I’m mostly recovered from my FFS surgery. Dad has come, said
his piece, and gone. I have started my new job, and after two weeks, I am
passing to those who don’t already know. I seem to be, amazingly enough,
blending.  All my worst doubts, fears, assumptions, and worries have proved unfounded.  What issues lie ahead of me seem trivial in comparison with the Mount Everest that is transition.  Oddly enough, transition  went from a carefully choreographed ballet, complete with 14 month schedule, to  a 3 month scramble to find a job, get an orchi, pay for FFS, get FFS, change all of my paperwork, deal with my father, and start at with my new employer.

I landed on my feet anyway.

Some of my friends wondered if I would be able to pull off such a drastic change.  For all my whinging and trangst though, I still have a habit of coming up with a plan and executing after the first response of “Holy ****ing sh**! What am I supposed to do now?” That kind of spastic reaction doesn’t work so well when you don’t have time to recover from the initial panic, but it’s recoverable when you have days or weeks to work it out.

A researcher, a cis person, or a friend might be curious what it’s like
punching through the gender divide. I almost want to say: “Meh. It’s about the
same as before but with less comfortable shoes.” Home is home.  Work is a cubicle farm full of geeky, sexless drones for the most part. It’s such a sterile research environment that the differences are really subtle, like working harder at a meeting to get a word in edgewise.

What has caught me off guard, though, is becoming a lesbian to everyone else.  I always was one, of course, but no one could see it.  At work I am having to figure out how to be female under one set of circumstances, but male when it comes to my marriage being counted as heterosexual.  Otherwise, company insurance will not cover
my wife, under any circumstances.  With transition past, she needs health care even more than I do.

When dealing with strangers, we are a perfect pair of Judases.  At work, I try desperately not to use the words “my wife”.  There’s an empty spot on my cubicle walls: no pictures of her remain.   The other day on my way out the door at work I got caught in a long conversation.  After much time had passed, I glanced at the gentleman’s watch, realized how late I was in getting home, and exclaimed “Oh, wow, look at the time!  Janis is going to kill me.”

He looked at me quizzically and asked, “Is Janis your carpool driver?”

I froze.  “Something like that,” I replied cryptically.

And the cock crowed somewhere.

Janis finds herself denying too.  Familiar signs of affection in public have disappeared.  No holding hands.  No arms around each other’s waists  or shoulders. No kisses.  Not even a peck on the cheek.  I don’t feel scorned, but  when she referred to me to a stranger as “My friend,” it was a very stark reminder: there are those who hate us without knowing the first thing about us.  In fact, every assumption they have about us would probably be wrong.

In the distance, the cock crowed again.

In order to take care of my family I am having to game the system.  I spent 30 some years desperately trying to stop misrepresenting myself for the sake of expediency.  But here I am, being female when I can, and representing myself as male with another set of records and documents.  Pretending to be someone who’s dead, just because it’s expedient.

But, for the third time, the cock crowed.

Brynn denies Janis. Brynn denies herself. And Janis denies Brynn.  Rock, paper, scissors.

A part of me feels guilty.  I have a fistful of get out of jail free cards.  I need to
be a guy today for the sake of convenience? Here’s an un-amended birth certificate.  I need to be female?  Here’s a driver’s license.  When confronting administrative and legal hurdles, the rest of the LGB community doesn’t have such an advantage.

There is a lesson in this, though, and some people won’t like hearing it.  When you clear the way for transition, when people can get FFS, SRS, HRT, or any other transition
related treatment, transition becomes much more feasible. More and more spouses
are choosing to stay with partners who transition.  DOMA still lets companies deny same sex spousal benefits, when even opposite sex domestic partnerships are given
coverage by the same companies.  Hopkins v. Price Waterhouse, Smith v City of Salem, and others have made it more and more difficult to fire someone based on their gender identity. Cases like Simonton v Runyon codify a company’s ability to mistreat me in a myriad of way for being a lesbian. The obstacles that we face after transition are often much more likely to be based on sexual orientation than on gender identity.

This is why umbrella organizations like HRC, Lambda Legal, GLAAD, and others
are relevant. When we transition, we frequently become more LGB than T in the
eyes of society and the law.

I am now out to both my parents and step-parents. The reactions have run the gamut of the grief process… denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. Not so much with the acceptance, though. With exactly one week left until Facial Feminization Surgery (FFS), and less than a month until my name change becomes legal and binding, I find myself simply moving on. I am an adult. So long as they do not try to hurt my wife and children, they can feel whatever they want and it does not affect me one way or another. So far, they have both been very sympathetic to Janis and her plight. While they are correct that she did not ask for this or want it, she has moved past anger as part of her own grieving process. So, for the moment, she is safe from retribution for her support of me.

However, some of my parents’ reactions have been unintentionally hilarious. Sometimes well meaning, sometimes bargaining, sometimes denial, and sometimes just based on good old fashioned religious ignorance. I thought I would share some of them, and the snarky things that ran through my head when I heard them.

(Step-father): This was probably all Janis’ idea because she’s such a feminist.

(Me): I have it on good authority that most feminists like sex with men. So did Janis. I can safely say that there is no secret cabalist conspiracy to marry heterosexual men, and convert them into transsexual lesbian feminists.  I think I would have been read in by now.

(Mom): I can’t read any of this stuff you gave me to read. It’s too hard.

(Me): Try being trans. Or writing to tell your parents you’re trans. Or holding together a marriage after you have told your partner you’re trans. Or holding down a job in a military male dominated culture as a transitioner. Or faking all the guy stuff for 25+ years. Forgive me if I am less than sympathetic about the impossibility of reading a book (True Selves) written at an 8th grade level. A book in which I also helpfully highlighted and annotated all the important passages so you can skim and scan it in 30 minutes.

(Mom): Why don’t you just explain all this to me?

(Me): What, the annotated book and biography wasn’t enough? Or the copy of She’s Not There? Oh, wait, you haven’t read any of the stuff I spent hundreds of hours on. Or the three hour conversation Janis and I had with you? Or that you wouldn’t talk with any of the 20 therapists in the Phoenix metro area. You know, the ones I found for you, talked to, gave you their names, addresses, and phone numbers, and who specialize in GID? Or that you got huffy, sniffy, and weepy every time I asked you to read something or talk to someone? Still not enough? Fine. Here is my explanation:

“Being trans is really complicated. It’s definitely been there since I hit puberty, and some signs were there before. You didn’t see it because I worked very hard to hide it. No one knows exactly why or how this happens. It just is. Janis is coping, the kids will be ok, other families have made this work and we’re on track to make it too.”

