Rebirth
A mother reflects as her child turns 21
Differences.
Countless children’s shows teach kids that it is our differences that bring us strength. That even if people ridicule us for these digressions from “the norm” (whatever that means) now, someday we and the people around us will see these differences as the assets they are. All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call Rudolph names, but now that his eight sleigh-mates see the value inherent to his illuminated nose, he’s allowed to join in the reindeer games.
But certain differences, it soon becomes evident, will always be impactful. With these attributes, you will never quite fit in, never quite feel you belong.
So it was for me as I grew up left-handed. It started with things like “Kids, the easy way to remember right and left is you write with your right hand—oh, not you, Kelly, it’s the opposite for you.” When we started learning musical instruments, none of them really worked for me—the piano seemed ideal, until both I and my teacher realized my left-hand dominance made learning melodies too daunting. Although left-handed instruments exist, they usually don’t in elementary settings; maybe there’ll be a lefty guitar, but more likely than not, as a “sinister” student, you’ll have to pick whatever instrument your right hand isn’t completely inept at using. Since we lived in an apartment, drums were out of the question, so I chose the flute, but abandoned it after a couple of years.
Granted, I didn’t have it as bad as my parents did. Raised Catholic on opposite coasts, both my mother and father were “disciplined” out of writing with their left hands thanks to ruler-wielding nuns. That my Montessori school stocked left-handed safety scissors for students was a main perk Mom relayed to me as she informed me that I would attend that school for my elementary education.
Despite my ability to read far beyond my grade level, writing remained a struggle. The penmanship samples provided to me and my classmates all depicted a distinct rightward slant; not realizing that the angle of the letters pertained to handedness as opposed to a necessary component of proper penmanship, I adopted the lefty trademark tilted handwriting posture that ensured the entire side of my left pinky would forever be covered in a sheen of graphite.
Thus, when my teacher informed my mother that we would transition from pencil to pen in fifth grade, Mom decided to enroll me in a summer calligraphy class at the community college. A graphite-covered pinky, after all, didn’t affect the legibility of my pencil handwriting; this habit when paired with an ink pen would render all my chirography a blur.
The calligraphy class was geared toward youth; the ages in attendance ranged from 9-10 (me and my best friend) to 16-17. There were around 20 of us, and on the first day the instructor encouraged us to introduce ourselves to our classmates.
One student caught my attention. This student was a bit older than me—13—and wore hair and clothing in styles I found inscrutable. Their name, Alex, did not offer further enlightenment. I recall feeling a distinct discomfort.
While I still to this day have an unfortunate knack for speaking before I think through how my words might be hurtful, I had almost no filter then. “Alex, what are you?” I asked.
As I replay these events in my mind, I realize this was not the first time Alex had fielded such a question. “I’m a calligraphy student.” Alex’s eyes had a mischievous glint as they responded.
My brow furrowed. Clearly, I thought, Alex knew what I meant. Why wouldn’t they answer? It should be easy. “Well yeah,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “But most of us here are girls. There’s a couple of boys. What are you?”
Alex beamed. “A teenager! I just turned 13 last week!”
I tried another tactic. “What’s Alex short for? I can’t tell if it’s a boy’s name or a girl’s name.”
Alex’s head tilted. “My name’s just Alex. Kelly is a girl’s name or a boy’s name. What are you?”
Now, I was irritated. “I am a girl, obviously. Now, are you female or male?”
“What does it matter?” Alex asked. “We’re in a calligraphy class. Anyone can write calligraphy as long as they have hands.”
I dropped my interrogation at that point, and chose to keep my distance from Alex for the remainder of the course. If someone couldn’t even say whether they were a boy or a girl, my thinking went, what else would they be weird about?
That summer in the late 1980s, I learned how to write calligraphy left-handed without smearing ink all over my hand or the page. But learning that Alex wasn’t an anomaly—that trans people have lived among us all along—wouldn’t come to me for decades.
A few years before this, when I was 6, I found myself long overdue for a haircut. Complications from my father’s glioblastoma had taken him from us the year before, and between work, caring for me, and dealing with the laundry list of my father’s end-of-life matters, Mom was spread thin.
