Crazy, Holy, Grace

This past Sunday it was my privilege to be the featured speaker at the Boulder, Colorado PFLAG Awards Banquet. It was the first time I had done a scripted presentation (which is how I write and present sermons) since November of 2013. My talk was at the end of a long program, so I wanted it to be tight and brief, no extraneous words. The audience was wonderfully responsive.

Only one person had heard me speak before. I had lectured in one of her classes at the University of Colorado. To the rest I was an unknown quantity, this tall woman in white pants, coral sweater and floral scarf. One of the award recipients was a retired Methodist minister. As I sat down he looked across the table and declared, “You are a preacher.” I fought back tears and answered, “Yes, yes I am.”

The audience was mostly secular, with many who have been stung by the church, but try as I might I could not fashion a talk that did not mention the call of God, the grace of our Creator, and the abiding joy of the Divine Mystery. So I went with it, and based on the response, it was not a problem.

Throughout much of my adult life I was a skeptic, alternately thanking and screaming at the God I was not sure was there. I still have my moments. When life seems dark, much of what I see seems devoid of the transcendent. But that says more about me than it says about God.

Once I stopped fighting against the call to live my life, not someone else’s, a great cloud lifted and the world took on a whisper of promise. Though I was in the midst of great loss and turmoil and recently abandoned rage, I could not escape the sense there was a crazy holy grace at work, taking the rough edges off my existence and weighing the whole of the human story towards the redemptive.

Do I have proof of this holy grace? Of course not. Do I have evidence? Pretty much everywhere I turn offers a glimpse of that grace – the laughter of a granddaughter, a crisp spring day with a mountain bike and an empty singletrack trail, an old friend tentatively returning after a painful absence. All point to what seems best defined as the gentle work of the great I Am.

This crazy holy grace, this defeat that allows me to leave the shouting voices behind, this gentle rain that washes the anger from my dusty shoes, all this benevolence asks something of me. The Prince of Peace asks me to speak a word, to assure others the road less traveled by does not lead to fear and despair and hardening of the categories. It leads to light and love and hope and promise. This ground on the other side of emptiness and anger is a land of gentle breezes, golden hours of lengthening shadows, and blessed rest.

Soon this holy grace will find its expression in the place I know so well, the place that in different manifestations has both rejected and healed me. Through the great generosity of two loving pastors I have been asked to preach again. And I answered, “Yes! By all means, yes! So life goes on, and it is good.

The last lines of Mary Oliver’s The Journey come to mind:

But little by little, as you left their voices behind

The stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds

And there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own

That kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world

Determined to do the only thing you could do

Determined to save the only life you could save.

And Now Caitlyn

I had hoped I would not feel the need to write about Caitlyn Jenner, but I probably should have known I could not remain silent. I am a public figure. Caitlyn is a very public figure. People have opinions.

Being transgender is no day at the park. We have known we were this way since childhood, and we have also known most of the world would freak out if we told them about our innermost struggle. I know you feel it is just too weird to see the same person who was on a Wheaties box now on the cover of Vanity Fair. Fair enough, it is weird for me too, and for every other transgender person I know. It has always been weird – a difficult thing to have to accept about our selves. We hated being this way and fought it with everything in us, until we could fight it no more.

I know you get tired of hearing about the 41 percent suicide attempt rate among those who are transgender. I’ve already written about the preacher who suggested it was a passive-aggressive way to get people to stop challenging us, an interesting way to both acknowledge and dismiss it in a single breath. But the truth is no other DSM diagnosis carries one-fifth the suicide risk. I would not wish this on anyone, not even my worst enemy. It is like having a bad relative who comes to stay and never leaves – and the person is living inside your own skin.

Long before the world got angry because Bruce chose the name Caitlyn, and long before Vanity Fair chose to promote its stereotype of women by dressing her in corsets and loungewear, Caitlyn Jenner was suffering. I don’t care what you think of her style, personality or taste, but I do want you to care about her humanity. One of the pastor’s at Caitlyn’s church wrote a blog post about her compassion, kindness and faith. It would be marvelous if the world would treat her with similar sensitivity.

Last week was tough. Hate mail returned. Former friends and family posted inflammatory and inaccurate information, especially Paul McHugh’s perspective on gender dysphoria. (Leave it to the Fundamentalists to find the one psychiatrist in America who has published a negative perspective on this subject, while ignoring the conclusions of every major medical society in the developed world.) In all these postings was there a single person who said, “My, how Caitlyn must have suffered?” Unfortunately, I could not find a single one.

Being trans has always been hard and always will be hard. Not exactly male and not exactly female, I struggle to find my way in a harsh world made more so by confident pundits shouting their bad advice. This is already a dark ride. To those screaming and yelling, incensed by Caitlyn’s coming out, you are not shining any light in the darkness. You are just reinforcing the world’s opinion that Christians are some of the most judgmental people on God’s green earth.

On the other hand, to those of you who in the name of Jesus, come to the subject with open hearts and minds and a willingness to study diligently to better understand our suffering, I will always be grateful. I do believe you have saved my faith.

And so it goes.

Judging and Being Judgmental

Judging is essential to a well-lived life. Cathy and I raised our children based on our best judgment. We chose to keep a tighter rein than most New York parents. Years later our children told us our judgment was flawed. We listened carefully and concluded they were right. We apologized. Exercising good judgment is one of the most important responsibilities of parenting.

On the other hand, being judgmental is not essential to any kind of life. Being judgmental occurs when inaccurate information ignites fear. It is often based on misunderstanding, innuendo, and prejudice. History would suggest it has always been a part of the human condition.

E. O. Wilson is the sociologist who first suggested the critical social unit for humans is not the nuclear family, but the tribe. Wilson studied ants and found great similarities between these six-legged picnic invaders and we humans. Both need a community to survive.   But Wilson noted an unfortunate difference between ants and humans. Ants do not believe they need an enemy to hold the tribe together. Humans do. The difference could spell our downfall as a species.

It is frightening to see how quickly we demonize those unlike us. We are astounded at the outlandish beliefs held about Christians by members of the Islamic State. Their information is so patently wrong it would be laughable were it not for the real threat they pose to our safety. We see the sizeable splinter in their eye, but do we see the log in our own? To be sure, we are not beheading anyone, but that does not stop us from being judgmental in our own civilized way.

A lot of Evangelicals are upset I changed genders. When the information became public, I figured people had one of two options. They could either reexamine their view of what it means to be transgender, or they could assume they had been wrong about my character all along. I was more than a little disappointed with the number who chose the later option. Their judgmental spirit was painful to endure. But if I am honest, in the past year I have had my own issues with a judgmental spirit.

After transitioning I kept saying, “I’m still here. I’m still me.” I was frustrated people could not see I was the same person. I was judgmental toward those who could no longer see Paul in me. I was unreasonably critical of their inability to see the soul of Paul was present and accounted for. With time to reflect, however, I realized I too was working with inaccurate information that ignited fear. These people were not necessarily rejecting me. They just needed time and space to process difficult information. Additionally, I did not understand how much I have indeed changed, in both appearance and personality, and how difficult that has been for many.

I asked questions and I listened. When it came to feelings, these people who felt abandoned by Paul were the experts. They knew how they felt. Together we worked toward understanding. As usual, Cathy and my children and their spouses were particularly wise and helpful.

Finding the balance between judgment and being judgmental is difficult for all of us. But here is the thing. God is not encountered in a spirit of angry judgment.  God is encountered in the thin places, and the thin places are surrounded by love, generosity and kindness.  They are nowhere to be found when you harbor a judgmental spirit. While residing there I certainly did not hear the voice of God. I heard only my own angry voice, full of sound and fury.

No one avoids being judgmental. The best I can hope for is to remain there for as short a time as possible. Until I can see the very specific log in my own eye, anything approaching objectivity will be elusive. The only way to nurture an irenic spirit is to be open to challenge, eager to listen, and committed to discernment.  That is how the deep wisdom arrives.

Old Friends, New Friends, True Friends

I have always made friends easily.  During most of my life there were at least 3 or 4 people I called best friend.  I could never choose just one.  When I was very young, before the world insisted I behave like a boy, my best friends were Diane and Kathy and my girl cousins.  From 6 to 16 my best friend was Bob.  I still think of him often, though I haven’t seen him in 35 years.

In high school my friends were John and Lynn (a boy), though I would love to have been closer to Jennifer, Marilyn and Alma.  But again, the boy thing was an issue, so I kept my distance.  For 25 years my best friends were Rob, Rick and David, one in town, two far away.  Now that I am a woman almost all my friends are females, and I love female friendships.  There is less competition and more collaboration.  The conversations are deeper and involve a lot more words.  Guy conversations have a word count.  Girl’s conversations go until they are done, which might be months.  My closest friend is still a guy, David.  We speak every week.  There has been a lot to work through, but he never stepped away to catch his breath.  He has been there from the beginning, on good days and bad.  Consider yourself lucky if you have even one of those friends during your lifetime.

Not all of my friendships have always been healthy.  In some I was the dominant friend, setting the agenda and deciding the rules, not always a good thing.  In others I allowed my friends to manipulate me, something that puzzles me to this very day, since I am not easily “handled.”  I tended to gravitate toward friendships with people who were smart.  My mind moves rapidly and enjoys the company of the like-minded.  I have never suffered fools gladly and it has always bothered me.  I’m pretty sure Jesus suffered fools gladly.

Some of my friends were not real people, but don’t try to tell me that.  Over at Rebel Storytellers, Laura Buffington wrote about her friend David Letterman, which prompted me to think about some of my friends.

Jayber Crow taught me it was all right to ask questions that had no answers.  Hawkeye gave me hope when he fell apart on a bus and thought a crying baby was a chicken and Sidney the psychiatrist had to nurse him through his denial.  Will Barrett (in Walker Percy’s The Second Coming) went into a cave to either die or find God, but he got a toothache and didn’t do either and it was okay.  Roberta was the boy who turned out to be a girl on The Swiss Family Robinson and I wanted to tell her all about me.  Mackenzie McHale on The Newsroom was the woman in media I would love to have been.  And when Jack realized he was called to be the next Jacob on LOST, I knew I was called to this life and I screamed and yelled at God for hours, who said nothing.  All very real friends, present at key moments of conversion in my life.

My best friend is Cathy.  For all the things we have not figured out about this messy journey, this much we know.  She is my person and I am hers and that will not change.  (I know you want me to write about how we are working through all of this, but that won’t happen.  Some things are private.)

I have never really thought of Jesus as a friend.  I think it was the Sunday School pictures.  He always seemed so other from me.  I liked John though, particularly when he was old and wrote about love.  I always struggled with Paul.  I know, ironic.

Now I am thinking of all the other friends with whom I have spent less time, but the friendship runs deep, like Stan and Florence, Charlie and Eileen, Pat and Janice, Briggi, Anne, Sharon, Jen, the other Jen, Brian, Joe, Mark.  I’d better stop because even though I’m female I still have a word count.

You cannot legislate friendships.  They simply happen.  Some are meant for a season and some for life.  All are gifts to be treasured and never taken for granted.  I know that, especially now.  And one more thing.  It is nice, after so many years, to call myself friend.  I like the woman I see in the mirror.  I am glad she came out to play.

And so it goes.

Resume Virtues and Eulogy Virtues

New York Times columnist David Brooks says there are two different types of virtues, resume virtues and eulogy virtues. I spent the first half of my life building resume virtues. Most of us do. There is nothing wrong with that. It is a part of life’s rhythm. For the last decade I have been more interested in eulogy virtues.

Resume virtues get you a job, keep you out of poverty, and if you are lucky, let you create a more just and verdant world. I believe in the church, that broken and messy community that occasionally gets it right when it focuses on loving God and neighbor and not much else. I devoted my working life to the church, though for the most part it eventually rejected me. Still, I would do it again.

But I was not the Rev. John Ames in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, content to minister in just one place. I was too ambitious and inquisitive. I embraced the Renaissance life, working in the church, social services, television, print media, counseling, preaching and teaching. More than once I built something good. I tried not to leave bodies behind, though when you run something, anything, there will always be bodies left behind.

Then I was done. It was time for someone else to raise the money, cast the vision, dream beyond the ordinary, push the boundaries. I left the land of resume virtues and embraced a life of eulogy virtues.

