He is My Son (Updated version using correct pronouns)

I wanted to update this post which I wrote exactly one year and a day ago.  Holden is he.  He is him, himself, his, Holden.  A man.  It felt good to go through this old post and fix my errors in gender for him.

The Little Brave, With Holden's Face

I’m a person who gives a lot o thought to the "Why” of things,  I wasn’t shocked or overwhelmed when my son ,wrote me the  "Important Long Letter For You”.

He started it..."Dear Most Beautiful Mom”.  The letter explained his longing to change his gender. He's planning on having  "Top Surgery" in the next six months.  He offered me links to find out more about this procedure. He didn’t hesitate to include me.  He confirmed I could absolutely be by his side, during surgery and a couple of weeks after to be a mom.  He is now Holden.

Holden has continually blossomed from birth to the beautiful 23 year old, he is now.  I wanted him to have all the space he needed, to be himself.  I wanted him to explore for himself what he wanted to do, or try.  He was very young when he started playing video games.  To have any competition he usually had to play his male friends, who had as much experience with the ongoing changes in games, as Holden did.

Zelda, His Favorite

Loyalty to Nintendo

I remember one of the first times I played him.  He put my controls on demo.  I really thought I was playing.  He just sat there and let me play, while he played.  I could have strangled him when I realized it!   It’s funny now.  He never gave up on luring me into checking out a new game he had, which music or landscapes he liked, or showing how marvelous these games were designed. 

He decided to be a video game designer, when he was in grade school.  He sketched often and kept up on latest Nintendo games, in monthy issues of Nintendo.  He waited for them to come in the mail.  And he kept up on information about anime .  His favorite was, (and is), "Totoro".

He researched and found the school in Redman, Washington, DigiPen, a top school for successful game designers.  We, eventually, traveled across the country to visit this small college.  It didn’t bother him when he found out the amount of females that enrolled in DigiPen was very small indeed. 

Holden, has an amazing sense of style.  It’s his own.  He’s always had a way to push the barriers of color and style.  I’ve listened to him give advice to quite a few friends.  Telling them what to wear and what to steer clear of.  He never told me, unless I asked.  But, he didn’t mince words when being honest.  

He started to shed avoiding public attention, when he joined choir in high school.  He began competing using his strong mezzo-soprano classical voice.  It led to him to receiving a scholarship from U of M in voice performance.  It was a part of him I never guessed he was interested in.

Holden, Playing His Guitar
Outside Our Home in Gaylord
(in his teens)

He was stunning in the opera he played in, last year, in Ann Arbor. The Marriage of Figaro.  He was Cherubino.  He became the character and captivated audiences with his acting and voice. My child, as Cherubino, a boy.

Holden with me, After His Performance as "Cherubino"

Why am I not surprised he would want "Top Surgery"?  Because it just makes sense to me, knowing Holden as I do and have all his life.

I confided in him, "I’d love to find someone like you, male, for a friend.  A human.  A person comfortable with both sides of male and female".  I can imagine what strength in not having to fit in a specific gender role.  

He told me long ago he was a humanist.  There are several humanistic philosophies, but I think he was referring to the humanistic approach.  It respectss an individual’s unique direction toward self-actualization and creativity.  A perspective that people are inherently good.  The idea to view ourselves and other people as a "Whole” person, rather than our parts.  To find our human potential and accepting ourselves and others for their uniqueness.

Holden’s wholeness comes with wanting to pursue surgery.  I don’t question his uniqueness.  I’m already amazed at his potential.  But, for him to realize his full potential?  Only he knows the keys he’s wanted to use, to unluck his gifts.  He never ceases to surprise me how he knows his own mind. 

Holden, a DJ, a Manager of WCBN and Student at U of M

I’m not writing to justify Holden's decision.  I’m writing to give my view as a mom.  A mom in love with her child.  I don’t think his decision needs justification, it’s right for him.  

When Elizabeth was attending MSU, in James Madison college,  one of her focuses was women and gender studies.  At the time, I thought more than once, "Why study it?  It’s pretty straight forward."

Elizabeth, in Her Scatter-the-Papers-Pick-Up-the-Book Mode of Studying

Years of experiencing a conservative community, like Gaylord, and teaching in a disadvanteged area in Atlanta, Michigan, and it didn't hit me that it wasn't straight forward. It took the death of my husband and the transition I went through, to look for more equations to questions troubling me.

I went to MSU in the seventies and had my first look at affects media has on the role of women.  It was a pivotal time in education for removing books with fixed stereotypes for woman and men.  The Dick and Jane Series, I learned to read from, as a child, was one of the series removed from classrooms.  I loved little Sally and her cat, Puff.  It was a world I lived in.  Females wearing dresses, a neighborhood of housewives whose husbands left home every day to work.

