Witches and Wizards and Attack Helicopters. Oh My!
That was short lived. I quickly
came to understand that I could not be Glenda. There was something wrong with
me for resonating with these women. No one ever sat me down and explained to me
that boys did not play with dolls or wear dresses. In fact, my parents were
very supportive and even bought me dolls. My younger brother and I had great
adventures with our cabbage patch dolls. Never the less, the cultural
programming was there and I knew that good or bad I was a Wizard and not a
Witch and that was the way it was supposed to be.
As I grew and developed I longed
for the pretty dresses and the long hair. I wanted so badly to be pretty. I
wanted to wear high heels that clicked across tile and dot my “I’s” with
hearts. I loved soft frilly fabrics and jewelry and would even sneak in to my
mom’s room and try on her jewelry. Ever the support, my mother would tell me
several times that boys can ware jewelry too and she would even take me jewelry
shopping. This worked a bit but I didn’t want the masculine jewelry-I wanted
the delicate sparkly things my mother wore. I wanted to be beautiful!
For most of my early childhood I
felt like I was outside looking through a window at all the girls inside playing
with all the pretty and fun things. I longed to be there with the girls. At
that time, I saw the girls as essentially the same as me. Then puberty hit.
That is to say, the wrong puberty hit. All the girls went on to develop
beautiful feminine bodies. I was intrigued with this process, yet kept at an
arm’s length as I was clearly not a part of that club. My interest in feminine puberty
was generally treated as prurient so I learned to stifle it. What I did get was
a squeaky cracking voice and a hairy body. Things shifted for me at this
moment. I went from being an outsider to being almost a different species. My
heart and my soul told me I should have the soft curvy body. My body on the
other hand was growing further and further from that ideal.
I am told by people close to me –
my wife, my parents – that I did the boy/man thing well. I never really felt
like I was convincing at playing the part. I am clumsy and uncoordinated, not athletic at
all, and never was quite able to effect swagger or confidence like the Fonz or
John Travolta. I was never good at bantering or trading insults–as if any of
this really defines what manhood is. Later in life, when I went to college, I
would meet other intellectual men and that would be the time at which I would
feel most as if I did belong. Mostly though I almost always felt like a 12 year
old boy who tried on his dad’s suit and wanted to convince the world I was a
“real live business man.”
I feel like it showed. I mean it must have showed. I was teased and bullied mercilessly. “Gay” or any one of a number of much less polite synonyms seemed to be the favorite accusation. I remember in the fourth grade the teacher held a special meeting with the whole class to discuss their treatment of me. Her focus was that the word “Gay” meant happy and that my classmates would do better to embrace diversity. These issues only intensified with age and the onset of puberty. In junior high my nick name was “Salad Toss Man.” I had no idea what that meant (if you don’t either welcome to the club. In polite society I will say that it is a sex act typically associated with homosexual men). The other children took great joy in the fact that I didn’t know what they were calling me and forbid anyone from telling me. So I had to go home and ask my father, who did explain it to me – although he did ask me where I had heard the term; and that is the story of how my father found out everyone at school thought I was gay.
I figured they must be right. Although, I couldn’t figure it out because I was attracted to girls. On the other hand, I wasn’t not attracted to boys either. I mean I certainly did not show the great disgust that my “peers” seemed to --- one more boy thing I was not good at. I was vaguely aware of Transgender people. In that time they were mostly relegated to the likes of the Jerry Springer Show, essentially side show freaks. Certainly not reputable members of the broader community. Being Transgender definitely was not an option for me, barely on my radar. I must have been gay. I mean, gay men dress in drag and wear women’s clothes so that is really what I must be. This was really the only way I had to understand the way I felt. Secretly to myself I assumed that identity my peers had given me.
That was real difficult for me
because this was a very problematic identity to have at that particular time in
the history of my little corner of the world. I grew up in a devout LDS
(Mormon) family. My father’s job was to teach theology and scripture to high
school students in the morning hours before high school. He was the closest
thing the LDS church has to a paid clergy. Mormonism was a defining feature of
my home environment and identity.
According to Mormon Doctrine, marriage
is essentially to get to their version of heaven and God will only sanctify marriage
between men and women. Furthermore, gender is an eternal and essential part of
everyone’s identity. Faithful LDS folks will tell you this is all about the sanctity
of marriage and God’s divine design. They will have multiple justifications and
reasons for why this is not discrimination but a great gift to us all to follow.
