Gnawing on Gender Gristle

When I was 10, I got my period. A black smeary embarrassing surprise in my panties, discovered after the long walk back from the Takoma Park Folk Festival. I hid the soiled panties, threw them away. 

What did this onset mean? What kind of person did this determine I would be? I had some alarming ideas about immaculate conception. Perhaps God, someone who seemed terrifyingly real and literally potent, would want me to be the special chosen vessel for the next of his sacred seed.

In my room, amid the hoarded little boxes of shells and peach pits and candy wrappers and coins and stickers and fruity smelling erasers, a pile of ruined underwear grew, ignored, a testament to a kind of hostile takeover of my body, over my life.

*

When my daughter Rosie Jo was 9, her dad died. With her stunned big hazel eyes in her round white face, she told me seriously that she was scared she had to be the man of the family now. I said, no honey. We don't replace the people we've lost. They're gone, and it hurts, and we grow. But nobody can ever take the place of your dad. He was himself. You need to be yourself.

Like so many eloquent and passionate parental speeches, it was unconvincing. Rosie asked to cut off her long silky pigtails. I shrugged. Of course-- your body, your hair, your choice. I had no bandwidth in my grief to care about hair. She beamed at her homemade "pixie" cut, her spiky blond hair easy to manage and fae.

*

Through elementary school up to 7th grade, I wore my hair the same every day. A tight ponytail at the base of my neck, braided and tied with a second rubber band. I hated washing my hair and taking showers, and my scalp was slick with grease and my forehead was severe and spotty with viciously picked zits. My hair was long enough to be a weapon if I turned fast enough.

I wore it long one day in 6th grade. It was a red-gold cascade. According to my journal, the kids at school didn't recognize me, and I heard the teachers say, "she could be so pretty, if only..."

Now I don't remember what the teachers actually said, or what I could have imagined they meant. But the memory evokes the contradiction I felt about my physical appearance.

I loved my long hair, it reflected my inner self-image as a mysterious medieval woodland princess, inspired primarily by the ancient BBC series Robin of Sherwood (also responsible for my lifelong romance with misty pagan gods). My appearance was a puzzlement to me. I wanted to be beautiful, or pretty-- or I felt I should be those things, in a vague way. Like it was right and best that I be pretty, but that prettiness was a sort of natural moral state, the way the princess in a fairy tale is beautiful and virtuous and good. But any effort towards prettiness was a kind of moral failure, admitting shallowness or a desire to be attractive to boys. I wanted a contradiction-- to be unequivocally beautiful, for no one's gaze though, so not sexual, but naturally beautiful, and flowing from a kind of moral and spiritual alignment. A kind of vanity that had none of the trappings of vanity.

I kept my hair in that long gold whip until 8th grade when I chopped it off to a bob, and felt, with a kind of cruel intentionality, that I was cutting off the weird bullied kid I had been-- the woodland sprite antisocial kid was left in the past. (She has emerged again, with a force, now that I am nearly 40. Again I perform rituals at every forest stream I meet and embrace trees and rocks like sisters.) I kept the braid in a box, like my mom had done every time she had cut off her long brown braid to face the baldness of chemo. It's probably still tucked away in an old treasure chest, with the seashells and old dutch coins.

*
Rosie Jo was a gazelle on the soccer field. Bursts of unreal speed from those long limbs. And she had the furious concentration of an athlete, a genetic gift from her dad. I recognized that fierce athlete's scowl from his Little League pictures circa 1988. But her attention wandered. While the other girls were focused on watching the ball and tracking the score, Rosie would get in a stellar kick, sending the ball skittering across the length of the field, and then do a dance move or cartwheels while the game carried on without her. School was the same. Great moments of clarity and then a whirligig of distraction and fog. Moments of focus, and then long strange silent fugues, or sudden spasmodic lurches into motion. She never finished readings, or understood what she was reading. I was concerned at her blasé, "I can't read." The school tested her. "Well, good news," they said, "Rosie definitely has an attention deficit, but her high IQ should compensate."
My heart sank. I know that frustrating dance too well. High IQ doesn't compensate for attention deficit. It's like saying, "You have so many lovely flowers in your garden, you'll be able to pay rent no problem" The two things are unrelated.
"Oh," the special ed teacher said, "When I was giving the assessment, it asked for gender. Rosie told me they don't feel like a boy or girl-- I really appreciated that they were able to articulate that to me."

