It is no mercy for women because our crime is our gender. We have got to fight. So. I confessed. And like most women. I expected some reward for selling myself from a train my voice is printed 9 my purpose 1st of rendering every scrap of my integrity I expected then I would be moved to a church prison where there would be other women prisoners and women in attendance . And this didn't happen they took me back to my little cell back to my 5 guards only now I was wearing a dress. Meanwhile the crowd with faces was starting to get ugly they didn't know anything about heretics or law and procedures or confessions all they knew was that they wanted to see somebody suffering more than they were and when they realized they'd been cheated out of an execution they were ready to riot. So you see the political pressure was starting to build to find some way to make me break the terms of my penance. And that was Thursday when I signed the confession. On Saturday one of the guards opened the door to my Sal. And he led an Englishman and he was well dressed I thought he must be a lord or something I stood up to see would he want. Yes. The maiden and I'm on the floor he's kicking me in the stomach in the ribs I'm willing nobody's kicking my back in my life and then suddenly he's on the floor over me and he's pulling up my dress with one hand. Well I had been wearing men's clothes he would have had to use both hands he would have had to untie 40 knots and 2 sets of lacing to both hands I don't want to make him pay for it you better believe it over the dress one hand one movement as it just is about isn't it accessibility I don't see where that's changed much in 500 years and neither has right. And I'm lying on the floor. And he smack in my face back and forth. When I'm done with this other hand he's taking notice. And here's mine just robot. My own sweet body my body me. Not being silly body when I am way away and I can't focus my eyes and my nose is bleeding and he's talking to me trying is even some language I don't understand. And then suddenly he stands up and he kicks me again in the universe and the back and then he's gone. And the guards are standing there and I think they're going to rape me too but they did. See my psych. It's like a cat playing with a crippled bird pouncing on it and shaking it once struggles to get away and then as soon as the bird dies he catches drops and wants something game's over well there I was raped battered broken the game was over after 5 months it was finally over. Well I mean we go our student around for a while hoping I'd show some sign of the old spirit but I didn't so they just walked off. And that was Saturday. And Sunday I woke up to feel one of the guards pulling my dress off. He threw my old clothes on the bed and told me I could put those on or go naked now you have to understand it was against the terms of my penance ever to wear men's clothes again. I begged him to give me the address but he with they just laughed at me and waited and I stayed in bed pleading with them and still did. But I had to get up in peace so finally I put on my whole clothes again my so-called men's clothes and as soon as I did that the guards went to tell car show and he and the others came scurrying like rats to see for themselves and then a miracle happened. I had been raped and battered and broken I had denied my voices for 3 days I had not known who I was and then suddenly I put on my real clothes. And I came back to myself. I was the king and I was all through with compromise. Nobody mentioned my swollen and bruised face and I didn't mention that either. I said I was wearing men's clothes of my own free will I looked right at those garments and I said nobody had made me wear them. I said as long as I have to live in a man's world I'll dress like a man if they send me to a decent prison where I can be with other women I verily think they want. And then they asked me. If I had heard the voices of same pattern in St Maarten since Thursday when I started the confession and I said. This is a matter of fact. And my sister told me that in trying to save myself I had condemned myself and my voices told me that every single thing that I had ever done in my entire life I had done well and that it was a lie to say anything different how well of course the notary song writing this down as fast as they get it when I get to that last part they write fatal answer in the margin. Every Sunday that was the day that I rose again from the dead rape is the crucifixion of women and I am proof that there is life after race even more alive because when a woman is raped she buries that part of herself that's accessible to men now in a rape culture little trying to make you believe that's everything but it's not she rattles again with what no man can penetrate her self-esteem. Reborn in her own image. Wednesday they came to get me. I no longer had to measure myself against the world I was my own person. And I cried uncontrollably. They gave me communion and a need to get me out to the cart and this priest who used to try and spot on the in my cell he climbed into the cart and tried to get me to forgive him they pulled him out and told me better leave town if you know it was good form there were a 100 in English soldiers as courting me to the public square where the stake was this time they put the platforms in the same place as the stakes I guess they didn't want to risk another confession. They put a hat on my hat with names idolater heretic. It was the sign on the platform where I stood. Jean liner. Seducer. Somebody gave a long sermon I wasn't listening I didn't even notice the faces that had bothered me so much the week before and they hadn't changed and I had I had been raped. They read my sentence I remember they called me a dog returning to my environment. I prayed people were laughing. The excommunicated me. And then they turned me over to the bailiff. And 2 men shoved me over to the platform where the stake was and threw me up on. This cake was very high so that everyone can see it usually the executioner kills the victims so they don't actually have to burn to death but in my case the steak was so high he couldn't reach me to do the job. I had a little wooden cross into my clothes against my breast. And this priest sent to one of the churches on the square 1st harmonial cross and he held it up so I could look at it. And then they tied me to the stake. And then the fire. Between the time they lit the fire. And the time I love consciousness. Was a long time it was a long time to wonder where God was my voices were with me because they're part of me