There once lived a little girl that grew up lonely, isolated, misunderstood, mislabeled, and abandoned at birth. At a few weeks old, the child was chosen by a couple, who after the wife went through a horrible bout with Hodgkins Disease, couldn’t have her own child. The adoptive couple raised the kid as an only child, and as a son, despite her being born with ambiguous genitalia. The young girl grew up in a rural town in the Southern United States. The adoptive parents weren’t as active in the child’s life as she had longed for. Many lonely evenings after school were spent alone in her room, while her parents took a nap or sat in front of the television. On the occasions she would get to go out with either of the adoptive parents, she would be elated, soak up the attention, and crave even more. Exploring by wandering through the area, playing with neighborhood kids, and even little league was a great way for her to express childhood folly. She and a close friend would play dress up with the playmate’s mother’s clothes and shoes, both were assigned male. Many fond memories were made, until it was time to come back home, then it was back to being alone in her room. The little girl spent countless hours in online chat rooms, message boards, and social media to numb the sting of loneliness. Being seen as a male, began to become a problem at an early age. The natural desires of the child were to be kind, gentle, loving, to play dress up, to shop with “mom”, and be more “feminine” in characteristics. Unfortunately, the adoptive parents were strict religious conservatives and punished her repeatedly for any feminine qualities, displaying to her that “feminine” equaled wrong or bad. This is a common theme, especially in the south, to be forced to “act like a man” or to be told “that’s not for boys”. The adoptive mother hailed from a wealthy, white plantation family. The adoptive father was the descendant of a long-line of white, mid-western farmers. Together, they tried to mold a clean-cut, college educated, white, Christian male, that was destined for “success”. This child was Katherine. Today, as most of you know she is a transgender woman, mother, wife, advocate, and a shift manager of the Trans Lifeline. Never being able to conform to her adoptive parents standards of masculinity and expectations placed on her, she had to forge her own way in life. Leaving behind an oppressive and abusive home at just sixteen years old, Katherine moved to South Carolina. Where she lived with a person she had met over the internet. After several months of conversing through chat and over the phone, she was convinced she would be better off escaping her current reality. Not knowing what to expect, she boarded a greyhound bus, with her backpack and what few belongings she could carry in it. There she set out on her journey to find where she would fit into the world. South Carolina brought with it new challenges and new experiences. Ultimately it ended with an enormous amount of violence, trauma, and pain. There are intense scars that remain all over her body, as well as in her soul as lasting reminders of her time in the Carolinas. Having her first apartment, first full time job, and first live in romantic partner made for many growing pains, learning opportunities, as well as mistakes. She has explained to me that while living there she was active in the hardcore punk scene, attending lots of shows. She was able to explore her gender and sexuality while living away from her controlling parents. Her partner even used a feminine nick-name as a term of affection. Her first full-time job while living there, was for the Intercontinental Hotel chain. At first, she began on the call center floor, but rapidly moved up to the “specialists” team, of a few select members of the employees that would handle higher tiered callers. The special team would also be flown around the country visiting hotels, attending dinners, discovering the perks of the hotels she was selling reservations for, first hand. She got to go places like D.C., Cincinnati, Myrtle Beach, and many others in between. She told me of the fancy suites she was given complimentary with the position, the elaborate restaurants they would dine in while on these business trips. She even explained to me that she was able to meet Concepcion Picciotto, a permanent protester in DC, that resided in “The Peace House”, a tent across from the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Concepcion continuously remained homeless and protested for peace from August 1981 until her death in January 2016. While Katherine was with her, she donated all the money she had, and handed out fliers for several hours along side Concepcion. After three years and a pretty harsh falling out with the romantic partner in South Carolina, she returned to Mississippi. Trying to move on with her life, she got another call center job, got her own apartment, and casually dated. A few years went by and a few jobs too, she met a dating partner that turned more serious. They got a home together and tried to give it a go. By this time the gender issues were enormous and hard to deny any longer. To her sadness, her partner was not affirming of the gender variance, even to the point of degrading Katherine for the gender expressions that came naturally to her. The relationship was on the rocks, Katherine was depressed, using alcohol and prescriptions to medicate through the