“By the time she was 4, her tomboy phase became something different. I remember getting her ready for school. ‘Mom, I want to dress like a girl today!,’ she said. I went out to the living room and told my husband to ‘not make a big deal about what she was wearing.’ He was her protector.”
‘Are you a boy or a girl?’ My daughter responded with the craziest look on her face. ‘I’m a girl!’ I knew she was gay. I always knew she was ‘different.’
‘I came out during my valedictorian speech. For years, I kept my secret hidden until it ate away at my conscience. I cut everyone off, paranoid they’d notice.’
“I was taught that men do not cry, so all of my emotions were kept inside. When the day came, I was extremely nervous. I changed my mind over 15 times. I was sweating and told myself I couldn’t do it. But I knew I had to.”
‘I know you’re a boy,’ she whispered, tucking me in and kissing my forehead. My eyes widened. I hid who I was and planned to never tell a soul.’
“I went home and slipped off my dress, praying I’d wake up a normal boy. What was I going to tell my mom? Would my family still love me? Am I going to be safe? I hoped to fake my death and live as a boy, nobody knowing my past.”
‘In the blink of an eye, we traded our passion for the typical American dream. The house, the yard, the white picket fence. We fell in step with everyone around us. Then, something changed.’
“Her name was Codi. She was the rainbow we didn’t know we were missing. We were done waiting for the kids to grow up, waiting for the house to be paid off. So, we put it on the market, bought the RV we always wanted, and sold absolutely everything. Our hearts and family grew a little bigger.”
‘We needed a surrogate and she was 60 years old. My mother-in-law said, ‘Oh, I love being pregnant!’ We laughed at the unrealistic gesture. She couldn’t have a baby, could she?’
“Cele hugged her softly, grabbed her hand, and whispered in her ear, ‘You don’t have to worry about Elliot. I promise to take care of your boy as if he were mine.”
‘I was told, ‘This will jumpstart your desire for women!’ Being gay was NOT an option. It was a ticket to hell.’
“I closed the blinds of my home, stopped answering my phone, and resigned from my position. Two weeks later, I sat in my dining room table with a close friend. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I hoped it would be the last time.”
‘I was sick of being a secret as if it was wrong or dirty, as if our love wasn’t acceptable. After she told them, her dad turned up at our home.’
“Zaynah reassured me everything was OK, that it was friends messing around, having fun. I guess at 15-years-old I didn’t have a clue what or who I was. Nobody knew about us, what was there to know? We were two girls having fun or so we thought.”
‘He told me he didn’t feel attached to our baby, and he didn’t love me anymore. I secretly hoped I would die in childbirth. My life as I knew it, was completely dismantled.’
“I decided to clean out her bedroom. It was a virtual cesspool. As I was clearing away the reminders of her unwell state, I found her suicide note.”
‘When people ask me why I would ever do something like this, I have a simple answer – ‘I have a uterus, it works, I’m not using it, so why not let someone else who doesn’t have that same ability?’
“I was supposed to be the one to bring them fertility, and yet here we were, almost a year later and nothing.”