(Father): You just went looking for a diagnosis and found a liberal psychologist to tell you what you want to hear.

(Me): Yes, because finding out for certain I am trans has made my life so much easier the past two years. Because therapists get paid to tell people what they want to hear. Because it in no way shape or form violates their professional ethics to tell people things which are highly likely to make them attempt suicide.

Oh, and my therapist?  She’s Republican, Catholic, and been fantastic throughout.

(Father): Why haven’t they run brains scans on him? There are differences between the male and female brain. I know they can measure that stuff now.

(Me): Yes, there are differences. But there is no test for “the trans.” If there was, people would be using it as part of the standard diagnostic package. In short, there is no test for this, and no one knows why this happens.

Well, there is one physiological marker in the brain (BSTc region) that seems to be indicative based on preliminary research, but you can only test it post mortem because it is so small.

Don’t get any ideas.

(Father): His letter was really selfish. It was all I, I, I, me, me, me.

(Me): Would it have been more appropriate for Janis to write the letter describing to you how I am trans? Just saying.

(Father): Hasn’t he considered what this will do to his career? His standing in the community? What it will do to you (Janis) and the kids?

(Me): In agonizing detail. For two straight years and a hundred therapy sessions. With every waking moment, and even in my dreams this decision hounds me. At work, at home, awake, asleep, in public, and in private it has been my greatest mission in life to find a way through this minefield without blowing up my career, my family, and hurting people I love more than I already have. I mapped every decision, analyzed every action and their potential outcomes. GANTT charts, PERT charts, risk matrices, and cost /benefit analyses: all of which were designed with one goal in mind: how do I keep my family taken care of. I can’t tell you how many times I have cried with wracking sobs over the decisions and seemingly impossible dilemmas I have faced in the past two years. The lead propulsions engineer for the freaking space shuttle was also transitioning, and when she saw what I was doing as part of mine she called it the most anal retentive thing she’s ever seen.

But other than that, no, consequences of my transition hadn’t crossed my mind.

(Father): I knew someone who had anger management issues too. He took wellbutrin and it basically cured him. Why don’t these medical frauds just give you wellbutrin too?

(Me): There may be a link between my anger issues and my Gender Identity Disorder (GID), but one is cause and one is effect. You’re confusing the two. Wellbutrin or other anti-depressants MIGHT help with the anger management, but it’s not a standard treatment. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is. However, no pharmacological solution or cure to GID has ever been identified, though not for lack of trying by researchers. Given that I am not clinically depressed (i.e. I get depressed when things are going to hell in a handbasket because of the situation, not because of a chemical imbalance), medication is contraindicated anyway.

So, let’s just say I took wellbutrin anyhow. You’d end up with a slightly more stable transsexual, not a cis person. That’s why no one has gone this route.

But let’s move beyond wellbutrin.  Let’s imagine that there’s a cure, or something that makes me think there’s a cure.  Why would you think that I wouldn’t take it, in a heartbeat?  What makes you think I haven’t looked for alternatives accepted by the medical and psychological community? And no, I don’t accept anything put out by Exodus or Evergreen Internaltional.  Their programs wouldn’t work for me anyway, even if they were effective for some people, because I am an atheist.  You want to know what kind of cure I was looking at?  If Janis decided to leave and take the kids with her, I had done the math.  The optimum thing I could do for them financially and to support them going forward was to put a gun to the side of my head and pull the trigger.  Even if I didn’t go forward with transition, my marriage was a shambles because of the GID.  Janis was rapidly reaching the conclusion she couldn’t live with me as Bryan anymore.

There is no cure, other than a loud and messy one.  I would not be doing this if there was.  I would have taken it if I could find it.  What I am doing is the best of a lot of bad options. And it’s the only one where I thought there was a prayer of holding my family together.  I am in no danger of hurting myself now, but hey, we could always try a different route that you suggest and hope I’m not left with the hollow point option in the end.

(Father): Please tell me you’re not taking any of those drugs that destroy your testicles.

(Me): I promise upon all that I hold dear that I am not taking any drugs that will cause testicular atrophy.

That hasn’t been necessary since I had them surgically removed.

Seriously, though, Janis had tubal ligation before I started hormones.  There weren’t going to be any more kids no matter what.  We were both done, and trying to have more might have killed Janis.

(Father): You know, taking those hormones is going to have effects on intimacy.

(Me): I know! You finally understand! I have been having the most mind blowing orgasms since my body, hormones, and mind have all started lining up, and I am feeling more comfortable with myself. Plus, given all we’ve been through the sex is so much more meaningful emotionally.

What? TMI? Or just not what you meant?

(Mother and Father): You he can’t be trans. We never saw any signs.  You couldn’t have possibly hidden that from us.

(Me and Janis): Like we never could have hidden the fact we eloped a year before the marriage you know about?  Or it could that being told by your parents they would rather you be dead than gay would provide great motivation.  Or the experiments with electroshock therapy being run at BYU might have had something to do with me, you know, covering up a little.  Or the fact that Janis describes me as the most amazing chameleon she has ever seen.  I can can always seem to size people up and mirror their expectations of me.

What about my friend Melissa making some really astute guesses almost 15 years ago? How about Janis seeing through this to some extent after she met me? Or Janis could tell you how hard it was for me to for years orgasm because sex felt so awkward because of my dysphoria.

Oh, right, the TMI thing again. Thought it was germane, though.

(Father): Are you sure he’s still sane and stable enough to be executor of my will and trust?

(Me): I just wrapped up a project doing systems engineering work for Air Force One. My Top Secret clearance is intact. I managed to hold my family together and find new work in my field in the middle of this. I have convinced everyone who knows me in Dayton that I am still perfectly sane and reliable, including medical professionals, psychological professionals, security clearance assessors, the VP of my current company, the team lead of my next job, and my spouse. If the company and the government can still trust me with work on the President’s aircraft, you can probably count on me not to !@#$ up a visit to probate court.

You can re-consider the matter if I go on Jerry Springer’s show, though.

I know there’s no such thing as a finish line.  Life goes on, until it doesn’t anymore.  But I can’t shake the feeling that some sort of end, or new beginning, is in sight.  It feels damned close.  Close enough that I am coasting after the sprint to make sure I hit it at top speed.  So, in the eye of the storm, there’s a moment to reflect.

