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transLast Halloween, Victoria Lyons Hersch would have turned 32 years old.
She was born Victor Lyons, in a small town in North Dakota. She never grew big in size, but her spirit was huge. at full adult maturation, she stood only 5-4", weighed not more than 120. this latter fact would eventually change.
small for her size, and somewhat effeminate, she was never picked on. those in her family were respected. those in the modern tribe she was proud to be a part of knew she was special.
when she was 16, a house down the street next to the house she lived in caught fire. a crowd gathered, and watched. she couldnt. she rushed in, and pulled out a woman, her brother, and 3 small children. for this, the tribal council awarded her five feathers of Honor. no one ever fucked with her in her hometown and tribe after that.
when she was 18, she moved to NYC, where she'd been granted a scholarship at an art school. there she studied graphic design. when she showed up for class her first day, she was no longer in any way Victor. She was herself, a gorgeous native american young woman named Victoria.
as she did her schoolwork, she moved through her transition. it wasnt an easy one. there was stuff that needed to be done, apple shave, breasts, electrolysis. she paid for this by working as a BDsM fetish pro Domme. she made great money. one day, a client of hers got his switch flipped, and beat her nearly to death, and then stabbed her a few times with a knife. she survived, recoupurated, and left that life.
in her mid to early twenties, she began to establish herself as a very successful graphic artist, designing corporate logos and the like. she developed a fine resume filled with loyal clients, who went with her to whatever company she joined up with, happy to pay whatever broken contract fees became necessary by law.
by the time i first met her, online, she already had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, the ultimate transsexual irony. she was still pre-op, but had been full time for just over a decade. she'd given herself a Lakota name, i dont know the actual words, but it translated as "Dances with Girls". she was a lesbian, just like me.
we began talking. i was just beginning to face my own transsexuality at an age two or three years after the age at which she would finally be taken away by her disease.
the Lakota word for older sister is "Cuwe" (pronounced in a way very similar to Han Solo's furry side kick). the Lakota word for younger sister is "Tankaku" (actually pronounced Mitankalu.. but shorted by time born slang). as we spoke almost entirely now by phone, i was Cuwe. She was Tankaku.
i never met her face to face. two things happened. we'd got to the point in phone conversations where i'd occasionally call her Cuwe. because though i was older in a chronological way, she was older in pretty much every other way imagineable.
the first thing that happened was, her cancer, which when i'd met her had been in remission, came back onto her like a storm born off the dark wings of an angel from Hell. she struggled, struggled, and kept getting weaker. she kept working, because thats what she did. she had, at that time, a rooftop apartment in New Jersey, with a gorgeous garden on the roof. the pics i saw were like walking out of a city into Paradise.
against her doctor's orders, when she was most certainly nearing death, she travelled home to North Dakota. she wanted to do a Sun Dance before she died.
the Sundance is a ritual that starts with a ten foot pole shoved deep in the ground. at the top of the pole, strips of buffalo leather are bound. at the lose end of the strips, a strap, also of this leather is stitched to it. the strap is only about four inches long, maybe an inch and a half thick. two holes are augered into either end. a sharpened buffalo bone is slipped into the flesh on the upper breast plate, about 5 inches above the nipple. one on each side. the ends of the piercing bones are then attatched to the strap, which is attatched to the strips.
in the Sundance, the dancer dances, leaning back upon occasion. the goal is to break the bones from your flesh, by tearing them out by your own weight.
at first there was a small politcal controversy. the Sundance is supposed to be reserved for male members of the tribe. though Victoria was born male, her culture accepts and embraces transgendered people. to the members of the council, she was a woman petitioning for a male ritual.
eventually she won. as a woman. the first woman of note to do the Sundance.
Victoria danced for just over two days. when she accomplished the task, she fell, and dented a cheek, and she ripped up her right breast implant.
we spent a lot of time on the phone over the few days she was in the hospital, recovering.
she asked me to write a poem about her. i did. in return, she gave me a gift.
she gave me a Lakota name.
