Some thoughts on Mother's Day 2015

For the uninitiated: Mother's Day can never be the same again once you lose your mom.

For a multitude of reasons, mostly because we were hard-wired differently as individuals, my mother and I never had a close relationship. We just couldn't. But in her later years, we learned to be friends. I called her often just to tell her little things—stories about my cat or the wildlife outside or comments on my blog or what my kids were up to. While she was alive, our Mother's Day celebrations always centered around her. After she passed away, my children's focus became me, which is something I'm never comfortable with. I just don't think I did a good enough job to warrant all the praise and attention.

Still... I know I did do a couple of things right. My son was fifteen when he told me he was gay. He knew he could and that this would not be an issue for me because I never hesitated to let my kids know I have gay friends, and we talked openly about all things, including both gender and sexual orientation. We are also an integrated family, with several races combined, so that my kids grew up seeing people as people instead of people as colors. I have watched my adult kids now pass on this openness and tolerance to their own children, and it has made my heart nearly burst at times to see how comfortable my grandchildren are with people in all their shades and nuances. My oldest grandson will be twenty-one in October. (Yes, young Ben, whom I have blogged about in the past, is now a college student.) I swear this boy loves everyone in the world, regardless of shape, size, color, orientation or capacity to love back.

To celebrate Mother's Day, my son bought tickets to the Drag Queen World Series yesterday, hosted by Life Group LA, a charity which works hard to promote HIV/AIDS awareness, education, acceptance and support "for those infected and affected by HIV." The event itself was hilariously entertaining—drag queens playing softball with a tennis ball but taking the game very, very seriously (and no, no one was in heels; that's how serious this was), two drag queen announcers who composed a lovely combination of sweet but naughty impromptu commentary. (Admittedly, there was a lot of material here—gay guys, bats, balls, swinging, getting on base, etc., etc., etc.) The best part for me was just being there with my son, my daughter, her husband and the two teen granddaughters, laughing with them, realizing how much the world has changed in my lifetime... though apparently not enough. We saw one of my son's friends there. We'll call him Jason. Although drag isn't really his thing, as he explained, he had come because he believed in the work the group was doing, and he wanted to support that. He told us that last year he had worked the event as a volunteer, but this year he just wanted to watch so he could enjoy the fun. Later my son called to say that Jason had left a long post on Facebook about the event, mentioning that he had invited his mother... but his mom wouldn't come. It wasn't "her thing." "But I'm her son, and shouldn't I be her thing?" he went on to say. Yes, sweetheart, yes, you should be your mom's everything.

I made innumerable mistakes in raising my kids. But I tried to put them first in every decision I made about our future because I wanted them to have the chance to have something more than I had when I was a kid. And I wanted them to always feel loved, no matter what. Mamas, we can't give them everything. But one thing we can do is make damn sure they know we love them, just as they are. For all the "Jasons" out there whose mamas aren't equipped to offer you the love, support and acceptance you need, I wish I could just scoop you up and hug you. Be patient with your mom. She's trying to do her best with the resources she has. This is what I had to learn about my own mom. This is how we found our common ground in the last years of her life. I'm so glad we did. I'm really just so glad we did.

Jenner

Diane Sawyer's interview with Bruce Jenner on April 24th left me with much to think about and  a lot of residual emotions, the greatest of which was anger.

It has not been that long ago that we ridiculed and tried to humiliate gay men in our society, leering oafs affecting a lisp and limping their wrists to imitate "queers," and all of this done publicly without shame. In 1990, when I first began teaching high school, teen boys regularly used the term "faggot" to jokingly refer to their friends—or anyone they wanted to bully.

In recent times, watching how the tabloids and late night comedians have treated Jenner, as if he is some kind of freak of nature, has reminded me of those benighted times when it was ok to be anti-gay. Part of me knows that, with time, we will get to a place where those who are transgender are welcomed and supported, as gay men and women are now. But we're not there yet, and as we slowly inch toward progress, I'm wondering how we can educate non-transgender members of the community to be sensitive in their speech. (If only I had a dollar for every time I said, "Actually, gay people prefer to be called 'gay'" in the '90s.) It's ok to be confused about gender identification, but let's try not to be cruel as we become educated about it.  Here, let me see if I can help with that a bit.

1. As Bruce Jenner said, being transgender is not a mental illness, and it certainly isn't a choice someone decides to make.

2. Yes, transgender people are born that way; from a very early age, they identify with the gender that is the opposite of their genetic determination, often thinking of themselves in the pronoun (he/she) that fits their identity, rather than the one that fits their DNA.

3.  Being transgender has to do with who you are, not who you want to sleep with. [Please, grammarians, cut me some slack or give me poetic license there; I'm trying to be consistent.] If it makes it easier, "Gender is not about genitals" has become somewhat of a rallying cry lately (although I have yet to see it on a sign). Thus, Bruce Jenner could say, "I am not a homosexual man. I'm a heterosexual man." How can this be, you ask, if his "soul" is that of a "woman," as he claimed in the interview? Because the same DNA that created his hangy down part and all those beautiful, rippling muscles we couldn't stop staring at in the glory days of the 1976 Olympics also determines which hormones compel him to act on instinctive urges, and for now, his testosterone tells him to bed with women.

Aren't we just "fearfully and wonderfully made," as Dr. Paul Brand says in his book by the same title?

I know that some of my evangelical Christian friends may be doing that "We love everyone, but..." stutter step they did when the ten percent of our population that is gay began to emerge from closets all around the country a while back. I expect to hear decrees against the so-called "sin" of body mutilation (if, in fact, a transgender person decides to do reassignment surgery). Christians will say, "You are in the body God gave you." I wouldn't disagree. But I would gently suggest that this is true of a baby born with a cleft palate or a heart defect. He, too, is in 'the body God gave him,' but we're not going to use that as a rationale to leave him that way, are we? No. Doctors will surgically construct a palate or replace a malfunctioning heart valve, and the infant will grow up to be a "normal," healthy individual. And for a transgender individual? Same. The earlier we allow transgender kids to follow the gender they feel instead of the gender we see, the healthier they are in terms of social adjustment.

Why is that last critically important? Because the suicide rate for our transgender folks is twenty-five times that of the general population.

Which is why Bruce Jenner said, "We're going to change the world." Absolutely. By going public—by opening his door and ushering everyone into his life to watch him transition, as he will be doing over the coming months, he is making a courageous statement. He is standing tall in the face of ignorance and criticism to say, as did (purportedly) Joseph Merrick, "I am not an animal." Jenner is willing to allow the most private aspects of his life to become public so that others will see he is not someone to be feared, but another soul to be embraced. 

This is what the Dalai Lama tweeted today:

"Deep down we must have a real affection for each other, a clear recognition of our shared status as human beings." Indeed.