Love Lives Here Read online

  VIKING

  an imprint of Penguin Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited

  Canada • USA • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  First published 2019

  Copyright © 2019 by Amanda Jetté Knox

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  www.pengu­inrando­mhouse.ca

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Title: Love lives here : a story of thriving in a transgender family / Amanda Jetté Knox.

  Names: Jetté Knox, Amanda, author.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190043806 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190043849 | ISBN 9780735235175 (softcover) | ISBN 9780735235182 (PDF)

  Subjects: LCSH: Jetté Knox, Amanda | LCSH: Jetté Knox, Amanda—Marriage | LCSH: Parents of transgender children—Canada—Biography. | LCSH: Human rights workers—Canada—Biography. | LCSH: Sexual minorities’ families—Canada. | LCSH: Transgender people—Family relationships—Canada.

  Classification: LCC HQ77.95.C3 J48 2019 | DDC 306.85086/70971—dc23

  Cover and interior design by Leah Springate

  Cover images: (front) Sarah Driscoll / Unsplash;

  (flaps) KanokpolTokumhnerd/Shutterstock.com

  v5.3.2

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface

  One: Detour

  Two: Foundations

  Three: Self-Destruction

  Four: Gravitation

  Five: Integration

  Six: Roots

  Seven: Catalyst

  Eight: Unlearning

  Nine: Confrontation

  Ten: Fallout

  Eleven: Affirmation

  Twelve: Mainstream

  Thirteen: Goals

  Fourteen: Revelations

  Fifteen: Aftermath

  Sixteen: Shattered

  Seventeen: Dissolution

  Eighteen: Solicitude

  Nineteen: Stasis

  Twenty: Insidious

  Twenty-One: Daylight

  Twenty-Two: Reaction

  Twenty-Three: Reality

  Twenty-Four: “Sir”

  Twenty-Five: Whole

  Twenty-Six: Resolve

  Twenty-Seven: Ripples

  Twenty-Eight: Renewal

  Epilogue

  Photos

  Acknowledgments

  To my family,

  who love fiercely

  and can patch up a foundation

  like nobody’s business.

  PREFACE

  IT’S NOON AND I’M SITTING in a busy coffee shop, a decaf Americano and something called a protein box beside me: eggs and cheese and soft, depressing-looking grapes I won’t eat. I’m trying to write the introduction to my family’s journey. I’ve hit backspace more times than I can count, and now I’m taking a moment between attempts to press down on one of the squishy grapes.

  Who eats these? Who lives this?

  Oh, right. I do. Live it, I mean. Not eat the grapes.

  “What do you do for a living?” people often ask when they meet me. It’s an easy question. I wish I had an easy answer.

  “It’s complicated,” I want to say, like a Facebook relationship status. And by “complicated,” I mean “How do I even begin to tell you that my entire career is founded on an email from an eleven-year-old?”

  Somehow, the words “writer and speaker” don’t quite cut it—although that’s what I generally reply. But my work is deeper than that, because it’s fuelled by unconditional love for the people in my life who needed support. First one, then another, and now many.

  Love is why I do the work I do. Love is why this book exists. Love for myself, love for my family, love for a whole community of people who don’t get enough of it. Can I say I do love for a living, or will people give me a look more withering than the one I’ve been giving these grapes?

  * * *

  —

  Before you read this story, there are some things you should know. Everything in this book is written to the best of my recollection and the recollections of those around me. Memory is an imperfect tool, but the sentiment behind the events described is true. I tried not to embellish, and to recreate conversations as closely as I could. Some names have been changed or left out to protect privacy; I didn’t want to throw anyone under the bus, even if some people weren’t as kind as they could have been. Finally, in order to keep the focus on the heart of this memoir, I’ve included only those events relating to how we got here. There are plenty of other stories, but I’ll save those for another time.

  This book involved the continuous support and input of my family members. It’s our collective journey, after all, not just mine. These words wouldn’t be nearly as powerful or as meaningful without them.

  When writing about trans issues, cisgender people like me—those of us comfortable with the gender we were assigned at birth—should strive to make sure we write nothing that can damage an already marginalized community. Discussions surrounding gender are evolving rapidly, as is the language used. For this book, I consulted several trans people, but if I messed up anywhere, I apologize. I will strive to do better.

  While I hope this book will uplift the reader, there are some tough issues covered, including mental illness, suicidal ideation, sexual assault, gender dysphoria, transphobia, homophobia and LGBTQ slurs. If you find yourself struggling through these pages, please reach out to someone you trust. If you feel alone, there are crisis lines (including LGBTQ-specific ones) and other community supports. Please get the help you need. You deserve to shine.

  I use the term “LGBTQ” often in this book. I know our community is bigger than lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning people. I did this for brevity, and to avoid constantly referring to “the queer community” (a phrase that, while being reclaimed, has also been used as a weapon). But I see you, asexuals, pansexuals, two-spirit people, intersex people and everyone else who doesn’t fit into the first five letters. You are not forgotten.

