Past Tense

A friend is struggling with his child’s new pronouns.  We were together recently and he slipped.  His wife corrected him.  He nodded, corrected himself, and kept going with his story.  

A little while later, he was telling another story; this one from a few years ago.  He used the wrong pronoun and his wife, again, gently corrected him.  He nodded, but then paused.  Eyebrows raised, he shrugged. “But they were still she back then.” I felt his struggle.  I’ve been there.  

*****

Lee came out as trans when he was nine years old.  He’s sixteen now.  

The fact that he’s sixteen, alone, is unreal to me.  He’s driving.  He’s got a job.  He’s a young adult.  But that’s a common phenomenon.  Parents can’t believe how quickly their kids grow up.  

The second, less common phenomenon is that his transition was simultaneously just yesterday and so long ago. I vividly remember the steps in the journey and also… I can’t remember who I was when I took those first shaky steps. 

*****

When Lee first came out, we made a lot of changes simultaneously.  A haircut.  New clothes.  New name.  New pronouns.  Other changes came later.  Puberty blockers.  Legal name change. Social Security card.  Passport. Eventually, there was testosterone.  But at the beginning, I didn’t know any of that.  I didn’t know where we were headed.  I just knew I needed to love my child.  To listen and learn and stop thinking I knew things because I didn’t know at all.  

Practically, the new name was pretty easy to master.  I messed up occasionally, for a few weeks.  He went from Leah to Lee.  He lost a syllable.  I frequently started to shout his name and then remembered, choking off the last syllable at the back of my throat before it escaped my lips.  

Emotionally, the name change was hard.  I chose that name so deliberately, so lovingly.  I loved the way the letters curled around each other when I wrote it out in my careful script.  I loved the way the sounds rolled off my tongue.  I loved the way the first and middle names sounded in tandem.  And he just dropped a syllable.  For months, I tried to get him to choose a new name with me.  I wanted it to be something sweet-sounding and carefully chosen.  He just wanted it to be masculine.  

The pronoun switch didn’t really trigger any emotion, but it was just harder.  In practical terms, you use pronouns more often than you use someone’s name.  And gendered pronouns are so ingrained in our speech that we use them without thinking.  For months, I would pause awkwardly before I used any pronouns at all. My speech became stilted and it felt as if I would never speak fluently again.  

I misgendered the kids, the dogs, my students, and my friends, but I eventually got Lee’s pronouns right.  

Except in the past tense.  Except when I was looking at this child in pigtails and a purple dress.  Except when I was telling old stories and relying on old memories, because THERE, in those memories, that child was still Leah. 

It always felt awkward, and I didn’t know how to navigate it.  Until I did what I should have done all along.  I asked him.  

My animal obsessed kid gave me a pet analogy.  “Mom, imagine you have a pet.  And you thought it was a girl for a long time.  Girl name.  Girl pronouns.  And then imagine you find out you were wrong.  Your pet is a boy!  So you start calling your pet by a boy name and using he/him pronouns.  You might make mistakes in the beginning, out of habit, but you try to get it right.”

“But when you go back and talk about your pet’s first vet visit, you don’t switch back because that’s what you called him then.  You get it right because you know better now.” 

“Mom, I’ve always been a boy.  You just didn’t know it.  But now you know so you have to try to get it right, even when you talk about the past.” 

*****

So that’s what I did. 

At first, it felt clumsy.  Awkward.  Like learning a new language.  I had a thought in the old language.  And then I had to translate in my head before I spoke.  

But here’s the thing about learning a new language… eventually, you get to the point where you’re not translating in your head anymore.  You’re THINKING in the new language.  

So if you’re a parent in the thick of it… if you feel clumsy and awkward?  Keep at it.  Keep practicing. It gets easier.  It becomes natural.  

Even in the past tense.