Acidentally Gay

by Lucky Bradley

  My husband and I were well on board with my transitioning by December of 2013. The only thing holding us back was access to doctors, because at this point in time insurance companies did not cover hormone therapy. This was a situation made all the more infuriating because my husband could walk into just about any doctor’s office, get his testosterone levels checked and get the prescription. He doesn’t even have a low testosterone level.

  As an ex-nurse, I was sure I could source the testosterone and supplies in a less than legal way, but I wanted a doctor on board with labs to make sure I was within normal safe levels. It’s not hard to inject things into yourself, however identifying the labs? You need a doc to order those.

  When we could finally afford to go to the doctor, I found Dr. Rongitch at Capitol Hill Medical. She was a lifesaver, not just me, but for a lot of transgender folks. The medical clinic caters to LGBTQ folks, and handles a lot of transgender care. Even better, at $150 an appointment, I could afford it.

  Before this point, I had decided not to tell my in-laws that I was transitioning until I started on testosterone. At 5’6” tall, with a very effeminate look, it wouldn’t matter until then. All the men’s clothing, baseball hats and boots would never ever overwrite my double X chromosomes.

  However, when a transmasculine person takes testosterone, the changes can come extremely fast. I decided I’d have to tell them when I started hormone therapy because, if it took a month or so for me to get back up to Bellingham from Seattle, the changes might start to be starkly noticeable.

  This was a very fraught situation for me. I don’t have any blood relatives that I’m in contact with. I had already lost every family member I had. It’s a very long story, but let’s just say you don’t end up on your own in your teens if your family is a good loving one.

  My mother told me in my mid-30s that she didn’t want to see me again. I can’t say all of these issues had to do with my being transgender, but I can’t say they didn’t. I was never out to my family, but it was still an issue.

  My behavior is classically male. It always has been, and this caused a lot of conflict in an already dysfunctional family. As a teen, if I came home to my parents’ house from my own apartment, my mother would force me to change out of my own clothing and into hers before she would be seen with me in public. If I wanted to be a part of family events, that was the price.

  This was in part because I was very punk in the late 80s, and in part because she hated that I looked like a boy. In fact, from childhood on, the refrain of “why can’t you look more feminine?” was a constant echo in my ears.

  So even though I wasn’t out of the closet as a transgender man to my family, it was a constant struggle with them.

  It was this, and a lot of other dysfunction, that led to my asking for our family as a whole to seek out family therapy. I watched Oprah and I knew that if you wanted things to change, family therapy was supposed to help. I gave it my all, offering to drive from Seattle, two hours north, to their city weekly for it. I even offered to pay out of pocket. That was when I was told nobody wanted to have contact with me again.

  I could tell you it crushed me, but considering the history of physical and emotional abuse, and the drug addiction issues that were in my family, I was halfway relieved. I mourned the loss, but a sudden end to a dysfunctional relationship is easier to heal from than a long struggle to have a problem recognized.

  Being cut off filled my life with a calm quiet, but I was still very aware that family could kick you out of their lives in an instant. I feared that coming out as transgender to my in-laws could end up with my being ostracized again.

  I’d known my in-laws since I was a homeless teenager. I played Dungeons & Dragons with my husband as a teen and, at the time, they were a whole new world for me. They opened my eyes to a whole lot and made my life safer by giving me advice, which I desperately needed as a very young teen on my own.

  My father in-law was a Vietnam Veteran and an old-school biker, not the kind that watched Sons of Anarchy and ran out and bought a new badass persona with their new bike and leathers. John and Mary were the real deal and lived a pretty rough life.

  Despite that, they accepted me with open arms. They were concerned about a 16-year-old “girl” being on her own. They were one of the best resources I could have found on how to make my fast food wages stretch into an apartment worth of expenses. They went out of their way to help me when I was struggling.

  When Lucky and I started dating, they were very supportive. I was an oddball teen. I was punk, anti-establishment and an artist. I lost jobs as fast as I could get them, and had no idea how to be a functional adult. Yet, they thought I was perfect for their son.

  As the years went on, I learned more from my in-laws than I could have imagined. John taught me a lot about how to be a man, about how a father always takes care of his kids and stands up for what’s right. Even if it doesn’t go well for you.

  Mary was unfailingly open and loving to me. She taught me a lot about forgiveness and unconditional love. She taught me how to be a good family member. She never once questioned that I was a part of her family.

  This meant I was very concerned about telling them I was a man and intended on transitioning. Once again, the odds were not in my favor. Most families are not really that supportive. I had heard the horror stories for other transgender people being exiled from their loved ones. Hell, I had already gone through it for day-to-day things with my own family.

  My husband and I discussed it in detail. We felt it would be best if he went up alone and talked to them alone and explained things they might not understand. He was confident that they would get it, even if there was an initial backlash.

