As she strolled confidently past our
car on that warm summer day I was struck by her beauty, inside and out. It’s
been at least twenty years since our eyes met as she graced me with her
heartwarming smile. I still think of her…I dream of having her spirit.
Twenty
years ago having the self-assurance of this transvestite was beyond my being,
but not beyond my dreams. I had some major internalized homophobia to overcome.
Let me digress a little, well maybe more than a little, to my nascent years as a
lesbian. Growing up in the fifties and
sixties, and yes, in the seventies and eighties meant dealing with many
negative thoughts about who I was as a sexual person, as a person who chose a
lifelong mate of the same gender.
As
a high school student the closest term to homosexual I ever heard was
fairy. In the deprecating way it was
used in hallway talk, “if you wear green and yellow on Thursdays everyone will
know you are a fairy,” told me this conversation was not about wee little
sprites of the enchanted forests. Out of some undisclosed shame I knew to wear orange, blue, lavender,
anything but green and yellow on Thursdays.
In
my freshman year of college I had my first sexual/emotional encounter with
another woman. She was older and much more experienced in such matters. I can
still vividly recall the warmth and excitement I felt when we secretly held
hands in her car. I also remember when I spontaneously exclaimed, “Oh my God,
it’s not fair, it’s not fair, when she demonstrated her sexuality by reaching
out and touching my breast. My fear of identifying myself as a lesbian ended
this relationship quickly but not those insistent feelings of attraction to
women.
Innocent back massages, which slowly
and delightfully crept to more erotic areas, began my sophomore year with my
second girlfriend. A self-awareness was also beginning to surface that I had never
felt this way with the nice, good looking men I was dating. Through-out the
three years of this relationship I began internalizing homophobia. All of my available
resources to help me figure out who I was were creating a sense of self-loathing.
The books and movies of the time, when they dared create a theme of homosexuality,
either ended with the woman leaving her female lover as soon as a man entered
the picture or contained characters who were so miserable they said lines I
could relate to all too easily such as, ‘I’m tired of living and scared of
dying”. At the same time many of the conversations I had with my girlfriend were
about the men we would meet and marry and the children we would have. This was the only pathway to have lasting
love and having a family we knew about, totally betraying our love for one
another.
These
feelings of being involved in an inappropriate relationship were so
overpowering and controlling that I never even discussed them with my roommates
my junior and senior years, whom I suspected at the time and later confirmed to
be true, were also gay. I even shared a small bedroom with one of these
roommates, some nights each of us sleeping in our own little twin bed with our
respective girlfriends. I knew what was happening in my bed; I didn’t know if
my roommate was likewise engaged and was too ashamed to discuss it. Maybe
there would have been some strength in numbers if these conversations had taken
place and some of my shame would have been reduced.
Psychology
101, oh I was looking forward to this class, I thought it would be really
interesting and I might learn more about myself, what it meant to love someone
of the same gender. Well, I learned and it stung, “Homosexuality is a mental
illness…”
Six
years later the field of psychology was still more of a prison than a tool to
help set me free of my unjust self-determined ideas of what it meant to be gay.
A psychiatrist I was seeing to help me overcome my feelings of unrest and
depression, which were due only in a small part to my sexuality, suggested I
use shockwave treatments to cure me of my unnatural feelings of attraction to
women. I did not need these treatments, but perhaps he did!
Gradually,
as I followed my own proclivities, they became more normal in the eyes of
society. The best decision I ever made was in the eighties. I chose to have a
child through artificial insemination. My partner of seven years was very
honest and told me she might leave me if I got pregnant. I really loved her and
didn’t want to lose her but I had dreamed of having a child since I was in
elementary school. Fortunately, by the time my oldest child turned three, my
partner- yes the same one, and I were arguing about who was going to be the
birth mother for our desired second child. Wisely, we followed the advice of a
wonderful psychologist and I was not the birth mother. By making this decision
we experienced both roles (birth mom and non-birth mom). At this time many
people thought of the birth mother as the only “real” parent…the same as a
relationship with a person of the opposite gender was the only “real”
relationship. To this day some insensitive/ignorant people still ask me which
of these young ladies is my “real” child.
I
also, in solidarity with my partner, made a decision to be open with all of our
children’s teachers about our relationship. At an unconscious level I sensed if
we were open about who we were, our children would not take on the guilt and
shame which homosexual closets spurned.
As a result we received support from a lot of good people. Neighborhood
children would sometimes ask their mothers why they didn’t get two mommies. Many people in Golden became a little more
educated and liberal due to our family and at the same time my internalized
homophobia began to dissipate. Coming out of the closet for my girls was an
integral step of becoming what I had dreamed of so many years before.
Yesterday
my oldest daughter and I enjoyed seeing “Kinky Boots”. One of my favorite lines
was, “When you change your mind, you change the world”. Slowly my mind changed and slowly my world
changed along with it. I have almost captured the essence of that beautiful
transvestite I briefly encountered twenty or so years ago…she gave me a smile
and a dream.
© 9 March 2015
I grew up in Pueblo, CO with my two brothers and parents.
Upon completion of high school I attended Colorado State University majoring in
Physical Education. My first teaching job was at a high school in Madison,
Wisconsin. After three years of teaching I moved to North Carolina to attend
graduate school at UNC-Greensboro. After obtaining my MSPE I coached
basketball, volleyball, and softball at the college level starting with Wake
Forest University and moving on to Springfield College, Brown University, and
Colorado School of Mines.
While coaching at Mines my long term partner and I had two
daughters through artificial insemination. Due to the time away from home
required by coaching I resigned from this position and got my elementary education
certification. I taught in the gifted/talented program in Jefferson County
Schools for ten years. As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my
granddaughter, playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the
storytelling group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT
organizations.
As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my granddaughter,
playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the storytelling
group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT organizations.
