joelle snowe

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  • The Messiah Chronicles: A Live Journal – Part I

    Author’s Note: in this day and age it may be hard to tell what is real and what is not. Consider this post and all following posts in this series to be a form of experimental Fiction. All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental. The protagonist is not the same as the author, though some details are drawn from the author’s lived experience thus far.

    I am the messiah. The second coming. It has taken me years to accept this, but I now understand my purpose. I am, in fact, Jesus reborn. Here to bring about the reckoning. They told me I was a threat to society. That I would bring death and despair on my whole community. It’s because they can no longer recognize goodness when they see it. It looks like evil when someone cares so much that they refuse to take part in the hypocrisy.

    The town I grew up in was steeped in the influence of The Church. Which church? Didn’t matter. We had it all. Methodist, Catholic, Lutheran, Latter Day Saints, Judaism. This was a devout township full of god fearing Americans. They were all fooled. Because they are the ones acting in service of the devil. They were the ones who bought into campaigns of hatred and terror, seeking the blood of their supposed enemies who were simply brothers in Christ. Their beliefs centered around conformity, the nuclear family, American essentialism, and the almighty dollar. My God is weirder than that. My Father/Mother is Queer as fuck and demands retribution and revolution.

    She takes whatever form he needs to in order to get the job done. Kinda like me, their offspring. Changing pronouns more often than shoes, we both contain multitudes. As a youth my identity was static. I tried to conform, with my fake name that I was shackled with by people who didn’t know or accept me. They called me Thomas Jacob Moriarty Tyler and told me to like it. Why the fuck did they give me two middle names? Were they trying to saddle me with years of extra headaches when dealing with the bureaucracy or just drive me to suicide? Because both were in the cards.

    The people around me told me that one day I would “snap” and go on a wild murder rampage. Like those kids in Columbine who wore black trench coats. I leaned into it, wore black even more frequently. Started listening to goth bands from the 80s and 90s who were past their heyday, but spoke to me through time. Alternative kids my age were listening to Evanescence and Linkin Park while I loaded up my mp3 player with bands like Wire, Can, Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen and their descendants. Music can set you free if you let it. I was built different and everyone could smell it on me. Always reading and writing and thinking, the thinking was the most dangerous thing in their eyes. You aren’t supposed to think. You’re supposed to sit there like a good boy and listen uncritically to the garbage they spew at you. Drink it up and regurgitate it back out to them without adding in any unique thoughts or ideas of your own.

    New ideas are a problem. Problems get stamped out or forced to conform. I refused to let either happen.

    As soon as I could get free of all that, I changed my name. Took longer than I’d have liked, but that’s life. Of course the 21st century messiah had a detour with drug and alcohol addiction. That’s bound to happen when things are so busted. You try to cope by escaping reality and delving inward. It eventually leads you to experimenting with psychedelics and the inevitable ego death that ensues, where you meet the almighty and find out you were their offspring all along. That the destiny before you is to save the world by way of divine intervention. All that good stuff. Some might say that I’m crazy, that there’s no way it can be true. Well, they said the same thing about Jesus himself at the time. This time God decided it’s time to break gender into tiny little pieces because its outlived its usefulness.

    The messiah only comes in a time when there is a need for great change. I am writing this journal to document my journey on the route to this change. Posting it online in a place where none of the evil corporations can lay claim to it. Sure, it will be mirrored to some social media sites. But the original post comes from my home, it is hosted here. This is the source. This is where my word is to be spread.

    I changed my name to Jamie H Croft. The H stands for whatever you want it to. Happiness. Hellfire. Heaven sent. Hope. JHC was the important thing. It’s like poetry, you know. They rhyme. Keep watching this space if you want to hear more about my journey. I will post about my past, present, and future. Where you come from is as important as where you’re going. This whole thing of killing the past that I hear about is cool and all, but we gotta remember where we’ve been. That’s all for now but next time I will tell you how I met my first apostle, name of Catherine.

