Deconstruction & Coming Out

The other day, I reached a milestone I never would’ve thought I’d reach with my mom. After being on testosterone for over a year and half and trying to keep it hidden from my transphobic parents, my mom found out – and the world didn’t stop spinning on its axis, nobody’s head exploded, no volatile arguments ensued. After a very nerve-wracking phone call in which I had no choice but to admit that I was on T, I came away from the conversation not only with pride in myself, but a bit of pride in my mom as well.

Yes, the bar is low – shouldn’t all parents love their children unconditionally and accept their choices if they make them happy, so long as they are safe and informed? Well, yes. And for so long, even now, I tell myself not to get too happy, because she is still nowhere close to acceptance. I only refer to my mom in all of this because my dad and I barely talk, as he has never expressed anything but disdain for my choices and my queerness, and no desire to work toward growing or understanding or even listening. But in the past, my thinking had been very black and white; if my parents didn’t 100% accept me, I wanted no contact with them whatsoever. I still think I was valid for feeling that way, especially given the lack of respect and unconditional love shown to me ever since I started sharing bits of my queerness with them.

In those initial years of facing homophobic/transphobic parents at the beginning of your queer journey, there are tons of emotions coming out, and all of them are valid. It is only through years of rigorous therapy, journaling, experimentation with my gender, putting physical space between us, periods of angst and joy, and many, many arguments of varying intensity to reach a point where their opinions of me and my decisions hold little to no weight in my eyes. Most importantly, it’s the work in therapy allowing me to see my parents as fellow adults that granted me the grace to appreciate the nuance behind all of our relationships in life, specifically the difficult ones, the ones where those closest to us can be the hardest to love.

***

Looking back on my deconstruction and what propelled me toward it, I initially told myself that the church’s homophobia wasn’t my ‘last straw.’ It was actually so far from my mind when I first began having my doubts because homophobia was so deeply embedded in my upbringing. I didn’t even consider queerness to be a possibility for me. Rather, it was the friction I sensed every single day of my life between who I felt I was supposed to be and who I actually felt like I was, that began sounding the alarms that something wasn’t right.

In eighth grade, I was put very reluctantly into public school – my first life experience being among ‘nonbelievers’ on a daily basis. What my parents feared most – God not being the center of everything I saw and heard – freed me from feeling constricted to one ‘right’ way of Being. My intellectuality was challenged and exercised, allowing me to seek more information, more experience, more substance.

I learned to interact with narratives outside of my own, to challenge what I was brought up to think and expect of the world, others, and myself. I sensed there was so much more out there for me, and I wanted to feel it all. It helped having a sibling 12 years older than me who had gone through all of this himself, and as I grew older, we had more similar experiences that brought us closer. He was able to be there for me as I grew into myself, and encouraged me to keep exploring my interests and passions wherever they led me. He made me realize that I’d be okay, that the world would not come crumbling down because I, a singular little queer kid from some town in Pennsylvania, decided not to be a ‘good Christian girl’ like my parents wanted me to be.

Queerness saved me. It healed me from the sense of alienation I felt growing up in a space that discouraged thinking or being different. It opened my heart far more than any biblical lessons, allowing me to realize that the world is more beautiful the more different we all are. Finally, my differences were celebrated, and though they made me unique, I found others who thought and felt the same.

It took many more years after living apart from my parents and leaving the church to fully come to terms with my queerness; even longer to realize it went beyond who I was attracted to and extended to my gender expression. I’m still learning this to this day, and it is something I promised myself to never take for granted. I love the fluidity I possess, how my indecision doesn’t have to be a bad thing, and instead can be embraced in each moment and portrayed in different ways – soft, strong, bold, gentle, masculine, feminine, otherworldly, these are all parts within me that get their time and place now.

***

When I decided once and for all that I was going to get top surgery, I had every intention of keeping it hidden from my parents. It seemed feasible given we weren’t in the best place, and saw each other a few times a year at most. However, I am not one for tact, and whenever I feel emboldened by a righteous surge of fuck-you-I-do-what-I-want, every intention of being inconspicuous goes out the window.

My mom and I were catching up on the phone one day, and she got to talking about somebody she heard about getting top surgery. Of course (completely unprovoked) she started on a tangent about why someone would do that to themselves and why anyone in their life would allow them to do that to themselves.

Bigoted folks like to enrage themselves without you saying a word to them. They just want a reaction. And so I decided right then and there would be a great time to drop my news – with a simple “oh, well, I’m doing that.”

“Doing what?!” she asked me incredulously. My heart was in my throat, but there was no going back, and I wasn’t about to let the tone in her voice scare me off. “Getting top surgery.”

My mom was furious and disgusted (she made it known multiple times, don’t doubt that). I explained to her why I wanted to do it – and of course that didn’t make it any better – but one thing that’s true about me is that I will always be forthcoming and open about my choices.

As the months went by, my mom tried to discourage me from getting the surgery – starting off with “you could die!” and progressing to more reasonable questions like “What if you regret it?” I tried to be as collected as I could with her.

Regardless, of course, I went through with the surgery. Since then, I have been as happy in my body as ever. Now, it doesn’t come up at all – especially because it’s pretty weird to keep talking about your child’s chest.