*
My mom could sew. I wish she was alive now so I could learn more about her own experience of gender expectations. But as a kid she seemed like a master of all the feminine domestic arts. As a mom, she could cook, sew, create beautiful parties, read bedtime stories, snuggle and comfort children in crisis, entertain guests with musical numbers, play gracious hostess and apply eyeshadow. She was also an incredible artist, musician, writer and dancer-- but those real skills didn't seem gendered outside of the fact that she did them through the lens of her life as a woman, wife, and mother.

She sewed us all matching Easter dresses when I was about 9. They were adorable-- blue with large pink posies on the fabric, and trimmed with white lace. We took pictures on the back deck, and I remember the terrible pain the dress caused me. A seam right across my chest caused agony. In the pictures I'm leaning forward in a grimace. Breasts. Not proper womanly ones, just a terrible ache and tenderness-- "bud" is the word for it. It's a cute word, but the experiences is loaded. Not a sweet springtime Easter blossoming-- a raw sensitivity of unknown potential.

My mom made me a silky undershirt to help. And I wore it daily.  I wore it week in and out. I wouldn't take showers. When my older foster sister Barbara, blunt and sick of my nonsense, bossed me into the shower in her downstairs apartment, I turned the shower on and stood in the bathroom fully dressed for five minutes. That didn't fool anybody. I wore that thing for years. It was made for my 9 year old body and I wore it till I was 12. It pressed my chest flat, allowed me to numb the sensation of breasts. 

Puberty felt like a hijacking of my rightful path. I expected to wake up as an entirely different species, or a different person. I didn't see it as a part of my life and future, but as an aggravating side quest come in to take up too much time and space. If I could ignore it, flatten it away, tie it back and get on with my life, fantastic. That's what I would do. 

*
At Rosie's school, a precocious 6th grader had gathered a posse of prepubescent classmates. "I'm the lesbian," she announced. "You're the bi, you're the straight, and you're the trans." Rosie was "the trans." This friend started referring to Rosie as "they/them," and so did her mom. 

I checked in with Rosie about this. 
Rosie told me, "Yeah... I don't know why she does that. I don't feel like any pronoun fits me."
"Not they/them?" Nope. They/them was too alien, and Rosie didn't like the sound of it. The way it conjures someone you don't know, or a crowd. It didn't fit. But neither did he or she.
Okay, no worries, we dropped pronouns. An auntie, when given this request, asked, "But, do you like your name?" 
Rosie was puzzled. "Of course, why not?" Rosie said.

*

I had a precocious 12 year old friend. Goodness, she dazzled... she had her own copy of "Our Bodies Ourselves" with a picture inside of a woman squatting naked in front of a mirror to examine her own genitals. She brought a copy of the Kama Sutra to middle school, and a group of us gathered around to ogle. It proved disappointing, though, because it turns out it reads like this: 

On some particular auspicious day, an assembly of citizens should be convened in the temple of Saraswati. 12 There the skill of singers, and of others who may have come recently to the town, should be tested, and on the following day they should always be given some rewards. After that they may either be retained or dismissed, according as their performances are liked or not by the assembly. The members of the assembly should act in concert, both in times of distress as well as in times of prosperity, and it is also the duty of these citizens to show hospitality to strangers who may have come to the assembly. What is said above should be understood to apply to all the other festivals which may be held in honour of the different Deities, according to the present rules.

Not exactly the titillating how-to-sex text promised by popular culture. 

