolis of the Church of England. They preached and led a severe monastic life. Several believed and were baptized, "admiring," as Bede says, "the simplicity of their innocent life, and the sweetness of their heavenly doctrine." He also mentions miracles. Gregory warned Augustin not to be puffed up by miracles, but to rejoice with fear, and to tremble in rejoicing, remembering what the Lord said to his disciples when they boasted that even the devils were subject to them. For not all the elect work miracles, and yet the names of all are written in heaven.27 King Ethelbert was converted and baptized (probably June 2, 597), and drew gradually his whole nation after him, though he was taught by the missionaries not to use compulsion, since the service of Christ ought to be voluntary. Augustin, by order of pope Gregory, was ordained archbishop of the English nation by Vergilius,28 archbishop of Arles, Nov. 16, 597, and became the first primate of England, with a long line of successors even to this day. On his return, at Christmas, he baptized more than ten thousand English.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  These things do not agree together, as is shown by reason and by daily experience. The order is therefore of no use either to God or the world."794 In the summer of the same year be sent, at the wish of Albrecht, the pioneer of Protestant preachers, to Prussia, in the person of his friend Dr. Johannes Briesmann (14881549), a theologian of learning, piety, and executive ability, who arrived in Königsberg, Sept. 27, 1523, and labored there as preacher in the Dome, and successor of Bishop Georg von Polenz, till his death, with the exception of four years which he spent as evangelist in Riga (1527–1531).795 He afterwards sent two other gifted evangelists, known for their evangelical hymns, namely, Paul Speratus (d. 1551), and John Poliander (Graumann, d. 1541), who made themselves very useful. A third one, Amandus, created disturbance by his radicalism, which resembled that of Carlstadt, and caused his removal from Königsberg. With the help of these theologians and evangelists, Duke Albrecht and Bishop Georg von Polenz brought about a radical change in Prussia, and prepared the way for its great future destiny. The religious reformation preceded the political change. Albrecht, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, last grandmaster of the Teutonic Knights, and first Duke of Prussia, was born at Ansbach, May 16, 1490; destined for the clerical profession; received into the order of the Knights, and elected its grand-master in 1511. He made his entry into Königsberg, Nov. 22, 1512. His effort to make Prussia independent and to refuse obedience to the king of Poland, involved him in a disastrous war till 1521, when an armistice for four years was concluded. He attended, as one of the princes of the empire, the Diet of Nürnberg, 1522 and 1523, and sought protection against Poland, but in vain. He diligently heard, during that time, the sermons of Andreas Osiander, and was converted to the doctrines of the Reformation. He called him his "spiritual father in Christ, through whom God first rescued him from the darkness of popery, and led him to the true divine knowledge." On a journey to Berlin he had a private conference with Luther and Melanchthon, and asked their advice (September, 1523). "Trust in God," said Luther with the consent of Melanchthon, "rather than the empire; shake off the senseless rules of your order, and make an end to that hermaphrodite monster which is neither religious nor secular; abolish the unchaste chastity of monkery; take to thyself a wife, and found a legitimate secular sovereignty." At the same time be recommended to him Paul Speratus as his assistant, who afterwards became bishop of Pomesania. The prince smiled, but said nothing.796 He wavered between obedience to the pope and to his conscience, and his open and secret instructions to the bishop of Samland were contradictory. His brother, Margrave Georg of Brandenburg, had previously given him the same advice as Luther, and he ultimately followed it.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In the expectation of the approaching judgment, crowds of pilgrims flocked to Palestine to greet the advent of the Saviour. But the first millennium passed, and Christendom awoke with a sigh of relief on the first day of the year 1001. Benedict VIII., and Emperor Henry II. Upon the whole the Saxon emperors were of great service to the papacy: they emancipated it from the tyranny of domestic political factions, they restored it to wealth, and substituted worthy occupants for monstrous criminals. During the next reign the confusion broke out once more. The anti-imperial party regained the ascendency, and John Crescentius, the son of the beheaded consul, ruled under the title of Senator and Patricius. But the Counts of Tusculum held the balance of power pretty evenly, and gradually superseded the house of Crescentius. They elected Benedict VIII. (1012–1024), a member of their family; while Crescentius and his friends appointed an anti-pope (Gregory). Benedict proved a very energetic pope in the defence of Italy against the Saracens. He forms the connecting link between the Ottonian and the Hildebrandian popes. He crowned Henry II, (1014), as the faithful patron and protector simply, not as the liege-lord, of the pope. This last emperor of the Saxon house was very devout, ascetic, and liberal in endowing bishoprics. He favored clerical celibacy. He