When I said that I had a trans sister, the audience broke into applause. By the end of the speech, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. I still get goosebumps thinking about it. And Marizol was working it, kiking with the ladies from Orange Is the New Black. Later, we went to an after-party and had the best time. Finally, she was being appreciated and applauded and celebrated. Finally, she wasn’t hiding any part of herself.
And then we got home.
Immediately, she was on the phone. The conversation with Josh started out in hushed whispers, but then her voice got louder and louder. I realized that they were in an argument. Suddenly, she was crying. She had planned on sleeping over at my place, but she ended up going home, and I don’t know what happened when she got there.
Chapter 26
MARIZOL
When my sister spoke about me at the Women’s Event, it was the first time my trans identity was made public. Before that night, I didn’t really think about the fact that I was living a kind of stealth life. The fact that nobody knew that I was trans, including Josh’s family and friends, fed my ego. It made me feel beautiful and confident, and it was refreshing to be seen as a cis-woman.
I’ve always believed that being trans is only part of my identity. It is a significant part, of course; it has defined how, for much of my life, I’ve interacted with the world. But first and foremost, I see myself as a woman. Often, when people learn you are trans, they begin to treat you differently. Sometimes it is with judgment, but sometimes it is with curiosity or concern. And always having to explain yourself or educate people on what it means to be trans can be exhausting.
The fact that people didn’t know that I was trans meant that they could focus on me, on my personality, and not solely on my trans identity, and this was freeing. At the same time, though, it also made me paranoid. I always worried that, as people got to know me, they would start to analyze my appearance and question me. To this day, I worry that certain aspects of my physical appearance—my height, my broad shoulders—give me away.
There is a stigma in the trans community that being able to pass is something to be celebrated. It is glorified. There is a feeling that, if you can’t pass, then you aren’t good enough to hang out with the girls who do. But we all come in different shapes and sizes. We all come with particular traits that make us the individuals we are. I am self-conscious about my height, but plenty of cis-women are taller than me! My height doesn’t make me any less of a woman.
Unfortunately, this internalized transphobia—especially when combined with the ways many ethnic communities have been socialized to value whiteness—creates a culture of shame for anyone who falls outside of an impossible standard. And it breaks my heart. We, the trans community, already experience so much discrimination and hate; must we also discriminate against ourselves? Not all of us are born with feminine features. Not all of us can afford surgeries to correct what makes us feel self-conscious. Let’s stop putting each other down. Let’s celebrate our beautiful differences, and glorify all of us.
When I was dating Josh, the combination of my insecurities and his machismo made it worse for me. He was the man, and I was the woman, and I needed to listen to what he said. I needed to respect him. He didn’t want me to dress up nice or to wear makeup because if I had him why did I need to show myself off like that? Now, I realize that he wasn’t building me up when he told me that he didn’t see me as trans—instead, it was just part of the way he was constantly putting me down. It was just part of how he got me into the palm of his hand.
I was scared when my sister asked me to be a part of her speech. I wanted to go to the event, but I felt so stripped down by my relationship. He had taken so much from me, and I knew that I was losing myself. It was hard for me because I really did love him, and despite the abuse and manipulation, I was afraid to lose him. He knew what made me feel good. He knew how I wanted to be loved. It felt good to receive that love, and that’s what kept me there, silenced and trapped, for so long.
I chose to go to the awards even though he didn’t want anyone else to know the truth about my identity. I felt powerful, like I was finally doing something I wanted to do, not just following his commands. He was always controlling everything—where I was going, what I was doing, what I was wearing, who I was talking to—and I needed to put my foot down. I needed to say, “This is who I am, and you better be okay with it.”
I didn’t think that the event was going to be so intense, that I would be able to feel the energy in the room in the way that I did. I sat at one of the main tables with my sister, a few other trans girls, and Laverne Cox. It was thrilling to be sitting right next to this icon who was changing how the world understood what it meant to be transgender. But it was also intimidating! I didn’t know how to act or what to say, so I thanked her for all that she’d done for the community. She was welcoming and kind and made me feel accepted and supported.
During her speech, I didn’t expect my sister to go into detail about me, or about how, as I transitioned, we went on a journey of self-discovery together. For her to go up there in front of so many people and share her truth with everyone was so powerful for me. I always knew that my sister supported and accepted me, but that night, I felt validated. Loved and seen. I didn’t know that she was going to get so emotional, and that made me get emotional, and Laverne and the other trans girls at the table got emotional, too. We were all tearing up, and they reached over and held my hand.
I had the time of my life that night. When Seli revealed the truth about my identity, people were so surprised when they heard the news. All eyes were on me, and the room broke out into cheer. Into celebration. I felt so proud to say, “Yeah, I am trans.” After all I had been through with Josh, I needed that kind of validation. I gained a sense of confidence. I felt like I was getting the real me back.