This friend informed me confidently that everyone was a little bit gay. I was stunned. I knew some gay adult men, but no out lesbians (there was a rumor about our music teacher though. Now looking back, with her Loreena McKennit albums on the wall and her snappy hair cut, this bears out). The idea that everyone may have the potential to be attracted to the same sex was an upheaval. But it weirdly meshed with what I learned at church about the sin of homosexuality. How could something be a temptation everyone should resist if it wasn't something anyone could succumb to? I got attraction, sin, friendship and gender all mashed up into one fervent, guilty, confusing cauldron. I'd swing from elation-- I think I'm bisexual! To despair-- my mom thinks lesbians are gross and motherhood is a divine calling! Sex before marriage is a sin, gay sex is unthinkably perverse! Straight sex is God's design for us! But maybe I can't live up to any of God's expectations, so why resist this label that seems to fit and gives me a place in a tight and supportive clique?

Pretty soon everyone I knew was bi, or at least affectionate with both sexes. I embraced it and lurched away from it, all astew. 

*

For the 2nd anniversary of Matt's suicide, I took the kids to Scotland. The TSA agents gave Rosie a double take, with Rosie's buzzcut and boyish clothes, and the floral name Roselani on the passport. We were familiar with this-- when she was 6 Maile had a short haircut and a leather jacket and stomped her foot at a TSA agent when he called her Sir. "Not sir! Miss!! I'm a girl!" Maile has never had an issue with speaking her mind.

I brought a glass marble containing Matt's ashes in my purse. That's a surreal piece of purse-detritus I tell you what. Looking for a pencil, a punchcard or your PO Box key and you pull out some cremains. 10/10 do not recommend. We held it in our hands-- mine veiny, Rosie's long and pale, Maile's curved and dimpled, and Liko's still babyish-- and we remembered good things about him, and then we threw it into the sea off the Isle of Skye, at a craggy gorse-covered overlook called Kilt Rock. It splashed down into a heart shaped wave. I wanted to die. I wanted to die, die, die. 

But all those little hands in mine. I can't go off the cliff too. I have to stay. I picked spiky gorse and heather from kilt rock and put it into my purse. 

*

My teenage journal chides me: all I write about is god, sex, and death. 

Death. My mom was undergoing bone marrow transplants, chemo, radiation. Heaven and hell, eternal families, life and death-- it was all at the door. It all became too much. I was self-harming. Not suicidal. Well, mostly not suicidal. I wanted to be done and gone. I didn't want to kill myself. That's the frightening kind of suicidality that overdoses, that creeps off to sleep, without ever understanding what death actually is, of the mess left behind. 

It chills me to think how dangerous that time was for me. 

My poor mom. She was alarmed that I hated going to church, terrified at the lies I was telling, and powerless to stop the deep gashes and nicks that crept up and down my arms. It had become a compulsion-- a scary way to get a rush of endorphins. I couldn't quit, even though it scared me.

She did something clever. For every day I didn't self-harm, I got a button. They were snarky and absurdist little slogans to pin to my backpack: "Do not anger dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup!" "Whirled Peas!" Or a postcard-- dancers, sunflowers, cute babies making rude gestures. I hoarded them and pinned them up all over my wall. 

It didn't get to the heart of it. We never talked about the why and what of it. But she helped me extinguish the habit. I don't think I could have put words to it-- well no. It's the opposite. I put millions of words to it. I wrote poetry and stories and journaled prolifically. But none of them really true or honest. How could I know what was going on with me, when I was in the thick of it? I was just in a tempest of confusion and hurt. The little buttons and postcards were breadcrumbs out. Decades later, I can see the confusion with a little more compassion. I was terrified of losing my mom, of going to hell, and I was depressed and anxious. Of course I needed to try and feel better. The cutting was the first way, and then the daily check-in with my mom was the better and next way.

*

"No pronouns at all? I wish that had been an option when I was a little kid!!" 

Do you know how many middle ages moms told me that? All of them. Nearly very one of my friends, Mormon and not, when I explained Rosie's no-pronoun preference to them, recalled the pain and humiliation of going through female puberty. They remembered hiding in baggy clothes and greasy baseball caps and eschewing all things girlie. They wondered, "what would I have done if I'd had that option?"