  If you like our family’s story, please consider supporting visibly trans and non-binary people. Read their books, blogs and articles. Watch their documentaries, movies and videos. Listen to their podcasts, radio shows and interviews. I promise you’ll learn a lot, and as a bonus, you’ll be supporting a group of historically marginalized folks who are working hard to turn the tide.

  And with that, I will find a compost bin for these squishy grapes and see you on the other side of this book. Thanks for reading.

  ONE

  detour

  SHE TOLD ME in the car.

  Or rather, she didn’t tell me. Because it’s what wasn’t said that gave it all away—the space between our words leaving a silence where you could almost hear our hearts break.

  It’s funny how much we remember about important moments. That night, a warm summer rain was tapping lightly against the car windows and I could smell the air conditioner as it worked overtime to push out the mugginess of early July. I could hear the splash of puddles as we made our way down the road toward our suburban neighbourhood. I remember how a bright-green grocery store sign lit up the car’s interior as I turned and asked that one pivotal question, and how our ten-minute ride home ended up taking well over an hour.

  Whenever I think about the night my life
changed forever, I’m thrust backwards into sensory overload. The sights, the smells, the sounds are forever a part of the memory. It’s only one piece of a much larger story, but I recall it as clearly as I do my children’s first breaths or my grandmother’s last.

  I suppose this makes sense, since that night was both the start of a new life and the end of an old one.

  By any measure, it had been a terrible date night. Unbelievably so, even for us. And hey, we knew terrible. Back then, I had a mopey, moody partner. This made everything—including date nights—a lot less fun. How do you have a good time when someone is lugging around misery like a millstone? The person I married barely smiled, even at the best of times. But after more than two decades together, I had come to accept this as our reality. Some people are just not the smiley types, you know?

  Oh, you know. We all know people like this: the ones you can’t coax a grin out of no matter how hard you try. For years, I figured that if I led by example—if I just smiled more, modelled joy or exuded gratitude—the moodiness would disappear. The cloud would lift.

  After trying those techniques for so long, and failing spectacularly to get the result I was hoping for, I probably should have known better. Sadly, I’m a killer optimist. I always see a way to let the light in. I’m Charlie Brown running for the football Lucy is holding for me with a mischievous glint in her eye. Damn it, I was going to get the person I’d married to love life, even if it took another two decades. Just watch me.

  That’s why I’d suggested we go for coffee and cinnamon buns. What kind of person can eat a cinnamon bun without cracking a smile? I was sure I had a foolproof plan as we made our way to Quitters, a quaint hipster establishment owned by the famed musician Kathleen Edwards. In 2014, she had purposefully stepped away from the spotlight to return to Ottawa and open a coffee shop. Her decision garnered much local attention. Who walks away from a career full of accolades to make espressos in the suburbs? People like Kathleen, that’s who. Those who seem able to shift from one life to another with much grace and little fear. In hindsight, it seems only fitting that a place that symbolizes so much change would serve as the backdrop to our own seismic shift.

  That night, we sat along the back wall in mismatched chairs, a candle dancing on the table between us. I was probably smiling too much and drinking my coffee too fast, which I always do when I’m nervous and fidgety. I know for certain I was asking what was wrong. Because that’s what you do on a date night, right? One of you mopes, and the other tries to prod out the cause. They make movies about people like us and release them on Valentine’s Day.

  “I wish you would just tell me what’s going on with you,” I said. We sang this little song on a regular basis; we both knew the words.

  The person I loved stared out the window. It was nearly dark out; the dim candlelight between us was casting shadows on both our faces. Neither of us was smiling now.

  “It’s nothing. It’s not important.” This was the reply that always followed my prodding.

  “It is important, and I don’t buy that it’s nothing,” I countered, just as I always did. “If it were nothing, you wouldn’t be this unhappy all the time.”

  Unhappy. So unhappy. I was tired of it. Twenty-two years later, it was time to figure out what the hell was going on.

  After years spent emotionally propping up our family—like Atlas with an impressive muffin top—I had reached my limit. All that emotional lifting was exhausting and left little room for compassion. Dealing with a spouse in an Eeyore-like state—anger or melancholy oozing out of every pore—and feeling like I had to crank up my own happiness to shield the kids from it all, my magical well of giving a damn had run dry. And there, at the bottom, sat the bitter little troll I’d become.

  Because once I had used up all my overcompensating smiles and excessive happiness, once I had tried to make things better yet again, I would land with a thunk on the cold, hard floor of failure. With that, my patience would unravel and the troll would start shouting angrily from the bottom of the well.

  “We have a great life!” I often said when I’d reached my breaking point, my voice filled with frustration. “Three amazing kids, a nice home and full bellies. What more could you ask for? Some people would kill for this life! I just don’t get you.” It was a script I’d memorized.

