The Incompleteness of Story Telling

Opening Thoughts

Whenever we tell a story to someone, including ourselves, we pick and choose what details we share and which of those details we wish to emphasise. Consequently, even though we may be retelling the same story, and it's true everytime you tell it, it may sound completely different and invoke different emotional responses from the listener.

The above is NOT a new concept.

Telling Stories

As I tell my stories, such as my deconversion for instance, or my climb out of homophobia as another example, I realize that my stories vary depending on whom I'm telling them to, my current emotional state, and the media I'm presenting them on. When I look back I can see, if the media is text, audio or video, that every word I say is true but I might be telling the story in such a way that may generate more sympathy for myself.

Reasons for Embellishment - Trans-specific example

A recent example is my regaling my transistion story to a friend on Discord. Everything I said was true; a series of vignettes that retold a life story of suppression and self-censorship. But did I tell it in such a way that may have painted some others in my story in an overly bad light to elicit undue sympathy for myself? Certainly, there are people I know who suffered more than myself, such as those who chose to transition when they were young and were around my age at the time. I might be painting myself as brave, but how brave was I? I am a coward compared to those who made the decision to transition. I honestly envy them and their courage and I wish to be as courageous as they were. But my story makes me no braver than I actually was, or wasn't.

So I sit and judge myself asking, "Why didn't I have the courage to insist on transitioning?" To run away if needed and seek it out myself, if necessary, as many of the really braves ones had done. Maybe if I had been exposed to more LGBT+ people, knew more actually trans people, perhaps I would have. I would have seen through the lies of church leaders so much sooner. I might have developed my empathy for them as a child rather than have to wait until I already was an adult. But that didn't happen. I didn't meet any openly LGBT+ people, trans people are rare as it is, media presented LGBT+, trans people in particular, as freaks and the butts of jokes, and my parents chose to shelter their children as much as possible.

But my parents couldn't keep it entirely away. They raised a prolific reader and I kept finding references in popular scientific media to transexual and transgender people that presented them as simply people. I felt my own need to transistion everytime I read on of those articles. Science fiction is full of people who undergo gender transition, and I knew that this too was my future. If I knew where to go or whom to ask I might have tranisitioned as soon as high school, certainly university. As I didn't know whom I could approach about the topic, let alone what to ask, I remained in my assigned gender and I now tell myself comforting stories of why I did so.

I experimented a bit with makeup in University, and bought the odd female garment, but put that all away when my relationship with the woman who would become my wife, and later ex, began to deepen. She always said that "I saved you" but I never learned what it was that she saved me from. All I know is that I could never completely excise the feminine from my personality and the need to express it. The man my ex needed me to be could never develop because I was never that man! I don't entirely blame her for wanting someone more aligned with her expectations of manhood, but I believed the version I brought to the relationship was a lot less toxic than what most men bring because I tried to forge my own version of manhood from my broken sense of gender, or at least that is what I tell myself. Not perfect, or free from the effects of patriarchy, but just with less evil. Now that I've given up the very idea of being a man with any kind of manhood, I hope that I left a better model for my AFAB children, if indeed I ever did, should they seek a relationship with a hetero-cis male, than what society offers.

Conclusion

My point is that my stories that I tell people are entirely factual as far as my memory can recall or I can piece together from empirical data that I've left like tidbits around my home and the internet. However, the stories are not always the same and may not always be true to the spirit of keeping things factual as possible. I am often angry with myself but I know I can't change the past. When thinking about my past decisions I tell myself how I'd do things differently if I were to do them over, but this is such futile thinking that I don't know why I even play that silly game. To all my readers, if I've somehow mislead you by how I presented my facts in my personal stories, I apologize. It is not intentional as my stories are true as far I know in the moment when I tell them. All I know is that they are indeed factual, if nothing else.

Now, as always, I strive to be better than I was yesterday and hope to be better tomorrow than I am today.

Am I Homophobic?

Your dad was homophobic when we were together

TW/CW: topics of homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, lesphobia, classism, racism and sexual relations are mentioned.

That was a statement made by my ex-wife to my nonbinary child about myself regarding the fact that I'm currently transitioning. The short response is, No, I am not, but the more nuanced answer is, No, but I still struggle with internalized homophobia.

Each and every one of us probably struggles with internalized homophobia; myself, my ex-wife, my nonbinary kid and even the reader. And what my ex said is true, in part. When she met me I was much more homophobic than I am now, or have been for some time. What she fails to account for is that I didn't like myself when I was acting out of homophobia and had already been actively trying to change before I had even met her. But it's difficult to change a behaviour when it seems to normal. At least I had some good friends, coworkers and the odd instructor who wouldn't let me get away with my bullshit! So I changed and grew!

This is not to mention that homophobia felt like hating myself. I'm not homosexual but I am bisexual, and many of the things that bisexuals like are the same things. In addition I'm also trans. Being AMAB and bi or trans is automatically seen by heteronormative society as gay. An insult that got thrown at me quite a bit in junior high so by the time I went to university people using the epitaph gay on me had lost much of its effect. Though one girl I dated briefly did call me gay because I didn't attempt to have sex with her on the first date. That did hurt a bit but I honestly just felt really awkward trying to initiate anything with her parents just on the other side of the thin duplex wall. Ironically, hindsight informs me that if I had had sex with her that would probably have been gay in the lesbian sense.

Before my kids were born I had slain most of my demons regarding homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, classism, and etc…. This is not to say that I was perfect as I not only had internalized many of the above, I still had to, still do to this day, work on eliminating or overcoming my attitudes to people in all the listed groups. That said, I know that I'm getting better every day that I work on them. Somedays I trip and fall, backslide if you will, but the general trend is always tending towards improvement.

There's a lot more I could say about my attempts to come out to my ex-wife over the years of our marriage, issues where I was left of and more progressive than her, and her current choice in partners. But that would be bashing her and this is not the point of this post. Sometimes I was better than her, sometimes she was better than me. That's life, I'm trying to make my peace with her, my past self, and the future that I'm working towards. So, if my ex-wife ever reads this post: Honey, our sex was always as gay af!