My dad and I were at Starbucks a year after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. There, looking at me with his judge’s gaze, he declared to the barista: “This young…man…will have a café latte.” I laughed without really knowing if he was joking. Until then, I had always been his daughter.
Admittedly, I had never been a girl like the others. As a child, I had been a tomboy or, to use later humorist Larry David’s expression, “pre-gay”. I had a short hair and I wore the clothes bequeathed by my older brother. People often thought I was his little brother.
As an adult, I continued to be mistaken for a cisgender man. I was called “Sir” countless times, which frankly has never been a problem for me. I generally enjoyed being mistaken for a man, even before my recent chest surgery and the low dose of testosterone I started taking a few years ago.
I quickly realized that my father was not joking, four years earlier, when he called me “young man”. After that episode at Starbucks, he almost always used the pronoun “he” when talking about me and even started referring to my brother and me as his sons.
Of course, all of this was not free of conflicting emotions. While he technically forgot who I was, there was also something encouraging about his frank appreciation of my gender, like a rediscovery of fresh eyes every time he saw me. Paradoxically, I only felt better seen.
“Boy” Toys and Coming Out
In truth, that had always been the case with my father, Teddy. According to family legend, he was convinced that I was a boy from birth. I was 4.5 kilos and, taking me, he had immediately thought: “Our little footballer!” and told everyone in the room that I was a boy. (The doctor was quick to tell her that was not the case.)
Admittedly, it was probably a little sexist to assume that his burly baby had to be a boy, but I’d like to think that he had perceived my transmasculinity as soon as I left the womb.
During my childhood, my father and I were best friends. Like him – and unlike my brother – I was athletic. We spent hours playing ball at the park, and he took me to games in all my sports. When, at age 7, I decided to join the neighborhood men’s hockey club, I had his support. He even adjourned his court hearings sometimes so that I would be at a game in time.
He bought me the Transformers and got ’em
2023-08-13 03:00:37
#York #Times #column #Modern #Love #father #Alzheimers #recognized #transmasculinity