  I wasn’t so sure, because I knew so many people who lost family, and my life had taught me it was a very real possibility. I’d already lost one family and was in a place where I was finally OK with my life again. I was very anxious it would be worse this time. My worst-case scenario was Lucky still seeing his folks every other week and me being banned from going, or treated badly when I did.

  The thing about being transgender is you have literally no way to tell how someone is going to act when they find out. I’ve had the kindest people turn into snarling horror shows and the biggest jackasses shrug and become vocal allies.

  In the last five years, I have not been able to figure out how to identify who is who. Even other gay or lesbian people don’t necessarily act cool when they find out you are transgender. That whole LGBTQ umbrella can sometimes give less coverage to transgender people.

  It’s incredibly unpredictable overall and despite the love and affection John and Mary had always shown towards me, I just couldn’t be sure how they would react to my being transgender.

  When my husband went off to see his parents, I remember feeling a bit lost. I did what I always do when I’m anxious. I started cleaning the apartment. I did the laundry, scrubbed the bathroom and vacuumed. Apparently, my apartment was already pretty clean because there was nothing left to clean and he was still gone.

  When my husband finally returned, he was smiling. He looked far happier than when he had left. As it turns out, things went well.

  Lucky explained that his parents took the news really well. They were like everyone else in our lives and once they thought about it for a bit, found it wasn’t that surprising that I was going to transition from female to male.

  Mary even pulled out this gem, “Well, Wolsey’s gender identity is her business, so it’s what she wants.”

  If you knew them, you’d have thought that was a shockingly modern viewpoint. I kept thinking maybe they had been watching Oprah too.

  I believe some of it was that my in-law’s rougher lifestyle had led them to be in contact with the LGBTQ community in the 60s and 70s. The idea of all this wasn’t new to them. They brushed elbows with people in gay bars, the Black Panthers and everyone else in the Seattle scene long before I was born. I wasn’t a new experience to them. I was old news happen
ing closer to home.

  What I remember most of all is that my tough guy persona had been way more worried about this than I had realized. The relief was so palpable. I could see my husband felt the same. His parents were such a huge part of our lives, that to have them on my team was everything both of us could have hoped for.

  Once again, I was learning from John and Mary. I was learning that family could love you no matter what you were.

  Chapter Six

  Safety as a Gay Couple

  You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’

  —Eleanor Roosevelt

  From the Accidentally Gay Blog: Privilege and PDAs

  Posted on May 11, 2014

  There has been an unexpected consequence with my husband’s transition. My husband and I have always had different levels of acceptance for public displays of affection. I have always been very touchy-feely. I love holding his hand, hugging him in public and holding him, etc. I do have to say, I haven’t been about heavy kissing/fondling in public for many years, but the rest of it is something I have always had a high drive for. I just like to constantly reassure him, hold him, hug him and just touch him.

  He has always been the opposite. He never really liked a lot of public displays of affection, except maybe when he’d have a few beers. He always accepted my need to touch him though. When we were younger, this did cause some conflict, but we have worked it out so I am not too overwhelming, and he was a bit more accepting.

  It has been like this for over 20 years, at least until the transition. Since the beginning of his transition, Wolsey hasn’t been very responsive at all to public displays of affection unless in a controlled environment. It has really diminished over the transition.

  I was confused at first, asking myself “why would anything change?” I noticed that he didn’t want to hold my hand in locations we weren’t familiar with, especially with lots of people hanging around. I was so confused, and honestly I was hurt a little bit. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to “admit” he was with me.

  My husband was kind about it though, and explained to me why it bothered him more. He had a history of being attacked when he was younger for similar displays. He explained the danger he faced before we got together when he (at the time appearing as a woman) would date women and be attacked by homophobic assholes. I listened to him, and I can logically understand his worry.

  I guess this is where my privilege stands out because I am a very tall and broad guy and never felt fear about anyone physically. It never even dawned on me to worry about someone else objecting to my being married to another guy.

  I do admit that at first I was unhappy and a bit resentful. It hurt that Wolsey didn’t want to hold hands or hug in public areas. Then I guess I grew up a little over a few days when I realized it wasn’t me, it was about the fact that Wolsey is a small guy, and he had a history of getting attacked when he showed any sort of same sex or alternative lifestyle. Sometimes it’s hard to step out of your own point of view and take into account other people’s worries.

  I realized after thinking about it that this is also another example of my, up until now, heterosexual privilege. I hadn’t realized I had lived with it until it was gone. I am not used to living an alternative lifestyle. It honestly doesn’t bother me and it doesn’t help the fact that I tend to jump into conflict.

  I have no problem engaging with someone who has an issue with my lifestyle. However, this puts unnecessary pressure on Wolsey. He hates conflict and has Graves’ Disease which is a hyper thyroid condition that can cause anxiety. Because of this he avoids conflict when he can these days. I just need to let it go. I don’t want to make his life more difficult and I like him happy, so I need to work with it.

  I don’t have an answer for this or any sort of resolution at the moment. I just thought I would post about it. It helps to talk it out here.

