And because we never had the conversation about it, because I never thought to ask her what was going on, I reverted back to calling her by her birth name and referring to her as the gender she’d been assigned at birth. Now, I know that this is incredibly hurtful to someone who has mustered up the courage to be his or her true self around the people they love. She had shown me Marizol, and I wish I had had the tools and the resources to recognize that Marizol was never going away, no matter what clothes she was wearing. But I didn’t. And I can’t imagine how painful it must have been for her to have me call her by that old name.
“Jose—I need you to be home by eleven.”
“Jose—I need you to not sleep in all day.”
“Jose—I need you to clean up after yourself, to not leave dirty dishes all over the house.”
And precisely because it was so painful, from this moment forward in the text, I will be referring to Marizol as Marizol and using feminine pronouns (she/her/hers), regardless of how she was dressed or how I thought of her at the time.
DURING THOSE ROUGH months, I wanted some sense of progress from Marizol, to see that she was bettering herself. But she wasn’t following my rules. My family told me I wasn’t helping her, that I was too weak, always giving in. But what else was I supposed to do?
And then, one night, she showed up well past curfew, maybe around one or two in the morning. She rang the bell to get in, waking me up, and by the time I got to the door I had decided I had had enough. I had tried everything, but nothing was working. I remembered what my family had said about giving in too easily, and I thought, You know what? They’re right. I am a sucker.
It was time for tough love.
“I told you I wasn’t going to put up with this,” I said.
“But, I—”
“No way. You can sleep in the park.”
The next morning, I learned that my husband, who worked overnights and came home around five or six in the morning, had found Marizol on the steps of the porch and let her in.
She slept well into the afternoon, and when she finally got up, I told her: “This is not gonna work.”
An acquaintance of mine had given me some information about a transitional shelter in downtown Manhattan for LGBTQ+ youth. I decided this was our best option. I knew it was going to be hard for Marizol. At my house, she had her own room with a TV. She had her privacy. But she was going to have to deal with it. We couldn’t keep going on like we were. Didn’t she see how hard the situation was for me? I psyched myself up. I said to myself, Don’t be such a wuss, Selenis. She needs this. It’s time for tough love. The current situation was hurting her more than it was helping. And it was killing me.
I told Marizol to get her things. She was going, and that was that.
WE PULLED UP to what looked like the outside of a homeless shelter. A line of young people wrapped around the building. I didn’t want to think about what might have been in there. I was so angry at her. And I was also angry at myself for being so weak, for letting it come to this.
She got out of the car, and I said, “Don’t you dare come back. I don’t care what it’s like in there. You’re gonna have to suck it up and deal with it.”
On the drive home, I didn’t let myself think about what she was walking into. I didn’t want to overthink this or second-guess myself. This is it, I thought. You made a decision. She needs to deal with it.
When I got home, I was overcome with a sense of relief. Finally, I had my space back. I could be there for my daughter. I could start to work through things with my husband. I started to make dinner, and that’s when the doorbell rang.
I opened the door, and it was Marizol.
“You don’t understand,” she said.
She explained how there was no privacy—just a big open space and rows of cots. How it was dirty. How a mouse was walking around out in the open, not afraid at all of the people or the noise. It sounded like a nightmare.
“Well, we’re gonna have to figure this out because you cannot stay here.”
Looking back, I am ashamed I reacted that way. But I had come to a breaking point. I was done.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
But nothing changed. She came in and went right back to watching TV in the guest bedroom, sleeping in until well past noon.
A few days later, I vented to a friend of mine. He told me about the Ali Forney Center, how it was more than a shelter, it was an organization that helped young people like Marizol get on their feet. I took down the information and called as soon as I could.
Chapter 18
SELENIS & MARIZOL
Maybe it was raining.
As time passes and I think about driving Marizol to the shelter in Brooklyn, I can’t really remember with certainty the weather, or the station that played on the radio in my red Subaru. But the feeling—that I know.
I found it hard to breathe that day.
Marizol grabbed her bag and took it to the trunk. She was wearing a big, baggy hoodie, the kind she always wore around the house. We got in the car and drove to Brooklyn, just me, Marizol, and my Pucca doll hanging from the rearview mirror. We didn’t really say anything to each other; no small talk, no chitchat. The few times I did speak, I tried to convince Marizol that this was going to be good for her.
“You’re going to get your GED.”
“You’re going to get a job.”
“They’re going to help you get your own place.”
“You’re going to be surrounded by people who are like you, who will understand you.”
“This is going to be good.”
Of course, I wasn’t really trying to convince Marizol. I was trying to convince myself.
MY SISTER and I didn’t talk much during the drive. A few words here and there. Around that time, things had become tense between us. I was feeling depressed, not taking care of myself like I wanted to. And on top of all that, after all that I had done to show my sister the real me, she had gone back to calling me by my birth name. Again, I was toning things down, not just for her but for the rest of my family too. And I couldn’t express to her how painful it was to be called that name, how small that made me feel.
