Rejection
By: Rachel A. Mccartney
Tags: Life Lessons, Rejection, Transgender, LGBTQ, Religion

Rejection

It’s always a bitter pill.

Before I came out I imagined it would be a scorched earth affair. I thought I would lose everyone I cared about. After I came out to my wife and she didn’t go running for the hills, I’ll admit I got my hopes that I wouldn’t lose anyone. Looking back I see that there were some that would never accept me for who I am. Those didn’t hurt as much., What has hurt are the ones that I was sure they would understand. One such rejection was from our daughter’s Godmother.

We had met at church years ago and became fast friends. She was funny and kind and had such a big heart for people. At church, she was seen as the rebel because she had a “gay” cousin and talked about women’s rights. We were at each other’s weddings. We celebrated with her when she adopted her girls. We worried together as family trouble would come around. She was an easy choice for Godmother.

When I came out, both my wife and I didn’t have much worry about this friend accepting me as trans. At first, it seemed like everything would be okay. We decided to meet up for ice cream and let the kids play while the grownups talked. As we sat there and ate ice cream, the normal catching up gave way to the topic at hand, me. What happened next was heartbreaking for me. This friend looked at us and said that we should read about gender roles in the Bible because once we see how God wants the family dynamic to work, we would understand that being trans was not okay.

Here is a friend that a few years ago was so open to LGBTQ+ people and now I was being told that I was wrong. Because me being trans didn’t follow Biblical gender roles. What in the hell happened? She was one I thought would be accepting but now she was being a religious prick. We tried to make it work hoping she would come around once she saw that I was happy and a better me. It became clear that her pastor and church had told her everything she needed to know about trans people.

The last time we saw her we had gone to Chuck E. Cheese for our daughters birthday. We decided to invite our friend because our daughter wanted to play with her kids. Our friend asked me too not wear makeup or “girly clothes” because her girls wouldn’t understand. For the sake of my daughter, I agreed. As the kids were off playing games this “friend” told us that she didn’t want the girls to see me all dressed up; it could be confusing to them. She and her husband needed to sit down with them and explain from a Biblical standpoint what I was doing; her girls would understand that it was wrong.

As I’m hearing this, I’m angry and I’m hurt and I wanted to rip into her for her craptastic excuses. After that, the party couldn’t end fast enough.

Unfortunately, that encounter wasn’t the worst of this whole mess. Do you know the pain and heartache of having to tell your little girl that she will never see her “God Sisters” again? Do you know it is like to explain to her that because daddy is a girl her Godmother has left her life? I have and it is one of the worst feelings I have ever felt.

For the longest time after that day, I blamed myself. It had to be my fault. I did nothing wrong. I was open and honest about who I am. She made her choice to walk away. A few days later I unfriended her and her husband on social media. We haven’t seen them since.

Rejection is an unfortunate side effect of coming out. What we need to see is that those that reject us are the ones that are making a choice. Their rejection is no fault of ours, we are living our lives and they can’t handle that. They would rather believe the lie than see our truth but even with that, rejection still hurts. The pain from rejection is from the hope we had that that person would walk with us. Pain from rejection sticks with you. It lingers to remind you of how you have moved away from the safe places in your life to the wilds that others dare not go.

Whenever anyone walks away from the safety of the group there is rejection. Members of the group can’t wrap their head around what would make someone forge their own path. Those of us that do set out on our own path lose the safety of the group we left, but we gain something else. We get to see what we are made of. We face the unknown wilds of life and we get stronger for it.