What was your biggest concern when you were nine years old? Was it trying to memorize your multiplication facts? Was it that the school cafeteria might serve your least favorite vegetable at lunch? Perhaps it was something more serious; perhaps your parents were talking of getting divorced. Denise’s biggest concern at age nine was how to keep her daddy’s secret, the one he revealed to her as they sat alone on the hill near our home. Her dad wanted to be a woman, and along with that revelation he included several sordid sexual details.
His confession left her confused and hurt. She desired to have a dad who would love and cherish her who would make her feel special. She wanted to try to “fix” him so he’d be the kind of dad any normal nine-year-old would want. But she couldn’t fix him. He didn’t want to change. By the age of eleven, she had experienced emotional and sexual abuse by her dad. She had continued to keep her dad’s secret and her’s locked away deep down in her heart.
She began to reason that her dad’s apparent lack of love for her meant she wasn’t really his daughter: he and her mom must have adopted me. Often, when she was home alone, she’d scour the house—even the attic—for paperwork that would confirm her suspicions. But her searches were fruitless.
Her teenage years revolved in drowning herself with bottles of wine as she began to look for a father’s love elsewhere, each time coming out with emptiness in her heart. Time passed by and she had become 15 years old. By this point she had struggled with my own sexuality and my gender. She had begun to seriously consider taking drugs, but God had another plan. God had sent a friend named Mark into her life. Mark showed her respect and always presented a genuine caring heart. During their dating years, he could not understand my cold shoulder attitude towards her dad. One day after a date, Mark parked the jeep in the school parking lot and said “I am not going to take no for an answer this time, I want to know why you dislike your dad so much”. So she spilled the beans, and guess what? He did not run the other way. Instead he listened and heard every word and feeling that I expressed.
Soon after that Mark presented me with a Bible, my very first Bible. She hungered for the words of its contents. Every free moment she had, she was reading the Bible and devouring its every word. She knew she believed in God, but did she have a personal relationship with Christ? No, not really. It was through the time of studying the Bible that she knew the Lord was calling me to repent of my own sins and to be His. She asked the Lord to be my personal Savior. Yet her journey with my dad still had to unfold.
She was twenty-seven years old and married to Mark when her dad left his family to pursue what he thought would bring him his long-awaited dream life. She thought about him every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter celebration. Her birthday was on my parents’ anniversary, so she didn’t care to celebrate much. She remember hoping that her mother would forget my birthday and be spared some pain.
Thirteen years later, she was informed that her dad was dying from cancer. When she found out that he was trying to reach out to his family, she was upset with him. Who did he think he was, deserting them and then looking to them for love and comfort? It hurt knowing that her dream of her dad coming back into their family as a husband, dad, and grandfather was about to die. She grieved many times because of the choice he made of choosing his weakness over his family. Her dad was not interested in seeking help or therapy for his gender and sexual confusion.
She visited my dad often while he was in the hospital during his last months. Seeing him in a lady’s nightgown and slippers was difficult, as was seeing all the teddy bears in his room. She was shocked as she watched him remove his woman’s underclothing. The nurses called Dad “her,” “she,” or by his chosen name: “Becky” And when they did, she corrected them. She said “him,” “he,” or “my dad.” She looked at my dad with sorrow because of what the choices he had made had done to him.
Throughout the lost years, while he pursued his elusive happiness, he took hormones to grow breasts, and lived as a woman. If you had walked past him on the street or in a mall, you would not have recognized him as a man.
Her dad’s final days at the hospital created many memories. She was able to hold his hand and kiss him on the forehead, and gradually, by God’s grace, her anger turned to sympathy and love for him. During this time she was able to forgive him for the pain that his choices inflicted upon both him and our family.
She was not surprised to learn after his passing that he had been in a homosexual relationship. She remembered the way he had looked at my boyfriends. As a child, however, she chose to ignore the truth.
She knew his life was filled with pain, and with little, if any, happiness. The very real pain and confusion that is upon people who struggle with GID is difficult. The pain that the families deal with can seem unbearable as well.
Not everyone applauds at the end of the TV talk shows. Some of us cry and mourn over the loss of our loved one. We mourn their losses as well.
God had a lot of work to do within her heart and soul. She never thought it would be possible to get beyond the anguish she felt and the disappointment she had with my father. Her heart was hardened through many years of harboring anger and sadness. She knows now what God’s grace is all about. She cherish the experience that she had on that last day with my dad as she tried to comfort him. God did indeed work within her heart and brought her to a place of healing.
Help 4 Families provides the service of connecting with others who feel they are alone or have a need for the understanding of someone who has “been there.” She have opened up my father’s life and mine in hopes of bringing a deeper understanding of these issues.
As a child and young adult, she couldn’t understand why churches were not ready, willing, and able to support people dealing with these issues. The truth is, churches should be safe places to receive Godly counsel and love while facing these issues. Our loved one deserves the truth, and God expects the churches to live up to His standards. Speaking the truth can be difficult, but our loved ones deserve the very best, which means presenting the truth with God’s grace.
After my dad passed away she had found this note that was addressed to me from my father:
Denise, I know I have done you wrong in many ways. I am sorry for that. But please “Don’t throw me away,” as though she never existed.
She believes in her heart that she is doing this out of respect and love for her dad and for these words he wrote.