aimed earnestly at a moral reformation of the church. He declared at a diet, that he had made Christ his heir, and would devote all he possessed to God and his church. He filled the vacant bishoprics and abbeys with learned and worthy men; and hence his right of appointment was not resisted. He died after a reign of twenty-two years, and was buried at his favorite place, Bamberg in Bavaria, where he had founded a bishopric (1007). He and his chaste wife, Kunigunde, were canonized by the grateful church (1146).294 The Tusculan Popes. Benedict IX. With Benedict VIII. the papal dignity became hereditary in the Tusculan family. He had bought it by open bribery. He was followed by his brother John XIX., a layman, who bought it likewise, and passed in one day through all the clerical degrees. After his death in 1033, his nephew Theophylact, a boy of only ten or twelve years of age,295 ascended the papal throne under the name of Benedict IX. (1033–1045). His election was a mere money bargain between the Tusculan family and the venal clergy and populace of Rome. Once more the Lord took from Jerusalem and Judah the stay and the staff, and gave children to be their princes, and babes to rule over them.296 This boy-pope fully equaled and even surpassed John XII. in precocious wickedness. He combined the childishness of Caligala and the viciousness of Heliogabalus.297 He grew worse as he advanced in years. He ruled like a captain of banditti, committed murders and adulteries in open day-light, robbed pilgrims on the graves of martyrs, and turned Rome into a den of thieves.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  From conversations I’ve had with a number of transsexual friends who transitioned before me, I would say that my attitude at the time—my questioning of (and refusal to identify within) the male/female binary—was a fairly common response to being in the throes of physical and social transition. Transitioning is such an upending, mind-blowing experience that it seems to me to be almost a necessity for one to let go of one’s preconceived notions of maleness and femaleness in order to traverse those states of being. Being perceived as female while having an entirely male history and a mostly male body (as I did at the time) made me feel not like an imposter (as some might imagine), but more like an alien. I was just being myself, but other people were relating and reacting to me in ways that were foreign to me. I felt less like a woman or a man than I did a stranger in a strange land. As with many of my transsexual friends, I found that this sense of otherness steadily subsided with time. And over the course of a year or two, I eventually did come to identify as a woman. Part of this evolution in my self-perception was driven by how different I felt in my body after physically transitioning. This is one of the most difficult aspects of transitioning to describe, as there are so few words in our language to articulate “body feelings” of any sort. I’m sure that this lack in language is related to our cultural tendency to dismiss or discount the way that our bodies feel to us. Indeed, many of us tend to think of ourselves as brains or souls crammed inside of a shell—a shell that is our body. We delude ourselves into believing that the shell itself is not important, not connected to our consciousness, that it’s merely a vessel that contains us, or a vehicle that we move about with our minds. But the truth is, our bodies are inseparable from our minds. This becomes evident whenever hunger, thirst, or physical pain grows to the point where we can think of nothing else, or when mental grief or stress manifests itself in physical aches and exhaustion. All of us who have experienced the physical difference between feeling healthy and feeling ill, or perhaps most profoundly, between pre-and postpuberty, have a deep understanding (whether we acknowledge it or not) that our body feelings make a vital and substantial contribution to our senses of self.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  You could say that my decision to transition was primarily driven by my choosing to trust my body feelings—in this case, my subconscious sex—over my conscious understanding of gender. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the most immediate change in my body feelings that I experienced upon starting hormone therapy was an easing of my gender dissonance—the chronic gender sadness that I had carried around with me for as long as I could remember. I am not sure whether this was a direct effect of having female hormones in my system or a more psychological effect of knowing that my body was finally moving in the right direction. Either way, the relief I felt was beyond measure; for the first time in my life, I slowly began to feel comfortable being in my own skin. Female hormones have also produced numerous other body feelings that have greatly reshaped my sense of self. There have been profound changes in the way that I experience sensations and emotions, and in my tastes, urges, and responses to stimuli. And the physical changes to my body, which unfolded over a greater span of time, have also influenced the way I experience the world. Granted, when strangers first began gendering me as female (back when I was still identifying as genderqueer), unclothed I probably looked like a slightly feminized male. But after five years of being on female hormones, there is virtually nothing about my body that looks or feels male (with the obvious exception of my genitals, as I have not had bottom surgery). In those intervening years, my skin has become much softer, my center of gravity has totally shifted, my metabolism has changed, clothing fits my body differently, heavy objects seem to have become much heavier, and room temperature seems to have dropped about two or three degrees. The changes in the shape of my body and in my muscle/fat distribution have significantly altered the way I walk, run, dance, hold my body, and move in general. Simply put, my body no longer feels male to me; rather, it feels female.