Weary; Or, I Stand with the Transgender Soldier

Biko Mandela Gray
Jul 27, 2017 · 10 min read

As US colonialism expanded overseas, the military infrastructure essential to that exercise created unprecedented opportunities for African American men to participate in US nationalism, championing the imperatives of a White settler state into distant lands through the force of arms… African Americans were faced with the question of whether rendering service on behalf of US colonialism would afford them entry into the political community of the nation-state. — Sylvester Johnson

A desire for a more normal life does not necessarily mean identification with norms, but can be simply this: a desire to escape the exhaustion of having to insist just to exist. — Sara Ahmed

I’m weary of the weight of the world… — Solange

My dad is a retired Air Force Major, and so this meant we moved around a lot. Every three years, the moving trucks came, packed our stuff up, and we were off to another life. After the second move, I realized that it was futile in trying to develop lasting relationships; I learned to love hard and fast because I knew it was likely I’d never see my friends again. I cherished the time I had in each place — Texas, Alaska, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Maryland; I archived each experience in the recesses of my mind, and I repressed the sense of loss that would inevitably come through the recollection of each joyful moment.

And then I made new friends.

I grew up as a military brat. But as a child, I never thought of this label — “military brat” — as anything other than the fact that I had to move. My dad never preached allegiance to country; although our days were often regimented — we had to keep our rooms spotless, we woke up early on Saturdays to mow the lawn, we said “yes, sir,” and we learned to never quit at something unless there was no other option —I never saw being part of the “military” as having anything to do with patriotism. I don’t love my country of birth now, and — thank the good Lord — my dad never forced me to love my country as a child.

Maybe it’s because my dad never saw war; he was a Physician’s Assistant, and all of his assignments had to do with caring for other military members and their families. Maybe not being in the warzone dampened his patriotic sensibilities, as his primary job was to care for people, not necessarily the country they fought for.

But I doubt this. I’ve got another friend who did at least two tours overseas, and like my dad, there is no love lost between him and this country. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he doesn’t like America, but let’s just say he has no emotional affiliation with it or its “foreign” interests. No love of country; no flags flying in the front lawn. Neither my friend nor my dad encourage patriotism, and both of them have “served” this country. And I think I understand why:

Everybody don’t join the military because they love America.


The first quotation that starts this piece comes from Sylvester Johnson’s book African American Religions. The book is about — you guessed it — the development of African American religion, but one of Johnson’s big takeaways is that African American religion is all mixed up with the development of America itself. One part of this development was the “spreading of freedom” around the world. Somebody had to “spread” this freedom — and “spreading” this freedom meant destroying other countries and peoples in order to gain access to their resources. Johnson beautifully points out that “freedom” was — and still is — only made possible by subjugating somebody; this Macbook Air upon which I type right now no doubt has someone’s blood, sweat, and possibly even death in its very mainframe; somebody might have killed themselves trying to make this product — a product that gives me the “freedom” to express my ideas in written form. Freedom ain’t free; and more often than not, the benefactors of freedom are not the one’s who paid the price for it.

This is why the military is such a problem. As Johnson pointed out in that paragraph above, black people didn’t seem to join the military because they had some allegiance to this country; they joined because participation in the military meant — or at least was supposed to mean — access to certain privileges and security from certain dangers. On the one hand, being in the military meant the possibility of fully-recognized citizenship (and the privileges and protections this citizenship was supposed to provide); on the other hand, being in the military meant serving the whims of the country — which ultimately meant serving the desires and interests of a nation who thought the only humans on this planet were white, cisgendered, straight, landowning men who were usually Christian. As a result, black American soldiers killed and pillaged other people — often people of color, and even black people from other countries and continents — in order to gain recognition by, and access to benefits from, a country that never had them in mind.

In other words, black participation in the military has often been a pragmatic decision — a decision made in the hopes of creating a better life for black people and their families. This was certainly the case for my dad. Serving this country had nothing to do with liking — or even loving — this country, or even what it stands for. For my dad, military service had everything to do with securing a better life for his black baby boy (and, eventually, his baby boy’s younger brother and sister).

But this decision to join the military came at a huge price. It wasn’t simply that pops sacrificed his dreams for his children; he also sacrificed his dignity. “Nigger” flowed freely from his superior officers during training camp, and unless he wanted to be dishonorably discharged, he was powerless to respond. The brutality of the American military — hell, of the idea of any military, really — is so vicious, so vile, so disgusting, that it remains a miracle to me how folks like my pops endured it for 20 years.

Until I encountered the quote from Sara Ahmed.


When I started reading more, I initially found myself resenting my dad for going into the military. I thought, Why would you enter an institution that clearly doesn’t give a shit about you? But then we had a talk, and he made it clear: pops didn’t go into the military because he cared about this country — to this day, I can’t tell whether he does or doesn’t. No, pops went because he knew that his blackness was, is, and forever will be a burden in this country. The military for damn sure didn’t eliminate racism, but the privilege of a uniform and title made it increasingly difficult for civilians to check him (and threaten his family). I mean, consider it:

  • Carrying a military ID shields a person from otherwise unwanted attention; flash a military ID to a cop during a traffic stop, and his disposition changes.
  • Walk into a restaurant in fatigues, and free food starts to flow.
  • Democrats and Republicans alike “support the troops,” and military service can be a shortcut to political office.

