Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #101, Spring 2003.

A Word from Les

My warmest thanks to all the staff for the tremendous work you do putting out Transgender Tapestry. I appreciate the opportunity toclarify something I read in issue #97. I am quoted on the issue of ?passing.? But in my quote, I clearly specify that I amtalking about the plight of transgender individuals?gender variants forced to live as ?outlaws? by passing as a sex that does not feel like home in orderto survive.

I would never use the term ?passing? to describe the life of a transsexual woman or man who is home.
Leslie F
The quote in question appeared in The Journal section, in an article by Robyn Walters. Robyn was responding to ?The Transgender Revolution,? an article by Holly Boswell which appeared in issue #95. Holly quoted you as follows:

It is passing that?s historically new. Passing means hiding. Passing means invisibility. Transgendered people should be able to live and express their gender without criticism and threats of violence. But that is not the case today.

Thanks for the clarification, Leslie?Ed.


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The Book of Shadows

As the circle was closed and we departed, I was full of energy and did not want to go home. But where could I go in this city and sit beneath the whole andhoneyed moon? I would be far safer in the woods, alone. Was the Goddess?temple crowding the highest hill, its towering columns wound with night-blooming jasmine, its floors covered with the most beautiful velvet moss, flooded with moon light, pouring in from above? And where is Her sacred grove of oak and apple? And just where could a woman, possessed by the Goddess, safely dance beneath the moon until the sun recaptured the sky? And where the garden of earthly enchantments, where a woman could await the embrace of her beloved? And sometimes it will always remain a million miles away, lost Eden, a secret garden hidden by the shadows of a frightened world. What had happened tonight? Had I finally encountered the Goddess? I felt the crust of encultured skepticism crumble, the uncertainty dissolve. I was renewed, restored, and released. I was a woman unto Herself, and no longer alone! And then I knew, then all who would call me evil. I deny the powers of their evil energy and reclaim! My POWER AS A WOMAN!!
Tracy Anne Holiday