At the Broken Places

by Mary Collins

  We both agree that the most conflicted parents don’t even show up, and those who do are often mustering all the courage they can because they love their child.

  “I think it’s important that people come when they are ready to come. Don’t have them come if they are not ready to be there. Give them something like your book [At the Broken Places], ask them to read it, and make it clear that this is happening and you need to reflect on what you want to do next to show your love for your kid or partner.”

  Libby said that one of her more stressful encounters was when a very quiet, meek trans woman brought her wife, a highly opinionated woman, to the group when she, the wife, wasn’t ready to talk about support.

  “That wife just started pounding the table and yelled, ‘When will it be my turn to get what I want?’

  “I told her that I understood how upsetting this was for her [that her husband wanted to transition to being a woman], but there was nothing I could do to change that. I let her vent. It happened that there were no other folks attending that meeting, but if that had happened in the general group with other parents or spouses attending, it would have been hugely disruptive.”

  After more than fifteen years working with families, transgender young people, and spouses or partners, Libby says the most noticeable change she’s seen is that more parents of teens are showing up. When she first started going to the group in Maryland, most of the trans people were in their fifties and sixties, and were coming out because their parents had passed and they just didn’t want to wait anymore. Now, more and more young people seem to feel free to push for a transition during or even before puberty.

  As a parent, I wish I had had a facilitator like Libby, who showcased skills that I know would have helped me, including

  • Empathy, rather than judgment, for whatever stage in the process a parent might be in

  • Championing a whole-family approach that does not hyperfocus on the needs of the teen in transition at the expense of the entire family

  • Accepting that at meetings some parents will sit there in silence, never put on a nametag, and may never return

  • Acknowledging that most support groups need to reach out more to conflicted parents

  • Providing support as the primary goal in whatever shape and form that might take, rather than telling someone to just “get it”

  Near the close of the interview I asked Libby what she might have said to me and Donald when he was pressing for top surgery and hormones, and I was vehemently opposed.

  She reflected for a few seconds before answering.

  “If I had faced your scenario, I would have said that I respect your right as a mom to say, ‘You cannot use my insurance and you need to do this on your own dime because I just don’t trust everything that’s going on,’ and to Donald I would have said, ‘I completely understand why you feel a deep need to do the surgeries.’”

  An open mind, a fair hearing, balanced advice. That seems like a good recipe for repairing families who face unique pressures when a child transitions from one gender to another.

  Transgender Youth and Professionals Story Exchange

  Donald Collins

  Getting Perspective

  This interview series intends to provide supplementary trans-related perspectives across identity boundaries. The voices included in these sections have established themselves as gender activists, leaders, and/or qualified professionals.

  After I came out in high school, building a supportive community took time and a lot of self-education. I worked hard to use the resources available to me, whether it was the Internet, a support group, or a therapist. I remember the Google-storm of my first week with the word “trans” and being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of conflicting and incomplete information.

  Understanding the complex issues trans people face, the inconsistencies of the medical system, and the sheer variety of sex and gender expression out there brings necessary context to my own experiences. I wouldn’t have made it without friends, mentors, and good health-care professionals to guide me.

  Central to each of these interviews is the issue of “family” support. Some of the people interviewed faced (and still face) strained or negative relationships with their parents and other relatives. While others may come out on better terms, no family dynamic is perfect, and other forms of prejudice and discrimination are not erased by a happy home.

  These interviews also seek to provide anchorage for families who don’t know what to expect or who feel unprepared. If you are concerned for the future of your trans child, sometimes it helps to see trans people living and working in the world. If you are unable to see your child as trans, then maybe hearing from someone else’s trans child will adjust your vision. If you are confused about new terminology, maybe seeing these words in context will better impress their meanings.

  Many LGBTQ people lead full and loving lives without any connection with their family. Some families leverage trans children financially or emotionally to keep them in the closet. Trans people may cut themselves off by choice to protect themselves, while others may be iced out, kicked out, or both. There are those who have positive relationships with one parent but not the other, or with a sibling but not their parents. There are those like me who experienced rough patches but maintain contact.

  It’s clear that we are reaching a turning point in trans education and advocacy. We recognize that family and home life can provide a substantial source of stress for trans people coming out at any age. According to the findings of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, around 57 percent of the more than six thousand trans respondents experienced some level of family rejection. Among those who reported rejection, homelessness was nearly three times higher, and other negative factors, like suicide risk and substance abuse, also increased.

  As the attorney I spoke to put it, “Human rights is a better framework for trans rights, because it’s about basic survival. It’s about things that you deserve as a human being. You deserve to be loved, you deserve to be safe, you deserve to have food and shelter.” I’d like to think all parents can agree with that.