Tonakah Iha Ble means "So Many Visions".
on my right shoulder, there is a tattoo, of a volcanic looking mountain with an eye looking out of its crest. we designed that together as a symbol for my new name.
i was Tonakah well before i was Tay.
her last day in the hospital, the doctor came to her with a flabbergasted look on his face. "you're back in remission," is what he said to her. "we're not sure how."
she was, but she didnt gloat.
she'd been chatting intermittently with a female photographer who lived outside Melbourne, Australia, for a few months before the Sundance.
several months later, it was more than intermittent.
within a month, my phonebills went through the roof, because i was spending a lot of time with this photographer, whose name is Asta. after all, her lover seemed to have come with a lonely sister.
their relationship was always rocky, torn in battles of distance, varied time worlds, and real life demands. i never met either of them real time, but i do not doubt for a moment that they were anyone but who they were to me. it was a wonderfully pure relationship of friendship and love. and i'd had enough of the shitty kind of predatory relationships to hopefully tell the difference.
the fact of the matter is, even if they were fakers, even if they were liars, or even the same person who could perfectly and consistently mimic entirely different voices and inflections, they gave me so much love and insight and strength, it honestly wouldn't matter.
Victoria's remission didnt last long. she got sick again. this was in 2002. this time, it was pretty much a done deal.
we spent hours on the phone. she had two things she needed to do before she died. her sister in law had stitched of leather slippers to be put into her plain coffin so she'd have something to put on her feet as she walked on into the next life. she moved, and began selling her stuff, as well as packaging the things that were the most precious to her, and sending them to her Tiospaye.
the first thing she had to do was have the op. she didnt want to enter the next life with that thing between her legs. her doctors were adamantly opposed, but she was used to people denying her her will.
she also didnt have a good amount of money. she had the other thing working too.
she checked herself into a hospital in new jersey, had prostate surgery, and along the way, convinced her doc to remove her male physiology as well.
this wasnt a Transition biased hospital. the staff was never educated on what this meant to her. instead they were mean, and cruel to her. she hated TV but one was put in her semi-private room, and every time she would turn it off, a seemingly concerned nurse would come in and flip it back on. she spat in that nurses face. she was going through all seven steps of trauma simultaneously. she would call me at odd hours, and read to me a succession of linked poems, all concerning in one way or another a dog going off into the woods to die, cold, weak, sick, and alone.
i took it for a while, was the ear to her oracle. but after a while, your brain flips over. i began to get mad.
"you are the purest woman i ever met," i shouted at one point into the phone. "you went about this in an abrupt, totally wrong and stupid and selfish way. and do you really think that them slicing off your COCK was somehow going to make you more a woman than you always have been?"
she hung up on me.
the poems continued, via email. they became more and more destitute. Asta called often, her words barely discernable, more from her meanings than that sharp Aussie tone.
about a month after she left the hospital, Victoria called me. she pushed the numbers, but she didnt say anything. i talked. i scolded. i ranted, raved, embraced her in a way that's not usually accepted via that medium.
in the end, she said, "you're right. i'm sorry. dont ever call me your Cuwe again, not even as a joke." i said i wouldnt, and i never did.
she recovered. she went back to work. She and Asta argued for months back and forth about Victoria going to Austrailia. Asta coming here was a much more logical solution, but she worked as a librarian, and could barely afford her rent, let alone save for a plane ticket. the debates became fierce arguments. then something else became obvious.
the surgery that made Victoria whole, was in fact the thing that would keep her from remission from her cancer ever again.
Victoria was dying. and fast. and how.
they both dropped off the face of the earth. the last convo i had with my spirit sister on the phone included the dicey piece of advice offered by her doctor, that travelling half way round the world, with systems that would destroy her already weakened immune system, was hugely argued against.
then, nothing for months.
then....
on Christmas Day, 2002, at 5am central standard time, my cell phone rang.
it was Victoria. in the background i could here waves crashing on a beach. nearer than that, i could hear dogs barking.
"Guess where i am," my sister insisted.
I said, "Fuckin Mars, where the fuck have you been?"
there was in response a shuffling sound, and then a new voice, high pitched, schoolgirl perfect, and one i knew well.