He was so upset that I went. He was aggressive and combative. He was trying to control me. I had done something good for myself, and there he was, trying to ruin it. I had felt loved at the event, which I certainly wasn’t feeling from him. I said to him, “Damn, you should feel proud. Whenever you do something good for you, I am happy for you. And now I’m doing something good for me for once.”
Still, we made up. Our relationship was like a roller coaster. One day might have been bad, but the next day it was good again. And whenever things turned bad, I was reminded of all of the good moments we’d had, and I kept hoping that things would get better. I kept thinking that we could get through these hardships and that our relationship would be better because of it.
I KNEW that Josh had never celebrated Christmas like my family did. He grew up without a father and didn’t have much family other than his brother and his mom. Usually, he’d spend the holidays at home, playing video games, waiting for his mom to bring him leftovers from a party she’d gone to at a neighbor’s house. He had a lot of anger about the holidays, and I was sympathetic to his experience and wanted to help him. I wanted to show him what our holidays were like. I wanted him to know what it was like to be part of a big family, to really feel the love in the room. I thought that it could help him understand more about me and that it would help our relationship.
But nothing went like I’d hoped.
Isa and I were at our parents’ house, getting ready, while everyone was next door at Seli’s. Josh called me. He was downstairs, and he didn’t want to go to the party by himself.
“I’m almost finished getting ready,” I told him. “Just come up to my parents’ house for a minute.”
He rang the bell and I let him up, and out of nowhere, Isa started getting all antsy.
“Mami and Papi don’t like having visitors over while they aren’t here,” she said.
“He’s not visiting! He just came to get me. I’m almost ready.”
“He needs to get the fuck outta here.”
Isa is the kind of girl who could go from zero to one hundred real quick, but I couldn’t understand what had set her off. I was trying to stay
calm, to keep everyone on good terms. This was the first time Josh was going to meet my extended family, and I really wanted it to go well. But Isa and I weren’t really on good terms ourselves. About two weeks before, she had picked a fight with me over Facetime.
“Oh, so your boyfriend—is he gay?”
“No, he’s not gay,” I said. “I’m trans, but I’m a trans woman. Just because I’m trans doesn’t have anything to do with my sexuality, or with his sexuality.” This is a common misconception: that men who date trans women must be gay. And this, combined with pervasive homophobia, is just one of the reasons why men like Josh want to keep their partner’s true identity hidden. Isa didn’t intend something homophobic with her question; I think she was asking me because she really didn’t know. I tried to play it safe with her, to keep calm and explain things to her about me, about my identity. But sometimes, with those we feel closest to, it can be difficult to say all that we want to, especially in moments of tension. And God knows that she and I, as close as we were in age, had always fought with one another.
Then, at my parents’ house on Christmas, before I knew it, she and Josh started arguing. I was going back and forth between the two of them, trying to calm everything down. But when I tried to console Isa, he became even more angry, and so I went to his side, which then set her off again. In the end, she called him something she knew would set him off: “Faggot!”
They both started screaming. I was so upset—this was not how I pictured the day would go at all! I got in between the two of them and started begging for them to stop—but I didn’t want to take anybody’s side because I felt that both of them were in the wrong. For Isa, I thought: How could you deliberately disrespect my guest like this? You know that someone like him has always worried that people would see him as gay. That’s why he wanted to keep me being trans a secret. His friends don’t know, his mom doesn’t even know!
And as for Josh, I wanted to say: You are at my parents’ house, arguing with my sister—why don’t you just stay quiet?
I couldn’t say any of these things, of course. The fighting got so loud and nasty that everyone from next door came over to see what was going on. I was so embarrassed. Tony, who has always defended all of us, stood up to Josh and took Isa’s side. Selenis was trying to calm everyone down, to talk it all through.
“Listen,” she said. “Let’s just start this over again. We got off on the wrong foot. Marizol, you and Josh can still come over. We can pretend that it never happened.”
But by this point, I felt like Christmas was ruined.
For so many years afterward, when I’d think about what went down that day and how Isa reacted, I could never understand what went wrong or why things turned out the way they did. I didn’t know if Isa was jealous of the fact that I had a boyfriend, or she couldn’t accept the fact that I was trans, or she didn’t understand why I was with this particular guy. But as time went on, I started to wonder whether she saw what I had been trying so hard to hide. Just as Seli had a bad feeling about Josh from the very first moment she met him, I wonder whether Isa had one as well. Could she sense the abuse or the way that he was stripping me down?
Isa has always reacted to conflict directly. If she doesn’t like you, she does not pretend—she makes her feelings known, without any bullshit. It’s something I respect about her. But in that moment, I was so overwhelmed, so hurt. I felt like everyone had their own ego to protect, that no one except Seli was thinking about how I was feeling. At that point, I didn’t care how Isa felt or how Josh felt. I was trying to keep things cool, and I wanted so badly to stay and start over, but I knew that it would turn into a whole ’nother thing between Josh and me once we got home, so I decided that it was time to leave.
Before we left, I turned to Isa. “You’re not my sister,” I said. “You’re dead to me.”
