The brilliant, lucid and poignant testimony of the father of a transsexual boy
GAYLES.TV.- There are so many stories of silence, closet, threats, mockery, misunderstanding and there is so much pain accumulated over time by thousands of people who have not been able to be who they were, than to read a text like the from Emilio García, "A year with J." on the Huffington Post »He can not help but move us deeply.
Emilio, who is former president and member of the board of directors of ASTIC, has written a letter of tribute to his son J., someone who, as he says in one of the first paragraphs, "was assigned a gender at birth that he would soon begin to discover that he did not feel." By reading and rereading the writing, we discover little by little what it is that excites us so much and it is the immense love of that father for his son, not acceptance, not tolerance or understanding, it is much more, it is the absolute vindication of the difference, the joy of being his father and feeling it as “a stroke of luck”, like everything rare, like the four-leaf clover or the shooting star that crosses the sky.
It is a text full of poetry, tenderness, pride, where the only mourning that is felt is that of the "twelve years we lost having J. with us." And yet, crossing the border of generosity, he writes: "It is an undeserved privilege to be with J. in the time of hope when I did not know how to be with him enough in the time of pain". Speechless.
We only have to reproduce here this wonderful complete text so that you can enjoy it and thank Emilio for having wanted to share his happiness, his tenderness and the good news of the arrival in the world of J. after what his father calls a "birth that it lasted eighteen years. "
"I crossed the border of fifty years with the safety of the great Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, with the certainty of not having the age to change my vision of the world. And at fifty and that vision remains unchanged, strengthened more if it fits after the first year of living with my son, J. It sounds strange to say it when he just passed the age of majority, but until a few years ago was a mere shadow hidden in family intimacy. After a life hiding, J. decided to stop. As simple and as difficult as that. Claim yourself as diverse and manifest to everyone in your environment your will to transit to who you are.
A four-leaf clover, a shooting star… finding the scarce is a sign of being lucky. Some data say that my son is one in ten thousand, others that he is one in forty thousand. Being his father is a stroke of luck. Seeing him every day is a lesson in life and endurance. At his age, he has already had to fight in more battles than many of us will have to face in our lives. They have been the first struggles of the war for their own identity. And they will still have infinite numbers to battle. Children often resemble us. They often outperform us in what we value most, because they learn from our contradictions and weaknesses.
My son was assigned at birth a genre that would soon begin to discover that he did not feel. Contrary to those born of caesarean section, he came to the world crying. Maybe it was as soon as he was aware of the error of medical-administrative criteria that classified him as a woman. Only a few months ago he was able to amend the civil registry. Gone is a name and a genre that should never have been relevant. Although for this, it has been necessary to accredit a lifetime of pain, the years of treatment of the confusion of feeling different. Submit to the legal absurdity that makes identity an illness. How much more human it would be to classify all of us simply as people!
Walking with J. her transit is easier since she decided to live in accordance with who she has always been: the child who wanted to leave her skirt and asked for pants like the other children in their first days of school. Signs of identity that were diffused in the noise of our inherited culture and received education. How much more force would have claimed my son's request to the school to have really understood the message. His lifelong school, to which twelve years later I asked to be called and treated as who he was. I would not have accepted a 'no' for an answer. He graduated from secondary school with his name, we finished his school period where we should have started. Twelve years we lost all of having J. with us. How many more people like my son we will not be enjoying because around him there is no one who identifies his reality or knows instruments to rescue them.
Pain is the total absence of hope. I did not grieve because my son will stop living like he never was. Affliction I felt when his scars showed us how close we were to losing him. There was no hope when he spent long hours sleeping, dreaming of crossing the mirror that reflected the image of who was not. There are still images of him from that time around the house, a time that seems more distant every day. It is strange to know now how much disconformity and misunderstanding could be hidden behind that childish face, to imagine his feeling strange to the binary rules of his surroundings. Next, photos begin to appear who he is, eyes with a life ahead. It is an undeserved privilege to be with J. in the time of hope when I did not know I was enough with him in the time of pain.
Making your transit support visible is an easy task. His courage gives strength to all of us who are close to him. J. faces every step that brings him closer to himself with a smile. The monthly hormone treatment and, in a few days, your first surgery to adjust your body to your feelings. The difficult thing is not being with him every day, the difficult thing is understanding those who would like to perpetuate and reinforce the barriers that prevent him from being who he is. Why do difference and diversity bother you so much? But they don't matter. The important ones are my son and so many who are like him. The important ones are all those who support them every day in claiming their identity, as in their case the Daniela Foundation.
Yes, the first year with J. has been a year lived intensely. In a hurry, sometimes someone says to our back or front. Let them try to be born in a birth that lasts eighteen years. My son already waited too long to start living. "
Source: Huffington Post
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