Everything My Daughter Doesn’t Owe You
From the mother of a transgender woman
When she was three years old, she pulled at my arm, she begged, almost in tears, “Don’t you remember mommy? Don’t you remember when I was the daddy and you were my little girl?” Her blue eyes, expectant and hopeful.
When she was four years old, she crawled into bed with me right at dawn. I was crying over yet another failed relationship, and though I tried to hide it from her, she noticed and said, “You can talk to me if you want.” I dried my face on my pillowcase and turned towards her. Her blonde curls framed her small face, her pajamas smelling like maple syrup.
When she was five years old, I took her for swimming lessons on my college campus, early on Saturday mornings. One morning she marveled, “Do you ever wonder, why all of this exists?” I said, “Oh, the college you mean?” “No,” she answered, almost incredulous. “THIS,” she stretched out her arms as if to embrace infinity, the cosmos, and responded, “The Universe. Life. Everything. The reason we exist.”
When she was ten years old and I was driving her home instead of to her creative writing class, she cried and asked, “Why? Why am I like this?” I thought she was asking, Why do I not connect with children my age? I thought she was asking, Why do I have so much anxiety? I thought she was asking me, looking to me for answers, and all I could think was, “You are perfect.”
When she was diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, they asked her hundreds of questions, her brother and I watched her answer behind a two-way mirror.
They asked her, “What do you think brings parents the most happiness?” She answered, “Their children.” Then, they asked, “What do you think brings parents the most suffering?” “Their children,” she answered.
When she was twelve, and I was sitting in a slump inside of my Volvo station wagon, lost in a sinkhole of regrets and self-loathing in a Safeway parking lot, I told her how sorry I was. How she deserved a much better mother than I could ever be. I told her she was the purest hearted, most beautiful, kind, giving, empathetic human being I’d ever known. She put her hand on my shoulder and spoke softly, “Mom, I’m like this because of who you are. I’m this way because you are my mother.”
When she was seventeen years old and she woke up from a 6-hour spinal fusion to correct a 55 degree of curvature of the spine, she asked about her baby cousin. She talked about family, “If only we lived closer,” she said. She was sweating from the pain but her focus was elsewhere. It was out there, outside of her own suffering, outside of the room and the Children’s Hospital.
When she was twenty-years old, she told me she was not my son, was never my son, was always, my daughter. She said with no hesitation or apology, “I am a transgender woman.” At that moment, I saw her. I saw her not only in the present, but in every memory I have of her: every bad haircut, and doctor’s appointment, every parent-teacher conference, every late-night talk, and every goodnight hug; I saw my hidden daughter emerge from every word of every page written in my book of her. I thanked her. I held her. I acknowledged her. I celebrated her.
I wish the world would celebrate people like my daughter.
But the world hates people like my daughter. The world calls my daughter “a man in a dress.” TERFS, or Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, think my daughter is erasing cisgender women. Parents think my daughter wants to sneak into women’s bathrooms to assault their children. Politicians think my daughter is a pawn, a centerpiece for their superficial and fear-based ideology. Predators call her a “trap.” So-called Christians call my daughter an abomination. They say she belongs in Hell.
My daughter.
The same girl who ran into our neighbor’s home and tried to help resuscitate an elderly man who’d suffered a heart attack. The same girl who put her arms around the widow, who adopted her late husband’s cat. My daughter who never forgets a birthday or holiday, who spends every cent she has on her brothers’ birthday and Christmas gifts. My daughter who looked after me during various illnesses, a surgery, and multiple breakdowns. My daughter, who is the first to offer help, and the last to say an unkind word about anyone, even those who speak unkind words towards her and about her.
My daughter. My one and only daughter. My daughter is an empath, a writer, a poet, a thinker, a healer, a lover of all creatures and sentient beings, a cat whisperer. My daughter is also transgender.
My daughter is afraid of what the world will do to her if she wears a dress or a skirt. My daughter is afraid that your brother, or husband, or boyfriend will hurt her. My daughter is afraid that Christians will turn their children against her, that politicians will play with her human rights in an attempt to gain momentum and support amongst the most bigoted of human beings. She’s afraid that she will never be able to safely use a public bathroom again. She’s afraid that she will never “pass,” that her very existence will be demonized, penalized, politicized and policed.
My daughter owes you nothing.
She does not owe you an explanation of when and how she knew. She does not owe you an answer to invasive questions about what type of genitalia she has between her legs. She doesn’t owe you an apology for existing outside the realm of your understanding. She doesn’t owe you a “passing” cisgender appearance.
She is not a walking checklist, waiting for your approval. She is not a receptacle for your hate, your ignorance or your fetishization.
She is my daughter, love of my life, soulmate, and she is a human being, not a joke, not a freak, not a deviant, not a predator. She’s a young woman who loves cats and anime, loves her brothers, her family and her books. She is a reader and writer with the heart of a poet. She deserves to exist. She deserves to live. She deserves to thrive without the threat of small minds attempting to destroy her and people like her.
This is about my daughter, yes. But it is also about all transgender, non-binary, and gender fluid individuals. When I became a mother to a transgender woman, I became more than an ally, I became family. Family to anyone who needs someone to stand in the women’s bathroom with them. Who needs someone holding their hand when they tell their partner or their parents or their children who they really are. Your right to life became my fight and the fight of anyone and everyone who loves someone like my daughter.
To recognize that, to recognize the innate worth and value of someone who forces us to face our fears, our biases, our prejudices, and to recognize their fight as our fight, to make the rights of the oppressed our priority, to suffer along with the suffering, might be the answer to my daughter’s question from all those years ago. It might be the very reason we exist.
