Story of a transgender child

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/02/2024 (581 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Growing up, I was the youngest of three kids. I was much younger than my siblings by a decade and a half. They were around, but being so much older, they had busy teen lives and little influence on me and I was raised more like an only child by parents who I saw more as grandparents. They were both raised on the farm and moved to the city.

Old-fashioned parenting was administered. Yelling, inescapable holds, spankings and the belt. As a child, I feared my father. When he was upset with me, his facial demeanour, size and body expression were horrifying to me. My father’s patience was egg-shell fragile. You did not question him. If I did, and if i was lucky, I got a stern “BECAUSE I SAID SO!” answer. He did not like his job as he had to be on call and worked nights as a result. He had customer service as part of his job too, which he equally disliked. More days than not, he was already grouchy upon arrival at home.

There were many times he expected that I did not touch anything in a store on outings. He stated that if I did not keep my hands in my pockets and if I touched anything in a store, he literally told me frequently with his prior described horrifying demeanour, that he would break my hands. Recall that at the time, I was six years old. Truth. Furthermore, I was hard-pressed not to see him with a beer or spirit in his hand while I lived at home growing up.

My father would whistle really loud for me when it was time to come in for meals or bed. If I didn’t hear him, he said that I was too far away, and therefore I got the belt if he had to come looking for me. When I heard that whistle, I left the wind breathless trying to keep up as I ran home. If my dad had to come find me, the kids knew what was to happen to me. They quietly followed us at a distance to our home. They were not disappointed. I was spanked or given the belt as my punishment and for their viewing pleasure as they looked on into our living room window at the show. I was seven years old.

My father worked. My mother took care of the home stuff and me while he worked and when I was not in school. At six years old, I was trying on my tiny mother’s clothes while she wasn’t looking. I felt such joy. Somehow, I knew never to tell anyone. I felt like I was to be in a lot of danger if I did. I just knew I was female. I just knew. I had more regular female friends than boys. I did more things considered feminine back then. Crafts, Kleenex-flower bike parades, hopscotch, playing house and crafts. I had boy toys, but other than Lego and a few select dolls I didn’t like them too much. Being creative was more stimulating.

My parents attended United Church back then on Sundays and I went to Sunday school. After a while, we stopped going. At the time, I was still about six or seven years old. When I asked my father why, he said angrily that it was because the church was ordaining homosexuals as ministers. I left it at that. I had no idea at that age what homosexuality was, nor what puberty or even what sex was.

We were taught to trust our parents. Back then, we behaved accordingly in terms of both manners and our assigned gender conducive mannerisms as part of our upbringing which was reinforced in school, team sports, toys and washrooms, manners gender expectations of expression and thought. These were all constantly reinforced growing up.

This question I asked my dad with regard to our no longer attending church would have not stuck with me in terms of curiosity, but it did because my question was received with anger. His demeanour was his cue not to ask further. I had to know what homosexuality was, but I dared not ask. Not questioning much created a passive-aggressive environment for me in which I was always stressed out wondering what he was thinking at the time. I avoided him more often than not. This was, back then, legal parenting and by today’s standards physical, mental and emotional child abuse.

My mother was kind but to my knowledge did not interfere with my father’s disciplinary parenting methods.

Again, at six years old, I had no idea what puberty, sexuality or gender was. I was told I was a boy and was raised as my parents thought that a boy should be raised. I was being taught this from birth by family and community with all that entailed, including a thick skin and male toxicity characteristics.

This was evident with my dad and his friends that I witnessed through their comments. It was their code. Cliques at school and with my neighbourhood childhood counterparts were prevalent. The boys harassed the girls, and softer more kind natured kids like me were called “fag,” “gay” and “sissy.” I was not at all like them, which confirmed within me again that I was different. Their comments made me wonder as a six-year-old why I was different from other kids in such ways that I was given what they intended to be hurtful demeaning labels. I was made to believe due to their comments and treatment that I was one, the very thing my father disdained with regard to my querying him that day about church and his disdain for the church-ordaining homosexuals.

As a result, back then as a young child I deeply internalized suppressed guilt and shame and thought that I was a thing to be regarded as a criminal from all the negativity with regard to my soft characteristics and cross-dressing. It was all deeply distressing and the fear of discovery resulted in social avoidance for fear of being discovered. I did the bare minimum to avoid attention, but it resulted in the opposite. Forced by parents to partake in gender specific activities and behaviour, I clearly stood out as awkward and the ridicule was again applied.

I took student peer beatings daily at school and on my way home. One day, four kids pinned my down while a fifth drove over me on my own bike. I left school early, half crawling and walking home. I was nine years old. This continued all through elementary school and junior high. All my father could say after telling him was that I was to never leave school early again. My father began regularly referring to me as a sissy. I feared him helping with homework. He made me cry and told me the dog learned faster than I do.

I honestly don’t know if my siblings really knew what was going on. They gave no indication at the time, and I did not ask them. I told no one.

I never stopped being me and cross-dressing. I was never caught. I was myself and happy. But I knew to be discovered would be detrimental to me. Putting on women’s clothes and makeup and sneaking out to walk the neighbourhood at dark when my parents left me alone on Saturday nights, and going to queer bars in the ’80s. Parents’ vacations were heaven when I was old enough to stay home. Consecutive days of freedom to exist without inhibitions or fear of punishment. I was not out. I purged clothes regularly to avoid being caught. Like a beach ball, I could not and did not want to suppress this any longer. But I had to. It was tiring and depressing.

Fast-forward to the early 2000s. Still closeted and living the conformed expectation, I was at a children’s birthday party with some of our couple friends, family and their elementary school-aged kids. The boy came out in his sister’s yellow sun dress, not knowing what he was doing other than being a kid having fun. As it should be. The room went silent. His parents scolded him, ordering him to change clothes. The mother disappeared after him while the father, embarrassed at his son’s behaviour, was also ridiculed and homophobic feedback was administered by our friends at the time. The child’s father was a prominent committee member of their Catholic church. More conversion therapy.

My own kids told me of a trans kid at their high school who was regularly beaten and spit on. They felt sorry for him but did nothing. They said trans and gay is wrong. Their friends said so. I told them otherwise.

Parents who bring your children to dangerous anti-queer rallies — you put them at risk, physically. You teach them hatred. It is learned. Not instinct. A five-year-old making a gun shooting motion at a queer person walking by while their parents cheer him on is not responsible parenting. It is people like this the queer community and society wish to protect children from. Thinking, questioning existing and living free are human rights for all and are not for political removal and have no place in partisan politics for power.

Don’t tell me that there is no need for children’s rights with regard to a queer and/or questioning child’s well-being. Imagine if I had come out to my father back then. I probably wouldn’t be here. Parents don’t want to be seen as bad parents and isolated from society. They don’t want to see their kids exposed to it as well. They know that due to societial expectations, that they need to go along to get along. Sadly, culture, politics, religion, upbringing, peer pressure and media propaganda all play a role. It’s bigotry, no matter how you slice it. Parent or otherwise, if you are guilty of it in any shape or form, you are part of the problem, not the solution.

I am now a 55-year-old transgender woman, truly happy as such and at peace. I am in my best state of mind and in the best relationship of my life with another trans woman. No transition regrets. Sadly, other children are now being forced to go through what I once did. Sadly, there is more work do to. And I will! That is what being responsible to protect children really means.

WENDY FRIESEN

Brandon