Every Person is Some Mother's Child

Sometimes I meet new people and we get to talking.  They ask what I do.  I ask what they do.  They ask if I have children.  I tell them ... I have four children - twin daughters that are 23, a son who is 18 and a younger daughter who is 14.  Unless these are people who are going to be in my world for any length of time, I don't mention that I have a twin daughter who is transgender.

If Chris were a fly on the wall and heard when I do this, I am certain it would hurt him, but ... I do not do it to hurt him or disrespect him. I don't do it out of embarrassment or to hide anything.  I do it because it is very difficult to explain, and, honestly, it is like anything intimate in your life that you do not necessarily wish to share with strangers - it is personal and unless they are part of my intimate world, I do not find it necessary to involve them in this journey we are all on.  I don't want to hear their opinions or see strange looks.  I don't want to put them in a position of having to deal with me if it came down to me having to defend my child - because I would.  Most people that I have offered this information to - friends whom I have grown closer with, listen with an open mind and are supportive of Chris and of me.

It is so strange how Chris' transition is changing me.  As hard as I sometimes internally fight it, my heart is completely with him.  If I were put in a position of having to battle for him on this subject - battle to protect him against anyone or anything - I would totally be there in front of him to defend all that he is doing to make his life better.  I am not at the point of complete trust, but I raised this amazing child and I have complete faith that he is intelligent and wise and I am growing more and more to trust that he knows what he is doing, and so ... because I am putting my faith and trust in his care for his own life, I am aligning behind him far quicker than I ever thought I would.

There were more times than I can count when I went to battle for my kids for one reason or another. There were emails and memos sent to teachers or coaches or Principals or Superintendents of the school district on their behalf over the years. I even had some teachers and coaches threaten my daughters when they were in high school, saying, "And don't let me get an email from your mother about this."  It never stopped me.  If I felt my children were wronged in some way, I was their advocate and I did not hesitate to call a meeting or send a message to someone to remind them that they were not just dealing with my children, but they were also dealing with me, when it came to my children's success or fair treatment in the world.  It has not happened yet, but one day it will - the day I will go to battle with someone to protect Chris again - and I will be there - even if I have my own internal demons that battle with me over all that is going on in his life.


I am Chris' mother - no matter what.  He knows that I struggle with all of this and I know he struggles with me because of that.  He also knows me well enough to know that if I intended my battle toward him ... he would know it.  My battle is not with Chris.  My battle is with me - my mother's child.

Every person is some mother's child.  It is when you fight her that you find out how fierce your battle will be ...

A Maze of Broken Dreams

I had a dream a few nights ago that I was pregnant with triplets - two were girls and one was a boy; the girls were identical twins.

In this dream lives a story that someone could easily take and weave into a movie or book one day. As with most all dreams, what appears on the surface is not necessarily a reality, but more likely symbolical - maybe a prediction or fear or wish.  Someone might weave this dream into a story of an omen of a thing to come or a reflection of a thing that happened.  Because I know this story, I know it is a thing that happened. Because I know this story, I do not have to decipher the dream's meaning. Because I know this story, I know that it is not a prediction but a reflection.

There are two types of dreams.  Those you can consciously control.  Those where you design in your mind with hopes and desires.  Those you formulate with eyes wide open.  Then there are those you weave while you sleep.  The ones you have no control over how they play out.  Doctors say that every person must dream in their sleep or they will die.  Strange, that the dreams we have no control over and can be bizarre and incomprehensible are those that sustain our existence, while those we tediously and reverently take time to meticulously create in our waking hours sometimes feel like they will be the ones to kill us.

When I gave birth to my twin daughters, I had so many dreams for them.  Never in any of those dreams did I hope a day would come where one of them would suffer with identity dysphoria and one day announce that she did not identify as female, was not comfortable in her female body and ultimately make the decision to reassign her gender.  If you took a dream that seemed beautiful and perfect on the surface and then twisted it into a nightmare, that would describe how it felt when I learned this about one of my beautiful twin daughters.

