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Read a Story
"Gender-Bender - Queer
Voices", Lesbian/Gay Monologues
by Kate
I remember
standing in a field of tall grass looking towards the old
farmhouse watching my dad work on the tractor. I don’t
remember exactly what he was doing. He might’ve
been plowing the garden, or perhaps he was raking the yard.
Regardless, I remember that while I was standing in that field
looking across at my dad, I felt so incredibly alone –
I wanted to cry. I can’t seem to remember
why I wanted to cry, but I know that I did. That’s
my earliest memory – my earliest emotion: loneliness
and all the sadness that accompanies it. That was my
starting point in life, the place where I began – an
existence spawned from a tear that never bore witness to that
tractor tracking monotonously across the earth with my Dad
on top directing its movements towards an unknown destiny.
That
lonely beginning has tainted my entire existence. Everything
I’ve done, everyone I’ve met, every place I’ve
been, all tainted by that loneliness that has persisted through
the years and remains paramount in my life today. Will
I always be a statement spoken silently from those yearning
eyes searching for existence in a field of grass?
Perhaps.
Perhaps I’ll never know anything outside of the realm
of sorrow and loneliness – perhaps. It hardly
even matters any more. It seems like my only focus now
is to find my true existence somewhere in the fabric of lies
that I’ve woven through the years. My entire experience
has been a lie lived under the guise of appeasing that enraged
entity that raised me! I gave up my dreams!
I gave up my dreams. I stopped living for me, and I
did so at a very young age. “What do you want
to be when you grow up?” my father would ask, “A
doctor or a lawyer?” “Sure” I’d
reply, already knowing to never actually say what was on the
tip of my tongue: “I’m going to be a woman,
dad. Maybe even a mommy.” Nope – never
say that.
Instead
I let him beat me down and teach me how to be a man.
I played his silly game. I had no choice. By 13
I had changed out the transmission on an old chevy; by 16
I had killed, gutted and skinned my first deer; by 17 I could
drink a fifth of Vodka and not throw up – the whole
time I was getting A’s in math, science, and English.
I was the fastest typist in the school, and I made some pretty
decent furniture in shop. I took chemistry and auto
mechanics at the same time. I played football and became
the captain of the team. I played baseball and basketball
and I partied hard. Throughout the years, my father
had spent many hours talking about how as a young boy he would
chase girls, so I did it too. And the girls didn’t
mind. I had three girlfriends at one time – it’s
okay, they were from different towns. And the whole
time, my mother sat silently in the background – smoking,
never saying a word. She knew, too. She knew what
I was, maybe not by name, but she knew. She was reminded
every time that she came to my room and took her clothes back,
she knew. But she never said a word. Not one.
And all I wanted was to have a mother who cared that I would
be me.
So many
years gone – lost in my pursuit of happiness that didn’t
exist for me, at least not as a man with a wife and children
and a resume that touted 6 years as a Reactor Plant Operator
in the United States Naval Submarine Force, over 10 years
experience as a mechanical technician, over 6 years experience
as an electronic technician, and a bachelor’s of arts
in political science. That happiness didn’t exist
for that man because that man didn’t exist – it
was all a lie.
People
often ask me, “Why did you decide to do this? To transition
– to become a woman?” And, honestly, I have
to say that in light of what I’ve faced – the
loss of friends and family, the public persecution every time
I attempt to engage in common activities such as shopping
– I have to agree with them; or, moreover, I understand
where that question comes from. And the funny thing
is that I had no choice. I didn’t decide.
The choice as people often put it wasn’t really
a choice at all, unless you consider life a choice
over death. And if that’s the case, then
I guess I did decide: I chose to live.
I chose to live as me, and that meant expressing my womanhood.
A lot
of people, transgendered included, talk about the idea of
passing as a woman (or in the case of FTM’s, a man)
– not being found out. Going out in public and
not having people know. Why is it that I have to pass?
Is it to appease the public, make them feel better about my
existence? Cuz, I’d like to be able to just pass
as myself, I think that I do a pretty good job of it.
Is that so wrong? Maybe I’ll finally wipe off
this makeup and pull off the mask so that you can finally
see me – See? This is me. Don’t laugh,
don’t smirk, don’t sneer or jeer, just look.
It’s me. Is that so bad? Me. Nothing more, nothing
less. Did I pass?
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