These conversations were fascinating but troubling to me. Is existential misery a built-in feature of female puberty? Are these feelings, of wanting to nope out of the whole business, just a part of it all? And if so, do you just say, "this is normal woman life, honey. This is what it is. You'll be fine."

I thought of my adult trans friends and their journeys. I don't think being told, "this is perfectly normal," would have eased their minds and reconciled their gender with their assigned sex at birth. 

I cautiously asked Rosie how Rosie felt about Rosie's body. (I got pretty decent about using no pronouns.) Rosie was puzzled. "It's fine?" Rosie said.
I was checking in-- I was concerned about dysphoria. No matter what identity settles, I didn't want Rosie to be in pain. I tried to support self-love at any size and shape. "Boys come in all shapes and sizes, and so do girls, and so do people who don't fit in either category! Isn't it great," I chirped, "that we can wear what we want, play with what we want, and that doesn't make us less or more of a boy or girl??" Rosie hoarded American Girl dolls, customizing some of them to have short wigs. Dolls are for everyone! I pushed the party line. When my mom was a kid, girls had to wear skirts to school. When she went to college at BYU women famously were not allowed to wear jeans. Now we are so much more free to dress how we want, and it's perfectly acceptable for girls to dress masculine or feminine. Boys still have a way to go, but they SHOULD be able to dress as masculine or feminine as they want, too. And hopefully we can keep opening up society so that people can dress however they like. 

I wanted to preserve this bubble of in-between-ness. I wanted to ward off the self-hatred of puberty. I wanted Rosie to love Rosie's self, no matter what identity or body. 

*

We moved to Utah when I was about to turn 16. I left behind the friends I loved so dearly and entered an all Mormon universe. It was terrifying-- I didn't understand the social cues of clothes and hair, and I laughed at the wrong parts in jokes and found the punchlines unfunny. Turns out Washington DC and Orem, Utah circa 1996 were culturally pretty different. It was a fresh start, and I rededicated myself to the simplicity of Sin vs. Virtue. Chastity vs. Sexuality. Obedience vs. Rebellion. 

But internally, I still knew that "bisexual" was an idea that fit me. I found other Mormon misfits-- kids who rebelled in perfect counterpoint to their parents' Mormon expectations, and became parodies of the Bad Kids in early morning seminary videos. They wore vampire fangs and dropped acid. I liked those kids, but I kept going to church. I wrote dramatic poetry and endured confusing crushes. But Death took center stage again.

Who cares about identity, who cares about crushes, when the bottom drops out.

My mom died. At home, early one summer morning. 

It was a nuclear blast. She left the earthly plane with a sonic boom of spiritual power. That summer she sent astonishing lightning and rainbow storms every day. I had dreams and nightmares. We were all totally destroyed. I cried a lifetime of tears. I cried every night for three years. 

All the questions of gender, of identity, of religion, of sin-- it was all small beans. Death is the god. Life is the god. The Haka speaks to this essential reality:

"Ka Mate, Ka mate, Ka Ora, Ka Ora" Death, death, Life, Life. 

*

Skirts. 

Ribbon skirts. 

We were invited to come support at the Gathering of the Sacred Pipes Sundance in Pipestone, Minnesota. 

Girls and women are asked to wear skirts in the arbor. It's about respect, and culture. And it's also, we were taught, about the waters. 

The waters that connect us, womb to womb, umbilicus to umbilicus, through the generations, back to our first mothers. 

The waters we are responsible for-- the ones in our bodies, and the waters that travel across and nourish the world. Women, the water carriers, the womb-holders-- we are the ones who have this responsibility. This ability to respond. It's beautiful and sacred. For me, this imagery, of the women back and back and back, across the waters, through the waters, in the waters-- it's powerful and healing for me. It grounds me and clarifies my goals in life. And the skirt, although it's not something I would wear in ordinary life, it is a way to show respect for the culture and teachings that have allowed us to come and support.

Rosie wore s skirt the first year. But Rosie couldn't bring Rosie to wear it the second year. Rosie came up to the arbor, and held the skirt clutched in Rosie's white knuckles. 