    Until then, break free from anything foisted on you that you didn’t ask for. Tell the people trying to stuff you into a box to take a hike.

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  • Federation Test Post

    This post by my Admin is meant to serve as a test to see if I’m properly federating out into the ATmosphere and into the Fediverse.

    If you can see this, please drop a like, comment, or heck even a subscription to let me know things are working properly.

    Thank you,
    Nora (Admin: snowebell.cc)

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  • This Genderqueer Person is Still Trans

    As much as it felt good in the moment to push the metaphorical “I want to be a girl” button back in 2017, I have come to the realization that the question of my gender is more complicated than that. The past six years I have gotten by telling myself and others that I am a trans woman. This is still fundamentally close to the truth, but it is not the whole truth. Seeing others around me getting surgeries and going to great lengths to “pass”, I have felt a growing uncertainty around my desire to be perceived as a woman. I don’t get the same gender euphoria from being seen as a woman that I did early on. In an increasing way I have pulled away from the strict gender binary that governs society.

    Last year I started considering detransition, albeit not in a serious way. It was more of a thought experiment. What would happen if I simply stopped taking my HRT and started dressing more androgynously in general? Following the thought experiment to its conclusion led me to where I started. A prisoner of “testosterone brain”. Hormones effect a lot of things and I don’t think I could function the same way if my body was left to its own devices.

    Where does this leave me, then? I don’t want to medically detransition (or socially, to be honest. Dresses and women’s clothes generally just suit me better and look better on me. I am predisposed to spending time around women and doing things that are more feminine coded). The issue is that I still feel like a mix of both masculine and feminine in a very genderfluid/genderqueer kind of way. Some days I feel more of one than the other, and I channel different energies at different times in order to express myself. In this regard, I am seeking freedom from the gender binary while still embracing it as a tool for self expression.

    The ways in which I feel distanced from the trans feminine community are the same things that are likely being exploited by bad actors at times. There have been a number of detransitioners who feel like they were lied to or indoctrinated by the trans community, then go out and tell their story to conservatives on social media. I want to be clear that I do not feel this way. There was no indoctrination and I have taken every step with a clear head. The issue for me six years into this, is that I still don’t feel like a woman. Not only that, but I don’t even want to fully feel like a woman. Estrogen feels great and I never want to stop taking it (for health reasons). However, I feel most euphoric when I’m mixing up the gender stuff and playing with different combinations. This is still a viewpoint and identity that falls into the broad umbrella of “transgender”. I would not want to go back to trying to fit into the cisgender man mold, it is a restrictive and awful place to be.

    People like to say “gender is a social construct” so much that the phrase has lost its usefulness. If Woke 1.0 is actually over like some are saying, we need something new for Woke 2.0. I would like to put forth something along the lines of “gender is your own personal make-up palette and toolbox”. The first phrase is negative and devoid of personal meaning. “Gender is a social construct”, we say. “And…..?” is the only reasonable follow up. Do we need to destroy it? Abolish gender? Construct something else to take its place? I don’t know what to do with that information. By stating that gender is a make-up palette and/or toolbox, we are giving power to anyone who wants to use it that way.

    What is gender? Whatever I goddamn well say it is, because I’m an American goddamn it.

  • Writing for Pleasure

    She told me to write so I started writing. Sometimes we need a little bit of encouragement from the people we love to do something for ourselves. Writing has been a thing that I have struggled to do of my own volition for most of my life. Why would I write for myself? It makes little sense to grab a keyboard or pen and start vomiting out words for an audience of one. People tell me they like my writing and that’s great. I like it too. The problem is that I have spent most of my life waiting for permission to do the things I like most. It has felt easier to prioritize other things (like videogames) that don’t satisfy my need to be creative but still provide a sense of accomplishment. I set myself little goals and my brain rewards me with dopamine. Still, at the end of the day my running practice has fallen to the wayside and I’ve written very little this year so far.

