MAE JULIAN
Transgender-Normal…
Just Different
Open letter to the parents and families of Transgendered children:
I am the grandmother of a beautiful girl-child. Now, I realize, though the help of Sherry P. and others, including a physician who specializes in transgender children, that my granddaughter is my grandson.
I have read many of your letters, have cried, been confused, and struggled along with the rest of you. Today, I have come to a better place, mentally, and I want to share my thoughts with you:
Each of you is a pioneer. It is as true of you as of those earlier pioneers who struggled against the tide, faced ridicule, followed truth, and persevered. I live in Louisville, Ky. We are an historic town. Consider Lewis and Clark. They began their mighty journey here. The west was unforged, unsettled, and everything was yet to be discovered by‑ “civilized people”. They were to discover, photograph, survey, measure, map, and document the rugged journey which they undertook, many times experiencing great peril to themselves.
Consider Pasteur, who discovered the cause of Smallpox. He was the one who pressed ahead with what was known, with certainty in his own mind, but a mystery to others. He was scoffed at, and ridiculed. But, he persevered and won, to the benefit of the entire world.
Consider Sister Kenney (In England “sister” meant nurse, not nun) who knew that treating Polio victims with exercise, hot baths, and massage, was the answer for Polio’s paralysis. Patients were being “treated” by the “mighty doctors” of that time with leg splints, thus dooming them to a lifetime of paralysis. Sister Kenney persevered thought jeers, hate, shunning, and rejection. Sister Kenney is known to this day as the one who saved thousands of Polio victims from permanent paralysis until Jonas Salk discovered the vaccine, which eradicated Polio. My brother, John,‑was one of the beneficiaries of Sister Kenney’s discovery.
You, too, are pioneers. You face the challenges, ridicule, disbelievers, and hate that every brave pioneer in our history has faced. People hate and fear that which is unknown to them. You all know that this is no new thing. We can get hung up, thinking that if only people understood, things would be different…. easier, somehow. But you, as pioneers have been given the gift of discovery and enlightenment. It is to you, this challenge:‑ to uncover the unknown, and to pass your knowledge to others. Do not be discouraged by the pitfalls, the ridicule, and nay-saying that is now part of your world. You are the chosen few. You have been chosen because you have the gift of perseverance, love, and strength. It is a lifetime gift.
So, continue onward. Brush aside the ignorant, the mean, and the doubtful. Forge on, as you hold in your hands the tenets of truth, which have been given to us by a power greater than ourselves. I accept this responsibility with humble gratitude. I think that, now, I can do something that I always admired my great great grandfather for doing. He forged the Oregon Trail. I now know that, with his blood in my veins, and his purpose and perseverance in my heart, that I, too, can, with the help of those like me,‑take these covered wagons all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
Love to my Waynedale friends,
Mae
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