The Politics of Disbelief

Last night I attended an LGBT networking event with nearly 1,000 people, at which Governor Baker was scheduled to speak.  Given the negative national attention focused on the passage of damaging legislation in North Carolina by a fellow governor, and the swift and admirable reaction of multiple national and international businesses who not only condemned the anti-human rights law but voted with their wallets as well, I would have hoped to hear some level of conciliatory language about Governor Baker’s position on the bill pending in Massachusetts to be part of his speech.  Standing not twenty feet away, I was surrounded by transmen and transwomen and parents and supporters, many of whom quietly held signs asking for the Governor’s support to move the stalled legislation forward.  These were real people, with real human rights challenges, looking for leadership from the highest ranking official in their state.  And they got……nothing.

This is what the Governor said – he has listened to the stories of trans people and their families, and they are ‘compelling and real’.  He’s glad they’ve reached out to him to share those stories.  They’re the ‘most important voices in understanding the issue’.  And then, he looked this group in the eye and offered this advice – keep telling those stories.  Within 30 seconds of saying the words that signalled no change to his position on the pending bills, the Governor turned his back on the now shouting and booing crowd and walked off the stage.  It spoke volumes to me.  It told me that the Governor obviously doesn’t believe the stories are real.  He doesn’t believe a person’s gender identity, and therefore, their desired gender presentation, can be different from the biological body they were born with.  I know this deep down because as a parent, coming to terms with that reality is what the last three years of my life have been about.  I know that if one of Governor Baker’s children was transgender he would have a different take on this issue.  Instead, he continues to say that while he believes no one in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts should experience discrimination, the passage of legislation protecting transgender people from discrimination in public spaces is stalled because he also continues to say of the legislation “the devil is in the details”.  Translation – transgender people aren’t real enough to fall under the umbrella of “no one should be discriminated against…”  There are some nasty little details to work out.  Disbelief.

Down in North Carolina, in a published Q & A on his state’s bill, Governor McCrory said this about why he pushed for and signed the legislation he did.  “The bill was passed after the Charlotte City Council voted to impose a regulation requiring businesses to allow a man into a women’s restroom, shower, or locker room if they choose.”  The best reaction to that expression of disbelief was a transman who tweeted a selfie of himself in a full beard with this message to the Governor – ‘thanks to your new law, I’ll now be using the rest room with your wife.’  The statement that anti-discrimination protection based on gender identity is about allowing men into women’s lockerrooms is a full-on, unapologetic statement of disbelief.

As any accepting parent of transgender children of all ages knows, their children are as real as anyone’s.  Thankfully, more and more allies are coming to terms with the idea and recognizing the reality of gender and sexual fluidity as a state of existence.  A state of human existence.  A matter, therefore, of human rights.  When faced with opposition that is based on disbelief, however, it’s a very difficult fight.  And sadly, I now feel in my heart there is a disbeliever sitting in the Governor’s chair in Massachusetts.  There would appear to be only one legal way to deal with that.  Get him out of the chair.  It’s not likely there will be recall effort if the legislation ever makes it to Baker’s desk and he vetoes it….but if that does occur, he must be removed from office by popular vote when the time comes.

The Governor spent the first 17 minutes last night trumpeting his successes so far in his 18 months in office.  At the age of 59, I certainly assume he’s looking forward to serving two full terms.  If he continues to be a disbeliever and a blocker to full civil rights for transgender people, I will do everything in my power to make sure he doesn’t get that chance.  Remember Governor Baker, competence is for bureaucrats.  From the highest office, we expect statesmanship and leadership.  And real belief in the sanctity of all human life.

North Carolina

This is why the fight for the human rights of people who dare to experience sexuality and gender identity differently, is so far from over. The Governor of the 10th most populous state in the country just said this:
“The basic expectation of privacy in the most personal of settings, a restroom or locker room, for each gender was violated by government overreach and intrusion by the mayor and city council of Charlotte,” he said. “As a result, I have signed legislation passed by a bipartisan majority to stop this breach of basic privacy and etiquette which was to go into effect April 1.”
Pat McCrory said this to justify an unprecedented “The hell you will, not in my state” rush to legislate action he led to revoke the right of large communities within his state to set their own rules around discrimination. Now in North Carolina, the ‘basic expectation of privacy’ for people who are privileged enough to meet the government standards for gender identity is protected by state law. Now in North Carolina schools, transgender students will be forced to use the restrooms and locker rooms that match the sexual marker on their government-issued identification, no matter what their gender identity and presentation are, exposing them to humiliation and risk.
The most frightening part of this is that an elected leader in government does not understand the difference between a privilege and a right. Human beings do not automatically enjoy “privacy in the most personal of settings”, even today. Such privacy is a privilege earned by economic development. Being treated as an equal under the laws of our constitutional form of government is a right. Governor McCrory exercised the power of the state, with the willing majority of his partners in crime in the North Carolina Legislature, to place a privilege for some over the rights of all.

