Excerpt -An Open Letter
I thought I’d open up and fill you in with a bit more detail and honesty about my recent dismissal as an instructor, and why I have such a hard time with a strict dress code, despite my Love for teaching. I stand by my practical objections but they don’t speak to why I am personally uncomfortable with being told what clothes to put on.
The long and the short of it is that:
I am a non- binary, transgender woman. The name I have been using is Nova and my preferred pronouns are she/they. The operative word, “preferred”.
Do with that what you will, call me what you like, just wanted to put this out there.
Clothing, being told what to wear, dressing to please others, has long been a major point of stress for me. Conforming to please others has never left me happy.
However, doing my own thing has often been met with resistance. From simple “teasing” through to assault leaving me with bones broken. I was, in the words of Henley, “bloodied, but unbowed”
This is something I have long wanted to be able to address, for those not in the know. If for nothing else, at least my own well being to have it out there.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Best,
Nova
“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.”
–William Ernest Henley (Invictus)
Nova Patrick Cush 