To find our voice is to find our friends

an interview with the author of Becoming Phoenix

My friends, it’s a pretty exciting moment here on TransFriend that I get to share with all of you today. I have been inspired by some great folx sharing fantastic interviews and substack live videos like

Mr. Troy Ford

,

Gail Marlene Schwartz

, and

Ben Wakeman

. While my interviewing chops are still pretty new, I’ve picked a particularly gentle landing with my very good friend,

Phoenix Birch (they/them)

, author of

Becoming Phoenix

.

Today also happens to be Transgender Day of Visibility, which makes it feel even more wonderful to be sharing space with such a lovely trans nonbinary friend like Phoenix! Please welcome them as we explore writing, building community, and finding our voices.

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“The Pigeon,” a character created by Mo Willems for the much-loved children’s story collection. It’ll make more sense in a minute, I swear.

Robin: What made you feel like sharing your words with the world? How did this start?

Phoenix: I started sharing my words with the world back in the days of Facebook notes… do you remember this? I think I was the only person I knew of who ever used this feature, but it was my initial version of blogging. What prompted me to begin was hanging out in the hospital with my dad while he was in a coma. I was trying to grapple with the enormity of him never waking up, of losing him so suddenly (which I did), and so I turned to writing as a way of inviting people into the very intimate experience of grief. This was before smart phones, so I literally logged into Facebook on a computer in the ICU and typed my posts at the hospital. Eventually, I recognized my words belonged somewhere else and started my first blog. But my sharing with the world through writing has always had roots in these deeply in-the-moment vulnerabilities and my choosing this path of transparency.

R: I’d like to know about your creative process. You write such beautiful prose and poetry. Is this something you’ve always done? How do you start a piece? How do you know when your piece is done?

P: I’ve dabbled in poetry since AP English my junior year of high school, something that very much surprised me I had in me. I’m not sure where the prose came from. Whereas writing poetry has been a little more of a cultivated construction at times, like a garden, my prose voice seems to have developed on its own, more like a field of wildflowers – until it feels like the two have kind of joined forces and become a hybrid. I think the time I’ve spent nurturing an intimate relationship with the natural world has been the fertilizer for my poetry-prose to grow into whatever it is.

When I’m writing a poem, specifically, I’ve noticed it helps when I have a prompt. One word prompts or an opening phrase can be helpful for me to get started. But other times, I just have this big feeling I can’t seem to touch with words, and that’s when I tend to step out into nature and ask myself, “Is there anything out here that speaks to this feeling?” This was how I wrote a recent poem, Peripheries. Seeing a fox in the woods helped me identify the feeling of being a hunted species.

Peripheries

I admittedly struggle to write for the sake of writing, and this feels like a weak muscle I’d like to develop more as a writer. I write the best when I have something to say, something knocking around inside of me that is nagging at me to sit down and birth it into words. It’s a continual dance between waiting for inspiration and creating my own inspiration, but I think I’ve been learning over the years that I do best when it doesn’t feel forced out of me.

So I guess I start a piece with that recognition of something that needs to come out, literally sitting myself down and giving space for it to unfurl. If I’m struggling with this, I step away and into nature if I can, and I find the words can form more easily after this. As far as when I know it’s done? This is going to be a woo-woo answer, and an unsatisfying one at that, but I just feel the ending. Like, I can feel in my body, “this is a good stopping point.” Which is very different from “this is everything I could possibly hope to say on this topic” or even “this is the best I’ve ever written,” but simply, “this is good enough.”

R: You’ve seen some growth and change as you’ve found your voice here. How did that feel? What was something unexpected that came from bringing your words out?

P: God, my experience here has been nothing I expected. I used Instagram as my main writing outlet for the last several years, and it always felt I was speaking to an empty or silent room. Very little engagement. I came to Substack, honestly, without any real intention to engage in the “social media” aspect of the platform. I just wanted to write, I said. And for the first few months, I did just that.

But then I found you, which led me to find others in the community, and it suddenly became clear this was much more than a writing platform for me. The more engagement from readers, the more affection and desire I have to offer something that also feeds a sense of community here. And I would say this has surprised me. I am equally surprised by the reception my words and I have received as I am by my heart’s desire to support the community with my words and presence as much as I’m able. I feel very tender about this, like, these people are so precious and I want to do well by them.

