Desperate People: The Struggles of the Transgender Life

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Desperate people do desperate things like contacting some stranger for help whose name they found on a Google search. This is a typical email I get from out of the blue, and I got this one yesterday morning:

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Hi:

I got your name when I pulled of trangenders in Indiana.  I live in Florida, but I have a grandson who is 19 and is really struggling with identity issues and also lately with alcohol problems.  He is worrying his mother and myself so badly that I’m very concerned he is suicidal.  We are trying everything to think of to get help.  Since he is 19 and feels he is a woman, he refuses to dress as a man.  Of course,  He lives in Warsaw, Indiana.  Do you know of anyone in that area or close by that could help.  Counselors that he has gone to in the past, do not have any idea how to deal with this.  He now refuses to go to counseling.  I thought maybe if he could talk to someone who feels the same way he does, he could realize what he has to do to survive this life.

I’ve gotten enough of these that I’ve reached the point where they just make me realize how tired I am, how tentative I’ve become.   I’ve responded enough to such things that I know what I’m getting into when I do.  I know how tenuous it is to try to help. I know what happens when you come up with a complete fail, or even do harm.  I’ve done harm and I can tell you that it isn’t something you get over, it stays with you forever.  Hurting someone you are trying desperately to help makes you want to cut your own throat.  Yes! It really does. What can I say to this woman?  How do you get through to her that calling her “him” isn’t passive, it’s totally humiliating, it’s dehumanizing.  It completely dismisses her whole concept of self.  On a good day it fills her with shame and guilt, on a regular day it reduces her to despair.  She’s not suicidal, you, ma’am, are killing her.

Can you imagine the level of insanity it takes to acknowledge that you are right and the whole rest of the world is wrong…..about anything?  Suicide is a form of insanity that often comes right before the level that causes you to stand up to the whole world.  Just one person, one important person, like you grandma, might make the whole thing unnecessary.  If you could find a way to accept her then the whole world wouldn’t be against her.  She wouldn’t need to go totally insane.  She might not even need  to go insane enough to kill herself and she might even not need to go crazy enough to have to get drunk to face the day.

Acceptance isn’t surrender, ma’am, it’s love adjudicated.

Denver sent me one of these emails a few years ago.  Denver was a thirteen year old transsexual girl from northwest Ohio.  She sent me one of these emails from out of the blue.  

“hi, I saw a post you made on this or that website and wondered if you could help me.  my parents are fundamentalist Christians and have threatened to disown me if I don’t stop insisting that I’m really a girl……..”

I talked to Denver. I tried to listen, to let her tell her truth, as a wonderful mentor of my own let me. I supported her and told her only what I thought to be the truth.  I sympathized, empathized and grew very fond of her.  I listened as she fell deeper and deeper into despair.  I heard her desperation day after day as she tried to cope.  I felt the tears when I, an old woman, told her that waiting until she was eighteen was possible.  I knew in my brain that that was like telling her that maybe things will be better when she is reincarnated. After all five years to a thirteen year old is really a lifetime.  She tried to hang on; she really did,  but that child wanted life so badly that she couldn’t take it.  Thank God she didn’t kill herself although she did the next best thing.  She told her fundamentalist parents that she was not going to play the game anymore; she was going to start dressing and acting like the girl she really was and the consequences be damned.  I got that information from her on a phone call she made from the streets of Warren, where her parents had deposited her, telling her that if she wanted to be an affront to God that they were disowning her, she was on her own.

Massive fail.

I told her to stay right where she was and talk to no one. I’m on my way.  Those six hours were some of the longest of my life; that’s how long it took to get from here to there.  I was terrified.  That innocent child on the streets, alone, probably wearing some cute little dress and short boy’s hair.  I imagined the worst, the absolute worst…some predator would pick her up and do unspeakable things to her.  I calmed myself by imagining all the unspeakable things I was going to do to that monster when I got my hands on him.  I took some comfort in hating her parents as well. What kind of human being could even consider putting any child out on the street like that, especially their own?  Fear and hate, that’s what sustained me until I got there.  I tried to think of what I was going to do when I found her, but that was only wishful thinking at the time.  The good news was that, if things went well, I was going to have custody of what surely those parents were going to call a run-away. I’m probably going to end up in prison over this, probably going to be labeled a sex-offender when her parents found out what became of her.  I knew they would blame it all on me and just know that it was me who had unnatural inclinations about their child, they surely won’t admit that it was them that threw her to the dogs…but that was if things went well and if I found her unmolested.

I did find Denver unmolested, she was right where she was supposed to be, tired and scared but free.  She’d made up her mind, give me liberty or give me death.  I threw her in the car and got out of town in a big hurry.  We drove to Kent where we took a room in a motel along the interstate.  By now she was having an adventure and I was on the run.  Kids!  With my mind cleared enough to think beyond getting her off the street I started to really consider what I could do and as it turned out….not much.  I really, really wanted to avoid interstate flight. I’m not big on all the laws but I knew enough to know that that would exponentiate all the trouble I was going to be in when I got caught.  I could think of one possibility. I was acquainted with the pastor of a MCC church in Ohio so I thought I’d give him a call and see if he could advise me.  I was reasonably sure that he would advise me to get that kid to the nearest police station and hand her over to them so that they could hand her over to the very people who threw her out in the first place.  I was reasonably sure of that, but that’s not what happened.  The pastor calmly and gently told me, “bring her here.”