As brutal as the military is, being in the military provides the opportunity for lower- and working-class folks to climb their way out of struggle and into a different and hopefully better place (especially if you stay for 30 years or more). When I talked to my dad, I realized that he went to the military because, like Ahmed said at the beginning of this piece, he was already exhausted with the work of having to insist just to exist. (Note: I have to truly thank my colleague, Gail Hamner, for putting me on to this quote. Thank you.)


Ahmed means this in terms of being a queer feminist of color, so I want to be clear: I am not trying collapse the very important — yet often overlapping — distinctions between race, gender, and sexualized forms of oppression. My dad is a cisgendered, heterosexual black man, and has not had to deal with many of the struggles with which people from other marginalized communities have had to deal.

But there is something about my dad’s weariness, about his decision to privilege stability over his own dreams, that feels similar to Ahmed’s point — even if it isn’t the same. Sometimes, every fight isn’t worth having; sometimes, we make decisions not because we agree with the structures that inform these decisions — like going to the military — but because we’re weary, like Solange. We want to find our glory, but in order to “go and look for” our glory, we need the space to do so.

Black women might endure the sexism and misogyny both within and without the black community in order to find new ways of living and being.

Black men might say “yes, sir” and “no, sir” to an asshole of a cop during a traffic stop.

And maybe, just maybe, trans women and men might join the military, enduring ridicule, misunderstanding, and outright disdain for your being. Ahmed puts it this way:

Those who are transgender or gender-nonconforming might have to insist on being “he” or “she” or “not he” or “not she” when you are assigned the wrong pronoun; you might have to keep insisting… and the very act of correction is heard as a willful imposition on others. It is exhausting, this labour, which is required because certain norms are still at work in how people are assumed to be and to gather; even if there are rights and recognition, the ongoing and everyday nature of these struggles with signs are signs of a struggle.

Can you not hear the weariness permeating through these lines? Do you not hear Solange’s drums and her beautiful voice flowing between the words? Ahmed isn’t saying that accommodation — or even “assimilation” — is something one should strive toward; she’s saying that people can and do walk and chew gum. Pops joined the military — and stayed in the military — knowing full well that it was a brutal and racist institution. But, being able to walk and chew gum, he stayed not for love of country, but for love of family.

And while this may feel like a distinction without a difference — some might say “he still stayed in, tho” — listen again to the quote I put at the beginning of this piece: “A desire for a more normal life does not necessarily mean identification with norms, but can be simply this: a desire to escape the exhaustion of having to insist just to exist.” Even if a person does things that look like accommodation, the disposition they take toward these decisions matters.


Ahmed may not be giving voice to my dad’s situation. But she doesn’t need to in order for her work to resonate with me, because she is giving voice to other people I love. She’s giving voice to the kind of exhaustion that many queer and trans people — especially queer and trans people of color — experience on a daily basis.

Ahmed gives voice to a kind of weariness that learns to navigate from a space of thoughtfulness instead of exerting one’s energy to the point of exhaustion.

Ahmed gives voice to the possibility that every idiot ain’t worth one’s energy.

And — possibly most important — Ahmed is giving voice to the possibility that trans people might choose sustainability over exhaustion.


Sure, some trans men and women might actually love this country. But there is also the possibility that, in this exhaustion of insisting to exist, some trans men and women endure/d the transphobic epithets because they saw complex possibilities that extended far beyond the brutality and viciousness of military service. And for this reason, 45’s decision to ban transgender people from military service seems all the more savage.

It seems all the more savage because trans men and women endure more than basic training in order to serve the whims of a country that still hates and fears them.

It seems all the more savage because trans men and women are more likely to be targets of violence in this country. Military service helps to render trans bodies legible to the larger context, and while some of us might not want to be legible, there are others of us who might want to be left the hell alone.

But maybe, what makes this seem so truly brutal, so evil, so demonic, is that 45 himself has no clue what it’s like to be in the military. How in the entire hell does a person who was never fit for military service dictate what military “fitness” is? The lack of social awareness is astounding.

All of this confirms what I’ve always known about 45 and other white men like him: he’s less than human. Unable to empathize with others, 45 demonstrates the social skills of single-celled organisms — and even then, they might be more intersubjective. If you feel that this is demeaning, I don’t give a shit. It’s purely descriptive. By being so callous to the realities of others, 45 has proved his inhumanity — or if he is, whatever humanity he may have has been totally overridden by some demonic force.


So yeah, I can’t stand the military or what it stands for. I’m allergic to the gratuitous violence it perpetuates, and the physical and emotional brutality it visited upon my father. If we could abolish it, I’d be the first to sign the petition.

But my disdain for the military will never stop me from loving and supporting those whose weariness opens new possibilities in stale institutions. I support those black women and men who learn to hit a straight lick with a crooked stick.

And I support those trans women and men — especially trans women and men of color — who, through weary eyes, develop complex and expansive ways of navigating a world that is hostile to them.

In short, I support those whose very weariness clears the space for all of us to go and look for our glory. Because we’ll all be back.

Real soon.

March on, soldiers.

Biko Mandela Gray

Written by

Assistant professor of American Religion. #blackwords matter. cash app: $bikogray

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