When you leave one for the other, there are great changes. You have fewer friends but deeper friendships. You listen more and talk less. You trust the flow instead of engineering results. You discover some things no longer feel like a choice. You do not necessarily want to change careers, but somehow you know you must. You have no interest in going back to school, yet you go back to school. You open the cobwebbed corners of your heart to all those things that were always so unreasonable. Some of them begin to pursue you with holy terror. Consequences no longer matter. Being true to the journey does.

If you previously took the road more traveled by, played by the rules and stayed safe, you know it is time to join Odysseus – not on his first journey – but his last. It is time to join Jacob on the quiet side of the river Jabbok, time to wrestle with God. If you choose not to go on this second journey, God will probably just let you go your own way, declining to fight. But if you do wrestle with God, your defeat will be remarkable in and of itself, full of light and limping and love.

If you read this blog with any regularity you know the nature of my journey toward the virtues of eulogy. You know my wrestling with God. You’ve seen the pain on the page, so much that sometimes it has been too difficult to read. But if something other than misplaced anger draws you to this blog, you too are probably moving toward the eulogy virtues. That is why I enjoy hearing from you, and the comments you so thoughtfully post.

Within certain parameters, like needing to eat, drink, breathe and sleep, we all get to decide how we are going to live this life. To live the resume virtues is important for ego development, cultural growth and civilized life. To live the eulogy virtues is to embark on a journey toward wisdom, undertaken with paradoxical measures of trepidation and joy. I enjoyed the first journey. The second journey? Well, enjoy wouldn’t be the right word. How about breathtaking.

The Danger of Shouting Advice

Well-known church leaders have responded to the Bruce Jenner interview. For the most part I have chosen not to respond to what other religious leaders write about trans issues. However, embedded within my identity are responsibilities, one of which is to speak when leaders present inaccurate information that could very well cost lives. Leelah Alcorn’s death cannot be repeated.

If you are reading this blog you may already know the individuals to whom I am referring. I see no need to name them. These are people with whom I worked and people I respect. On the subject of gender dysphoria, however, I strongly disagree with their conclusions.

The Bible is silent on the subject of gender dysphoria. Those who suggest it does speak about it must wrest meaning from scripture passages that, upon closer examination, do not deal with the issue at all. For instance, one writer cited Deuteronomy 22:5, a passage about cross-dressing. If Christians are responsible for the 613 laws of the Old Testament, then we are responsible for all of them, not just one. Additionally, cross-dressing and gender dysphoria are not the same. One is a paraphilia, the other a gender identity issue. The same writer equated sexual identity with gender identity, though they are two completely different subjects.

Another pastor said quoting a 41 percent suicide attempt rate is passive aggressive behavior by transgender people to silence those who challenge them. The same speaker said the suicide attempt rate was as high after transition as before. This is simply not true. Over 90 percent of those who transition are happier and better adjusted post transition. After the initial trauma of losing jobs and social standing, the suicide rate drops dramatically.

Transgender people mention the high suicide attempt rate not out of any passive aggressive behavior, but because they have been there – and it is terrifying to be at a place of such existential hopelessness. Most of the trans Christians I know arrived there after decades of attempting to suffer through as their churches taught. To say that referencing the 41 percent suicide attempt rate is passive aggressive behavior is dangerously irresponsible.

One speaker taught that gender dysphoria was a result of the fall, and Christians should just suffer through. In that case, we should also suffer through depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and many other medically treatable conditions. Asceticism is a poor choice when suffering can be treated.

There was no mention of any of the studies showing significant brain functioning differences between pre-hormonally treated transgender people and the general population. There is the suggestion gender dysphoria can be cured through proper parenting, a hypothesis with absolutely no empirical support. There is the unfortunate quotation of 40-year-old research that has been discredited by virtually all subsequent research.  There is the quotation of a WSJ article when the Wall Street Journal was excoriated by several respected media companies for publishing such spurious information.