    It is easy to say that work gets in the way. It does. I have a job that requires a lot of emotional energy and staying on late hours (I do my best writing in the evening). It does leave me with little. But that’s the thing I have been missing: writing isn’t a draining activity. It is rejuvenating. Social media is a time sink, so are videogames. They require little to no effort to engage with. The rewards for doing so match that effort. After playing a long videogame session I feel anxious and burnt out, in need of more rest. It isn’t filling me with energy, it is taking the little reserves I have left.

    I have learned once again that writing is different. It is an activity that engages parts of my brain that nothing else can touch. It starts with a blank page and then I decide what to fill it with. There’s no game design or algorithms or flashy graphics competing for my attention. Just a screen or a page and my thoughts.

    My partner and I were talking last night and they asked me what I wanted to write, what my goals are. I told them that I want to write things that are interesting to me, not to chase trends or focus on selling something. If I am going to write in my free time, it should be for me. If the focus is on selling, it will be a compromised work before even starting. That is all I am going to say about it here because I don’t like talking about things while they are still in progress.

    Reading and writing rewire your brain to work in a more linear and structured way. The flow of words and sentences reinforce a kind of logic and also a dreamlike state of thinking where thoughts can run through your head. It clears the blockage. This is what I’ve been experiencing for the past month or so. It feels like I am in the process of detoxing my brain from things that are taking up too much of my free time. All the time spent reading is good. But getting in the writing time is also of equal importance. You can’t be all about inputs, you need to output as well. Even if a person isn’t a creative type this is of utmost importance. Find a way to put your energy out there and externalize some of your thoughts and feelings. It is therapeutic.

  • My American Backstory

    I am an American, and that comes with a certain amount of baggage these days. It has been a source of great conflict in me since my early years that I feel like a fish out of water in this culture. As a preteen, I saw my country go to war in the middle east. The people around me became bloodthirsty and vicious. Calling for violence against Muslims, distrusting our neighbors. My boss at the first real job I had was an immigrant from Guyana. She was often mistaken for having African heritage and resented it. This person became bitter and racist, calling for an end to birthright citizenship and decrying people who are “lazy” or “complainers”. I stopped talking to her when I left that place but I guarantee she voted for Trump all three times.

    My experience of living in this country has been full of negatives. From the church I grew up in to the school that judged me a problem. A small town in Northern Westchester that was full of hypocrisy, I blamed my parents for raising me there. They weren’t the problem, they were trying to be a part of the solution in their own way.

    My father grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He was raised Catholic and never forgave his parents for that – becoming more agnostic as an adult. A nerd for radio and gadgets, he spent his life balancing his hobbies with his work. The man started out as a DJ before moving into non-profit work and fighting the oligarchs. Dad always said “we need to get the money out of politics”. He worked for a non-profit organization that fought big tobacco and won a number of concessions that are still in force today. No more Joe Camel type advertising or smoking in restaurants in New York. I don’t want to oversell how “Important” my dad was. But when he died, his funeral was attended by so many people. They came up to me and said, “your father was a special guy, he really cared”. After all the Hell he put me and my sister through, that was tough to hear. He had a lot of anger and psych problems that went unaddressed for his whole life. Still, he had an impact on the world around him. I can only hope to have a similar impact on those I meet and work for before my time comes. The man was flawed, but he continues to inspire me and the work I do every day.

    On the other hand, my mom had a smaller splash. She was a true small town American. Growing up in the upper peninsula of Michigan, moving to Lansing and meeting my dad. She was a career woman. Somehow she managed to balance working full time jobs in PR with raising a family and providing emotional support to all of us (especially my father). Mom lived for us, she was always helping others. The doctors she worked with relied on her to get their message to people. We relied on her to keep us (a bunch of free thinking rebellious kids) from going insane in a conservative small town. Her strength was enormous, but it had limits. She suffered from depression, had a suicide attempt in ’05. Gave up on her fight with cancer in 2020 and we lost her. It was impossible for her to keep living without my father, despite our efforts to keep her going.

