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A Gender Life Sentence Reprieved
How can anyone understand the incredible emotional release that a person feels after being freed from a lifetime in a binary prison other than someone else that has also been released.
Being born as transgender in our society is like being born into a life sentence in a maximum prison, particularly if you were born in the 1950’s and 1960’s. You were sentenced to Devils Island with absolutely no hope of escape.
Essentially we were born in prison which meant that you were institutionalized from the very start. You quickly learned by punishment or training that any thought you had that you were anything other than a prisoner of your sexual assignment at birth was a heinous crime, in the eyes of your family, friends, neighbors, society and, in the end, in the eyes of God.
They all took turns in the gender watch tower looking for any deviation or attempt to escape. I saw the results first hand. Punishment was swift: solitary confinement or, if God was watching, Hell.
It didn’t take much to convince me to be a model prisoner.
Then, over time, gender binary prison reforms began. It became acceptable to be gay and lesbian. As the reforms continued, gays and lesbians could marry and then they, finally, they could adopt. What was once thought unacceptable and even criminal became socially…
