so naturally, i am grounded again, and once again… my worst fears are realized when i am told i will be going back to church three times per week now… every tuesday and thursday, and then sunday nights.
the week before that ordeal started, i was doing my normal routine after dinner and getting ready to go take a shower. for some reason that i did not even question at the time, but later on looked back and could only explain as “what we always did, so it was normal”… me and my siblings would always strip our clothes in the laundry room which was on one end of the house, then walk through the house naked on our way to the bathroom take a shower or bath. this didnt seem unusual… we always did it for as long as i could remember. in hindsight, it seems very weird.
on one such evening, i came out of the laundry on the way to the bathroom, and my mother was sitting on the couch watching tv. i remember seeing her turn to look at me, then asking me to hold on and motioning me to stop. i did. she got up and started walking towards me… but as she got closer, she said nevermind and sent me on my way. whatever i guess. i didnt give it a second thought.
the next day at school, closer to the end of the school day, someone from the front office walked into our class and said “i need to see you in the front office please. your mother is here to pick you up. bring your things”. WHAT? why? why was i being removed from school early? i kind of thought that maybe something bad had happened… someone hurt or in the hospital… i just couldnt understand why i was being picked up without warning.
i left the school and got into the car with my mom. she immediately explained that i had a doctors appointment. weird. i hadn’t been told i was supposed to go to the doctor. i wasnt sick. why are we going now, and not a week or two ago when i was actually sick? i assumed it had something to do with that though, and didnt think much of it.
we made our way into town and finally arrived and took our seats in the doctors office. a nurse called us back and put us in a room to wait for the doctor. my mom STILL would not answer why we were there. the doc finally strolled in, pulled up a chair and put his clipboard down, then sat down in front of me. “heya – how you feeling today? what brings you here?” i looked at my mom, shrugging. she got up, walked to the doc, and then asked him to step outside with her for a moment. i was left there, alone, in the room. waiting.
after a few minutes, my mom came back in by herself and sat down quietly. still…. i have no explanation as to why we are there.
a few minutes later, a nurse comes in with a tray full of stuff and tells me to raise my sleeve for a moment… she is going to get a blood sample. then she leads me down the hall to the bathroom to pee in a little cup. i am now starting to get nervous about why i am there.
i go back into the room with my mom and sit and wait for someone to come back in. the doctor comes in just long enough to let us know that he has everything he needs, and that he will see us in a couple of weeks. WHAT IS GOING ON????? i was too scared to ask now. so i just kept quiet.
a week or two goes by and we go back to the doctors office. i sat there waiting in the room trying not to panic… but it was impossible to think there wasnt something wrong. the doc comes in and sits down, then scrolls through the charts in his hand for a moment before we start discussing it.
“seems to be a bit of a problem with your hormones. do you know what testosterone and estrogen are?” of course at this point, i kinda did from school, or at least knew the words. i didnt really understand it… but had a basic grasp. “kind of” i replied.
“you seem to be have very low testorsterone, and abnormally high levels of estrogen, which you don’t really need at those levels. estrogen is what is causing your issues right now”
uhhh….. ok? what issues? – “lets have a look. go ahead and take off your pants and shirt for me and sit on the bed”. i remember just being terrified at this point.
i did as instructed, and he rolled over in his chair and grabbed my chest, and squeezed. “this is what happens when you have ultra high estrogen”. oh my god, i want to crawl under the table and hide. this is one of THOSE kinds of doctors visits. oh no.
“go ahead and pull down your underwear a little for me please”. i wanted to die of embarrassment. as i did, he poked and inspected around my groin area. “it also keeps this from keeping up with your body growth”
i am sure my face was red with embarrassment. i couldnt believe i was brought into this ambush. he continued… “and its kept you a little on the small side for your age. you should be a bit more developed than this. but, don’t worry! we’ll get you fixed right up!”
on the way home, my mother explained to me that she had ‘seen my body’ when going to the shower that one day, and knew something was wrong. i was already embarrassed, and this was just pouring salt into the wound.
that was when i started taking my first pills… estrogen blockers (although i did not know it at the time) to keep my testosterone from being converted. after a couple of months of that we went in and they did another blood sample, and another visit – better, but not sufficient. so, they were going to add to it and i went in for shots twice per month. i found out later as i got older, that those shots were massive doses of testosterone to “kick start my puberty” and get my body to where they thought it needed to be. this went on for a couple of years, then for another year or two at once per month until i finally put an end to it close to 13-14.
at no point did anyone ever ask me what i wanted… or even explain or get my opinion on it. it wasnt until that trip to my grandmothers house and hearing about my early surgery that i started to put all the puzzle pieces together.
