Revelation, Redux

It’s like Deja-vu all over again.

When I first found out inadvertently that my then-25-year-old son was trans-identifying, in 2018, I was all alone on the island. Nobody in my life could empathize. Nobody in my life was going through it.

I had the support of people in my life whose love and caring have helped me when I have needed to vent.

But none of them could empathize.

So, when I was doubled over in actual physical anguish, nobody could truly understand.

When the tears flowed anytime my mind went there, nobody really knew how that felt.

I could obsessively comb through the Internet looking for a way out, a way to stop this, a way to deal, a way to cope and share what I found with people in my life, but nobody walked in my shoes.

Two years ago, I was blessed to find a community of like-minded, non-affirming parents, who have become friends.

But nobody I had known from before truly understood.

Until now.

A very dear friend revealed to me yesterday that his daughter - 31 years old now, just a year younger than my son - dropped the bombshell that she’s on testosterone. Her way of avoiding the word “trans” but implicit in her revelation.

When he told me, my emotions (never dormant, never far) flooded forth. Tears for him. Tears of shock. Tears in reliving my own experience of finding out. Tears of despair and fear for the future of our children, globally.

I went into “helper mode.” In my journey these past seven years I have amassed a plethora of links to articles and videos and groups and books and websites and podcasts, any medium in which this topic is discussed.

Immediately, I began to take notes for him. Questions for him to ask his daughter, to ask her counselor - stopping short at questions he may need to ask himself (those questions haven’t even hit my own waterline).

I put tons of links into an email for him, not wanting to overwhelm him, even knowing he was already overwhelmed. He said, “send them all.” So, I did; at least, the Beginner’s Pack.

He’s indescribably capable. Strong, knowledgeable, wise, genius-level intelligence. His wisdom has helped me enormously these past seven years.

But none of us who are hit with this Mack truck find our feet. We are all rendered, even temporarily, mute and lost and incapable.

The enormity of the revelation from our beloved children (no matter the age, they are still our children) knocks the ground out from under us. We feel bewildered, dumbfounded, paralyzed.

I will help my friend as much as I can. I have a seven-year jump on his journey; one I never wanted to share with him as a commonality.

But now that he’s joined the ranks nobody wishes to join, I will fight with him side-by-side, hand-in-hand. To help him in hope. To help him in coping. To help him when the storm hits so hard, nothing alleviates it but the kind, loving, caring words of someone close. I will do that for him; because he did it for me, albeit from the more distant perspective.

In doing so I relive my anguish. Truly, it’s never subsided. It’s a pain that is never healed, never lessened, never vanquished.

I have found myself remembering how my son’s words - as he read from his trans-script - didn’t seem to make sense, as though the English language had suddenly become one filled with foreign words and sounds. How I wanted to ask, “what are you saying?” Over and over throughout his speech.

I found myself remembering the pounding of my heart even as I tried to listen passively.

I found myself back in that moment when he finally came out to me in May 2021, when - ambushed in my own home by my son and his “support person” (my nephew who is 5 months older than my son, and gay) - I listened to the words I had expected but dreaded, and how all I wanted to do was go into my den where I could cocoon and cry.

Perhaps remembering the vivid, blurred moments of that day will better help me to help my friend. A necessary evil to be there for someone who - like the rest of us - does not deserve this emotional turmoil.

It just makes me wonder: how many more of my friends will become victims of this evil ideology that takes our children and harms them physically, emotionally, and ruins their futures?

I dread finding out.