Our roommate Bert, my mom’s business partner in insurance sales, decided to take my haircut off Mom’s to-do list. Unfortunately, the stereotype about gay men being excellent hairstylists is just that—a stereotype that does not reflect reality. Although Mom’s regular stylist was a follicular genius, our roommate was in insurance sales instead of haircare for good reason.
Perhaps this erroneous truism gave Bert a false sense of his own abilities. Maybe he simply thought hair was easy to cut. Whatever the case, by the time he finished “evening up” everything, my bangs barely reached the middle of my forehead, and the rest of my hair was shorter than it had been since I was an infant, in a severe bob that still wasn’t completely even.
My return to school after this butchering of my hair was dreadful. One classmate called me a boy; seeing how this hurt me, the others joined in. It was the first time my peers would police my gender expression, but when puberty set in and hairs started to appear on my upper lip and chin, the bullying that ensued would cause me to experience what I’d realize, decades later, was gender dysphoria. Although I was a girl and my budding curves reflected that, it seemed I could never perform femininity well enough to escape scrutiny.
Over time, these affronts to my identity as a girl and woman led me to accentuate my femininity as much as possible, with long hair, lots of jewelry, and low-cut shirts to emphasize my cleavage. They would lead me to police the gender expression of others, as I couldn’t comprehend why anyone wouldn’t want people to be able to identify their gender, or to adhere to gender norms. And, later, these early traumas would inform how I mothered my own child.
When Cat, my only child, was about to turn 5, they had a special request for their back-to-school haircut: “Mommy, I want my hair cut short.”
Their words would trigger an emotional flashback in me, to when 6-year-old me was tormented by classmates for looking like a boy.
Despite the fact that Cat and I had warred for years over combing their hair—their scalp was sensitive, so usually I could only comb it during their bath—I dissuaded them from what I saw as an error. “I get it, sweetie,” I consoled, then immediately proved to them that I did not, in fact, get it, “It’s been tough combing your hair. But let’s go for a trim, take off a few inches, okay? Going short is so drastic.”
“Okay, Mom,” Cat grumbled.
An hour or so later, when the stylist twirled Cat around in the chair to show them their new ‘do, I thought they’d enjoy what they saw. But they were unimpressed. They’d been moody all day, and I didn’t understand why. My certainty that protecting them from suffering as I did meant I had to overrule their desire for short hair; my convictions blinded me to the acuity of their distress.
I wish I could say I saw my error that afternoon in the salon. But when Cat did not pull out of their funk after a few days, I finally realized I was projecting my own trauma onto them. Lots of girls and women have short hair, after all, just as lots of boys and men have long hair. If Cat wanted short hair so badly that a trim sent them into a fit of depression, I’d take them back to the salon.
This time, I took them to Shear Madness, a delightful kid’s salon that even offered a princess-themed spa day for birthday parties. I only sprang for the haircut, along with a finger puppet theater set, but Cat was back to their usual self—a precocious ball of energy who was absolutely elated to be getting the haircut they’d wanted all along. This time, I watched as a huge smile spread on Cat’s face as each segment of their hair got lopped off and tumbled to the floor in a soft, dark mass. This time, when the stylist spun Cat’s chair, I saw something new in their visage: an inner peace, as though what they saw in the reflection more accurately depicted how they saw themselves.
In 2016, years after the movie Babe reinvigorated a desire to go vegan that started when I read Charlotte’s Web, I finally cut animal products out of my diet, as far as was possible and practicable. Several months later, I joined the admin team for the Facebook group that helped guide me as I stopped eating animals. As admins, it was our responsibility to referee when member disputes arose; our job was endless.
One argument arose when a member requested another member reword their post. The OP (original poster) was asking for advice about menstrual products (some menstrual products, such as certain brands of tampons and pads, are tested on animals, surprisingly). The OP began the post with “Question for ladies” before asking her question. The member requesting a reword was a non-binary person who menstruated and took issue with asking this only of “ladies.” They had advice to offer, but did not feel comfortable being referred to as a lady. Things quickly spiraled out of control on that thread, as such conflicts are wont to do in any group of tens of thousands of people, and we wound up removing the OP because she began verbally abusing the non-binary member.