Never the less, to those on the outside the intent is clear. It was clear to me
then too, just as it is clear to me now. Gay people are second class citizens
not worthy of the full benefit of God’s blessings unless they choose to be celibate,
and Trans people are an aberration that should not exist because gender is essential
throughout time and all eternity.
This implied dogma was not lost
on my pubescent self. I knew it, I was gay and gay was bad and evil. Gay people
were only ok as fringe members of society. They could not have families and
happy, fulfilling relationships. The Mormon Church only wanted to begrudgingly
admit gay people existed and to relegate them to the most obscure corners of
the community. This tracked with the treatment my peers had given me. I was gay
and that meant that my fate sealed. I was to be socially ostracized and
ultimately condemned to hell by the God I loved. This was my “thorn in the flesh”, my “cross
to bear.” For reasons unknown to anyone other than God, he (the Mormon God is
most definitely a he) decided to make me the way I am and then decided that the
way I was worthy of eternal damnation. This fact was constantly reiterated by
my church leadership local and global. Another identity given to me. If “gay”
as an identity was beaten into me, “unworthy sinner” was given to me by
indoctrination by people who smiled and told me this God who damned me the
moment he created me somehow loved me.
These messages were only further reinforced
throughout the public debates around gay marriage. I dutifully joined my family
and church community in campaigning for the amendment to the Nevada state constitution
that would ensure gay people could not be married. Again, we were told it was
about the sanctity of marriage and God’s love for all of his children. Again, the
message was clear – gay people are bad and their getting married would sully
the institution for all of us. Let’s restate that I was bad and my getting
married would sully the institution.
I did find some refuge. Like many
before me theater was a safe space. Feminine men were openly embraced, even
encourage to be flamboyant and “fruity.” In the theater, gay was not bad and
everyone wore make up and fancy clothes. We all got to be pretty! And I was A
OK just the way God made me. I even got to be a part of a high school
production of the Wizard of Oz. – Alas I didn’t even audition for Glenda. Perhaps
someday –I bet I’d rock a Glenda Good Witch Drag. I did thoroughly enjoy my
work in the chorus, where I was every supporting role from munchkin to palace
guard and even a talking tree. After the production was over we had an after
party. I was excited to go – until my parents made it clear they did not
approve of “those theater people” and a party with them was no place for a good
Mormon boy. To this day I’m not sure what even happened at the after party.
What did stick with me was the message I was meant to be different from “those
people”-it’s ok to act with them but don’t go party with them.
By the time I graduated high
school, my shameful secret identity was solidified. My peers and my church had
spoken. They gave me the role and I was ready to play it. There was a serious
conversation I would feel compelled to have with every woman I ever dated,
including my wife. It went something like this: “I’m gay – I used to sneak
around and ware my mom’s clothes. Don’t worry though I love Jesus and will
never act on these repulsive urges” … “Oh my God what a relief you still love
me! Thanks for accepting a shameful pariah like myself and agreeing to share in
carrying the cross of this curse God saw fit to saddle me with”.
In college, I got connected to the conversion therapy
community and got really big into reading their literature. I attended “sexual
issues” support groups held by the counseling center to assist people in
learning to “bridal their passions” and find a godly expression of their
sexuality. For a long time I believed I could be cured. This was a new identity
a new explanation – I was sick and modern science would provide the cure. One
cure I found was to lean hard into my sexual attraction. In college I did date
women and found that I enjoyed their company and found them sexually
attractive. I was confused- how could I be gay and like women? Around this time I took a “Sex and Gender”
class. This class was seminal for me, as a pebble tossed into the pond of my
life whose ripples are still reverberating.
One thing that created a major
shift in my identity was learning about the Kinsey scale (https://kinseyinstitute.org/research/publications/kinsey-scale.php).
In a nutshell, the Kinsey scale is a scientific idea that states that human
sexuality occurs across a spectrum, from totally homosexual to totally
heterosexual with varying degrees of “bisexual” in-between. That was it! I was
bi-sexual like many other people in the human race. Bi-sexual I could live with; at least that way
I could have a chance at marriage and family and happiness. Slowly, education
had started to give me some authority to define my own identity for myself.