  But not this time. For some reason, I went rogue. For some reason, on this night—in this place of coffee and big changes—I held it together. Somewhere deep down, I must have had a special reserve of patience for this occasion—vintage, stored in fancy bottles with dust on them. I pulled some of that patience out of the cellar and stayed surprisingly calm.

  That was a good thing. Because as it turns out, it’s hard to open up to someone if that someone is frustrated. This is especially true if you are holding back on sharing a life-altering secret out of fear of your entire world falling apart.

  I’m glad I drew from my reserve that night. By not getting angry, I changed the pattern. I likely saved us another twenty-two years of dysfunctional dancing. Unfortunately, I took what normally would have been a bad evening and turned it into a truly terrifying one. Because what would be revealed in the car on the ride home would shatter the life I thought we had. In just a few minutes, I would be staring at the rubble beneath my feet and wondering what the hell I had just done.

  But hey, at least I had good intentions.

  TWO

  foundations

  TO UNDERSTAND THAT MOMENT in the car, it’s important to understand the people in the car—where we came from and how we got there. It’s important to know that this was by no means the first time rubble lay at our feet.

  Like any great story, mine began at the mall. My mom met my biological father at Bayshore, a large shopping centre in the west end of Ottawa. A university student, my mom worked part time at a now-defunct clothing retailer, and my father was an assistant manager at a children’s shoe store. They fell hard for each other. My mom, Elizabeth, was a strikingly beautiful nineteen-year-old of British and Irish heritage, long blonde hair framing a fresh face. My father was Ojibwa, with gorgeous dark wavy hair, a great smile and an angular nose I would inherit and resent throughout my teen years.

  My mom found out about me five months into the pregnancy. She went to the doctor, convinced she had an ulcer, and was told that instead of a hole, she had a baby in her stomach. Surprise! My impending arrival came as a shock to everyone, but especially to Liz and her boyfriend.

  Family members insisted they get married and “do things right.” So they did. There are pictures of them at their wedding shower, holding up stereotypically seventies-themed china and looking happy. This was the dream for the budding couple, right? A marriage, a family and a grown-up life? It just came a little sooner than expected. A little less time at the mall holding hands and a little more pushing a baby stroller.

  My mom has said it was impossible not to fall in love with my father. He was smart, charming and incredibly funny. “Everybody loved him,” she’s told me many times. Other family members have said similar things. He was the life of any party, a natural comic filled with charisma. He could make the whole room think or laugh, or both.

  I wouldn’t know. He left when I was a few months old, seemingly disconnected from his young bride and his blonde, curly-haired baby girl. I don’t remember a thing about him, but when I look at photos, I have to admit I’m a perfect mix of both my biological parents. I have her colouring and smile, and his high cheekbones, thick hair and, yes, nose. I’ve made peace with the nose, but I’m still working on making peace with his absence.

  I like to think we all have a foundation upon which we build our lives. The more fortunate among us have a solid foundation from the get-go—one constructed from love, trust, stability and support. Some of us are not so lucky, and the events we experience early on leave cracks in our foundation that make for rickety lives. The first crack in my foundation was my father’s departure. It has shaped my life in ways I’m still trying to
understand.

  My mom ended up falling in love again, this time with a man who saw us as a package deal. Charlie, my dad—he has certainly earned the title—has been in my life since he met my mom at a mutual friend’s music performance when I was eighteen months old. I never felt like I wasn’t his child, even when he and my mom went on to have more children of their own. He treated me no differently from my siblings, which is a testament to his commitment to me. He was the first person to show me that love makes a family—full stop. It needn’t be more complicated than that.

  Still, little me found out at a young age that my biological father had left, and this created a gaping hole in my foundation for the pain to pour in. Children often internalize the actions of others, and I was no exception. In my young mind, he had left because he didn’t love me, and he didn’t love me because somehow I was unlovable. The feeling was as deeply ingrained in me as my DNA. Now that I’m older, I know there are many factors that contributed to him not being a part of my life—factors that had nothing to do with me. But for years, I carried the shame of abandonment, and shame is not a good life-building material. It’s ugly and porous.

  This, in part, is why I worked so hard to get people to like me. It’s why I would try to be the funniest, sunniest girl everywhere I went. Like the father I never knew, I would turn on the charm and people would react in positive ways. “Isn’t Amanda the greatest kid?” I would hear my parents’ friends say. “You must be so proud of her.”

  I fed off that validation. It filled me up and made me smile. Little Amanda was sunny, funny and charming. She knew it because people told her so. If people liked her, maybe that meant her biological dad was wrong. Maybe she really was lovable.

  Just not at school. She was anything but lovable there.

  * * *

  —

  Three hours away and three years before I was born, there came into the world a baby who was going to face an internal struggle most of us can’t begin to imagine.