Unpacking Europe

I brought my journal with me to Europe and didn't write a word.  Now that I'm back home and have had some rest, I think I'm ready to write about the experience.

I don't think I can make this linear.  The memories are coming at me in flashes.  I remember that before we went to the North Sea, Lisa, Andrea's wife, bought a Russian newspaper.  One of the articles was about the man in the Northwest United States who had a baby.  Lisa spend a long time reading this article, asking if it could be true.  I explained in German that the man still had female body parts and then told them that this couple was on Oprah.  Believe or not, Oprah has not invaded Germany.  They had never heard of her. Jeff and I think that Lisa would love to have a child.

One night Andreas told me more of his story.  When he told his family doctor about his realization that his soul was male.  The doctor said, 'Ja, then you must go to Hamburg'.  He went to the university and began to take hormones, culminating in surgery to become male.  I don't know what type of surgery he had exactly.  I can't see any evidence of scars on his arms or legs where flesh was taken to fashion a penis.  Maybe, the surgery was to remove his breasts and, maybe, he also had a hysterectomy.   I hope he has had his female parts removed since I worry that the hormones he must take could cause cancer, like the man from the documentary, Southern Comfort.

I love my brother so much.  We connect on a deep level and we don't have all the painful history that I have with my other siblings. I don't know if it's because we've both undergone a journey of self discovery.  I can truly talk to him, though I hesitate to ask him certain questions.  I'm afraid that my German will fail me and I will offend him.  

One question I did ask him was why he chose the name, Andreas.   He answered that it came to him from his soul.  It just seemed to fit.  

He showed me a photo album with photos that documented his transition.  In some photos, he has feminine features and is androgynous.  And then suddenly all feminine features disappear and it is hard to believe that he was born female.  I didn't realize that he was married once before but there are a number of photos from the day he married his first wife.  He told me that she had a drinking problem and slept with other people, both male and female, and then lied about it.  It was while he was with this woman that he made the transition.  A couple of years ago, she called to ask forgiveness from Andreas as she was dying of cancer.

Reflections after the trip

I am having the hardest time refocusing my energies on the mundane tasks of my life. The trip I have just experienced is life changing and will take a great deal of time to fully process. I find myself only able to talk about other topics for a few minutes before my thoughts go back to Andreas. I wonder what he is doing at this moment. I wonder so many things.

I spoke to my therapist last Saturday about this trip. There was so much anticipation building up to the trip that I feel a sense of both relief that it is over and a sense of sadness that it is over. Only some of my fears were realized.

My therapist was amazed to learn that the first full day I was there I spent with my father. She described it as a full desensitization. My main fear was that I would spend the whole time chasing after my father to connect with Andreas. This did not happen. I had as much access to Andreas as I wanted and it still was not enough.

My therapist who is currently working with a trans male at the beginning of his transition told me that she has been doing a lot of research and has found the politics fascinating. I do as well. For instance, is a trans male who is interested in women, a part of the lesbian community? Or at one point during the transition do they become less and less queer?

My sense is that Andreas does not feel himself a part of a political community. He is who he is and has always known that he should be male. I don't think he is political in the sense that he is out there campaigning for transgendered rights, which, I believe is his right.

There must be differences in how queers individuals form their identities in Germany as opposed to the United States. And Andreas is from a small, farming town which makes a difference as well, I would think. Are we more political here?

It was interesting to note that some of my father's sisters raved about Andreas's wife, Lisa, but never once asked me about my partner. I took this as a sign that for some people Andreas now inhabits a place that makes more sense to them, that he has resolved a medical condition and is living a more conventional life. His relationship can now be honored in a way that mine can't or in a way that they understand how to honor it.

When I told Jeff about this impression, he told me not to take so seriously what a group of 60 plus year old German women think. It's not that I feel offended so much as fascinated by the dynamics of all this.

When I tell anyone about my brother, Andreas, I end up also mentioning at a certain point that he was born my sister. I'm trying to figure out why I do this. Does the narrative invariably lead me there? Am I trying to be sensationalistic? Have I seen too many talk shows? Maybe, a little of each. I guess the truth of the matter is that I had grown up thinking that I had a sister and I think my brain is still trying to process the wonder of having a brother instead.

I couldn't have asked for a better, more kind, more sensitive brother. I wish he lived nearby. I wish I could tell him everything that I think.

Day Three

I spent most of the morning at my Mom's watching the video I had taken. She saw the video I had recorded of her. She asked that I not share parts of it with my sisters. Later, she said, what the hell, it's nothing they haven't heard before.

I told her that just because we are opening up a little to our father. It doesn't mean that we have to act like we have forgotten what happened. This is not a black and white situation, where in order to open up to our father, we have to pretend like he doesn't have some extreme personality issues and isn't narcissistic any longer. She suffered a great deal at his hands and I cannot ever deny the truth of that.

Around two, I called my father. He said that he was in his trailer; Andreas was in the basement but that I should come over. When I went over, Andreas was napping so he didn't hear me knocking. I went to my father's trailer and knocked. He came out looking like he had been sleeping.