Defining myself was where I
started to find some comfort in my own skin and my life. In many ways, being
bisexual settled the issue. I thought this had solved whatever issue I had had.
Whatever that weird stuff in my childhood was, it was over. Shortly after
college, I met and married my wife and then moved to California for graduate
school. I had found a woman willing to accept it and I was on the straight and
narrow. I was a bisexual person in a heterosexual relationship living out God’s
“Plan of Happiness.”
It seemed like all was well in
the world. I finally found an identity that worked. Then we started our family.
My wife’s pregnancies were simultaneously the most joyous and heartbreaking
times of my life. I was ancillary-ly involved in the miracle of life. It was a thrill.
I was so excited to be a father and excited to have a family. This was a lifelong
dream come true. Yet I once again had a big secret I couldn’t tell anyone. I
envied everything my wife got to do. I ached to feel someone kick my insides,
to nurture a life within me. I longed to nurse my child at my breast – but was
willing to settle for bottle feeding when I got the chance. These feelings got
worse and worse with each pregnancy. Once during pregnancy number four I
googled “why men envy their wife’s pregnancies.” The answer I got was that men
are used to being in the spotlight and cannot handle playing second fiddle to
their wife. Hmm… I guess that must be it. Clearly the Internet knew much better
than my own internal wisdom or knowing. There I was again accepting someone
else’s derogatory explanations of my own experience.
Shortly after child #4 was born,
I left the LDS faith. While I was free of the dictates of that institution, I
was not free of the indoctrination or the way it told me who I was. In many
ways I was lost, adrift without a community, an identity or a Prophet of God to
dictate every major life decision. I was no longer the faithful Latter day Saint.
Who on earth was I and whose will was I supposed to follow? It took years of therapy
with different therapists and lots of long discussion with other former members
of “the church” to come to the point that I was able to trust my own authority.
In time, that process lead me to claim my own authority – my “voice” if you
will. As I came to myself, I came to my feminine self. Finding my authority
meant I could no longer deny and subvert the goddess within. I had to unleash
her. I finally got to be the powerful good witch, and the tough girl in the beautiful
gown.
Through this journey I have come
to learn that self-discovery is not a matter of “finding yourself” but a matter
of discovering what was always there – hidden behind the “self-definitions” the
rest of world gave you. Yes friends, just as the Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow always
had what they were looking for all along, I too was always the good witch I had
longed to be. I just needed to stop allowing everyone else to explain my experiences
and define who I am.
What I have been trying to
discuss here is the fundamental assertion every openly Trans person makes. “I have
the right to define who I am and how I will walk through the world.” Indeed, I believe
most Trans people would argue that self-definition is an inalienable human
right. This is the whole of the Trans supposition. While it seems simple,
perhaps even self-evident, it is in fact radical, dare I say revolutionary. To
many people it is threatening. The right to self-definition is what is behind
the much lampooned “I identify as an Attack Helicopter” joke that so many
transphobic people seem to think is so very clever. In their minds there exist “facts” that our
inner knowing and wisdom cannot refute. For them, simple binary gender is a
fact, no matter what anyone’s personal experience, science, or theory have to
say. I say no set of “facts” or ideologies can alter or erase the undeniable Truth
(note the capital “T”) that I know in my soul. How do I know? Because I have
lived the life dictated by these “facts” and ideologies. I have spent the better
part of my life denying and shaming my inner goddess so that I could live by
the prescriptions of others. I have lived by the dictates of ideology and prejudice
and found them wanting. No amount of bullying, or preaching, or gospel doctrine,
or “therapy,” or google search pseudo psychology could squelch the witch
within. She is strong and powerful and will not be denied. So please forgive me
if you find me a little touchy when you misgender me or attempt to explain my
own experience to me. What I really want to say to you is come at me! This witch
is stronger than you’ll ever know because she was fortified and honed during
the years she spent under the pressure of your fiery hate and ignorance.
I am hoping this blog can be an opportunity
for discussion. With that in mind I want to start things up with a few
questions.
1. Do
you believe self-definition is an inalienable right? Why or Why Not?
2. Tell
me about a time in your life someone attempted to define you.
3. Why
do you think people assume they get to tell others who they are?
Leave an answer in the comments
section.
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