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10 | Out in the Mountains |January 2001

Who I Am

BY PATRICK SKATER

 

In my own existence, there
is no hesitation, no lack of
understanding that would
cause me to not know that I am
alive, as much as the trees, the
plants, or the dog that lies next
to me, her chest falling and ris-
ing as her breath moves in and
out of her warm body.

In my own existence, I am
quite simply as real as I will
ever be.

That I was born with incon-
gruence between the gender of
my brain and the gender of my
body is of absolutely no conse-
quence to the joy I feel as I
walk with the dog through the.
trees, gazing at the new green
of the plants.

That I was born in a
quandary has had nothing to do
with my happiness or lack
thereof.

That other people have
insisted on defining me has had
everything to do with my hap—
piness or lack there of.

I always knew just exactly
who I was and I was prepared
to set the course of my life in a
manner fitting. From the start,
that course was interrupted at
every turn. Every interruption
damaged more than the one
before. That I ultimately sus-
tained a level of damage that
would seem irreparable is yet
to be seen.

I was born a male child
enclosed in a female body. This
became apparent to me at a
young age. I knew who I was
then exactly as I know now. I
am quite sure I spoke of it. I
lived it. The adults called me
“tomboy.” Good enough for
me at five. In tomboy I heard
only “boy,” which meant
something very right to me.

But I was also “girl”. This
was something I learned to
endure, much like unfamiliar
and particularly loud relatives
on holidays, the dentist, teach-
ers who did not like me, and
uncomfortable clothes. A
bright child, I learned about
powerlessness, hidden danger,
and secrets. The secrets were
not all about me. Alcoholism,
sexual misconduct, cruelty, and
hypocrisy swirled around my
neighborhood among the smil-
ing faces and fresh baked pies.‘
That my secret was other made
no difference in the larger
spectrum.

I made my world inside of
myself and wore a mask like all
the other. masks. No matter
how my gut wrenched and tore

at the shape of my existence, I '

endured. Although I did not

’ succeed the way many might

have hoped, that I moved
through the days unnoticed and
grew older year after year, min-
gling at the birthday parties and

at football games, laughing and
playing and seeming fairly
ordinary, attests to some sort of
success.

I had no language for self.
Boys were boys; girls were
girls; I was not, I knew that
always, regardless of appear-
ances. Given no option to
flourish, I didn’t.

When I began to menstruate,
to grow breasts, to smell a hor-
rible odor between my legs that
I knew was not only unfamiliar
but incorrect, I chose to rage
rather than succumb. My rage
was not discussed. Eventually,
I was hospitalized and given
fancy diagnoses, one after the
other, each psychiatrist more
brilliant than the one before.
But though I clung to the con-
cept of “crazy,” gladdened for
an explanation of my inability
to know the beginnings and
endings of me, I knew I never
was, never truly fit amongst the
ones who were. Even in crazy,
I was the odd duck, and deeply
ashamed that I was a failure in
this as in all else.

College, marriage, a baby,
jobs and new jobs, and life
goes on no matter what. But in
the night, after everyone else
has long fallen asleep, I move
through a darkened house and
out the door to stand on the
lawn and look up to the sky and
think, “horribly wrong.
Something is horribly wrong
here.”

I have no one to collaborate
my truths. No brother willing
to stand up and say, “I always

,wondered, or, it all makes

sense because...” no mother or
father alive to say, “I saw some
things, I wondered. . ..”

, In truth, gender is complete-
ly assumed. People see signs of
homosexuality or of emotional
distress, hyperactivity, bril-
liance or delay, but gender is
completely assumed. The body
says boy or girl. There is no
discussion, and absolutely
everything is interpreted within
a blindness so complete it
seems a part of us as integral as
taste or sight. When I see an
apple and take a nice big bite, I

. do not question but eat absent-

mindedly as Iiponder greater
things.

That those of us not born in
an ordinary gender state are
unable to convey our situation
to others and in many cases for
many years even to ourselves
makes all the sense in the
world. It is not a matter of sud-
den change, as many suppose:
“He used to be awoman. She
decided she wanted to be a
man.” It is a song sung in the
deep dark woods. It is the gut-
wrenching sobs of a terribly
unhappy child icried alone
under the covers and forgotten
by dawn.

