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The Post-Transition Road Trip That Made Me My Father’s Son
I feared seeing my estranged, conservative father, but it was a risk worth taking
I’ve spent my whole life trying to forgive my father for destroying my mother. Theirs was a spectacular ’80s divorce. I’ve been furious ever since. It was he who shattered my mom into a million pieces. It was he who pushed her off the precipice of sanity into the dark abyss of depression and hoarding. At 15, I watched her disintegrate before my very eyes as we were slowly overtaken by a growing hoard of dogs, filth, and cockroaches. She blamed him, and so did I.
I was always afraid of his extreme conservative thinking and his demand for everything and everyone to be a certain way. But mostly afraid of his need for me to be a certain way. Straight. Conservative. Christian… A woman.
Turns out, I am none of those things. I’m a bleeding-heart liberal who believes in Love, not God. Who’s more queer than “straight” and more man than the woman I never was. I’m an artist and activist. And, I’m transgender. Not exactly what my right-wing, military father would order off the menu.
As I grew up, I knew more and more that I wasn’t what my father wanted. And those were the thoughts I could bear the least. I wanted his love so badly, but I didn’t think I could have it the way I was. I couldn’t have it unless I could change on the fly. So, I became a shape-shifter.
Quick as lightning, I would reorganize my molecules into a bizarre, distorted version of myself. Not an artist and sure as shit not a “tranny” freak, which is all I knew to call…
