Ambivalence & April Dawn

It's my middle child's birthday today. Her name is April Dawn. She's in the pictures below with the chosen men in her life: her boyfriend and the man she calls dad.

It's both a happy and sad day for me because we haven't talked since I came out as a transgender man three years ago. This is nothing new for trans folx. Painful family rejection is a bitter pill to swallow, but today I find myself choking on it, and longing for understanding and hope.

Let me start at labor, which was difficult. April was rushed to the intensive care nursery but proved from the beginning there was a Mighty Mouse fighter inside her being.

April is a beautiful month, and I recognized my baby's beauty right away, so it seemed to fit. The beauty and newness of dawn has always appealed to my sense of mystical possibilities and wonder.  I also liked the way it sounded.

The birth certificate was signed, and the nameless baby became April Dawn. Would she like her name? Did it fit? A parent never really knows, we just choose it and hope for the best. But sometimes there is more.

With strength and beauty she exemplified the name as the years passed. 

Recently I realized the connection between the word April and new beginnings, renewal, and the blossoming of nature. Dawn is the time that marks the brightening dimness before sunrise. Together they celebrate the idea of having a new beginning everyday.

Shouldn't we all sit in a state of wonder each morning? Each moment? What will the new day hold? What pain might it restore?

Today I choose to sit before dawn anticipating the sun rising into the sky. Waiting with love and as much patience as I can. Hoping for and dreaming of a new day, when my beloved child can enter without fear into a new beginning. Forgiving me for whatever needs forgiving. Accepting in me whatever needs to be accepted. Entering into a new day.

A better day.

A day when our relationship can blossom into fullness.

An April Dawn.

I Found My Name In The Bathtub

 Yes, it is true I found my name in the bathtub. 

"God is Transgender And So Am I"

 

Yes, I said it and fully believe it. "God is Transgender And So Am I" 

Created in Their image.

I believe in God or what I like to call Divine Love. My God is gender fluid and beyond any constraints we try to put on them. Beyond imagination in all ways including gender. They are the love I feel in the depths of my being. A being that is transgender. 

Transfigured

 

Little did my Beloved know four years ago that the book she had just finished would save me. It was as if God gave it to her as a gift for me. A key made of words to unlock my jail cell. 

If freedom was an audible sigh then it was the sound I made with every word read. If you listened closely you could hear my shell cracking. I could stop performing and be free. Diane was an actress. It was time to be me... Declan.

God seemed to love me but what if I hated the body They gave me? Would the Divine be angry or worse yet disappointed? What if I wanted to change their design. What would the Divine love think when I spoke out and said " God you made a mistake and I am pissed off about it." 

With everyday of this devotional my fears dissipated. 

After reading her manuscript I knew God loved and fully accepting me. I always knew my Beloved did. She knew I was transgender before I could ever talk about or admit it. 

Yes, friends the book Transfigured gave me courage, hope and strength to be me. 

Sometimes a book is not just a book. 

On Being A Walking Quandary

 "The only difference between a flower and a weed is judgement."

Lately I feel like I don't fit in. I'm increasingly public about being transmasculine, so it might look like I've found a place to slot in. But I haven't.

Before coming out, I figured out the female world because I had no choice. In school, organizations, and churches I was in leadership. I sat at the head table at meetings and the back of the bus with the "cool" kids. Today I feel as though I have no table or seat. 

It's like going through a second adolescence, where I have to find my way in life and my place with peers. I'm early into transitioning (only about eight months) and don't look very masculine. I sound feminine. To others I'm a walking quandary.

Discussion in transfeminine circles triggers issues from the past which I long to leave behind. I understand them but am uncomfortable in female conversations. The transgender men I know are well into "T" treatments and happily presenting as males. I'm jealous of them.  It all leaves me feeling as though I'm not guy enough to hang out with the big boys and I can no longer do what I always had to and just chill with the ladies. What I have in common with both groups is the desire to be seen and respected. But that commonality is not enough to help me fit in. I am not seen. 

I don't want to always have to strive to fit in. Always reaching for a mysterious, perhaps unattainable end-of-the-rainbow life. 

Judgement is a powerful force. The judgement of others in the past led me down destructive paths. My self-judgement is harsh. But I'm not a teenager anymore. I must sit in being me. 

I am the dandelion seed being blown in the wind. I will land. I will blossom. 

Have you ever felt superfluous?

 

ADJECTIVE

Something that is superfluous is unnecessary or is no longer needed.

My presence at the afternoon's proceedings was superfluous.

Born almost sixty years ago into the body of a stranger named Diane, I spent a lot of time presenting and pretending to be female. It was exhausting and unnatural, though looking back I may have deserved an Emmy. I can hear the announcer bellowing my award: 

"For his role as Diane, the Emmy goes to Declan DeWitt Hall!" 

The crowd cheers and I cry inside. 

As we get older we're taught that pretending is supposed to be tossed to the side. Well, let me tell you my pile of pretending was pretty high. 

Just for fun let's call my gender identity "deckles." Diane was bursting from the seams with deckles. I was like a wet dog shaking off and everyone was getting splashed with deckles. Oddly, no one admitted to noticing. They enabled my pretense despite being soaked by my deckleness. To this day many people who have known me my whole life would say they never saw  my transitioning coming. They refuse to see Declan. 

People only see what they want to see or what we permit them to see.

Little did I know twelve years ago that was all about to change when I met my beloved Zan in church. She saw ME. 

An odd thing happens when someone loves you so much they only want what is best for you; you are free to be fully and totally you. Declan still hides behind Diane some days but that's because of the world outside our home. 

I am on a journey as we all are. It's called becoming. We were all loved into being by the Divine, and then watered and grown through more love.

Diane is becoming superfluous, which opens the door for Declan to be supercalifragilistic. May you meet people who see you, welcome you, and encourage you to be fully your supercalifragilistic amazing self! 

 

Today's Thoughts

 

I'm dreaming of an adult picture book where the fairy god human waves it's magic wand and transgender women and tans men switch the body parts we need to be whole. Being Transgender means we have to go through a lot to get our outside to line up with who we are. Pretending to be a girl in public was uncomfortable but was in some ways easier because I was born with that costume on. I was also afraid of the public. It may cost a lot and it will not be easy but I have to take that costume off. It never fit and it hurt me.

I know many people who knew me as Diane don't understand. That is ok. Ask questions.