I have a gay brother who lives with his husband in Atlanta. I had a gay aunt and a gay uncle who each lived alone their entire lives. They seemed to be happy and did interesting things, but their personal situations were never discussed. It was my family’s early version of “don’t ask don’t tell”. While not germane to the point of your article, I find it interesting how many times I see the phenomenon of trans and gay people being clustered in the same biological family. To my knowledge, Science has not established any definitive genetic link which might cause this, but it is thought-provoking; it seems to be common in my experience.
When I first became aware that I was likely trans, there was really no outlet to explore my emerging identity. At the time in the mid 60s, there were not even words to describe me. The closest one in our vocabulary was transsexual. In 1965, I read the biography of Christine Jorgensen. It electrified me. My thought when I completed the book was, “I always wanted to be a woman, maybe someday.“ My family had rigid expectations for me. I was raised to be an outstanding student in a demanding academic environment with the goal of ultimately becoming an alpha male professional in a prestigious and high-paying career. I never questioned it. It was just the way it was. It was comfortable because the image painted suggested I would achieve a prosperous and therefore happy existence. The thought of trying to understand myself better or rebelling in anyway never even crossed my mind. No adult encouraged me to do so. I was much like a foot soldier in the military who is expected to do what his superiors command without question. I was a good soldier.
Over the decades there were many signs of my true identity, but I was so focused on developing my professional credentials and raising a family that I had no time for them. It is only after several decades passed that I had the luxury of wrestling with who I really was. I suppose you could say that my upbringing and way I lived my life were kind of a two edged sword. On the one hand, I buried everything that was true about myself so deeply that I never suffered from the existential angst that so often affects trans people who have an early awareness of their identity and struggle to reconcile who they really are with the way society treats them. By instinctively denying myself, I escaped the fate of your troubled grandparent. On the other hand, I also spent too much of my life living a lie. Like your grandparent, had I even given a hint as to who I really was, I would’ve been met with condemnation and therapy—treated as that weird relative to be avoided. I would’ve been viewed as being deranged. Given my family’s approach to dealing with difficult personal issues by acting as if they do not exist, if I had been successfully living on my own, my struggles would have simply been ignored. No one would’ve said anything and I would have been quietly shunned. I suppose you could say that I successfully navigated most of my life without pain, but also without being truly alive. I wonder which fate is worse.
Many of the older trans people I know have a deep sense of regret they didn’t transition sooner. My feelings are more ambivalent. On the one hand it would be easy to rue all I have missed, but I choose to celebrate the life in front of me. My existence had become flat and meaningless. Now the possibilities are endless and the opportunity to educate the public and support those behind us has given me a renewed sense of purpose. I am so much happier. While my heart grieves at the struggles of your grandparent and others like them, I feel a sense of relief that I did not suffer the same fate, even though it was a bittersweet accident. I gave up so much subconsciously to avoid their unhappiness. Like you I look forward to the day when trans people are just accepted as people with the same rights to respect, opportunity and happiness as anyone else. Each of us has a role to play to hasten that day.
