As I mentioned, my stay at the hospital was gender-affirming. For the most part. One of the big problems, though, was my dad. I think it was because he was so nervous and worried about me (which is a good thing) but he just could not use the proper pronouns. It got to the point where I felt like we were involved in some sort of odd call and response activity:
“Well, his pain hasn’t been that bad…”
“Her.”
“He’s finally on solid food.”
“She’s.”
“I was talking with him earlier, and he said…”
“Her. She.”
It was kind of infuriating. My dad said, with some legitimacy, that my mom has had more time with me than he has. But, in my frustration, I could only respond, “I’ve been out to you for ten years. I’ve been transitioning for three years. You’ve had time.”
Maybe not the most tactful response, but just as true.
Tonight is my last night at the hospital. (Fingers crossed, knock on wood, etc.) The gallbladder was removed last night, along with the bazillion more gallstones it contained. My parents actually claim the doctor said my gallbladder had 100 more gallstones, which is disgusting if it’s true.
This morning, after lugging myself to the bathroom, I looked in the mirror to see something of a stranger. First, because one of my roommates had put my hair into two braided pigtails last night, before I went into surgery. I’ve been way to lazy to remove ‘em, so they’ve stayed the last 24 hours. Second, because the IV fluids, coupled with little food, have given me a simultaneously gaunt and water-bloated look. On top of that, I haven’t really bathed all week, so my color is way off and I’m all blotchy.
Most obnoxious, though, was the little soul-patch beneath my lower lip, a remnant of my facial hair that the laser removal hasn’t been able extinguish.
Continue reading 'Hospitals and Hair'»
Pretend you can see my dad!
My father marched at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. He went to Washington to see Dr. King speak. His work as a defense attorney has helped demonstrate the unjustness of the death penalty and his was one of the cases referenced by Gov. Ryan when he issued a moratorium against capital punishment. In my mind, I still sometimes imagine my dad like I did when I was ten: the Good Lawyer protecting the innocent from Evil Cops, fighting for Civil Rights and Other Important Issues Warranting Capitalization.
Life rarely that simple. Family certainly isn’t.
There was a slowly dawning sense of discomfort during my teenage years, as I started to notice the times my dad would talk about clients he knew were guilty but would receive reduced sentences based on police misconduct. Now, to be perfectly clear, I think police misconduct is almost always a greater societal problem than the guilty person getting a break. Better ten guilty men go free, and all that. I still believe my dad is one of the Good Guys, and that even the guiltiest among us deserves fair and competent counsel. But my dad is also a more nuanced and complicated individual than I as able to acknowledge as a child.
Still, I sometimes expect him to see all civil rights and justice issues the way I do. Which made speaking with him tonight something like banging my head against a wall. The discussion began, as so many do, with talk of breasts.
Continue reading 'Banging my head against a wall'»
I went to the ER last night. About once a month for the last few months, I’ve been having really crippling stomach cramps and pains, between my belly button and my rib cage. They’ve been pretty clearly linked in my mind with eating lots of rich food – deep dish pizza, really thick soup, etc – and even though they hurt and suck, I’ve been able to take antacids and make them go away. The antacids took maybe 20 or 30 minutes to kick in, but when they did it was like turning off a light switch: the pain was gone.
Last night, though, I took antacids and Pepto-Bismol, and the pain just kept getting worse. Finally, at 3AM, after having been pacing and panting and rolling on my bed since midnight, trying to find a comfortable spot, I asked my roommate to drive me to the ER.
Continue reading 'A night at the ER'»
- How did you know you wanted to be a girl? – what influenced your decision to transition?
That’s a tough one to answer. How did you know you wanted to be a girl, anonymous questioner? (Or wanted to be a boy?)
For me, it wasn’t so much that I wanted to be a girl that I knew I wasn’t a boy. I imagined being a girl was better, I hoped it was right for me, and I wished I were a girl. But I wasn’t positive that it would be until I did it. Maybe a good analogy would be the question, “How do you know you’re hungry?” Well, because you’re hungry! It’s a state of being, something you know you are or you aren’t. I didn’t know I wanted to be a girl because I liked dresses or makeup or dolls. I knew it because it was true.
- What do your family and friends think? Did anyone give you moral support in making your decision?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am spoiled, blessed, privileged, and thankful that my friends, family, and coworkers have been so supportive during my transition. I’ve had people (family, mostly) react in a confused way, but I’ve never had anyone who was important to me act in a negative or intentionally hurtful way.
