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
[Editor's note: This story was published previously in this blog.]
About the Author
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.
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