Apartment-hunting as a father of trans experience
My name is Tarun*. I have been working as an LGBTQIAP+ affirmative counselor for the past one and a half years. A man of trans experience (assigned female at birth), I first told my mother about being a boy when I was three years old. When puberty hit, I told her I wanted to go for SRS (sex-reassignment surgery, the term for gender affirmation surgery prevalent at that time), having read about it in the newspaper. In my early 20s, around the time my parents had started looking around for marital alliances, I disclosed my gender identity to my entire family.
My parents’ reaction was to force me into silence because of fear of social disapprobation and their own prejudices from lack of awareness. Unable to assert my identity and communicate my lack of interest in marriage forcefully enough, I ended up yielding to my parents’ wishes and entering into an arranged marriage with a cis man. I have two children from the marriage.
However, my gender dysphoria did not fade away. It made its presence felt even stronger, forcing me to accept my authentic self, or else, cease to exist. I chose the former option, despite the many challenges it was bound to bring up. I came out as a man to the people whom I had been lying to for ages.
Following a divorce by mutual consent, and the decision to co-parent the children with my ex-spouse, I needed to relocate from one part of India to another. Prior to my move, I began looking around for schools in the new city that would be welcoming of children from non-traditional families. I was fortunate enough to secure admission for my children in one such school – the teachers and administration were unfazed by my coming out to them.
While looking to rent a place close to the school, I meanwhile had to stay with my transphobic parents. As a pre-testosterone man, I present as much younger than I actually am. So, when I
informed prospective lessors that the house was to be for my children and me, they started asking intrusive and insensitive questions and passed snide remarks about me.
Many saw me, a young-looking man with two young girls, as a predator. Whenever they saw the three of us, they would repeatedly ask what my relationship was to the kids. To minimise these intrusive questions, I had started to lie that my partner/spouse works abroad and that I am a stay-at-home dad. However, the term “stay-at-home dad” prompted even more insensitive questions, with some even questioning my masculinity as a father who opted to stay at home rather than go to work and earn money.
People still do not understand that parenting is a responsibility irrespective of the parents’ gender. In my apartment-hunting quest, I have maintained silence about being a person of trans experience, as I do not want to further jeopardise the safety and well-being of my children and me in a society insensitive towards gender diversity.
As my search continues, I cannot help but yearn for a world that is like my children’s school: accepting of diverse families, including single-parent, queer and trans ones.
* Name changed.
* Picture credits: Daughters of Tarun
