Me?! A Trailblazer?

I’m sitting here this morning mulling over the term trailblazer.

Defined, trailblazer means “a person who makes a new track through wild country.”

Synonyms:

 

explorer

pioneer

innovator

pathfinder

 

 

 

When D.C. Fontana passed away the other day, I was deeply saddened, as if I’d lost a friend. Although I never met her, I knew her heart because of the many scripts she wrote for Star Trek, Bonanza and other TV series. I felt a degree of kinship with her.

 

I also envied her, since she was a successful, professional screenwriter and she knew the people I wanted to befriend: Kelley, Nimoy, Michael Landon, Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker, etc.

 

(Envy isn’t jealousy. I don’t think I’ve ever been jealous of anyone. Jealousy is kinda sick. Envy is kinder and wishes no ill to the person one envies We just wish we might some day approach the same degree of success, access and approval they enjoyed.)

 

So, I have to confess that you could have knocked me over with a feather when Marc Poulin, a Facebook friend, commented on my shared post about Fontana’s passing, “A true trailblazer, like you!”

 

I was so in shock, I did little more than like the comment without an additional word.

 

Inside, I denied it … until just this morning.

 

I thought, “Oh, Marc, you must think I’m someone I’m really not, by a long shot!”

 

But this morning, while I was washing dishes, the compliment took up residence again in my conscious mind. And instead of perfunctorily dismissing it again, I decided to honor Marc’s comment.

 

 

I searched my memory banks for ways in which I was, or remain, a trailblazer.

 

Several things came immediately into focus:

 

As a child and teenager, I didn’t let anyone conscript or define me. I knew I was a boy (before the term transgender was an understood and acknowledged condition) and I knew I wanted to write and act and work with animals and be an advocate for causes I cherished, and live a life that was meaningful to me.

 

The only questions I ever received about marriage (in my mid-twenties) came from an aunt whose life was defined by being married, having a child, and doing what mothers do for children and their husbands. She seemed terribly concerned that I would miss out if I didn’t set out to correct my singleness right away!

 

A career as a mother and wife simply never occurred to me, or interested me, although I have always been in awe of women who elected go that route.

 

I refuse “Happy Mother’s Day!” with a smile: “Save it for mothers. I don’t deserve the accolade. They do.”

 

And when I get the response (as I inevitably do), “But you’re a cat mom, a dog mom, a goat mom….”

 

I want to respond (but I don’t), “Actually, no. I’m a cat dad, a dog dad, and a goat dad, and the vast majority of dads don’t have the same full-time, hands-on, nurturing, 24/7/365 responsibilities that great moms do.”

 

I simply knew myself better than that. I wasn’t up for mothering. Fathering, yes! Mothering. no.

 

When I was told about the four (count ’em four!) careers  readily available to women by my high school civics teacher, Mr. Olson (a Mormon with five kids), they were wife/mother, secretary, or nurse. I looked at him like he had three heads (not just the two men are noted for).

 

He also stood so close to me as he proclaimed this that it took my breath away. I was scared spit-less of that man. He violated my flight distance every time he talked to me.  He always seemed to be looming and leering.

 

I wanted to become a writer. (There were very few women writers back then. DC Fontana was one of them.) Most women wrote under pseudonyms (hence D.C. Fontana instead of Dorothy C. Fontana) that disguised their gender because they knew women writers weren’t considered valuable to publishers or producers since so few men acknowledged them having anything in their heads worth setting down or paying attention to.)

 

I wrote every chance I got for decades, in every job I had. When the Information Age came along and magazines and cable stations sprouted and grew like weeds, I was ready to capitalize on my acquired writing skills, and I have been a self-supporting writer ever since. (Barely self-supporting, but that’s proof enough to me that my passions have always defined and sculpted my destiny, as long as I remain dedicated to making them work!)

 

And as a formally “out” transgender individual of just a few years , I blazed a new trail toward understanding and acceptance when I wrote Womb Man: How I Survived Growing Up in a Booby-Trapped World.  Doctors and psychologists use the book to educate the people in their spheres of influence who are struggling with understanding and embracing the truth of  transgender loved ones. They use it to sow understanding and acceptance into other’s lives, the same reason I wrote it: to save lives and heartache wherever possible.

 

And when I get my chest masculinized next year, I’ll be doing something that not too many people are willing to do to achieve congruence with their true gender.

 

I suppose if I think about it some more (which I won’t, because I’m not generally a navel-gazer), I could come up with other ways I’m a trailblazer.

 

I have always marched to the beat of my own drum: I never really considered that trailblazing, just stubborn damn’ self-preservation. I knew I was not cut out for a 9-to-5 existence or for motherhood (the polar opposite of a 9-to-5 existence!) That’s why I’m so crazy about outliers, the people who remained true to themselves despite the naysayers and career counselors in their lives.

 

I have a t-shirt that reads something like, “Bless the writers, actors, musicians and other weird people: They help us see see life differently.”  I so agree with my t-shirt. It has been the actors, writers and musicians in my life who have contributed in major ways to make it resplendent and worth living.

 

D.C. Fontana was one of them. A very special one of them.

 

So, thank you, Marc, for giving me a perspective about myself that I denied and pushed away at first. I have been a trailblazer, and if you hadn’t brought it up, it never would have occurred to me.

 

Now, let’s see if I can find a way to return to my former state of denial so I can successfully get my head through the door! (HA!)