    I am writing about this to provide some context for my identity as an American. Both sides of my family came her with nothing. One grandparent was a coal miner, the other a Firestone Tire factory worker. We were not a part of the founding of this country, but we were able to make a go of it here. I am the only member of my family to make it this far west, and I’ve got the sunburns to show for it. This is not the land of my heritage. I am a guest here and try to acknowledge that in my work and my life. With everything happening right now it would be easy for me to cast off my American identity and try to reclaim some sort of European identity. My partner and I even considered moving back there last year.

    However, this is my country. Like it or not, I am a warm blooded American and that comes with all the ugly baggage. But it also comes with a lot of good. People like my parents. People I consider inspirational like writers, activists, movie directors. America isn’t all bad any more than other countries. It has long been held captive by monied interests. That’s why it’s so important for people like us to stick around and keep all of that in check.

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  • These Are The Books I Am Reading

    my tbr is too damn much but I’m really enjoying getting back into reading. Starman is an old favorite and everyone should read the Robinson/Harris run from the 90s. I don’t consider myself a big marvel fan outside of the X-Men (am a DC girl who is patiently waiting for a Zatanna movie) but of course we are seeing the new Spidey this weekend.

    this list has some books I’ve been eager to get to for a while that I haven’t gotten to because of time spent playing videogames instead. let’s be honest: as a working adult, videogames are almost worthless and a waste of time. 75% of my game purchases in the past 5 years have been disappointing. About 25% of book purchases have been a let down. the better medium is books, proven by science because I gave some numbers off the top of my head.

    “Videogames were a mistake” – Jeff Gerstmann

    Books:

    Starman Compendium One by James Robinson, Tony Harris, Wade von Grawbadger

    The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene

    Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

    The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

    Poor Things by Alasdair Gray

    Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

    In A Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes

    Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

    The Fall by Albert Camus

    Clockers by Richard Price

    Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

    Never Say You Can’t Survive by Charlie Jane Anders

    Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens

    Collected Prose – Paul Auster

    Go tackle your book backlog, gamers!

  • Balancing my Media Diet

    I’m just going to type out a quick update here for the sheer hell of it. There has been a lot going on in my personal and professional life at the moment, and I am deep in the process of Getting My Shit Together. Because of this, it is difficult to have the spoons for things like blog posts and writing of my own. My job is in the category of social work and social services. It is emotionally demanding and requires a lot of physical work as well. I go in at 3pm and get back home anywhere from 10 to 11 pm. Sometimes I collapse in a heap on the bed. Other times I have enough energy to play some video games.

    I really enjoy playing Final Fantasy XIV, the MMORPG one. It provides me with enough escapism to last a whole week if I can fit in a hefty play session. Lately, I have even had a few people to play with – including my beloved partner. I have also been playing a bit of Palworld and The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC (second chapter). I believe Palworld will have enough longevity to justify the purchase (it’s a meaty game). I know I will get my money’s worth from The Legend of Heroes series as a whole. Pokemon is a series I have largely grown out of though. It is interesting to hear how so many adults around me continue to find joy in it, Gamefreak must be doing something right. But for me I would rather be playing something like FFXIV or Palworld (or the open world Zelda games) which feel like there are less barriers to having a chill time. Being a working adult has changed my gaming habits over time. It is a death by a thousand cuts situation which has killed off my interest in most video games that I used to enjoy.

    To fill the void left by Total Devotion to Gaming, I have picked up some books and magazines again. I also go to a weekly film club type thing at a local theater. I am (finally) working my way through Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace and have progressed to about the halfway point. I have also subscribed to Harper’s and invested in a membership at Barnes & Noble which gives me access to other magazines. Today I picked up the newest issue of The Atlantic and a special magazine that covers the history of Goth/post punk music and the subculture around it(surprising no one who knows me). I look forward to diving into these this weekend. This maturation into a “Magazine Adult” feels uncomfortable to me, as someone who always cast aspersions at such people when I was younger. Nonetheless I have accepted that I am a cultured and reading person who needs to keep that part of my brain fed and happy or it will become unruly and difficult to manage.