My mom literally put three meals a day on the table, when I was young!  Most of them were hot, amazingly.  Fortunately, I grew up with my brothers and male cousins, a majority of the time.  I’m sure it helped me evolve some, seeing the need for changes in stereotypes of women.

But, I had a plan in college.  I read the statistics for success, for women to be her own person.  Finish college, before marrying.  Marry after beginning a career for a few years. To make sure I  started my career.  Wait four years before starting a family. (In order to stabilize the marriage)

Well, living by stats wasn’t a good plan.  I was divorced by the time my daughter, Elizabeth, was two years old.  Following the number game was a disaster.  I was ashamed to be divorcing and ashamed I wasn’t strong enough to stay home with my daughter and support her, too.  

I later married a traditional man and felt safe and secure.  I loved my job, as an elementary teacher, and had my summers free to be with my kids.  I suppressed desires to take classes, learn how to play a second instrument, learn another language, read more and to take a job that didn’t require me to commute, forty minutes, one way, each day, on treacherous roads.

I still believed my role as a woman was to be with my husband.  And, to not rock the boat. I knew didn’t want to lose my independence, financially.  I had to keep my job and I loved teaching.

When my husband died, I had to face myself.  I had plenty of quiet and time alone.  I worked, worked, and worked.  Teaching, traveling to be with family, repainting and redoing each room in my house.  Raking, shoveling, and walking.  Going to church, cantoring and being part of a choir, at St. Mary's in Gaylord.

I really thought I could do this.  Live in a small town and be who I felt I was.  I really believed I would see my children, when they came home to visit.  I was given advice by someone in my choir, on how to get out of my depression, "Just bake and cook more and be active in the church."

My children were the opposite of traditionalists.  It saved me. They were living their lives. My home and what I was hanging on to, didn’t have them running home for every holiday, summer or family reunion.  I finally understood.  I was a living example of why gender needs constant exploration and study.

Outside My Home in Gaylord During Long Winters

I bought into gender stereotypes enough to stunt my growth.  When I realized I could retire, with the encouragement of my two kids, I broke away.  I moved to Turkey and decided to stay and teach for awhile.  

Gender roles?  In Turkey, I watched a culture juggle balls, in gender struggles. A culture mixed with others from around the world, coming in and out of Turkey. Extremes in traditional and liberal roles of women.

Young Girl Attending Private School in Turkey

Young Girl Not Attending School

I’m happy for Holden.  He has taken the time and doesn’t let fear control him, like I did. He can see the necessity for ridding his veneer.  He sees it for what it is.  He isn’t afraid to find the oak underneath.  With it’s scars, grain, and satisfying strength underneath.  

I will feel this physcial pain for him.  He’s my child.  My maternal instinct is strong.  No way do I want anyone cutting him!  No way do I want him to undergo pain and rehabilitation!  

But, I also feel his emotional and psychological pain.  He is smothering under his skin.  I want him to have the comfort in his skin.  He will still be my child, my love.  I want him to be happy.  To be able to breathe in the air by having the veneer taken off and his wood refinished to match his heart and mind.

I wrote this knowing some family and friends won’t be able to comprehend my ease,  in supporting Holden's decision.  I won’t presume to know all I want to know about this transition.  I have much to read and lot of people to talk to, so I can become knowledgeable.  I don’t want to be surprised or ignorant. 

I won’t ever go back to allowing a veneer put over who I am.  It’s stifling.  I’ve felt the stagnation.  It’s unbearable.  It comes with a stench and a slow death.  I want to not just survive, I want to live.  I believe the man in Holden wants to live and not just survive.

Surviving doesn’t mean happiness.  But, being alive gives the possibililty for it to seep in. To grow. Life has possibility.  Less anger,  less depression and less frustration. Less self-scorn.  Less futile waiting for something apart from us, to make it happen.  

I have close friends and family who, I believe, understand this insurmountable impossibility life can bring.  Drink, drugs, food, risky behavior, mindless activity, self-hatred, escapism… each of us hoping to find some way to self-medicate.  To make the pain go away.  To blame it on the unfairness of life.  Life is unfair, but life is also amazing.

No answers from me.  I’m evolving, remember?  I can only tell you what I see through my stain-glassed eyes.  Life has possibility.  We have possibilities.  We have to open the door and be fearless.  It's hard work.

Holden trusting me?  It's a gift.  I will be forever thankful, for his trust.  He sees me without my veneer, He knows I understand.  He is willing to share this transition and I'm proud to be a part of his life.

http://www.topsurgery.net/faq/  (questions and answers about "Top Surgery")

http://news.digipen.edu/press/the-princeton-review-ranks-digipen-among-the-top-schools-for-game-design/#.U8GZJ41dXno      (school in Washington)

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/30/trans-top-surgery-changed-my-life      (a personal transgender story)