Tag Archive | Tolerance

An Absurdity of Trans Self Hatred And My Response

Jan9

On a forum where I am not allowed to post my thoughts without censorship, a post as made that trans folk should be like a starfish opening a clam, slow steady pressure that eventually succeeds. This is pretty wise advice for most cases and I had no quibble with that advice. But another poster came in and posted complete and utter nonsense. This poster has waged a war against transition itself and urged trans people to always “sit in the back of the bus” if even a single cisgender person objects. Here is what she said:

Yet a very relevant digression because that sort of militant action created many negative reactions and created opponents, opponents who could have cared less but were forced to become opponents because of the offensive behavior and not just fighting for gay rights but attacking many non-gays for their beliefs. Beliefs which by and large had nothing to do with gay issues.

The turning point for gays was when non-militant folks started coming out and demonstrated gay people can be decent human beings and all weren’t such offensive people.

You message here Becky is a very good one and illustrates that desires can be obtained, respect and acceptance achieved by being a decent human being first and using slow and constant change. There have been thousands just like you who have provided positive examples who have been instrumental in achieving so much for trans.

It seems more and more a certain portion of the community seems focused on flushing all this good will folks like you have earned for trans by becoming more angry at non-trans and not pushing for needs but pushing for things that go well beyond the needs of trans and not respecting things most people will find offensive.

This is my response, which I cannot post there because of censorship.

Once upon a time, most whites found the mere presence of blacks offensive. White women argued that black women would prey upon white women in integrated restrooms. Sound familiar?

There are certain things that are morally abhorrent regardless of how they are done. I take great exception to the “stay at the back of the bus” mentality. Coming out gently, the “starfish” approach doesn’t mean not rattling cages. It means doing things in a slow steady forward progression. But people can still be exceptionally stiff necked, cruel, rude, and even dangerous when faced with change they dislike. Should someone stop transition at a certain point just to satisfy family members yet remain in a suicidal depression by doing so? I don’t think so. Should a trans person be denied restroom access to simply empty their bowels or bladder because some bigot is upset that trans folk merely exist? That’s the narrative of Pacific Justice Institute – that your mere existence is harassment of cisgender women.

Among my friends and family, I’ve achieved a more than 90% success and acceptance rate among the people I know. Yet there are losses and those losses were not caused by me. Those losses were the deliberate choices of those people to reject me, despite multiple health care professionals all agreeing that this was what I needed to do. And those losses remain very painful.

Your frequent harangues against transition and against not upsetting anyone amount to allowing one family member to tell you to not seek cancer treatment when ill with cancer. That’s absurd, isn’t it? And it’s just as absurd when applied to therapies that mental health professionals can statistically prove are highly likely to succeed in reducing stress and anxiety brought about by gender dysphoria.

No one is “forced to become an opponent”. That’s an absurd rationalization for bigotry, hatred, and injustice. Becoming an opponent is a choice that the opponent makes not the trans person, not the gay person, not the black person, not the hispanic person. George Wallace chose to become an opponent of blacks. Every single person who chooses to oppose equal rights for transgender people is making exactly the same sort of choice as George Wallace. All that black people did was stand up and say, “I want to be respected and treated decently.” What George Wallace did, and what trans bigots do today is respond with, “Hell no! We’re never going to respect you! We’d turn the dogs on you, the water cannons, and we’d round you up and ship you to camps if we could!” This isn’t even an exaggeration either because trans opponents have made exactly those sort of arguments, from the Tennessee state representative who promised to “stomp a mudhole” into any trans woman he saw enter a restroom, to a North Carolina GOP state organizer who wants to send every trans person off to camps, to even my eldest son who says I need a tattoo on my forehead and arm that tell the world I am trans. (Does that sound familiar?)

Your argument is an “Uncle Tom” argument. Your argument is fear and loathing of what you and other trans folk are, and a choice to allow your rights to be trampled and yourself to be bullied, all so you don’t upset the bigots. I do not accept your choice. You’re free to sit in the back of the bus, but I won’t.