Every American should fear that thinking.
What could possibly be the reason for such an extreme act by a sitting Governor? A bogey man. An unfounded fear that anti-discrimination laws that include transgender people would draw out from the dark places where they hide, rapists and child molesters who would now be free to put on a dress and a wig and enter a women’s locker room or rest room to perform their nefarious deeds. I’m dead serious. Here is what John Rustin, president of the North Carolina Family Policy Council, said in testimony to the Senate:
The Charlotte ordinance “means men could enter women restrooms and locker rooms — placing the privacy, safety, and dignity of women and the elderly at great risk.”  (I personally don’t get the elderly issue….)
The Family Policy Council describes their mission on their website thusly:
The North Carolina Family Policy Council is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of the family and traditional family values. We are engaged in a battle to retain the Judeo-Christian values that are the foundation of western civilization.
Think this just goes on in ‘bible belt’ states like North Carolina? In my home state of Massachusetts, this is what the website of the Massachusetts Family Institute says about their mission:
Recognizing that healthy families are indispensable to the preservation of a strong and free society, Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI) is dedicated to strengthening the family and affirming the Judeo-Christian values upon which it is based.
Yep, these are the same folks who are opposing the passing of the public accomodations non-discrimination legislation sitting in the Massachusetts statehouse.   And who opposed same-sex marriage for years.  And of course, they live in fear of the same bogeyman that lives in North Carolina (from their website):
Transgender activists are still pushing to allow men to shower and change alongside young girls in MA.
This is why the fight is so far from over. And why we need to stand up for the rights of all people, because these are groups that are obviously not only concerned with excluding gender non-conforming people from their world. Just read their words.

Sally Kohn gives us lots to think about, and apparently talk about too.

Gotta love Facebook for occasionally bringing to my attention people and things I just had not discovered yet.  Until this past week I’d never heard of Sally Kohn, but then on my timeline someone posted a link to an article she wrote for the Washington Post that was sensationalistically titled “CNN’s “Butch Lesbian” Sally Kohn publically hopes her daughter becomes gay”.  I started to read some of the comments appended to this post – wonderfully kind words like “Perfect example of child abuse”, “This bitch is just crazy”, “Homosexuality is demonic”, “There’s too many rug munchers out there…let her daughter find out what a real man can do for her”.  I am sure most of those comments were simply in response to the headline, and not reflective of someone who actually read Sally’s piece, and I thank them for reminding me why there is still so much work to do in our society to create better understanding and a safer environment for people whose sexuality and gender identity don’t conform to the majority.  But the curiosity I had, was did Sally Kohn advance the cause or set it back?  So, as a thinking person, I actually read her article.

To put anything written in a public space in context, one has to consider that Sally’s career is in news and commentary, and sometimes to advance a career in that world, one has to be provocative and give us a reason to want to read deeper, hence the headline that she herself wrote, “I’m gay and I want my kid to be gay, too”.  While there is a lot in her article that could spark interesting conversation, the headline obviously sparked immediate vitriol first.  But I’d hazard to guess that those who didn’t actually read the article missed this simple sentence about mid-way through: “No matter what, I’d want my child to be herself”.  That is all any of us need to say about our motivations in child rearing to prove those motivations are pure.  The rest of the article does provoke meaningful conversation, but let’s let those words end the hateful attacks and the unfortunate opening it gives “the other side” to claim, as many posters did, that this is proof of why homosexuals should not be allowed to have children.

Sally cogently explains some of her motivation for being an advocate for her own life, the life of a gay woman in a committed relationship with another gay woman: “If my daughter is gay, I don’t expect her to have a hard life, but I do worry about people expecting her to have a hard life…I want my daughter to know that being gay is equally desirable to being straight”.  This is an important point.  As a straight parent of a transgender child, how could I say to her – I love you the way you are, but I wish you were not transgender, because then your life would be easier?  It’s like taking the right words out of the air as soon as they’re spoken.

The other controversial aspect of Sally’s article is several comments that refer to being gay as a choice.  She correctly points out that one of the underpinnings of the ‘rationale’ for gay rights is that people are born gay – it’s not a lifestyle choice.  But that also leads to a notion that one would never choose to be gay, because…..well, because what?  It’s clearly an inferior state of existence to being straight?  Yes, her language is provocative, but in that context, I understand why she’s said it.

One almost throw-away line in the story hit me the hardest.  Sally says of her upbringing, “my parents were ridiculously supportive from day one”.  This echoes things that our Maxie has said to her parents – things like ‘you’ve been more supportive than anyone like me could have any right to expect’.  Sally, there’s nothing ‘ridiculous’ about a parent’s unconditional love, and Maxie, why wouldn’t you expect every ounce of your parents’ love and support?  The answer to both is rooted in the society gay and transgender people find themselves in – a society that conditions them to expect the worst of people.  This is, I know, what Sally is fighting against, as she finishes her story with the words, ‘I’m going to support my daughter, whatever choice she makes’.  And there’s nothing ridiculous about that.