"Merry Christmas, Tay," Asta said.
the barking dogs had been Asta's girl Molly (ironically the name of my beloved and lost Akita), and her whelped pups. the waves were perfectly soft sounding, yet fully forceful in their intent. Victoria had done it.
she'd beaten the odds, ran off against all better instinct, and married the girl of her dreams in a small plain church twenty miles outside Melbourne.
we spoke often over the next six months. i moved into the French Quarter. i got emailed photos of the growing track records of Molly's pups. i got email
photos of Victoria and Asta, their smiles huge, in complete deference to their equally diminutive stature.
then, for about six months, nothing.
then about 15 months ago, my phone rang yet again. early morning. too early for my real time lifestyle.
it was Asta.
"I dont know how else to say this," she said, "but Victoria's gone. she died two nights ago. please take care of yourself."
i havent heard from her since.
i truly believe that Victoria, and the Tiospaye we made, which means extended family, has been over the past few years, and more specifically over the course of my own transition, a force. not a thing of something. just that. a Driving Force.
it opened me up in so many ways. the best i could do was write her a poem, and get a shared image needled into my shoulder. i feel in her debt, and dont think i ever wont. she introduced me to the concept of an Extended Family, which is what Tiospaye means.
about a month or so in the middle of her packing up her place, in preparation for her move, i received a package. in it, wrapped in tons of crumpled newspaper the articles of which had no significant bearing on anything, was a small ceramic teapot (she collected them; that was her Ikea fetish), and a braid of sweetgrass.
Sweetgrass is supposed to be soaked, and then once sorta dry enough to smolder instead of ignite, be lit.
i haven't lit mine. instead i keep it with me, and soak it in water occasionally, so it doesnt disintegrate. that seems to work.
i hang it on the wall of whatever place i call home. i look at it every day.
and i smile, because in my heart, my sister will live as long as i do. hopefully even longer, in the hearts of Asta, and others, which she deserves. i think of her in her leather sandals, traversing the next life. i think of the one sentence she said to me that i think honestly changed my life:
"The path is chosen, Cuwe. How we walk it is what defines us."
and then i can smile, freshly, and again.
She was born Victor Lyons, in a small town in North Dakota. She never grew big in size, but her spirit was huge. at full adult maturation, she stood only 5-4", weighed not more than 120. this latter fact would eventually change.
small for her size, and somewhat effeminate, she was never picked on. those in her family were respected. those in the modern tribe she was proud to be a part of knew she was special.
when she was 16, a house down the street next to the house she lived in caught fire. a crowd gathered, and watched. she couldnt. she rushed in, and pulled out a woman, her brother, and 3 small children. for this, the tribal council awarded her five feathers of Honor. no one ever fucked with her in her hometown and tribe after that.
when she was 18, she moved to NYC, where she'd been granted a scholarship at an art school. there she studied graphic design. when she showed up for class her first day, she was no longer in any way Victor. She was herself, a gorgeous native american young woman named Victoria.
as she did her schoolwork, she moved through her transition. it wasnt an easy one. there was stuff that needed to be done, apple shave, breasts, electrolysis. she paid for this by working as a BDsM fetish pro Domme. she made great money. one day, a client of hers got his switch flipped, and beat her nearly to death, and then stabbed her a few times with a knife. she survived, recoupurated, and left that life.
in her mid to early twenties, she began to establish herself as a very successful graphic artist, designing corporate logos and the like. she developed a fine resume filled with loyal clients, who went with her to whatever company she joined up with, happy to pay whatever broken contract fees became necessary by law.
by the time i first met her, online, she already had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, the ultimate transsexual irony. she was still pre-op, but had been full time for just over a decade. she'd given herself a Lakota name, i dont know the actual words, but it translated as "Dances with Girls". she was a lesbian, just like me.
we began talking. i was just beginning to face my own transsexuality at an age two or three years after the age at which she would finally be taken away by her disease.
the Lakota word for older sister is "Cuwe" (pronounced in a way very similar to Han Solo's furry side kick). the Lakota word for younger sister is "Tankaku" (actually pronounced Mitankalu.. but shorted by time born slang). as we spoke almost entirely now by phone, i was Cuwe. She was Tankaku.