    This is my current lifestyle. My partner and I just finished watching through all of The Wire, which is still my favorite TV show of all time. After a rewatch, I have some nitpicks but it manages to balance a lot of spinning plates at once. The landing at the end of the series is rocky, but it’s fitting for a show that covers early 21st century American life. It goes hand in hand with Infinite Jest quite well too, I recommend experiencing both alongside each other.

    I am off to work but should have more to say soon. Until then, don’t neglect your media diet. Consuming blindly leads to disappointment. Just because you played the last six Resident Evil games the year they came out, doesn’t mean you have to plunk down $70 out of obligation in 2026. Question your hobbies and interests, spending the time the way you really want to.

    That’s what I tell myself these days.

  • Limiting Factors

    I would like to start approaching this blog like a weekly column, with each one having a theme. Have you ever seen Sex and the City? That show hasn’t aged well in many ways, but I always appreciated how it was structured. Every episode would feature Carrie’s column and how the events of her life informed her writing. I am a relatively young transgender professional trying to break into a new field at the age of 36. My goal is to work in the field of mental health, gaining a foothold wherever I can using the degree I already have. Afterwards, I will be able to work on getting my Master’s degree (hopefully in psychology) and work on researching various things that actually interest me.

    This week the theme is limitation. I feel limited by the circumstances of my birth, and my gender identity holding me back in various ways since the beginning of my life. I always knew from an early age that I was a premature birth. My mom told me that I was so eager to come into the world that I couldn’t wait any longer. I wanted to be born now! It was only this week that I realized this sort of thing can have implications into adulthood that cause difficulties for living in this society we have here. Various limitations around physical fitness and respiration, cardiovascular health, and other neurological conditions are linked to premature births. In many ways this has been the missing puzzle piece to what I’ve been trying to figure out for the past few years.

    Without going too much into my personal history here, it’s been a tough road. Life dealt me a tough hand in a lot of ways, even as I had a privileged upbringing in a small town. The first six years of my thirties I have been correcting a lot of things and aligning my lifestyle in a way that sets me up for success. I learned that I’m not into hairstyling, it pisses me off. Working on someone else’s hair not only brings me no joy, it feels like a punishment for not getting my master’s sooner. So that’s out and I’m working in a youth shelter. People there depend on me, but I do have limitations. I have a hard time saying no to kids, and get tired out more easily than others. My energy levels have been a consistent problem since I was a kid and I rely too much on caffeine to make up the difference. I know all of this, am painfully self aware and critical of my flaws to a fault. I know what I need to work on but my body and mind only come along kicking and screaming.

    In order to keep going, I need to recognize my own limitations and work with them rather than against them. Prioritizing and time management are of utmost importance. This is true for everyone these days, we are all busy. But I think my specific challenges give me an extra incentive to get on top of this stuff. Here we get to the point. It’s easy to see these difficulties as unfair, to bemoan my situation and wish I had things easier. The fact is, though, that I can learn to transmute these disabilities and challenges and use them to achieve more. To become unstoppable. A wise person whose blog I used to read hammered the point to me that “restrictions breed creativity”. When the challenges pile up and things feel impossible, it’s time to change your thinking.

    It starts with self talk. By now, I have clearly identified the problems and challenges I face on a day to day basis. I know how my brain works and what sets me off, what causes me to become paralyzed and “waste time”. Now comes the fun part – finding solutions. This is the year where I will start down a path that leads to becoming unstoppable. It’s not the year where I crash and burn because the pressure is too much and I can’t handle it. All of that is in the past, and I was fighting myself too hard. Trying to be something I’m not. We are who we are, and fighting it is a losing battle. My limitations are my strength because they provide direction – pointing the way forward that will lead to greater happiness.

