Transgender Awareness Week – Labels by Reverend Nicholas Love

Labels by Reverend Nicholas Love

I am NICHOLAS.

I am TRANS.

I was born female. Wrapped in a pink blanket at birth, I lived 30 years with the labels attached to that blanket.

Female, woman, daughter, wife, mother

I now live my true life as a MAN. New contradicting labels have now been added.

Male, man, son, father, husband

I am GAY. I identified as a queer woman - lesbian, dyke

Now as a queer MAN– gay, fairy, homo – queer.

I am a GAY TRANS MAN. These labels. I have worn them proudly. 

I am out – way out. I educate nationally on these labels. I speak in colleges. Sharing way too much personal detail –  literally bared all with great pride in the name of education .

I proudly declare the two labels of GAY and TRANS. 

Labels that frighten many. 

Labels that some consider wrong, dangerous, and a sin. 

Labels that can and have harmed me. 

Labels that may even get me killed. 

How can I, without hesitation, claim these labels, without fear yet when presented with a simple new hire HR white form for a disability non-profit, I stop and contemplate a simple question “Do you have a disability?” 

I had never claimed that label. 

The label of disabled. A disability? I did not have a disability.

Despite being born without fully formed hip bones. Despite having 24 major surgeries before the age of 5. Despite never learning to crawl but instead dragging a full body cast around. Despite living in chronic pain my whole life. Despite the complete hip replacement just years earlier. 

Do I have a disability? No. 

I had been medically cured. My parents made sure of that.

My mother had taken me to the doctor proclaiming, “Her legs are funny. Fix them.” My parents pleaded and begged with the hospitals to cure me. I became their medical Guinea pig to break and bend until my body had been “corrected”. My parents fought so hard and paid so much to make me “normal”. They sacrificed so much for the appearance of a Norman Rockwell life. I did not want to be the flaw in my mother’s perfect family. I did not have a disability.

“Do you have a disability?” No. 

When I was five, I was in a private kindergarten. Since I had just learned to walk for the third time, my parents wanted me to be in a protective environment – just in case. I learned etiquette, French, and ballet. (Just like any normal five-year-old.) At my first dance recital, I stood there proud in my little yellow tutu. As the teacher introduced us, then called me out. She spoke about how she taught this little cripple girl to dance. I cried, frozen to my spot, unwilling to perform for her.

Cripple? I was not her cripple little monkey. I was not like the poster children who interrupted my Memorial Day television to beg for pity money. I did not have a disability.

“Do you have a disability?” I thought… 

What made me any different? Am I any better than those I would advocate for? I had challenges. We all have challenges. I have had many, many challenges throughout my life – physical challenges. Were mine more or less than those who have disabilities? No.

Do you have a disability? Damn right I do! I sign my choice name to the form – declaring my DISABILITY. 

Forty-four years after being born with a disability, I embrace another label – DISABILITY.

 I am a proud GAY TRANS MAN who has a DISABILITY!