The letter to my father is mailed.  It’s fait accompli.  All we can do is that he reacts in a less than violent way.  Hopefully the fact that we’re in Ohio and he’s in Arizona will be some kind of deterrent.  Or at least a cooling off period.

The arrangements for Facial Feminization Surgery (FFS) have all been made.  All that’s left is filing for the short term disability, and that is just an administrative drill (we hope, we have been reassured, we have been promised).

I have family coming from all over to support me and Janis while I am in Chicago for FFS, and to take care of the three kids.

And two people reminded yesterday me of how much support I have had along the way over the past 20 months to reach a point where this is possible.  I’m not superstitious, and don’t assume coincidences have cosmic meaning.  It doesn’t mean that both of those people who reminded me of my incredible support network didn’t have a great point.

 Chantelle and Danielle were both right. I have had an unbelievable support network going through this.  I’m lucky to have one. Most people in my position don’t.  Yet somehow, I have had old friends, new friends, family, therapists, doctors, authors, electrologists, stylists, artists, co-workers, civil rights activists, attorneys, and most importantly a spouse rally around me to see me through this.  They’re the ones who did all the heavy lifting. My personal burden was just asking for help and listening.  Well, that and not squirming or yelping too much during electrolysis.

What’s even more humbling is that that I don’t feel like I deserve something so amazing.  Bryan was a jerk.  He was a diminutive, loud mouthed, hyper-aggressive, stressed out, seething ball of anger looking for an outlet, and on the verge of divorce and self-destruction.  He was also a construct designed both to keep others out, as well as keep someone trapped inside.  Basically, the North Korea of personalities.

So, even if they don’t see this blog, I would like to say thank you, briefly but individually, to many of the people who helped me through the last 20 months.  If you’re reading this and you’re not mentioned, I appreciate you too: unfortunately this thing is as long as an Oscar acceptance speech already.

Marga W.: You’re the oldest friend on this list. We weren’t close during high school, but it has been wonderful that we’ve had a chance to connect.  You’re also the first person to suggest the name Brynn as a derivation of Bryan, and I liked it immediately.  I’ll carry around that as a reminder of your support for the rest of my life.

Amy D.: Thanks for being trans friendly, and understanding that as hormones worked their magic, my pain tolerance kept dropping.  You did an amazing job.

Deanna B.: Thanks for being the voice of sanity in the trans community for me.  You have been level, practical, honest, open, and walked me through a lot of my worst fears, including the orchiectomy this March.  You never pushed, but always found just the right moment to remind me “If I could do it, you can to.  But only when you’re comfortable.  Take your time, find your own path.”

Kathleen “Denise” S.:  You’re an amazing therapist. Some of the conversations and observations we have had will always stick with me.  Your practical way of thinking works so well for me and my family. You had the emotional honesty to be blunt with me when I needed it, and to shed a tear when you saw Janis and I rallying to each other in the face of adversity.  “I don’t see a lot of love on that couch, but I’ve never seen one like this.”  Thanks for reminding me of what I have, and need to keep fighting for.

Tara A.: Hunter S. Thompson had Dr. Gonzo in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, and I had Tara. Thank you for all the free legal advice, the unapologetic life advice, the talks you’ve had with both me and Janis, and the well-deserved butt kickings when I am being too trangsty. 

Dr. Cynthia O.: Thanks for being so understanding of me needing to pursue alternative medical options when spiro didn’t work.  You’re an incredible asset to the community, and have been since the 80′s.

Amelie K.:  Thanks for sharing some of your path with me.  Well, that and all the government documents on transition.  You’re brilliant beyond description, you approached all of this more directly than I did, and I could see you making change happen for trans people at the government level.  It is really a privilege to know you, and to have met you at last year’s (very small) TransOhio convention.

Gina K.: Thanks for the data dump of intel you acquired on transitioning in the workplace.  When I came out to HR, I went in well armed because of you.

Brandy S.: You’re a great stylist, and a great friend.  You’ve ridden the roller coaster with me over the past year and a half, and my girls love you and your fun, punk girl personality.  I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to coming in to Fiffe Eli in May and finally letting you go “all the way” with my hair. 

Amy R.: Amy, your observations at boat school stuck with me for a very long time, and were a vital clue to me understanding myself 13 years later. Thank you for being the only cis, straight person from my military past that I felt comfortable bringing forward with me.  You were someone I really admired then, and really appreciate as a friend now.

Kara B.: You led the charge into Dr. Z’s office.  Thanks for letting me in to what is going on in your life, and for helping me see that there isn’t anything wrong or abnormal about being a trans geek-girl who loves games, gadgets, and has a crush on Katee Sackhoff.

Robin P.: I really hope you find some peace. Our personal lives and careers looked so similar at the outset, that we understood immediately where each other was coming from. You let me be as trangsty as I needed to be, while providing a sympathetic and intelligent sounding board.  Your own situation has reminded me how lucky I am to have such a support network in place.  I hope I can re-pay the favor someday. 

Eric T., (aka Nunkie Bubba, Turkey Lips, my only sibling): I have never been so happy to have someone ask me my cups size.  Somehow, that one crude question elegantly summed up how you felt: you were a huge part of the lives of me, Janis, and the kids, and you still wanted to be on the inside going forward.  Your place has been every bit as comfortable as my own home while getting used to the idea of being Brynn.

Mary Beth M.: We almost pulled it off here at work, didn’t we?  I’m sorry all your hard work didn’t end up benefitting the company directly, but it did make a huge difference in my life.  That’s the part I won’t forget.

Jennifer Finney Boylan: Why am I thanking someone I have never met, and might never meet?  Because your heartfelt book, and your description of how you and “Grace” managed to make it through the first few phases of transition helped Janis immeasurably.  It gave hope that we could somehow make it work, that others have, and showed her another cis woman going through the same things she was. The book gave her another point of comparison with which to gauge her feelings, and made possible the introspection and analysis which helped her stay with me this far.

Christopher Fiffe: Thank you for your tutelage when money was tight.  Paid huge compliments by a friend recently based on your instruction (“You have jedi skills with make up).  It also helped me learn the limitations of what could be done.