I’m not even sorry to say this, but to hell with you and your fear mongering about who we are. You are a menace to young trans people everywhere by sowing excessive doubt and worry. My only regret is I cannot post my frank opinion of your complete and utter bullshit right where it would matter.

Lessons For Others Like Me

Jan3

Recently, another transwoman blogged about how “coming out” is tearing her apart. How every passing day as “him” becomes more and more painful yet she is afraid to move forward fearful of the losses that may come. This blog entry is for her and every other trans person like her.

I went through what you have. I dressed secretly, went out as myself when my spouse was away on trips. Dressed at home as “me”. I purged wigs and clothing multiple times, swearing “never again” but to no avail.

I did this for decades. Decades. My marriage suffered for it as there were long periods in which I simply could not function as a male. My spouse knew something was wrong but she never confronted me about it except to ask once, years ago, if I was having an affair. I was not, of course, so denied that but offered her no further insights at that time.

This roller coaster went on for years and years and years. My gender dysphoria would build, drive me into dark depressions, then I’d grasp at some straw to distract me and lift me out. And then in 2010 came the worst dysphoria episode of all.

It ate at me, tore at me, and would not let go. And I continued to resist like a damned fool. My life became darker and darker and darker. I began to plot my own death. I was plotting because a plain suicide would have denied her life insurance benefits. Instead, I was plotting to smash my sports car into a concrete bridge abutment at 130 mph or better. Everyone knew I drove fast. Mr. Macho Car Lover! Part of my facade to ensure I looked “male enough” to the world! This wouldn’t be a surprise at all, just that somehow he lost control and… over. Done. Later, when she discovered this plan, she was utterly horrified because it became plain to her exactly how serious I was about this.

It was while driving the roads late one evening, looking for the perfect place to have my “accident” that I realized I didn’t really want to die. That was where I realized that I wanted to live but didn’t know how and so instead I reached out and fortunately found one of the better and more experienced therapists who deals with transgender issues in this city.

I poured out my soul to her that first session, crying, expressing myself, my wants, my fears. She ended that session with the admonition that the first thing I had to do was to stop lying, mostly to myself, and admit who I am.

That was in March 2012. Months of therapy later, every week for the first several months, I began cross gender hormone treatment, in September 2012.

The most important lesson I learned in this was that how others react to me is their choice and that anyone who refuses to accept me as me was never a friend or someone truly trustworthy in the first place. If someone rejects me because of a truth about me, they never really loved me nor were truly friends to me in the first place. I was only accepted because I towed a particular line for that person, not because of any truth about myself.

Some spouses are able to accept this knowledge. Some are not. But torturing yourself for the rest of your life to remain in a marriage that drives you to the pits of despair and the edge of suicide is not healthy. It’s not even rational. Love would not torture another person. Love would not condemn them to darkness and thoughts of death being preferable to life.

I told my spouse. She declared this unacceptable. She’s going back to school and in a few years we will divorce. We live in separate rooms in the same house for now as this makes more financial sense than just splitting at the present. I have lost her, in all but name, and will lose her in name eventually too. Her entire family condemns me. Both my adult sons no longer speak to me nor allow me to see their children. One of my brothers refuses to accept this.

I have found love and support from two of my brothers, my sister, my daughter, my daughter’s husband, my daughter’s children, and numerous friends who have become my “spiritual family” including three very special women who have stepped forward as my “soul sisters” slowly guiding my journey into womanhood.

I have tried my best to never be accusatory to those who refuse to accept. Through tears and pain, I leave all those doors open, on the off chance that someone may change. It’s not an assumption that they will, just a hope that a few of them might.

In the meanwhile, I continue to move forward with my transition. And despite these losses, the gains of love and friendship I’ve made have helped offset those and helped me endure. I am, for the first time in my life, actually happy with myself, rather than simply distracted by some externality in my life.

