“Mom, our family is breaking up because I’m a
transsexual, and I can’t live as a man anymore.”
Years crowded into silence between us, years long gone
and years yet to be lived. I thought I had prepared myself to lose her. After
all, I told myself, you’ve never really had her. But, in that phase, when
truly motherless years were only a breath away, I realized that I had never
stopped clinging to the hope of her.
“I’ve heard about this,” she said at last. Her voice,
rich and low, trained for a radio career she had never had, was thick with
feeling. “I know that you have to be who you are, and, no matter what that
is, you will always be my child.”
The air above my head felt empty. The sword that had
always dangled above me, the terror of what would happen if my mother
discovered what I was, was gone.”
Anyone
who has been following my life experiences, in person, online on this blog, on
different media outlets, or just via social media,
knows that I rarely talk about my current relationship with my family (besides
one genetic post I wrote
over Hanukkah). That is not in any way because there
is nothing to talk about; there is a lot to talk. Neither is it because I don’t
care; I care more that I care to care. Rather it is because I can’t, I just
cannot bring myself to talk about it. It hurts so much, so strongly and so
deeply, yet (at least until now) I feel numb. I wanted to cry, just cry aloud like a newborn
child, but my feelings are (/were) hard as a stone. On the other hand, I would rather describe
it as deeply hidden beneath a rock. A Rock so big that the weight of it is more
than any human being should ever have to carry.
Today, as I read these above paragraphs, I managed to break
through my stone-hard heart. I cried for over an hour, and I am in tears while
I am writing these words.
Since I was a child writing was my best therapy. I always
used it to explain my inner feelings - to myself. Sharing it in public will
help me more, and hopefully others who struggle.
These are some of my thoughts
about my parents and family. Some of the reflections and heartaches I would
like to get off my chest:
This is my way
of doing it. The support I got until now from so many beautiful people in this
beautiful world has been lifesaving, and I am counting on that even more. At
the same time, please respect my families and my own privacy, and don’t ask for
details I have not shared, as I don’t plan to share too many personal details,
but rather emotional.
 |
| My father, maternal grandfather, and my great uncle, the Bobov'er Rebbe On my third birthday |
If someone would ask me how I would describe my relationship
with my parents, and even more specifically my father, prior to 2012 when I left religion, I
would have to come on with a new term. Father-son relationship wouldn’t do
justice. My father was one of my best friends; my father was probable one of the
only people on earth who understood me in some way. For example, through my
entire teenage years he was one of the only people who sincerely believed that
there is something more going on beneath my identity struggles; and he was
right. However, that this struggle might have anything to do with gender
identity did not cross his mind,[1] because to him, cross-gender
identity was a hypothetical idea discussed only in Kabbalah (Jewish Mysticism). My father was the ONLY person in the world with whom I
knew I can always be honest (not that I was, but that is a separate
conversation), no matter
what. He was the ultimate embodiment of the superficial “father figure” - but
in a close reality. We had a lot of hiccups throughout the years, as my
identity struggles all so often manifested in different ways, but we only grew
closer.
My parents have 13 kids, with eight of them marries that
makes it 21, and tens of grandkids (I lost count), yet they both (used to,
by now they only speak to twelve of them) speak with all of them every day. Growing up I
thought this is how it is in every family. My father spoke to his parents[2] every day, it just felt
‘normal’ that we do the same. Until I went to boarding school at age 15 and I
realized that this is not the norm, and in most families, kids speak with their
parents a few times a week at most. Up to a few months ago, or to be exact, up
until I came out to my father, I spoke with them every day. We disagreed on
everything in life, but we were on the phone every day.
 |
| My mother with my son on his third birthday |
My mother was kind of my doctor. She always said that
having raised thirteen kids made her a better a doctor than a medical school
ever could, and she was right 90% of the time. Whenever we (my
siblings and I) wouldn’t
feel well, she would know what it is just by looking on us. We would go to the
doctor, but when we came home, she knew what the doctor said before we had a
chance to tell her. Until two months ago, she was the first one to know when I
was not feeling in best, and she was accessible by phone 24 hours a day, six
days a week. I always knew that I can’t call her at three in the morning hoping
that if she asleep she just wouldn’t pick up, because her phone was never on
silence. She has thirteen kids, eight in-laws, tens of grandkids, and she knew
every time one of us went on a doctor’s visit. Just like my father, she was -
to me - the ultimate embodiment of the Mother figure.
Throughout my life’s transitions, the thought of losing my
relationship with my parents was always on top of my list of possible “Side defects”
to living a self-determined life. It is one of the reasons I pushed off every change
- especially to the big changes of leaving my ultra-religious community and
coming out as a woman - until the last minute. However, it gets to a point
where one realizes that “You cannot
be a family member, you cannot be a child or sibling, if you are not you.”
