A Trans Woman on Father's Day-What to Get Her?
Gender stereotypes ... Father's Day cards. Photograph: Sarah Lee
What do you buy a trans woman on Father's Day? A card? Some chocolates? Or, as looks increasingly likely in this household, nothing at all?
I'm not complaining. It's not as if I'm that fond of the title of "dad". As for the cards: gender stereotypes – golf, booze and gadgets – still seem to be the order of the day, which really doesn't make much sense for a middle-aged woman more given to flowers and pre-Raphaelite whimsy.
Still, I do like receiving presents. Not so much for the material angle, but for the sense of recognition they bring; what they say about my relationship to the gifter. So I remain ambivalent about the "Wonder Woman" pinny my partner bought as a surprise gift a month or so back. Irony? Or double irony: genuine sentiment disguised inside humorous trappings?
Although I have transitioned fast and enthusiastically, I have remained ambiguous about the term "dad". I may not be very attached to it, but it felt as though it might be a big loss for my two children – a boy of six and a girl of 18.
I rationalised: "father" is a biological role. So I would remain dad, while throwing over every other last vestige of residual maleness. The result has been a work of magnificent subversion, not merely in gender, but in grammar and syntax too. It gives rise to sentences that just sound … difficult. Like: "Dad's out, she's nipped to the supermarket."
But it seemed to be working – until this week, when we asked our son what he'd be getting me for Father's Day. Er, nothing. "Because Jane's a girl."
That felt ever so slightly sad. It also left me confused, because in day to day chat he still refers to me as "dad". But far from it worrying him, which is what I had feared, he seems to have integrated this new datum into his world view. Form and function trump biology. Sometimes. The fact that I have always tended to do the washing and ironing never earned me the title of "mum". But my son has, in his literal young boy way, invented his own theory of gender as social construct.
My daughter is less clear: more what I would dub a "forgetful essentialist". That is, she still seems to regard me as male and dad, and seems determined to do so for as long as she can. But the chances of her remembering to get me a present are slight; I believe she did get me a Christmas present but it is lost, missing in some black hole at the back of her bedroom.
I've canvassed gay and lesbian couples: most seem happy to let parenting status follow gender (so households end up with two dads, two mums). But in some, roles and titles diverge a little, a lot. A gay acquaintance confesses to being the more "maternal" of the two – and having a sneaking desire to receive a Mother's Day card.
One friend – a half of a lesbian couple that recently adopted – told me of her joy at receiving her first Mother's Day card. However, when it comes to a particularly "smelly" job that involves getting your hands dirty, her partner will often joke, "Oh that's a job for 'dad'", meaning her. She would not be entirely surprised, or upset, if she were to receive a Father's Day card.
Other trans women have told me of their attempts to resolve similar dilemmas. "Aunt" is the solution adopted by one, who is simultaneously "stepmum" to her partner's kids. Another, long transitioned, remains eternally "dad".
It's an issue. If you wish fully to transition – to "go stealth" – as some trans women do, you have little choice other than to abandon all pretensions to fatherhood. Where you transition later, where you have existing ties and emotional dependencies, there's biology, and there's function, and there's habit.
For now, I'm still "dad" – but I'll be expecting choccies come Mother's Day!
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