There is a place for people in between in Lakota culture. Winkte. They have a different perspective on life-- a third leg for the stool to balance on. Just the binary isn't strong-- we need people outside of the binary to bring fresh vision to the world. When uncle Francis asked if my oldest was a girl or a boy, I said, "In between?" and he said, "Oh. Can he take the spirit plate?" A job usually reserved for boys. 

White culture Americans cite other cultures' gender diversity to say, "look, being trans isn't a new trendy thing. We've always been here." 

This is true, and not. There have always been people who exist outside of the gender binary. The Winkte, the Two-Spirit, the Mahu. But those identities and cultural roles are not the same as trans as we know it here and now. They have other specific cultural responsibilities and parts to play. Kumu Hina, the amazing Mahu Hawaiian activist, is a powerful trans woman who unites the spiritual mana of Hina and Ku-- the divine feminine and masculine-- and is a clearheaded leader in the fight for Hawaiian sovereignty.  Her role transcends masculine and feminine, kane and wahine. She is so much more than the term "trans" can encompass in American culture.

There have always been people who don't walk with the binary. But the ways that people have done that are as diverse as the languages, religions, foodways and mythologies of those cultures. We can't decontextualize and claim their cultures to explain and justify our own in its specificity. 

But being 12 is hard. And being 12 with no gender, and asked to wear a skirt because you have a womb, is really hard. Nobody forced Rosie to wear it, but I did ask Rosie to understand why culturally the meaning of gender was not the same in the context of Lakota ceremony as it is in the aisles of Target.

*

When I was 34, I had a come to Queer Jesus year. I had been married to Matt for a decade. I had two kids. I was teaching full time and muddling along. We had been out of the Mormon church for 5 years. And suddenly, the question of my own gender and sexuality became crucially important. It consumed me. I spent hours and hours on Tumblr, getting familiar with the terminology and contemporary queer discourse. I found validation in meeting other people going through similar awakenings. My identity as a queer person was real! Even if I had shoved it aside for years, it still influenced my life, my perspective, my values, my friendships. I began talking to other people about it-- I felt urgently rainbowy. I only wanted to watch queer-content shows and read queer-content stories. Matt watched on in bemused support. "Didn't you tell me you were bi like 10 years ago?" "YES but that was a confession of guilt! This is an acceptance!!" 

I reconsidered my childhood experiences in the light of the new terminology-- words like Pan, bi-romantic, genderqueer, agender, non-binary-- how different my childhood would have been if I'd had different words. If I'd known there was a term for wanting to Nope Out of the Whole Darn Gender Thing. And if I had found a group of supporting friends who not only said, "hey, we're all bi here!" but "hey gender is imaginary here, design your own gender identity!" maybe that would have been another stepping stone out of the confusion and pain. A way to name the troubling essential difference I felt, and have a sense of ownership of my body and the roles I wanted to play in the world. 

Who knows, what ifs are interesting but barren trees. But I did wonder.

Gradually the urgency faded. It's easier for me now to say, "yes I'm queer, I'm bisexual," and it's about as interesting and loaded for my as "I have a degree in instructional design." It's a fact, and it may only be relevant in some contexts. I am a little frightened of being judged or shunned by Mormon friends or family. But also I am old and tired, and a little shunning does a body good.

*

Rosie was still in no-pronoun land, sometimes shifting to she or he or they, but mostly still just Rosie. I got Rosie a bunch of pronoun buttons at planned parenthood. Rosie began wearing them out and about, and got frustrated when people didn't notice them. We went to an orientation day at Rosie's new school and when the teacher asked for Rosie's name, Rosie hesitated and said, "........RJ!" 

It stuck. When I named RJ, I actually had this in mind. A flexible name, a name with a lifetime full of potentiality. Roselani Joyce, Rosie Jo, Rose, Lani, Lokelani, Joyce, RJ.

And with the name came a clearer preference for pronouns. He/him. He posted it on his instragram account.

"Of course, yes, whatever you feel fits best," I said. I shifted from no pronoun, to he/him. It was hard. I liked the flexibility and ambiguity of no pronouns. The options it opens up. But he didn't. He didn't want people to ever think he was a girl, or refer to him as she. 