  The NTDS’s recommendations for family-life issues demand a collective commitment to overhauling outdated legal and medical policies, and widening the availability of educational resources. Parents need to communicate and self-educate; social workers and family courts need specific training on the risks facing trans youth; families need access to qualified therapists and counselors.

  There isn’t a quick fix. I don’t think my situation is representative of most trans people’s, insofar as my reconnection with my mother goes. I don’t think it would be fair to say, “We did it; so can you!” That’s not what this book is about.

  A fairer summary would go something like, “We barely did it; here’s what we learned.”

  ASK A LAWYER: DRU

  Dru Levasseur is a white trans guy in his early forties who is a trans activist and attorney. He grew up in New England and is now based in New York City.

  The following are select excerpts from our conversation, which covered his coming-out, the beginnings of his activism, and his leadership on the LGBTQ legal front.

  What is your personal conception of “gender”?

  DRU: One of the things that I’ve realized is truly important is that most people are raised with this idea of “binary gender.” That you hold up the baby, you look at their genitals, you pick one of two boxes. In my work as a transgender rights attorney, I’ve realized that there’s this gap in understanding. There’s this idea that there’s this so-called “real” or “biological” sex that is what you really are, and that any other identity is intangible, that it’s “in your head.”

  I, myself, needed to expand my understanding that sex is actually more complicated than that moment at birth, or just genitals and chromosomes. It’s very helpful to our legal work to bring in actual experts to show that “here are all of the different factors that go into a determination of sex.”<
br />
  When I’m talking to a room of people, most folks in the room assume that they know what gender they are, and they think that all of those different categories line up. But everybody might have variations, like some people have different levels of hormones than other people. The bottom line is, the one thing that medical science shows, is that the one determining factor out of all of those things is the self-identity. Self-identity is actually rooted in biology. It is who people are; it is rooted in their brains.

  Dru and I spoke at length about House Bill 2, a controversial North Carolina bill signed into law in March 2016. Like many anti-trans laws, the bill’s logic claims to be rooted in an immutable understanding of male/female biology.

  HB-2, also called the “bathroom bill,” stipulates that people must use the bathroom that corresponds with their “biological sex” or the gender marker on their birth certificate. The bill passed quickly—within a single day—and divisive reactions reared just as quickly. Democratic legislators walked out in protest during the vote and soon filed for repeal. Opponents picketed the legislative building and decried the bill on Twitter, while celebrities and businesses canceled events and plans in the state.

  So why did it pass in the first place?

  Supporters argued that HB-2 prevents “men in dresses” from preying on women and children, falling back on the concept that trans women are really men in disguise. And not just men but pedophiles and criminals. Far from serving as a safety precaution, HB-2 instead discriminates openly against those who may not fit its poorly defined notion of “sex” and who already face harassment and violence in public spaces.

  “Violence statistics are very real against all women, especially trans women of color,” Dru said. “And, you know, targeting trans people and combining those two ideas is extremely harmful and inaccurate.”

  Why are we so adamant about having people “look” two specific ways [male or female]?

  DRU: I think it gets back to HB-2 and all of these anti-trans bills. This hysteria that’s happening is really tapping into and taking advantage of the lack of public education around who transgender people are. And I think that our culture, our society, understands gender in very simple terms. When somebody’s born, they have to fit in a box, one box or the other.

  So out of that ignorance and power struggle over gender control come these laws that mandate using the restroom based on “biological sex.” [Legislators] don’t even know what they’re talking about because, as I said earlier, gender identity is, in fact, “biological” and the most important factor in determining someone’s sex!

  Dru pointed out that those who face the most distress in bathrooms are people who are read as gender-variant or non-conforming. So, HB-2 specifically targets members of the trans or queer community who look different, including those who don’t easily fit into those gender boxes or who don’t have the resources to transition medically. It affects anyone who doesn’t meet the strict standards of masculine/feminine gender stereotypes, regardless of whether they are trans.

  Both Dru and I recognize that we no longer read as gender-ambiguous, though we shared stories of bad bathroom experiences from earlier in our transitions.

  Dru recalled that the last time he was accosted in a bathroom, he was trying to use the women’s room in an airport and still legally had an “F” on his driver’s license. He was “arm-barred” on his neck from entering by a woman who said, “This is the ladies’ room!”

  In high school, I went to use the boys’ bathroom shortly after my coming-out senior year. A teacher deliberately followed me inside the otherwise empty restroom to yell, “Is there a girl in here?”

  After speaking about bathrooms for a while, Dru summed up: “Just use the f-king restroom and leave each other alone!”

  It’s one thing to experience discrimination or anxiety firsthand, but communicating it to others can be difficult.

