Sarah has long been concerned with the scope of my reading, and she is right. For years I have focused my reading on history and current events. Sarah said fiction belonged in my reading diet, too. Fiction, she said, would open up worlds of imagination and moral discourse that I never would encounter in the kinds of books I normally read.
She’s been telling me that for years, and I have nodded and said, “Yes, yes, no doubt you’re right about that,” but nothing changed.
So, Sarah, who lives in another state, many miles away, devised a plan. “I’d like for you, Mom, and me to read Harry Potter — all seven volumes — together, every night, by ZOOM. Each of us can take turns reading out loud as the other two follow along. If we read roughly nine or 10 pages each night, we can make this work.”
“Now our daughter, for well more than 30 years Sarah was our son.”
Both Sarah and her mother had read all seven of the Harry Potter volumes, but I had not read even one. And so, we began. We’re now well into book three. We never miss a night, and what a gift this has been to our family.
The real gift, of course, is Sarah. Now our daughter, for well more than 30 years Sarah was our son.
She called a family meeting many years ago and informed us she had come to terms with her true identity — that she is a transgender woman. She hoped, she said, we could embrace that reality, too.
I would be lying if I said navigating this road with Sarah has been an easy journey. In truth, it has been the most difficult journey of my life, but from the day of the family meeting, we placed our feet on this new and unfamiliar path and began to walk.
I would also be lying if I said our every step moved us forward. Some of our steps went backward. Others zigged and zagged from side to side before moving forward, then backward, and then forward again.
But on balance, our journey with Sarah has moved in a forward direction, and we have come a very long way since Sarah first informed us she is no longer our son, but our daughter.
Sarah has done much to help us walk this journey. Shortly after the family meeting, she sent us a book — Jennifer Finney Boylan’s She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders. Over the years, she’s suggested other books and essays that have helped us navigate this new and winding path.
“Sarah has given us many gifts over the years. One of those gifts is the integrity with which she lives her life.”
Sarah has given us many gifts over the years. One of those gifts is the integrity with which she lives her life. She knows who she is and, in spite of the widespread resistance she finds in so many quarters, she perseveres.
She’s persevered now for well more than 20 years. She encounters resistance — sometimes overwhelming, almost unbearable resistance — in the stereotypes, the hatred and even the threats against the lives of transgender people that are all too common in American culture. Still, she carries on.
That hatred prompted Sarah, when I first showed her this essay, to ask that it be published anonymously, if published at all. She feared she might become a target. That reality has become part of our journey, too.
If I have learned anything from our journey with Sarah, it is this: No one chooses to travel a transgender journey. When you understand that roughly 40% of transgender people have attempted suicide, you quickly realize living as a transgender person is not a choice. It is a calling one feels in the depths of one’s self, a summons one cannot escape.
I also have learned that “transgender” has nothing to do with sex or with sexual attraction but everything to do with gender identity. And knowing those two truths has enabled me to regard as utter foolishness the claim that transgender people are “groomers,” lying in wait to seduce and bring others — especially children — into what so many mistakenly regard as their “sordid lifestyle.”
The truth is this: With respect to difference and the acceptance of difference in the United States, being transgender is the last frontier. For many years, white people rejected difference in color, and some still do. For many years, heterosexual people rejected difference in sexual orientation, and some still do. But now we are faced with a new kind of difference — difference in gender identity — and that is a difference rejected not by a few but by many. It is a difference they don’t understand. And truth be told, they do not wish to understand because it lies so far outside their range of familiarity and therefore outside their comfort zone.
But transgender people are human beings like all other human beings and deserve our acceptance and respect.
“Sarah has given us many gifts, but the greatest gift of all is the gift of herself.”
Sarah has given us many gifts, but the greatest gift of all is the gift of herself which is, at heart, the gift of difference, of a new and unfamiliar story, living itself out right in the heart of our family. The gift is a greatly expanded horizon. The gift is the challenging learning curve. The gift is the dilemma that requires great struggle but results in enormous growth.
For us, Sarah’s parents, the chief dilemma has been what sometimes feels like erasing a story, deleting a narrative. The nearly 40-year story of our life together has been the story of a family of three — a mom, a dad and a son. But now we live into a second story, a second narrative. The son is gone, replaced by a daughter.
And yet, regardless of difference in name and appearance, the essence of Sarah remains unchanged. When Sarah was small and still our son, we enjoyed what we called “Dad and Charlie times.” We still do. The trips to the donut shop have been replaced with trips to college football games. The hours we once spent throwing and catching a Frisbee have been replaced with long walks on compelling nature trails. And the times I used to spend reading to a very small Charlie have been replaced with nightly readings of the Harry Potter books.
So tonight, the three of us, although separated by many miles, will find our place in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and begin to read again. And as we read, we will build another memory that will strengthen our family bond.
Related articles:
What will it take for you to care about transgender people? | Opinion by Mark Wingfield
Seven things I’m learning about transgender persons | Opinion by Mark Wingfield
Why being transgender is not a sin | Opinion by Mark Wingfield
The transgender obsession | Opinion by Martin Thielen