Dear Dad
I’ve written several articles to you, previously anonymized to blunt any hurt they may cause you, but your words and actions make me doubt you’ve read them. I’m not sure if being this blunt — with this title and the removal of anonymity’s protective veil — will make a difference, but I hope so.
I hoped I could prove myself to you, eventually.
- I hoped I could achieve good enough grades to allow us to skip all your constructive feedback for once.
- I hoped one day you’d stop forcing me to go to church long after I expressed my atheism/agnosticism and how much I hated it there.
- I hoped when I took off on my own and became independent, I’d shed the weight of your criticisms and perhaps you’d see me as an adult.
- I hoped paying off my student loans, having no credit card debt, and a credit score over 800 after years of poverty might prove to you I’m not “bad with money”.
- I hoped sustaining a loving relationship for 12 years and getting married might get me some respect in my thirties.
- I hoped doing a cleaner version of what you did in my divorce would allow you to see how much time has gone by, how much I’ve experienced, and how much I’ve learned about myself.
- I hoped answering all your insensitive questions about my gender and sexuality would lead to understanding and perhaps acceptance.
- I hoped opening up to you about all of this and more would get you to do the same, and meet me on my level, as a peer.
But why?
Why do I keep barking up the wrong tree with you?
I don’t care what anyone thinks of me when I’m being honest and doing my best. I’ve survived the temporary loneliness honesty rewards us with and found ways to thrive. I’ve lost multiple close, important relationships over the years in my search for identity and meaning. I lose even more when I act like the person I want to be — with integrity, and actions that match my values.
You’ve done little to help me in my self-discovery, my most important pursuit, since you and mom split. From that moment in our lives, it’s felt like you’ve held onto my ten-year-old self — and not even my actual self, but the version you saw of them. And anything I did to disabuse you of this delusion has been met with skepticism, ignorance, or even trolling.
Why does it still hurt this badly when you look right through me?
You didn’t abandon me. You didn’t abuse or neglect me. You paid child support. You showed up to my football games and plays. After I left home, you lent me a significant helping hand a few times when I asked. You’re a great father. Unimpeachable, really.
And you’ve put forth 99% of the effort to keeping us in touch and talking for the last 30 years.
Because it’s painful to not feel seen by someone who held you the day you were born and tells you he loves you every chance he gets.
Who do you love?
When I pulled you out of the Russian River gasping for air, I was terrified. I know I didn’t put any pressure on you while inviting you to join my pre-planned first kayaking trip of the season, but if you drowned there I’d never be able to convince myself it wasn’t my fault.
Once I dragged you through the rapids and slippery river rocks to shore and we caught our breath, I was relieved to say the least. As we stood there awaiting rescue, I watched you carefully to make sure your breathing slowed down and your muscles could finally relax. It took several minutes before I truly felt you were safe. You lamented losing your glasses and hat in the current, as I tried to check on Maureen who was ahead of us when your kayak flipped.
When help arrived and we were able to get a few hundred feet downriver to the next beach, another family on their own kayaking trip was picnicking. This was when you proudly told everyone within earshot how glad you were that you took your sons to swimming lessons when we were little. You pointed at me — with my long hair, painted nails, meticulously hairless body, wearing a bikini — and told them how he pulled you out of the water.
And I deflated, again.
I must’ve had an unreasonable idea somewhere in my subconscious that it’d be like a cheesy scene from a Hollywood movie. I’d pull my stubborn prick of a father out of danger and he’d finally respect me.
I wasn’t even aware of it until we were standing on that rocky shore, but I’ve been trying to prove myself to you for decades. And unlike Henry Jones Sr., even after facing death together, you still didn’t see me.
Sinking Like a Stone
And then, as if there wasn’t enough for me to take in at the time already, you told me you can’t swim — no more than 45 minutes after the staff at the kayaking place asked you in front of me if you could swim and you said yes.
I don’t mention this to embarrass you. It’s an apt metaphor for how you don’t seem to think I can be allowed to see you as a vulnerable, normal human being. Even when you’re out of your depth, the hierarchy must be maintained.
I’m still the ten-year-old boy in your mind after all, and you seem to think you’re supposed to be like a god to that little boy — unreachable atop his pedestal. And all it does is put more distance between us.
Insult to Injury
When the rescuer got you safely to the beach where you could access the road and catch a car ride back to the starting point, I decided to get back on the river and finish my kayaking trip. It was a peaceful moment to process everything, and it felt good that I was still fit enough to make it to the end within the time limit, despite everything.