Chantelle S.: As Janis’ oldest and closest friend,  when you got the panicked call from Janis in 2001 that I had confessed to owning all that shapewear, and that I crossdressed, you didn’t advise her to flee into the night with the contents of our bank account.  Thank you.  Because of your advice, Janis and I have three beautiful children whom we all love more than life itself. You’ve been an amazing Auntie to all the children (even if you profess to hate kids), you’ve supported me all along, even if some of it did squick you out, and ended up closer than I imagined possible as we bonded over our own dysphorias.  You have consistently guided me on how I can help Janis through this. I can’t imagine how you could have helped keep Janis and me together any more than you have.

Melissa B.: Next to Janis, I let you in further than anyone else as to who lay beneath the veneer of “Bryan”. You also came closer to figuring it out than anyone besides Janis.  Thanks for keeping me in your circle of friend for the past 2 decades.

Janis: You’re the reason why I am still here to write this.  I am indescribably lucky to have someone as amazing as you.  Wise, logical, loving, core of steel, and a soft spot for kids and small animals.  You’re practical, devoted, and somehow always find a way to sort through your emotions to find the high road.  People have asked you so many times how and why you would stick with me through this.  You replied simply, over and over again to them: “He’s my family.  What kind of person doesn’t help their family when they need you the most?” Every morning when I wake up at the crack of dawn I feel lucky to have you beside me. Every night, as I drift off to sleep, I feel grateful, comforted, and secure with you there.

Over the past 20 months, so much of the angst and worry I have felt has been about me wanting to do the right thing by you.  None of this process has been fair to you, or easy, or something you ever wanted. Yet you’re still here, and have supported me the whole time in ways my therapists, friends, and doctors have never seen in decades of practice.  You make me want to be a better person every day by your example.  Bryan never deserved, or earned a woman as remarkable as you in his life.  It’s my greatest desire that Brynn will.

Happy 12^th anniversary.  You’re the most improbable and wonderful thing that ever happened to me.

“Jim had explained, at some level I even believed, that this was a medical condition, not a moral one, but I discovered I was unable to sever that medical condition from its moral consequences.”

From “Afterword: Imagining Jenny” by Richard Russo in She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan

When my wife, Janis, started trying to sort through her own thoughts on the beginnings of my transition last year she began a journal.  The quote above was on the very first page as an introduction. It summed up how she felt at the time.  Recently, she brought it out and let me read portions of it, and pointed out this quote.  It still rings true to her.  It rings true to me as well, because I see it in the faces, actions, and reactions of all the people closest to me who have decided to come along on Mr. Toad’s Wild Hormonal Ride.

Agreeing with this statement makes me something of a contrarian.  Being trans is not a choice.  Choosing to transition is. Plenty of trans people in places like Saudi Arabia choose not to transition, because the consequences are too severe.  Therein lies the heart of the matter.  I am choosing to go down this path of becoming a woman legally, socially, and in how I am perceived.  The moral consequences of this choice fall squarely on me. 

It certainly is a selfish path.  Any benefits to other people in my life are purely secondary effects. The money spent on surgery benefits me alone, when it could have gone to paying for the house or the childrens’ college funds.  It’s not making the lives of anyone I care about easier. It won’t help their social standing, it risks making us pariahs in the community, and the kids targets of abuse here in the reddest part of Ohio. It doesn’t help my career, and by extension that hurts my ability to provide for my family.

Which leads me to today, two weeks to the day before we drive to Chicago for Facial Feminization Surgery (FFS), and the full time life as a woman to follow.   Janis asked me to get dressed up for one more set of pictures this with my 21 month old son Liam, complete with matching ties, white shirts, and dark blue pants.  I said yes.  For a host of reasons.  Not the least of which is that I owe my family enough respect to help them where I can through the grieving process for “Bryan”. The fact that I am a trans person who still has a family that is asking me to be in their lives speaks volumes about the sacrifices they’re willing to make for me, and my selfish need to transition, as well.

From the time Liam was born, to about the age of 7 months, I would walk and rock him to sleep in the semi-darkness of the nursery, singing softly to him in the twilight. For most of those months, I knew this day was coming.  It often filled me with indescribable sadness, and still does, that I was taking away his primary male role model in life.  He has my brother (aka Nunkie Bubba), living right down the road, as someone to look up to.  But it isn’t the same as a father.  I know very well that all the studies show that gay parents in stable relationships are just as capable of raising children as straight parents.  It does not change the fact that I am depriving him of an important life experience which is held as an ideal, and I am doing for reasons that are purely my own.

I am sure some people within the trans community would find fault with me accommodating Janis’ desire to have a picture for Liam to see what his “father” looked like.  Some will see this as selling out, or not being true to myself.  I see it as just the opposite.  They aren’t trying to stop my transition.  They are trying to say goodbye.  To a person.  To a “normal” life. To a father. To a husband.  Before we all “pull the plug.”  This is the grieving process, and these pictures are part of the path to acceptance, we hope.  Helping those you love through the grieving process is just being empathetic, understanding, and caring about their emotions.

And that is the kind of person I want Brynn to be.

Dad,

You may have noticed some things going on over the past couple of years. You probably picked up on some of the tension Janis and I were feeling. You have also probably noticed that I have put on some weight, and that I have been even more tense than usual during visits. I’ve grown my hair out a bit with the excuse of being completely free and clear of the Navy and the Naval Reserve now.   A lot of things were happening in the background.  So, almost two years ago, I started going to a therapist for anger management issues, and for another important reason.

Writing about this other reason is one of the most difficult things I have ever faced in my life. There aren’t many things that truly worry me, but your response is one that has terrified me for years.  I am sending this as a letter because what I have to tell you is too difficult for me to say in person or over the phone. I wish I were stronger, but this is the only way I could get it out.

I have kept a secret buried for my entire life from everyone who mattered to me.  Janis has known some of this for a long time, but has only come to understand and accept what this means in the past year.  So much has happened, and will be happening, that you need to know now, before everything changes.

When I went to the therapist, I described to her how I had been uncomfortable with my body since before puberty.  As I went through my teen years, it only became worse and much more intense.  I also recognized patterns in my own behaviors, responses, and emotions that were atypical.  The clinical diagnosis I was given by the therapist, after months of intense and soul searching sessions, was Gender Identity Disorder. This has been confirmed by both a therapist and a physician. For some reason, people with GID experience extreme discomfort with the primary and secondary sexual characteristics of their bodies.  It isn’t just a feeling, or a wish, or a choice; gender self-image is hardwired into everyone’s brain, and my gender and my anatomy are a mismatch. 

I know this is extremely hard to believe. I know I have always presented a very masuline persona. Growing up, I know always seemed like such a “boys’ boy” to you.  The airplanes, the legos, spaceships, and military toys all screamed “boy”. 