  Lucky’s Perspective Now:

  For the first 42 years of my life, I had not realized fully how much privilege I had been awarded. I was a tall, broad, white male that appeared cisgendered and was in a heterosexual relationship. This garnered me a lot of status and privilege concerning how people interpreted my relationships. I was also very blind to my privilege, even though I had several gender fluid people in my life, I never noticed how they were treated differently.

  As a teenager and up until my marriage with Wolsey, my significant others would hold my hand freely. There would be lots of public displays of affection which included holding hands, kissing, hugging, perhaps even mauling someone’s face off with kisses. I never thought twice about it. In fact, I got pretty daring with things with my earlier girlfriends.

  When I first got together with Wolsey we had a brief flare of lots of PDA. We had the standard interaction you see with new couples in their late teens/early 20s with make-out sessions in the car when he would drop me off. (Yes, Wolsey was the one with the car. I had a bicycle.)

  Every once in a while, I would see him hesitate and immediately I would back off, but I hadn’t realized at the time he wasn’t comfortable with any of it. The public displays started to fade, and I have to admit that my privilege flared up and I got a little resentful. He wasn’t showing as much affection (e.g. making-out, groping, etc.) the longer we were together. This, of course, was totally my issue and nothing he did wrong.

  He realized I was being a jerk and why and was kind enough to explain the situation. He told me he wasn’t sure if I would be interested in him if he wasn’t like that with me in the beginning. He made it clear he did not like this kind of activity in public, but his prior experience was with guys who would treat him very poorly if he wasn’t reactive to attempts to be intimate. (At the time he was presenting as a her).

  I realized how big of a jerk I was being and was embarrassed. I was more than willing to stop that sort of behavior the second I found out he wasn’t comfortable. I never would want anyone to feel that way around me.

  He had explained that he had been physically chased and attacked by people for multiple reasons. Usually it was his dress style and people would make fun of him, denigrate him and even attack him physically. This included a crowd in a Denny’s Restaurant. I was stunned at the amount of attacks he had experienced in the past.

  It turned out that as we became a couple, it wasn’t just in the past. I did witness a couple of times why he avoided the public displays of affection. He always dressed in an eccentric fashion, usually in a punk rock/alternative style, standing out in any crowd we were in. In addition, he was loud, boisterous and definitely not demure like women “were supposed to be.” Also, this was in the early 1990s and gendered expression was more expected.

  When he was dressed like this, even when he was with me, he would sometimes get harassed. People would run up and shove their hand in the car window where he was sitting and scream something, or they would shout something as they drove across the parking lot in the mall. There was never a true threat to his life, but there were threats resulting in physical confrontations. I never could understand why he attracted the harassment but it was so singular that our group of friends would jokingly make fun of that effect he had on people.

  Needless to say, we did still hold hands in public, and I did tend to wrap my arms around him, but in a much more subdued manner. This continued for another 20 years.

  Fast forward to when Wolsey had come out to me. We were now a same sex couple and he exhibited a lot of worry. I sort of brushed him off about that. Who was going to mess with us with me standing there? I did worry a little, but more in that theoretical sense as opposed to any real worry.

  It only took the first week for me to realize how dangerous things could be. Wolsey was just at the start of his transition. He hadn’t gone on testosterone yet and was dressing as a man. He could pass as a feminine looking man, wearing a
baseball cap and a very large hoodie to cover his chest.

  We had gone on a shopping spree that week. No one had really said anything or done anything. There were a couple of looks where I think people assumed Wolsey was just a lesbian dressed as a super masculine woman, but for the most part, there was nothing.

  That was until we went to Ranch 99. Ranch 99 is a large Asian grocery store in our neighborhood. It is located in one of the sketchier parts of the town that was full of meth dealers, junkies, prostitutes and a high level of crime.

  We wanted to check out the store for the first time so we pulled up on a Saturday. It was a cloudy, cold and rainy day. We pulled up and noticed several young men hanging in front of the store doing nothing.

  We stepped out of the car and I went to take Wolsey’s hand. I held it for about two seconds before he pushed my hand away. I felt like someone had slapped me. I looked over at Wolsey and his lips were tight and he just shrugged slightly. The sting of being pushed away was very frustrating. That is until we got to the door of the grocery store.

  As we stepped in the door there were three young men giving us dirty looks. I realized then that they must have seen me hold his hand. This was the first time anyone was that obvious to me in their dislike of who my partner was. Wolsey noticed I was looking at them and he immediately moved his hand over and tugged my arm, indicating I shouldn’t stop and to follow him into the store.

  I hadn’t even realized I had almost stopped all the way and had turned to stare at the three guys.

  When I felt him tug at me I realized we were in an uncomfortable situation. Three young men were watching us warily and the air was tense. I just followed him in. I didn’t want to cause him any trouble.

  We wandered through the grocery store and were stared at by several people. I am sure people could tell we were together. I had never had to mask my body language before and I had no idea I should do it. We quickly looked through the store and left after buying much less than we had anticipated.