Thanks to Christopher, writer of the Barbaric Yawp, for giving me this great story to share here. Enjoy!
Still Having Trouble With Pronouns
My son Aidan is a very well adjusted and contented individual. He should be. It has taken him thirty-odd years of agonizing struggle to attain his current serendipitous state. You see, when my son was born her name was Bonnie. I am the parent of a transsexual.
Brenda, Bonnie’s identical twin, always suspected her sibling was male. Especially after the way Bonnie pushed and elbowed her way into the world seven minutes before Brenda. They were about as different as identical twins can be. One was right handed and the other left. I never can remember which is which. Brenda is and has always been totally feminine. Bonnie is, and was, a guy. Bonnie
was born in the wrong body.
One thing needs to be made crystal clear. Bonnie’s sexual orientation involved no choice whatsoever. She (he?) was born that way. It is high time to dispense with the fundamentalist Christian malarkey that one can choose one’s sexuality. Having given serious consideration to the matter, I know I could no more choose to be homosexual than I could choose to be a Watusi. I have talked
to a great many people of various sexual persuasions and I have yet to find one who chose to be what they are.
Sexuality is not a matter of “choosing” a “lifestyle.” It is innate. But the homophobes’ fairy tales (no pun intended) are still taken seriously by a substantial number of people. Grab a clue, lintheads. Why would anyone “choose” a “lifestyle” that subjects them
to blatant discrimination, verbal, physical and emotional abuse, ferocious hatred and the loss of many rights and freedoms the rest of us take for granted? Hello? Am I getting through?
As the twins grew, their differences became more pronounced. Brenda played with the girls and Bonnie played with the boys. I hung out with what was then known as a “tomboy” when I was a kid. Seemed normal then. Seemed normal enough that Bonnie should be one. I coached both girls in softball. Brenda ran and threw like a girl. Bonnie ran like Rickey Henderson and threw like Nolan Ryan.
Then puberty reared its sadistic head. Suddenly Brenda wanted to play with the boys and Bonnie wanted to play with the girls. This, in our society, is somewhat more problematic than being a “tomboy.” Bonnie is very bright. She knew what society expected of girls and did her damndest to be what she patently
wasn’t. Her mother and I used to have great trouble smothering our snickers on the rare occasions when Bonnie would roll her eyes and don a dress. Somehow a dress just doesn’t look right when one swaggers like a sailor on shore leave.
Bonnie was a pretty girl, if you could get past the swagger and the macho talk. Lots of guys wanted to date her. In photographs from that era, you can see Bonnie gussied up for high school dances on the arm of some boy. She always looked about as comfortable as a Black Panther at a Klan rally. She managed to keep up appearances through high school.
My ex-wife pressured Bonnie into attending a very conservative religious college. This was like mixing nitric acid and glycerine. Just when Bonnie’s sexuality was about to assert itself, she found herself in an environment that condemned all sexuality and went into the screaming fantods at the mere thought of some
“perversion.” As I mentioned, Bonnie is no dummy. You can still see the marks where Bonnie burned rubber on her way out.
It is fortunate that Bonnie and I both lived in the Seattle area. We had to do some serious work on issues of sexuality and Seattle runs a close second to San Francisco in its open-minded approach to such things. In any other environment, Bonnie might never have “come out” and I might not have had to face my own homophobia.
But Bonnie did “come out” as a lesbian. It was a wrenching process that I could only observe from afar since this is not the sort of thing one shares with one’s father. I was not oblivious to what was happening, however, and I don’t think Bonnie tried to hide it. I do think she was afraid of what my reaction might be. Perhaps justifiably. So we never talked about her “outing.” If I have any regrets in my life, one of the biggest is not having been more supportive of Bonnie during this time. To give credit where credit is due, I never rejected her, either.
Bonnie’s lesbianism became an established fact at some unidentifiable point and I had to take a serious look at my own attitudes. If I was going to be the parent of a lesbian, I had to learn how to walk my liberal talk. It was not easy, since I had been raised in an era when the worst schoolyard insults involved the words “queer” and “faggot.” I had almost no experience with “out” homosexuals. I hadn’t had the pseudo-homosexual experiences that most boys supposedly have when growing up. What knowledge I had of sexuality came from a library book. If I had waited for my parents to discuss it, I would still be waiting. A typical baby boomer male.
Hanging out with Bonnie was highly educational. I had to get used to being around women who were a hell of a lot more macho than I ever was. We’re talking leather-jacketed, cigar-smoking, Harley-riding valkyries. I damn near wet my pants the first time one of them looked at me sideways. And they all looked at me sideways because I was a straight white male. Stereotyping works both ways. Once we got past that, we found out we were all human beings. I can now honestly say that some of my best friends are lesbians. But would I want my daughter to marry one?
Well, she did. And by that time the blushing brides were parents of my first grandchild. I’m told this involved a turkey baster and I don’t really want to know any more than that. Frankly, that child has me so buffaloed that I wouldn’t care if she sprang fully formed from the forehead of some Teutonic god. OK, goddess.
Just as I was getting used to having a daughter and a daughter-in-law, they split up. Since their marriage wasn’t recognized by society, Bonnie had to run an expensive legal gauntlet in order to obtain visitation rights with her daughter. Bonnie was only an adoptive parent, not a biological one. Gee, doesn’t this make everyone want to “choose” a gay or lesbian lifestyle?
When Bonnie decided to become Aidan, she (he?) was more forthright with me. And I had witnessed enough discrimination and hatred to realize what a living hell it is to be born in the wrong body. I simply wanted what every father should desire for his child: her (his?) happiness. So I supported him (her?) in every way that I could. Aidan is very fortunate to be living in an age when medical
science can correct an accident of birth. So now I enjoy hearing my son’s voice deepen and watching his (her?) beard grow. I have someone with whom I can share blatantly sexist blonde jokes. I have someone who cracks up when I solemnly try to impart advice on the vagaries of women. I have to worry about my lovely lady who thinks my son is a hunk.
Now, if I could just get those flippin’ pronouns right!
©2000 Christopher Key
8:18:28 AM 
|
|