Over the past 40 years I have read just about every word ever written about this subject from a religious perspective. If the conclusions of these gentlemen were correct, I would have accepted them, even if it meant maintaining a tortured existence for the rest of my days. I do not take the words of Scripture lightly.  I do not fear the truth. I believe it sets us free. But finding the truth demands diligent work. It requires time, intellectual rigor, and a willingness to challenge every subject from every angle. The search for truth demands careful and thorough study, and a willingness to give up long held beliefs when the hard light of research leads to different conclusions.

There are no easy answers on this issue. It cannot be dealt with in a sermon, a blog post, or a two-hour television interview. There must be compassion, thoughtfulness, and time involved before positions are taken. It took the medical community a century to reach their conclusions on gender dysphoria. It was not acknowledged and accepted flippantly or superficially.

We all have our blind spots, our prejudices, our unresolved personal issues, our poor hermeneutics. We are all, in a word, human. When on occasion we stridently shout out our bad advice, it is always unbecoming. I certainly know that from personal experience. The individuals who presented this information are very good humans who have done so much for so many. When it comes to gender dysphoria, however, they are dangerously wrong.

Gender dysphoria is a difficult and complex issue that demands humility and compassion from all sides. If a person is not willing to put in the time necessary to truly understand what it means to be transgender, it would be better if he or she remained silent on the subject.

 

He’s Not There (Part 2 of 2)

(In part one I wrote of the need to grieve the passing of Paul. After a brief interruption to respond to the Bruce Jenner interview, today I bring you part 2.  I will write about additional changes that affect all of my family and friends.)

As much as I might protest that Paul is still very much here, the truth is I have changed. One friend said, “I was always comforted by your gentle and reassuring masculine presence, and now that masculine presence is gone.” He is right. In many ways I have brought myself with myself, but in many others I am a new person.

I will not suggest I am a more authentic person, because I am not sure there is any such thing as authenticity. We are constantly creating ourselves. What we call authenticity is an attempt to create ourselves with as few artificial encumbrances as possible, stripping off the layers until you find a core self, breathing, evolving, growing.

With every shedding of every layer a new self emerges. I have a different physical body, a different physiological and neurological functioning. I have a new social reality. As someone who for the most part “passes” as a woman, I am treated as women are treated. (And in American society the difference is massive.) I am happier, calmer, more peaceful, less hurried, more settled. I am a different person.

Another complication of my transition is the realization everyone close to me feels the need to reframe the past. I wish they did not have to do so. I am still Paul, right? As a matter of fact I am not. The reframing is necessary. Was I ever Paul? Looking at family photos is painful for everyone. Burying Paul and beginning a new relationship with Paula seems easier than reframing an entire lifetime of experiences with the person you thought was a male. I did not understand how very difficult this would be for everyone.  My family and close friends have been wonderful, but it has not been easy for them.

I am sometimes asked, “Wouldn’t it be better if you had never married?” It is a fair question. First, though I knew at a young age something was wrong, I grew up in an environment in which discussing it, and certainly accepting it, were not options. I was without the knowledge, vocabulary or clarity to understand the gravity of my situation. Second, it was apparent to me I was attracted to females, so I thought, “If I try hard enough, I can become normal.” For decades I worked hard to convince myself I could “resolve” this and it would not have to be so disruptive.

Would anything have made it better? You bet! If gender identity and sexual identity could be freely discussed in a family and embraced without judgment, those of us who are trans or gay would never think of getting married with the hope it would make us “normal.” Thankfully that conversation is now happening in many places, but as Leelah Alcorn’s tragic story tells us, the church is not one of them. When your very identity is denied by your parents and defined as sinful by every authority figure in your life, it is a gross understatement to say it is not a conducive environment in which to come to terms with who you are!

But back to the question at hand. If I had known where this was all leading would I still have married? Some seem to think I am that callous. Those who know me best know that is ludicrous. But I discovered a long time ago I have no control over the projection of others. I have enough trouble dealing with my real issues to worry about those projected onto me. In the immortal words of Elsa from Let It Go, “The past is in the past.” The difficult truth is when I got married I had no idea where this was leading.

I am sorry everyone has to reframe their understanding of who I am. I wish they did not have to do so. But – I am. And everyone has a choice to either accept Paula or move on. It is clear most have opted to move on – parents, in-laws, long time friends, co-workers. It is painful, but not unexpected. I come from a world in which exclusion is easier than inclusion.