i never met her face to face. two things happened. we'd got to the point in phone conversations where i'd occasionally call her Cuwe. because though i was older in a chronological way, she was older in pretty much every other way imagineable.
the first thing that happened was, her cancer, which when i'd met her had been in remission, came back onto her like a storm born off the dark wings of an angel from Hell. she struggled, struggled, and kept getting weaker. she kept working, because thats what she did. she had, at that time, a rooftop apartment in New Jersey, with a gorgeous garden on the roof. the pics i saw were like walking out of a city into Paradise.
against her doctor's orders, when she was most certainly nearing death, she travelled home to North Dakota. she wanted to do a Sun Dance before she died.
the Sundance is a ritual that starts with a ten foot pole shoved deep in the ground. at the top of the pole, strips of buffalo leather are bound. at the lose end of the strips, a strap, also of this leather is stitched to it. the strap is only about four inches long, maybe an inch and a half thick. two holes are augered into either end. a sharpened buffalo bone is slipped into the flesh on the upper breast plate, about 5 inches above the nipple. one on each side. the ends of the piercing bones are then attatched to the strap, which is attatched to the strips.
in the Sundance, the dancer dances, leaning back upon occasion. the goal is to break the bones from your flesh, by tearing them out by your own weight.
at first there was a small politcal controversy. the Sundance is supposed to be reserved for male members of the tribe. though Victoria was born male, her culture accepts and embraces transgendered people. to the members of the council, she was a woman petitioning for a male ritual.
eventually she won. as a woman. the first woman of note to do the Sundance.
Victoria danced for just over two days. when she accomplished the task, she fell, and dented a cheek, and she ripped up her right breast implant.
we spent a lot of time on the phone over the few days she was in the hospital, recovering.
she asked me to write a poem about her. i did. in return, she gave me a gift.
she gave me a Lakota name.
Tonakah Iha Ble means "So Many Visions".
on my right shoulder, there is a tattoo, of a volcanic looking mountain with an eye looking out of its crest. we designed that together as a symbol for my new name.
i was Tonakah well before i was Tay.
her last day in the hospital, the doctor came to her with a flabbergasted look on his face. "you're back in remission," is what he said to her. "we're not sure how."
she was, but she didnt gloat.
she'd been chatting intermittently with a female photographer who lived outside Melbourne, Australia, for a few months before the Sundance.
several months later, it was more than intermittent.
within a month, my phonebills went through the roof, because i was spending a lot of time with this photographer, whose name is Asta. after all, her lover seemed to have come with a lonely sister.
their relationship was always rocky, torn in battles of distance, varied time worlds, and real life demands. i never met either of them real time, but i do not doubt for a moment that they were anyone but who they were to me. it was a wonderfully pure relationship of friendship and love. and i'd had enough of the shitty kind of predatory relationships to hopefully tell the difference.
the fact of the matter is, even if they were fakers, even if they were liars, or even the same person who could perfectly and consistently mimic entirely different voices and inflections, they gave me so much love and insight and strength, it honestly wouldn't matter.
Victoria's remission didnt last long. she got sick again. this was in 2002. this time, it was pretty much a done deal.
we spent hours on the phone. she had two things she needed to do before she died. her sister in law had stitched of leather slippers to be put into her plain coffin so she'd have something to put on her feet as she walked on into the next life. she moved, and began selling her stuff, as well as packaging the things that were the most precious to her, and sending them to her Tiospaye.
the first thing she had to do was have the op. she didnt want to enter the next life with that thing between her legs. her doctors were adamantly opposed, but she was used to people denying her her will.
she also didnt have a good amount of money. she had the other thing working too.
she checked herself into a hospital in new jersey, had prostate surgery, and along the way, convinced her doc to remove her male physiology as well.
this wasnt a Transition biased hospital. the staff was never educated on what this meant to her. instead they were mean, and cruel to her. she hated TV but one was put in her semi-private room, and every time she would turn it off, a seemingly concerned nurse would come in and flip it back on. she spat in that nurses face. she was going through all seven steps of trauma simultaneously. she would call me at odd hours, and read to me a succession of linked poems, all concerning in one way or another a dog going off into the woods to die, cold, weak, sick, and alone.
i took it for a while, was the ear to her oracle. but after a while, your brain flips over. i began to get mad.
