Presents

A Webzine Created and Edited by

Explorations

by , Editor

Welcome to the first multimedia edition of The Subversive! You've probably already noticed some of the enhancements to our look and feel. As you explore this issue, you'll discover all kinds of additions, improvements, and even some gimmicky things thrown in just for fun. As the power and versatility of the World Wide Web grows, The Subversive will grow right along with it to bring you the most innovative content presented in the most entertaining way.

When I began The Subversive in 1991, things were quire different. Not only was there no World Wide Web, but very few people had even heard of the Internet. In those days, The Subversive was a simple text file distributed to a small list of subscribers on America Online via Email. After a year or so the number of subscribers had grown to the point that it made much more sense to upload each issue to the AOL message boards rather than email it directly. The Subversive became a staple on that board and a rallying point for the creation of a whole new forum on AOL.

It wasn't long after, that the America Online readers began to share The Subversive with their friends on other servers like CompuServe, Genie, and many private BBS around the world. Until May last year, The Subversive remained a text-based publication, circulated among a relatively small group that made up a tiny, but growing, cyber community.

Enter, the World Wide Web....

When I first heard of the Web, I was immediately captivated by it's potential for every individual citizen of the world to broadcast to the world at large. Never before had the power to reach billions resided in the hands of the billions themselves. Like a woman driven, I dropped everything else in my life and threw myself into the search for an internet provider who would post my web pages. Finding one after exhaustive investigation, I became almost possessed in my efforts to learn HTML and program and post my first web page. Learning the code and getting online was perhaps the most intense three week period I have every spent. But in the end I signed on with my browser and gazed upon my first web page.

Of course, now, just a year later, any member of the major online services or internet providers can build a page from a template and have it up and running in a few minutes. And that's wonderful, because it brings the promise of a global village one step closer to reality.

Andy Warhol has fallen behind the times with his quote that "Everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. In truth, everyone will be famous for fifteen meg.

One of my first ventures on the Web was to post all the back issues of The Subversive, so they might be available to all who had an interest in such things. Of course, it didn't take long for me to realize that the text file format was not at all appropriate for cyber publishing. Here on the web it is more true than ever that content must be wrapped up in attractive packaging to even have a chance of being opened and experienced. The danger, of course, is that the wrapping becomes the content, and then readers are left with nothing but fluff. The potential is that new means of communication can foster the creation of new kinds of content that couldn't even exist at all in other media. That is the ground The Subversive seeks to tread, in keeping with it's history of pushing the bounds of human understand and limits of the heart.

A big part of that effort in the past has centered around my personal journal. In fact, another chapter has appeared in every edition of The Subversive since issue number two. Up to this point, each of my published diary entries has been complete and uncensored. This is about to change.

As I began to prepare the materials for chapter 30, I encountered descriptions of events which were so frank and reactive, that if made public in their raw form, would certainly hurt those involved and likely hurt those I now hold dear as well. When The Subversive was a smaller publication, available only to a limited readership, this might still have not been a problem. Certainly, the potential for damage would not have been nearly as severe. But, now that this publication is read by scores of thousands, I came to feel I have something of a responsibility to the people who have touched my life to consider what impact my words may have upon them. In addition, there are many now who come to The Subversive and read my journal without ever having read the previous entries. As a result, sensitive material is now viewed out of context and no longer tempered by a history of experience.

This has left me with something of an artist's dilemma: Where does my responsibility to my readers end and my responsibility to myself begin?

Over the course of the previous 29 chapters, I have received literally hundreds of letters from readers who tell me that my honesty and openness have changed the course of their lives. Several people have even written to tell me that it was my words that prevented them from following through with suicide plans, and they surely would be dead if I had not published. One note I shall never forget came from a man who told me he had been sitting in a chair with a loaded 9mm pistol on the table next to him, working up the courage to end it all. While he gathered his resolve, he began to read my most recent chapter which he had earlier downloaded. In the course of joining me in my journey, he saw hope in his own life, put away the gun, began to see a counselor, and is now well into an uplifting journey of his own.

Responses to one's work such as these make it easy to become narcissistic, egocentric, and generally full of oneself. One's sense of personal responsibility for fixing the world's troubles becomes inflated to the point that it blocks out the sky. There is a great feeling of guilt whenever one wishes to walk away from it all, take one's life back from the masses, be an average Joe and have even one secret again after all those years.