However, as I got older, whatever bravado and swagger I seemed to have came from a need to present an image to people that was what they expected and wanted to see. I pursued a very masculine path in life mostly because it was expected of me, although my interest in aviation was genuine. The only way I had of coping with GID was to stay so insanely busy, scared, worried, overworked, and fatigued that all of my mental energy was focused on the external problems threatening to eat me alive rather than the internal ones consuming me much more slowly. About half of all people with GID attempt suicide. In my darkest moments, thoughts of losing everyone I have ever loved because of this if I told anyone pushed me to contemplate it. 

So, what does all this mean in practical terms? 

Firstly, Janis and I are staying together. There are no plans to divorce or separate. Neither of us wants to leave the other. Janis and I have been going to counseling to help us deal with this. The things I have done in the past to deal with this weren’t working anymore. The last thing in the world I want to do is to hurt the people I love. However, the internal conflict was causing so much damage at home that if I didn’t get help and finally face this issue, Janis and I would almost certainly be divorced by now. If I hadn’t come clean to Janis, we couldn’t have held it together this long.

The second thing you need to know is that this doesn’t need to affect the relationship your grandchildren have with you.  They love you, and you love them very much too.  Janis and I want you to maintain a relationship with them, even if you are unable to maintain a relationship with us, or just me.  We want you to see them whenever you can, and for them to feel like the relationship you share is bigger than any of us individually.

You might wonder why I can’t just keep up appearances indefinitely for the sake of my family. I made it this far, why couldn’t I just put it off indefinitely? I know the conflict between my mind and body will only intensify as I get older. The conflict has been increasing for years. I don’t really have the option of trying to hold this in or hide it anymore. I couldn’t contain it anymore when I started therapy, and trying to crawl back into a shell won’t work; I don’t fit anymore. Every time I managed to push it down for a while it came back even stronger, and in more self- destructive ways. I have to make some choices that affect all the people I am closest to in my life, and trying to make these decisions has been nearly unbearable. Janis has seen the effects of me trying to hide it, suppress it, and push it back; and those effects don’t make anyone in the house happier.

Therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and doctors have looked for a way to treat GID to make the patient accept and be comfortable with their birth assigned gender.  These attempted cures through therapy and medicine have all failed.  I am not religious, so faith based therapies make no sense.  From a medical standpoint the only way is forward.  I am following the current medical guidelines for treatment of GID, which involve embracing the gender you identify with, rather than trying to realign things that are deeply hardwired in your brain.  In this case embracing the gender I identify with means I will be living day to day as a woman in the near future.

I am tired of sneaking around, lying and holding up false pretenses for family members who deserve to know the truth. It isn’t a healthy way to live, and it isn’t fair to those you love. One of the most profound lessons I have learned in years of therapy is that by trying to be who I thought I was supposed to be for everyone else, I was harming the people I was trying to protect in the first place. It was only when I stopped trying to be something I wasn’t that I was able to be what my family needed. It is not intuitive, but it is true.

What you need to know most, though, it is only the outside that is changing. I’m still a libertarian who likes military aviation, foreign affairs, politics, and math. I really do look forward to game night with Eric and Dea every week. I still wish I had a Mustang GT. I still love my family, and want to be with them. I still hate squash because it makes me gag. I will still agonize over the Suns every season. This new information about me is just that though; new because they are things I have held back from everyone. 

This next year of my life will be a transition for everyone. It means everyone will be looking at things from a completely different perspective for the rest of our lives. Janis has been dealing with this in one form or another for the past 12 years, and she is still coming to terms with what this means in terms of our marriage.   Eric is still wrapping his head around this. 

I love you, and always will love you, no matter what.  I am sorry for the pain this information will cause you, but after all you have done for me in my life, you deserve to know the truth. I am sorry I felt I the need to hide this, and I kept you at arm’s length for so long. I understand if you need a lot of time to figure out how to deal with this. It’s also ok if you never can accept this. I can understand almost any reaction, but please know that you can ask me anything, or tell me anything, and I’ll try to help to the best of my ability.

We love you,

Bryan

Every Presidential election year politicians follow Nixon’s old adage that you “run to the right in the primaries, and run like hell back to the middle during the general.”  Democrats do the same, except of course to the left, rather than the right.  Still, why does this year bother me more than most? In a nutshell: Rick Santorum.

This election has seen one “anti-Romney” (read: über right-wing) candidate after another rise, and then fall under the weight of their own incompetence (Perry), lack of ethics (Gingrich, Cain), or making up facts as they go to support extremist positions (Bachmann).  Somehow, Santorum managed to commit none of these massive faux pas by simply sticking to a philosophy of “natural law” in all his arguments on social issues.  That, and not having sex with anyone besides his wife.  He never had enough money to really screw it up with bad advertising like Perry, and never needed facts in debates when he used the natural law arguments.  This philosophy of “natural law” is relatively simplistic: God made it that way and if you disagree you disagree with God. For example, the purpose of the penis is to make babies and write your name in the snow.  Using it for anything else (like, sex that won’t make babies), violates the will of God.

This philosophy isn’t anything new; it has been used by the Catholic Church since the early renaissance.  This link between Santorum’s personal philosophy, his book, and early Catholic philosophy caused one wag to describe Rick Santorum as “One of the finest minds of the 13^th century.”  Most Americans agree, and wow, will it ever come out in the results of the general election.  Because, at his core, Santorum can’t run like hell back to the center.  He didn’t leave a trail of bread crumbs on his path to appealing to the looniest part of the religious right, or even pebbles.  He left 200 foot high pyramids.  Everyone can see where he has been: and that’s pandering to portions of the population that scares the other 80%.

He’s managed to insult all the protestants out there who aren’t Evangelical, Pentacostal, or Seventh Day Adventist.  Ditto Mormons.  Same with people who are pro-choice. Or use birth control.  Or want pre-natal health care to cover amniocentesis.  Or have sex with their spouses for reasons other than making another baby.  Ditto anyone who ever had pre-marital sex.  Or is LGBT.  Unions are right out.  So are most women.  So who does that leave?