"you are the purest woman i ever met," i shouted at one point into the phone. "you went about this in an abrupt, totally wrong and stupid and selfish way. and do you really think that them slicing off your COCK was somehow going to make you more a woman than you always have been?"
she hung up on me.
the poems continued, via email. they became more and more destitute. Asta called often, her words barely discernable, more from her meanings than that sharp Aussie tone.
about a month after she left the hospital, Victoria called me. she pushed the numbers, but she didnt say anything. i talked. i scolded. i ranted, raved, embraced her in a way that's not usually accepted via that medium.
in the end, she said, "you're right. i'm sorry. dont ever call me your Cuwe again, not even as a joke." i said i wouldnt, and i never did.
she recovered. she went back to work. She and Asta argued for months back and forth about Victoria going to Austrailia. Asta coming here was a much more logical solution, but she worked as a librarian, and could barely afford her rent, let alone save for a plane ticket. the debates became fierce arguments. then something else became obvious.
the surgery that made Victoria whole, was in fact the thing that would keep her from remission from her cancer ever again.
Victoria was dying. and fast. and how.
they both dropped off the face of the earth. the last convo i had with my spirit sister on the phone included the dicey piece of advice offered by her doctor, that travelling half way round the world, with systems that would destroy her already weakened immune system, was hugely argued against.
then, nothing for months.
then....
on Christmas Day, 2002, at 5am central standard time, my cell phone rang.
it was Victoria. in the background i could here waves crashing on a beach. nearer than that, i could hear dogs barking.
"Guess where i am," my sister insisted.
I said, "Fuckin Mars, where the fuck have you been?"
there was in response a shuffling sound, and then a new voice, high pitched, schoolgirl perfect, and one i knew well.
"Merry Christmas, Tay," Asta said.
the barking dogs had been Asta's girl Molly (ironically the name of my beloved and lost Akita), and her whelped pups. the waves were perfectly soft sounding, yet fully forceful in their intent. Victoria had done it.
she'd beaten the odds, ran off against all better instinct, and married the girl of her dreams in a small plain church twenty miles outside Melbourne.
we spoke often over the next six months. i moved into the French Quarter. i got emailed photos of the growing track records of Molly's pups. i got email
photos of Victoria and Asta, their smiles huge, in complete deference to their equally diminutive stature.
then, for about six months, nothing.
then about 15 months ago, my phone rang yet again. early morning. too early for my real time lifestyle.
it was Asta.
"I dont know how else to say this," she said, "but Victoria's gone. she died two nights ago. please take care of yourself."
i havent heard from her since.
i truly believe that Victoria, and the Tiospaye we made, which means extended family, has been over the past few years, and more specifically over the course of my own transition, a force. not a thing of something. just that. a Driving Force.
it opened me up in so many ways. the best i could do was write her a poem, and get a shared image needled into my shoulder. i feel in her debt, and dont think i ever wont. she introduced me to the concept of an Extended Family, which is what Tiospaye means.
about a month or so in the middle of her packing up her place, in preparation for her move, i received a package. in it, wrapped in tons of crumpled newspaper the articles of which had no significant bearing on anything, was a small ceramic teapot (she collected them; that was her Ikea fetish), and a braid of sweetgrass.
Sweetgrass is supposed to be soaked, and then once sorta dry enough to smolder instead of ignite, be lit.
i haven't lit mine. instead i keep it with me, and soak it in water occasionally, so it doesnt disintegrate. that seems to work.
i hang it on the wall of whatever place i call home. i look at it every day.
and i smile, because in my heart, my sister will live as long as i do. hopefully even longer, in the hearts of Asta, and others, which she deserves. i think of her in her leather sandals, traversing the next life. i think of the one sentence she said to me that i think honestly changed my life:
"The path is chosen, Cuwe. How we walk it is what defines us."
and then i can smile, freshly, and again.