EPAI

Originally published in gutsmagine caepaic

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Designed by Post.Chicans.
Repair
by

Gwen Benaway

CW: Graphic Description of Child Abuse,
Physical Abuse
“Punishment is not sometbing that happens to bad people. It
appens 1o those who cannot stop it from happening. Itis uundered
pain, not a balancing of scale”

~ Porpentine Charity Heartscape

“The firse memory T have of my facher hitting me was when I was seven. | remember
his hand in motion, backhanding me acrossthe face, and the hardness of the wooden
floor when T fell to my knees. Hed hit me before, almost constandy since I was born,
but this memory stands out in my mind as the beginning of the pain I fecl in my
body: The pain is a physical ache, made of shame and rage that fels larger than any
other emotions T have.

He kep hitting me as | grew older. Every day, T would ty 1o avoid his gaze, wishing
myselfas small as posible. 1 could never escape him. I would ty to run away, but I
didochave anywhere to go. When he found me wandering the town, his punishmens
would make me scream and beg for forgiveness. 1 wied pushing furniture in front of
my bedroom door to keep him out. He batered it down while shouting. I practiced
erying louder and louder in hopes that my mother or sisters would stop him, chat te
neighbours would norice and help me. Nothing ever worked.

Whenever he would beat me, every sensation became more vivid. T could smell the
i outside the window and hear the laughter of other children playing down the
ed skin, the flush of hear and pain as his
hands reached me, and the sound of my own cries caught in my throat. My whimpers

strcet T could feel the cold air on my

always made me feel so ashamed, humiliated by my weakness. Desperate (o survive,

T would hold onto the rage and tertor in my body as tightly as | could, praying for
theirintensity to numb me to what was happening,

Sometimes I would disassociate from my body, floaing above him to the ceiling of
iy bedroom. I craved the feeling of release thae disassociation broughe me. I would
o the soft blue nothing of
empry air. The terror and rage roared beneath me like an ocean waiting to drow me.

Disassociating didt abways work. IF my father used his bel instead of his hands, it
was harder to get away from the pain. Hands are blunt, making bruises and radiating
dull aches through the body; but belrs sing and burn. Sometimes the belc would
wiap around my body, suiking the soft inner flesh of my chighs or my genitals. 1

1t me up, away from the pain and powerlessness,

couldn' help screaming when this happened, torn back into my body from the safery
of my mind.

Guwen Benaway - 1
Looking back on my childhood memorics, Im struck by how pervasive the violence
was. There was always a rival to his abuse. He would drag me into my bedroon

force me o serp naked and Lay my clothes out on my bed. Then the blows, each hit
geting stronger and more frantic unil he wore himself ou. T would have to count
aloud, begging him stop between breaths and numbers. This rivual of violence was
the only predictable part of my facher's abuse,the only pattern that I could anticipae.

Tnever knew what would sec him off. Sometimes it was something [ said or did, but
often it was random. There would be periods of reacive peace where I wouldn't be.
i for days. Then without warning, it would stare again. My facher would come into
my 100m at night, ousing me from sleep to hit me in the half.dark of our house. He
apped me in public i front of other people. | must have been marked with bruises
a5 a child, but no one ever sid anything. 1 prayed every night to be rescued but
eventually I realized that God wasn real

O if God was real, chis s what he thought I deserved: to be punished, broken open
daily, left o bleed and suffer alone, forever.

Pim recalling my childhood because I want to write about “repair.” The incompetence
of social workers from my childhood tainted my association with it, but a T gotten
older, I've urned back towards repair. Repair is the interpersonal process that we use
o resolve conflct, heal wounds, and srengehen actachments. T i an essential skill
for relaionships as wel as everyday lfe. People who grew up with loving and healhy
families usually learned chis skil from watching cheir parents resolve conflices with
each other and their children.

For those ofus who didsr come from safe family environments, epair is someching we
have o learn through other means. I hard to lean the skills of eepair from a book o
an essay. Often, we have to learn those skillfrom other people through reationships,

friendships, and professional mentorship. Loving a survivor of childhood abuse an
family disconnection is difficule. We constantly testthe linvics of care, mistrust others
at every turn, and ofen react with emotional violence when hurt or threatened. In
essence, we rly on the skilsthat helped us survive our childhoods even when they are
o longer useful, trapped in cyeles of rupture,recaliation, and abandonment.

