Hello, Susan

Everyone knows somebody who is transgender - They just don’t know who they are.

By Mark Anderson

I am a resident of Becketwood who is transgender. You may have seen me coming or going as Susan and have wondered what that was all about. Most of you know me as Mark. A few of you have known Susan before Becketwood at work, at PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), or at the Women’s Drum Center.

I am not Susan all of the time and don’t plan to be. I have too much invested in the relationships that I have as Mark and I enjoy being Mark. I just need to be Susan once in a while. Today, I want to tell you part of my story so that, when you see me out and about, you will know that my name is Susan and you will know a little bit about me.

Before I go too far, I’ll bet that you want to know what Susan looks like. Imagine the neighbor lady, not very flashy but always trying to look nice. I wear mom jeans, minimal jewelry, and comfortable shoes. I wear more makeup than most but try not to stand out. Sorry if you were expecting a drag queen!

I’ve never wondered why I am transgender. It would be like wondering why I breathe, or why the sun comes up in the morning. It just is. It took many years for me to realize that I was different and that the names that people used for us actually applied to me. I was one of “them.” At first, we were called transvestites, then crossdressers, and then transgender. Today, there is a whole vocabulary associated with transgender people, but I haven’t kept up.

I’ve often thought that there are two different pills that, if one existed, I would take without hesitation. One would be a pill that would give me a female body. The other would be a pill that would make me content to live in a male body. I believe that most people aren’t transgender and that they are perfectly content to live as the gender that was defined by their body at birth. I envy them. Life would be much less complicated and less expensive.

I believe that we are given a body when we are born and that we have to give it back when we die. I don’t know who we are before or after that. I believe that we are more than the body that we inhabit and that is why our bodies don’t always match who we are. I have read that, in American Indian culture, transgender people were given an identity and a role to play in their tribes. I think that maybe they understood that people were different in ways that they couldn’t understand, but they couldn’t afford to throw people away. Or maybe it was just plain decency. To me, that has always seemed like a pretty good way to live.

I first became aware that there were differences between boys and girls when I was a small child. I expected to grow up as a girl until my mother told me very matter-of-factly that it wasn’t going to happen that way. I was a boy. I learned on my own that I was supposed to play rough and tumble games with the boys and not to play dress-up with the girls. I remember having to make that exact choice when I was five years old. The girls and their mother encouraged me to join them but I knew that I’d better go and play with the boys. And I did.

I was frustrated as I was growing up, knowing that I was going to have to sit on the sidelines and watch girls growing up all around me. I was missing out. The train was leaving the station and I wasn’t on it.

I kept my secret to myself and tried to be content to live as everyone expected me to live. It wasn’t terribly hard. I had a male body that worked perfectly well and a role to play which was preordained. The very few times I tried to tell childhood friends about being transgender (I didn’t have a word for it back then), I could tell that it was not a good idea. I learned very quickly to not talk about this to anyone.

For a long time, my only option was to try to dress as a girl when I was alone. When I was very young, it meant getting into my mother’s things. I suppose that that is what little girls do. I tried to fashion skirts and long hair out of towels. I once found a couple of my mother’s old dresses in the attic and wore them whenever I was home alone for a few minutes.

As I got older and was living alone, I could finally buy my own clothes and start to build my wardrobe. I suppose that most girls learn about fashion and hair and accessorizing along with their friends. I had to do it on my own.

I started to arrange brief nighttime outings for myself. I would dress as a woman as best I could, and drive to a nearby town where I would daringly walk around the block or through a mall. I was terrified that I would be seen and remember thinking that I would need to sell my house and move away if anyone ever found out.

I started reaching out to others in the early 1980s. It was a very clandestine process to meet other trans people back then, involving letters and phone calls from “safe” phones and finally going to events at people’s homes after being vetted. It took about a year from the first contact to when you could actually meet someone. The US Postal Service was our social media back then.

Through this process, I was able to make contact with other transgenders at club activities and events. My “closet” was getting a little bigger, but it included only transgender women, their spouses and allies. But it was better than being alone.

In recent years, my goal has been to move beyond just being Susan and to actually participate in life with a purpose in mind. I wanted to learn more about the GLBT community and to make a contribution, so I joined PFLAG. I wanted to start playing drums again to meet friends and possibly entertain people, so I joined the Women’s Drum Center. I wanted to provide drumming entertainment to different audiences in the Twin Cities, so I joined Drumheart.

At home and with Diane, I am usually Mark. I am still Mark with family and most friends. I am Susan when I go to meet with friends, to attend meetings and to do business with people who know Susan.

Diane learned about Susan before we were married when we had “the talk.” She says that she is happy with Susan’s relationships with others. We have mutual friends and activities and we each also have our own friends. Most of mine just happen to know me as Susan.

So, here I am today, coming out to you at Becketwood after nearly 70 years of hiding. It’s scary but I hope that being transgender will become less about hiding and more about just being a part of who I am.

If you run into Susan in the hallways or the elevators, I hope that we can exchange the same hearty Becketwood greeting that I have come to know since we moved in last summer. A simple “Hi Susan!” would make my day! I promise to return the greeting. And please let me know if you want to know more.