So, on and on the chapters came, straight from the heart, pure and uncut. And then I encountered chapter 30. "Perhaps this is just an exception," I thought to myself. "Perhaps I should publish it anyway, accept the damage in the name of the greater good and move on." But as I looked forward over the remaining four years of my diary that stand between chapter 30 and today, I found that such moments, experiences, incidents, and commentaries were sprinkled liberally throughout.

The choice was clear: tell it all, or change the nature of my mandate. I have chosen the later.

It would not be acceptable to me if I were to hold back material without informing my readers. That would be the greatest sins. For, just as all the planets of the solar system affect the orbits of all the others, so too do all the events of one's life affect the course of the journey. If others were to try and follow, they would lose their way because of hidden forces I had withheld.

Is it senseless then to publish at all? I was sorely tempted to let chapter 29 be my last, and to move on to other interests which have been pushed aside by this endeavor for all these years. But, in looking at all the material that is appropriate for publication, I feel there is still much benefit to it's publication.

These considerations led me to an examination of the role of the "Luminary". By "Luminary", I mean one who undertakes a journey into territory unknown and acts as a beacon to those who follow. Certainly, casting myself in the role of Luminary is a self-aggrandizing endeavor, but in the light of the email I receive, perhaps can be seen as at least partially justified.

What then, of the Luminary? What is their function? And most important, what is the extent of their responsibility?

At first I felt the calling of the Luminary was to chart a course that other's might tread. But then I came to realize that each of us must make our own path, though we cover the same ground. I now understand that the Luminary takes a personal journey across a dark frontier and, with every step, illuminates the ground we all must cover. So, in the end, following in anyone's footsteps is, by definition, the wrong direction to take. But by looking toward the paths others have taken, we can see their feet have lit up the land, and their meandering explorations have brighten the terrain that lies between us and our personal destination.

It is in this spirit that I ask your understanding in going my own way a little bit - in stepping out of the limelight now and again to preserve my own integrity while still offering what I can to fellow travelers along the road. It has been my privilege and good fortune to have had travelling companions such as yourselves, but now we must, from time to time, part ways so that we each might get to where we truly need to be.

Let me close these conjectures with a reprint of a poem I wrote last year called, appropriately, "The Luminary".

"The Luminary"

by
Melanie

Like moth to flame,
I shade the light,
from fleas below,
who have not flight.

Pigs can't fly,
and saints are sinners.
So it seems,
to most beginners.

Then they see,
the pigs take wing,
and soon believe,
in everything.

"Life is chilly:
find a fire!"
writes the prophet,
and the liar.

"Don't despair,
there is no hope.
So why not dance,
instead of mope?"

"Feed a cold,
and starve a fever,"
chants the faithful,
unbeliever,

grasping for,
the mother lode,
to read verbatim,
words in code.

So I sought,
illumination,
making love,
to conflagration.

"God," I pleaded,
with the sun,
"don't let me be,
the only one."

Then from the sun,
there came a moan,
that sounded like,
"You're not alone."

I spiraled in,
with squinted eyes,
to gaze on one,
who was so wise.

The flame I sought,
on wings of cloth,
was just another,
burning moth.

Hear the sizzle,
smell the fry,
when near the sun,
some pig will fly.

Cheer the bacon,
stone the whore,
and never mind,
the crashing boar.

And as it falls,
its dimming light,
is now replaced,
as I ignite.

"My wings!" I cried,
are charred and smoking."
"No!" they chide,
"you must be joking."

They watched as I,
went up in glory,
to spin a tale,
weave a story.

"Touch the fabric,
though it pains me.
See the pattern,
that explains me."

When I finally,
fell to ground,
my ashes did not,
make a sound,

For angst is gone,
when there's no art,
as pain is gone,
when there's no heart.

The only light,
that truly shines,
is that which falls,
between the lines.

So read my lips,
don't read my words:
fleas aren't moths,
and moths aren't birds.

Will the last one here,
please turn out the light?

Copyright 1996 Melanie

Copyright Melanie Anne - Founder of the Transgender Support Site