I’ve said this before, but only you can determine whether you can accept the changes that will inevitably come from being true to yourself. But let me warn you that trying to hide from this is a path into darkness, a path into nothingness. And the end of that path does no one any good. Not you. Not your spouse. Not your children. Not your friends. Not your siblings. No one.  As another friend reminded me, suicide doesn’t solve anything at all and in fact permanently scars those left behind in ugly harsh ways. If you reach the point of considering suicide, it might end your pain but instead will burden all those around you for the rest of their lives. Is that what you really want to accomplish?

To borrow a phrase, don’t go down that road. You know where it ends and you don’t want to be there. Whatever road you take, don’t take the road into darkness. If the choice is darkness or yourself, choose yourself. Anyone who can’t accept that wasn’t meant to be in your life anyway.

I don’t exist.

Dec26

It’s the day after Christmas and I don’t exist. I don’t exist to my sons. I don’t exist to their spouses. I don’t exist to their children.

I’m left to ponder exactly what I did wrong as a parent that I could create two such monsters, so cold, so cruel, so uncaring. No card, no phone call, not even an email or a Facebook post. Nothing. Nothing at all.

Of course, they had their mother over on Christmas eve for hours of family fun and companionship. But not me. Not me.

The sun is bright outside on this December 26th but it is cold in here today, and dark. And no, before anyone worries, I am not that despondent. I won’t hurt myself.

My daughter came by last night, to drop off her gifts to me, to give me a hug, and then to leave. I cried, both at the thought that she had to come visit me like some leper, and that my sons had not a single thought of me this holiday season.

I never closed the door on our relationship. My sons did that. Their choice. And I would forgive them in an instant if they wanted to re-open that door.

But I’m also learning that I need to move on, to stop staring at that closed door, to make new friends, to find new family. It’s time to walk away from that closed door, to turn my back on it, to let it go.

Yet even as I walk away, I will continue to wonder, how can anyone be this cold, this callous, this cruel to another human being? I guess I’ll never know.

Thanksgiving? Giving thanks, despite it all.

Nov28

I sit alone at home today and no, I won’t be invited anywhere. I do have friends but they are all away for the holiday or live far enough away that going to their homes was not practical this year. But this doesn’t upset me.

My daughter and her family are visiting elsewhere, or they’d likely have me over. My sons? No, of course not. I am a pariah to them.

And yet today I am amused. I wonder how I could have raised such a gracious and loving daughter yet have raised such vindictive and hateful sons. But friends have reminded me that neither of them grew up that way. One, who was a long time friend of my eldest son, and simply let that friendship slide away, and did so because he watched my son go from being an open-minded, accepting person early in college, to the close-minded, spiteful, angry creature he’s become today after he married into a rigid Southern Baptist clan. So I take solace in the fact that no, I didn’t do that. They did.

My daughter did have me over for dinner the night before last. She wanted to do something for me before she and her family went to visit in-laws for Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful dinner and I got to chat with her, enjoy her hot-lemon-honey-cinnamon drink that she’s created from the lemons from the tree in her backyard, and chat with my eldest granddaughter.

But then I had to excuse myself and went outside and cried. She came out and consoled me, hugged me, and just stood with me. You see, my eldest son is playing a game. He’s threatening to cut off contact with my daughter and my daughter’s children if she lets her children know about my transition. Since my granddaughter by my daughter and my granddaughter by my eldest son are just one year apart, they are close friends. Thus, she’s having to make a choice. And right now she wants to protect that childhood relationship between her daughter and his daughter, which I understand. She doesn’t like this and she has promised that it won’t stay this way, but this is what she’ll have to do soon and for the immediate future. It’s not right now but it’s coming, as I move further along with my transition and things become more and more obvious.

