I started writing this last Sunday (the International
Transgender Day of Visibility), though it's something that's been
on my mind for a while. I didn't manage to wrap it up on what
would have been a very apropriate day -- let's see whether I can
finish this before I get on a plane. Not having written it yet
has been making it that much harder to focus on getting ready for
the trip.
As a transgender person, I'm generally pretty visible. I'm
pretty much "out". You'd think that there wouldn't be any more
question of whether I'm 'visible' or not, whether I need to
come out any more. "Everybody knows", right? And one
of the advantages about being as visible as I am is that to a
large extent, I've effectively come out to someone by the time I
get close enough to say hello (unless I'm with Mom or dressed
male for a gig). "Everybody knows" means I don't have to worry
what people will think when they find out. Friends often handle
the "will these new people be freaked out by Glenn?" sounding-out
before before invitations are made. There's a whole lot of
detail like that that I don't have to face head-on, as a result
of my decisions to face the world as a whole head-on.
It doesn't all go away, but there's less of it.
( background: how I got to this point )
But lately I've felt as though my gender is systematically
being erased. All that work to learn how to be me without
worrying myself sick. All that work getting people used to me being
me. All that work carving out a Glenn-shaped space in the world.
Everything I faced all that fear for, being undone along with my
very identity. I don't think that's anybody conscious
intent, but since it's mostly a side effect of one person's
desire to deny knowing that I'm transgender and what that means
... I'm not sure how much it matters that "erasing me" isn't how
she's thinking about it consciously. I've been staying at Mom's
house, where a promise made decades ago means I'm bound to not
dress as myself here. I hesitate to say I'm "living"
here, or that this is my home, because if it were actually my
home (permanent or temporary), I would not have to wear a
disguise o costume to be here. More and more, I feel as though I
don't really live anywhere -- the house in Baltimore is falling
apart because I can't be there often enough to get
anything done about it, and I feel like a guest in Bowie. It's
not the same as being homeless in the sense that's usually meant,
but it's a constant, nagging, background stress. I have a bed, a
roof over my head, and food, but I dob't have a
place.
Going out by myself, I can change clothes in the car in order
to present as Glenn at my destination -- then change
back before returning to doesn't-feel-like-"home". But since I'm
Mom's main source of transportation these days, most times that I
leave the house I go someplace with her ... dressed "boy" (for a
what-I-can-get-away-with version of "boy"). I'm me less
and less and less often. I'm visible less often.
( a digression on why visibility is important to me
personally, not just as part of a get-folks-used-to-trans-people
thing )
Tomorrow, Mom and I are heading to Cyprus for a month. I've
been looking forward to this -- it's a place I've long wanted to
see, a chance to walk the land of half my ancestors, and a chance
to see relatives I've spent far too little time with and meet
other relatives I've never met in person before. But I don't
know who knows what, and I'm a bit out of practice at that sort
of outcoming. You see, Mom knows I'm trans -- at least
she knows the word applies to me and has some vague understanding
of what that means -- but she puts it out of her mind (that old
promise about not "dressing like that" at her house means she's
not getting a constant visual reminder; when something does
remind her, she acts like it's a shocking -- startling! --
revelation (and her exaggerated reactions predate her dementia,
so it's not just a matter of her actually forgetting)), and it's
not something she's at all comfortable mentioning aloud. And
though some of my cousins are on Facebook and I have email
addresses for some, most of the folks I'm going to see in Cyprus
are people I have no contact with. I know Mom hasn't told them
about me, and I have no idea whether any of my relatives who
do know about me have said anything to anybody else, and
I really don't want to be a complete surprise -- especially to
someone whose houseguest I'll be for a month. I hope they won't
have any problem with my being trans, of course ... but it seems
downright impolite to make it a complete surprise. And
Mom won't tell them, and I have no way to reach them, and I don't
know whether any dribs and drabs of info about me have reached
them through the grapevine. (Heck, I don't even know whether
anybody has even mentioned to our hosts that I'm a vegetarian.)
Even if folks aren't entirely certain what to expect, knowing
that there's something to be prepared for would be better than a
complete "your cousin is a freak" surprise, wouldn't it?
And no, I don't plan on arriving in Cyprus wearing a skirt,
but I don't think I could pull off pretending (convincingly) to
be a regular cis guy for all that long even if the attempt
wouldn't feel like a sort of slow-motion psychic suicide.
