(This is part 10 of my observance of Transgender Awareness Month, my answers to the 30 Day Trans-Challenge.)
10) What are some of your fears in regards to being trans?
I think I covered this one pretty well a few months back:
Last night I had a dream... out of the blue, my sweetheart told me she was leaving me, because of dream logic reasons that made sense at the time.
Then I woke up.
For a few minutes, while the dream fog was still surrounding my mind, I felt emotionally numb. I laid there in bed, staring up into the darkness for quite a while. I may have a life outside of my family, with work, cycling, and other extra-curricular hobbies, but without my sweetie and kids, it would seem so empty! I know a lot of transfolk end up losing their families and friends, and that's terrifying to me. Yet to go back to ignoring and cramming this part of myself down into a deep dark hole in the bottom of my soul — well, that's pretty awful too!
...
I'd be lying if I said last night didn't spook me a little.
By far my greatest fear about being transgender is losing the people closest to me: my dear wife, my amazing kids, my parents & sister. I hate that my motivation to action and inaction alike is fear, and I wish that wasn't the case, but it is.
But, like I said in my "bad dream" post up there, cramming all of my genderfluid feelings back down in a hole in my psyche and pretending that they're not there, that they don't exist and never have — that's not a viable long-term strategy either. I tried it for 20 years and all it got me was a lot of internalized shame and self-hate, and painful social dysfunction caused by not being able to really be myself. So another fear is that I never get a chance to really be open about my transness with the people I love, that they'll never really understand the real me, just the shell I've created. (although I suppose to some extent that's a phenomenon that's not limited to trans folks).
One more fear that I have is that the LDS church as a culture never comes around to accepting people like me. (and here I want to make it very clear I'm speaking about the culture of the Church, i.e. its membership at large, and not about the institution of the Church itself). Heck, if you read Josh Weed's recent manifesto post, you'll get some idea of where gays in the Church stand right now, and it's kind of the same, scary place: on the one hand, you have Church leaders both local and general who profess love and compassion, and on the other, you hear messages over the pulpit decrying the moral decay of the world, using people just like you as Exhibit A. I have good friends I've made through my online presence that have fallen away from the Church because it's just too painful to go and feel judged, unworthy, unloved and unwanted.
I strongly feel like the Church community needs trans people that come out of the closet in a very open and public way, who yet remain humble and willing to sustain the Brethren of the Church rather than try to bully them into acceptance (a recent incident in the news comes to mind, but I'd rather not open that particular can of worms, thankyouverymuch). Josh Weed quoted a member of the Church, Emily Stephens, who recently accidentally outed herself by posting to a public Mormons Building Bridges thread on Facebook. Her comment is so touching, I wanted to share it here:
Jann...your post's last statement is so penetrating... "...why would the church put up a website about mormons and gays and it have loving language, but the GA's talk about it with such vileness???"
I am active LDS, served a mission, attend the temple. I love to serve in YWs! I love to pay a full tithe! And, I pray every night that Heavenly Father will be merciful and let me die. I've survived being LDS and gay for 13 years, sometimes barely. I figured it out when I was 22. The messages this weekend conveyed to me exactly what you wrote. I must acknowledge that. I'd like to ignore those talks and only think about Uchtdorf's talk, but I heard their words. My heart has felt their words. They aren't going away. They aren't even new words. It is what has been said for years. I have a testimony of the gospel. So, I don't understand why my church hates me so much. Why do they insist repeatedly that I am vile? Why am I targeted at all? Because I "love" wrong?
I am terrified of people in my stake finding out I am gay. Though I am more than sure they suspect. In the past, I had a loving and compassionate bishop tell me that if people found out, my calling with the youth would be in jeopardy. Just if they found out I am "gay." I have never been kissed in my entire life. Never held hands. I've loved secretly and deeply in my heart, but was taught to do so with the greatest of shame.
It is often suggested that same-sex marriage is the root cause of the degradation of the family--how is that possible? If we are to be discussing vile at Conference, why aren't we talking about pornography, infidelity, deadbeat parents, addictions, abuse, the objectification of women, pregnancy outside of wedlock. And when we discuss those things which truly threaten the family, why aren't we doing so with compassion, asking "how can we help?" instead of the fearful, "how can I isolate my family from the world?"
Jann, I want to praise members like you who are brave enough to ask these questions. I want to thank members who are courageous enough to see the disparity and deeply feel the pain it causes and are willing to succor people like me nonetheless. It is brothers and sisters like you that successfully place my backside in that pew every Sunday to partake of the sacrament. It is you who gives me hope, especially in a place where being willing to see us with compassion is an insurmountable task. God bless you.
I don't want to obscure the fact that trans issues are not gay issues, but there's certainly a similar dynamic at work in our struggle for understanding within the LDS church. The church culture and practices are very tightly coupled to the gender binary and a very specific cultural definition of "traditional marriage" (1950's-style nuclear family), so anything that seems to deviate even slightly from this ideal is met with a certain amount of aloofness, resistance, perhaps even hostility, and this sometimes carries over into our rhetoric and messages shared from the pulpit. In that context, some weeks it's a real struggle, as Emily says, to put my "backside in the pew." (or, honestly, in my Priesthood meeting)
And here's the thing: identifying as genderqueer, I'm not even that extreme, really, on the spectrum of trans-ness! If I feel uncomfortable, I can only imagine how painful it is for some of my friends.
So... my fears about being trans? That things never get better, that I lose the people I care about, and that we as a Church keep losing people who need the love and support of the Body of Christ.
I hope it gets better. I hope my fears prove to be unfounded. And I pray that someday we transfolk will be known even as God knows us... by our hearts.
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