the weight is lessening...
...from atop my shoulders. we're working on the rest of me... ;)
i told my father tonight. said, "Dad, can we talk for a bit?"
i first thanked him for his open-mindedness and acceptance of every difficult thing i've brought to the table in my life, the gay thing being most prominent.
i then asked, "do you think you could accept it if... i did something about my gender dysphoria?" he said it would be hard for him, very hard. i said it was becoming a possibility. then we talked for an hour. i told him how i'd never quite felt like a girl, and gave examples.
when i was coming out as a lesbian, i said, the... justifications... i gave people and myself were mostly gender examples, with very few attraction or sex-based examples. like how i was a tomboy. like how i always played the boy-- i didn't like being the girl in make-believe. i got mad when friends asked me to be. this part, i think, was where he began to understand.
we talked about the practical and medical implications-- what the hormones will and won't do, the logistics of surgery and changing one's sex legally (which is remarkably easy if one was born in oklahoma...).
he was concerned i wouldn't be able to pass outside of queer circles. i smiled inwardly. explained the extent of the hormonal changes and what dr. buth said about my face structure being a good one for transition. told him about the guys in the FtM Nola group, about the factory worker who is perceived as male by all his coworkers, the occupational therapist student who's got the same passability, the accountant, the ER doctor...
he asked about people like ellen degeneres, who are obviously female but appear masculine. i said i'd tried that, and it wasn't me. kd lang, he asked? closer, i said. that seems to be the aura you've been going for, he said. yes, i said, but it's not the one that's right. it's a couple steps off.
i gave him resource after resource. mentioned the pflag chapter he's already had contact with. offered to let him call dr. buth. gave him a pflag booklet called "our trans children." said i knew this would be hard for him, that it would be hard for me too, but that ultimately, it would make life easier.
i also explained the difference between a dyke and a lesbian, as i see it. i like dykes, as i define them-- feminist, activist, equality-minded, inclusive, open-minded women-oriented females. lesbians are kind of off-putting to me-- the ones who make up the majority of the crowd at the new bar or, once upon a time, rainbow's. the energy is different, more separatist. i don't like it so much.
we covered the social aspects. he came to understand that looking definitively like one of two main genders would open doors for me that were harder to open as a gender-ambiguous-looking person. that seemed to relieve him on some level. he said i'd never be "one of the guys" because of the intricacies of men's socialization. i agreed i'd never be one of the good ol' boys-- nor would i want to. but that i've always been one of the guys with the guys i hang out with-- the nerds, mainly. the ones i like. he also said it'd be hard for me to form close friendships with guys if i couldn't tell them, eventually, that i didn't have a penis. i said that once again, the guys i hang out with are open-minded; i don't get close to closed-minded people, so we don't connect. so there goes that problem.
it dawned on him that the only people who can get away with an ambiguous gender presentation are so successful it doesn't matter-- people will respect them in spite of it. like ellen and kd lang and rosie o'donnell, to an extent. we discussed that in my field, it would be unbelieveably easier to be taken as one side of the fence or the other than it would to look as i do now, if one wants to get ahead. i said, "as a hard-hitting political journalist, i would not command the same respect in this presentation as i would as a slightly feminine woman in a power skirt suit or as an identifiable, clean-cut male. trying to meld the two doesn't work." not to mention it's just not me. (nor is the fem woman. obviously.)
the conversation wound down from the point where he insinuated that if this would give me the peace of mind i've obviously been searching for all these years, then it was obviously right. he said i was obviously not comfortable in my current presentation, that he couldn't remember me ever seeming comfortable in the way i presented.
he said he'd love me no matter what my gender-- male, female, or something else entirely. i was his child, and he would always love me.
he wants to sit down and talk with me and mom after i've told her.
i feel better. i love my dad more than i could possibly express. and i'm a lucky, lucky person to have him.
~S.
i told my father tonight. said, "Dad, can we talk for a bit?"
i first thanked him for his open-mindedness and acceptance of every difficult thing i've brought to the table in my life, the gay thing being most prominent.
i then asked, "do you think you could accept it if... i did something about my gender dysphoria?" he said it would be hard for him, very hard. i said it was becoming a possibility. then we talked for an hour. i told him how i'd never quite felt like a girl, and gave examples.
when i was coming out as a lesbian, i said, the... justifications... i gave people and myself were mostly gender examples, with very few attraction or sex-based examples. like how i was a tomboy. like how i always played the boy-- i didn't like being the girl in make-believe. i got mad when friends asked me to be. this part, i think, was where he began to understand.
we talked about the practical and medical implications-- what the hormones will and won't do, the logistics of surgery and changing one's sex legally (which is remarkably easy if one was born in oklahoma...).
he was concerned i wouldn't be able to pass outside of queer circles. i smiled inwardly. explained the extent of the hormonal changes and what dr. buth said about my face structure being a good one for transition. told him about the guys in the FtM Nola group, about the factory worker who is perceived as male by all his coworkers, the occupational therapist student who's got the same passability, the accountant, the ER doctor...
he asked about people like ellen degeneres, who are obviously female but appear masculine. i said i'd tried that, and it wasn't me. kd lang, he asked? closer, i said. that seems to be the aura you've been going for, he said. yes, i said, but it's not the one that's right. it's a couple steps off.
i gave him resource after resource. mentioned the pflag chapter he's already had contact with. offered to let him call dr. buth. gave him a pflag booklet called "our trans children." said i knew this would be hard for him, that it would be hard for me too, but that ultimately, it would make life easier.
i also explained the difference between a dyke and a lesbian, as i see it. i like dykes, as i define them-- feminist, activist, equality-minded, inclusive, open-minded women-oriented females. lesbians are kind of off-putting to me-- the ones who make up the majority of the crowd at the new bar or, once upon a time, rainbow's. the energy is different, more separatist. i don't like it so much.
we covered the social aspects. he came to understand that looking definitively like one of two main genders would open doors for me that were harder to open as a gender-ambiguous-looking person. that seemed to relieve him on some level. he said i'd never be "one of the guys" because of the intricacies of men's socialization. i agreed i'd never be one of the good ol' boys-- nor would i want to. but that i've always been one of the guys with the guys i hang out with-- the nerds, mainly. the ones i like. he also said it'd be hard for me to form close friendships with guys if i couldn't tell them, eventually, that i didn't have a penis. i said that once again, the guys i hang out with are open-minded; i don't get close to closed-minded people, so we don't connect. so there goes that problem.
it dawned on him that the only people who can get away with an ambiguous gender presentation are so successful it doesn't matter-- people will respect them in spite of it. like ellen and kd lang and rosie o'donnell, to an extent. we discussed that in my field, it would be unbelieveably easier to be taken as one side of the fence or the other than it would to look as i do now, if one wants to get ahead. i said, "as a hard-hitting political journalist, i would not command the same respect in this presentation as i would as a slightly feminine woman in a power skirt suit or as an identifiable, clean-cut male. trying to meld the two doesn't work." not to mention it's just not me. (nor is the fem woman. obviously.)
the conversation wound down from the point where he insinuated that if this would give me the peace of mind i've obviously been searching for all these years, then it was obviously right. he said i was obviously not comfortable in my current presentation, that he couldn't remember me ever seeming comfortable in the way i presented.
he said he'd love me no matter what my gender-- male, female, or something else entirely. i was his child, and he would always love me.
he wants to sit down and talk with me and mom after i've told her.
i feel better. i love my dad more than i could possibly express. and i'm a lucky, lucky person to have him.
~S.