At your convenience... Or not

Oddly enough, my experience of transitioning is most uncomfortable when it comes to people who have known me the longest.  Obviously there are people in my life who have known me since birth (my mom and dad, aunts and uncles, grandparents) to people who have known me 30+ years (assorted members of my step-family, some childhood friends) to people who have known me 20+ years (many middle and high school friends) and so on.  At minimum, there are folks who have known me at least a decade, and it is all of these people who I feel (rightfully so) do currently struggle the most with this whole process.

It boils down to this: for many people, my situation is simply not convenient for them.  It requires them to think about something too hard and/or to think about something that they may feel really uncomfortable with.  Trans people force others to re-examine what they believe they know to be the absolute truth about gender and biological sex and so on.  These beliefs are usually that gender is binary and/or that the biological sex as manifested in one's body is the irrevocable indicator of one's gender as well.  In a nutshell, most people simplify everything into he/she and we know that a human is "he/she" based on his/her plumbing.

It is my longest-known friends where I have run into the most painful situations regarding my transition.  Two different friends have responded to birthday posts I made on their Facebook accounts by using my former name, as if the name they see on my own account is some sort of costume alias that I'm just trying on for fun.  My name, in fact, is how I am legally known now in this life.  It was a painstaking process to go through and it's about more than having a new, legal name - it's the name that also signifies the gender I have always been and will live as from here on out.  It's the name that says, "Hey, people, I'm a dude.  Get over it."  It's the name that allows me to more fluidly navigate this world as the male person I have always felt I was.

Listen, some legal name changes can be thought of as ridiculous (Metta World Peace or Chad Ochocinco), but guess what?  As much as broadcasters probably almost choke on those names when they have to use them nonchalantly in the commentary of the games those men play in, they use them because if those men chose those names for themselves, it's how they wish to be identified.  We can judge it all we want, but they went through the legal process to be known as those names and it is not for us to continue to call them Ron Artest or Chad Johnson any more.  They chose those names because the names were extensions of their identities; let's face it, names are important.  To fail to use people's names as they wish is to negate who those people are, especially if they have gone to the trouble to legally change their names.

I have had at least two longtime friends use the incorrect pronouns.  One did it in a face-to-face conversation, and said it as if she had never even considered anything else for me.  I didn't correct her on the spot because it can be so difficult to do sometimes.  It was also the first time that had happened in any way with a longtime friend, and to be quite honest, sometimes I'm almost too stunned to take action.  However, another friend used the incorrect pronoun when connecting myself and one of her colleagues via email.  The added layer there is the embarrassment of the third party seeing my name on the email and the improper pronoun being used.  Again, I've been negated by friends because they have not wanted to really give my identity the proper thought and respect it deserves.  It's easier for longtime friends to freeze me in the time where they knew me on a daily basis rather than accept what I've put out there now.

I'm not trying to deny my friends their memories of me; there is nothing I can do about the past in terms of not having the choice about being able to present myself as I really wanted to.  I'm also not saying I regret everything about my past.  If my adult friends are still lacking the skill and sensitivity to navigate this process respectfully, imagine what the teenage versions of all of the people who knew me then and still know me now would have done.  I shudder to think...  However, what matters is the here and now.  In this time we are currently living in, I am a man.  If any of my longtime friends could watch how I now interact with the world at large and how it interacts with me, they'd probably understand everything better.  Geez, I sometimes find it hard to believe my friends are married and have kids, but it doesn't mean I refuse to accept it.  It doesn't mean that I'm going to pretend their children do not exist or that they are not changed people at this stage of our adulthoods, that they can only exist as a former teammate or classmate of mine.  Just because the bulk of how I formed ideas about my friends may have been anywhere from 15-30 years ago doesn't mean I keep them frozen in that time.

I know that the idea of being transgender is a really tough thing for people to wrap their brains around.  But people, listen to me, and listen good: you must accept at face value what I am telling you.  I did not wake up one day and wonder how I could be the most unique person in my group of peers.  (Hmmm, everyone has tattoos or kids or has traveled the world or....  Wait!  I know!  None of them has had a sex change!!) I  have always been a male, and have always wanted a male body to match how I felt inside.  I had nowhere to take these feelings, and no way to act on them in a healthy way.  There was no home support for me, so I damn sure wasn't going to stick my neck out at school only to have no sanctuary anywhere else to help me cope with being this way and the peer backlash I would have undoubtedly received.  The school climate did not feel safe for anything of the sort, at least not to me.

In light of the types of comments I viewed following a Yahoo article I recently posted about the author Jennifer Finney Boylan, I also made a bold declaration: anyone who knows me who has ever honestly felt that way ("it, Godless, freak, mentally ill, crazy"), too, should just go ahead and remove yourself from my life.  It's nothing personal, but I cannot move forward with people who are determined to keep their feet firmly planted and rooted in the past, whether you believe yourself to be progressive or not, whether you provide some type of positive treatment of me on the surface only; it has to be something that people in my life want to 100% seek to understand because tolerance does not equal acceptance.  I have always put it out there that I am willing to talk to anyone who has questions or needs clarification about this whole process.  But until then, you're on board with at least a willingness to learn more or you're off the Jonah train, aka the Express Train to Enlightenment.  It's time for some people to see the world through the lens of others who didn't have it so easy or who wear targets on our backs for the arrows of judgment shot by others.

As a final note, just know that if the tone and/or contents of my message seem harsh, remember that none of us can stand up for anyone else until we know how to stand up for ourselves.  Now that I am going through this process and living life this way, I feel very confident in my abilities to be an upstander, not a bystander; one who seeks to identify and not compare (thank you to my wonderful woman for that); one who knows how to do the right thing because I know what the right thing to do is.  I have certainly stood up for others in my lifetime, but now that I co-chair a major organization dedicated to creating safe schools for all children, I take this responsibility even more seriously.  Know that because I have the experiences that I do, you can count on me to stand up for you if it's ever warranted. Regardless, though, we all have the right to stand up for ourselves because ultimately, we can only count on ourselves to do what's right.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

-Martin Niemӧller

With that, I hope my message is clear: I will not accept anything less than being viewed for who I am NOW.  I do have empathy for my longtime friends and their processing of my transition, but I do not have empathy for those who simply refuse to give it enough thought so that they may act on the situation with kindness and respect for me.  Know that if you chose to continue to be my friend on Facebook when I created my new account, I assumed it was because you wanted to be friends with Jonah moving forward, not because you hoped to keep the shadow of someone's memory handy or because you just couldn't resist watching the freak show.  I refuse to be marginalized or negated by those who don't want to take the time to understand, who want to do what's convenient and easy for them, and cannot possibly fathom the type of pain you cause when you use a name that does not identify me or a pronoun that does not identify me.  Just as you want to be accepted for exactly who you are, so does everyone else.  This is the Express Train to Enlightenment: please step in and stand clear of the closing doors.  Otherwise, enjoy the view from the platform as the world goes by.