What We Couldn't Share

By now, you've read of Leelah Alcorn's suicide--whether from me, another blogger, the media or some other source.

The pain she expressed in her blog--which was deleted at the request of her mother--is all too familiar.  The tragedy is, of course, that she was so young and couldn't see any light at the end of the tunnel.  But what angered me, and many other people, is the way her family, especially her mother, denied who and what she was in death as they did during her life.

As terrible and familiar as her story is, there are many other trans people who've killed themselves, not because their families and friends wouldn't accept them, but because they couldn't "come out", sometimes even to themselves.

"Calie" returned from a long absence from blogging to relate such a story about someone she knows:  "He was a good boy and had become a good man." 

So why did Calie use male pronouns in referring to her now-departed friend?  Well, the person in question never revealed her gender identity to anyone--not even to her family or to Calie--in life.  Only the note she so carefully left behind (It wasn't spattered with her blood) told of the conflict and pain he was ending with the bullet in his head.

But one thing makes this story even worse than any other I've heard before:  The young person who committed suicide was the child of a transgender parent.  A macho-guy father, to be exact.  Of course, you know why he was such a macho guy:  the same reason I trained and played sports as hard as I did for so many years, or why other would-be trans women become cops and soldiers or get involved in any number of other "manly" undertakings.

Of course, a day may come when he realizes he can't keep up the facade anymore.  Then, he will have two choices:  transition or die.  I am not exaggerating:  I had such a moment thirteen years ago.  I knew that in transitioning,  I could lose my life as I knew it and I had absolutely no idea of what could be in store for me were I to transition.  But I also knew that I would not live for very much longer if I didn't transition.  

I had that moment at age 43.  I don't know how old Calie's friend or his (I'm using the male pronoun in the same way Calie used it) father were and are.  I suspect the father is close to the age I was when I had my moment of truth.  If he is, I don't know how he's gone on for as long as he has.  I don't know how I lived as long as I did with my conflict.  When I came out to my mother, she said the same thing.

And now, again, I'm remembering Corey.  I spent what would be the last night of his life with him.  We were both in our mid-20s at the time; when he called me, I knew he was in a very bad way.  Even though we were good friends, I didn't know what I could possibly offer him that someone else could have.  But he insisted that he simply had to talk to me.

You might say that night is the one thing for which I haven't forgiven myself, and probably never will.  Of course, at that time, I wasn't "out" to anybody, including myself.  But he wasn't waiting for me to come out:  He just knew.

From what Callie says, her friend never knew that his father is trans.  Corey knew I am, just as he was.  I didn't know how to acknowledge, much less do anything, about it.  Or perhaps I was just too much of a coward.  Whatever the explanation, I think of what Corey and I could have shared with each other, and how he might be alive--as a she, of course--and I might have spared myself decades of frustration and pain.

All I can do now is to hope that the father of Calie's friend will end his pain and frustration, though not in the way his child did.  And I hope Calie and all of the other people who can't, for whatever reasons, be who and what they truly are will one day be free.

Pat Robertson Compares Trans People to His Horse

A conductor--I forget who--once said that Wagner's music had "great moments and awful half-hours".

I don't agree with that assessment at all, though I will grant you that you don't play the "Ring" cycle or "The March of the Valkyries" in a dentist's office.

I mention that comment about Wagner, though, because it applies, in a way, to this segment from Pat Robertson:



In two minutes of sheer loopiness and cluelessness, the Good Reverend had a moment of lucidity:  He said he had no problem with someone getting gender reassignment surgery.  But then he compares trans people to his horse.

What's truly scary is that the host of the show on which he appears is even more clueless about trans people than he is, if such a thing is possible.

Someone's comment on the You Tube video sums up what I've always thought about Pat Robertson:  He is a gay man trapped in a gay man's body.  I wish I'd said that!

Sally Ride, R.I.P.

I have just found out that Sally Ride has died of pancreatic cancer, at the age of 61.

As you probably know, she became the first American woman in space" when she blasted off  in 1983.  She took another trip into outer space the following year.  Then she was scheduled for another voyage that was cancelled after the space shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight on 28 January 1986.

Dr. Ride, who earned undergraduate degrees in Physics and English, had just recently finished her PhD in Physics at Stanford University when she took her first trip.  While still a doctoral student, she answered an ad NASA had placed in her school's student newspaper.  As it happened, the space program finally decided to accept women the year before she took her historic journey.

Later, as a professor at the University of California-San Diego, she started Sally Ride Science, which, as she says, allowed her to pursue her "longtime passion for motivating girls and young women to pursue careers in science, math and technology.

One thing I find interesting now is that at the time of her space trips, no mention was made of her sexual orientation.  In fact, most people probably don't know about it unless they've seen the story I've linked, or others that say she is survived by Tam O'Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years.  

Of course, it makes sense that her sexuality, had it been know, wouldn't have been mentioned at the time.  She may well have done everything she could to hide it when she applied, and was training, for the program.  Also, she went into space at a time when then-President Ronald Reagan wouldn't even say the word "AIDS" in public.  In fact, according to a story that circulated around that time, The Gipper kicked his son out of the house when he dropped out of Yale to become a ballet dancer.  (He was good enough to join the Joffrey.)  

We all know about boys who become dancers--and girls who become astrophysicists.  They're just like you and me.  Well, maybe not me:  I don't have the requisite talents for becoming either of those. But at least Sally Ride found a way to nurture her talents, in a time when there was little support for girls or young women who wanted to be astronauts--or boys or young men who wanted to be ballet dancers.