Catherine Cross - A Mother’s Journey

 

 

It was late in the Evening when my 15-year-old daughter came into the sewing room where I work at home. My kids would often come in and sit for a chat while I worked, but she was kind of hanging around and seemed a bit uncomfortable. I asked, "Is everything okay?" And she says, "Yeah, fine." But I knew something was on her mind, so I stopped sewing. And I said, "Come on, out with it. What's up?" Shrugs her shoulders. I know I'm going to have to tease it out of her, so I keep asking and she keeps saying, "There's nothing, Ma." So, I said to her, "You know you can tell me anything, right?" "No, not this," she said. Now I'm worried.

 

So, eventually I hand her a piece of paper and a pen and I said, "Do you think you might be able to write it down for me?" So, she sits down for what seems like eternity looking at the paper. And when she eventually writes something and hands it back to me, it reads, "I'm gay." "Oh, for God's sake. Is that all?" [audience chuckles] I said, "It doesn't matter at all to me. Don't be worrying about this tall pest. Sure, I still love you and I always will, no matter what." And we hug and she goes off happier in herself. When she's gone, I think, "I don't know what it is, but I don't think you're gay." Funny really, because I always imagined she'd come out to me as being gay. But the moment she said it, I knew that wasn't it. I knew she was going to have to dig a bit deeper to figure out what was really going on.

 

Over the next few weeks, she seems a lot happier in herself. But as the weeks turn into months, she's again becoming very withdrawn and not engaging with anybody. So, when she comes back into the sewing room again late one evening, I have this awful sense of foreboding that she's going to drop some other kind of bombshell on me. So, we go through the whole "What's up?" "Nothing, Ma." again until finally I say, "Are you trying to tell me you're not gay?" And sure, enough she says, "Yeah." "So, what then?" Silence. I'm afraid to ask the next question, but I ask it anyhow. And I said, "Is it something to do with gender? Do you want to be a boy?" "Oh, Ma, I think God made some awful kind of mistake. I don't want to be a boy. I am a boy."

 

Okay, I reassure her once again. "Everything's going to be just fine. I still love you and I always will. But could you just leave this one with me for a bit? Because I need a bit more time to get my head around this one." When she's gone, I think, "Oh, God, this can't be happening." Half of me thinks, "This kind of thing only happens on Jerry Springer." The other half thinks, "Yeah, sounds about right." I didn't know anything about transgender, to be honest. I thought it was men in drag. And I definitely had never heard of a girl wanting to be a boy. We didn't actually speak about it for quite a number of weeks. I was secretly hoping that if I didn’t mention it, it would just all go away.

 

So, one day I tentatively broached the subject with her. And I say tentatively because I kind of feel that if I broach the subject with her, I'm somehow encouraging her to embark on this really difficult life. But difficult for who? I felt people would judge me as a mother as well as our family. I said, "What do you want from life? Do you want surgery? You know, this is going to be really tough. You're not going to have any kids and you might not even have a partner. Could you not just be gay?" [audience chuckles] I thought if I pointed out all the negative things that she might somehow change her mind. I didn't realize at this point that for her it wasn't a choice. It's just simply who she was.

 

I'm afraid things got a bit heated and I said some things that I'm really rather ashamed of. You see, I'd always prided myself on being a really good mother. I was very liberal and really open minded. But you see, it's easy to say those things when they're outside your front door. When I was confronted with them, it made me take a very long hard look at myself. And to be honest, I didn't really like what I saw. I kept blaming myself and asking myself what I'd done wrong. I should have insisted she played with girls’ toys. I should have made her wear girls clothes. And then I ask myself, "What's so bad about this anyway? I still have my child. She's not dead. She's not dying. Why am I so sad? Why does it feel like a death?"

 

I think back to the moment when she's born. Myself and my husband were so excited and we asked the nurse, "Well, what is it?" And she says, "You have a daughter." And in those first few seconds, I have images running like a movie in my head. I see a toddler in a pink frilly dress and a 10-year-old schoolgirl in a pinafore and bobby socks. And then a woman out having coffee with me. But she'd never really worn that pink dress or the pinafore. Instead, she'd played with boys’ toys and worn boys’ clothes. My friends had always commented what a tomboy she was, but I always thought it was a bit more than that. Now, I didn't know anything about transgender, so I didn't think it was that. But I always thought there was something very different about her.

 

Toilet training had been a nightmare. Trying to convince her she had to sit down to pee. She couldn't do it standing up like her older brother Matt. She'd always played with the boys and seemed kind of irritated by the girls and constantly asked why it was she could not go to the same school as her friends, the boys school. It was about a week after our heated conversation that I by chance heard a woman speaking on the radio. She was talking about being transgender in Ireland, and she gave details of a parent support group. So, myself, my husband, decided we'd give it a go. I must admit, I didn't like going. They were really lovely people, but I didn't want to be part of their group. I just wanted it all to go away. But I also knew that no matter what, I was going to support my child. I just didn't know how to do it.

 

The support group organized a weekend away, a chance to meet other families and speak with professionals who were involved with the care of transgender people. When we arrived at the hotel on the Friday night, I realized that my daughter already knew quite a lot of the young people there. She was friends with them on Facebook, but they didn't know my daughter. They knew my son, Lucas. Oh, how I hated that name. I realized I hadn't thought this through very well and that it was going to be a bit awkward if we were calling her one thing and everybody else was calling her another name. So, I quickly pulled to one side in the bar and I said, "Look, for this weekend, I'm going to try my very best to call you by your new name and use male pronouns." And she-- I should say he was delighted. Look, the place was miles away from anywhere. Nobody knew us. So, I thought it was a safe place to try out my new son. Yeah, I know that sounds awful, but I really did need to just know what it would feel like. It wasn't easy and it felt really, really strange, but he was so happy. I couldn't but be happy for him, too. And I thought, “Okay.”

 

So, on the Saturday night, we all get dressed up and we go down to dinner. And Lucas is dressed in a suit and a smart waistcoat. And after the dinner, there's a bit of a sing song in the bar. And Lucas spends most of the night up playing guitar and singing songs. He was really popular, couldn't get over how confident he was. And as I stood looking at him in the bar and admiring him, I thought, "Yeah, I'm still grieving the loss of my daughter, but I am just loving my new son." I thought, "Right, we're just going to have to do this." We live in a small town where everybody knows everybody. And I was anticipating a lot of resistance to my child's new identity. And I was quite prepared to move somewhere new if things got too tough for him. I worried about how would I find the words to tell people. And how would I cope with the reactions. “Jeepers, we were going to be the talk of the town.”

 

With the help of the support group, I managed to find the words to tell a few of my close friends and neighbors. Oh, how I had underestimated people. What I found amazing was that very few found it surprising at all. It seemed to make sense to them. Of course, I didn't get to tell everybody in person, and some people had heard it from somebody else. And what was really lovely was that they found really subtle ways of letting me know that they'd heard. They might say, "So, how's Lucas getting on?" And that gave me the opening to talk about it. And they could ask questions. We got cards and texts from people telling us they were thinking of us and how brave we were.

 

I knew at some point I was going to have to go down to the school and make them aware of what was going on, and I was anticipating a bit of a battle. So, I decided I wasn't going to bring Lucas with me just in case there was a scene. So, I walk into the principal's office and I am filled with trepidation. I had rehearsed this conversation many times in my head. But as I begin to tell him about Lucas, I find he already knows. And all he's really concerned is, is he getting bullied or not? I'm taken off guard with this. I hadn't expected this, and the school were in no way obliged to accommodate Lucas. But yet here they were. He asked what bathroom did Lucas use. And I said, "Actually, he doesn't go to the bathroom at school. He's just not comfortable using either one.” And he was horrified. He said, "You make sure Lucas knows he can use whatever bathroom he wants."

 

I felt so indebted to him. I couldn't believe somebody could be so accepting of a situation that I myself had found so very difficult to come to terms with. I left his office feeling like I'd had the wind taken out of my sails. But on the same point, I was walking on air. So, we make plans to go to Dublin to change his name by deed poll. By this stage, I'm getting kind of used to it, and I think it kind of seems so. The night before, my husband and I get ready the paperwork to sign off and renounce our daughter's name. I'm finding it really emotional, but try my best to hide it, because Lucas is so excited.

 

I can't sleep. So, I start tidying a few cupboards upstairs, and I come across a box of old photographs when the kids were small. And as I sit on the bed looking through them, my husband and my oldest son Matt come in. I think even they shed a tear or two. I take out his communion dress that I'd made for him and his christening robe. And I realized the strangest thing about the name Lucas was probably I didn't choose it. Maybe that's why I hadn't liked it. I found a letter he'd sent to Santa Claus when he was about nine, and he'd asked for a wrestling ring and wrestlers and a racing car track, and there wasn't a doll inside. And I thought, "This is so very much the right thing to be doing." This is who he is and who he's always been. And I realized that the daughter I'm mourning is the daughter I had expected to have. And maybe the pain of that would ease over time. As I put away the photographs and the dresses, I feel like I'm saying a final goodbye to my daughter. And I take out the photograph of Lucas playing guitar in the hotel, and I admire him once again and think about how very proud of him I am. I really do love my new son. Thank you.