“...and one day you’ll grow up to be a strong, independent woman just like your mami”

by Gabriella J Bolanos

This is a very sensitive topic about me, but over the course of the past six weeks of this hellish semester, I realized the importance of giving trans people a space of their own in the world of “maternal” / “woman’s” (A.K.A. Cis-woman’s health). I loathed the maternity nursing lecture, mainly because the double dose of problematic WASPs was too much for me to swallow on a weekly basis. However, those five days at Mt. Sinai’s labor and delivery/postpartum floors was such an uplifting, emotional, and sometimes conflicting moment. Let me just put it out there that yes I am transgender, and I own up to being a transgender woman. I am proud to be a transgender woman, and I don’t see myself being anything else. However, society has not advanced enough to where transgender people are respected by women and men as viable women; and science has not advanced enough to where they can put a functional uterus in me. I had a lot of experience observing and participating in the births of numerous children 3 of those 5 days, many of them being families who were introducing their first child to their lives. I enjoyed seeing the face of young fathers and mothers feeling nothing but pure joy as they hold their just born child in their arms. It’s honestly an amazing privilege to be able to witness a moment so intimate, so groundbreaking, so heartfelt, so pure like the birth of a newborn. However, in the back of my head, I could never shake the feeling of jealousy and resentment of these mothers. I will never be congratulated for being pregnant with my child. I will never be congratulated for spending all those hours in labor or overcoming all of the pain to deliver my baby. I won’t feel that overwhelming burst of emotion holding my newly born crying baby on my bare chest. Sometimes I feel like I won’t ever be a “real” mom because I’ll never have the opportunity to do things that our heteronormative society tells us a mother does.

*Side Note: Why is there no gender-neutral term for “person that gives birth,” it’s always when the mother does this or when the mother experiences that or when the mother holds her baby for the first time… mother is clearly a gender-charged word, but in reality, it’s not always a cis-female that gives birth, there are transmen out there that give birth, and gender non-conforming people that give birth – and I highly doubt that they would want to be referred to as the “mother.” One time during lecture, one of the instructors “tried” to be inclusive and kind of touch on this idea that LND may not be as heteronormative as we tend to think it is. However, things quickly went south when she started to bring up the example of trans people giving birth. And so she says “ I had a colleague tell me that she one time had a transgender mother, male to female, give birth…” and I don’t know about you, but as far as I know, transwoman cannot give birth – and if somehow they can, PLEASE LET A GIRL KNOW. So essentially, I am 99.99% sure that she meant to say that there was a transgender man who gave birth but instead chose to mis-gender the father who gave birth. Anyway, I hope one day this changed and we see a bigger presence and respect of LGBTQ (esp. Transgender people) in maternity health and in woman’s health in general.*

I have always wanted to be a mom since I could remember, or I guess I’ve always wanted a family of my own and I didn’t know that meant becoming a mother until I realized that I was a transgender woman. A part of my desire to be a mom comes from a desire to make up for the mistakes my mother made raising me – in no way was she the worst mother to have, but we never really saw eye-to-eye, she internalized most of her emotions, she never really understood me, she never really could sympathize/empathize with me, she was never pushing me to go after my goals, it took her forever to accept the fact that I was trans, and along the way made me feel like a complete, worthless piece of shit for being who I am. However, at the end of the day, although I can’t 100% forgive her or honestly say my relationship with her was healthy and beneficial, she is still my mother and luckily she eventually got it together and now accepts me for the woman I am today, her daughter. I want to learn from my parent’s mistakes and be the parent I always wanted/needed growing up to my future children. Additionally, there is a bond you can’t recreate or break between a child and their mother. For example, I wouldn’t say my sister is the most positive mother, she can let her frustration and anger get the best of her around her child, she can be overwhelmed with work or too focused in her personal life to spend whatever time she does have with her child. However, no matter how many times my sister yells at him, spanks him, or leaves him behind to be cared by someone else, my nephew will always tell her how much he loves her and comes to her defense whenever me and my sister fight. This was a complicated lead up to the fact that I part of me wants to have a child so they can unconditionally love me, because I feel so lonely in this world sometimes, to know someone loves me, means the world to me. Although some parts of my desire to be a mom come off as selfish, in all honesty I want to have kids one day to take care of them and smother them with nothing but love, raise them to be “woke” individuals in society, take them to soccer practice or piano lessons, help them with homework, remind them that they matter and no matter how stressful things get, they will overcome all obstacles eventually, support them with whatever career/academic decisions they make, take care of them when they are sick, give them advice on love and life, the list goes on and on. I even have baby names picked out, even though adoption will most likely be my route of raising a family (unless someone wants to give me their second child) – so if I have a newborn son, I want to name him Brandon Mauricio Bolanos, and if I have a newborn girl, I want to name her Jacqueline Celeste Bolanos – cheesy names, I know. So Brandon comes from my obsession of Beverly Hills 90210 from the summer (Brandon Walsh was definitely my dream guy) and Mauricio comes from my father’s middle name and my original birth middle name – a part of me has a little guilt for being trans as I am my father’s only child and I know how important it was for him to have a “son” and I would have been the only person to pass down the family name as all of my cousins on that side of the family are girls. Therefore, I want to give back to my father somehow, but naming my son after him – not that I have a reason to feel guilty for being trans. And in regard to Jacqueline Celeste Bolanos – I just really like those names, it's different, and not something you hear every day. And ideally, I would like a third child (my favorite number happens to be 3), but the name on that one is a TBD for now.

I love the idea of being a mom, and can’t see myself not having a family of my own, but I can’t help to have my fears about it as well. Honestly, my biggest fear is getting into a fight with my child and having the phrase “well you didn’t give birth to me, so you’re not my real mom anyway” – I honestly believe if this ever happens I would kill myself right there and then because that would just crush me beyond the point of any possible repair. I also worry about if my child going to accept that I am trans? Is the world going to accept me as a transgender mom? Are the kids at school going to say to my child about me being trans? Is he going to get bullied for it? What are the moms at the PTA going to say about me? All of these thoughts, good and bad, swirl around my mind whenever I see a birth, or see a pregnant woman on the subway, when I see a baby in a stroller, or when my friends complain about never wanting to give birth, or when people randomly ask me if I want to give birth or if I am a mom. I don’t know if I’ll ever accomplish this goal of becoming a mom, finding someone to help raise our children, I hope that one day they would look up to me as their loving, successful mother and eventually I’ll be trying to keep up with the numerous grandkids I’ll be expecting. Until then, I’ll continue to hold babies like they are my own, envision a future of a full, loving family, and hold my tears back whenever things get emotional, and be optimistic that one day I’ll hear the word “mami” come out the mouth of my son, daughter, or GNC child.

OTRAS MADRES.

Jenny Boylan, Bruce Jenner, Laura Jane Grace. Una visión distinta de la maternidad desde la perspectiva trans.