I always waited until I was a point where I simply wasn’t. When it got to a
point where it was my sole existence and survival versus endangering my relationship
with my parents, the option was clear. If I don’t exist, if I am not alive
physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, I have lost my family
anyway. That was the belief and underlying understanding in family relationship
that guided my actions, and is guiding them until today.
When I came out to my father as an Atheist, I was ready for the possibility that
he will reject me outright. Yet to my great excitement his response was pretty much
like the one of Joy Ladin’s mother in the abovementioed quote. His exact words
were: “No matter what happens, no matter how you are, you are still my kid[3] (okay, he
said son).” I continued
to speak withboth of my parents almost every day, I still visited on holidays
and family weddings, and so on.
That all changed on Wednesday November 11th, the
day I came out to my father.
As much as when I came out to my parents as non-observant I
was a point of knowing that I cannot pretend to be religious anymore, coming
out as a woman was when I was already at a point of no return, after two months
on HRT.
I knew that I had to come out to my parents if I don’t want them to hear it
from other people, I owed them that much. I knew it is going to hurt them
deeply, I knew that the shame in a community that is not ready in any way to
accept anything outside of its White Hetro-Normative lifestyle, put aside
gender transition in a radically segregated society – is going to be close to unbearable.
Yet at the same time I knew that I am not doing anything wrong. Wrong would be
for me to continue to be in the closet until I would die physically and/or
emotionally. As my therapist kept on telling me, and I know it is true, “they
are doing it to themselves.” I had to tell them.
I chose the most appropriate way to do that. I called my
father and told him that I want to tell him something, but I want to do it in
front of a rabbi. He came down to the house of that Rabbi, and we both spoke to
him in the most Jewish, Hasidic[4] and Kabbalistic way possible. I was
not expecting acceptance, well, I was prepared for utter rejection, but I was
secretly hoping for a similar response to until now. Think that I am sick,
think that I am crazy (for now), but talk to me.
His response was: “You should know that this means I might
not be able to talk to you ever again.” When I told him that the attempted suicide
rate for people of trans experience is high, in a society that still has problems
accepting us, and I asked if he would prefer me dead, he said “I am not going
to response” - this killed me internally. Finally, he said “I will find a
way to let you know what I decide (regarding staying in touch)” and for the first time in my life,
he left me without even a handshake. THAT WAS THE LAST TIME I HEARD FROM MY PARENTS.
Naturally it bothered me in the beginning, but when after
an hour it stopped bothering me whatsoever, it bothered me that I am not
crying. I can cry while watching Boy Meets Girl
or Transparent,
but my mind and heart were numb when it came to my parents. The fact that I
felt like I don’t care while I knew I cared, bothered me more than anything, I
knew it is unhealthy, I knew that I have to cry it out, but I couldn’t.
 |
| My parents, my son, and myself, on my son's third birthday |
Today I mourn the loss of my dear parents. I know this
whole post sounds like a vigil journal entry, which is about right. This is how
I feel. Today I celebrate in the most non-celebratory way possible a sad milestone.
A milestone of realizing, coming to terms, and starting to heal the loss of my
family. I don’t give up, I hope that they will come around in some way, but for
the first time in months I feel like I have my family back. It is a family that
is still lost, it is a family to whom I am still lost (at best), but it is a family that is openly
on my heart, it is a family that I am no longer numb to. I DO NOT REGRET MY
DECSION, EVERN IF I WOULD HAVE KNOWN CLEARLY THAT THIS IS GOING TO BE THE
RESULT. More than ever, I know and feel that I have a family that I am trying
my best to be part of.
I am writing all of this not just to cry about daddy and mommy issues that I proudly have.
I am writing to help myself make sense of all of this, and to tell the world,
and others that are struggling that “You
cannot be a family member, you cannot be a child or sibling, if you are not
you. If your family gets hurt by you living a self-determent life, know that
they are doing it to themselves. You are not doing anything bad to them.”
Writing in tears of longing and relief combined,
Abby @ The Second Transition
[1] And even when I tried telling him when I came to him
that daddy you were right, something was going on, and this is what it is, he
refused to accept it.
[2] Who also had ten kids, and by now have hundreds of
grandkids and great-grandkids.
[3] He did add an ‘explanation’ that he looks on it as if
I am sick, and if his kid gets cancer he is not going to reject them. It
bothered me the way he looked on it, and for the next four years we had a ‘don’t
ask, don’t tell relationship, but we had a relationship.
[4] For reference how much Hasidic Judaism means to my
father: He is the tenth generation of the founder of the Hasidic movement,
Rabbi Israel Ben Eliezer
- the Ball Shem Tov, in five different ways, and he always preached that to
us, non-stop.
