It Gets Better (29 page)

I didn't know at your age that it could get better. But it does and it has and the craziest thing? It just keeps getting better. It gets much, much,
much
better.

CHICAGO, IL

 

 

 

 

A
s the presiding bishop of the largest Lutheran church in North America—the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America—and a father of six and a grandfather of four, I've listened with pain and shock to reports of young people taking their lives because they've been bullied and tormented for being different—for being gay or being perceived to be gay. For being the people God created them to be.

I can only imagine what it's like to be bullied for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. But I do know how bullying can destroy someone. One day I came home and found our daughter curled up in the fetal position on the floor, weeping uncontrollably. She was struggling to know who she was as a biracial young woman. She felt bruised by words people had spoken about her—words that ate away at her sense of identity and self-worth. I sat down by her on the floor, holding her in my arms.

Words have the power to harm and the power to heal. Sometimes the words of my Christian brothers and sisters have hurt you, and I also know that our silence causes you pain. Today I want to speak honestly with you and offer you the hope I have in Christ: You are a beloved child of God. Your life carries the dignity and the beauty of God's creation. God has called you by name and claimed you forever. There's a place for you in this world and in this church.

As a Christian, I trust that God is working in this world for justice and peace through you and through me; it gets better. “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

May it be so. Amen.

BANGOR, ME

 

 

 

 

I
'm a fifty-six-year-old, postoperative transsexual woman who lives in Maine. And I think the best way to explain to you
how
it gets better is to tell you a little about my life.

I knew there was something “different” about me by the time I was three years old. That's when I began to have a concept of myself as a “gendered” person; that's when I knew that I was supposed to be a girl; and that's when I began cross-dressing whenever I could.

But I grew up in a religious household, Roman Catholic, and I knew, even from a young age, that for me, as a male-bodied person, to associate and be so attracted to feminine things and feelings was
not
going to be appreciated. So even my earliest cross-expressing was done in secret.

It stayed that way until I was almost thirty-eight years old. Looking back, I almost think of myself as
lucky
that my trans identity wasn't so overwhelmingly strong that I couldn't hide it with some effort. After all, when I first had these feelings, it was 1957 and Christine Jorgensen (the first publicly recognized transsexual) didn't even flash onto the front pages until 1959.

My parents were very loving but “old-school” Catholics, as well. If I had come out back then, there's no doubt they would have rushed me off to some psychiatrist in an attempt to cure me. It would have been done out of love, and worry, and with good intentions. But it would have been just as utterly disastrous for me then as it is for kids today whose parents march them off to reparative treatments and ex-gay programs.

Then, and throughout all of my school years, it wasn't okay to be gay or lesbian or bisexual, and no one knew what it meant to be transgendered. So, as a result, I stayed in the closet and didn't try to find support, because there really wasn't any to be had.

Following that path pretty much kept me from getting beat up or otherwise harassed, but in order to keep that secret, I had to withdraw into my own little world. I became a loner; I focused on my studies (even though I absolutely hated school); I avoided most social contact; I could count on one hand the number of friends I had. It was a very lonely, confused, and sometimes depressing life, one I wouldn't wish on anyone, especially not you.

By the time I was thirteen, I knew I was transsexual, not gay, and was trying to figure out how I was going to deal with it. And I was realizing that all the hateful and negative things that everyone was saying about people like me was just ignorant bullshit.

When you're young, you don't necessarily know what's true or right, or helpful, or loving. The adults in your life tell you that
they
know what those things are, and they generally seem to know a lot more than you do, so you believe them.

As you grow older and learn more about the world, you realize that those same adults aren't perfect and that they can be mistaken just as easily as you can. At that point you start thinking for yourself, questioning what you've been told. It became undeniably obvious to me that a lot of what people were thinking or saying—about life, about how things were, about people like me—simply couldn't be true.

At the age of seventeen, after discovering that it was possible to do and with my parents' hesitant support, I quit high school and began educating myself. It was fantastic, and even though it took more time for me to negotiate my transsexuality and to come out, these years were mostly free of the mind-numbing negativity about LGBT people that I had experienced previously. That freedom helped me work out who I was, how I could fit in, and what I had to do to get to that point.