R: Being nonbinary in a binary culture is so hard. If you could change one thing to make it better, what would that be?

P: I’ve referenced this lately in Substack posts, but one of the hardest parts for me with being nonbinary these days is the invisibility as a trans person. I know not every nonbinary person considers themselves trans, but it’s an important part of my identity, and it’s also not merely a stop on my journey to “picking” a gender (bi invisibility here comes to mind).

I don’t encounter many cis straight people who are aware that trans does not only apply to trans men and trans women. If it’s available on medical forms, it’s often only as a box I can’t check – a box I’m expected to check if I claim that identity. But it’s particularly among trans people who are on the binary that I can feel the least visible, which is complicated. I guess I wish there were a more expansive understanding of transness, as well as of gender in general – beyond cis and trans. Is that so much to ask?? Answer: yes, Phoenix (arms sweep out to the country).

R: I see so many symbols of nature in your creative expressions. Was there a time in your life when you did not have this connection? Has it always been part of who you are?

P: I’d say there is a direct correlation between me deconstructing my fundamentalist Christian upbringing and beginning to nurture an intimate relationship with nature. I think it’s always been there for me, but it got so buried under indoctrination. Loving nature was considered idolatry. “Love the Creator, not the created” was a mantra in that world, and so I felt very limited by how much I could love nature, let alone nonhuman beings.

This all began to shift when I was in a profoundly lonely, emotionally abusive marriage. I turned to nature for refuge and companionship, and I found so much love, beauty and grief reflected there. My awakened love of nature, and the permission to finally embrace this as I shed an entire belief system, opened my eyes and my heart to all the ways we have harmed nature as human beings. I think this grief and love are often an undercurrent of my writing and how I move through the world as a writer and human these days.

R: There are lots of other creative people in our shared communities, many of whom are just starting out learning how to express themselves in online spaces. Do you have some wisdom to share with them?

P: I know there can be many motivations for sharing your creative work with people on this platform, but I guess I would say for those who are hoping for their work to connect with others (and I think that’s most of us, yeah?), it takes a few things:

1. Focus on a few people whose publications really speak to you and engage with their work. Be a cheerleader, even, where you feel moved and able to.

2. Patience. You don’t necessarily find your people here overnight, but you often cultivate those relationships like a little garden that will bloom when it’s in season.

3. I believe most of us are drawn towards people who feel real, whose voices are not contrived or polished, but their own real, messy, unfinished offerings. So don’t try to write catchy, clickbaity posts to grow your Substack. Be the kind of writer you wish you saw more of in the world.

R: Similar to the last question, you were once new in writing here and in sharing parts of yourself with this community. What would you say to yourself in those early days?

P: Yeah, I had no clue how to “do” Substack when I started here. I felt lost and I knew no one. So similarly, I would say to myself then, “Look for your people here. Focus there. Because people have been the key to my blooming here on Substack. That’s where the real magic happens. Find your Robin Taylor – and hopefully at some point, be a Robin Taylor for someone else.”

R: The future is always uncertain, but it doesn’t prevent us from dreaming. Would you share a dream with me about the future?

P: A lot of my future dreams include animals, so I’m going to end this on a lighthearted, silly note – though make no mistake, these dreams are REAL.

In a few months, I’ll be moving to Brooklyn to join my love full-time, and one of the things I really love about the city is all the pigeons. I’m like a toddler, toddling around pointing at all the “pwiddy” pigeons with a wondrous look of love on my face. Side note, one of my animal dreams is to become licensed as a wildlife rehabilitator. As such, I dream of one day having a pigeon companion who isn’t able to be released back into the wild. I envision us having all kinds of city adventures, them in a bubble backpack, riding with me on the subway or sitting in a basket as I’m biking everywhere. I also dream of rescuing goats (which won’t happen in the city of course), and in these dreams, I’m pushing a baby goat in a cart through the grocery store and walking them on leashes through parks and dressing them up for Halloween. So yeah, these dreams make me smile.

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Please help me extend an incredibly warm thank you to Phoenix for their kindness and generosity in sharing so many words with all of us. And if you’re not yet a subscriber to their publication, this is a great opportunity to jump in with both feet!

Your trans friend,

Robin