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  He sent Spalatin to Wittenberg, where some students had left in consequence of the bull; but Spalatin was encouraged, and found that Melanchthon had about six hundred, Luther four hundred hearers, and that the church was crowded whenever Luther preached. A few weeks afterward the Pope’s bull was burnt. NOTES.—THE BULL OF EXCOMMUNICATION. As I do not find the bull in any of the Protestant or Roman-Catholic church histories which I have consulted (except the Annals of Raynaldus), I give it here in full as transcribed from an original copy in possession of the Astor Library, New York (probably the only one on the American Continent), together with facsimiles of titlepage and first page (see preceeding pages in text). The pamphlet contains twenty pages, small quarto, and is printed continuously, like ancient MSS. I have divided it into sections, with headings, and noted the departures of Cocquelines and Raynaldus from the original. BULLA CONTRA ERRORES MARTINI LUTHERI ET SEQUACIUM. Leo Episcopus Servus Servorum Dei.263 Ad perpetuam rel memoriam. [Proömium. The Pope invokes God, St. Peter and St. Paul, and all the saints, against the new enemies of the Church.] Exurge, Domine, et judica causam tuam, memor esto improperiorum tuorum, eorum, quae ab insipientibus fiunt totâ die; inclina aurem tuam ad preces nostras, quoniam surrexerunt vulpes quaerentes demoliri vineam, cujus tu torcular calcasti solus, et ascensurus ad Patrem ejus curam, regimen et administrationem Petro tanquam capiti et tuo vicario, ejusque successoribus instar triumphantis Ecclesiae commisisti: exterminate nititur eam aper de silva, et singularis ferus depasci [tur] eam. Exurge, Petre, et pro pastorali cura praefata tibi (ut praefertur) divinitus demandata, intende in causam sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae, Matris omnium ecclesiarum, se fidei magistrae, quam tu, jubente Deo, tuo sanguine consecrasti, contra quam, sicut tu praemonere dignatus es, insurgunt magistri mendaces introducentes sectas perditionis, sibi celerem interitum superducentes,264 quorum lingua ignis est, inquietum malum, plena veneno mortifero, qui zelum amarum habentes et contentiones in cordibus suis, gloriantur, et mendaces sunt adversus veritatem. Exurge tu quoque, quaesumus, Paule, qui eam tuâ doctrinâ et pari martyrio illuminasti atque illustrasti. Jam enim surgit novus Porphyrius; quia sicut ille olim sanctos Apostolos injuste momordit, ita hic sanctos Pontifices praedecessores nostros contra tuam doctrinam eos non obsecrando, sed increpando, mordere, lacerare, ac ubi causae suae265 diffidit, ad convicia accedere non veretur, more haereticorum, quorum (ut inquit Hieronymus) ultimum presidium est, ut cum conspiciant causas suas damnatum iri, incipiant virus serpentis linguâ diffundere; et cum se victos conspiciant, ad contuinelias prosilire. Nam licet haereses esse ad exercitationem fidelium in dixeris oportere, eas tamen, ne incrementum accipiant, neve vulpeculae coalescant, in ipso ortu, te intercedente et adjuvante, extingui necesse est.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Irene convened the seventh oecumenical council in the year 787, at Nicaea, which was less liable to iconoclastic disturbances than Constantinople, yet within easy reach of the court, and famous as the seat of the first and weightiest oecumenical council. It was attended by about three hundred and fifty bishops,544 under the presidency of Tarasius, and held only eight sessions from September 24 to October 23, the last in the imperial palace of Constantinople. Pope Hadrian I. sent two priests, both called Peter, whose names stand first in the Acts. The three Eastern patriarchs, who were subject to the despotic rule of the Saracens, could not safely leave their homes; but two Eastern monks, John, and Thomas, who professed to be syncelli of two of these patriarchs and to have an accurate knowledge of the prevailing orthodoxy of Egypt and Syria, were allowed to sit and vote in the place of those dignitaries, although they had no authority from them, and were sent simply by a number of their fellow-monks.545 The Nicene Council nullified the decrees of the iconoclastic Synod of Constantinople, and solemnly sanctioned a limited worship (proskynesis) of images.546 Under images were understood the sign of the cross, and pictures of Christ, of the Virgin Mary, of angels and saints. They may be drawn in color or composed of Mosaic or formed of other suitable materials, and placed in churches, in houses, and in the street, or made on walls and tables, sacred vessels and vestments. Homage may be paid to them by kissing, bowing, strewing of incense, burning of lights, saying prayers before them; such honor to be intended for the living objects in heaven which the images represented. The Gospel book and the relics of martyrs were also mentioned among the objects of veneration. The