roughest parts. Eventually, Katherine’s parents found out about her cross-dressing and her gender variations. She had recently attempted to end her life due to the torture of living as the wrong gender and feeling as if she would never be able to access transition related care. The response from her parents was a court order for a year of conversion therapy in south Alabama. After four grueling months of uncompensated labor, suppression of sexual expression, hours of therapy which amounted to cis-men asking her extremely personal questions about her sexual habits, rigorous prayer schedules, and brain-washing religious instruction, she finally managed to escape. This time she was convinced that her gender variance meant she was a gay feminine male. She explored her sexuality further, by being in a relationship with a long time friend. She and him moved to Texas and it is there that they spent six months together until she needed a way out, due to several drunken fights between the two of them. Serendipitously, I had moved to the same area in Texas just a week before their last fight. I got a phone call at about five in the morning, with Katherine upset, crying, and begging for a couch to sleep on for a while. A little over a year later, we left to start our life together. Before we decided to be together, Katherine confessed to me that she was truly a female, my response was simply “I know”. After shopping, facials, mani/pedis, and many, many hair sessions together I could just tell deep down she longed to be perceived as a female. In our relationship, it was the first time either of us could genuinely express the person on the inside, but at first only at home. I wish I could say that we lived happily ever after at that time, but that isn’t the truth. My previous entries have explained further the trials we’ve faced since being together, but not all of them. Majority of our relationship has been isolation, we’ve had to choose one another over everyone else. What we could see in one another, what we could understand without really having to explain made our connection that much stronger, closer, and true. Having a mate that is also transgender has been the most rewarding, and amazing relationship because of HOW we can understand to the depths. In Austin, I was working as a contract nurse at the state mental facility and Katherine was working a logistics job at a large online sign company. We began in a tiny studio apartment with a shared kitchen and bathroom. The landlord kept raising our rent to push us out, after we reported to them a laundry list of code violations. They sabotaged our car, put a deadbolt on our door, and so we reported them to the tenant council, ultimately shutting down one of the landlord’s apartment buildings. We decided it would be best if we moved into a hotel. We lived for two months at the Super 8, while we looked for a better apartment in the city. Soon we were able to get into a two bedroom town home in North Austin. We didn’t have any furniture, but we had clothes, dishes, toiletries and a futon mattress. We weren’t there long before I had a car accident and wasn’t able to work due to the severe and debilitating pain. We couldn’t keep the apartment because we couldn’t afford rent with one income. We left Texas, making the 750 mile trip back to where we grew up in Mississippi. We were five months pregnant at the time, expecting our youngest. We stayed six weeks with Katherine's parents, but for Katherine that meant confronting her past. Being in her family’s home brought back many painful memories she wasn’t ready to face. Most days she couldn’t get out of bed until late afternoon due to low energy, depression, and not resting well because of nightmares. Being brought back there after her parents had her court ordered into conversion therapy, made for rather sore moments. We grew closer than we had been up until that point, venting about controlling, abusive, neglectful parents. We talked about her feelings of abandonment from being given up for adoption. We discussed in depth the turmoil being perceived as “different” had caused within her. She expressed the rebellious behaviors as a teenager, as a cry for help with her depression as a young person. She explained how she drank alcohol from a young age to self medicate her anxiety, depression, and feelings of isolation that radiated pain throughout. Once our tax returns came in we paid the deposits on a town home in Hattiesburg, where Katherine previously held a position as a landscaper, prior to moving to Texas. She was granted her former job, and we prepared our home for the arrival of our new addition. At the time, Katherine was still a daily drinker. She hadn’t come out officially as transgender, although we had discussed it several times. It wasn’t until after our child was born that we both confronted our gender issues head on, for the first time admitting who we were to the people around us. Family turned away from us and some friends weren’t accepting either. Katherine was happy to finally be free of the secret she held deep inside, but it came with the devastation of loosing loved ones. She was slapped in the face with abandonment once again, as her adopted mother refused to have anything to do with us. It was an enormous heartache she had to adjust to, since they were close before the two of us became an item. The both of us coming to terms with and admitting our gender issues, was