    It’s already happening. What if we just stopped fighting our own nature and learned to be nice to ourselves? To honor our own limitations and still be happy with them, loving ourselves all the more for our flaws. The world would be a softer, nicer place to live if nobody felt inadequate and everybody loved themselves.

    Maybe that was the lesson I was supposed to learn this pride month (which was Not Good at all by the way…hope yours was better).

    Love your flaws as much as you love your pets. ~Joelle

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  • Proud of Falling

    Greetings, one and all – and happy pride month. This is not a current picture. My hair was cut short back in 2024 and I feel like it’ll never grow back out. I feel like I look like a boy, and part of me doesn’t care. I have felt and increasing amount of dysphoria over the past two years and now I’m not even sure if I’m a trans woman anymore. I have no idea what I am, or who I am to people. It wasn’t always this way, and I started my transition strong. I knew what I wanted and I was determined to get it. But like a dog chasing a car I wasn’t sure what to do with it when I caught it. People accepted me easily early on. Even now I feel like it’s possible to navigate social situations that I find myself in easier than before. But what’s missing is the feeling of certainty that I am a woman.

    This pride month I want to reclaim a sense of who I am that was lost when I cut my hair and had a traumatic beauty school tenure. I don’t know exactly what that means yet. I do know that the queer community at large feels out of step with where I’m at. Right now, I’m not prideful because I don’t know what I am or where I belong. Talking to other trans people is great but it only gets you so far. A large part of this gender journey is internal, and part of me still feels like a problematic femboy who wants to say things to shock people. The need to self censor is real, especially in my line of work. I feel constrained by my surroundings and my community. I know that I am not the only trans person who feels this way, since a lot of us have become alienated from the larger “queer community”. What happens when all of the gender affirming organizations are run by cis people? I am sick of relying on cis folks I don’t respect or care for to do the right thing. When is it our turn to take control of our own lives and destiny? I believe this is what they call trans liberation.

    To me, trans liberation would mean that I don’t need to pass – don’t need to think about my pronouns, my hair, how I’m dressing (do I look femme enough today?), whether my interests are too masculine coded, or whether I will be called “sir” or “ma’am” when I answer the phone (both are shitty feeling). It would mean that I am treated the same as anyone else, without anyone calling attention to my gender identity at all (I am sick of giving out my pronouns at all). It would also mean that I would feel comfortable standing up for myself without being seen as a problem. I have stood up for myself numerous times since coming out. Every single time I am made to feel like I either overstepped, am being irrational and/or the person becomes so afraid to mess up again that they avoid me forever.

    None of this is new, but it is what I am thinking about this pride month. I am not proud of where we are or what is happening to this country. I am not proud of my own transition progress, and it’s been six years of this. I am not proud to be a part of the queer community because it is filled with people that nauseate me.

    What I am proud of are my failures. My scars. My battle wounds and dented ego. I have faced down layers of degradation that most cisgender people have never had to consider, and come out the other side. I’m proud of falling flat on my face and refusing to stay down. Being tripped by others who are part of this community and still finding a way forward. It’s not like transition and coming out of the closet will save us. The closet opens directly onto a staircase that winds ever downward in a spiral. Taking that first step blindly, you fall down down down until you’re flat on your face surrounded by some kind of Lynchian shadow people. You look in the mirror and see a cackling witch who has taken possession of your body, because you had no more use for it. Being transgender is acknowledging that the most basic thing about you was a lie, and now you have to piece together a life using the raw materials provided by genetics and the wonders of modern science. You will never stop falling and being pushed over by people who had everything handed to them right from birth.

    I’m soft. Physically weak. Muscles shrunk from the estrogen. I have failed at so many things. Fallen.

    That’s what I’m proud of…because I’m still not dead – and by all rights I should be.

    joelle snowe
    joelle snowe
    @joelle.snowe@joelle.snowebell.cc

    queer icon living in Albuquerque

    9 posts
    4 followers

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