i remember after that revelation at grandmoms, i was at one of my closest male friends house. his mom and dad had a computer and internet, which we had just started to learn in school. i knew if i did this in school, and they caught me, it would get relayed to my parents. but at his house, if caught, i could just beg him not to say anything. so one day as we were hanging out in his room watching tv, i used his computer – he thought i was playing a game – i wasnt… i had gotten on the old dial up phone receiver on the modem internet, and went to a medical message board and asked ‘what is pmds? what does it mean to have it? if i think i am a girl, what do i do?’. back in those days, we never got answers right away. but i remember which board i posted on, and a few weeks later, i checked again when i was at his house. i had replies! as i read through all of them… some right… some wrong… but all with the same consensus… i remember THAT was my moment. everything fit… i understood who i was…. what i was… why this was all happening to me. i remember the most awkward interaction i ever had with that friend as i just couldnt stop myself from crying, and he was mortified and had no idea why i was crying, and didnt know what to do, and got his brother, which made it weird, then his brother told their mom, and i had this room of people i just wanted to run away from, only wanting to help, but there was no way i was about to talk about any of it.
it took a while to click in my head that the doctors visits were related. as a kid… your parents hand you meds, and you just take them without thinking about what it is, or why. the moment that puzzle pieced itself together was that first big “a-ha” moment of betrayal i had ever felt.
at one point, i think i would have been happy if given a way out. i didnt want to be in trouble… i just wanted to be happy. but now… it felt like it was me vs them. like i was harboring this life inside me, and what they were doing, was slowly killing it. there was nothing i could do to stop it. i just had to watch it happen. it was in my head at first… i just felt like a portion of me was changing and i didnt sign off on that.
so me… and testosterone… we are not friends. it finally showed itself after a month or two…. my clothes werent fitting anymore… i felt…. angry. i felt on edge… anxious… edgy… like i was crawling out of my skin. i quickly realized that testosterone was almost a form of torture… i would get my injection, then crawl out of my skin for the next couple of weeks. i could not focus on anything. i could not keep my emotions in check. everything hurt. it felt like i was a passenger along for a ride, unable to stop anything that was happening around me. this was also my first (but far from last) fist fight.
a kid at school called me a fag. not because he knew anything about me or what went on behind closed doors… but just as a slur because of something i had said or done (which i dont even remember). i remember actively thinking ‘get away from him quickly – this is trouble’, but my body just overrode that thought and charged straight at him at full speed. he was a big kid… and up to that point, i was one of the smaller kids in school, but i hit him. i hit him hard. he went down, and i kept swinging. all that rage and aggression. it was getting dumped on him – right there. i went too far with it… i split his eye open and busted his teeth. there was blood everywhere. i got suspended for three days. strangely enough… i didnt even get in trouble at home. almost killing a kid was ok… panties were not. irony.
whatever they were injecting me with was changing me, and i didnt like it. i felt like it was turning me into a monster – i asked several times if we could stop it, and was told no. i would ask the doctor several times – who for the first year or two dismissed it and did as my mom said, but eventually started to advocate for her ‘discussing it with me’.
but…. i guess a bit to my surprise…. it didnt change what was happening in my heart or brain that much…. it seemed to add – but not subtract the portion they wanted gone. that part was still alive. in fact, it seemed to be growing. maybe that was my brains way of fighting back or trying to balance things… but i never lost that desire like i feared. at first, i thought it was superficial or just in my head… i was making it up. but, i wasnt. i still felt that swell of happiness and peace from it. what i did gain though… was a willingness to push those boundaries even further and not give a flying fuck what my parents thought or what the consequences would be from it. it made me callous and not giving a shit about anyone around me – if you were in my path, i would mow you down.
also around this time is when I got caught again. without telling me, i came home from school one day to see that they had gotten new furniture – apparently my brother was now going to be sharing my room from that point forward. when she pulled the room apart, she found the pantyhose i kept under the mattress. it was the first thing i thought of when walking in. ‘oh crap – im in big trouble’
NOW…. things got bad. the first thing my mom decided to do was to try the embarrassment route. i still to this day have no idea why she didnt have my dad have this talk with me or simply the default route of using that paddle on me or taking me to the preacher or therapist… but she instead called a close family friend that lived a couple of doors down…. the husband – who we all thought was awesome (he had a canon and did civil war reenactments and drove a truck) and we played with the boy that lived there constantly on a daily basis (and he became my little brothers best friend) – he came down and was sitting on my couch when my mom called me to come out and sit in the living room. she started telling him what i had a problem dressing like a girl, and liked to dance around in panties all the time, and asked him to talk to me about it.
that is still one of the more embarrassing moments of my life. the look on his face…. the smug evil grin my mom had while he tried to stumble through how to help me “not be a queer” and “not be some sick pervert” (i didnt understand what that meant at the time)…. i wanted to just crawl into a hole and die. i was disgusted with myself, my mom, and everything around me. i remember i felt sick to my stomach as i was enduring this slow torture and embarrassment and then looking at my mom who seemed to revel in my pain. her folded arms… smiling and nodding her head. i think that was the first time i didnt have that familiar feeling of fear…. but a new feeling – rage. i wanted to hurt her.
