As the shower water heats up, I help my eighteen-year-old trans son remove the post-surgical compression vest he’ll be wearing for the next six months. I unzip the front, unhook each of three hooks, and unstrap the velcro from each shoulder and take it off.
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
When I finally got to take my newborn son home, after an almost six-week stay in the NICU, the social worker said, “You will be his advocate. You will know him better than anyone. And you will find your new normal.”
My son’s diagnosis was that he would never walk or talk. After his brain MRI, I felt that the hospital staff looked at us differently. My son’s life—and, by extension, our lives—would be different.
As a twenty-two-year-old working in Saudi Arabia as a public health nurse, I was excited to be going back on vacation to India. As I landed in Bombay (now Mumbai), I got stopped by a corrupt customs officer who demanded money. He refused to let me leave and told me that I had to pay 5000 rupees. I was scared and angry but did not speak. He went to talk with his supervisor, who I assumed would be in cahoots with him. Standing there, I prayed to the blessed mother (Mary) and asked for her help.
This week, our resident clinic was decimated. The interns were out on a “personal week”-the week between first and second year of residency. One of our senior residents was on maternity leave, and the three remaining residents were all taking a “personal day” here and there to a attend a funeral, visit a sick grandmother, etc. My co-preceptor, realizing we would not need two preceptors this week, had taken a few days of vacation. Which left me with two new interns, eager and enthusiastic to learn, and my senior resident on her last day of clinic.
During a recent trip to Manhattan, I attended a matinee and found a survey from the theater taped to my seat. As I carefully filled it out, the woman seated next to me—a senior citizen like myself—loudly took exception to a question on it about gender identity. “There are only two genders,” she proclaimed, “female and male. These ‘binary’ or ‘trans’ choices are nonsense.” I perhaps should have confronted her about her closed-mindedness, but I remained silent.
Dear readers,
I adapt slowly to new things. I’m skeptical of new technologies, the latest fashions and the most recent fads. While I like to think of myself as progressive when it comes to matters of politics and social justice, the truth is my gut is often conservative about interpersonal matters and the stuff of daily life.
So in recent years, I’ve been astonished at the rapidity with which something that was invisible when I was growing up–a person changing their gender–has become commonplace.
July More Voices: Trans Read More »
On the precipice of starting my career, I packed my car and set out on the two-day trip from California to the Four Corners, to be a pharmacist at a clinic on the Navajo Reservation. Beyond checking patients’ medications, I wanted to be engulfed by the people and culture of the region—its Red Rocks serving as a balustrade between my new community and the old life I was leaving behind.
Reflections from the Reservation Read More »
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