Fortunately, with sleep-induced nightmares, you always wake before you fall to your death.  The problem with wakeful nightmares is you have to find your way out of them before you allow them to devour you.  With one, your mind saves you.  With the other, your awake mind can destroy you.

This all sounds dramatic and crazy, but it's sort of like you are walking along on this straight path and then suddenly find yourself in a maze you can not find your way out of, and so, it feels crazy and frantic for a time.  You find it nearly impossible to align everything into a place in your mind where it fits comfortably because your original dream is shattered into a million tiny pieces you have to figure out how to put back together again to survive.  A dream you believed you needed and wanted and worked hard to design to survive.  And isn't that what waking dreams are?  Designs we create to survive our lives?

We all encounter times when our dreams are shattered and we have to find a way to go on. Sometimes, after you survive a storm you thought you could never weather, you look back and breathe and see that even through all the drama and craziness you came out stronger and wiser and happier, even, because of the storm.  Sometimes, even, the storm you weathered was not really your storm at all, but someone else's.  Sometimes you find that, if you are strong enough and brave enough to sacrifice your dream for someone else's ... it helps you both survive.

Letting go of dreams can be very hard.  What I am learning through this journey with Chris is how to let go and then design new ones using his desires and hopes as the foundation and a guiding light away from the maze of my broken dreams toward a new path of dreams I didn't know I would ever have ...

Beyond the Gray

I went to a wedding a few weeks ago.  The ceremony was held in a beautiful Catholic church. Several times when the Priest spoke he read passages from the bible about marriage - about how God created woman for man - how their union was his divine plan - how marriage was a sacred union between a man and a woman, in God's eyes.  As he went on, it was clear to me that this Priest was not only reciting these passages for the bride and groom for their wedding day, but also that he was making his position pretty clear on same-sex marriages.

As I listened to this Priest preach from the bible things I have always believed myself (I am Christian, but not Catholic), I still found myself becoming angry.  I watched as my friend's daughter was standing there in her beautiful gown, fixing to marry the man of her dreams, and suddenly felt so out of place.  Not in a bad way, but because my oldest children (Chris and Courtney) are gay - Courtney currently engaged to her girlfriend - I realized that my husband and I were sitting in that church with 150 or so other people and I knew that we were likely among a very small minority that would one day be participating and viewing a far different sort of marriage ceremony.  I was not envious of my friend, who was able to see her desires unfold just as she likely always imagined - seeing her daughter walk down the aisle toward a future husband - I was frustrated to be in a minority of people that other people might not simply view as people that found themselves in lives where some of their similar desires do not come true.  I was frustrated with a Priest that alienated my children so easily by simply quoting passages from the bible, and then went on to say that our God is a loving and patient God.

I believe in God and I believe in the bible.  I also happen to believe that there is no sin greater than the other.  I think that God is too brilliant to have given man choice and then punish him constantly for the choices he makes.  I do believe in right and wrong, but the variations of right and wrong in any given situation might be enormous.  And ... maybe it is not that people are choosing same-sex relationships/marriages that is God's test, but how the rest of us deal with it.  Wouldn't that be a far greater challenge to place on man, if you were a brilliant God?

I don't know what is right or wrong, I just know where we find ourselves, sometimes.  If I believe same-sex relationships/marriage are wrong, do I then alienate myself from my children and their friends?  Do I spend all of my time trying to sway them to believe as I do - change them to do as I wish?  Is tolerance the true test and answer?  Loving them regardless?  I know the story of Adam and Eve.  I know that God offered man choice in the very beginning.  Eve ate from the tree of Good and Evil and sin was born.  I completely believe in God and I believe that any human He created was intentionally created with weakness as well as strength. I believe a brilliant God could have just as easily created a perfect human without flaws.  I believe He created beings that He intended to make mistakes, question right from wrong, make choices that others disagree with, etc.  I believe the journey we all travel through every experience can lead to light or darkness, but we, as humans, constantly fight to work our ways toward light.  I believe it is the battles that form the light we all strive to unite together in.

