this truly is the an unedited email to a couple friends of mine. the truth needs to be told of what some families try to do to hide people like me. i have not edited one name or word from this email. i am tired of hiding and the time has come to just tell my story to the public. the shame needs to stop.
thank you for all that allow me to share my story
thank you
rachel
ps my surgery is still on for Jan 19, 2015
hi
omg
estrogen truly is a truth serum. now i remember even more of one day
my grandmother and I were alone and I asked her to teach me how to put
make up on.
this was preceded by me telling her everything including my cutting
my penis by pointing to my crotch. i promised never to do that again.
when i told her everything she said you cannot tell your mom or mary
jeanne because they will lock you up. i told her i know as i cried i
asked her to not tell my mother and mary jeanne. then my mother and mary
jeanne tried to get me to tell them what i had told my grandmother.
they tried to pressure my grandmother to tell them what i had
told her. she refused and then we went home and my mother tried to get
me to tell her. i refused and said, ":if i do you will lock me up." she
said, " that is where you and your father belong." i said, " and mary
jeanne needs to go back to the covenant and she needs help." ( or
something close to that." my mother said, ' you are the one that is
sick. i said nothing.
so i told my grandmother everything and one day when we were
alone she " i cannot teach you to do make up because they, my mother and
mJ will kill me." but she said you can watch. so when she was done
teaching me how to put make up on when I was about 12 yrs old I asked
her to put powder on my face after she powdered her face. then, much to
my surprise, i asked my grandmother if i had to wash off the powder? she
said, " no" lets see what they say, mJ and my mother."
when my mother arrived she said what is on your face. I said
powder and my mother said take that off now. then my grandmother said,"
it is only powder Connie, my mother." so my mother had me come over and
she had a hard time getting the powder off so mJ scrubbed it off my face
and it hurt.
the day my mother and aunt tried to lock me up at 7 yrs old my
grandmother because my mother. i am the, as i cry again, the secret MJ
and my mother wanted to hide. it is very apparent that the deepest fear
of my mother and MJ is that my grandmother would allow me to move in
with her and there would be a good chance Rachel could have been me in
1972.
if my grandmother would have backed me i would have gone to the prom
in a dress. that is why i think i never went to either one of my proms
in HS. what can anyone say to all of this? my grandmother nurtured me
as a woman in the 1960's and beyond. she knew who i was because i told
her i was like Renee Richards etc. i used every opportunity to become me
because my grandmother provided a safe space for me to be me as much as
possible.
maybe it is wishful thinking about coming out in 1972 with my
grandmother's help. but one has to keep in mind that in that 1930's my
grandmother and catholic married a protestant. even in the 1960's when
my uncle married a protestant he had to be married in the rectory of the
church not the church. my grandmother was very strong and told me in
private, " you will have to leave here Donnie." she meant the small town
and my mother and aunt will never allow me to be me in Hollidaysburg,
PA.
i know my grandmother went to my aunt and mother many times to
ask to have me live with her. but finally i think she realized that my
aunt the one that had the most control over my mother would never allow
it and my mother also feared her genetic son was a woman which her
mother was about to provide a window for me to walk through. if this
happened then a lot of people in this small town would out my mother and
aunt and this was what all of this was about, not me.
as my mother said many times " you and your grandmother just don't care want people think." I said that is right!!!
i
am crying because my grandmother in the 1960-70's stood by me and
pushed as hard as she could for me to be me. i told her all about me and
she would tell me what others would say about me. i had no secret with
my grandmother and to say this in an era when i could have been beat up
because of who i was. if my grandmother had provided a safe space like i
have today i would have risked it.
this means i would not have joined the marines? i guess we
will never know!! I think the reality of all of this is that if i had
been allowed to me in 1970's i would have found a way out of the small
town but i would never have had to hide. it means as i cry the world to
me that my grandmother accepted me for me and took on her own daughters
because what they were doing was wrong.
on that note i know why my aunt came out of the covenant in the
catholic church. it was not because of what my mother said, " I cannot
handle Don and Don SR" but probably because my mother saw that my
grandmother was supporting and this could not happen. so my aunt came
out of the covenant to help my mother leave my father and bring me into
line. but i refused in 1972 and told both my aunt and mother i will move
in with grandmother. so i was blamed for so much when in reality the
love my grandmother saw me as human being which my mother and aunt could
not see.
i miss my grandmother and i know now that she would accept me
as me today. i am crying because i needed to know this omg !!! this was
so important to know that someone in my family loved me for me. i miss
my grandmother and i honestly hate my aunt and mother.
now i am crying because i cannot fit into a society that
reflects so much of my mother and my aunt. a world that god does not
understand because loves everyone. so the ones that will only smile at
me are afraid of what my mother was in 1972.
i am depressed but happy that my grandmother love me as Rachel. but
i am the dirty deep secret that my family hid and beat because of who i
am. my grandmother saw how my family treated me and she knew when my
aunt and mother were lying about how violent i had become with my
brother. the fact is they were right one of us need put in an
institution but it was not me.
wow and this morning i nearly broke again but then i ran. this
process is so hard and yet others will not talk to me. but on the other
hand they did not have Lyle Foor, my grandmother, to lean on when they
were growing up maybe?
now i am coping with building my muscles up in diff parts of
my legs so i can walk like a model. sorry but that is exactly how i
walked as a teen and my grandmother told them, ":leave me alone." all i
have done by going back is pulled the layers back of what is the real
me that started to come to the surface in the 1970's. so i am just
finishing what my grandmother and I started in 1972.
none of this should have been necessary and even today i risk
much in Portland because of the violence toward women and women like me.
i hid for so many years and I no matter what will not go back into any
closet for any reason. so when you hear a deep voice and feminine body
at some level i say, " and ..."
please know that i appreciate all of your help in recreating what my grandmother tried to allow out in 1972.
thank you
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