Chapter 1
This story may seem a little different. Why? Because it is one told by the mother of a transgender gay man. Please understand that I know I am not the only parent of a transgender child. I am relaying this to you because this is our story. Everyone has a story. This one is how I both failed and found some success in raising any of my children. So is it different? Perhaps. You decide. And to clarify, this isn’t also just my story, though I have played my role and witnessed quite a bit. Let’s be clear. It is really Oliver’s story. I am the scrapbook, the journal. I do this for my own memories and for his, but also to tell his story.
I have watched my son from birth to his adulthood and have witnessed so much of his tragedies and celebrations. Have I seen it all? Nope. No parent should as some of their children’s lives should be their own. It would probably be a little scary to know everything. Think about it. Would you want your parents to know every single thing you ever did? Some of you would probably say no. Maybe.
Like I said, it is about a little child and it does involve a death, of sorts. It has all the makings of a tragic story and it could be construed as indeed a tragic story as there are tragic parts, but its ending is unwritten. This story, like any story, will continue for all of us even after these pages are done. Our pages are done. It’s called life. It’s typically followed by death.
Some of this story will be offensive and it is not my intent to do that but I do recognize it may happen. I still need to write it. Some of this will anger some who read it, and though it is not my intent, I recognize it may happen and some of that I do not care. This is my story and Oliver’s story about something that was experienced. Hopefully, you’ll understand as we go. By the end of this story, I may be saying fuck off if you still don’t get it (insert wink).
This is my perspective on my child’s story. It obviously will include my perspective along the way, but I don’t think most people know how to tell a story without their own perspective involved. It can be really difficult. Try it some time and relay a situation or story and try to be objective. I won’t do that so much here and I will try not to make excuses. I will try not to make apologies. And so I will start at the beginning because most stories do have one and it’s important for this one to start there in order for you to understand the history and the unwritten future.
I was a mother of 3 boys. Loved, loved, loved them. But...yes, a but, I always wanted a little girl. I felt like my life would be complete if I had a little girl. Not sure why. I was never that girly girl at all. I grew up with 2 brothers. A lot of my friends, when I had them, were mostly boys. I felt like I connected better with them. And then, suddenly I am pregnant with a fourth baby. I wasn’t excited really, because I figured I would have yet another boy. Behold, it was a girl! I started wearing pink. My other sons were excited and were so helpful! Life was pretty good.
Each of my pregnancies were different. Not one of them was the same. I actually had a feeling the first one was a boy. Not that I carried each a certain way or gained a certain amount of weight, which was plenty. I just had an intuition that he was a boy and he was. Did I have a feeling about any of the other pregnancies? No. I just knew I was pregnant and I did not like being pregnant all the time. Lol.
With the last pregnancy I didn’t have any special aches or pains or morning sicknesses. Honestly I didn’t have any extra pains or issues except for the second one. This last one I couldn’t eat chocolate and when he was finally here the first couple years, he also didn’t like chocolate. You figure it out. Once I found out I was having a girl though, everything changed for me. I think I smiled more. I think I took care of myself in different ways, because for one, I was 10 years older than when I had my first baby. I looked forward to decorating her nursery. I looked forward to putting away new clothes that I had to buy because all the others were boys clothes. Oh sure I kept the kids’ clothes because that were fairly unisexual. She had the cutest pair of bib overalls that I know I put my third son in. I had cute bows and ribbons to put in her hair as a baby and then grow into the toddler stage. All that planning and then she arrived. She was born pretty bald. I was not expecting that.
Sally smiled and giggled like any other baby. Correction. Sally smiled and giggled just as her brothers, similarly to that first year for the others. She was a happy baby like her brothers were at that same age. As she began to crawl, the boys took care of her to make sure she was safe. They were so helpful. They did so many things for her. In fact, they did so many things for her that she did not talk for the first couple of years. When she did attempt to, it was difficult to understand her. I remember my then-husband never took our honeymoon from when we were first married, because we were young and poor.
So we decided 15 years in that we were going to take a honeymoon. I left them with my mother. That was a mistake. She made them clean the whole time. They had nothing to do. but the one task they were in charge of first was to make sure she was talking at the time we got home. I told them they had to stop saying everything for her and responding for her. By the time we got home she was talking in full sentences. It was like magic. I knew she had it in her to do those things, but she was just never allowed to answer for herself or bother to answer for herself.
When she got into the toddler in early stages of school and began developing her own personality. It is a natural stage in children’s lives. And it should be. Children need to make some choices even early on. I know a couple whose 3 1/2-year-old daughter gets to choose her clothing many days. It’s a natural choice that they should be able to make even if you don’t agree with the clothing. Modeling good choices and the use of acceptable behavior should still be modeling what they could do. Sometimes giving them choices works too. With Sally it worked like a charm. Her second oldest brother was the magician in that case. The oldest son would stay “here, do this” and she would cry. The second oldest one would go and give her a choice and she would choose one of them. Like a charm.
As she entered school she showed she was creative and artistic. As she took on older grades, she showed she was also smart like her brothers. She had friends and they were smart. Her friends were caring and loving like her. I knew who our children were based on the friends they chose. One big difference besides the obvious, she started worrying more about what she wore. Maybe it’s a girl thing, maybe it’s because of her friends? She started taking more care of her appearances. The tough part was her hair was so thick.
She wanted her room painted pink and she wore lace and her hair came in finally so I could put hair pretties in it. She was beautiful! And then, life was okay. Life changed, as it does, but I didn’t understand why or how and I did not see it coming. Life changed the story I thought was being written.
You see, this is the story about how my little girl transitioned to become the man he was meant to be. It was not a choice. It was necessary. Let me say that again. It was not a choice. It was who he was supposed to be, but just didn’t come out that way. If the idea of a transgender person bothers you, (here it comes) then you can fuck off and shut this story down. No worries. But if you’re at all interested in hearing how that came about and from the perspective of a parent, then continue to read and hopefully you will be enlightened a bit and/or a little more learned about our story. And it is our story.
And so, it is not just about a boy and what he went through to become the individual he is, but also about parts of the family and how his friends also went through the transition with him. Anything that any of us do will and does have an effect on others around us. Either they care and will support you, cry or laugh with you or they will distance themselves, because they don’t understand, or don’t care, or have their own issues to deal with. So decide if you are going on this journey and continue reading, or distance yourself for whatever reason you need to choose.
And continuing on, I will refer to my daughter as Sally, because you don’t need to know the real name then and we don’t use the ‘dead name’. Oliver is not his real name either. Although he’s an adult now and has made many of his own decisions, I still try to protect him and I do respect his privacy. Again, this may be ‘our’ story, but I am not speaking for him. I’m simply trying to relay what happened from my perspective. Others involved may see things differently and can write or tell others about those differences. That’s the beauty of perspectives - all the different points of view telling about the same story or incident.
One last thought before we journey on. I will refer to my youngest child using both ‘she’ and ‘he’ pronouns, and eventually ‘they’. I cannot say it is all the same person, but it kind of is. ‘She’ refers to my daughter who is clearly not anymore. I think of her as a separate person from my son, because she is. I grieve for my daughter and celebrate my son. I also celebrate my daughter and have grieved for my son. Hopefully by the end of this story, you’ll understand why.