I regretted those words the moment I said them. I didn’t mean what I said, of course; I just said it out of anger. I just said it because I was afraid of what was going to happen next. To this day, Isa and I still haven’t gotten past this. I realize that, from her perspective, it seemed like I was picking him over her. But it wasn’t that. I was trying to cover up the abuse I’d been going through for months and months. I was trying to be on his good side so that I wouldn’t be cursed out or hit on when we got home.
The moment we left, I was filled with regret. I can’t do this, I thought. I can’t leave right now and choose him over my family after all we’ve been through. But still, my fear was overwhelming every other emotion swirling inside me. But if I don’t leave, he’s gonna really fuck me up.
We headed back to his mom’s house. On the train, he accused me of looking at other guys.
“I just left my family because of you,” I said. “I’m not looking at anyone!”
But he wouldn’t listen. He cursed me out in front of everyone and then went and sat on the other side of the train, as far away from me as he could. I thought about getting off and going back to my parents’ house. I thought about just leaving him right there. But he was living with me, and I didn’t know how to get rid of him.
For the next few days, between Christmas and New Year’s, things were fine between us. But I was on edge, ready for another fight to break out. I remember my sister contacting me to come over for New Year’s Eve, but I knew I couldn’t go. I was trapped. Josh made me feel like I had to be with him that night, like I had to once again choose him over my family. But I was also so embarrassed about what had happened, about how the whole family had witnessed this massive fight, and I didn’t feel ready to confront Isa. To be on the safe side, to protect myself from any kind of fight that might break out between Josh and me, I had to stay with him. And I did, and I was so sad to be apart from my family once again. I thought about the year before, how I was on the right track with my life, how I felt like I was going places. And then I met him, and though I fell madly in love and was in a kind of relationship I never thought I could be in, my life had fallen apart.
I stayed with him that night, but what happened over the next few months was constant fighting, further isolation from my family, and further abuse from Josh.
“Why didn’t you defend me?” he’d say.
“What are you talking about? I left with you! Over my family, I chose you!”
During these fights, I tried to make him see the significance of the sacrifice I made for him. But still, I defended Tony and Isa. They were only doing what we all would do: stand up for our family, protect those we love most.
And then, out of nowhere, he stopped talking to me. He wouldn’t respond to my messages or any of my calls. And though his things were still at my apartment, he just disappeared from my life. He had ghosted me like this in the past, which always worried me. I’d think that maybe something terrible had happened to him, that he had relapsed or been in an accident or something worse. And then I’d turn the blame on myself. I’d think about what I had done wrong, about what I had done to make him leave.
But this time, after two weeks of silence from him, I decided that enough was enough. It was almost my birthday, and I wanted to have a good time. I thought about the Marizol I used to be: the bubbly, free-spirited person. And I wanted that girl back.
I went out with my girls, and I started feeling good about myself again. Like I’d finally put myself first, over him. It was then, of course, that he finally called.
“Hey, happy birthday,” he said.
I was in shock. Who the fuck did he think he was? At the same time, I was happy to hear from him. I was happy to know that he remembered my birthday.
“I’m about to pull up. Can we talk?”
He didn’t want to come inside, so I went out to his car. He said he had told his mom the truth about me, that he wanted to get back together, that he wanted to make things right.
“Look,” I said. “I feel like I’ve been going through a lot with you. You put your hands on me, you put me through a lot of shit.”
“Don’t brin
g that up. I’m not happy I did that.”
“If you can’t deal with this, me and you, you can just go. Please. Let’s just break up, and you can go your way and I can go mine.”
I was getting my power back, and he didn’t like it. He was feeling like his manhood was being threatened, so he threatened me. He wanted me to come crawling back like I always had in the past. He raised his hand, and I flinched. He realized it and caught himself.
“See, this is what I mean. This is why I can’t get back with you. This is why I can’t deal with your shit. I treated you with kindness and respect, and I am scared of you. If you want to get back together, we’re gonna have to start over. You’re gonna have to prove to me that this is what you really want. You’re gonna have to show me that you love me.”
“Why do we have to go through all that? Just take me back now.”
“You’re not listening to me,” I said. “I’m afraid of you. You need to prove yourself to me so that I feel safe around you, so that I can trust you.”
Outside of the car, it was pouring rain. Water was rushing like a little river. I moved to get my umbrella ready, to get out of the car and leave.
“Be prepared for tomorrow,” he said. “’Cuz I’m gonna be calling your sister. I’m gonna be calling your mother. I’m gonna be calling everybody, telling them about how you’re a whore.”
I couldn’t believe he’d threaten to betray me in such a way. But I also didn’t think he’d actually ever do it.
“That’s so fucked up,” I said. “You would never.”
He didn’t say anything in response.
I got out of the car, and as I made my way to the sidewalk, my heel got stuck in the mud and I got soaked.
The next morning, I found out that he had done it: he’d contacted my family, asking them for money I “owed” him and told them that I’d done sex work and that I was a whore. He threatened them and said that they needed to pay him back.
My Sister Page 20