My experience, however, is the exception. It’s (unfortunately) not the rule. But I’d like to work toward a world where my experience – of the people important to me being supportive and enthusiastic of my transition – is the norm.
I was at my mom’s Sunday night (see the previous post on yumminess) and she said she’d been thinking about mother-daughter things for us to do together. She felt like we’d missed out, and wanted to make up for lost time. She surprised me by saying she’d been thinking about tattoos, since I hadn’t told her about my thoughts. But I guess a friend of hers (my mom’s age) and her daughter (my age) had gotten tattoos together as a bonding exercise, and it had gotten my mom thinking.
She said she’s not really excited about getting a tattoo (although we both joked that, after the amount of hair removal we’ve done, the pain of a tattoo can’t possibly compare). But she did say she had been thinking about getting another piercing on each ear, and that we could do that together (each get a second piercing) as a bonding experience.
Continue reading 'Or maybe another piercing?'»
Made with my mom last night. Mmm!
Continue reading 'Kugel!'»
Something has been bouncing around in my head. From Picture Frames, a post from Cedar’s blog Taking Up Too Much Space, written in response to my show Trans Form :
What I realized, when I heard [in Trans Form] about the photo albums, and the pictures on the walls of her [Rebecca's] parents’ house, was that these were the memorabilia of an occupation, held onto and commemorated by its collaborators (witting or unwitting). Yes they represent a historical “truth,” a “past” one does not want to “deny”–but so do guns and chains and whips and bombs, and you don’t see them in the family photographs. Well, not if you were on the receiving end, anyway.
That concept, viewing photos or keepsakes of my past as “the memorabilia of an occupation,” finally clicked with me today.
This past weekend, my dad and I were talking about my depression. I was saying that I regretted not transitioning earlier, and he was saying he was sorry for not doing something when I was younger. Seeing something, noticing my unhappiness and its cause. And he said that, with the more tangible problems my older siblings had, it was easy to see me – with good grades, friends, a voracious apatite for books, no small skill at playing piano – as the ‘normal’ child. The child who didn’t need ‘fixing.’
And I realized, as Cedar indicated, that where we find ourselves today is not simply a result of the “truth” of history. It’s a result of how that history is viewed.
Continue reading 'Escaping an angry photograph'»
I just got off the phone with my dad. Both of my parents have been calling me pretty much every day, since last Wednesday when I told them how difficult things were for me right now. I’ve been getting a bit tired of having the same conversation over and over:
Mom or dad: How’re you feeling?
Me: The same.
Dad or mom: Are you feeling any better?
Me: No, not really.
(Yes, I know they mean well and they’re asking because they love me.)
I was expecting a repeat of this and, indeed, the conversation did start that way. But then my dad mentioned how a J – a friend of my dad’s and a reporter in Chicago – had been telling my dad about Christina Kahrl. Christina is a trans sports writer in Chicago, and I met her at a Broadway Youth Center event a few months ago. Apparently, J was saying he’d be happy to set up some sort of meeting for me with Christina; my dad was calling to ask me about this and see if I might want to talk with someone who has “been there.”
It seems like a little thing, particularly in contrast to my dad’s continued difficulty of calling me Rebecca, but I was really surprised and touched by the offer.
Continue reading 'Family can surprise you'»
I’m on my second day off, and feeling overwhelmed by the time I have. I’m also trying really hard not to think about this weekend and next week, which would have been filled with tech for my high-schoolers’ show, but now I’m not doing. That still hurts a lot, even if I think it’s the right decision.
Yesterday was nice, even if taking a mental health day felt really weird and indulgent. (I’m not allowed to think it’s indulgent, but that’s a battle in and of itself.) My mom and I went to lunch, and our conversation drifted back and for from mundane things (she and some of her girl friends are having a slumber party tonight, which I find adorable) to more serious topics (how I’m doing, how my brother is doing, and so on). We then walked back from the restaurant to my apartment, window shopping and (inevitably) stopping in the shoe store to ‘look.’
As much as I like Alamo Shoes, one of the employees there always recognizes me and I can’t decide if he’s being flirty or not. I don’t know how to react to flirty, so I get a little uncomfortable. (Particularly when I’m with my mom, and he asks where I got my jeans so he can get a pair.) Maybe I’m being oversensitive – probably am – I just don’t have any socialization patterns stored up for reacting or interacting in that situation…
Continue reading 'Taking time is hard to do'»
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