the breaking point for many people in our lives. When we first became homeless, many worried we wouldn’t make it. Rumors surfaced of us leaving to pursue a life of drugs and addiction. Actually, what we had decided before leaving was to radically shift our entire existences in order to bring happiness into our lives, honestly for the first time. We became vegetarian, gave up alcohol, pills, and street drugs. There were moments while intoxicated or high that we felt a relief from the sadness and guilt, but this time we wanted to be free of these caging emotions and addictions for real. We knew we had to work through an enormous amount of pain, especially Katherine, since she hadn’t been responsive to traditional therapies throughout her life. She insists it was because she wasn’t allowed to live as her true self, and I have no doubt she is correct. Mainly, because I experienced the same thing until I began to live and identify as my authentic self. Once we hit the road for Denver, it gave us a chance to be whomever we wanted to be, instead of the way folks had always known us to be. It gave us a chance to really change, because the new people wouldn’t have a false image of us in their minds. There was no longer a reason to conform to other peoples views or standards. We could finally live how we wanted. We didn’t have to see all the people that we had disappointed a hundred times with our failures, our mistakes, and our identity crises. Since coming out and beginning hormone therapy for transition, Katherine has had monumental progress with her feelings of burdensomeness, isolation, and guilt. We may have been spit out of the south by prejudice, bigotry, hate, and violence, but we were determined to make the best of what we had left.. each other and our children. But where would we fit in? Where would be our home to belong? How would we figure out a way to survive until we could figure that out? We spent months traveling, working, and spending every penny we could scrape up. Only making enough to get by until the next day. Forget living week to week, it was literally day by day. We were afraid of being homeless forever. We would look at our babies, cry, hold them, and promise to make their lives better, no matter what. Katherine had a difficult time having confidence enough to go in public when she was first transitioning. Not only did her social anxiety cause issues with accomplishing tasks, but also the fear of being attacked for being a transgender person. Over time these fears began to cause less and less anxiety. Another big issue she’s faced is learning to navigate her world through the constant trauma of being homeless. We both have really, but I think for Katherine it was compounded by the crippling anxiety she faced. Being swept by the cops, being belittled by people in public, being targeted for harassment due to being homeless and transgender, put an extra weight around her neck. Although it effected us both greatly, Katherine’s fears of the world began to rise considerably. Not having her parents for emotional support gave her a gaping hole no one could fill. Once she began to transition, layers of sadness began to slowly chip away from around her heart. Like the Russian Matryoshka dolls, more appeared once a layer was removed, exposing a very beaten and raw soul. The soul of an abandoned child, that was abandoned not once at birth, not twice, but three times. For her birth mother contacted her years after giving her up, then turned her away again after a year. Then when her adopted mother put her away as well, it was just too much to bear. Overwhelming sadness, a feeling of being completely unwanted and unlovable was all that remained in her heart in place of a mother. Finding her way to loving herself is a work in progress. She is regrowing her confidence, regaining her footing, and reclaiming her life. The journey to find a home has also turned out to be a journey to find ourselves, and a family. Which we’ve found in the form of a friend-family along the way. Adding new members as we’ve journeyed along. We didn’t know where this journey would lead, and honestly we still don’t. For now it’s Las Vegas, but who knows after this. We are seeking our permanent place in the world, the one place we can finally feel as if we belong. Katherine is the one I worry about the most, because I’m home wherever my three loves are. She, however is still wandering at heart, even as we sit in this apartment today, she plans our next adventure. As the journey for a home has come to an end. There are still questions as to whether we truly will fit in and if this is where we will find acceptance. For many of these entries I’ve spoken about our journey since coming out, our relationship, and children. However, I haven’t said much about Katherine’s life, mainly since I was hoping she would be able to write of her own accounts. We don’t have the same upbringing but, we both have longed for acceptance and to belong for our entire lives. Have we finally found a home to belong to? Yes, at least, for now...
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Authors:James and Katherine are a transgender couple raising two kids. They were southerners when coming to understand themselves as trans. Ultimately it lead to a nearly three year road trip to find home. Now they are re-housed and still focused on outreach in the transgender community! Archives
October 2020
Categories |