Old, white, religiously conservative men. Plus those people who wouldn’t vote for Obama no matter what.  Which boils down to perhaps 35-40% of the population.  Maybe a little more if he’s lucky.  Still, the general election won’t be kind to him.  Santorum and his Mr. Roger’s sweater vests is going to look like the creepy fundamentalist version of Michael Dukakis to the vast majority of the populace.  If President Obama’s re-election team is even marginally competent they will take all of the crazy things he has said and turn him into an affectless caricature of himself before we even reach the Republican Convention.  Think of Tina Fey, Sarah Palin and “I can see Russia from my house!”, and you have the idea.  No one will be able to see him as anything but a backwards, misogynistic, puritanical, twit with abominable fashion sense (sweater vests?) who is completely out of touch with the way Americans live (seriously, sweater vests!?) and feel.

My wife commented to me, “I don’t know who’s scarier: Rick Santorum or the people who are agreeing with him.”  I vote for the latter. 

I used to do Counter Insurgency (COIN) analysis on religious fanatics for a living.  When they thought that they were winning, or at least had a good chance, they played “nicer” in order to keep some of the population on their side.  They had certain moral boundaries that they generally wouldn’t cross, such as kidnapping women for ransom and such.  When they thought they had won (i.e. no U.S. or Iraqi forces anywhere to be found for years at a time), they dropped their veneer of populism and their “morality” and did things which were unacceptable to the local populace.  This included kidnapping unmarried women and forcing them to be their wives, or shooting people for smoking or listening to music.  Conversely, when it became clear they were losing, they became desperate, and no longer made any attempt to make a favorable case to the local population.  All rules of engagement that might have been there before were gone, and moralconstraints to their courses of action completely disappeared.  The scary thing was al Qaeda in Iraq caused an immense amount of havoc because of this amorality, while enjoying very limited public support (10-20% at any given time).

So, when Rick Santorum goes down in flames, and the massive electoral victory for President Obama becomes a mandate for the social change he has been promoting, you have to wonder what all of Santorum’s true believers will do.  They lost, and if they have any notion of trend analysis, will realize that things aren’t going to improve.  Younger people are increasingly pro-LGBT rights, and pro-choice.  They are less religious, and when religious they are usually drawn to the kinds of Protestantism that Santorum finds “un-Christian”.  Evangelicals blamed McCain’s defeat on McCain not being conservative, or pure, enough. This time, they got exactly who they wanted, and he will be beaten even more badly than McCain was in what should have been a winnable election.

What will they do?  They will feel rejected, defeated, and isolated.  They will be confronting the horrors of a nation where discriminating against LGBT people is punishable by law, and same sex couples are free to marry.  To them, it will seem like the end of times, and they the last of God’s chosen.  If history is any indication, many of the rules they abided by before will go by the wayside.  Which ones, and how they choose to break them, is unpredictable.  We are already seeing some of them fall, though.  When was the last time a parties’ top candidate called the President a non-Christian, and his supporters agents of Satan?  How much less civil will they be when they lose, and lose big?

Time will tell, and it won’t be pretty. One could easily imagine hard core states like Texas or Utah talking of secession, or acts of targeted violence against those they feel are most unholy. Welcome to the real beginning of America’s culture wars.

Most of the time, being trans seems like a curse.  And really, by any standard definition, it is.  The price most of us pay for it is reserved for characters in Greek tragedies or Biblical tests of faith.  Losing ones parents, siblings, spouse, children, and all worldly possessions reminds one of nothing so much as Job.    I suppose incarceration for failure to pay child support while unemployed can stand in for being covered in boils and sores to keep the analogy moving along.

Even if one doesn’t suffer these things (I haven’t suffered any of them but the parent one, communications have completely broken down and I am done trying to explain), we live in constant fear that they will, because the risk never does go away.

But, something from this weekend made me decide I should, as Monty Python put it “Look on the Bright Side of Life”, even as we’re metaphorically being crucified.  Nothing like a spot of black humor to make you think of things from a different angle. SO, without further ado, a brain-storming of reasons why this situation doesn’t completely suck.

* My daughter is friends with a rather whiny, unpleasant child.  Her father is also a Baptist minister.  The issue should take care of itself in a few more months as I go public.

* Discovering I can still surprise people at the age of 37.  Nobody has seen this coming.

* Learning to empathize with my spouse over why it is so !@$!ing hard to find women’s clothes that fit.  And I’m not even tall or big (5-4, 140 lbs).  Everything is cut in such a way that it will only work with one body type.

* I’m a women’s size 8 in shoes.  I can finally find shoes off the rack that fit me.

* I finally have the emotional range that should have been there in the first place.

* I’ve met a ton of amazing people I never would have otherwise.

* Someone once said that the unexamined life isn’t worth living.  Consider it examined, from the most basic elements of what makes me, me, on up.

* You find out who your real friends are very quickly.

* Same with your family.

* It’s been a real eye opener on the dark undebelly of America.  And I’m not talking about the seedier side of trans; I’m talking about the pure, unfiltered hate that gets poured out at the trans community.  It doesn’t make me happier, but at least I am the wiser.

* Being able to appreciate jeans that make my hips and butt look bigger.

* Being able to teach my kids both how to tie a double-windsor knot, and how to do contouring with both powders and liquid bases.

So, now can I get back to my regularly scheduled grousing?

By the time 6^th grade rolled around, I had been moved to a self contained gifted class at another school.  It wasn’t offered in at higher grades, but I stayed at the same school for 7^th and 8^th grade anyway.  Having real peers was a great change for me, and even found my first lifelong friend (Emily).  We were sort of rivals at first, but became allies over time.  We went to HS together as well, and we’re still in contact via facebook.  What was remarkable about this was that finally, when surrounded by other students who were way ahead academically, I didn’t feel so out of place.  Even some of my mannerisms (some of which were effeminate, more on that later) were less noticeable when surrounded by a bunch of other people who were often awkward due to their own cases of isolation.

About this time, the penalties for being caught were being made clear.  Sometime around 8^th grade, when I was old enough to ask my Mom what “gay” meant, I was told the meaning.  I was also given the additional information she’d rather see me and my brother dead than gay.  This sent a chill through me, because I asked this around the time when I was starting to feel things sexually, making “discoveries”, getting my stash, and realizing it was hard for me to get anywhere imagining having sex as a man.  I didn’t have the background at the time to realize that gender identity and sexual orientation are two different things.  To mentally and emotionally get past this mental conflict I had to be in a state of denial: “I like girls, so I can’t be gay, right?”  Still, I wasn’t under any illusions of what kind of response I would get if they found out about the stash, what I was doing with it, and why I had it.