the absolute irony of the situation, but that holds no relevance to the above… is he later in life came out as gay. looking back – the signs were there. he was always so adamant about how great women are, and having stacks of nudey mags. i obviously didnt know at the time, but in hindsight, it was classic overcompensation.
the next week, i was told to get in the car when i got home from school one day…. we drove into a strange part of town i had never really been to and pulled up in front of a very large, very nice home. it was the home office in the village for a husband and wife – one was a psychologist (her) and the other was a psychiatrist. i spent the next several years coming back here, at least once per week, but sometimes 2-3 times per week, decided by her of course.
it is really hard to verbalize and put the feelings i had into words during those sessions… both the psychologist and the preacher had the same goals, but approached it from different angles. one from the “you will burn in hell” avenue, while the other took the path of “you are broken, and those feelings are bad, but we’ll make sure you feel so badly about them that they disgust you”. so almost every weeknight.. every week… for years – i would have to sit and listen to someone tell me how terrible i am… what an abomination i was… how my feelings were wrong and destructive. and i would have to grin and bear it.
it did do something. it made me ashamed of it… and it made me hide it even more. it was torture. not in the figurative sense…. in the geneva convention sense. what they did was what we now call conversion therapy. it is disgusting. it chews your soul away leaving you dead inside. as a child that has no choice or say in the matter… they wear you down with repetition and relentless beratement. those of weaker stuff cannot be blamed for letting it drive them to suicide. there were several times i felt i might get driven that far as well. can you imagine your life… knowing daily – that people who are supposed to be pillars in the community… respected… looked up to… constantly degrade and belittle you calling you a monster, and telling you over and over that your feelings are wrong? that those people know something so shameful about you… and they use it to berate and belittle you, daily? they never broke me…. but they sure as hell bent me like a pretzel. week after week… month after month… year after year.
the recurring theme with everyone seemed to be coming at this issue looking at me like some sort of sexual deviant. i didnt know how to tell them at the time – i wasnt. i wasnt even old enough to understand what that meant. i hadnt even masturbated, and im not 100% sure i had even had an erection at that point. this affinity i had, certainly had nothing to do with sex AT ALL… i didnt honestly really even understand what sex was outside of “making a baby” and that just confused the crap out of me how it was relevant to me wanting to be happy. the dots just did not connect. (special thanks to the wonderful sex ed class that taught us a lot of absolutely nothing)
what it also did, was cauterize my feelings… it made me dead inside. i learned over the course of a year or two to be able to shut off my feelings and focus. this came in handy several times in my life… like when my sister passed away, and i had nobody to turn to for help… so i knuckled down and focused – shutting all feelings out – making plans for her funeral – figuring out how to pay for it all – taking care of her final things. but other times… it was a hindrance.
up to this point in my life – there werent a ton of pictures of me. my parents took some… but the few that exist are rare that i wasn’t posed or stood at a certain spot or angle to “make me bigger” as they put it. i never really understood why that was such a trigger for them – i was always the smaller kid, but not the smallest – but they always had to “make me manly”, at the time, it made no sense to me. now, i see they were a bit uneasy with my size – or lack of – in combination with everything that had happened. i was not the smallest kid in school, but close to it. however, after the shots started… i went from tiny to a mountain in a single year. i remember seeing some of my past teachers or family friends who would all gaze in amazement and comment how i “really had a growth spurt!” with a friendly chuckle that drove me insane.
being the biggest kid in school immediately brought unwanted attention from kids and adults alike. seeing a jr high kid standing at 200lbs and 6’1″ can be a bit shocking. the adults wanted me in football as rapidly as possible (which i do honestly enjoy… but quickly lost interest in being asked to be as violent as possible – “take that kid out at the knees”, etc). the asshole kids just saw me as the target… the guy to knock down a peg and make a name for themselves. i became the wrecking ball for my “friends”…. if they had a problem with someone, they wanted me to take care of it for them.
i remember my grandmother getting yelled at profusely by my mom (my dad stayed out of it) as one summer during our yearly trip up there, she took me shopping. my old clothes were just trashed, and my grandmother didnt approve… so she took me to pennys to have “some nice things and some clothes to play outside in” for the summer. subsequently, i bought some clothes that my mother DID NOT approve of. there exists somewhere a picture of me in a hot pink half shirt and really short shorts that i quietly got from the girls section at pennys without my grandmother knowing (i just brought the few items up to the register and she gladly bought it all) and just saw them as kids clothes. we took a picture with all of us kids standing around a tree in her backyard… and my mother was absolutely livid about it. my grandmom did her calm southern thing, and instead of getting ugly about it – to protest her raising her voice… it quickly became my grandmothers favorite picture. i dont think she really like the pic all that much as i looked silly, but it ruffled my moms feathers, so she loved it. she had it blown up and framed and hung it in the hallway as one of the first pictures you see in the house. to add to that – she gave my mom a copy for christmas that year, that immediately went into the trash when we got home.