For those who are interested, here is the link to Sally’s article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/im-gay-i-want-my-kid-to-be-gay-too/2015/02/19/eba697c2-b847-11e4-aa05-1ce812b3fdd2_story.html

Words

Having recently written of the power of words in a negative way – the use of the word tranny to demean, sexualize, and dehumanize – today it’s time to talk about the positive, transformative power of words, and how they can inspire us to change the way we live our lives.

The President of the United States delivered the state of the union address last week – a job requirement codified by law – but also an opportunity, once a year, to attempt to define the soul of a nation, to appeal to our best natures, to imagine a better society, and to offer hope for our collective futures.  It doesn’t matter if you don’t like the current president, or didn’t like the last one – the words the President uses, no matter which political party he belongs to,  in speaking both to us, and on our behalf, really matter.  And this is what the current President said earlier this week:  “As Americans, we respect human dignity….that’s why we condemn the persecution of women, or religious minorities, or people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.”

After the speech, it was pointed out that this was the first use of the word ‘transgender’ in a State of the Union address.  The linking of the T word with the L, G, and B words, in a statement about human dignity, is a very big deal indeed for those who know that the laws of our land discriminate against people not just on the basis of sexual preference, but also on the basis of gender identity.   That the President, seeking to define America for all of us, would include transgender people, further legitimizes the idea that there is still unfinished business when it comes to civil rights – and that the class of citizens that deserve those rights includes transgender citizens.

The use of the word ‘dignity’ at the start of the President’s statement echoes the use (9 times, 10 if you include ‘indignity’) in Supreme Court Justice Kennedy’s majority ruling that the federal Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional, in 2013.  I quote from that ruling: “The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State by it’s marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity”.  The word dignity is such a powerful word to own, meaning ‘the state or quality of being worthy of respect’.   In agreeing recently to rule this year on whether the right of same sex couples is protected by the 14th amendment right of all citizens to equal protection under the law, the word ‘dignity’ as well as many of the incredible ideas and words embedded in our nation’s founding documents will play a central role.

The high court’s announcement came just a few days before the nation honored the late civil rights leader, Martin Luther King.  MLK understood the power of words better than perhaps anyone in the last 100 years – I dare you to read the text of his I Have a Dream speech and not be overcome with emotion.  And in that speech, he called upon America to heed the words that our founders wrote, that have inspired this country ever since: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed – ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’.”  Indeed, we have not yet lived up to the true meaning of that creed.  Not while gay and lesbian people cannot marry in all 50 states and enjoy the full protection of the laws of both their state and their nation.  Not while transgender people can be discriminated against in the workplace, in places of public accommodation, in housing, and in medical care.

So much work yet to do, but recently, some powerful words from some powerful places give us inspiration that the fight is going our way, and the world is going to change.

Taking the “Ugly” out of “The Ugly Duckling”

As many who support various charities and organizations know, this is the year-end giving season, when our favorite causes remind us why we love them and ask us to continue sending money.  It’s no different where I volunteer, at Greater Boston PFLAG, but this time our year-end ask also turns  the question back to our supporters – please give again, and when you do, tell us, and your social network, why you support us.  Here, in as few words as I can hold myself to, is why I will give again, in this year-end season of giving.

PFLAG takes the “Ugly” out of the fairy tale “The Ugly Duckling”.  I hope you recognize it.  Perhaps like me, you always took the moral of the story  literally – a swan is not an ugly duckling, a swan is a swan.  Maybe I understood one level deeper at some point that the story was about beauty being in the eye of the beholder, or that with patience, everybody blossoms.  But after two amazing years working with PFLAG I realize the story is not about beauty at all, but about fitting in.  It’s a terribly lonely feeling, not fitting in.  It’s worse than lonely when others react with fear to the reason you don’t fit in, and make you feel isolated.  I now realize The Ugly Duckling  is about turning the fear of others and one’s own sense of isolation into a celebration of differences instead.

And that’s precisely what PFLAG does.  We tell stories, personal ones, to strangers, to put a human face to people who are different, who love people who are different, who celebrate those differences for the blessings they are.  We teach, we support, we advocate.  But most of all, we love.   We love our little ducklings and our baby swans alike.  We love ours and we love yours, and none of them are ugly.  The best organizations can be explained simply.   I’ve seen this work.   I’ve seen hearts  begin to open, I’ve seen minds begin to change.   I’ve met more courageous  people, including my own child, in the last two years than I’d met in the 51 before.   A difference is being made for those for whom being different can still be a hardship.  And difference-making gets my support.

Time to get serious about bad language

On Thursday, November 20, while driving to work listening to my preferred sports talk radio station, Dennis and Callahan on WEEI in Boston,  I heard an exchange that chilled me instantly.  The hosts, an admittedly puerile group, were enjoying a yuk-fest while discussing what they considered a newsworthy story, an intersex woman who was preparing to be interviewed about her relationship with the swimmer Michael Phelps.  They began by discussing the woman’s sexual organs,

“The twig is still there, the berries are gone?  Is that normal?”  was Gerry Callahan’s comment to Kirk Minehane’s explanation of the woman’s anatomy.  And then came the first use of the word that froze me:

“You can play guess the tranny all day…because some of them are really passable….this to me is not passable”, obviously referring to an image of the woman they were looking at.  This came from Minehane, the same host who was suspended for a week earlier this year for calling Erin Andrews a gutless bitch, but only after Fox Sports threatened to pull all advertising from the station and bar their on-air talent from appearing on the station’s shows.

Callahan  then asked,

“How would you tell if you were with her?  Think she has a low voice?” to which John Dennis piped in “Adams  apple”, at the same time that Minehane muttered “penis”.

Callahan said “Yeah, the wiener would give it away” and Minehane followed up:

“A penis is always a giveaway this could be a tranny”.

The hosts then went on to discuss what a freak Michael Phelps is, with his webbed feet, and his dope smoking, and how he probably has gills behind his ears like Kevin Costner in Waterworld.  They figured someone wacko like that would be into a relationship with this woman, or as Minehane summed up, “Always a give-away you’re a tranny guy”.

As the father of a transgender child, I know that the word tranny is fraught with dehumanizing symbolism, and in every use of it, Minehane exhibited why that is.  First, there’s the “guess the tranny” game he alludes to, which demeans transgender people who are only attempting to present to the world as the gender they identify with inside.   They are not trying to trick people into believing they are something they are not – they are human beings, not the subjects of some carnival game.   Similarly, they do not deserve a pejorative label  that seeks to define them as something freakish – a girl with a penis –a tranny!  And Minehane also used tranny as essentially a genre of sexual kinkiness, again, as if they are a toy for others’ use and enjoyment.

As a volunteer speaker for PFLAG, I know that one of the elements of our safe-schools program is to encourage straight allies to speak up when they hear homophobic slurs.  Here was an opportunity for me to practice what I preach.  As soon as I got to work, I found the station’s website and called in to attempt to get on the show.  As I waited in queue, I texted the show “As the parent of a transgender child I would like the hosts to know that their use of the word “tranny” is incredibly insensitive and hateful to transgender people and the people who love them and I’d like to hear an on-air apology.”

I got a standard thank you reply, and when I got through to the screen caller, I said I wanted to educate the hosts on their poor choice of language, to which the screener replied, “yeah, we’re not going there” and hung up.

I then found a contact email for the program manager at the station and sent an email complaint.  No response.  Later in the day, when I went back to their site looking for another contact name I could try, I was astounded to see a link to the audio of the segment under the title “Michael Phelps and his Tranny”.

The next day, still not having heard back from the station, I found the email contact for the President of Entercom, the company that owns WEEI.  This is what I sent him:

On Nov. 20, which happens to be National Transgender Day of Remembrance, which honors the memory of transgender people who were victims of violence in the past year, including those who were homicide victims, morning hosts on the Dennis and Callahan show laughed their way through a story about Michael Phelps, using the word “tranny” several times in referring to an intersex woman who had claimed to date Phelps.  The website for WEEI even contained the word “tranny” in a headline for the available audio of the segment.  As the parent of a transgender child and a board member for Greater Boston PFLAG, I can assure you that the term “tranny” is as offensive to transgender people and the people in their lives as the ‘n-word’ is to African Americans.  I tried several methods of contacting WEEI to voice my displeasure, including attempting to call the show.  I was not allowed on the air, and emails to both the show and to the program manager for the station have gone unanswered.  This is a life and death situation – transgender people are at high risk of violence in our society, and demeaning and dehumanizing them with terms like Tranny contribute to that risk.  Since many media figures have been suspended or fired for racial remarks, I would like to at least see a public apology for this language from the D&C show hosts, WEEI, or both.  I hope to hear back from you on this as I am prepared to seek other public ways to expose this cruel and insensitive language and behavior.

Within half an hour, I received this email from WEEI VP/Market manager Phil Zachary:

Mark:

I’m in receipt of your e-mail and have pulled the offensive term from WEEI’s Web site.  I don’t think any of us had an understanding of the sensitivity of the matter, and I personally apologize to you and your family.”

Phil Zachary is the man who at first refused to suspend Kirk Minehane for his “bitch” comments about Erin Andrews, and when Minehane returned to work after he was ultimately suspended for a week, he welcomed him back with a website headline hailing “Minehane’s triumphant return”.

Here is how I responded to Mr. Zachary:

Phil,

Thank you for your response.  As your reply indicates, there is a teaching moment opportunity here.   While removing the offending word (actually, I checked the link, and what you did was change “tranny” to “transgender girlfriend”) is a positive step, what was most offensive was the demeaning attitudes of your on-air talent.  I am a regular listener of the show, and as an experienced marketer I understand that the target audience drives show content and “brand”, which I would describe as “boys locker-room for those who remember the good old days of politically incorrect boys locker rooms”.  So the opportunity I’m looking for is for the station to step up and acknowledge publically what was said, and to acknowledge that what was said and how it was said does not reflect the standards a diverse community expects from a public broadcaster, and to apologize.  While I appreciate the personal apology, there is more at stake here.  The organization I work with goes to 150 schools a year in the Boston area, sharing personal  stories as a way to break down barriers and create safe environments for gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersex, and transgender people.  One of the main messages is to stand up to those who use offensive language (like “that’s so gay”), and begin to make those kinds of comments unacceptable.  That is what I am doing here, and why I don’t believe it’s enough just to apologize to me.  I look forward to hearing back how you plan to do this.

And here is Phil Zachary’s response:

Mark:

As a regular listener to Dennis & Callahan you already know I can’t mandate their contrition.  It would only serve to make matters worse or even backfire (Think: Erin Andrews).  I’ve extended my apology to you and will mention the matter to them when the time is right.  That will be our teachable moment.

Thank you for understanding.

Phil Zachary

Well, I’m sorry Mr. Zachary, but it’s you who doesn’t understand.   How would you feel if someone you loved had a marker for suicide or was at high risk of homelessness and violence?  Would you try to help them?  Would you try to find the reasons for the pain in their life?  Being transgender is not something anyone would choose to be on a whim, but people are transgender nonetheless.  Key word being people.  They are someone’s children.  They are my child.

I’m as big a believer in freedom of speech and thought as any American, but there is precedent in the  use of certain language that is deemed so incendiary and offensive by enough of society that there is a heavy price to pay for using it in a public forum.  I’m looking to set that precedent for language that demeans and diminishes the very existence of people who already are at risk in a legal system that does not protect their rights.  No, Mr. Zachary, I will not be granting my understanding and I will not be going away.

How I tell the story of Maxie today

It’s been awhile since I’ve written and so much continues to evolve in this journey as parent to Maxie, that as a catch up I thought I would share the way I’ve come to tell my story as a volunteer for PFLAG. As a reminder, PFLAG’s mission is to open hearts and minds by sharing personal stories at schools, churches, and corporations, with the goal of creating safe and welcoming environments for LGBTQ people.  I was recently a part of a National Coming Out Day celebration at the corporate headquarters of Staples, where I’m a member of the senior leadership team.  This is the story I told – more or less – as I don’t use a script, but rather speak from the heart.

Before I tell you about Maxie, who is the reason I was asked to speak today, let me first give you some context as to how I’ve come to think about parenting. While there are so many things we want to teach our children over the course of their lives, I’ve boiled it down to three buckets, which we address in more or less chronological order, according to our childrens’ ability to comprehend the messages.  The first is how to be safe – ‘don’t touch that, it’s hot!’, ‘get down from there before you fall and break your neck!’  And since parenting is not one step at a time, but more of a continuum, the be safe messages evolve to things like ‘don’t drink and drive’, and ‘be aware of your surroundings after midnight’, as your children grow up.  The second bucket is how to behave – ‘say please and thank you’, ‘be kind to others so they’ll be kind to you’.  And finally, and most difficult, we try to teach our children how to be happy – admittedly a much more abstract lesson, so one that comes as they begin to grow into adults.  On that last one, my thoughts for my kids have been these – be true to yourself, learn to love yourself, find something you’re passionate about and figure out how to make it your life’s work, so you never feel like you’ve worked a day in your life, and finally, find someone to love who loves you back, someone to grow old with, to take care of you as you take care of them.  Most of that I actually took from a song by Lynyrd Skynyrd called Simple Man – go ahead and Google the lyrics.

So with that as background, let me tell you about Maxie. Here’s where I’ll explain pronouns – Maxie prefers she and her, so I will use those, but when she was born, we named her Jeffrey.  Why?  Well, when she exited the womb she had what I unmistakably recognized as male body parts, having had a male child previously, and of course, being pretty familiar with those parts before then as well.  And down in the hotel gift shop there were only two balloon choices, “It’s a boy!” and “It’s a girl!” – there was no “It’s a baby – more to come!”  But with Maxie, there was more to come.

Maxie was an unusually creative child right from the get go. When at age three she tied a t-shirt around her head and let the tail fall down her back, and paired that with a long tee shirt belted at the waist with no pants, and informed us she was our daughter Allie, and was a girl, not a boy named Jeff, we laughed it off as just another exhibition of her wild imagination.  We had never met a transgender person and certainly didn’t expect a three year old to be able to discern they were in the wrong body, but what I’ve learned subsequently suggests that most transgender people do recognize that at a very early age.  I’ve met parents with children who were adamant about this at five years old, and they acted on it – the things they had to go through with schools and the medical profession to help their children is a story for another time.  Maxie probably persisted with this assertion with us for about a year, off and on, and in hindsight, we obviously missed something, but she did move on from it and into a rush of other creative outlets.  At five she started piano lessons and by six was composing her own music.  She wrote a long Harry Potter-like fantasy story that was a few years in the making, acted in semi-professional musical  theater by age 10, and as she progressed through school, performed in plays, sang in choirs, becoming an all-state tenor, led her acapella group and her improv group in high school, and in her junior and senior years, was in a song and dance performance group that actually entertained on a Royal Carribean cruise.  I went to every performance I could, and just absolutely beamed with pride.  She always looked so happy on stage, her face would just light up, like she was born to be there.

But there was a darker side to Maxie through all these years. There were times at home she’d just withdraw into her own world.  Around five or six years old she began doing something we called ‘fiddling’.  She’d sit on the floor with a bunch of markers and just play with them, for as long as an hour at a time, and she did this right up through the end of high school.  She’d always tell us it helped her think.  I was concerned enough to consider whether she might have Asperger’s, and again, in hindsight, it was probably a manifestation of someone struggling with who they really were inside.

Despite my love for Maxie’s talents, and my effort to make every performance, just as I made every effort to get to every one of my older son’s baseball or soccer games, we did not develop the same close relationship I had with Dan, who was like a mini-me.  Dan and I shared a love of the same sports, particularly baseball, and as he got toward the end of high school, he began to take an interest in what I do for work.  He went to the same school I did to study the same things, and in fact, works here at Staples and is in the back of the room.  We play golf together every weekend, and he’s truly one of my best friends.  But by the time Maxie went through puberty, our relationship was more remote.  I considered that kind of normal for kids coming through adolescence – I was like that as a teenager – I didn’t think my parents really wanted to know that the “real me” used the f-word, or what I did with my friends on the weekends – so the fact that Maxie’s conversations with me tended to have a lot of one word answers didn’t really surprise me nor upset me terribly.

Maxie blossomed into this really gorgeous kid, and the girls noticed, and she had a steady girlfriend for most of her sophomore year, and a different one her junior year, which ended when the girl went off to college. After that, her senior year in high school, there were no more girlfriends.  In February of her senior year, the family found ourselves together on a Saturday night at about ten o’clock.  Maxie came home from some rehearsal and as the four of us sat around talking, I said something along the lines of “so Jef, you’ve been pretty quiet on the girlfriend front this year”, to which she said “that’s ‘cuz I’m gay”.  I said ‘are you yanking my chain or trying to tell me something?’ and before she could answer my wife and son both said “Yay, finally!”, and I said “Whaaat?”

As it turned out, Maxie had come out to her brother as gay the previous November, and to her mother shortly after, but I guess there was something about telling a heterosexual dad who she didn’t have the closest of relationships with that was harder. Despite the girlfriends, I had always thought Maxie might one day tell us she was gay, so this was not a complete shock, and I was prepared with my response, which was that I loved her, and nothing had changed as far as my hopes for her – that she find someone to love and spend the rest of her life with, and that that person would be welcomed into our family.

But privately, some things had changed in that moment – think back to my parenting framework – be safe – and a new set of worries about how to coach that came into my head. And be happy – in a world where being gay is harder than being hetero, here were some new challenges.

Maxie was far from done coming out, however. Early in her freshman year of college she asked to Skype with her mom and me, to explain to us why we’d begin to see her wearing more feminine clothing, painting her nails, wearing eye make-up.  She was gender queer, she told us – which I will explain to you.  Someone who is gender queer rejects the notion that gender is binary – either male or female, with no shading or variation in between.  A gender queer person feels their gender is fluid, and exists along a continuum between male and female.   My first reaction, given Maxie’s penchant for creativity, was ‘well, I guess you couldn’t even do gay normal’.  And then I headed to the internet to research gender queer.

One of the first sites I found was a Tumblr page where hundreds of gender queer youth had posted their pictures and personal stories.   I started to read, and what I read was heart-breaking.  Story after story of kids rejected by their parents, abused by romantic partners, harassed and bullied at school and in the streets.  And story number 22 was Maxie.  Hers was not about rejection, just an explanation of who she was – but it was clear – and again, think about the things I want to help my children with – happiness , safety – Maxie and all these children need help and support, and it’s why I volunteer for PFLAG and why I tell this story.  The statistics for transgender people are horrific – the rates of homelessness and the victimization by violence  are astronomical compared to the rest of society – and 41% of transgender people report attempting suicide.  I began to really be concerned I could lose my child.

Soon Maxie asked us to stop calling her Jef, and use Max instead, which was a more gender-neutral name, which then became Maxie as she began to feel more comfortable on the feminine side of the gender continuum. Catching you up to today, Maxie is about 8 months into hormone replacement therapy, she has an incredible mane of wildly curly strawberry blonde hair she gets from her mom, and she’s begun to develop a little bit on top.  But ever the non-conformist, she also sports a wispy beard at times, and has the courage to be who she is – still gender queer – not definable by anyone but herself.  I’m sure the journey will continue.

Let me bring you back to parenting. There are so many wonderful moments and memories along the way when you have babies and raise them to adults.  Bouncing a two year old on your knee while they giggle and laugh without a care in the world – no sense of what ISIS is or Ebola – just living in the moment of joy as mom or dad juggles them.  Those moments are good for about a year or two.  Some people treasure that first trip to Disney World – we took the kids when they were 5 and 8 – and yes, there were some magic moments, but there was also projectile vomiting, crowd-anxiety, and a few other less than wonderful moments involved.  And that was just a week in time, one my wife and I will surely remember, but the kids much less so.  For me, the real and lasting joy of parenting is the end game – when you can welcome a newly-formed adult into your circle of closest friends, when your children are not afraid to show you their full personalities, when you can love them all over again for who they are, not just because they’re your kids.  Being your authentic self is so important, in friendships and in the workplace, where you can only get the most out of your talents if you truly feel comfortable being who you are in all situations.  And for me and Maxie, these last few years, through all the coming outs,  our relationship has beome so much stronger, because she’s being true to herself and I love her for who she is.  And how many of us don’t have room in our lives for another true friend?  That’s my story of Maxie.

like riding a bike

It’s a scene right out of Norman Rockwell – a parent and a child, a bicycle with two wheels, the parent’s hand on the back of the seat, with just enough of a grasp to keep it steady, as the child struggles to find a balancing point, a way to power that bike right out of their parent’s hand and keep it upright on their own. The parent’s face is a mixture of concern and encouragement, the child’s of fear and determination, the two of them like magnets turned around, no longer adhering, pulling apart, but still connected by a shared energy. That’s the captured image, and then the live action resumes, the bike pulls away from the parent’s fingertips, and the child, pedaling furiously, plows ahead into a future that will never be the same. I lived those moments twice, in the exact same place on the quiet street we lived on when the kids were small. My oldest boy took longer, always the cautious one, and my youngest, Maxie, the one who always seemed more naturally aware of how her body moved through space, who could work a swing when she was three, was quicker. But of course they both learned to ride those two-wheelers, and learned to trust – both their father, that he wouldn’t let them fall and get hurt, and eventually themselves – that they could take flight alone and be okay. It’s a great metaphor for the whole experience of parenting – the coaching, the helping, the gradually letting go – while still standing there, hoping to be the safety net as well.
Maxie is nearly 21 now, and embarking on a journey so few will ever take, a journey to find a gender and a body she feels comfortable in. She did not need nor ask her parents’ permission to take this trip, and there is nothing in our own experience to help her with it. She picked a therapist to help her with the mental part of the journey, and a physician to put together the mix of hormone treatments that will enable it. Her progress, both physically and mentally, is something we’ll be able to only partially discern, her business alone. There is no bicycle seat to hold until she gets it right – not even for a millisecond. Personally, I’m astonished at her courage, prouder by bounds than I was standing in the street those many years ago, watching the bike wobble and weave as it moved away from me. And just like that first solo ride, I also know there is no going backward, no putting the genie back in the bottle. Maxie will keep moving forward, into her own future, just as she did then.
What that future holds for her, neither of us knows. When the bike pulled away I could imagine that in the next 10 seconds there could be a skinned knee, some tears, and some discussion about whether to try again right then and there or come back and try again tomorrow. With the journey into gender transformation there is no use in trying to imagine what will come next. What will be will be, and all I can do as a parent is be there if she needs me, when she needs me, how she needs me. I think about what came before the bike-riding – the training wheels that in hindsight were not there to protect the child from falling, but rather, to free the parent from worry. Those were the last training wheels we ever figured out how to apply. Now we’re both balancing on our own, doing the best we can. Hoping our best is good enough.