For all those willing to struggle through this change with me, I am deeply grateful. Every time someone decides to maintain a friendship, my joy is deep, my heart is full, and the love of Christ makes its way up through the cracks and fissures in the bedrock harshness of things.

And so it goes.

I usually get between 150 and 400 page views on my blog on a normal day. Yesterday I got 700. I’m thinking it was the Bruce Jenner interview.

Because I was on an airplane flying home to Colorado when the show aired, I did not get a chance to watch it until last night. I admire Jenner for his bravery and patience as he has dealt with the media. I deeply appreciated Diane Sawyer and the show put together by the producers at ABC. The clips and the people they interviewed were perfect. The tone of the show was compassionate and informative.

I did struggle to feel much compassion for Jenner during the actual interview. Maybe all those years in front of a camera have made him jaded. The New York Times article about the interview also noted an incongruity between the subject matter and his demeanor. Nevertheless, I did resonate with almost everything Jenner said about his experience as a trans person. At one time or another I have spoken almost every single word he said about being trans. There are far more similarities in our stories than dissimilarities. He said he felt he had been living a lie. I never felt that way. I was just struggling to be a male. That is hardly living a lie. That was probably the only major area in which our stories were significantly different.

I wanted to shout “yes” to a few comments. I hate when the media calls a trans person, “a woman trapped in a man’s body.” I have never felt that way. It is inaccurate, trite, and dismissive. Nobody is trapped anywhere. I am just trans, that’s all. I also loved when Bruce said simply but clearly, “My brain is more female than male.” Yep, exactly.

I do hope Time Magazine is right and we have passed the transgender tipping point. As Jenner said at the end, “Pease keep an open mind. We are pretty normal people.” Jennifer Boylan suggested if you are among the eight percent of the population who do know someone who is transgender, you develop compassion pretty quickly. Certainly if you remove the Evangelical population from my personal experience, I would be in agreement. Almost everyone else in my life has been absolutely great.  (And the few Evangelicals who have been supportive have been wonderfully so, sometimes at a cost with their coworkers and peers.)

Like Bruce Jenner, I too feel in many ways I have lived a charmed life. He said he imagined God “threw this in at the end” when he was creating Bruce, realizing he needed something with which to struggle. While I do not think God had much to do with me being trans, I do believe God is very interested in how I deal with it. I know I have not been perfect, but I am living honestly, openly, and with as much integrity as I can muster. And when that is the case, you sleep well at night, very well.

It is good to be me.

 

He’s Not There (Part 1 of 2)

There are a number of good books on transitioning from male to female, including notable titles by Deirdre McCloskey, Jennifer Boylan, and Joy Ladin. Boylan’s book, She’s Not There is probably the best-known memoir of the genre. I do not have much to add to the discussion about pre-transition issues, but I would like to write about the trauma surrounding the post transition period. My working title would be, He’s Not There.

Early in the transition process I exasperatedly told scores, “I am the same person I have always been! Can’t you understand that? I am the same person!” However, I have learned it is not helpful to use that language. The vast majority of people do not see the same person. They see someone radically different. To most, Paul is not there.

Though I look out of the same eyes from which I have always viewed the world, the world sees with different eyes and those eyes do not see a man. Cathy does not see Paul. My children do not see Paul. My friends do not see Paul. They all see Paula. I was offended a year ago when a close friend said, “It’s a shame you can’t just have a memorial service for Paul and disappear into a new life.” I am beginning to understand the first half of his equation might not have been a bad idea.

People are mourning the absence of Paul. Even those sympathetic to my transition, maybe especially those sympathetic to my transition, are struggling to let Paul go. They loved and respected the person they knew. I had not shared my gender dysphoria with more than a handful, and for good reason. Just the information that one deals with gender dysphoria is enough to cause friends to scatter and work contracts to end. But it wasn’t just that I had not shared the struggle. The issue was exacerbated by the fact my looks and demeanor gave no clue I was trans. I hid it very well. For all of those reasons and many more, my transition was shocking.