decree was fortified by a few Scripture passages about the Cherubim (Ex. 25:17–22; Ezek. 41:1, 15, 19; Heb. 9:1–5), and a large number of patristic testimonies, genuine and forged, and alleged miracles performed by images.547 A presbyter testified that he was cured from a severe sickness by a picture of Christ. Bishop after bishop, even those who had been members of the Synod of 754, renounced his iconoclastic opinions, and large numbers exclaimed together: "We all have sinned, we all have erred, we all beg forgiveness." Some professed conscientious scruples, but were quieted when the Synod resolved that the violation of an oath which was contrary to the law of God, was no perjury. At the request of one of the Roman delegates, an image was brought into the assembly, and reverently kissed by all. At the conclusion, the assembled bishops exclaimed unanimously: "Thus we believe. This is the doctrine of the apostles. Anathema upon all who do not adhere to it, who do not salute the images, who call them idols, and who charge the Christians with idolatry. Long life to the emperors! Eternal memory to the new Constantine and the new Helena! God protect their reign!

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I wasn’t sure how or when that was going to happen. But maybe it would if I continued to stay alive. “Forgive me,” I said. When I got back into the house, Steve was in the kitchen eating cereal again. He eyed me skeptically over his reading glasses. In front of him was the newspaper, with a headline that read FIRES IN THE VALLEY. “I made a mistake,” I said. He blinked and kept chewing. “I’m not going to leave yet after all.” “Is that so?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. He was silent. He rose and put his bowl in the sink. “Try not to bleed on anything,” he said, and shuffled up the stairs. It dawned on me that I hadn’t gotten my period in a while, not since Theo and I had bloodied the sofa. That was at least five weeks ago. Maybe I was hitting menopause? Did women hit menopause at thirty-eight? — I didn’t bother opening my suitcase, brushing my teeth, or washing my face. I stripped down to my underpants, braless, and climbed onto the sofa, snuggling up under the blanket. It was strange to be there without Dominic or Theo. Why could they never coexist in the same space, Theo with his fantasy love and Dominic with his pure love? Theo was so afraid of Dominic, how his pure love might hurt him or even eliminate him. I was afraid too, which was why I had chosen to hide him away. I had hoped that fantasy would triumph. Now I was left with neither. But I had my sister. In a way it was kind of nice to be alone. The euphoria was gone and the silence was gone—those were Theo’s. In his place, some of the nothingness had clearly returned. But I felt different about it, like it was laughing with me or maybe I with it. It was my own nothingness to have and to hold. In my mind I called it a fucker and turned off the light.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  One question that many queer-identified friends asked me back when I was crossdressing was why it was so important for me to “pass” as a woman. Their concern seemed to stem from the common use of the term “pass” in lesbian and gay communities as a synonym for “hide” (i.e., a gay male who “passes” for straight is typically assumed to be hiding or playing down his queerness). This use of the word “pass” is completely different from its use in the transgender community, where it typically refers to whether one is appropriately gendered as the sex one identifies or presents oneself as. From my perspective as a crossdresser, what gay people call “passing” (i.e., hiding) was what I did every day when I lived as male. In contrast, when I dressed and “passed” (in the transgender sense) as a woman, it was a rare moment of being “out” for me, of having others see and acknowledge a part of me that I normally kept hidden. Eventually, having other people gender me as female became demystified. While I still enjoyed it (as I did with the mirror moments), it was no longer enough in and of itself to ease the gender dissonance that I felt. It was at this point that I moved into the “interactive stage,” when I began to go out with other people while I was crossdressed. While I had come out to a number of friends as a crossdresser during my public stage, I now began cultivating relationships with people who primarily or solely knew me when I was in girl-mode. More often than not, these were people who I met via personal ads and who were aware that I was a crossdresser from the start. Over an extremely intense two-year period of my life, I sort of lived a dual life, where I was in boy-mode most of the time, but about one or two times per week I would go out and interact with others (often on dates) as a woman. Some of the people I saw during this period were men who might be described as admirers of MTF spectrum people. With them, I primarily engaged in role-playing relationships in which we would create sexually charged scenarios based on exaggerations of gender stereotypes. While many people assume that male “tranny chasers” are closeted homosexuals who are turned on by the “guy” (or the “penis”) under the dress, all of the men who I role-played with were primarily attracted to women and, in particular, to femininity. In conversations I had with them, each said that what attracted them to MTF spectrum people was the extreme femininity that many of us (including myself at the time) sometimes displayed. For me, these role-playing experiences were important in helping me demystify the connection between femininity and sexuality.