Therapy is important, but ics ofien inaccessible because of cost or because its not

culturally appropriate. For queer and trans BIPOC folks, therapy and instivutional
spaces are often actively harmful or dangerous for us. We usually rely on other

2 Repair
community members for care and conflic resolution when challenges happen. When
0 one s disposable, we have to become more skilled a repair

While many other writers and thinkers have talked about the importance of repair
1 sill think we'e not aways listening decply enough. Pa
trans spaces, we ofien turn towards ideas of justice

Jarly within queer and
punishmentbased models
for resolving conflict. While I don' discount those models for certain kinds of h

1 chink repair is 2 more humanizing and appropriate framework for interpersonal
conflices within community. We'e all incredibly vulnerable, but it seems like the
most vulnerable people without the social capital o fight back are the ones who are
punished most

T wonder if the ways that we weaponize social justice language against cach other is
reated to the experiences of profound powerlessness that we've had to endure. Many
able
o rationalize why someone is bad and deserves to be punished is a way to rechim
power in 2 world chat actvely disempowers us. Im not suggesting, as some altright
folks have done, that the work of naming or critquing systems of oppression is wrong
nor am 1 suggesting that we need to be more civil. I beleve strongly in esistance to

ofus have never been able t heal from the deprivations of our hildhoods. Be

sate violence and oppresion as a necessary condition of our survival.

T am interested in expanding our collective emotional awareness about how our
traumas, ongoing and past, inform the ways that we engage in the work of advocacy
and justice. What does it me:
o learn how to process complex emotions or manage intense conflct without relying

0 acknowledge that many of us never had saf spaces

on our fight or Right responses? How can we love ourselves and others while sell
holding everyone accountable to the values of iberation? I donfthave perfect answers
o these questions, but I scll want to ask them.

Unlike punishment, epair is uncercain, It relies on as
the answers. Tt asks us o hold competing claims to harm cqually,using our empathy

s questions and listening to

and inteligence 1o look for a shared understanding. There are no rigid crieria for
tightness, no algebra of oppression to add u
should happen. Repair reles on the social space of our relationships to cach other

d no easy formula for deciding what

ather than an institution or a jury of onlookers. It is outside of the nation state and

canitbe reduced into a simple list of inseructions.

Pim o naive about the danger of trying to repair rlationships. 1 know 2 knife can
i through the threat of further violence.
There are moments in lfe where a knife is all you have. A sharp edge can mean the

sometimes sop violence from happer

difference between suffering immense harm or walking away alive. OF course, the

Guwen Benaway - 3
trouble with a knife s that once you pick it up, you can never put it down without
fearing recliation from the other party. You look for bigger knives and sooner or
later, someone’s blood is on your hands.

Repair gives us options beyond violence or the threat of harm. It deescalates
siations. Tt makes room for all our hures. Tt opens up the possbilcy of love. I is
a skill that many of us have been kept from learning by intergenerational rauma,
racism, transphobia, and colonialization, but i’ an essenial one to reclimed. Repair
says that we don' have to be perfect to deserve love. We can make mistakes with cach
other. We can take risks.

While a knife can save your lfe, repair can make that lfe wordh living.

My facher was a survivor of childhood abuse, domestic violence, and alcoholism. He
internalized the lessons of his childhood deeply. As a very poor racialized working-
class man, he never had access o therapy and was distrustfl of any insttution. He
read voraciously but only wood working books, trade and mechanic manuals, and
the Bible. He didrit know to manage his emotions or parent a child. Whenever he
was overwhelmed, he lashed out with what he had: his hands or objects around him.

He hated my femininicy. T chink he loved me, but his love expressed iuself as violent
attempes to make me into 2 man who could survive the cruelty of the world. Instead
of making me stronger, he caught me to fear and hate men while desperately secking
their love. My facher had rule against hitting women. As a boy, he had watched
my grandfather beat my gookum ino submission. Instead of hitting my mother or
sisters, my facher hit me, never imagining that his son would eventully become his
estranged daughrer

When I got older and fought my way into universit clases, 1 learned there were
words to describe what was wrong with my family. Colonization, intergenerational
trauma, and poverty were no abstract scholarly concepts to me, but rationales that
Tclung to. They made iving with what happened easir. Finally, afer a childhood of
not underscanding why [ was hure, T could articulate the reasons why. Naming the
violence that shaped my life didnt help me heal from it, but i gave me a language
o lk abou it

1 remember when my facher's daily beatings stopped. I hit puberty and was finally

almost as big as he was. One day, he rushed at me in the kitchen, upset over the
refiigeracor door that I did close completly. 1 don't know what shified inside me

4 - Repair
as T watched him lurch towards me, but grabbed a butcher knife offthe counter and.
aised it towards him. “If you ever touch me again, Tl ill you,” I said as the knife
wavered between our bodies. Tt sounds brave but [ was terrified

Hhis eyes widened. We stood there for a few scconds, waiting in silence for something
0 break. Then my father backed away from me and lefi the room without saying
anyehing. He never hit me again, buc from that moment onward, we were strangers
o cach other. For the next two years, I slept with the knife underneath my pillow,
ready o kill him whenever I had . It feels sureeal o write about this memory, as if
Pim describing a scene from 2 movie.

