Next of Kin
Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
The Early Nineties
A number of things happened the moment I realized I was gay. From the moment I came out to myself and to those around me, I felt the scales fall from my eyes. The sky was brighter, the air crisper. I felt free, excited by the world and all it had to offer.
How could it have taken forty-four years to work this out? I kept asking myself.
The Dreams That Bring Us Here
It is a quiet Thursday evening in the fall of 2015 at the Dara Medical Center in Brooklyn, where I’m volunteering as a medical observer. The Center is almost empty. At the far end of the corridor, I see an elderly man wearing a black sweater and eyeglasses. His face is pale; his eyes and hands are creased and wrinkled.
“Where are you from?” he asks.
“I’m Palestinian,” I answer.
“Pakistan?” he replies incredulously.
The Dreams That Bring Us Here Read More »
Listen Carefully to the Youth
With tears in my eyes, I burst out of the classroom, seeking refuge from my teacher’s and classmates’ endless verbal battering of me. We were mired in a debate about whether the canon of religious music should be omitted from public school choral groups’ repertoires to “appease” students who felt uncomfortable with such music. The discussion was framed with a particular implication—that because of a squeaky and unreasonable minority, the majority of students were deprived of critical singing opportunities.
Listen Carefully to the Youth Read More »
A Grandmother’s Love
My 18-year-old grandson was born with female genitalia and was assigned female at birth. He never felt at home in or at peace with his body, and he had shared ill-defined feelings of discontent with his father from an early age, before he had any vocabulary or knowledge about gender identity. As an early teen, he declared himself bisexual; perhaps this was a flare he sent out to test the family response. He went through a brief phase of “they/them” pronouns, before firmly settling on “he/his.” From his mid-teens on, he identified as transgender.
A Grandmother’s Love Read More »
One Person at a Time
Editor’s Note: This piece was awarded an honorable mention in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”
By medical-student standards, I’m old.
While it’s increasingly common for applicants to take one, two or even three gap years between college and medical school (usually to do research or engage in an activity to be featured in their application), taking ten years off, as I did, is unusual. I fondly refer to this hiatus as my “gap decade.”
One Person at a Time Read More »
First Cuts
I don’t know how to describe the first woman that I ever cut into. Any description that first comes to mind is purely factual, failing to capture the strange combination of sensations that passed over me. The sight of her raw, emaciated body and bony limbs. Her otherworldly smell. The vague feeling of disconnectedness that overtook me.
Our Town (Chinese Spoken)
After ten years in the US, a Chinese immigrant finally finds a doctor who puts her at ease.
Our Town (Chinese Spoken) Read More »
Middle-aged Daughter
(after Susan Vespoli)
I like to think she stopped searching
for the next hobby, the next career,
the next diagnosis.
That she’s thriving at work and has given up
smoking. I like to think she completes
her interrupted orthodontics
Middle-aged Daughter Read More »
Baring His Chest
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.