From Dad’s end, I knew stepping outside a gender role was one of the sure paths to what Mormons call “Outer Darkness”.  From what I could tell, the proper thing for a family to do with a person who embraces such a path is to exile them quickly to avoid contamination.  Later research showed that this was, in fact, the church approved method for dealing with ‘those people’.  I also heard other rumors about how the church dealt with such troubled youths if their families coughed up the money to try and save them….

My father had a talk with me sometime around 7^th grade.  He described the need for a “Renaissance Man” in the modern world.  What he described was very much the idea of the warrior / scholar / poet.  I was very naturally curious about everything, that I took it to heart later on.  I tried doing everything, even those things I really didn’t like.  Worse, I kept doing the things I wasn’t good at AND didn’t like.  I became a dabbler later on, but for most of my adult life I took it to mean you had to be good at everything.  Given my dogged personae, pleaser personality, and continual need to try and prove myself as a man, this only further fueled how much of an overachiever I became.  It also led me into making the same sorts of bad decisions over and over again. 

Somehow, the mentality that led me to keep the decisions I did reminds me of the kid in the war movie who’s been blown almost in half, is an obvious goner, while his buddies are pumping full of an entire squad’s worth of morphine.  He gasps and chokes over and over again to himself “I can hack it.  I can hack it.  I can hack it.”  You just keep telling yourself that.  Just ignore that it has zero effect on the outcome.

My only vaguely socially acceptable ways of expressing myself were my art classes, where I spent innumerable extra hours during lunch and after school working on projects to get them “just right”.  I spent most of my free time in 6^th and 7^th grades in Mr. Jensen’s art classroom working on projects.  I was a serious, responsible kid, and he trusted me not to do anything wrong while there, and took extra time helping me when I was stuck on a technique or wanted an opinion on composition.  A lot of what I learned in his classes I still carry with me: I’m a pretty fair hand with pencils and pastels, as well as free hand work.  I still regret that my art education stopped at the end of Junior High because there was no room in my college preparatory curricula.

Sometime in my 8^th grade year my art teacher gave us an assignment to invent a culture, give it plenty of details (environment, technology level, materials available, history, cultural values, etc…) and try to imagine how that would affect their forms of art.  I came up with an absolutely hideous dystopia.  It was one in which the predominant culture valued only the practical.  Colors and form were only useful for things such as street signs and the like, not decoration.  The predominant culture looked like a concrete East German tenement circa 1970. People with an artistic bent had to hide it, or they disappeared.  There was even an underground movement. Individuals who were artistic, didn’t accept this cultural norm, and were caught were shipped off to “artist colonies” in the hinterlands and left to their own devices.  There it was hoped that the daily grind of subsidence farming and fishing would drive the impracticality and different out of them.  If exile didn’t eliminate their impractical and unproductive natures it was assumed they would perish.  They didn’t perish however, and the beginnings of a medieval society began to take root, complete with art forms appropriate to the period.  (Ok, I cribbed this last part from Anne McCaffery’s Harper Hall series, in all fairness).  It was part Nazi Germany, part Soviet Gulag, part Australian history, and partly cribbed from a favorite sci-fi author.  My art teacher was absolutely appalled that such a sweet and seemingly naïve kid could imagine something so genuinely awful on such a grand scale.  I didn’t have the self awareness at the time to tell him it really wasn’t much of a stretch.

Still, my limited art training has been a really positive part of my life ever since.  In high school, I continued to do free hand pencil drawings of people, sometimes realistic, sometimes caricatures. I still can do sketches that surprise people, including myself.  One Saturday morning my oldest asked if I could draw, and I replied that I could, a little.  I ended up sketching her in about 10 minutes, and surprised even myself with how quickly some of it came back.  The things I learned about form, color, contracts, and composition were a boon when I did my first three deployments.  My camera went with me everywhere across the North Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, and into the Persian Gulf and Islands in the Indian Ocean.  I am still very happy with some of the pictures I took. 

I still paint models and figurines for the Saturday game nights we host.  It engages my eye for color, shadow, and contrast.  There’s something kind of tranquil about it, although why escapes me.  I suppose if it keeps me happy, and it’s not bothering anyone, what’s the use of pointing and laughing at me?  I think there’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Another memorable incident also happened when I was in 8^th grade.  We had to take both shop and home economics.  In home economics I sort of enjoyed things, but it wasn’t my thing.  Then again, neither was shop.  I never was particularly mechanically inclined either.  One lesson in home economics stood out though.  We had to learn nail care from the 50’s vintage lady teaching us.  It was only a one day, one off lesson, but at the end, there was clear nail polish.  The boys were told they could skip that part, but one boy who was the cool kid that everyone followed around jokingly decided to do it.  He made a huge show of being femmy.  He let one of the popular girls help him, though.  Most others followed his lead, and thought it was funny.  I hung back and hemmed and hawed.  It’s not that I didn’t want to, I was just terrified someone would figure out how much I really did want to.  As if by doing it, they might see through me.  I finally did, but felt very self conscious about it. 

That afternoon I remember being driven around by my mom and step-father and admiring the nails.  They were shiny, smooth, and a slight chemical smell lingered over them.  They felt nice.  However, I was seized with dread when I realized that my parents might notice, and that maybe they wouldn’t buy my explanation that everyone did it. “Why didn’t you take that stuff off right away?” I imagined.  “What, do you like this stuff?  Is something wrong with you?”  I panicked and furiously scraped off the clear polish with my other fingernails.  I looked at them when I was done, inspecting them for any other telltale hints of shininess.  They looked plain now, and I felt an odd sense of loss.  When would I get another chance to do this again?  It was 25 years later before there was another opportunity.

Sometime in 8^th grade I got the brilliant idea of trying to pierce my own ears with the tools I had available: a needle, rubbing alcohol, and a lighter.  It went about as well as you would expect.  I ended up with the wound on the left ear getting infected and having to lamely explain that it was a pimple that got popped that was the start of it.  I wasn’t thinking ahead of how I would hide it, or even about keeping the holes open. I was desperate for some sort of outlet for what I was feeling, and wasn’t thinking it through as a result.

I did role playing games with a few friends, and almost invariably chose female characters.  We were all sort of the oddballs (the nerd girl who had a crush on one of the boys in the group, the kid who turned out to be schizophrenic, the African American kid who didn’t like sports that much, the only student at the school whose parents were from India). We were the stereotypical outsider group hanging out in the library playing D&D or some other game.  It’s not that we had a great deal in common, it was simply that none of us fit anywhere else.

