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My sister: a thread.
You don't have to read this all, but this is a small thread about my sister. She's 3 years older than me, and I barely know her. We lived in the same place for a lot of our lives, but they didn't intersect much. We don't talk very odten. 1/12
You don't have to read this all, but this is a small thread about my sister. She's 3 years older than me, and I barely know her. We lived in the same place for a lot of our lives, but they didn't intersect much. We don't talk very odten. 1/12
When she was 16 and I was 13, she moved out to go live in a canopy trailer in the driveway of her friend's house. She did this because she and my mother couldn't stand each other. She is the bravest and most independent person I know, and she lives across the country. 2/12
My family would go to therapy sessions when I was in grade 8 while my parents decided how to deal with this. I would sit there in silence while my mom and my sister said just the shittiest things to each other. I was invisible and going through my own stuff... was I ever. 3/12
After some years in and out of our home, my sister went to live in Toronto. We still didn't talk much; we were out of sight, and out of mind. That's just how things go sometimes. I think she was happy. She made new friends; she constructed an inner circle and a life. 4/12
I visited her a couple of times, and she would be flown down for Christmas, and it was always odd for me. She had this air of disdain; only an opinion she had thought of and researched mattered. We were patronized, always the target of a sarcastic laugh or sardonic smile. 5/12
When we were kids, we didn't pay each other much attention. She was older and cool, and I was a girl in a boy's body. That's not to say that I am innocent, but that's how I see it. True or not, that's how I see it. Maybe she thought I didn't like her? Why would she notice? 6/12
When I came out to her, I got a shrug which basically amounted to "just don't shit on my porch, and I'm cool with it." There was no rejection. There wasn't any harmful verbal or physical abuse that a lot of wonderful transgender people get from ignorant family members. 7/12
But this wasn't... anything. No curiosity about finding out she had a sister. No wanting to hear the story, or even an implied offer of support, let alone an explicit "How can I support you?" When my dad would accidentally misgender me, she'd tell me not to make a fuss. 8/12
I gave her a copy of the book I wrote last year for Christmas 2019—a book of illustration and writing about my journey and thought processes and the love I want to feel for myself. A conversation starter, surely. Shyly, "Have you read the book?" "Yup." Conversation over. 9/12
I don't automatically deserve to have someone fawn over me because I wrote a book. I'm not that vain. But I just wanted her to know me. She didn't know me before, and she definitely doesn't now. My mom says that's just how she is. 10/12
We'll never have a heart-to-heart or be in each other's inner circle, and I guess that's ok, but I thought that if anything would get her closer, it would be the knowledge of what I went through and who I'm becoming. I was hoping she'd want a sister. 11/12
Anyway, I'm sorry for this rambling, self-indulgent, self-pitying thread. I don't deserve these things just because I'm transgender. It's on my mind, though. 12/12