Maybe it easier for me to live with what happened i pretend ics just ascory T saw,
but some pare of me—the terrified litle girl that checks the locks on my aparement
door wice before going to bed—temembers the truth,

Pl probably never fully heal from my childhood. I hear the sound of a child crying
i the grocery store, I start 1o panic and tears rush to my eyes. Whenever a man
touches me, [ imagine him hitting me, not because I want to but because I can't stop
my mind from secing the danger. Ie spent years in therapy: but T suruggle to not
replay the same patterns with my lovers and friends. Repair i a skill that I'm always
working at

My childhood haunts me. I'm drawn to men like my farher, boys who desperately
want 1o be good but dorit know how. I try to trust them, but they always let me.
down. Many of them feel that 1 set them up filure, waiting for any mistake to
harshly punish chem. T used to think this was just what love was like: joy: pain, fear,
and inevitable loss. Only now, afteryears of therapy; I reaize that love isic a fecling
that runs beeween bodies. Its a skill that takes practice. The men I love are men
whave never felt safe enough to be vulnerable with anyone, much lessa el lke me.
‘While calling my ex-lovers “transphobic” or “abusive” may be accurate, it docsnichelp
me hurefes.

Twich T remembered more from my childhood, not just the moment of my facher
hitting me but what happened afterwards. Did my mother comfort me or tell me
my father’s fult? She always talked about how hard he worked to keep.
s fed. T remember her looking ac me with her wide childlke eyes and saying “He'sa
‘good man. He' never laid a hand on me.” All of us, my mother and my sisters, made.
excuses for him. We had heard the sories from my aunts about his childhood. We
Knew how my grandfacher chased my gookum and the kids through the night with a

that it wasn

Guwen Benavay - 5
shotgun, fring randomly a their flcing bodics.

How different would my lfe have been if my fuher had never beat me? IFhetd learned
how to say “Im sorey”? If my mother was braver and tried 1o stop him? If T wasrit a
trans woman? Il never know the answers o those questions.

All we have is the present moment, the emergent life that we create together.
What would it mean if we said “Im sorry” more 1 each other? IF we were braver
o face injustice, not just the injustice chat we experience bu the injustice that we
do 1o others? I we made space for everyone to be held in their precarity: victims,
perpetuators, and bystanders?

We rarely do chis work with each other. As the ongoing violence of capitalism and
dlimate change erodes our possibilitis, we fight over the same resources with an
increasing intensiy. Success may improve our lives in meaningful ways, but it doesnic
repair the core wounds that many of us carry. Despite my accomplishments, the
shame and rage from my childhood is sell inside me. Whenever I am threatened
or demeaned, it floods out. 1 can' back down from a ight. I sce my father in every.
conflict, trapping me with his hands around my throat.

1 don' think Im alone in my relarionship to conflct. Many of us see our busers
in every conflict. The stakes always feel like life and death for us, even when we
have other options o manage our interpersonal struggles. We'e hypervigilant againsc
harm, naming every mictoaggression and trading tiers of oppressions back and forth
in hopes of definitively deciding who is bad and who is good. Even if we'e “right,
it often seems like the only outcome that we want from conflct s the complete
destruction of the other person.

Wete a community of survivors from many different forms of violence. Sometimes
e make mistakes with each other. We are often oppressive because we grew up in
profoundly oppressive worlds, internalizing the violence around us. Of course, we
must work to deconstruct our own oppressive actions and be accountable for them,
but all of us deserve the chance to learn how to love and be loved.

Teisn lost on me the danger that writing this essay places me in. m trans woman
wiiting about violence and love, inhabiting extreme vulnerabiliey in public. 1 find
myself second guesing every sentence, because I know 1l be violenely punished
i 1 make any mistakes. Trans women have a very limited shelf life and T've
alteady surpassed mine. Witing this essay—openly questioning how many in my.
communities engage with each other—is an enormous risk with no benefit for me.

6 - Repair
But when Im finally discarded by community, canceled or driven even deeper into
Twant to feel that I tried o write towards love and

economic and social precari
liberation. Tl never have a “normal” lfe, but I can try o live a brave and thoughtful

When my high school inally norified Children's Aidin Grade 9, it was already too late
0 save me from the worst of the abuse. The social workers said some seupid things,
asked me invasive questions, and decided 10 place me into institational care uncil
“hings calmed down”. They used the words “eepaie” constantly, a if my relationship
with my family could ever be recovered. I bounced around berween different homes,
institations, and wards until 1 ended up back into my parenc’ house. There just
wasn't anywhere else for me to go.

A few months later, fled my home again because I thought my facher was going
o kill me. My mother had screamed at me for hours because shed seen me dancing
with a boy from school, her face bright red with rage as I sared at the floor. That
night, 1 heard my dad’s gun case in the basement open, the sound of bullecs being
shuffled and loaded. T threw some clothes into plastic shopping bag and climbed
out the window. | wandered the town alone until dawn came, hiding behind houses
and crouching by garden beds. When the high school opened up, I went to the boy I
had been dancing with and told him what happened. T hid with his family in another
town for a week until the social workers came to find me.

“This became the pattern of my adolescence: in and out of my father’s house, iving out
of plastc bags, run
friends couches. Then I won a scholarship to attend universicy and was able o leave
my childhood house. 1 was so happy for a moment, imagining that my lfe could be
different. T thought freedom meant thac | would finally be loved. T was wrong,

ing avay until there wasnit anywhere left to run 1o, slecping on

Love, a i curns out,isnt something you are given, but something you ear. T had no
idea how to love anyone, nor how to be loved. My father taught me that there was
only three ways to handle conflct: hurt them uniil they stop hurting you, surrender,
or run away. His greatest gif to me was an intense fear of being vulncrable. T havent
seen or spoken to him in almost ten years now, but his gift sl lives inside me. Ive
spent much of my life trying, desperately and without much success, o never be hure
again

Guwen Benavay - 7
Twent o lterary even last week. Someone I used to love was in the room. We done
talk anymore, a by-product of an intense breakup that lefi us with sears. Whenever
he'sin the same space as me, my skin stares o burn and my lungs tighten in my chest.
“The room gets smaller shrinking as my field of vision narows into just him and me.
Secing his familiar face sends an immediate shock thtough my nervous system. No.
matter how prepared 1 am for the posibilty of encountering him, T ahvays feel out
of control around him.

Like gravity, his presence draws me towards him even as the anticipation of pain
pushes me away. 1 can' help feeling powerless. Whenever our eyes meet by accident,
Twane o die. 1 feel like everyone is watching us, noticing how my hands temble
whenever he's beside me. Time stops working, speeding up and slowing down unil
barely remember where I am. Every movement he makes with his body, shifing in his
chair or texting on his phone, sends waves of panic through my spine. I'm not scared.
of him, just terrified ofcither hurting him or being hurt

Sometimes when someone hures us, they leave an indelible mark on our souls, an
echo chat doesit dissipate with time or space. He said something transphobic to me.
once and made some mistakes, but I think he cared about me deeply. 1 tried to hure
him when things ended between us,sending him cruel text messages and threatening
o tell our mueual friends about our secret relationship. Neither one of s s a perfect
vietim or perpetrator. During the lierary even, T e silently actoss from him and ry
o rationally process the situation.

“Then our eyes meet again. | almoststart crying. My heart hammers s 1 feel sudden
urge 0 vomit, This is trauma response, an automaic trigger that sends my nervous
system into fight or Right mode. He briefly looks at me with anger and disgust before
averting his eyes back down to the floor. Shame floods through me, replacing the
wave of adrenaline that came before it. T have a flashback 1o the memory of my
facher, looking down at me on the wooden loor a T lay beneath him. I'm not a child
anymore, but some part of me will ahways be a seven-year-old gil with a split lp,
erying alone in her bedroom.

Thave several ways to addressthe sieuation. I can call him out online or in person, use
the words “transphobe” or “sbuser.” Neither word is appropriate for the circumstances,
but it could rally folks to my side. T can go up to the event organizers and deman
that he is banned from future events. O [ wait until the event is over and leave the

space, never o return to lterary events in my city again because | cane guarantee that
he wontt be there. Maybe, if 1 fel brave enough, T can reach out to him again and
ask if hes willing to try repairing what broke beween us enough that we can share.
space saely:

8- Repair
Punishing him for making me feel powerless might help me feel powerful again.
Maybe f T hurc him back, 1 would feel less ashamed of myself 1 wouldiit have to face
the overwhelming humiliation of encountering him in publi i 1 got other people to
push him out of our shared community. He' already terrified that Il eveal our past

connection, exposing him to the intense stigma of being romanically ssociated with.

a trans woman. If I even named him publicly it would change how people saw him.
Maybe thar’s why he wouldn' even look at me anymore.

P recovered enough from my childhood to know that punishing him wouldn
make me feel becter. It might temporally help me recover some of my self-estcem,
pushing down the intense disgust 1 feel sbout my own desirability and worth, but

it wouldt be just. 1 would know it was wrong, even if everyone believed me. More
importandly, his life matters as much as mine docs. Hurting someone I used to love
because I can'esafely manage my own emotions won't heal me. It just traumatizes him

and I—and everyone around us—further.

IF1 trly beleve in love as a practice, | have to embody that in the world. OF course,
there’s a reasonable chance that he will refuse to attempt repair. Maybe he sees my
attempes 1o repair as a coercive threat. For many people, particulsly BIPOC. queer
and trans folks, refsing to engage is a valid survival cactic. How many times has
the stae taken away our bodily autonomy or forced us into dangerous siuations? [
remember what it fel like to be forced to recount my trauma to the social workers,
Knowing that they would never help me and didn'ecar.

Repair doesnt guarantee that talking about what happened will make things better
In fact, it could make things much worse. Facing the reality of what we've done o
each other reqites tolerating very unpleasant emotions. Do T want o sincerely admit
how 1 hure him, not just in the past but alo in the presene? Could he ever trust me

enough to be vulnerable again? Out of all of the options we have, repair fecls like

the most dangerous one. Yet, if we truly are committed to cach other’s iberation,
wouldsit we be willing o take those risks?

Tdon't know what to do. spend days afte the event stuck in a mental loop, replaying
every moment of our interaction over and ove in my mind. One of my friends asks
me to go with them to another reading, but I politely decline because I can't bear
the sisk of facing him again in public. T haunted by our inablity to make ic better
Every time [ talk about it with anyone, I feel like I'm breaking his trus, becoming
the villain in our storylne.

There isn any resolution 1o this story. T dissociate from my body when T write

Guwen Benaway - 9
this part of the essay, Hoating somewhere above the page, because my trauma isnt
somerhing that happened to me once. Its a sory that keeps happening, a broken
thing inside me that needs to be repaired constantly.

You see, everyone I love always hurts me. And I hure everyone T love. In this sory;
Pim the angry facher and the terrifid litle girl, simultancoudy bound together in a
wound that worit be healed uncil 1 dic

“There are no easy answers. There is nuance behind every word that I've written in this
essay. There will lways be exceptions and other important voices to consider. Perhaps
the conditions of our appressions prevent the possbiliy of repair. Maybe we donc
ever have the luxary of learning how 1o be vulnerable with cach other. I resent how
trans women and femmes are the ones who have to do the wrk of care. T abways fecl
a5fm one more bad day away from death, caught beoween suicide, unemployment,
violence, and discrimination.

Tsill have a knife in my purse, but now there’s something more: 2 orn slp of blue
paper wedged between Belmonts and a pink lighter. 1¢s 2 handswritien note from an
exlover that says, “be gentle with yourselfand others (please)”. 1 know that gendleness
isn always possible, ue want to believe that s always deserved. Nothing I've lived
through in my lfe has ever shown me that punishment and pain brings change.

As my fiend, Kai Cheng Thom, writes in her essay on the application of juseice, “no.
apology, or amount of money or punishment can give me back the person i was, the
body and spirit possessed, before i was violated. only i can do that” T turn back o
her words over and over again as I try to find my way home to my body. She ends
her essay with the simple phrase, “i hope we choose love”, and I want to repeat her
aall o action hee.

Thope we choose love. Not for my sake, but for yous.

10 - Repai
GWEN BENAWAY IS A TRANS GIRL OF ANISHINAABE
AND METIS DESCENT. SHE HAS PUBLISHED THREE
COLLECTIONS OF POETRY AND HAS TwWO
FORTHCOMING WORKS: A COLLECTION OF POETRY,
APERTURE, AND A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, TRANS
GIRL IN LOVE, IN 2020. SHE IS A PH.D STUDENT IN
THE WOMEN AND GENDER STUDIES INSTITUTE AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO.