My Wife Rejected My Gifts and Outed Me as Queer in Church
She knew my truth and realized I was living vicariously through her
When I was born, the doctor declared me to be a boy, but I wasn’t.
I knew I was female from my earliest memories, but I grew up in a conservative evangelical family and was told to keep my truth a secret. To survive, I played the role of male, even though it wounded my soul every moment. I felt I had to get married to further hide my identity.
When I married Penny in 1987, the ring I got for her was very modest. I had promised her that someday I’d get her a better ring. We worked our asses off while I went to law school.
Each of us worked four different jobs on top of my being in college full-time. In retrospect, I have no idea how we survived. When it came time for me to take the bar exam, I didn’t study at all. I paused all my jobs and slept for two straight weeks. I passed the first time I took the test.
I opened a solo law practice in a small town and was appointed cases by the judges. I took whatever I was offered: criminal, custody, and folks facing commitment for mental health issues. The state paid me $20 an hour for time spent with clients outside of court and $40 in court. For my first two years as an attorney, I continued…