He went to school in false eyelashes, dramatic eyeshadow, and high heels. 

"I'm in drag!" he said. He looked amazing. 

On his first day of middle school in Oregon, he suggested that they all introduce themselves with their pronouns. Since then he's been an accidental trans evangelist. In his little class of 20 kids, 5 have come out as trans*. They gather together in a giddy little knot at the morning drop off spot. This morning there was a full-sized trans flag being worn as a cape, and a mardi-gras-pride worthy amount of rainbow hats, flags, beads, suspenders, socks, and hair. Nearly all of the kids in the class are gender-indistinguishable. I just refer to each kid as them until RJ tells me directly which pronouns they prefer. 

They are all shifting names, pronouns, and Instagram profile descriptions in a heady, coltish feverish rush. I recognize that from my own not-so-distant queer awakening. It's all consuming, it's your whole identity, your whole community. The outside world is full of animosity and danger, and inside the world it's all love and support They are lucky enough to know each other in person, and they are cheerfully supportive, shouting after each other: "YOU ARE A HANDSOME BOY, STAY HYDRATED!!" and writing messages like "I LOVE YOU YOU AMAZING BITCH" on notebooks. 

They are also all deep in online trans* and queer communities-- RJ's Instagram feed is nonstop FTM trans memes. They are nihilistic, depressing, hilarious, disturbing, vulnerable, optimistic and supportive. They are a fascinating view into this culture of self-affirmation, self-identification, anxiety, and fear.

And dysphoria. 

Dysphoria hit RJ, and hit hard. From not caring particularly what he looked like and unselfconsciously playing, he started being deeply disturbed by his body. And especially to other people misreading him-- the Costco cashier saying, "these girls can help you out!" or the gymnastics coach saying, "when the girls are done, we can bounce!" or the counselor saying, "She, no HE-- OMG I'M SO SORRY, I'm gonna beat myself up for a week!!"

RJ goes into tharn. 

Total shutdown.

Unresponsive. It looks like a petit mal seizure. It was happening more and more. The triggers seemed random to me-- I mentioned the good experience I had doing CBT-- cognitive behavioral therapy-- and he completely shut down. Later he said he thought I meant anti-gay conversion therapy. 

He started losing weight. A lot of it. 

I was at Maile's hula class, Liko in tow, and RJ sent me a text. 

"bad cat scratch."

"Oh no! How bad? Stitches?"

"maybe"

My guts sank.

I stopped at the drugstore and got one of those bandages that closes the lips of wounds and brought it up to his room. It was clear right away. It was a deep even wound, right across the left forearm. Not a cat scratch. RJ admitted, yes. It was self-harm. All up and down his skinny white arms, streaks and stripes of self-inflicted cuts. 

I scheduled an appointment with the therapist ASAP. She didn't have anything to offer-- a suggestion that he find other aspects of his personality other than gender to focus on and develop, a referral to a more experienced therapist. And she called him She about four times. I've been calling the office she referred me to every day for over a month. 10 am. No openings yet. "Call back tomorrow, 10 am sharp."

*

I took a different approach than my mom. I understand, a little better, what RJ is experiencing:an exquisite pain around the reality of the physical body. A deep insecurity and confusion about validity. And a need to alleviate the terrible pain. I told him-- look, I used to self-harm too. I showed him the scars on my arm.

He was shocked. "I thought those were cat scratches!" Hah, nope. Not yours, not mine either.
I asked-- are you suicidal? 

That's a step I didn't know about before Matt's death. You're supposed to ask head on. "Are you suicidal? Do you have a plan?"

RJ was adamant that no-- he's not suicidal. 

I explained the endorphin thing, the little jolt of brain-happiness-chemicals that pain can produce. But that other things produce that too-- run hard, belly laugh, meditate, exercise, hug... Just choose better ways to feel a little bit better.
He doesn't believe that there are other ways to feel better. 