I took Denver to him.  He called her parents and told them where she was and that she was safe.  Denver’s father said, “that’s fine…you can keep him.”  The pastor kept her.

Denver will graduate from high school next year.  She’s planning on college and hopes to become a vet.

So, I will write grandma back…tell her to give her granddaughter my email address and ask her to give me a call.  I am tired, but tired gets nothing done. And then it was  all good.

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Pennyjane Hanson
9 years ago

thank you for pointing out that religion is not the source of the bigotry, just a convenient forum for its’ expression.

and thank everybody for the kind comments here, you are all the kind of people i would have been lucky to contact on that scary night with denver. and when it happens again (and it will) i won’t come nearly so discombobulated…i’ll know there are plenty of good people out there who will be willing to help.

newageluddite
9 years ago

As I read this I have tears of thankfulness in my eyes at how relatively well it has gone for my 27 YO transgendered grandson. He got his first testosterone shot early this week. Fortunately, his mom is in the theater, his primary grandparents are therapists, and we, even here in Tulsa, OK, have a very strong, supportive, LGBT network. I realize that that is not what a large number of young people have in their lives. That’s why an increasing number of churches (Yes (Gasp!), churches!)and other facilities are serving as safe houses for anyone who needs that service.
Thank you for posting this.

Stacey Gray
9 years ago

I’m happy to hear of Denver’s success, I recall when that was happening. You are a good friend PJ. Huggggs

What we need, as a community, is a network of safe-houses and supporting concerned people to do this w/o the 6 hr. drive or the perils of interstate criminalization. There are lots of us “playing it forward”, we need to come up with a way for the needing to find us, and for certifying that volunteers are indeed of pure intention.

Pennyjane Hanson
Reply to  Stacey Gray
9 years ago

stacey. i don’t know if i’ve ever told you but you were my plan b that night. i was so close i could have thrown a stone at your house but for fear of hitting the dog instead. i remember you once telling me your perspective on friendship, that was poignant that night. you said, “a friend is someone who will go your bail, a good friend is that guy sitting next to you in the cell saying, ‘dang…we sure screwed that one up big time didn’t we?”

Bill Formby
9 years ago

Wonderful story pennyjane.There are so many like your Denver and so few of those like you. The world seems to never be fair to those it should show compassion to and I have little hope of it ever changing. Our best hope is that the world will keep creating souls like you.

Jimmy Bruns
9 years ago

My best friend is a transgender and I was with him during his journey. He was lucky and had some of the best medical treatment available. His parents, like Denver’s however, would have none of it so he lived with us for several years during the surgeries. Thanks for this. It’s more meaningful that you might know.

Sandy Poehler
9 years ago

Oh my. I can’t stop crying. This is the first time I’ve commented here but I’ve been visiting and reading all the wonderful stories for years. Ms Hanson this is a heart rending but uplifting story all at once. Thank you so much for sharing with us and I hope Denver is still doing well.

Pennyjane Hanson
Reply to  Sandy Poehler
9 years ago

thank you for caring sandy. Denver is living with a family only an hour from here. she is taking voice lessons and i got to attend a recital a month or so ago. i love the girl, i think she’s going to make a great vet!

Reply to  Pennyjane Hanson
9 years ago

Thanks for keeping us updated Pennyjane.

Marsha Woerner
9 years ago

Denver was lucky to have contacted someone as concerned and helpful as you! One wishes that her parents were actually realists instead of fundamental Christians. They bore the child; it was their responsibility to accept and deal with her!
It’s acceptable for someone to not like a nose or to want her breasts bigger or smaller – even though the particular features are perfectly usable and livable as they are, but it’s not acceptable for people to realize that their brains and bodies developed along different timelines, resulting in the brain and the body using different sexes (at least, that’s my understanding that is the current hypothesis – and it makes sense, at least to me). And the minister that you contacted was amazingly reasonable. You’d almost think that maybe he doesn’t believe in supernatural magicians in the sky who make rules having nothing to do with reality and humanity – but as is my wont, I digress…
Interesting story, and welcome 🙂

Rachael
9 years ago

I agree with James. Religion is to blame for discrimination. I loved reading your story Penny. Thanks for sharing with us.

9 years ago

What really angers me is that most of this anguish can be laid at the door of organized religion. The judgmental, unforgiving, intolerant attitude they so often express (unlike your Pastor friend) often infects those who are not religious at all.

The climate is so pervasive that people are as unaware of it as they are of the weather they have experienced all their lives. If you are Inuit, it is normal to have to wear insulating clothing most of the year. That’s just the way it is.

If you are American, gays and transsexuals are wrong. That’s just the way it is. Why bother thinking about it?

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