Terrorism on the highway

The Facebook post was chilling,  Our youngest was making a long drive back to college on her own, and we were away on a business trip.  Around the time she should have been back at school, I idly checked Facebook on my phone, where I read the following post from Maxie:

Had a pretty pleasant ride back to Ithaca, save for the part where two guys decided it was really important for them to know whether I was a man or a woman, driving alongside me on the highway for 30 minutes, holding signs up escalating from “Are you a male?” to “Honk for penis” to “Answer me, bitch!”, blaring their horn at me when I ignored them, tailgating me, pulling ahead of me and slamming on the brakes, even reaching out of their window to try and knock on the side of my car, almost pushing me off the road, before they finally reached their exit and got off the highway. Actually, my ride back to Ithaca wasn’t pleasant at all, it was the most terrifying time of my life and it’s a miracle I made it here at all.

 

Words, literally, are insufficient to describe how we felt reading those words.  Bullying is certainly insufficient – described in the dictionary as “unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance”These were not school-aged children, these were adults in control of a deadly weapon called an automobile.

Hate Crime doesn’t cut it either: “a crime motivated by racial, sexual, or other prejudice, typically one involving violence.”  First of all, it’s unclear a crime was committed, since Maxie was not run off the road.  I suppose if a cop had seen what was going on the assholes would have been cited for reckless driving.  But it’s also not clear they were motivated by prejudice against Maxie – they could not identify her as a queer or transgendered person – in fact that appears to be at the heart of what they were trying to find out.

Which brings me back to Maxie’s own words: “it was the most terrifying time of my life”.  Unfortunately, our definitions of terrorism are far too rooted in politics:  “The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property in order to coerce or intimidate a government or the civilian population in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

In this case, I would submit that Maxie is a civilian population of one.  One person who has no responsibility to define for other people what parts of her body lie hidden, to explain to anyone what her gender is, to reveal her sexual preferences.  Of course, no human being owes that information to another, unless they want to volunteer it.  It cannot be coerced or intimidated out of them.  That should be a crime, and that crime’s word should be terrorism. 

In the common vernacular, we often describe the possibility of being victimized by terrorists as akin to being struck by lightning.  Only 3,000 people died in 9/11, only 150 or so in Oklahoma City, and so on.  We do that so that terrorists don’t “win”, by getting us to change our way of life.  But if you happen to physically look somewhat ambiguous, and people have this driving need to satisfy their curiosity about your gender, you are somehow more likely to be a victim of terrorist behavior – intimidation, coercion, violence. 

A knee jerk reaction as a protective parent is to want to find these morons and take a baseball bat to their knees, perhaps as prelude to stomping on their genitals, to, you know, see if they’re men or women.  But that’s not possible.  We can only reinforce what we always do – that we love Maxie for who she is,  And then try to educate others on basic human rights.  And pray that gender-terrorist acts are as rare as political ones.

Altered the template a bit for the letter-writing campaign…

Dear Senator Clark, Representative O’Flaherty, and members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary,

My name is Mark Mettler and I live at 7 Appleseed Dr in Westborough, MA.  Also living in my house is a voter named Maxie.  Maxie’s a junior in college, a theater major who also sings, composes, writes, directs, and occasionally turns out a painting or a new piece of fashion apparel.  Very talented young person, good student, loving, kind.  Also a tremendous social conscience and an informed voter.  I can’t say I always agree with Maxie on every issue of political import, but the debates are healthy, and as someone once said, if you’re not a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart, and if you’re still one when you’re old, you have no head.

So I hope from just these few words that you have a picture in your head of Maxie, of a person just like you, with talents and dreams and shortcomings, except that you may be having trouble because I didn’t use any pronouns in describing Maxie to you.  You also may have noticed some short punchy sentences that really aren’t good grammar, even if Hemingway did use them occasionally. Mine were necessitated by that lack of pronouns, because there are no pronouns in the English language to describe Maxie, who is fluid in gender.  And there are also no laws in Massachusetts to protect Maxie from being discriminated against in public places.

You may take for granted that you’re welcome in hotels, restaurants, stores, theaters, and a hospital if you need one, but Maxie can’t be that presumptive.  On a whim, an assumption, a whisper, Maxie can be asked to leave any of these places based solely on gender identity.  That’s discrimination, plain and simple.  That’s wrong in our state, that’s wrong in our country, that’s wrong in our world.  That’s wrong for Maxie and Maxie is my child.  How can I abide this?

I am writing to urge you to support An Act Relative to Equal Access in Hospitals, Public Transportation, Nursing Homes, Supermarkets, Retail Establishments, and all other places open to the public, introduced in the House by Representatives Carl Sciortino and Byron Rushing and in the Senate by Senators Ben Downing and Sonia Chang-Diaz.

I honestly had never heard of these people until this week, but I thank them for thinking of Maxie and people like Maxie, who deserve the full respect of our laws, just as any other law-abiding citizen does.  Law-abiding citizen.  Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?  It’s the only label any one owes society, and in return for living up to it, one gets the full protection of that law.  That sounds about right as well.  Please do the right thing by Maxie and vote for this bill.

Respectfully,
Mark Mettler