It might be obvious, but a family is a complex device, with delicate parts that are easily damaged or broken. Over the past few years, I...
It might be obvious, but a family is a complex device, with delicate parts that are easily damaged or broken.
Over the past few years, I have written numerous articles for The Gazette, most of them related to my transition from male to female. I have mentioned many of my family in my posts, being careful never to mention them specifically by name, but for readers who know me and my family, it’s not hard to know from whom. I’m talking. Still, there are probably a lot more readers who don’t know them and a lot who don’t even know me.
In my essays, despite what it may sound like, I wasn’t trying to shine a light on my family members, or even specifically on myself, but mostly wanted to provide insight into the types of conflicts and experiences that people go through. transgender people and their families. face it every day.
Yet this is my story and it is the most personal and real example that I have. Other families may have experienced the same situation in very different ways. Coming out later in life to any member of the LGBTQ community becomes complicated when a spouse, and possibly children, are involved, but it doesn’t have to be. However, dating as a trans is a little different animal. I was hoping my family would be able to weather the storm, but so far that has not happened.
Coming out is an emotional experience – realizing that inner truth that may have been denied or hidden for years. Yet the reactions of family members cannot always be predicted. As mentioned, my nuclear family has yet to accept my transition. When I think of my wife and children, I have felt frustration, confusion, anger, and a lot of loss and sadness. I’m sure each of them experienced the same feelings.
Although I know that the transition to a woman was absolutely perfect for me, the reaction of my family pains me greatly. Some readers may blame me, some may blame my family, but when I look at all the players involved in this situation, I don’t see good or bad. I see everyone is doing what it takes to deal with the situation. It is difficult to judge the individual actions taken by me or my family without being immersed in the situation. Most of the time, to me, the story of my family’s reaction to my “coming out” and transition feels like a tragedy, something worthy of an Arthur Miller play.
Other families have successfully weathered the storm of an LGBTQ family member’s exit, and maybe my family will eventually be one of those families as well. However, for now, even years after I came out, the wound is still open and it is likely that it will remain so for quite some time. Maybe it will never heal because it’s such an emotional subject. The biggest takeaway is this: We are all good people, caring people, emotional people, who have many life experiences in common. The best analogy I can think of is Dave Mason’s song from the mid-1970s, “We Just Disagree”.
Now, if I had decided to go back to school to be a doctor, we could have been in financial trouble for a while and struggled with heavy student loans, but instead I decided to change my mind. sex. The change from Mr. to Dr. is much easier to accept than the change from Mr. to Mrs. Despite the change in my gender, everyone is fine, no one is really dead, for some it is. is just the idea of who I was that may have died – I just happen to disagree.
As humans, we become so attached to gender that we sometimes forget the soul of the person inside that shell. I hope that as human beings, over time, we can learn to “see” the souls of others without all the messy gender baggage. That will take time.
Mariel E. Addis grew up in Florence, moved for 16 years and returned in 2013.
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