 
  

princess.

   
  

  
 
   
   

.bi-gendered...tomboy..

is no

W_e . hesita-
au Iwe ..lntersex...androgyne.. tion, no
mostly in — lack of
5 ° ° ‘ 6‘ s/he transperson understand-
p 1 a C e S ’ K on on us.  ‘that
alone‘ some most of a person or persons, W0Uld Cause

of us have to

tell our secrets

eventually in order to survive.
It’s the telling that sets the
world asunder. Secrets are
expected. Truth is not. _

When I lived in- silence, I
was the only one‘ who suffered.
When I began to speak, many
began to suffer as well. As a
result, my healing has always
come in bits and pieces. It is
difficult for me to understand
why there is so much resistance
in this world toward the suffer-
ing. I have spent much time. in
institutions and so my view has
become unusual. The suffering
does not scare me, and yet the
secrets cause me to tremble and
to want to run and run and
never stop. Every day, when I
leave my house and head out to
get on with life, I am acutely
aware that I am in a state most
others find frightening. That
my truth is far more frightening
to them than my silence, my
secrets, my existence as it was
aifew years ago, is astonishing
_to me. I am a man born female
and that is somehow perverse.
Misery is not. It is expected
and accepted.

What I find most interesting
is that those who know _me
now, newly, and see me in their
gender perceptions an ordinary
man, seem to enjoy me and
respect me without thought. As
I move through their lives
without undue friction, I real-
ize that it doesn’t matter as
much as I wish it did that they
see me as an ordinary man. I
know I would have a complete-
ly different reception if they
knew my truths, and somehow
that makes me almost as sad as
I _was when I lived in my own
mind, far removed from every-
one in so many ways, a secret
boy in the body of girl, a secret
boy all alone. '

Of course I am grateful for
the surgeries I have received,
the way the hormones have
changed my body into one that
feels so much better for me to
live in. Of course I am grateful
that I can live in most respects
as the male I have always been
in my brain, my heart, my soul.

But there is something much
larger at stake here in this life;
perhaps because of my condi-
tion, I have come to be acutely
aware of it. I am aware that dif-
ferences are seen as much more
powerful than they really are.
That race, class, religion, sexu-
al orientation, gender identity,
various physical and emotional
conditions, differences in gen-
eral, are somehow seen as the

and not as the truly small bit
that they are.

This puts us all in danger of
rejection, humiliation, oppres-
sion, and abuse. It causes us to
move through life under a veil
of fear rather than one of love
and trust, causes us to approach
each other with hesitation
rather than with intent to
embrace. This is huge. This is
so much bigger than I or you. It
is so much bigger than penises
or lack thereof. As long as we
define our world by our fear,
we move ever closer to our
own imminent demise as a
species.

The secrets don’t just kill
people like myself. They kill
even the greatest of us, the
most powerful. They kill us all.

In my own existence, there

me to not know
that I am alive as much as the
trees, the plants, the dog. You
cause my hesitation as I cause
yours. It is our undoing.

When will we move past
this place that stinks of death?
This is what I ponder most. The
fact that I am transsexual has
only been a door for me. I see
that now. In the opening of this
door, I have seen far more than
I might have wished to or cho-
sen to if there had been any
other way for me.

Now I wonder where your
door is.

I wonder where you exist.

And I wonder where are
“we?”

And where are “we?” V

 

Jacqueline Marino
REALTOR
Senior Associate

 Prudential

12o Kimball Ave.'Suite no
So. Burlington, VT 05403

802-846-5637 Direct Line
800-488-5609 x237 Toll Free
jackie@together.net

“Out” and Sewing
Our Community Since 1989

Selling, Buyer Representation and Relocation Specialist

 Realty Mart

. .  .a_r‘. c,'>,Id'\/,i,c_t'c>er,I,.i=_1.T’l ‘on- ,0 secluded
 r’ _rfr'o_nt acres. No visible neighbors.
Firepiaced living room.,Forn_1ai dining room.
 Library. Kitchen with wood stove.
  ' Hardwood floors.Turret. $240,000.