What I Want to Be When I Grow Up, Transgender or Not …

Musings on identity and happiness

The Day I Turned 52 (Author’s photo)

‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’

Is there an adult on the planet who gained majority without hearing this bastard hydra of a torture garden disguised as an innocent question? I hope so. That’s one fortunate soul.

What’s even being asked? And perhaps far more disconcertingly, why? Do we really expect a considered, much less realistic, answer from a human whose age is still measured with a single digit, or else burdened with the litany of confusions that dog our years ending in the suffix ‘-teen’?

I’m 53. I’ve owned 4 or 5 houses (and that alone speaks volumes, little of it good). I’ve been married twice. I’m a parent and a stepparent. I even managed to hold down a full-time job with a single employer for over a decade. By most people’s standards I’m an adult, then.

So why do I care about this hateful little shit of a question?

Perhaps a small anecdote might shed some light. I grew up in a working-class family, one which hoped I might do better at life than they had. Inevitably, I was asked this question. But it’s not the asking I remember. Rather what burns bright is the embarrassment I felt, without even understanding my shame’s genesis, when my mother asked me…