Once I was out of high school, I flourished. I became much more outgoing. I got my diploma by taking adult night classes, an agreement I made with my parents, and I began studying things on my own. I studied whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted. I took a series of jobs, mostly manual labor, where I met all kinds of interesting people with incredible knowledge and varying experiences, and I quickly came to understand how limiting much of our educational system is and, as a result, how limited some of the people who go through it can become. Those bullies who are harassing you now . . . they're
definitely
“limited.”

At the time I came out, I was working in the construction trade and I figured if anyone was going to give me a hassle about having a sex change, it was going to be a bunch of blue-collar construction guys. But you know what? It didn't happen! Oh, there were a few folks who stopped talking to me or wouldn't work with me, but only a few. And I was floored by the number of folks who came up to me and said things like, “Wow! That was such a brave thing you did. Thank you for sharing that with me. I wish that I could do exactly what I wanted to with my life but I can't. So I really respect you that you did it.” Life is not always what you expect. People can be kind. And, ultimately, more people are going to support you than be against you. But to experience that, you've got to stay alive.

And you've got a lot to stay alive for! I've had a wonderful life since high school and done a lot of interesting things: I worked in professional theater for eleven years doing setting and lighting design, and a little acting. I owned a company that made stained-glass lights. I worked for several telephone companies (and I'll tell you, climbing a telephone pole in Maine, when it's ten below zero, is an interesting experience!). I've been a computer programmer; I've been a dishwasher; I got a paralegal degree; I started a small educational company that trains mental health and medical professionals, businesses, and college kids about transgender issues. And now I'm a licensed electrician, one of the few female electricians in the state. I also have a partner! We've been together for nine years now, and we're building a house together in the Maine woods, near a bunch of lakes and the ocean and Acadia National Park.

So you see, it does get better; we're not pulling your leg. We're telling you it gets better because our experience proves that it does. But to have those great life experiences you've got to stay alive, stick in there, and go after what you want. And you can do it! We know you can do it because we did it, and we don't have superhuman abilities or unusual psychological strengths. We did it, and we're just like you.

So whether you're gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgendered, or even if you're a straight kid who's being bullied and called gay, you can do it, too.

HOUSTON, TX

 

 

 

 

I
can't sit here and tell you that everything will get better and that nothing will ever go wrong again. Things go wrong, things always go wrong. But you have to make them right.

I've never been a big advocate of hope, and I never will be because, frankly, hope is for losers. Hope is for people who are too lazy to solve their own problems so they rely on hope. You have to solve your own problems. You have to make that decision that you want to be happy. If you fall down and scrape your knee, you put that Band-Aid on yourself. If you're hungry, you find food to eat. If you get bullied at school for being gay, you stand up for yourself. You find a way to end the bullying, whether that be avoiding the bullies, changing schools, telling a teacher, telling a parent, standing up to your bullies and getting totally beaten up; whatever it takes, you have to stand up for yourself.

I don't understand how someone can have the courage to put a gun to their head and pull the trigger. I don't understand how someone can have the courage to tie a knot around their neck and hang themselves with it. But they don't have the courage to stand up to their bullies. It doesn't make sense. How can you have the courage to kill yourself but not have the courage to stand up for yourself?

Well, what I want you to know is that you do have the courage. Everything you need for a happy life is in you; you just have to direct it. Suicide is not going to solve anything. Suicide is you quitting. Suicide is you not having enough respect for your own life that you just give up. You should never give up.

When I was very, very young and I didn't know everything that I know now, I experienced a point in my life where I considered suicide. But I looked at the bathwater that I was going to drown myself in, and I looked at myself in it, and I said, “What the fuck are you doing? What is this going to solve? How is this going to bring you happiness?” And my answers were, “This isn't going to bring me happiness. This isn't going to solve anything.” And frankly, I don't know what the fuck I was on to know what the fuck I was doing. So I stopped, went to sleep, and the next day I woke up and sucked in a big breath of air. I took in a big breath of life, and ever since then, life has never been so sweet, because it's scary to know it could have been the end that day.

I never would have gotten a chance to experience love. I never would have gotten the chance to truly come out. I never would have started YouTube-ing. I never would have gotten a chance to dance and to do something I truly love, and neither will you if you commit suicide. Your life is full of opportunities. Make the most of it. Suicide is not the answer. And at the end of the day, so what! So what if they call you a fag. So what if they say you are a flaming homo. So what if they say you like to take big horse dick up your ass. It doesn't matter. It shouldn't faze you. They're just immature, insecure dickheads with nothing better to do. Don't let them get to you.