12 - Faith.

My father was my hero when i was young. Looking back its no wonder, he was like Batman. A boy whose tragic childhood had lead him to a lifetime of anger and distrust. He had a rage that went deep inside him but on the surface he was Bruce Wayne, funny and charming and everybody loved him.

Like all misunderstood heroes, some powers can get misdirected. My father's power was knowing peoples weaknesses. He knew my weakness was wanting to be seen and understood. He saw that this wasn't something that came naturally for me. I was quiet and not like other kids my age. Adults didn't quite get me and my mother didn't quite get me. I felt different and weird and unsure how to communicate myself to others. I became self conscious and started building up walls so I didn't feel so hurt when people didn't understand me.

I wanted Batman to know me. I wanted to be just like him. Strong, charming and invincible. I wanted him to show me how. He could see how much I looked up to him and it gave him power.

Looking back, he didn't really hold much power outside of this. He hadn't held stable employment for over twenty years. He didn’t have the car or the house he always thought he would have, or the wallet full of cash he thought he deserved. His wives continued to leave him and he didn’t have many possessions. But he did have kids. We gave him a sense of worth.

Our relationship soon based itself on fulfilling each others secret need. I needed his understanding and connection, he needed my adoration. You have to be careful when you have that kind of power over someone.

One day my father found God and that's when things started getting dangerous. We weren't just stroking each others egos anymore. He was on a mission to convert, and there is nothing more dangerous than a man who thinks he has a divine permission to save others. Entire countries have fallen at the feet of such men.

His faith became a weapon that once again gave a powerless person a sense of control. It assured him that men were superior to women and he fed that into his daughters and wives brains by the spoonful. There was no refusing, for it was written in the scriptures. The scriptures gave him a status he struggled to get in the real world. Women were here to serve men so he humbly accepted his right of passage as a man. Of course it is all very convenient that these scriptures were written by a bunch of old men.

It was no surprise to him then that I wanted to be like a man. To be like him. He would humour my masculine identity growing up. Act proud when I could keep up with the men. I could kick a footy just as straight and as far as the boys at church. When other men’s sons sat down to rest, I kept going at working bees. I was allowed to be strong and athletic and tough, so long as I knew my place at the table at the end of the day. I had no right to be a man, but he could understand me trying.

In my effort to mimic my father, he continued to make me feel like he understood me. I was just like him, he would tell me. A chip off the old block. That met my need. Made me feel good. Only in the very next sentence he would talk of the sin and the perils that would become of the unholy people. Homosexuals. Deep down, I knew I was part of this sin and it filled me with a sense of shame if he were to know who I was. A homo, even worse, trans, then I would loose the one person who claimed to understand me. I would be alone.

I struggled with this parallel concept of identity and worth. Could I be queer/trans AND a valued and accepted human? The two things didn't seem to be able to intersect, so I had to pick one. Be myself, or be what people wanted me to be. Be the person my father thinks I am.