Beyond my twins being gay, I am also dealing with a child who is transgender.  I have no desire to hear or know the opinion of a Priest or Pastor on what they might believe are the sins my gay children or my transgender child are committing against God.  I do not believe that my children believe they are committing any sins - I believe they are simply living their lives as they need to and choose to.  In a letter Chris wrote to my husband and I back in December 2014, he said, "I love you. I could not have asked for better parents.  It is because of you that I am everything and have everything that I have today.  You always taught me with love and compassion, you taught me right from wrong, you taught me to be proud and most of all you taught to me to be myself.  You could not possibly have raised me better."  He went on later in the letter to say, "I want you to know that none of this is a reflection on you both as parents.  On the contrary, because you are such incredible parents is why I have the strength and courage to do this for myself."

Is it possible that I, someone who grew up going to church (Baptist) every time the church doors were open on Sundays and Wednesdays and summers and revivals and camps and hundreds of hours spent in church pews and Christian gatherings for many many years - someone who has a very strong faith and love for God - is it possible that, even though I have struggled, personally, with some issues, that God gave these children to me and my husband because he knew that it would take true Christians to help such children survive in our world?  Maybe so.  I have never questioned God with regard to my children - I have only ever thanked him for giving them to me.  I have never felt betrayed or abandoned through the struggles I have personally experienced, on the contrary.  Even though I have often questioned myself - wondering if I led them wrong somehow - wondering if I was a poor example as a mother, a woman, a parent - wondered if I failed to define boundaries I might should have defined more clearly - wondered so many things ... I have never questioned that I am helping raise some of the most amazing, unique, talented, loving, wise and driven people I have ever known.

My children make mistakes and I have made mistakes with them, that is true; we're not perfect, but ... neither they nor I will leave this world not having made a difference, somehow.  One day I will watch Courtney become married to her girlfriend.  One day I will look at Chris and see him completely as male and no longer female.  These are not events I ever imagined in my world, nor have I even known how to deal with, sometimes, nor how to prepare myself to handle perfectly or even gracefully, but ... I believe when those days come that I will know for certain that it is exactly how things were meant to be.  Maybe our successfully surviving all of it will be the most important imprint my family and I leave on other people's lives.  Maybe those of us wandering on the strange and not so "normal" paths are not really out of place or living in shadows, as it might appear to others, but maybe we are, in fact, those beyond the gray and living in the light ...

Wings of a Feather

I have a friend who has a niece who is also transgender.  Her niece transitioned from female to male several years ago - long before I was even aware that my daughter would come out in December of 2014 as transgender.  Over time, my friend and I had talked about her niece and the difficulties her transition caused in their family.  My friend had described, many times, how she and her husband, and so many in their family, had and were dealing with the niece with support and love and yet that sometimes did not seem to be enough for the niece.  My friend would describe the "anger" her niece had/has toward people that were not informed or were naive when it comes to transgender issues and the transgender community.  My friend would tell of how the niece would push and push for more acceptance, even when her family felt and believed they were being as accepting as possible in a very difficult and strange situation to them.  I would listen, from a distance, to my friend talk about her niece.  While I had met her niece several times, I did not really know her and have not seen her since she transitioned.

