I have written three other articles for the Gazette on my experiences as a transwoman. I’d like to take a few moments to reminisce on two, very significant events that happened for me, a year ago last July.
First of all, I became a new mom in July of 2018. This may be very shocking to some, considering my age at the time (53) and the fact that transwomen cannot conceive or carry a child. Obviously, if you figured out that I adopted, you’d be correct. The “child” I adopted happened to be a kitten at the time — an all-black, roughly 10-week-old little guy I named Samuel.
Cats and kittens get adopted all the time, and Samuel was not the first cat I ever gave a home to, but he was the first I ever adopted by myself, and the first I adopted as a woman. Big deal, you might think, but let me say that the feelings I have for that little guy, how I interact with him, and how I nurture him, is nothing like anything I’ve ever experienced before. Maybe it’s the estrogen in my system, maybe it’s my own changing feelings about myself, but now I think I have gleaned a little something about the wonderful institution called “motherhood.”
I’ve been a dad before and I like to think I still am in some way, but my own two human sons, both adults now, want nothing to do with me at the current point in time. Samuel, on the other hand, whatever he thinks about me, seems content to be “my special little guy.” When I tell him I’m his mom, he never seems to question my assertion.
In many ways, I am an awful lot like Lenny in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes’ spoof of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” The cartoon features two cats — Sylvester plays the “George” character, while an overweight, and not too bright cat, plays “Lenny.” While I like to think I’m not all that fat, and that I’ve got a fairly decent head on my shoulders, when it comes to Samuel, I want nothing better than to “hug-him-and-squeeze-him-and-kiss-him-and-love-him.” The best part of it: Samuel seems fine with all the attention, unlike the poor unfortunate female cat, a skunk look-a-like that fellow Looney Tunes’ character, Pepe Le Pew, has romantic designs on.
I strongly suspect my feelings toward motherhood have been greatly influenced by an event that occurred one week to the day after I adopted Samuel: I had gender conformation surgery, or GRS, at the Boston Medical Center.
I had been readying myself for the surgery, mostly psychologically, since I began my male-to-female transition in January 2016. (If the truth be known, it started years before that.) To me, and this will sound odd, but I looked at the surgery as a “check in the box” in my transition to female. It is not to say that I looked at the serious decision to have this surgery on a whim, I didn’t. It just seemed like what most, but certainly not all, transwomen opt to do.
This may still seem like an odd way to refer to such a choice, so I will offer a comparison — married couples, or any couple for that matter, deciding to have children. Most couples, but certainly not all by any means, elect to have children. In the case of a first child in particular, couples may have a room set aside for a new child, have a bassinette, changing table, cute clothes and perhaps even a name for their new child, but they are wholly unprepared for the experience of being a parent.
That is not to say that they won’t be wonderful parents and love their child like I love all my sons, both human and feline. However, before having children, it is impossible to fully comprehend what it is like to be responsible for the needs of such a small, helpless, creature. Nor is it possible to see how your life, your priorities and your feelings will change after becoming a parent.
Becoming a woman has been very much like that for me. In the weeks and months after my surgery, I didn’t feel appreciably different than I had felt through much of my transition. I couldn’t fully appreciate what it meant to be recognized as a woman, even a transwoman, by society. Near the end of last year, and certainly now as I approach the anniversary of my surgery, I feel quite different about myself. I am really settling into my female self and viewing other women more as sisters, as close confidants, more than ever before.
Before transitioning, I was always cognizant of the discrimination that women faced and found it wrong and grossly unfair. I see the degree of the discrimination, as both a woman and a member of the LGBTQ community, and now, I am a target of that discrimination, too.
Despite the hardships and discrimination, I do not regret for one moment my decision to transition to female. While I couldn’t fully comprehend the incredible range of emotions I would experience, or the kind of life I would ultimately live, today, I have this incredible sense of comfort with the person I have become. I also have, and this may be due to being in my 50’s, but I have this overall sense of confidence that I’ve never had before. I stand up for myself and have a great sense of pride.
Then again, maybe just becoming a mom that gave me all this.