Deviations

My mother says she remembers me wearing her high heels around the house while still in diapers. If I imagine really hard, I feel like I can remember that, too. It would be hard to tell if it is a fabricated memory based on hers, but I do not doubt she remembers it correctly. It would be a common thing, seeing a baby at play with whatever it could get its hands on. Much like the frilly socks my sister had, there were other, much more vivid memories. The ones I remember with a certainty—to be real, to be felt. Like when an American remembers where they were when the towers were hit. Me? I was stone asleep, having worked the night shift at my job. The first time I was caught dressed up was extremely frightening. I had gotten a hold of a blue checkered bib dress with a white cotton top. I was wearing nothing else but white socks, sitting on our blue couch in the living room. I was actually reading a comic book when I heard the doorbell. I panicked. I looked in the kitchen and down the hallway. I tried peering through the window to see who it was—maybe a vehicle. Then the door handle clicked, and I heard footsteps coming through the laundry room at the back door. I retreated to the living room and pressed myself flat against the wood paneling of the wall. I ran out of time, so I froze. I probably could have run to my room before being seen, but I was too scared. As my back pressed against the wall, I saw my father walk around the corner of the hallway and stare. The look on his face seemed almost comically horrific—a caricature of horror. Here I was in this dress, backed against the wall, my mind racing with excuses and humiliation. I did not expect any reaction, but the one I saw was the one I feared most. My father was a behavioral psychologist. He went to college for his bachelor's degree when my sister and I were still very young. I may have been around five; my sister, seven or eight. He had been an alcoholic and drug abuser, though my sister and I were none the wiser. He had always seemed loving and caring towards us. But that look I got felt a million miles away from love. What was worse was not that he had been in recovery for almost a decade and working for a nearby hospital. It was that stone cold sober mind analysing what was before his eyes. As we grew older, my father would teach us about his work—how people think, how he analyzes them. The quirks of the human condition were a common theme when he spoke about it. He wanted to help others like him. I can’t say I do not mirror this in my transness. I want so badly to help my siblings achieve their greatest potential, but our methods are not an exact copy. While he helped people with his experience, his other passion was for Christ. To my father, the Bible was gospel in factual form. But the interpretations were meant to be approached with careful precision. While I liked to hear about Jesus, it seemed like some of the teachings of Christ and how Christianity is performed do not match. One thing I believed in was the logic of certain stories. One in particular was that Jesus did not believe in organized religion. But the only religion I have ever seen was one that was organized. They all have their own message every Sunday. None the same, all based on what the pastor believes, meant to influence the congregation. How could another tell me what to think of God? If He is in you, then you only need to feel it. Why am I being told what it should feel like? It seemed for a time my dad had felt this way as well. After all, he was the one who taught it to me. I think that may have changed when he met his second wife. He had divorced my mother before the bachelor's degree. All we were told was that they fought too much and it was not good for me and my sister to hear it. I didn’t care. I told them that, too. I would have happily listened to it, I thought. Looking back, it was probably for the better. But with his new wife, I cannot say I was impressed. She seemed stern, strict, and always wanted me to attend church with her. I couldn’t stand it. I could not sit there long enough to hear them drone on when I could be looking at the same stained glass windows for what seemed like an eternity. The monotone scripture echoing through the vast hall was something I felt to be a waste of time. My dad didn’t make me go, but he started to attend with her. After the day of my discovery by my father, where I was wearing the blue dress, we met with my mother about it. I was told I was going to see a psychologist since I did not want to talk to my parents about it. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. And I didn’t. I went to every session. Explained everything that was happening with me at school and at home. I felt like I was being interrogated. Not that the counselor was uncaring or grueling in his questioning, but I remembered all the “tricks” a psychologist would use to “get answers” out of me. I was a teenager; not only was my identity something I guarded, but so was my mind. I wanted it to be an impenetrable fortress. Whether it was or not, I couldn’t know, but my thoughts felt secure and my own. Always wondering if I was a guinea pig for my father wasn’t entirely a joke that I would tell him. Part of me actually believed it, probably because I was paranoid about my privacy. I believed my dad wanted me to go to be corrected, so I would not want to feel this way. Later, I learned that my mother was the one who made me go. Not my father; he wanted me to make that decision. He probably knew that if I didn’t want to change, I wouldn’t. The old joke was a broken record in our house: "How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change." But it seemed like as time went on, as the decades passed, that was not entirely the belief anymore. An evolution had taken place. I remember the conversations we had when I came out the second time. When I decided that I would finally be me, just me. He would tell me the dangers of “anal” sex—what it could do to your colon, your gastrointestinal system. He told me what would happen on HRT and how it would effect your bladder, how it would be harder to hold it in. I think he thought that was a special hit to me because I had wet the bed until I was fifteen. It wasn’t. I would wet myself every day if it meant I could have the body I wanted. At this point, I truly don't give a fuck. He could not help himself anymore. He had to be sure I knew every little thing he could read online about how bad it could be for a trans person. As if I had not researched it my whole life since I had the internet. I wanted his support, not his warnings. I told him to get the fuck out of my house and never come back. And he did. He has not been back here again. That was seven years ago now. My kids have grown since then. They are full people at this point—a depth I have not seen in them since they played with blocks on the living room floor. I like to joke that one of my daughters is my biggest fan, but they all are. They are the reason I wake in the morning. I love them as much as I love living my life as myself. But I could not have them around something so toxic. People tried to tell me that they should see their grandfather and that different points of view are okay, but I cannot agree. Not when it comes from a subconscious hatred for marginalized people. They were innocent in this. They shouldn’t have even had to have a mother like me. A trans parent is a life I did not want for them. But it was the one they got. They lost the “normal family” lottery when they came from me. I wished with a true sincerity that they should not have to be subjected to the strife I would experience. They deserved an easier life. But how I feel now couldn’t be any more different. I want them to see. I want them to see the world they live in. The veil of tradition that is pulled over their eyes won’t work on them. The facade of normalcy crumbles easily. Being authentic and empathetic seemed to be instilled in them naturally. I know if they come across anyone being treated unfairly, they WILL raise their voice. And for that, I am proud. It is a legacy I can live with. And I truly, deeply cherish this about them and the family that is with me.