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Have I misunderstood doctors all these years, thinking their authority and omnipotence offer a safe cushion when actually they just adhere to a lot of rigid rules and impenetrable order? Finally I glance at my watch and widen my eyes as I pretend to notice the time and he gets the hint, paying the bill as I watch obediently. As we walk down the block, he asks me what I like to drink. I list my top choices: tequila, wine, Prosecco, but he wants to know specifically if I like champagne. “Sure, I like champagne,” I say. “OK, great, let’s make a plan to drink champagne together,” he says, then gives me a kiss on the lips and we part. I squeeze my eyes shut and grimace as I walk away. I have to learn how to be quicker on these dates – that’s the point of coffee and not a meal – just a quick in and out. Why do I always feel like I have to make myself so available? Why do I make myself seem interested when I could save everyone a lot of time and trouble by politely rising after an hour, shaking hands and saying a noncommittal, “Bye then, nice to have met you.” With this newly formed commitment to forthrightness spurring me on, I shoot off a text to Karl, who has followed up his sunshine and roses text with a photo of himself standing in a field of sunflowers. “Hey Karl, it was lovely to get to know you. You’re a genuinely kind and sincere man. I get the feeling that you want more out of dating than I do right now. I’m early in this process and want to be casual with anyone I date, which seems incongruous with what you’re looking for. Thank you for letting me see that there are good men out there,” I write. He writes back immediately, “I had a feeling when I didn’t hear back from you earlier. I’m not looking for anything serious, I just like you and it’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed being with a woman. Good luck. You have my number if you change your mind.” I feel immense relief that I have gracefully extricated myself. * Next up: Jeff, a lawyer who meets me in the garden of a wine bar in my neighborhood. Over glasses of Chardonnay, we talk about our kids, their schools, our backgrounds, finally resorting to the weather when our well runs dry. He tells me a story with minutes of build-up and I keep waiting for the punchline but then realize with dismay that there isn’t one. When the waitress asks if we want another glass and he says sure, my heart sinks. I can usually make small talk like it’s an Olympic sport, but either I’ve utterly exhausted myself or he’s hopeless.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Surely this is a sign that I should stop things, but who knows when my next opportunity for sex will be, so I wait as he rummages through his dresser for a T-shirt for me to pull on. The one he hands me is black and from a Harley-Davidson event. It hangs down to my thighs and I like it, feeling so delicate in this man’s oversized motorcycle T-shirt. It has started to drizzle outside so we run to my car, which I instantly turn on. I shoot him a quizzical look. “How did you do that?” he asks. “I turned the ignition,” I say and shrug, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. I smile encouragingly at him, then run through the rain to get back inside. Keeping the T-shirt on, I crawl back under the covers and try to find a playlist on Spotify that seems appropriate. Country Kind of Love? Happy Chill? Walk Like A Badass? Confidence Boost? I settle for Indie Chill and manage to lie still and nod off. An hour later, I wake up to car doors opening and closing and then it seems to take an inordinately long time once again for Johnny to reappear. I try to pretend that I’m still sleeping so he can sneak in next to me and we can get right back to where we left off without any further small talk, but by the time he finally arrives, I’m too antsy to even feign sleep. “I’m so sorry, Laura, that took forever,” he says. “Yes, I know,” I say dryly. “I almost gave up. There was only one register open in the store and a long line and there I am standing with my box of condoms. Then when it’s finally my turn, the cashiers change shifts and I stand there still holding my box of condoms while one cashier counts out her register and the other sets up. It’s as if they were messing with me. I almost walked out.” I laugh and thank him for his determination and ultimate triumph, and here he goes again, nervously shuffling around the room and in again comes Floyd, revved up and ready for round two. He undresses and joins me under the blankets. I have to give myself a silent pep talk to get back in the spirit of things as the time lapse, series of unfortunate events and watchful eyes of the dog have gotten in my head. As he burrows under the blankets to go down on me I close my eyes and hold my breath, as anxious as I had been with #1 that he might find something down there that alarms him. It’s a great relief when he compliments me instead, tells me that I smell good and my skin is so soft. More importantly, two men have now independently surveyed the state of my vagina and given it the all-clear.