I mention this because I have encountered some of this with Chris.  Not so much the "anger", but a persistent desire on Chris' part for me to sort of educate other people.  While at a dinner not long ago, there were some individuals who mistakenly referred to Chris as "she".  It happens often - at parties, in family gatherings, when I slip up and forget.  Chris catches these slips and it wears on him, so much so that he often makes a point of telling me that I need to correct people.  This wears on me.  I do correct my husband when he slips now.  I correct family members when they slip.  But I am not comfortable correcting everyone.  When others slip, I immediately recognize the slip, but I do not feel it is necessary for me to educate everyone on what is going on with Chris.  Part of the process of Chris' transition, is people learning, mostly on their own and on their own terms, that he does not see himself as a "she".  There is a fine line for me between being Chris' advocate (as I have always been as his mother) and being the person who filters how people perceive and treat him.  I would not sit by and allow anyone to blatantly mistreat Chris, but I do not see other people's mistakes, or even their resistance to complete acceptance, if that be the case, as mistreatment.  In some cases, it feels to me, that if I were to correct people, it might alienate them further away.  If someone is aware that Chris is transgender and makes the mistake of calling him "she", very often they catch their mistake and correct it.  Sometimes they don't.  I guess it might seem to Chris that my not correcting people is sort of disrespecting him.  It's not that at all.  For a while it was uncomfortable for me when someone would use "him" and not "her" referring to Chris.  Now, I am more comfortable with that.  However, I am now at the point where it feels like we are in an "in-between" stage - where Chris was a girl in December but is now taking testosterone and transitioning to male, but has not fully transitioned, and therefore, it is logical to me that people would be confused.  Because of this I don't feel the need to correct their mistake.  People need time, just as I have needed time, to learn and be a certain way with Chris.

It's my belief that Chris has struggled tremendously with his identity.  We all have issues with our identity that we struggle with, on some level, so I can understand, to some degree, what it has felt like for him to look in the mirror and not be happy with the person he sees.  I would never suggest that I have experienced any sort of dysphoria, but I can comprehend Chris' struggle, if even on just a minute level.  And so ... I suspect that individuals with identity dysphoria who come out, finally, as transgender, who make that ultimate decision to transition - I suspect that once they have reached that part of their struggle, their journey, that they would want and need for others to fall quickly in line behind them in accepting and embracing the changes.  I suspect that once they reach the point of making the changes that they are, in some ways, at their strongest and weakest point in their lives, and because they have reached the point of making the hardest decision they will ever make, they need and want others to be completely and quickly supportive and informed, so as to not cause anymore trauma in their lives than necessary.

The problem is ... people seldom fall in line easily about anything.  The problem is ... people do not act or react in situations the way we always want.  This sort of situation is foreign to most people. Most people have no experience with transgender individuals or with how to deal with an individual who is transitioning.  The transgender community is growing in strength and numbers every day and that is a good thing for transgender individuals who need and want others to turn to and rely on for support and assistance and friendship.  For those of us who are outside of that community, it will take time, as with anything foreign to us, for us to learn.

Transgender individuals want and need our acceptance and support, but they can not, necessarily, expect either over night.  As much as they want our understanding, they, too, need to show understanding to those of us who are trying to learn and support them.  Our failing to call Chris "he" instead of "she" is not necessarily because we are resisting the change, but may be simply a momentary mistake.  It might be resistance, sometimes, on people's part, but resistance is their prerogative, and this, too, needs to be respected.  You can not demand that people accept something they refuse to accept.  I can understand Chris needing others to fall in line so as to insure a smooth transition for him, and I fear what it does to him when the acceptance and alliance does not come easily or quickly, but ... I have to believe that, like with most anything, if it's worth fighting for then it is worth it.  I have to believe that the amount of strength and courage it has taken Chris to get this far (with little help from anyone) that that same strength and courage will continue to carry him to a safe and happy place - even if he finds people continuously placing obstacles in his path along the way.

I see Chris at the top of his mountain, in some ways - ready to fly.  I can no longer stand at a distance, like I did with my friend's niece.  I am now traveling that same road, but even closer than my friend, as I am traveling it with my own child - watching as she sheds the feathers of one set of wings for another.  What I need to say to my child and even to my friend's niece is ... do not wait for what we do or say to give you additional strength, as you have done so much of the work on your own and it truly does not matter what others feel or think or say - you will fly if you give yourself the strength to fly ...