As I told her, this is not an act of love. It’s an act of raw hatred, anger, power. An opportunity for my son to further split our family against me, or at least he believes so. We discussed my eldest son’s wife, a woman who has been jealous of me for years because of the close relationship I once had with my eldest son. She’s done everything she can to break that up and this was the ultimate chance – cut off that competition. And now that she’s done so? She hardly includes my son in anything other than to just let him babysit their two girls. And her? She’s off running with her friends, or visiting her side of the family. She’s ignored my daughter and not been friendly or open to her either.

I had my cry. I was consoled. And I got over it. Today I’m writing about it and I am sadly amused. Sad for obvious reasons but amused because my son’s close-mindedness would deny his daughters a loving grandparent solely for his “superior moral view”.

Let me relay a story about the reality of my son’s hatred. I’ve seen my older granddaughter by my son just once in the last 16 months. It was last spring, the spring of 2013. We had gone to Denny’s for Sunday breakfast because we enjoy Denny’s pancakes, french toast, etc. And it was busy, as usual on a Sunday morning so we were waiting in the lobby. And who walked up to the cash register? My eldest son, who looked at me, grunted a hello then turned to the cashier. Right behind him, I heard a squeal. “Grandpa!” She ran to me and hugged me, saying, “I miss you so much. I love you.” I smiled down at her and replied, “I miss you too, honey. I love you.” And at that moment, her mother snatched her by the collar, dragging her out the door, with everyone staring and my granddaughter having this frightened, hurt look on her face as she was dragged away from me.

That is the reality of my life. That is the reality of my eldest son and his open bigotry, all in the name of Southern Baptist fundamentalist evangelical hatred. So those who wonder why I take a dim view of fundamentalist Christians, this is why. When you and yours openly scorn me, do not expect me to embrace your bigotry. Tolerance does not mean accepting someone else’s bigotry. That is not an act of Christ. That is an act of a Pharisee.

Thus I sit home alone today, debating what to make for myself for Thanksgiving. I have a few ideas and we’ll see what I decide. And I do give thanks, for my daughter, for my close friends, for my siblings, and for my transgender friends, all of whom have stood beside me.

Finally, just for further reading and viewing about trans experiences, here are two links. Neither is what I would call a perfect instance of journalism. The Rolling Stone piece is laced with binary gender assumptions despite its attempt to be generally positive but they do document different aspects of life as a trans person. The video is one trans person’s experience and is valid for her but each of us is unique and though we share so much, we also walk different paths in certain respects.

About a Girl: Coy Mathis’ Fight to Change Gender

I Am Not My Body

Enjoy and may each of you have a happy Thanksgiving and joyous Hanukkah.

I am somebody, even if others treat me like a nobody

Nov21

Today was the birthday of one of my daughter-in-laws. She’s married to my eldest son, about whom I’ve written before. I previously contacted her and my son on my old Facebook account and told them I would invite them to friend me on my new account. I know that she saw the PM. I do not know if my son ever did or not. Anyway, I tried to tell her happy birthday when I discovered that she had unfriended even my old male account. So I checked on my son. I can’t reach his account from my page though I found a way to reach his page via other means. Very odd. So, I am not welcome at their house. They don’t accept phone calls from me. And they never come over here. So I’ll say this here, even though she’ll never see it and probably doesn’t care even if she does – Happy Birthday.

My sons have not spoken to me in months, despite efforts to reach out the them. It took me quite some time to get over the rejection from my spouse, a rejection that basically said “no, I don’t love you; I love an image of you”, to grieve over that loss, and to come to terms with it. But I’ve known for a long time that my spouse didn’t have deep feelings for me. This simply confirmed it.

It’s a bit different when your own children reject you. There’s sadness. There’s tears. And despite months and months, it never seems to truly heal, just grow slightly more tolerable over time. It’s an ugly revelation when you find out that those to whom you gave decades of your life will willingly and happily pretend you don’t exist.

But the greatest loss are my grandchildren, who I am not allowed to see, to hold, to cherish. My grandchildren, in whose lives I’ve been made a ghost. There are no words for that, just tears.