I used to dress more interestingly than I do now, but most of
my old clothes wore out, or I gained too much weight, or the
things they went with wore out, and I've had no money
for clothes shopping for a long time. Mom buys me new tee shirts
once in a while ... so I've spent years in tee shirts and
falling-apart skirts or pants. With the trip coming up, Mom has
sprung for more new clothes ... it took forever to find pants
that fit my shape, but we got those, and more tee shirts, and two
pairs of guy-shoes (a walking-everywhere-as-a-tourist pair and a
go-to-church pair), and now a new unfeminine bathrobe and
way-too-masculine pyjamas. A lot of stuff I can only see myself
ever wearing for this one short month, and other things that I'll
have to make do with as tops after we get back even though I've
wanted to get away from always wearing safe, boring
tees. (Well, they're better than even more masculine shirts, at
least ...) The only thing I've gotten recently that doesn't feel
like it's either for somebody who doesn't exist or a means of
erasing me a little more, is new underwear (I got to buy that
myself, thank goodness), and that doesn't exactly help the
invisibility problem, since I'm not in the habit of flashing my
panties at people. (I did spend Christmas money from a friend on
a few new tops a couple months ago, and knowing I've got those
helps some.)
For the past month or so, between bits of my wardrobe being
replaced with more guy-mode stuff and Mom's treating my gender as
a big secret, I've felt like I'm having invisibility forced upon
me. Like a closet is being constructed around me
without my consent. And it's no more comfortable than the closet
I escaped from decades ago.
It's no more healthy than the closet I starte out in,
either. Closet = death.
I'm going to be visible on some level. I
may wear trousers the whole month (*grumble*) but I'm not going
to hide every single sign, every clue. First off, I'm pretty
sure I can't; secondly, the times I have creeped
people out the most have been those times I was trying very hard
to appear completely like their notion of 'normal' because
somebody else was worried the real me would freak them out;
and third, I already resent the "have to pretend to be
someone/something I'm not" aspect of being around Mom without
having to go "deep cover" about it. Hmm ... fourth, there are
certain recent dvelopments that may or may not be noticed, but
that I can't really be sure to hide without doing medically
inadvisable things. But as things stand right now, it's going to
be the "suspicious glimpses" sort of visibility that makes
what-I-am seem shameful, not the "here I am" unashamed visibility
that demands a Glenn-space in the world. I'd love to be met with
complete acceptance, I'll be okay with a "we have to try to get
used to this" response, and I could find a way to cope with a
"we're really really uncomfortable" reaction if it came to that.
But making who-I-am a complete surprise (and acting in a way that
makes it seem like a secret that slipped out, even if my
words say I'm not trying to hide) makes the first less
likely, and makes the other two rather more awkward when they've
already offered to take me into their home. And I have no way to
say anything ahead of time (or find out what they already know),
and even after having this problem pointed out, Mom sure as hell
won't say anything that could defuse the potential landmine.
Hey, maybe it won't be a problem -- maybe they really won't
care, or maybe another relative has already said something. Or
maybe they've been reading my blog as lurkers all this time.
Maybe it'll be a brief startlemnt and no problem after that. I
don't like the fact that I don't know, and don't get to
do anything to tip the odds more in my favour. "Maybe it'll be
okay" doesn't seem like much of a plan. "I'd hoped you wouldn't
notice, or that somebody else had warned you" doesn't sound like
the most polite way to start off a stay in someone's house. And
Mom, who is usually so correct about how things ought to be done,
is so ashamed of what I am that she can't bring herself
to do anything other than try to pretend it's all not real. And
she's taken it upon herself to render secret everything that I
years ago deliberately made not-secret for my own
sanity. It's not hers to make secret[2]. It's me,
who I am, my selfhood. Mine.
And it's going to look as though I'm the one that's hiding,
rather than Mom trying to hide me. I'm not comfortable with that
aspect, either.
I really shouldn't have to hide from kin.
And it can't be healthy to feel my sense of self fading in the
face of an onlaught of denial-that-I-exist. This is costing me
too much.
I know that Mom is going to upset that I posted this, but
it's public. Share or quote as needed. The fact that I am
transgender is not a secret, and has not been a secret
for decades now.
[1] Atheists can substitute "got my answer from my
subconscious" or "made the intuitive leap" there. I'm convinced
that God answered me that way, but I cheerfully concede that
objectively my interpretation can't be distinguished from the
other two options I've presented, so feel free to interpret it
that way if it makes the pararaph sound more sensible to
you.
[2] I know there's some "how will this reflect on
her" in there. I get -- at least intellectually -- that
she's embarassed by me. (It hurts that she's embarassed
by the very fact of what I am.) She may be worried that others
will think less of her because her eldest offspring is "weird".
But the self that is being denied -- erased -- here
is still not her self. She should not accept
blame or disparagement for what I am or do. She is not
me.
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