Preston, 52, East Haven, CT, 2016, from the portfolio To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults
Interview Text
As far back as I could remember, I've always felt like a boy. I'm the oldest of three siblings, and for a lot of years I identified as a lesbian. Back then I didn't know the word “transgender," you know. And then when I explained how I felt to somebody, they said, "Oh, transgender," and I'm like, "What does that mean?" So that's how I got to identify as transgender. When I was younger and I looked in the mirror, I saw a boy. And I remember when I came out to my parents, my mother was like, "I always knew that there was something a little different," but she didn't know what. I was born in 1964, so my parents, being born and raised down south, they had no idea whether it was transgender or gay or lesbian or anything. And so now we know what it is.
In fact, I never thought that I would actually transition while my parents were alive. I thought, “Well, it's gonna break their hearts.” That was what I was putting on myself. Even though they’ve always been the most open-minded people. But there was something about coming out as transgender to them, I was like, “Shoot, what's my mother gonna say to this?” And so I remember my partner and I, we went up and I had made an appointment with my mom and dad. I said, "I'm coming up on Saturday, please be around.” It was like two weeks prior to me coming. So for two weeks my mother was a wreck, like, "What, are you dying? What's going on? You never call and say, ‘Well, I’m coming,’ you know, you just appear.” So, we get up there, and I start crying before I can even say any words. My mother's like, “Oh my God, what's going on?” As soon as I finally got it out, then I started apologizing, you know. But my father gets up, and he comes down and kneels on the floor in front of me. He said, “That is the bravest thing that anybody could ever do.” And, of course, now I’m crying all over again, and that's when my mother said, "I knew that there was something, but I never could quite put my finger on it.”
It was fairly easy coming out to family members. I mean, most family members were like, “Well we were just waiting for you to tell us.” My mother had made a similar comment to me, and I remember feeling angry for a little bit because I was like, “But if you knew, why didn’t you say something?” I was feeling like I went through all this heartache, all these years of trying to figure it out and people knew? Like, nobody gave me a clue. Everybody was waiting for me to tell them, you know. It was crazy. It was a crazy moment, but a good one.
