By Calvin Samarkhanova – When you think about it, transitioning from one gender to another is not too different from having a baby. Except.. the baby is also you. As a transgender man who was once a woman, I sometimes feel like a lost mother.
Think about it. The baby is on its way, you’re excited. You’ve taken all the knowledge your community had to offer, you studied, you developed your own opinions and preferences and became comfortable with the idea of what kind of parent you are going to be, and how you are going to raise this child. Maybe you’ve decorated the bedroom in fairies and princesses and put up some assortment of girl-marketed toys. In your excitement at having a daughter, you caved and bought a few clothing items in lovely shades of pink on purpose. Emotionally for yourself, and socially, you are prepared for a daughter. But then the big day comes, and… you are holding a beautiful, healthy baby boy.
Your smile doesn’t fade, but it changes shape. You had a name picked out somewhere deep in your heart since the day the test came back positive. You and your community started to build love, expectations, excitement around that name. You knew exactly how you wanted it to be pronounced, what nicknames you couldn’t wait to call your daughter, but now it’s time to tell the nurse what you picked out, and suddenly your favorite pick is not even up for consideration. Have you ever met a boy named Amanda? Britney? Camilla? Suddenly you rush yourself to pick a name. It resonates and sticks as well as a last-minute change can, but the name is barren and foreign at its core. You know only that it feels right, but it does not come naturally to your friends and family, nor does it roll smoothly off your very own tongue. There is no excitement around it yet, no stories, no familiarity. A clean slate asking everyone’s conscious effort to put their expectations aside and get to know it anew.
An unexpected chunk of your relatives suddenly loses or at least dull their interest in your baby, because they got very attached to the idea of having a granddaughter or niece. An odd few even harbor a strange resentment. You start to overcompensate and grapple with the gendered perspective you took on your baby from the start: There’s nothing wrong with keeping all the baby stuff you already bought… but you have a culturally learned itch that tells you a barbie-playing pink-wearing baby boy will have people sending way more questions your way than you are willing to answer. Between not drawing unnecessary attention to yourselves and keeping what your baby takes a liking to, you navigate something that is inevitably masculine in shape but it always feels a bit messy.
Worse yet, even in the privacy of your own embrace with your baby boy, you feel a longing ache. Oh, how dearly you love him… he has excited you more than your carefully planned daughter probably would have by virtue of him being such a surprise. You want to give him the world… but… you were preparing yourself to pass down everything you learned about the ups and downs of girlhood. You have so much to teach him about the world, but the gendered aspect of it he will inevitably navigate, is not one you have insight on the way a father would.
Still, you try. The journey is not smooth, but it’s yours, and you’re learning along with him. In doing so, your main effort is focused on raising a good human… but also… a good man. What values do you teach him? You try your best to raise a kind, upstanding citizen. But what decisions could lead to danger? How do you protect yourself, or him, from reproducing toxic masculinity? How do you teach him to cry and communicate like you, without letting hurting others undo all that work you did?
You can’t shelter him forever. And you will both have so much to learn and un-learn from each other along the way. It might not come naturally to you, and it might be harder than you wanted it to be, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be beautiful. Stand beside him with everything you know, and let him write the second half of this story with you. All you can do is your best.
For he will navigate the world imperfectly like the rest of us: charting his identity between his own understanding of woman, human, and man.
Calvin Samarkhanova is currently a second-year Anthropology student at VU Amsterdam.