A. G. C. T.
or A G(uide) to C(oping) while you’re T(ransgender)
by Mars
Written with ink, blood, rage, and no forgiveness.
When I told my mother the name I had chosen, MY name, she said:
“That’s nice. But I’m still going to use ********. That’s my right, you know. It’s a mom thing.” It could’ve gone worse, I suppose.
*****
As a Transgender person, how do you define family when your blood doesn’t allow you to exist? Start with a song. Sing for a while. (The title: Who Has the Most Generational Trauma?)
Then,
Pick a piece from your mother to fashion yourself by. The attitude from your father. The stubbornness of your uncle. The resourcefulness of your aunt. The repercussions of your grandmother.
The tragedy of your personhood, defined as a genetic code. ACGT. The four nucleotide bases of DNA: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T).
None of these things can communicate the reality of who you are.
You were born different. De-centered.
An anomaly.
You were the miracle baby; the result of a seven year attempt at parenthood. Thousands of dollars of treatments and dozens of failed appointments all lead to the miracle of your creation. My mother knew my name before I was born.
24 years later, I know my own. 24 years later, I am told I am not one of them. I am told I am confused. I am told I am mentally ill. I am told I am going to Hell.
How can that be?
There are no records of transgender people having ever existed in my family. But. I cannot believe I am the first. I cannot believe that I am the only one. I cannot be the first to walk this path.
This begs the question:
Were there others like me?
Or
Am I the first one to be Wrong?
The history of my bloodline, coaxed and condensed and aligned into what I call myself. Flesh, body, bone. Life everlasting. I am a stuck pig, I am sacrifice, I am a funeral pyre 24 years in the making. I am the god of my own creation. I am Frankenstein, stitching myself together on a
table in the dark. I am Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. I am forever 8 years old, alone at recess in the rain. I am wrong and right and bad and good and whole and broken.
I am the covenant, thicker than the water of the womb.
Take that, mom and dad.
RRCC 