Although I am bisexual, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where people were generally accepting of gay people, the term “non-binary” was new to me. In the aftermath of this conflict, I Googled the term. The Wikipedia entry has surely changed in the intervening years, but it offered enough information for me to understand—this member, although they had a uterus, did not identify as either woman or man. Easy enough. I already knew about Thomas Beatie, the transgender man who became famous as “the pregnant man” when he and his wife were expecting their first child in 2008; the idea of menstruation and pregnancy being an experience people who aren’t women could have was not foreign to me by this point. And this caused me to remember Alex, the calligraphy student who’d confounded me so many years ago. Although “non-binary” was not a term used in such context in the 1980s, Alex was definitely a genderqueer person.
In their recent book In Transit: Being Non-Binary in a World of Dichotomies, non-binary scholar Dianna E. Anderson explores the history of gender-expansive people from antiquity to the modern era. Although most historical figures who did not adhere to gender roles of their time are recorded as being cisgender, as Anderson notes: “just because it wasn’t visible to you doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.” Regardless, one of the earliest confirmed examples of a person who was neither man nor woman was Public Universal Friend. A preacher from the late 18th century born to Quaker parents, a near-death experience caused The Friend to eschew their identity as a woman and evangelize in frock that combined elements of contemporary masculine and feminine styles. When asked about their gender, P.U.F., as companions sometimes called The Friend, their response was “I am that I am.” (In Transit, p. 23).
Reading this passage, I thought back to the day I named Cat. I’d thought they’d quickened within me because they liked the selected name; perhaps it was instead in reaction to the definitions (“pure friend”)?
Anderson suggests that exploring our gender identity is something each of us should do. Indeed, when Cat came out and I discovered echoes of my experiences in theirs, I delved into my own sense of self. Personally, I found that I am cisgender—my external appearance as a woman matches my internal identity as well. Granted, I do not feel great attachment to that identity; rather, it’s simply what fits. I am who I am, as it were. The dysphoria of my youth pertained to my inability to perform femininity well enough to escape scrutiny; it did not indicate a wish to be recognized as a different gender. Those of us who have struggled with the dissonance between our appearances and that of the women who graced TV screens and magazine covers know this feeling well.
But it is these personal experiences being criticized for my perceived flaws that fuels my defense of transgender people. After all, when discrimination against trans people is accepted, cisgender people who do not adhere to societal gender norms also face such abuse. It even leads to weaponizing such claims against others for the sake of pettiness. This week, Deseret News reported on a sports competition in Utah that saw the first-place winner, a girl, beat her second- and third-place competitors by a sizable margin. As a result, the parents of these competitors filed a complaint with the state’s high school activities association, questioning the gender of the winner. The winner was, in fact, a cisgender girl; she simply happened to put in a much better athletic performance than the other girls.
Several months after the argument in the vegan group, Cat (who, for what it’s worth, was not in said group and did not know about that interaction) sat down with me and their dad for a conversation. My husband and I had no idea what they wished to discuss. They’d already come out to us as bi years before—they had a girlfriend as a preteen and a boyfriend in high school. But they’d been struggling for some time. Their aptitude on the clarinet had led them to excel in their high school’s marching band, until their chest continued to grow to the point where it, combined with the stifling heat of the full uniform they had to wear, caused several episodes of heatstroke. They were depressed, and had struggled with self-harm. We accepted them, and loved them, but nevertheless the once effervescent child was giving way to a morose teenager.
When they said “I’ve thought about this for a long time, a few years now, and I’m not a girl. I’m non-binary, and I’d like you to use they/them pronouns for me, please” it came as a relief. Suddenly, the trajectory of their life since puberty made sense. At first, they were okay with the changes; they knew they were coming. But Cat had a genetic predisposition for large breasts. Even at my slimmest, button-down shirts do not fit me properly. If it accommodates my bosom, it billows around the waist; if it fits around my waist, the fabric puckers around the buttons at my bust. As for Cat, although their chest would continue to grow for a couple more years, by this point we already had to special-order their bras. Menstruation was an uncomfortable process to begin with; but as a non-binary person, these monthly cycles served as a cruel reminder that everyone saw them as a girl.