It’s been a little over two years since then, but I started microdosing testosterone about half a year after that. I see my parents just as infrequently, so the minimal changes in my body were even less detectable to them. There was one time where my dad commented on how it sounded like I had a cold, when it was in fact simply my voice dropping slightly, but that was easily brushed off. I guess they kind of gaslit themselves into thinking my voice had just sounded like that all along? Cool.

About a week ago, I sent my mom a picture of my makeup, because I’ve been doing it a lot and she’s always appreciated my art – it’s one of the things that has always kept us close-ish, in some respects. Later that day, I got a call from her. “Why do you have dark hair on your chin?”

I could hear the tone – it’s the ‘you’re in big trouble’ tone – nevermind that I’m almost 30 years old, moms can instill the fear of god in you with that tone at any age. Here we go, I thought to myself. Because this was completely out of the blue (I hadn’t even thought of my facial hair being visible in the picture, and thus was completely unprepared for this conversation), I was totally caught off guard and not at all ready to launch into a new Big Thing with her, so I acted really stupid and clueless and told her I didn’t want to get into it then, I’d call her tomorrow.

So, this could only have gone one of two ways: make up a lie, or breach the inevitable topic.

At some point in that short phone call she’d asked, “you aren’t transitioning, are you?” So what if I was? That would be a whole other story, and would almost certainly not go over as well as it actually did. I guess the fact that I don’t identify as a man or want to transition into one did make this whole conversation a lot easier. I tried not to let that knowledge keep me from talking through some of this with her.

My first instinct was to shrink away from the truth because it was easier and more comfortable. They’ll never fully understand or accept me, so why bother? But then I ran through a checklist in my mind:

One – I am 27 years old. I’ve been living apart from my parents for over five years – they have no physical or financial control over me, and nothing to leverage their power over me with.

Two – I’ve done this before. First in coming out right after college, and then when I was getting top surgery. They’ll get over it. So that led me to the realization that I had nothing to lose in being honest with her. I recognize that it’s a privilege to be in this position, and my heart hurts thinking about how this would’ve gone if I were a decade younger, and consequently for all the other young queer and trans kids who have much more at stake.

Still, this is my journey and my reality, and if I had nothing to lose, then telling the truth could only serve as an opportunity to plant a seed of understanding in my mom’s head. So the next day when I called her back, I confirmed that yes, I am on hormones; no, I am not transitioning into a man; yes, I do take them to affirm my gender however ambiguous it may be. It seems like the only point on which I can get my mom to understand gender beyond the binary is by relating to David Bowie, whom we both love, and which I find hilarious. So yes, just like David Bowie and many many who came before him, I just happen to feel limited by the expressions of the gender binary and decided to do something about it.

By now, my mom knows that what I chose for myself is not up for debate. At the end of the day, my choices stand whether she likes them or not. In her viewpoint, it’s just a mark of my stubbornness – and deep down, I think she feels proud of that even if she doesn’t agree with the decision. I can’t describe it, it’s just something I know about my mother as a person, based on my own musings on her as an individual outside of being my parent. The thing is, I can’t describe exactly what makes your brain make the distinction between parent and Just Another Human, but it made a world of a difference for me.

At times, thinking of my parents as Individuals, separate from that identity, makes things more complicated – it makes their pain and experiences hurt more knowing they too have dreams. The more I live through in my late twenties, the more I understand how precarious of an age that is. The difficult part in all this work is factoring in empathy; while I sympathize with their experiences, it doesn’t excuse how they’ve treated me as their child, and the hurt that I’ve experienced at their hands, whether intentionally or unintentionally, remains.

I know my mother had a gay friend in high school who later died of AIDS, and there have been remarks made here and there about concerns for my safety. My mother has outrightly expressed worry for me over many things having to do with my sexuality, and when it comes to gender, she agrees that physical violence against trans people is wrong. We’re still working on expanding her definitions of violence to include things beyond assault and public humiliation, and yes, to us, these things seem obvious.

When I think of how many years of feeling stuck and alone I spent at the beginning of my religious deconstruction, I think of my mother. I think of how many years of therapy, and all the related work, went into course correcting and adjusting my worldview as I was exposed to more information. I want it to be easy for my mother, for our parents and loved ones and communities who don’t understand, to learn and be provided with the tools to do something with it, and I’m not saying by any means that it’s too late, because it never is for anyone.

What I can say is that taking all this into account, I know that I cannot expect immediate results; in fact, I have resolved to expect nothing in the end, because for me this will cause the least amount of pain. I can, however, live with the knowledge that my mother is trying, however many times she may fuck up along the way, and badly. We are by no means anywhere near where I’d like to be in our relationship, but if you had told me even five years ago that my mom and I would be on speaking terms with the knowledge that I am a lesbian, underwent top surgery, and am on testosterone… I honestly don’t know how I would’ve reacted.

So, the point in all this is not only a celebration of progress, but a celebration of liberation. I was vulnerable about something that’s not easy to be vulnerable about, and I’m okay.

I know that this cannot and will not be everyone’s reality, but I share it in the hopes that you hold on to the knowledge that change is possible. Admittedly, I’ve said time and again to my therapist that my dad will never change, and maybe that is true; however, my healing is not contingent on this fact – I cannot let it be. I don’t even know how to wrap this up or what my overall advice is at the end of it all, but I guess the most I can do is encourage you to be stubborn when it comes to knowing yourself, but also don’t be afraid to explore the potential for change in people you almost wanted to give up on.