I am no longer concerned about those convinced my actions were sinful, selfish, or self-indulgent. We are on such different wavelengths attempts to communicate are futile. However I am concerned about those who have been supportive of my transition. The euphemism we use for death, passing, is actually pretty descriptive of the experience most have had. Paul is gone. A friend and family member has died.

But of course, I am still here. Part of me is offended when people suggest Paul has died. I feel like Not Dead Fred from Spamalot. “I’m not dead yet. I can dance and I can sing!” I have all the knowledge Paul had, and more. But as I hear the same refrain, time and again, I cannot deny the feelings of many very good people. Paul is gone.

They are struggling because they were comfortable with Paul, even if I was alienated from myself. And the person before them bears no resemblance to the one they knew so well. I have learned that from the number of times circumstances have forced me to reveal myself unannounced to someone who previously knew Paul. Just last week Norma at the airline gate said, “Just show me your driver’s license and I can give you a new boarding pass.” “But you know me Norma.” “No, I don’t.” “Norma, I’m Paul Williams.” “No, you’re not.” “Yes, I am.” “No you’re not.” Then I show Norma my driver’s license and she says, “Oh my God!” It happens every week.

The truth is Paul is gone, and not only does everyone else have to accept it, I must accept it. My transition has disrupted life for a lot of people, and the tentacles reach far beyond my family. Maybe it would have been better if there had been a memorial service.

The most painful part of transition is how incredibly difficult it is for those I love. What I have to keep in mind is that the people closest to me saw my pain and feared for my life. And yes, it is difficult dealing with my transition. But they understand the other option was not having me at all. When one of my children was talking with a friend whose father had died, she spoke about the losses related to my transition. Her friend said, “With all due respect, I would welcome my father back in any form.” My daughter said that was a turning point.

This is all so difficult. Sometimes I think it is a wonder any of us are still standing. But one of the blessings of life is that we exist in time and space. Time is a great ally. And with the passing of time, friends and family can bring closure to the life we once lived, and move into a new era with a new reality.

His name was Robert McG. Thomas Jr.  The New York Times article said Mr. Thomas died at his summer home in Delaware just a few days into the new Millennium. His wife said the cause was cancer. Mr. Thomas wrote obituaries for the New York Times. He had done stints as a police reporter, rewrite man, society news reporter and sports writer before settling into his calling writing obituaries. The New York Times said he “developed a knack for illuminating lives that might otherwise have been overlooked or underreported.”

I often went first to the obituary page when I got my copy of the New York Times. I enjoyed thoughtfully reading about the lives of people of whom I had previously known absolutely nothing. I was not alone. In 1995 the New York Times proposed Thomas for a Pulitzer Prize saying, “Every week readers write to say they were moved to tears or laughter by an obituary of someone they hadn’t known until that morning’s paper.” Kirkus Reviews said, “Readers can be excused if they search out Thomas’s work before they bother with the front-page lead.” They said his obituaries, “celebrated the unsung, the queer, the unpretentious, the low-rent.”

Mr. Thomas saw himself as the sympathetic stranger at the wake listening to the friends and survivors of the deceased, waiting for that memorable tale that just happened to define a life. One of his admirers, a literary essayist, said he got “beyond the facts and the rigid formula of the obit to touch on – of all things to find in The New York Times – a deeper truth.”

The article described Mr. Thomas as a “tall man with wavy hair who spoke in a voice soft with traces of his native Tennessee.” Outgoing and gregarious, the week before his death he officiated at the annual New Year’s Eve party he had been hosting for 32 years.

Over the past year I have sometimes been tossed about and out of balance. It was not an enjoyable year. Many people do not mind fame, but no one wants notoriety. I got a little of both. The truth is I did not want to be any group’s pariah nor did I want to be another group’s cause. I just wanted to live my life in hope that I might make a little bit of a difference on this tired planet.

There is something to be said for a person who knows how to enjoy a good party and take to the page to celebrate lives that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. Robert McG. Thomas Jr. hosted the party and brought those lives to light, shimmering and dancing on of all places, the obituary page.  If I am paying attention, there are many fellow travelers whose stories can inform my own, as I seek to navigate these shoals with thoughtful grace and an eye for the beauty found in the ordinary.