Indeed, we were certainly the victims and not the victimizers in the grand scheme of things.  One summer day between 7^th and 8^th grades one of my friends and I were accosted by some other, larger kids than us while crossing through a city park.  They knew my friend, and that was a very bad thing.  They taunted and humiliated him and eventually attacked.  Two of them quickly had Doug on the ground and were beating on him.  One stood in front of me, daring me to jump in on it.  He had a few inches and maybe 30 or 40 pounds on me.  All of this was happening right in front of the community swimming pool in broad daylight.  Adults were wandering in and out of the facility, pointedly ignoring the one sided drama happening not 20 feet from them.  No help there.  I looked about for some kind of aid, and saw only a chunk of concrete twice the size of my hand.  The kid watching me saw where my eyes went, and sneered, “Don’t even think about it.”

So, I stood there and watched while Doug ended looking like undercooked hamburger.  I hated feeling that powerless, and all I could do was simmer, hating the feminine side of me that didn’t know how to fight, and never wanted to.

All along, though, I was widely acknowledged as by far and away the smartest boy in my class.  I wanted to stop being on the outside looking in, but was told by people in the know that you can’t be a brain and fit in.  If you want to be popular, stop being smart and weird.  Just play dumb.  I have never been able to shut my brain off, or stop thinking, analyzing, and being curious.  I was naturally gregarious, and adults almost invariably had more interesting things to say than my peers.  So, fitting in was never really in the cards for me.

Between the end of 7^th grade and the end of 8^th grade, I grew 6 inches and gained 30 lbs.  It was the onset of puberty.  During the summer between 7^th and 8^th grades is when I figured out how to use “the factory equipment”.  I was disgusted, it felt unnatural, and I hated how puberty was giving me this out of control desire.  I didn’t like or want to be that driven by my hormones, I was ashamed of it, and in some indefinable way it didn’t feel “right”.  I wished all the time I didn’t have these almost out of control urges to “lay on hands.”

Eighth grade was also when I discovered, as a latchkey kid with way too much time on my hands, that there was an abundance of clothes lying around now that fit me.  It’s also when I realized pretty clearly there was something really different about me that wasn’t simply covered by the banner of being a bit of a nerd, ahead of my peers academically, or just a little odd.  I hated the hair that was sprouting all over me, and shaved it off whenever I got the chance.  I was scared to death someone would realize I was shaving my legs and pits.  I also cursed the fact that it was so thick and dark that the act of shaving left me incredibly itchy and noticeably lighter skinned.  After I did it, I felt better when alone, because it was something I could do to sort hold back this unwanted development. However it made me very self conscious when in public.  What if someone noticed?  How would I explain it?

I didn’t have the word for it yet (that would come freshman year, and is another story), but I knew it was both wrong, and a death sentence if I got caught.  I needed a way to make sure I lived long enough to get out of the house and go to college when I was 18.

I want to take a moment to talk about a friend of mine for a moment.  She’s so successful by any measure I can find.  She went to a great college and graduated high in her class.  Same with her career.  She’s a high level manager for a big, Fortune 100 company whose name you would definitely recognize.  Last I checked, she had about 350 people under her in the organization chart, and was making more money than both people in our house combined.

She’s been married 20 years, and has two absolutely wonderful sons who are following in her footsteps to become educated, hard working, thoughtful, and ethical young men.  She has been with her church for years, teaching Sunday school and running scouting troops.  She’s also tall, willowy, and beautiful, in a 40′s, successful executive Mom sort of way.

She’s also transsexual, not full time, and I don’t believe she’ll be with us much longer.

She has come to the end of the road for so many trans people who try so hard to find their way to a normal life.  She did, and succeeded beyond the hopes of most people.  She has been on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for 8 years, and still has not found a way to be herself.  Her wife wants her to go ahead and transition, but to do it without her. My friend admits to cutting again, to break out of the fugue of cognitive dissonance she is in.    Church is just going through the motions: she’s not on speaking terms with God anymore.  Her wife has sent the firearms in the house elsewhere.

So now, today she is left with a paradox that offers only one answer.  She cannot live without her wife and children.  She cannot live without being herself. The only answer she sees is simply not to live. I don’t know what to tell her; if I wasn’t in a situation where I had a spouse willing to try to stick it out with me, I would feel the same.  Imagining another 40 years of existence devoid of human connection, affection, and love is crushing.

It is part of the shared trans experience.

For the most part in our society, the response is a shrug and a sense of “Good riddance.”

For those of us left behind in the trans community, we are not left to wonder why it happened, but if this is the better in “It gets better.”

1775: Paul Revere rides to Concord warning patriotic Americans along the way, “The queers are coming!  The queers are coming!”

1776: Nathan Hale utters his heroic last works “I regret that I have but one life to lose for my countrymen who aren’t gay.”

1789: Thomas Jefferson begins the constitution with “We the people, of these Christian States…”

1792: Marie Antoinette is guillotined for telling the French: “Let them eat c***”.

1796: The smallpox vaccine is accidently discovered by Edward Jenner while researching how to cure milkmaids of being lesbians.

1835: In Alexis De Toqueville’s landmark work, Democracy in America, he remarks on the uniquely American connection between religion and the freedom to crush anyone who doesn’t agree with your religion.

1863: Lincoln delivers his famous address at Gettysburg in which he declares, “Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal.  Except gays, because they’re just icky.”

1911: The homosexual agenda for world domination is exposed with the first printing of “The Protocols of the Gay Elders of Zion”.

1926: “The Suns Also Rises” is published as part of the long running plot to trick decent society into tolerating those who aren’t interested in having 5 children and 23 foster children.

1933:  Hitler becomes leader of Germany, and the Weimar Republic is no more.  This is mostly due to Liza Minelli and those awful, decadent cabarets full of “those people”.

1953: The US and its allies sign a cease fire with North Korea after a long stalemate.  The impasse is blamed by reputable historians on the distraction caused by Corporal Klinger and his cross dressing.

1962: Marilyn Monroe dies of longstanding complications related to being on set with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon while they were in drag.

1974: The Nixon administration is sabotaged in a 5^th column plot by radical homosexuals, led by “Deep Throat”.

1995: Ronald Reagan, in an off the record interview, doesn’t remember there being any gays back in the good old days.

1996: The documentary “The Birdcage” is released as part of a Clinton re-election year anti-family smear campaign.

2003: The US rightfully invades Iraq because most of the men over there wear dresses.