but. Where was this loving father with all the power to save people or at least to make me die quickly. Here remember when Darren exposed the Wizard of Oz and you hear this booming voice pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Let me tell you when we women begin to expose the actions of men. We hear this voice urging us to protect and forgive and this voice is so ancient so powerful so authoritative and we're overcome with guilt and shame even though we're the victims. You know I'm here tonight to tell you something about that voice. That voice telling you to protect and forgive men that voice urging you to be a little more patient a little more tolerant that is not the voice of God That is the voice of the men behind the curtain. And the only reason that it sounds like the voice of God is because they have been amplifying themselves for 2000 years and years things special effects. Of time to the stay and watching the fire come closer and closer I realized that God the Father was a lie I realized he was an invention of the good ole boys to cover their tracks and to cover their asses I realized the closest that I had ever been to any real sense of spirituality was alone with my voices or in the company of other women. I realized what a fool I had been to create around me and King as if he had a divine right to rule I realized what a fool I had been for trusting and church run by men who only worship themselves. I realize what a fool I had been to leave one army of men out against another is a big could make any possible difference which side was. And I realized what a fool I had been for believing I would be safe from the actions of men by God they had created in their own image God the Father was a lie then it is not why now with all of the hierarchies modeled after him illegitimate government the armies the churches the corporations the families we will not convert them. They will monitor us. We will not convert them we have got to fight for our cause women's cause. We have got to clothe ourselves in our self esteem arm ourselves with our finally tempered rage and listen to only those voices there we women can hear. Saint Joan of Arc. 20 years later they had a trial to rehabilitate me yes because I was holding my own as a national hero and if there's one thing the Catholic Church can't stand its competition. The songs. Of the feminine simple minded peasant girl had begun to replace the memory of the cross-dressing porch with a smart mouth. Full The 2nd trial was pretty much a formality without the star witness everybody pretty much knew ahead of time how things would turn out not too much interesting except one thing. My best friend yet . She testified. I didn't think she'd remember me. I remembered her. Viet and I had been very very close until the year I ran away. We had grown up together we had taken our 1st communion together which was a very special feeling you see it was a custom in my village for the girls who shared their 1st communion to sleep with each other. She come over to my house or I go over to hers and we sleep in the same bed together. And sometimes. Sometimes for extended dad was a very small boat on the ocean and I had rescued her from drowning and I would hold her in my arms and my heart review so filled with tenderness that I would feel light headed Our she pretended she found me wounded in the forest and had taken me to her cottage and she would bandage my wounds in cover me with kisses. Oh yeah and I. We were more than best friends we were one soul. We knew this and we'd always planned to live together and we grew up. Like I said there was this terrible thing she pretty. Obviously got engaged I wouldn't even speak to her I mean how could she do this to me after I had gone to so much trouble to break my own engagement. So I left already I left and I didn't tell her he's going I said oh my other friends to her. So you're She is 20 years later testifying what did she say. She says she cried her eyes out when she heard I left already. She said she loved me. Because I was in it. And then she called me her lover. She's 40 years old married and standing in a room full of Catholic priests and judges. And she says this about a girl who's been dead for 20 years. A girl who left her without seeing the body. Of yet. She had a lot more courage than I did. It was easier for me to face the English. And French Inquisition. Even the executioner. And to face her and to say I love you. There is one crime I committed one they overlooked in my trial. One for which I suffered the most for which I suffer every day. I confess that. I deny my love for a woman. And I denied the woman who loved me. So you see there was no see Joan of Arc with this legacy of glorious martyrdom but there was a gene role may. Who made a terrible terrible mistake of trying to find a substitute in the world of men. For the love that she experienced in the arms of I want to. Thank. You and Gage I've seen commentary about your play the 2nd coming of Joan of Arc on a Joan of Arc website and there was a fellow there who claimed to have translated some of the documents I don't know which documents and he disagreed very strongly with your interpretation that John was lesbian that she was anorexic and that she was sexually molested or or abused or threatened in her family I wonder what you would say to him if we had him on the show right now well 1st of all let me say that I'm not a scholar going into the Latin archives Well I read everything about her that was in print and in circulation in libraries but I didn't go into archival resources but my primary sources back for West book and she wrote one of the 1st biographies after all of these records were translated into contemporary French which I think was the 1927 1st time lay people who aren't scholars with access to Vatican archives had access to the reams of trial transcripts and read of course cross-dressing was a normal part of her coming into her lesbian identity and I think she chose Joan of Arc because she was fascinated by a woman who would rather die than wear a dress and she's focusing a lot on the personal details that she could glean I don't know how accurate her research was is very footnoted but subsequent scholars always build on and many the work of previous scholars I'm not surprised that the facts are what biography is fallen into a form of scholarly disrepute because we've had 70 or 80. Years of research after that but as I'm remembering it was in part of the transcript that her father had a dream that he saw her leaving town with a group of soldiers his interpretation of that was that she was headed for a life of prostitution and he shared that with her and now we don't know if that was a polite conversation or with an angry drunken one the record seems to support that the father was quite a drinker when he went with her to the crowning of the King it was noted that he was in the pub and so on you know I mean I am kind of working backwards from my story which is the lesbians but survivor and that is so hidden from history we have to piece it together backwards what would make a 17 year old suddenly adopt a male persona and right off to crown a king and you know back to West biography indicate that there was a beloved girlfriend that she slept with and that that was documented and that at the point where the girlfriend became engaged to marry that was when shown. How well it kind of signed up for the army which is not unlike what a lot of my peers did in high school when their hearts got broken and went into the military that's a place for you know women go to find an identity other than a housewife. So it's like I'm not claiming to write a docu drama but I don't think the simple minded peasant girl struck dumb with visions from God that doesn't wash for me when I look at the record of her trajectory everything in it is pretty consistent with a deeply disturbed adolescent survivor with a transgender identity or a lesbian butch identity so that's when I had my story and I'm stickin to it. So you base this on the work of. West do you think that she had a similar experience of Joan's identity and relating it to her own identity I absolutely do and anybody who questions that I draw you to her introduction to the book where she says something like this secret of Joan's identity was yet to be articulated she's getting kind of core euphemism So your play is cold the 2nd coming of Joan of Arc and my dislike for a West book if people want to look that up is called. I believe it's just called St John of Arc and neither are any other references that you like to Cole attention to . Actually find Burke wrote a book transgender warrior several years back and I believe she devoted a chapter to John and not only talked about the transgender aspect of John's history but her working class identity and crowd affiliation with that and certainly somebody from the peasantry or working class person driving that fast in the ranks and crowning the king and standing next to him and would evoke normal backlash of antagonism from members of the elite class. I really appreciated that. Many times if you performed this plane. Boy I would say probably getting close to $100.00 now maybe. I returned the piece for about 5 years because I had such terrible emotional problems for that I needed to take a break and do a lot of personal recovery the story was a little too close to home for me and my play Joan is. She's got the politics right but she's got a lot of she hasn't figured out how to form affective alliances with women and she hasn't really figured out how to love herself yet but she knows how to fight and she knows she's claiming her anger against man and it's a very it's a very scary place when you come to consciousness about patriarchy but you haven't uploaded the skills for building an alternative to it yet then you're just kind of left with massive betrayal and banging your head against a brick wall and. That's understandable for a 19 year old who was through her betrayal coming to consciousness and making those connections so rapidly but it is a tragedy ultimately and. I felt like I needed to go and prove to myself that I had learned some of the things that John didn't. Which I should as I live twice as long as she did and then I think go back and pick it up and perform it again without being so devastated by and. So when you came to the greater realisation have you written another play that you would consider the progress playing well it's funny like all of the work around the time of John of Arc and I had a theatre company called no to man and I was really. You know just dealing with the shock of my own betrayal coming to consciousness but somewhere after writing Joan I started becoming much much more interested in what women do to other women than what men do to women I began to feel like the real front is women inability to form these effective alliances and internalized oppression. Internalized roles the lack of empowering archetypes like the butch warrior cetera and so my work really the focus shifted not on oh my gosh look at the men are doing to us but like well let's talk about what we're doing to each other and that's a huge shift in focus and I'd say that really been the in-depth inquiry of the last decade of my writing. And particularly what women do to survivors recovered and recovered that's a great interest to me. Any final comments. And I'm just thrilled that you're broadcasting that I'm encouraging anybody to contact me through my website Carolyn Gage dot com You can get to my e-mail I'd love to hear from any of your listeners about this play and I guess I should say one of the pieces of history of this is that many of the women here hear it make radical changes in their lives they will write to me that they have left their husband or walked out of their job or confronted their perpetrator so I'm always I always enjoyed a feedback from the play and the fact that women. Author and actor Carolyn Gage and C A R O L Y and. Carolyn Gage dot com special thanks to says that Cullen and Genevieve Vonn editor of IL don't know the gift the wing sound logo is from the finest album A circle is cast I'm free to Worden and this is wings the Women's International news gathering service. Good evening welcome to ASA La your half hour of local and regional. Weather and other information. Delayed due to Labor Day It's our weekly appointment with the folks at H 2 O. Radio with this we can water algae or changing the weather that story and more on these 2 radios weekly news report I'm Jamie Sadler for any help and it's this weekend water. Sunday September 1st hurricane Dorian made landfall in the Bahamas with sustained wind speeds of 180 miles per hour making it the strongest storm to hit the island region in modern records a powerful Category 5 hurricane had gusts reaching 220 miles an hour and the National Hurricane Center warned presidents. That a catastrophic storm surge of 18 to 23 feet could affect the Bahamas northwest islands durians pressure down to $913.00 millibars is stronger than Hurricane Andrew when it made landfall in south Florida in 1902 only 6 Atlantic hurricane since 1950 S. Had stronger winds than Dorians 3 of which occurred since 20