Cat found themselves saddled with a debilitatingly large chest, a painful monthly cycle, and marching band—the one physical activity they still truly enjoyed—was something they had to quit because their physiology simply wouldn’t allow it without them passing out and/or vomiting from heatstroke. That would be depressing even if they were cisgender (i.e., the gender identity in their mind matched the appearance of their anatomy).
Most of the friends I know who have gender-expansive offspring, at least publicly, express wholehearted support. But when Cher’s son Chaz came out as a trans man, she expressed a sense of grieving the daughter Cher thought she had, to then embrace her son.
It is not for me to say what emotions are appropriate. People feel what they feel. But when Cat came out to me, there was no real grieving process to speak of. It was an adjustment, yes, and I slipped on their pronouns from time to time. When they came out as non-binary, all I wanted to know was whether they would want surgery and if so, what kinds. Given the size of their chest, I presumed they would at least want a reduction. But I didn’t know what else they might want.
Cat confirmed that they did want what’s called top surgery—a form of mastectomy where essentially all of the breast tissue is removed. They also wanted a hysterectomy, but understood that those can be hard to obtain.
My first reaction was to encourage them to consider a reduction instead (having had a hysterectomy of my own, I supported them in that regard). “You’re non-binary, after all,” I explained. “If you go for a reduction, you have the option of appearing more femme, or you can wear a binder to appear more masculine.” Regardless, as Cat was 16, we both knew any surgical intervention would have to take place years down the road. They didn’t much care for the idea of testosterone hormone therapy; a birth-control pill to make their cycle more manageable was sufficient for the time being.
Contrary to popular belief, it is a lengthy process to attain gender-affirming medical care. Although puberty blockers and hormone therapy can be prescribed to trans youth, surgical interventions are limited to adults with only rare exceptions. Additionally, the process requires sign-off from a licensed therapist; for adults seeking surgery, the requirement is letters from a therapist and two physicians.
Even before dozens of states started restricting access to affirming care for transgender patients, trans people in the U.S. could expect to wait years to get the surgeries they sought. It often entails several false starts, with providers who may not even be aware of genders outside the binary. In short, there is no epidemic of people saying they’re trans one day, then getting hormones or surgery the next. And that’s certainly not happening in children.
When, after a couple of years without, we got the family back on health insurance, this time qualifying for a plan with zero deductible and a truly reasonable out-of-pocket annual maximum, we knew it was time to help Cat, then 19, get the surgeries they so desperately needed. I helped them find an affirming primary care provider, who referred them to the transgender surgery center in our area. They started seeing a therapist, who as it turns out is also non-binary. When the transgender surgery center contacted them to schedule consultation appointments, they asked Cat if they also wanted a hysterectomy as part of their transition. As Cat had long wanted a hysterectomy and knew they did not want to bear children, they responded affirmatively; we’d presumed they’d face greater gatekeeping over a hysterectomy so their primary focus was on securing top surgery. Learning they could get both procedures they needed at one time offered one of the greatest boosts in their mental health than anything had in years.
All in all, Cat’s journey from first consultation with the primary care provider to what we’ve affectionately termed their gender-obscuring surgeries took just over a year. This was lightning speed compared to how long the process took for most of the trans people we know. Even with supportive parents who helped advocate for them and get them seen by affirming providers, even though their L-cup-sized chest was legitimately physically disabling, Cat’s transition from coming out to surgery was five years in the making. The current panic over trans healthcare posits that children are being persuaded to medically transition before they understand what they are doing; if there is any solid evidence of this whatsoever, it is certainly not the norm. And anyone who would claim that I somehow convinced my child to transition simply does not know Cat. Like everyone, they have faced their share of problems in life, but they have always been headstrong yet cautious. They will think through a matter for years on their own before voicing a decision. If I’d had such powers of persuasion over them, Cat would have settled for a reduction surgery…and been miserable, just as they were when I convinced them to go for a hair trim instead of a short cut so many years ago.