*

I am trying. I am using his preferred name and pronouns, and everyone around him does too. He bought a binder, custom sized by the nice folks at gc2b, and I remind him to use it safely. He chooses his own clothes and hairstyles, as he always has. He also asked for a new makeup collection for Christmas and has a killer pair of high heeled boots. I tell him I love and support him no matter what. This is supposed to be helping him.

But his distress and misery is increasing. His isolation from other people and fear of being in new situations in amping up. 

I want to blame screens. I have a timer on the phones, he can only use it for 2 hours a day, including school work and the commute on the bus. But even with that limit, it seems limitless. To me, the videos seem like fear-mongering. Charismatic handsome young transguys displaying and then picking apart anti-trans memes and anti-trans videos, showing how cruel and judgmental the world is. And nihilistic dysphoria memes, about crippling anxiety and self-consciousness. And idealized images of young skinny white transguys posing with their whispy new moustaches and their post-op chests. 

My fears are not unique or original. They're echoed by loving parents, educators, and unfortunately they are weaponized by anti-trans voices too. Isn't 12 too little to decide your future in a permanent medical way? Isn't all this ingroup defining and outgroup castigating just a little bit cultish? And.... there's no established scientific evidence about best practices for psychotherapeutic, psychiatric, and medical treatment. There are no long term studies, because there have never been so many kids who are coming out as trans as there are now. There is some evidence that giving kids puberty suppressors may prevent self-harm-- but that study is based on transgender adults looking back and saying, "If I had been given the puberty blockers I wanted, I wouldn't have self-harmed or attempted suicide."

*

"Gender Dysphoria is different because it's about being unhappy with your physical body. So that's why it's important to treat the physical body."
That's what the therapist told us the other day, at the end of RJ's session (misgender count 2x)
"But...." I say, genuinely puzzled. "I don't know anyone who is happy with their physical body."
Aging, ability, illness, eating disorders, stretchmarks-- some of things sound trivial. But they can be all-consuming, demoralizing, and drain life of happiness and health. I've struggled with food, weight, and eating my whole life. CBT and mindfulness have helped, but it will always be a source of pain that I have to manage. I have tools that help with grief, anxiety, depression. Sleep, diet, exercise, CBT, woo, medication, talk therapy, journaling, spiritual practice, travel, service, nature-- all these things creep me away from the edge of despair. The edge is where I live. But there are things that keep me safely a few feet from the cliff's edge. I have to lovingly cultivate them. I can't risk a slip into the abyss.

*
Aren't there things that can help RJ and kids like him alleviate the pain of dysphoria without invalidating his identity?
I don't know.
Puberty blockers buy you two years, and permanently effect brain development, reproductive development and bone density. Then you have to pick which set of hormones you will allow to transform your body. And the physical long term side-effects and ethical questions means they should not be undertaken lightly. Some studies suggest that there is no long-term positive effect on medical treatment for dysphoria, the trans people pre and post medical transition remain at high risk for suicide. But the tone of that article is undoubtably anti-trans and should be approached with caution.

At our next appointment, I will ask the pediatrician about resources, about blockers, about pediatric endocrinologists. I feel like I have to, in order to do due diligence. No more cat scratches.

*
I am all in a stew of worry about RJ. I want him to be happy and healthy, hale and hearty. I hate to see him in distress. And it's impossible for me to know which of my decisions now will cause him pain in the future. Will he disown me for not getting him on blockers at the first hint of puberty? Or will he be frustrated that I didn't have him go to therapy and deal with his grief before allowing the focus to shift to gender, which is a wonderfully external and apparently fixable source of distress?
Maybe hormones will be magic, and he will transform into the happy boy he wants to be, and live happily ever after. I hope so!
But I think the issues of grief, of genetics, of ADHD, of depression and anxiety, of trauma, of eating disorders-- they have to be sorted first. Or at least, they can't be ignored. We can't pretend that trauma and loss isn't changing the shape of this experience of gender.

*

There is a conversation that rings in my head, from back when RJ first started using he/him pronouns.

"Mom," RJ said thoughtfully. "I think....if we had stayed in Kauai, I wouldn't be trans."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I think so. I didn't need to be trans there. I could just be myself"

*