CARNAL NATION

From the moment they met, my mother adored my new girlfriend Maddy. It didn't take long for Maddy to be granted my ex-girlfriend Kim's mantle of "daughter my mother never had." My mother had me, of course, but I'm a male-to-female transsexual. I was less than a year out of the closet, and she was still adjusting to the fact that I was no longer her son.

It didn't take long for my mother to accept my girlfriend as the "daughter she never had." My mother had me, of course, but I'm a male-to-female transsexual. I was less than a year out of the closet, and she was still adjusting to the fact that I was no longer her son.After a spectacularly rough few years, Maddy and I became domestic partners in 2002. We stood with dozens of other couples in a big gay ceremony in the middle of the big Gay Pride festivities. It wasn't marriage, but it was close. Closer still was when the Mayor of San Francisco famously legalized same-sex matrimony in 2004, and we were among the thousands of couples who literally queued up for the fleeting privilege. In truth, I only married Maddy so we could have the same rights as opposite-sex couples. I knew getting married didn't guarantee we were going to stay together, or that we would even stay together longer. I didn't want to stay in the relationship at that point, but I couldn't see any way out. For practical reasons, getting married seemed like the right thing to do. (My essay about marrying Maddy, "Two-Sixeen-Ought-Four," can be found on my website).

Maddy was very happy about marrying me, though, and my mother couldn't have been more proud. Though she was never especially conservative to begin with, my mother had taken a hard left turn over the past few years, and queer rights was among her pet causes. That she had a tranny daughter helped, but I think she would have gone that political direction anyway.

While I hadn't had sexual reassignment surgery, both my Social Security card and my driver's license said "Sherilyn Connelly," and the latter listed my gender as female. (Social Security cards don't make the distinction.) This was enough for the City of San Francisco to consider me female and for the marriage to be gay. Philosophically, I knew a lot of people east of the 415 Area Code didn't understand and/or refused to accept that I identified as female, regardless of how I dressed or wore my hair or what it said on the cards in my wallet.

This is why if I was talking to someone I'd just met, I usually referred to Maddy as my girlfriend rather than my wife. Not because they might say, "How can you have a wife? You're a woman!" Rather, they might think to themselves, "A-ha! You have a wife! You are really a man!"

It became moot that August when the Supreme Court declared all gay marriages to be "void and of no legal effect."

It became even mooter one Sunday in late March of 2005 when I broke up with Maddy. This was the start of a busy week.

When I broke up with Maddy, my mother's tone was all recrimination and blame through tears, with what I considered a distinct lack of sympathy for her youngest child. "How can you do this to me?" she asked.On Monday, Maddy started looking for a new place to live. On Tuesday she had a walkthrough of a promising apartment. On Wednesday, I called my mother to tell her the news.

Much like when I broke up with Kim, my mother's tone was all recrimination and blame through tears, with what I considered a distinct lack of sympathy for her youngest child during what some might consider a very difficult period. My mother tried every tack she could to get me to change my mind about leaving Maddy: "What about the sanctity of marriage? It's a sacrament!" She was very much aware of both my atheism and my skepticism about betrothal, but she figured it was worth a shot.

Just to make things worse, the news had recently hit that one of my nieces had a drug problem. I had nothing to do with it, but the lousy timing made my mother all the more upset, prompting her to ask: "How can you do this to me?"

I tried to explain why I had done this horrible, hurtful thing, but she didn't want to know the details. Maddy was in the room with me, loudly agreeing that I had done what was necessary and that it was for the best. It made no difference. I broke my mother's heart. There could be no defense, no justification. Having fulfilled my self-assigned obligation to tell my mother on the phone, I informed the rest of my family via email. The typical response was "We're sorry to hear that, we liked Maddy." Nobody followed this up with "How are you? Are you okay?"

This was not a surprise. When I broke up with Kim in early '99, one of my brothers told me that he wasn't going to take sides. I hadn't asked him to take sides, but I guess you can't fault him for putting fair play ahead of familial obligation. To the best of my knowledge he never talked to Kim again, but the important part was that I didn't think he was on my side.

Maddy signed the lease for her new apartment on Thursday of the breakup week. She had a day job and I did not, so I helped her pack and move. I literally did most of the heavy lifting myself, making dozens of trips, even spending a day waiting at her apartment for the plumber.

I kept the car, and Maddy got just about everyone else, including the cats and the bed. She brought the cats with her from Kansas, and the bed was a hand-me-down from my mother. I could have claimed that the bed was my property, much as Kim did with the bed we got from her parents, but I refused to squabble with Maddy over possessions. After all, I was keeping the car and the apartment, so it wasn't like I was getting ripped off.