As fate would have it, Cat’s surgeries took place on their 21st birthday. I wasn’t thrilled to have to pile into the car and head for the hospital hours before sunrise, but fortunately my time in the hospital that day was far less physically painful for me than it was on that same day twenty-one years prior.
My anxiety hit its peak in the last half hour of Cat’s time in the operating room. We were closing in on three hours of surgery, and no one had offered any updates. My worries led my brain to imagine all sorts of horrible scenarios, until a nurse came out to assure us that Cat was fine. Apparently, the initial plan to have both surgeons operate in tandem did not work out, so that extended the overall time by more than an hour over the original estimate.
Several minutes later, the surgeon who performed Cat’s hysterectomy arrived to provide her update: Cat had come through her portion of the surgery well, and the surgeon who performed their mastectomy was nearly done. He was amused by Cat’s comedic gag—when he entered the operating room, the plastic surgeon was greeted by a patient with googly eyes affixed to their nipples. Since Cat was already sedated by the time he entered the room, he used a marker to write the word “YES” on their chest above the bandage to signal his approval; his colleague informed us that he taped the eyes to his badge to wear for the rest of the day.
Later that afternoon, we brought Cat home. Although they were still groggy from the anesthesia, the removal of nearly seven pounds from their chest brought immediate positive changes: their posture, which had suffered since their departure from marching band, was instantly straighter. Where before surgery, they couldn’t stand for longer than a few minutes without back pain, that afternoon they stood and talked to me and their dad for nearly an hour before we reminded them to sit and rest. But before they sat, I took a photo of Cat, who was clad in a bandage to reduce post-operative swelling.
I texted this photo to them so they could see their new appearance. Upon receipt, I watched a familiar smile spread across Cat’s face; it was the same as the one they sported in that stylist’s chair at Shear Madness 15 years before.
But then the smile grew, and gave way to a torrent of happy tears.
“Twenty-one years ago today, I was born,” Cat said, as they dabbed at the corners of their eyes with a tissue. “But today, I became me.”
“Love only wins if we fight for it,” Dianna Anderson reminds us, toward the end of In Transit (pg. 157).
When you’ve spent your life thinking that there are only two genders, and that those are determined by biology at birth, the nuance involved in recognizing the reality of multiple genders can cause tremendous cognitive dissonance. Even though cultures around the world, including many native tribes in the Americas who still live today, have long recognized third (or more) genders for centuries, the hegemony of the binary persists within most of us.
But I can say that as a mother, I have received no greater reward than to see Cat in these days after surgery. The bubbly, vibrant kid we’d thought was long gone is now back. They still require a lot of rest; it hasn’t even been a week since gender-obscuring surgery. And yet, their joy is evident. They enjoy seeing their reflection when they brush their teeth, where for years it was a challenge to face their mirror image during their morning ablutions. They like being able to wear button-down shirts without their chest playing peek-a-boo through the gap between the buttons. And they’re most fond of being able to see the floor when they look down—for the past six years, that was impossible.
Twenty-one years ago, I gave birth to my only child. Now, I get to watch as they learn to enjoy life in a body that matches the self-image they’ve always had.
Letting go of the image you conjured of who your child would grow into is hard. Losing your child because you cannot accept the true identity of your child is worse. You may feel that is a worthy punishment, to cut off a child who refuses to fit your mold. But you are the one who truly misses out—trans people who receive affirming care find tremendous joy in their lives, and you don’t get to see that if you disown them.
The surgeon who performed Cat’s hysterectomy thanked us for being supportive parents. My husband and I both shook our heads. “Thank you, but we’re doing the bare minimum here. We’re just supporting our child.”
Now it was the surgeon’s turn to shake her head, and she chuckled. “Yeah, that’s what all you supportive parents say. But believe me, that kind of support is rare. Cat is lucky to have you.”
Maybe Cat is. But the joy I feel over seeing them inhabit their long-awaited, newly-androgynous physique makes me feel like the luckiest mother in the world.
That’s the kind of love I want to fight for.
~K
Author’s note: If you’re interested in Dianna Anderson’s book, I’ve added a button below. I do not receive compensation for this, I just love In Transit and hope more people buy it and learn more about gender. Please support their work! ~KSM