I remember that it was raining and we were listening to Spanish music loud. I felt like I was walking onto a stage, in front of an audience of ten thousand people. The butterflies fluttered and fluttered. The shelter was in Brooklyn, far from where we lived in the Bronx. We came to an area with big, industrial buildings, and I was surprised when I heard the GPS announce: “You have arrived at your destination.”
We got my stuff out of the car, and my sister said, “Maybe this will be nicer than we expect.”
The last shelter she took me to was supposed to be for LGBTQ+ people in between homes. But it was a disaster. No order, no privacy; just cots on the floor of a church lunchroom. Along the walls, there were these metal shelves for storage, and sitting there, among the bags and hats and what have you, was a mouse, just chilling. I saw myself sleeping on the floor, surrounded by dozens of other people, a mouse skittering over me. No way could I live like that. My sister had told me that I had to stay, no matter how bad it was. She told me I could not go back with her. But I couldn’t stay in a place like that.
And then I felt guilty. The other people at this shelter probably didn’t have any other home or family to go back to. LGBTQ+ youth in general, and trans youth in particular, are especially at risk of becoming homeless. Who was I to go in there, get disgusted by the conditions, and immediately leave? I didn’t want to make them feel bad, to think that I was bougie, that I thought I was better than them. To be honest, I felt I was heading in a similar direction.
When I arrived and walked inside that first shelter, check-in wasn’t for another two hours. I stood there, conversing a bit with a few people in line. After a while, I said, “I’ll be right back. I’m gonna take a walk.”
But I didn’t go back. I took the subway uptown, to my sister’s home in the Bronx, right next
door to our childhood home. I was a mess. How had I gotten to this point? What was I doing with my life?
When my sister found me on her doorstep, she was so mad.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.
I begged her: “We’ll look for another option.” I said, “There is no way I can stay there. You would never stay in a place like that. Please.”
A few weeks later, a good friend of hers recommended I meet with some people at the Ali Forney Center, an organization that protects LGBTQ+ youth from the dangers of homelessness and empowers them to live productive, independent lives. Before I walked into the center’s main office in Chelsea, I watched as a lot of different people came and went. They were all smiling, looking happy. I thought, Okay, maybe they are doing something good here. Maybe this will be different.
I learned that the center isn’t only a shelter but also a foundation. A place for LGBTQ+ youth to get help and find support. There, you can get medical assistance and help finding a job. They’ll help change your name, get new identification. It seemed like a place where I could feel safe. And so when I got the call from the center telling me they had found a bed for me, I decided that it was the start. The start of me being 100 percent true to myself.
When I stood outside of the building that night beside my sister, my suitcase in hand, I thought to myself: This is it. My last chance to get my life together. My last chance to fight for my truth. To be a warrior.
I had to make it work.
DURING THAT DRIVE to Brooklyn, I was real with Marizol. I remember saying, “You have to listen. This is it—you have to give this a real try. You cannot walk away from this opportunity. You can’t. Because I’m done, I can’t do this anymore.”
I don’t even remember if she responded to me. The air in my car was tense, awkward. My Pucca doll dangled in front of me, with her rosy cheeks and sweet smile. I glanced at her and thought, Girl, I don’t know what’s going on here either.
INSIDE THE building, the hallways were painted white. It was so bright—I felt like I was walking into a tunnel of light.
We rang the bell. Ms. Kane, one of the caseworkers, answered. “Hi, are you Jose? We’ve been expecting you.”
I knew what going to the shelter meant for me, but in that moment, hearing my birth name stung. If my sister hadn’t been around, I think I would have corrected her, but it was getting late—it was nearly bedtime—and my new roommates were standing by, waiting, eager to greet me.
Ms. Kane led us into a very large space with high ceilings and wood floors. It was homey. My roommates showed me around: the large living area, the large kitchen, the bathroom, the spiral staircase that led down to the beds. They even offered to carry my things down to my room. Everything was so clean and put together. I felt like I was in college, moving into a big dorm I would share with other young, excited people. This seemed like a place where I could grow.
WE HAD TO hurry to get inside of the huge building. It was nighttime, and we had to be there before curfew. We got in the elevator, and again, it was all silence. The door opened up to this kind of loft space, and I could see a kitchen right away. It was big and clean—very clean. The space was inviting, and I thought, This is somebody’s home. I felt okay leaving her in a place like this. But as I went down the elevator and out the door, it was getting harder and harder to breathe. I wanted to scream. No, I needed to scream. She doesn’t belong here! She has a family!
I thought about turning back and getting her, bringing her home. Instead, I sat in the car for a long time, just me and Pucca. Finally, I heard it. Like thunder. The dam broke. I was crying, hard. The passenger seat was empty. And drops of rain pounded against my windshield.
