Transgender son and his mother on the rebirth and grief of his coming out

I have a tattoo of a robin on my left bicep, my first. Tattoos became a part of my ever evolving vision of self sometime during my junior year of college. When I was working a paid internship in New York and had extra cash on hand, I found a reputable artist and started decorating.

I prepare to tell my mother about this tattoo as we depart from a local coffee shop. So many long, difficult talks between my mother and me have taken place in a car. I remember her visiting me at boarding school, taking me for a much-needed lunch and a drive. We would park somewhere and talk. She would ask questions with the kind of frustration that comes from knowing that someone is unhappy and not knowing how to help that person. I would desperately try to impart any understanding of the unhappiness I had no name for. Then, with something short of relief, she would return home and I, to school.

Today we are both in good spirits, and I am hesitant to stir up any trouble. But the opportune moment lingers and luckily, I’ve paved my own way. These hundred difficult talks of ours, some harder than others, make my admission near casual.

“I got a tattoo in New York,” I tell her. “I thought about it for a long time, and I’m very happy with it. I just didn’t want to surprise you.”

I show her the tattoo, and she is surprised, but polite.

“It’s very well done,” she remarks.

After getting the tattoo, I found out the robin is the state bird of Connecticut — site of my coming out, my boarding school years, and my family’s current home. I chose it because robins are, mythically, the bird of springtime, of new beginnings.

Being trans, or my way of being trans, involves a lot of starting over. I filled out hours of paperwork to create this person. I celebrate new birthdays and anniversaries for myself. I have a new name, a new body, and a new will to enjoy life. Opportunities and friendships ripen around the arrival of this new person. He is welcome in this long-hibernating world of his own making.

I wear my robin like a badge and bring my own spring with me.

I had just started boarding high school at Loomis Chaffee when I intuited a severe misalignment between my physical and mental gender orientation.

My first two years of Loomis went by in a melancholy blur. I enjoyed my coursework, met a few close friends, but otherwise deteriorated quickly, slipping into intense periods of depression.

In eighth grade I had participated in hyperfeminine presentation, complete with long hair, rings, scarves, and tailored clothing, believing it would help me fit in more and banking that I would adapt to it with time.

My “girl” clothes caused me great discomfort, but everything was easier when I wore them. People didn’t correct my behaviour or appearance. I didn’t stand out. But by the end of my freshman year, I packed everything away, feeling suffocated. Within months of being at Loomis, I cut my hair sloppily short and took to wearing oversized thrift-store men’s clothing. I became less and less recognizable to my mother. My dad wondered if I was gay. Friends struggled to interpret my behaviour. I was talkative, cheerful — then suddenly morose, beyond reach.

I had weekly sessions with Kendall, an agreeable, grounded therapist, for over two years. She was the first adult I expressed my gender dissonance to.

“Sometimes,” I told her, “I feel like my life would have been so much better if I were a boy.”

After my “coming out” session with Kendall I took the time to lie quietly in my room and explore the shocking (at the time) words I had spoken.

During our next appointment I got specific: “I think I’m transgender.”

On a winter weekend home from school my senior year, I very emotionally told my mother these exact words in our kitchen. I noticed a blank expression in her eyes. I should have known in that moment that the word did not make contact with her. She didn’t understand. She reassured me that things were going to be OK and thanked me for telling her. Emboldened by this response, I began to elaborate on my plans (whoops!). I was changing my name and pronouns at school and would begin living “as a man” full time immediately. Then I saw the word connect, and the mood changed.

“What?” she said, incredulous.

By the end of the evening we were both exhausted from crying and arguing.

She asked me not to come out at school, to put it off, to give us some time to think all this through. I’ve never been one to disobey my mom or my family, but her request was directly at odds with my sense of well-being.