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Now, if we were to attempt to account for this phenomenon in the simplest way and with the least number of assumptions, we might suggest that some crossdressers (like their transsexual female counterparts) also have a female subconscious sex. However, in a world where women are regularly assumed to be “naturally” feminine and attracted to men, MTF spectrum trans people who do not meet those expectations may have a more difficult time considering the possibility that becoming female and living as a woman is a realistic option for them. So they may initially gravitate toward a crossdresser identity because it seems to be the only viable alternative for them. This was most certainly true in my case. For me, it was only after I fully explored crossdressing (eventually finding it to be insufficient to ease my gender dissonance), and had the opportunity to meet several trans women who did not fit the “classic” transsexual archetype, that I realized that it was actually possible for me to physically transition and live as a somewhat nonconforming woman with regard to gender and sexuality. While a subconscious sex that is independent of sexual orientation and gender expression (as I have previously described in chapter 6 , “Intrinsic Inclinations”) may be the simplest and soundest model to explain why some male crossdressers eventually come to see themselves as trans women, it has not sat well with certain psychiatrists. This is presumably because the existence of nonheterosexual and nonfeminine trans women entirely undermines the predator/prey logic that these researchers take as a given. In the late 1980s, in an apparent attempt to reconcile this issue, psychologist Ray Blanchard put forward a different (and more confounding) model to explain MTF transgenderism. 9 His theory creates a new dichotomy between what he calls autogynephilic and homosexual transsexuals, which recapitulates the predator/prey dichotomy. While Blanchard’s controversial theory is built upon a number of incorrect and unfounded assumptions, and there are many methodological flaws in the data he offers to support it, it has garnered some acceptance in the psychiatric literature and gained mainstream attention with the publication of psychologist J. Michael Bailey’s book The Man Who Would Be Queen . 10 According to Blanchard’s model, “homosexual” transsexuals are trans women who are feminine and exclusively attracted to men (the confusing nomenclature arises from Blanchard’s and other psychiatrists’ practice of viewing trans women as “males”).

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  This dependent relationship was instituted by the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA), a professional organization that sets the guidelines for the “psychiatric, psychological, medical, and surgical management of gender identity disorders.” 1 Until 1998, The HBIGDA Standards of Care stated that “[a]ny and all recommendations for sex reassignment surgery and hormone therapy should be made only by clinical behavioral scientists.” 2 Because these medical procedures are prerequisites for obtaining legal change of sex in the United States, the psychiatric community (as well as other psychologists, physicians, and sexologists who had a hand in establishing the standards of care) has become positioned as “gatekeepers” of medical and legal sex reassignment. During the last half century, this group has amassed a large body of research on the subjects of transsexuality and transgenderism that has very much shaped the way our culture views and values transgender people, as well as how transgender people come to understand themselves. However, this body of research, though presented as “scientific” and “objective,” reveals more about the researchers’ biases and assumptions than it does about the transgender population. Oppositional Sexism and Sex Reassignment As I mentioned in previous chapters, trans people (who have a subconscious sex that is not in concordance with their physical sex) often suffer from gender dissonance, which is best thought of as the psychological strain of having to constantly pretend to be a member of a gender with which they do not identify. Over the years, sexologists have tried everything imaginable to “cure” trans people of gender dissonance, including psychoanalysis, aversion and electroshock therapies, administering assigned-sex-consistent hormones (i.e., androgens for male-bodied trans people, estrogens for female-bodied trans people) and psychotropic drugs—all to no avail. The only thing that has ever been shown to successfully alleviate gender dissonance is allowing the trans person to live in their identified gender. 3 There is an extraordinary amount of historical and anthropological evidence to further support this strategy, as trans people across cultures and throughout history have chosen to live as members of the other sex, often taking on the roles, manner of dress, and/or occupations associated with their identified genders and, in some cases, physically and hormonally altering their bodies via castration. 4 In the last century, advances in medicine have offered trans people the opportunity to physically transition (via hormones and surgery) in addition to socially transitioning. One of the most prominent advocates for allowing this option was endocrinologist Harry Benjamin (for whom HBIGDA was later named). Benjamin’s first encounter with trans people took place in the early 1920s, when an MTF spectrum individual sought his help in obtaining female hormones in order to induce female development—a request which Benjamin eventually fulfilled and which led to “emotional improvement” on the part of the trans person.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  Later I would learn that Tennyson had also suffered from epilepsy. No wonder I had been drawn to his poetry, with its haunting descriptions of tranced states of mind and of life seen through a veil of unreality. But Tennyson had lived in a terror of the disease, which had darkened his whole life. His brother Edward, also a sufferer, had been confined for years in an asylum for the insane. A hundred years ago, epilepsy was a disgrace; it was thought to be the result of a disordered sexual appetite. Epileptics were thus castrated, circumcised, or incarcerated in Bedlam. But that was no longer true. I had a prescription in my pocket for a drug that would control these symptoms. I might never again have to experience that periodic descent into hell. And even if I still suffered further temporal lobe attacks, at least I would know what was happening to me. By far the most frightening aspect of the whole experience had been the fear of losing my mind. I was, therefore, rather surprised not only that my friends found it difficult to share my relief, but that some positively resisted the diagnosis. This is the only aspect of the disease that I have found truly troubling. Something of the old shibboleths remain. Epilepsy is still, in some sense, an unacceptable disease; as I have found, people need to turn it into something else. Friends will look puzzled and mulish when I explain that it is a purely physical disease, the result of a birth accident. They seem to want it to be the expression of psychological strain or neurosis. They can become quite dogmatic on the subject, even though their knowledge of neurology could be written down on a small postcard. Others simply change the subject if I mention my condition, as though I had made a remark in bad taste. I am quite sure that I would not experience the same kind of reaction if I suffered from diabetes or hypertension. This has meant that, even though nobody would dream of incarcerating me in a mental hospital because of my condition, my epilepsy has been an isolating factor. I tended to retreat from close contact with people during the years before the diagnosis, because I was afraid of having one of my “weird seizures” in front of them. This made my return to secular life far more difficult than it need have been, and I should not have been abandoned for so long in that Boschlike hell, which has left me with an indelible memory of the darker regions of my mind. But when I left Dr. Wolfe’s consulting room on that bright spring morning in 1976, I did not know that I would have these difficulties. I felt simply a joyous relief that has never entirely left me. I still feel a sense of reprieve. All I wanted to do, when I first received the diagnosis, was to revel in this wonderful reversal.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  Wolfe covered his eyes with his hand, shook his head, and looked up again. “Do you mean to tell me,” he asked, with devastating quiet, “that you were treated by psychiatrists for over three years—men and women who were all fully qualified doctors—that you presented these symptoms, and that none of them, not one, in all that time suggested that you have an EEG?” “No, they didn’t.” I was beginning to be invaded by an enormous astonishment, a confusion of feelings that included anger but also a relief so great that I was close to tears. Dr. Wolfe uttered that explosive sound that novelists used to transcribe as “Pshaw!” “It’s not even as though temporal lobe epilepsy were an obscure condition,” he snapped. “It’s the most common of all the focal epilepsies, and very well documented. And as I say, you are almost a textbook case!” He trailed off. Then his face cleared, while he wrote out a prescription for the drug that, he hoped, would eliminate the demons that had haunted me so long. As I got up to go, he looked at me sternly. “I don’t think you need waste any more of your time with these psychiatrists .” He made the word sound like an obscenity. “No amount of talking about your problems will make the smallest impression on your condition, and I’m very sorry indeed that you have had to wait for so long before getting adequate medical help. By the way,” he added, as I reached the door, “it’s interesting that you were once a nun. People with temporal lobe epilepsy are often religious!” I walked down Mortimer Street in a daze. For many people, I am sure, a diagnosis of epilepsy must be unwelcome news, but for me it was an occasion of pure happiness. As I looked at the grimy buildings, the diseased London pigeons flapping untidily round the gables, the littered streets, and the overflowing dustbins, this urban detritus seemed a vision of beauty. For the first time in years, I felt that I could trust my perceptions. I knew now that my mind was neither broken nor irretrievably flawed. I was not mad, and need not expect to end my days in a locked ward. The world had been given back to me, and perhaps for the first time ever, I felt that I could take charge of my life. The disease itself did not trouble me unduly. The experience of looking after Jacob had taught me that it was a manageable condition. It was also very common. Dr. Wolfe had told me that each year twenty-five thousand people contract epilepsy in Britain alone. It was even a rather distinguished illness: Dostoyevsky, van Gogh, Gustave Flaubert, Edward Lear, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great had probably all been epileptics.