I called my brother Tony. I told him what I had done: how I had left Marizol at this place, how I felt guilty, horrible.
“I’m a bad person,” I said. “I’m a bad sister.”
Tony is not big on words. But then he said to me what I had been saying to Marizol: “It’s gonna be good. This is what she needs. It’s time for her to be on her own and it’s gonna be good, you’ll see.”
And I remember saying over and over, “I think I’m a bad person. I think I failed her.”
“No,” Tony insisted. “It’s gonna be good.”
LIGHTS OUT was at ten o’clock sharp, and I was relieved to finally have a structure to my day. When I lay my head on my pillow that night, I remembered a conversation Mami and I had after everyone found out that it was me who took the money.
She told me that she forgave me, that she wasn’t angry about what I had done. I remember us talking about what was to come with the police and the courts, and she said to me, “It will be okay. But always pray. Just always pray.”
And that night, in my new bed at Ali Forney, I prayed.
I prayed about what I wanted to get out of this experience, what I had come to the center for. I prayed about everything that had happened in my life, about what I could do to change everything I’d done. How I could become a better person, a better version of myself. I wanted to do right, to make changes in my life and have my family forgive me and accept me for who I was. I asked God to forgive me and to keep me strong. Mami’s voice was like a refrain in my head: Do good. Be strong. Always pray. And I promised to do just that.
As I prayed, I started to tear up. But it wasn’t out of sadness or fear. It was out of relief. I was finally in a place in my life where I had hope. There would be no more hiding Marizol from my family. No more editing my truth. This, I decided, was the beginning.
Part III
MARIZOL
Chapter 19
MARIZOL
When I woke up the next morning at the Ali Forney Center, I had a smile on my face. I felt calm and reassured, hopeful even. Something told me that I was going to be good and that this was a space where I’d find people who wouldn’t judge me. I was on a new journey and being guided by a brand new light. Finally, I was at peace—with myself, with all that I had done, with all that had gone down with my family, with everything in my life. I had the chance to get my life together, and I was going to better myself.
I wanted to take over the world, and I didn’t want to waste any time. What’s my task for the day? I thought. I was ready to do what needed to be done: to get my name changed, to apply for government assistance, to look for a job.
Normally, it took me a few days after meeting someone new to feel comfortable enough to open up and show them the real me. But that morning, after I got out of bed and showered, I put on my feminine clothes. As I stood by the mirror to do my makeup and hair, Ms. Kane approached me. I waited nervously, hoping that she wasn’t going to call me by my birth name like she had the night before.
I always dreaded moments like these. Whenever I went to appointments or when I was running errands at government offices, I would write down “Marizol” when I could. But if anyone ever looked at my ID or at my official papers, they would always call out my birth name. Those moments were not only degrading and embarrassing but also drew attention to me and made me feel unsafe. When my birth name was called, suddenly I wasn’t just the woman in the waiting room—I was the woman with a man’s name. I felt like all eyes were on me, like everyone was thinking that I was a weirdo or a freak. I knew I had to eat it up, to keep my cool; if I went off, I would draw even more attention to myself.
A few months before living at Ali Forney, I went to a Social Security office in the Bronx to have my gender marker changed from male to female. Doing so offered me an added sense of security and affirmation. And it gave me a much-needed sense of privacy. If I hadn’t changed my gender marker, any time I had to show ID—at the bank, at a bar, to a police officer—the fact that I am transgender would be made public, for all to see.
In addition to ensuring my security and privacy, I needed my gender marker changed because I was finding it difficult to pay out of pocket for hormone therapy. My health insurance would cover it only if my gender marker was female. Dr. Raquel explained to m
e how to go about making the change, and I brought along with me all of the required documentation, including a formal letter from her explaining that I was transgender, that she had been treating me for so many years, and that the gender marker in my records should reflect my gender identity, not the gender I was assigned at birth.
It had taken a lot for me to muster up the courage and go to the Social Security office that day—as a trans person, even though I know my rights, I always anticipate the worst in situations like those. I fear that I will have to interact with an individual who thinks that being transgender is a choice or who doesn’t “believe” that it is a biological, scientific fact. I fear that I will be confronted by someone who makes comments that make me feel uncomfortable or unsafe. I fear that I will have to defend myself against someone who wants to physically harm me because of who I am. Unfortunately, that day, after saying my birth name out loud, the Social Security agent took one look at my papers and said, “I’m sorry, this isn’t allowed—I cannot help you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “All of the documents are here.”
“There’s nothing I can do for you.”
“But, I have—”
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
I was shocked. I had everything necessary to complete this process. I couldn’t believe that she was treating me this way.
“Can I speak to your supervisor?”
She sighed and called the supervisor over, and I got the sense she was relieved that she didn’t have to be the one to deal with me.
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