  In an April 2016 study published in the journal Science, authors David Broockman and Joshua Kalla found that having canvassers go door-to-door in Miami and speaking with random constituents for ten to fifteen minutes noticeably reduced anti-trans prejudice for a period of time. Canvassers were both cis and trans people, which suggests another important factor: this kind of advocacy doesn’t necessarily have to be the burden of queer people alone.

  In Dru’s work, whether litigating or speaking, he is often people’s first point of contact with an openly trans person. He possesses a potent combination of professional training and personal experience.

  Do you find that the effectiveness of this kind of person-to-person communication really holds true in your work?

  DRU: The reality is that when people have a human connection to any community, they realize [the other person is also] a person, just like them, and it really makes a difference. And I think that’s the gap. We saw that with the success of Harvey Milk encouraging gay people to come out, because once people started coming out, people realized, “Oh, my next-door neighbor, someone we know, is gay; they’re not these predators.” There’s still that gap with trans people.

  The problem is that when you ask people to come out, what is that gonna mean for people? Does it mean that they’re gonna put their safety at risk? It’s a burden for people, including myself. I know that every time I go up to speak, however many people are in the room now officially know a trans person. I’m likeable; I’m somebody they can connect to. It’s a service for me to go out there in the world and put myself out there and say, “I’m a trans guy.”

  I have my own fears for safety for a very good reason. And so does my family. But I’m this white, educated, male lawyer. So I make my own choices around what privileges I have and what I want to do for the community.

  How do you protect yourself?

  DRU: It’s severely stressful. You’re pioneering wherever you go. You don’t have support; you don’t have proper mentorship. You have to trust your own gut. So it’s a very difficult pioneering position to be in.

  But on the flip side, I know that I have saved lives. I literally change people’s lives. I’ve been doing LGBT activism for twenty years. I’ve been doing transgender-rights legal work for ten. And I literally know that I inspire people; there’s a ripple effect. I think that’s something to feel really good about.

  Turning forty for me was realizing that you really need to prioritize yourself so that you can really be of more use to others in the world. I think that’s not really taught. [M]y advice is that, as a trans person, taking care of yourself and staying alive is doing enough for the community. You don’t owe anybody anything. Being alive would be really great. That is an act of self-care.

  Dru expressed frustration that many major LGBTQ organizations have historically undermined trans concerns in favor of winning majority appeal with more “palatable” issues. And since marriage equality has been legalized in the United States, conservatives are looking for a new target in their war against the queer “agenda.” The lack of education surrounding trans issues has left the community in a vulnerable position. The inevitable result, Dru concludes, is a law like HB-2.

  Dru has been a role model for me as long as I’ve been in contact with him, which is a few years now. In addition to growing my understanding of trans rights, he showed me that trans people could have good lives, cool careers, and full relationships. He showed me you could have terrible ups and downs and still make it through.

  What was your own coming-out like?

  DRU: My first coming-out as gay was in my teens. And it was like, oh my gosh, it’s not what my family was expecting; it goes against my religious upbringing, and everyone will be really disappointed with me, and I’m gonna face all kinds of hardships.

  But there’s, you know, community. There are gay bars. This was before the Internet and pre-Ellen. I realized that there was some kind of positive.

  The second coming-out, though, ten years later when I was twenty-seven, was very much the opposite of that. I didn’t know any trans people. I di
dn’t know of any community. I was extremely alone, and then I realized that, when I looked into it, I would have to cover all of any medical care I needed out-of-pocket, and the world thinks I’m crazy; there’s literally a mental health diagnosis for this, and you’re gonna be alone and probably kill yourself. It was a very dark time. I did not have any resources and can imagine that people have it way worse than I did, even now.

  Do you have a relationship with your family today?

  DRU: I do and it’s amazing now. The very difficult years were when I first came out as gay. My family has a religious background, and it was a very big deal for them, not only for what they were expecting of me but also for everything that they knew and believed. It took them many years for their own process.

  The times when you need your family the most are often the times when they’re doing their own processing and having their own struggle and, therefore, the most unavailable. And that is just a horrible combination that I know a lot of people face. I absolutely faced that.

  And my coming out as trans was obviously very challenging, but I think there was some groundwork laid from those pretty dark years of my first coming-out. So my family really messed up with pronouns for about a year, and my name was “old name—sorry!—new name.” But it was really great because they were trying.

  Dru explained he didn’t enter law school intending to specialize in trans rights. “I think going to law school in part was a survival tactic because I felt so unsafe in the world,” he reflected. “Being queer, being trans, you need all the tools you can to protect yourself.”

  He laughed as he recalled the e-mail he sent his extended family upon finishing his last year: “graduation & gender update.”