My story is somewhat different – highly personal.
A few years back I sought to get in contact with my father. I hadn’t seen him since my mother’s death when I was 11. I had a great many questions for him about the past. So I sent a letter to his old address, figuring he might still live there. I received a letter back. I spoke to my father on the phone; it was the first conversation we’d had in years. I remember thinking that his voice sounded different… higher? I put it down to age. A few days later, I told my uncle that I had contacted him. My uncle, in no roundabout manner, told me: – “Your father has his transgender certificate now.”
My first reaction was puzzlement. A transgender certificate – what is that? I went away that night in a state of mild shock, which worsened the day after. I was working in a bar at the time, and I had some sort of panic attack on shift. A sense of asphyxiation swept over me, to the point an ambulance was called. Anyway, after that mess I went home and tried to sleep. The shock didn’t subside. Over the coming weeks I wrestled with the revelation: my father is now – a “woman." I spent every spare second researching transexualism, gender dysphoria, reassignment surgery... trying to understand if there were a neurobiological basis for the condition.
I spoke to my father on the phone soon after. I didn’t let on that I knew about it all. He couldn’t muster the courage to tell me. Eventually, I told him I knew. “…you know?” A great sigh of relief gushed forth from him. He clamoured to tell me about it but he wasn’t making much sense. Everything was a mess, much as it always has been with him. He told me what had led him to his decision to transition. He’d felt that way for years apparently – that he wasn’t a man. He told me about the process he underwent: the hospital trips, psychiatric checks, surgical procedures, hormone therapy – all of it.
I went away feeling thoroughly perplexed.
There’s that old psychological theory: we all have a distinct “model” of the world, which creates meaning and gives purpose. But when a traumatic event occurs – a death, a loss, a divorce – our model is rendered useless in some fashion. What follows is a painful restructuring of reality. And therefore: an inevitable suffering. A suffering, that is, until a fresh model is built to accomodate the new facts.
I soon became aware that this transgender issue had become a big deal. While this was raging on in the background, I continued to speak to my father via post. We arranged to meet. I met him in St Anne’s, Lytham, and we spent a Sunday afternoon talking. He had been in some sort of friendship/relationship with a guy who had recently died. This loss had left him feeling empty, desolate, abandoned – to the point whereby he found it difficult now to bring himself to believe in his “female” identity. He talked about there being “a way back.”
Meeting my father – my father! – in this manner hammered home a reality to me: a man cannot become a woman anymore than a man can become a bat. I did not share this thought with him, but it became ever more true the more I thought about it. And seeing how he had built this model of himself – this mask, this cloak, this disguise – and hearing now how he didn’t "believe in it anymore” – merely served to solidify my suspicions.
I find that much of this transgender stuff is about control. My father had no control over anything in his life. His house was always a tip; his poetry didn’t sell; he had no job; he was always broke; he was at odds with a world that had victimised him. After my mother died, the courts ruled I was to live with my aunt. My father didn’t keep in touch. With my mother’s death, and with my disappearance from his life, and with his mother’s death shortly thereafter – he was free to become someone new. To take control, he created an alter-ego, in order to redefine the past. A pathological obsession with control – this is what defines transgenderism.
Anyway. I could go on for days, but this post is getting long. Glinner, if you’re reading this – I had been intending to message you at some point with a satirical song I’ve written about this whole transgender issue that will be released soon. It covers many of the issues you’re concerned with. So when I saw you post on twitter, I thought – there’s my opportunity! I’d love to share the song with you before it gets released – here’s my email: – [email protected]
Thanks for reading.