The Witches You Couldn't Burn
I called my father today.
It's the first time I've spoken to anyone from my pre-transition life since I escaped four years ago.
I called him because, as a gay man who had also endured homophobia from my mother and stepfather, I thought maybe he would understand.
He, too, had cut off his family when he was young in order to survive.
And unlike almost everyone else around me—people who were complicit in my family's abuse and their attempts to force me into religious conversion therapy—he had always been different.
Throughout my childhood, and on multiple occasions throughout my life, he warned me that I needed to get away from my mother before she ruined my life forever.
Those warnings stayed with me.
In many ways, they saved my life.
This morning I woke up thinking about him.
I unblocked only his number, and I called.
I asked him if he remembered those warnings.
I asked him if he still believed them.
He told me that he and I, as queer people, are "divergent," and that we have no right to expect the mainstream to accept us. That we need to be patient. Understanding.
That it's only when we stop looking for acceptance that we truly find it.
When I came out to him, at 19, as a transgender woman, he told me something I never expected.
He said, "Actually... me too. Ever since I was little, I wished I could be a girl."
That sentence has been echoing in my head all day.
Because somewhere inside him was a little girl who believed another life was possible.
Who dreamed of becoming herself.
Who dreamed of a world where she could simply exist and be loved.
Maybe she doesn't believe in that world anymore.
Maybe she buried that dream a long time ago.
I still believe that a better life is possible.
I still believe that we deserve more than survival.
I still believe that, one day, trans girls will be free.
Even if she's given up on that dream...
I still carry it with me.
We are the daughters of the witches you couldn't burn.