• From The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon (2009)

  But, unfortunately, for us, justice has come to mean primarily retributive justice, that is, punishment. Not, however, for Paul—and that is where we start to misunderstand him. For Paul, first, God’s justice is distributive rather than retributive; second, distributive justice is the very nature, essence, and character of God; and, third, divine distributive justice is above all else God’s very being as distributed freely to us to transform God’s world into a place of that same justice. If, however, you misread Paul as announcing that God is a God of retributive justice, you will need theological contortions to explain how that could possibly be “good news” (gospel), especially for that universal human sinfulness described in Romans 1–3. Paul’s actual good news, however, is that God’s own character of distributive justice is available for anyone willing to accept it—without prior merits or conditions. Justification: transformation, not imputation. If you misread the justice of Paul’s God as retributive, the only good news might be that God would pretend, as it were, that we were just, that God would impute to us a justice we did not have. Such an “as if” treatment would have horrified Paul. There is nothing, for example, about fictional imputation of justice, but everything about factual transformation by justice in these claims from 2 Corinthians: All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being trans formed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (3:18) We do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. (4:16) If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (5:17). That is transformation, not imputation. Sacrifice: participation, not substitution. We saw in Chapter 5 that Paul’s understanding of sacrificial atonement must be emphatically distinguished from Anselm’s interpretation of it as substitutionary sacrificial atonement. Indeed, Paul’s own interpretation of Christ’s execution was as a participatory sacrificial atonement. That is why, in Romans, having mentioned “Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood” in just one verse (3:25), Paul does not develop that further, yet spends a whole chapter on our participation in Christ (6:1–23). Humanity’s universal sin is far, far worse than those traditional vice lists cited for Greeks and Jews by Paul in Romans 1–3. It is this: we have accepted violence as civilization’s drug of choice, and our addiction now threatens creation itself.

• From Notes of a Native Son (1955)

  So, in the middle of the next day, Christmas Eve, I shuffled downstairs again, to meet my visitor. He looked extremely well fed and sane and clean. He told me I had nothing to worry about any more. Only not even he could do anything to make the mill of justice grind any faster. He would, however, send me a lawyer of his acquaintance who would defend me on the 27th, and he would himself, along with several other people, appear as a character witness. He gave me a package of Lucky Strikes (which the turnkey took from me on the way upstairs) and said that, though it was doubtful that there would be any celebration in the prison, he would see to it that I got a fine Christmas dinner when I got out. And this, somehow, seemed very funny. I remember being astonished at the discovery that I was actually laughing. I was, too, I imagine, also rather disappointed that my hair had not turned white, that my face was clearly not going to bear any marks of tragedy, disappointed at bottom, no doubt, to realize, facing him in that room, that far worse things had happened to most people and that, indeed, to paraphrase my mother, if this was the worst thing that ever happened to me I could consider myself among the luckiest people ever to be born. He injected—my visitor—into my solitary nightmare common sense, the world, and the hint of blacker things to come. The next day, Christmas, unable to endure my cell, and feeling that, after all, the day demanded a gesture, I asked to be allowed to go to Mass, hoping to hear some music. But I found myself, for a freezing hour and a half, locked in exactly the same kind of cubicle as in the wagon which had first brought me to prison, peering through a slot placed at the level of the eye at an old Frenchman, hatted, overcoated, muffled, and gloved, preaching in this language which I did not understand, to this row of wooden boxes, the story of Jesus Christ’s love for men. The next day, the 26th, I spent learning a peculiar kind of game, played with match-sticks, with my cellmates. For, since I no longer felt that I would stay in this cell forever, I was beginning to be able to make peace with it for a time. On the 27th I went again to trial and, as had been predicted, the case against us was dismissed. The story of the drap de lit, finally told, caused great merriment in the courtroom, whereupon my friend decided that the French were “great.”