And as I row toward the shore, I see you with your camera out and hear you shout this:
And here he comes! He made it!
My Father
Who woulda thunk we got here before him?
I’ve been dissociating since. I wrote this letter, revised it 52 times (and counting) in that state, but waited until I started to feel like myself again to send it to you.
The car ride back to your hotel and the dinner we had after were some of my most painful and anxious hours of recent memory. I told myself I’d confront you next time you misgendered me each time it happened, and each time I couldn’t do it.
I drank that night in ways I never do. Alcohol is not where I turn in hard times, but I did that night. You turned me into someone I’m not that day. You briefly switched off a light in me that I have little problem keeping lit without you around.
When you hugged me goodbye, then looked me in the eyes and said what was surely a heartfelt “I love you” at the end, I once again felt invisible. And I muttered, “I love you too” because I do. For some reason, I still do.
The next morning, after I was relieved you were gone, you sent me that video. ☝️
I thought things were improving.
Last time you visited, 2 years ago, Maureen occasionally stood up for me. By the end of that trip, it felt like you might be coming around, despite your contrarian wise-cracking.
When I visited for Thanksgiving, it occasionally felt unpleasant but it wasn’t this strange. This time, when I had to correct you —
They or she, please.
Me, at least five times within 48 hours
— both of you just went stoic. You stopped mid-sentence, without correcting yourselves, and let the silence hang. It felt like a coordinated response. Like something you planned together before your flight landed. Like I was being handled. No one I’ve corrected has ever reacted like this before.
Are you trying?
I edited this heading a few times. First, I wrote “I know you’re doing your best.” But I don’t think that’s true, so I changed it to “I know you’re trying.” This weekend made me unsure of that too. Are you?
When I cry to my partners, friends, and therapists about you, I spend lots of time defending you. I create complex extenuating circumstances for you, based on your Catholic parents, your undiagnosed autism and ADHD (which passed down to me), the stress you must be experiencing with your own aging mother, and how all the hardest events of my childhood must’ve been hard for you too.
We’re not supposed to spend our own precious therapy hours diagnosing others, but it’s hard not to sometimes — especially if those people don’t seek out their own therapy and keep being messy around everyone else.
Am I doing the same things to you?
Is asking you to do even more than you already do the same thing as pointing at a B on my report card and telling me I have so much more potential? Sometimes I think so.
I’m sure your parents were tougher on you. There’s no manual for parenting! Etcetera.
Sometimes I think I should just swallow the pain for another 20, 30, 40 years and take the bad with the good. Maybe it’s my burden for asking too much; for making this whole gender thing so complicated. Maybe I’m the messy one.
And then I remember…
When you were teaching, and you expected and required students to address you and pronounce your name correctly as a sign of respect. How you refused to answer to “Yo”, “Teacher”, or anything but your name. So I know you understand how disrespectful this is.
And then I remember “this whole gender thing” has been keeping me alive. I remember how much I’ve sacrificed, how much pain I’ve gone through to get here — not only for the 4 years you’ve known about it, but for the other 30+ I spent blindly clawing around looking for what was wrong with me. And I remember the absolute zero regrets I harbor for it.
And then I remember this is just the latest in a long list of disappointments, so it’s on me too that I allowed myself to be infantilized for so long. I can’t be so hurt and disappointed if I don’t let myself hope for validation that’s never come and never will. That’s my homework now.
I suspect you prefer another version of me you have in your imagination, but I also suspect you prefer the alive version who still talks to you. They’re still here for now.
Treat me the way I’ve repeatedly asked to be treated.
Preferably at all times, even when I’m not in the same time zone, but at the very least you can do it in front of me. It’s been more than four years. I’ve been as patient and accommodating as I can be.
A non-exhaustive list of people who accurately gender me regularly:
- Mom, most of the time
- My siblings and cousins, most of the time
- Bethany
- My friends
- My current and former coworkers
- My doctors, pharmacists, counselors, and surgeons
- Random customer service workers in my neighborhood
- The workers at the kayak rental company
- The State of California
- Bethany’s Trumper Republican father and stepmom
They don’t think I’m asking too much. Do you?
Updates Since Sending This Letter
Friends and family have unanimously reached out in support, and it’s made me feel like I’m not insane or being overly dramatic. Thank you. I want to share some which the senders felt comfortable with me sharing:
