Real Man Adventures (8 page)

I had a few sessions of counseling early on, which helped keep me on the right track [with] my “poor me” instincts. I had also been a member of PFLAG for several years (when S— at first thought he was a lesbian since he was attracted to women). I continued to attend those monthly meetings and found it very helpful to be with other parents who were dealing with having a different child in a society that values sameness.

A further aha moment was when my best friend reminded me of when S— was four years old, crying out, “But Mommy, I’m a boy, not a girl!” I had clearly denied the importance of this at that time, thinking it was just him being cute and wanting to be the same as his little male friends he always played with, but her reminding me of this showed how deeply rooted this was.

TC: I’m pretty certain my folks are not overjoyed about what I turned out to be. Or, to put it nicer: they would choose something
different for me if given even the slightest chance. I don’t completely understand the disappointment thing, and sadly (for you), it is falling on your shoulders to clarify it for me. I don’t know whether you felt or feel a version of it or not, but a lot of parents of transpeople (and gays too, come to think of it), say that it takes a while to readjust to this new version of their children when they’d been envisioning something else—a poufy white wedding dress, a corner office at Goldman Sachs, or whatever the particular fantasies are. Now that I have children, I can certainly understand wanting as little pain as possible for them, but I don’t have a picture in my head about how their lives will turn out, what the specifics will be. I feel like that is for them to decide and discover on their own—and that’s the exciting thing about getting to watch them grow up.

M—: You are right, the best parents are the ones who allow their children the freedom to become themselves. However, it’s easier said than done, because as a parent you have to take your responsibilities seriously to help guide your child, but where do you stop guiding and just go with the flow? Also, you have to remember that the sexual revolution and the study of psychology were pretty recently introduced just over the last fifty years, which is during the lifetime of most of us parents. When I was getting a degree in psychology and sociology in college in England in the late sixties, homosexuality and transgender issues were discussed under the umbrella of “Deviance in Society,” along with the study of the criminal mind. I hope you understand that I am not trying to be unkind here—of course, I shudder when I relate this myself—but
that is the reality of what the social norms were back when your parents were growing up.

On a personal level, I don’t know why, but I didn’t have a clear vision when S— was growing up as to what he would become, so didn’t have to deal with a lot of dashed expectations. I was actually quite pleased at times that he acted more like a boy than a girl, as I was a feminist and told my friends he would grow up to be a successful female executive who would have no trouble holding her own with the male power base!

TC: Who was the hardest person to tell about S—’s transition?

M—: It would have been my mother if she had still been alive, but all S—’s grandparents had passed away by then. I think my expectations of what she expected for me and my offspring would have made that difficult—how ridiculous these expectation things are, eh?

If you’re lucky, your family accepts you; if you’re unlucky, your family bows to society’s norms, and there are probably examples of all permutations in between. That older generation (S—’s grandparents) would probably have reacted by saying he had gone too far.

Telling our close family members was pretty easy, as everyone loved S—, and they are all pretty diverse and open-minded. I did sweat sending out a Christmas letter to all of our less close family and friends in England. My husband, C—, actually wrote the letter, as he is braver and more to the point than I am, then I added a few bits here and there. We sent it off and I worried, but we had several
people call us with support, and three people wrote lovely long letters/e-mails saying how it didn’t matter and how pleased they were that S— had found himself, he was still the lovely child they had all known. We never got any negative feedback and never lost any of our friends.

TC: My parents told somebody they loved and trusted, who has known and loved them (and me) for years, and when he heard, he told them that I had gone too far, and that they were “too old for this shit” and should cut me out of their lives completely. What was the worst response you’ve gotten to sharing that you have a transgender son?

M—: We are very fortunate we didn’t have any reaction like that—I would have felt devastated.

TC: Looking back, did you “know” about S— when he was growing up? What did you “know”? What were the signs, so to speak?

M—: I saw lots of signs, but never thought about his being transgender simply because that word or thought (or the fact that my child was going to be “abnormal” by society’s standards) never crossed my mind.

I was always a bit of a tomboy growing up as I had two older brothers whom I played with and emulated, so I thought his boyish attitude was normal. I didn’t have expectations for a girly girl—in fact, I am not on the femme end of the spectrum myself, so I was quite happy to have a tomboy child. He was so much fun, curious,
outgoing, and intelligent, I was not worried about him being different as a young child. In fact, I celebrated it.

I was worried as he got a bit older—after the age of eight— when the differences became more obvious. For example, when we went away on vacation, he wanted us to call him S— [male name] and pretend he was a boy with the new acquaintances we met there. When we were on vacation at a European resort, he wanted to wear just surfer shorts so he could look like a boy and refused to wear a girl’s bathing suit. In Europe people are much more relaxed about children running around half naked, but it would have been a problem in the U.S. When we got back home and he was socializing at school again, he followed the boy-girl norms much more—I guess because of peer pressure—so I figured it would all work out and didn’t think anything more about it.

TC: Do you ever feel like S—’s being trans is “your fault”? (I know some parents of transpeople report feeling some version of guilt.) Do you believe being transgender has a biological basis, you know, like Lady Gaga enlightened us, that he was “Born This Way”?

M—: Well, yes, sometimes I do think that since I gave birth to him, I did play some part in how he is. Ha! I am aware of the various theories about what may contribute to being transgender—the difference in certain structures of the brain seems to make sense to me—but that’s a scientific explanation of how someone may have developed in a different way. It doesn’t explain how that person is the same if not better in so many other ways. Perhaps it’s a blessing,
not a curse. You know, I can also feel very proud that perhaps his being so smart and wise and lovable is also “my fault”!
³

_______________________________

1
. Names have been obscured. When I asked M— whether she wanted me to anonymize or pseudonymize names, here’s what she said: “I really don’t mind you using our real names, but C— (my husband) thinks we should err on the side of caution and just use initials, as we don’t know where this will be published in the future, and we do NOT want to end up on
Oprah
or
ET
!”

2
. There is a (fairly plausible) theory that upping testosterone levels puts genetically female bodies into a form of “early menopause,” which means that calcium levels drop along with bone marrow density. Even though the presence of testosterone as the dominant hormone in the body should keep bones strong and calcium at levels normal for men of comparable age, some doctors have suggested transmen should nevertheless supplement calcium to defend against the possibility of osteoporosis.

I take a high-quality multivitamin and calcium/magnesium supplement pretty much daily, but occasionally I forget or don’t feel like it. Now I think of what S—’s mother said and haven’t missed one since.

3
. Since this interview was conducted, my friend S— has hit a rough patch. When he was younger, before transition, he attempted suicide a couple times. And he did again recently—thankfully unsuccessfully. S— has struggled with depression and anxiety over the years, having things completely under control for long spells, then less so for others. Now, though, he is getting a handle on his condition, and with the help of proper medication and counseling (plus a yogi/swami) is learning to live with his particular challenges. It’s a day-to-day struggle, of which his mother, stepfather, and several friends have been extremely supportive. (He is one of the lucky ones in that regard.)

I thought about leaving out this update on S—, so as not to be a complete downer, but at the same time I think it’s important to include it, especially in light of a 2010 survey that found that 41 percent of transgender people in the United States have attempted suicide (twenty-five times that of the nontrans population rate). The same study found that 19 percent have been refused medical care because of their gender status, and 2 percent reported having been violently assaulted in a doctor’s office.

I have no doubt that discrimination is behind most of these elevated figures, especially when you start adjusting for race, class, education, access to health care, HIV status, homeless status, and a million other things, all of which only compound “minority stress” (which I like to think of as “transie panic,” which I definitely have, if only on the days I am reminded of it).

W
E WERE A PRETTY
open family, physically, affectionately. My parents often took naked saunas and Jacuzzis together (not like
that
), as well as with me and my brother, and while my father would generally holler, “Look away!” as he was exiting the water and reaching for a towel to cover himself, I still saw full moons as well as snippets of other stuff some of the time. My mother was naked a lot in front of me (she still is on the rare occasions we’re staying in a hotel together over the holidays, or she asks me to talk to her while she’s in the bathtub when I’m visiting). My brother was never shy about being nude either (I have a number of vivid memories of him standing buck naked in the garage, fishing through the clothes dryer for clean Levi’s, which he would then pull on without any underwear). I, however, recall always being extremely anxious
about being naked in front of my family—not to mention anybody else—as a kid.

My preferred swim attire was surf trunks with nothing on top. For years nobody seemed to care or pay much mind to this, until one day on the last day of school/first day of summer—it must’ve been around fifth or sixth grade—I remember my friend and me getting made fun of at a pool party because we weren’t wearing tops with the bottoms of our swim suits. I generally don’t have the sharpest memories of childhood (I’m always thinking I’m deficient in some profound way because so many people I know seem to remember every fucking tiny thing that happened to them, while I can scarcely recall where I ate lunch every day in high school or whether we had lockers), but I do have a distinct memory of clinging to the side of the tile drain of Pepperdine University’s Olympic-size swimming pool and feeling bad about whatever I’d just overheard the kids saying about me. That’s all I remember. And I also have no recollection of how I resolved that bad feeling in my preteen brain, though I did eventually just conform and began covering up—especially by the time I entered puberty (on the late side) and it actually started to matter.

But that is not the point of the interlude. The point of this interlude is to place all of the blame for what I turned into on my mother, who used to tease me when I was being shy and refusing to get naked in front of her.

She’d ask, “Do you have a penis under there?” and fake grab for my towel. “Let me see right now! Are you hiding a penis in there?”

TC:
WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST
fear about C—’s being transgender?