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Heather Chapman's avatar

"I felt it lift right out of me, a starling taking flight to join the murmuration in the sky, the place where pain becomes beauty. The loneliness transformed from poison into fuel." So lovely and so relatable . . .

I have taken a perverse sort of pride in my feelings of being a lonely outsider, never fitting in with all those other girls I envied for their beauty and popularity and bodies. Every time I thought I detected a stubbornness, a sign of refusal to conform, in my daughter, even when it inconvenienced me, sometimes embarrassed me, frustrated me because she was refusing to do simple things that would make interacting with others socially so much easier, I also felt a sort of pride at her awkwardness and her disagreeableness. I thought it was a sign of a strong sense of self, a sign she wouldn't slip into "lemming hood."

As I watch her suffer from anxiety, administering Testosterone to herself to erase her former identity as a daughter, granddaughter . . . I feel like such a failure as a parent. To the extent I hoped whatever failure to nurture I might have been guilty of might have had the useful effects on my daughter that the theory of "tough love" traditionally claims, somehow this transgender mindset she clings to has snuffed out even that hope.

My thoughts have wandered in recent days to that old Johnny Cash song, "A Boy Named Sue." It's interesting to consider the lyrics of that old song, in light of this whole gender nonconforming issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qImWFWtr-BE

Or maybe all the above is bullsh*t. Post-hoc rationalizations . . . a new delusion to get me through . . . Hard to know what is real anymore . . .

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Muffin Mama's avatar

My own little tomboy was such a delight before she learned that all of these wonderful characteristics meant her body was wrong and her parents were not to be trusted. This obsession with gender is a big problem and it is so difficult to reach rank and file folks in the schools to explain this. and then when you do, you are just shining a light on your own family who will then be thrown into the abusive category. I wish I were a better writer like you Lisa. Thank you for this great essay.

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