The trailer he lives in most of the time, isn't the one I remember from childhood. Yes, he has always had a trailer to retreat to.

We went in and woke up Andreas (he calls him Andre). Andreas came out from the room where he was staying. He told us about a dream he just had, where his grandfather (mother's father) came to him, embraced him and said, "You are in America now". Throughout the rest of the afternoon he kept referring back to this dream.

For some reason it was extremely important that my father show us a documentary of the bombing of Hamburg -- Feuersturm. Before we started the video, Andreas told me that he had found the photo of himself as Angelika. I went into his room with him so he could show me.

As Angelika at the age of 9 or 10 he was forced to wear a dress, which he hated. He was a cute girl with big eyes in a white dress.

I asked him how it made him feel to see this photo. He said that it didn't seem like it was him as a child but he didn't have any sadness or anger when he looked at it. I asked him if I could videotape him talking about his life, his journed. He said the he didn't mind talking to me about it but he didn't want it on video. Basically he is bored with the story after all those years of telling doctors, etc. Maybe, sometime.

The next three hours we spent watching the video in German about the fire bombing of Hamburg. I didn't realize that the fire was so intense that those who weren't burned to death, suffocated from lack of oxygen. Here and there I asked Andreas and my father questions and they translated for me parts of the video.

After the movie we went to a party at Elfriede's (aka, Susan and the Blond) house. She is my father's youngest sister. Some of his other sisters were there: Hanelore, Analise, and Marion.
Unfortunately, some of them were already drunk and my father was soon drunk.

Two parties started to develop. The non-drinking born-again Christians (Marion and Elfriede) went to Elfriede's room to watch a born-again ex-Mormon talk on video. The drinkers (Analise, Marion, Hanelore my father and Andreas) stayed in the living room. I moved back and forth to videotape.

My eighty-year old Aunt Analise has a foul mouth and the most obnoxious cackle, though I didn't understand most of it, I could tell what she was saying was dirty. She started harassing Andreas a little bit about how people from Hamburg are unfriendly .My Dad protected him at times.

My Aunt Hanelore sat next to Andreas, hugging him and getting very close into his face to tell random bible stories in German. I thought to myself when you ask for a family be more specific but he seemed to take it all in stride. At different points he winked at me as if to say what are you are going to do, they're family.

Hanelore came up to me at one time and pulled me down to whisper in my ear, "Your mother has always been my sister-in-law. The others have been nice or whatever but I will never think of the others in the same way I do your mother." In fact, all of his sisters at one time or another throughout the evening told me how they loved my mother, how special she was.

At one point my Aunt Marion asked if my father had been nice to me during this visit. I said that, yes, so far, so good but that this was the first evening that he had so much drink. And like clockwork, his ugliness started to show itself. He made some very crude comments about women in English. Andreas had no idea what he was talking about.

I think my father is smart enough to keep Andreas in the dark about his dark side. He switched into English if he didn't want to scandalize Andreas. Those two are extremely close.

After the party when we arrived at my father's house, I could see that my father wanted to be alone with Andreas. I said goodbye to my Dad and Andreas walked me out.

I felt quite sad saying goodbye to him. He hugged me, kissed his hand against his lips and then pressed his hand against mine. He said, "Until next time." With tears in our eyes, we said goodbye.

What a wonderful man! I can't even begin to tell how connected I feel to him, more than I have ever been able to connect with my full brothers. It has something to do with having a clean slate without all that history and having a life story that involves feeling different. He does represent hope for our family.

Before leaving I was afraid that our father would isolate him from his other kids, that I would spend the entire trip chasing them. Not only did this not happen but my father actually went out of his way to include me in the experience. For all of my father's faults, I am grateful for this unselfish act on his part.

I know that I must go and see Andreas and Lise. The next chapter is just beginning.

Day Two - The Dinner

Later in the afternoon Jeff and I went to see Andreas again. My sister Susan wanted to go to dinner with us. We agreed to meet her at Chili's. Our Dad couldn't go because Solange had made dinner.

When we arrived, both my sisters were there. Janyce and Susan both warmly embraced Andreas. They had so much they wanted to tell him and poor Andreas had only me for an interpreter. I did okay but we had to look up a couple of words.

Susan at one point became quite emotional, which was a surprise for her. She told Andreas that she had waited for her sibling for so long, that as the oldest it was a relief to know that she had an older sibling. Janyce told him that he was our family now. They hugged and kissed.

Andreas said that when he saw all of our photos he had such a good feeling that he knew he must come to look into the eyes of his sisters. Suddenly, my brother David arrived with his son Jesse. David had earlier told the story of first finding out about Andreas from some canceled checks he found in a drawer. Susan claimed that she was the one who had found the checks. Sweet, sibling rivalry. Everyone of us sees things a little differently.

I had to leave early to take Jeff to the airport. We made plans, except for David, to meet back at our father's house. I don't think us American siblings have ever spent time in our father's house together.

The get together at my father's house was more momentous that I could have ever imagined. My sister Susan was able to express how she learned from our father about hard work. She even cried and hugged him. Solange cried out to our father, "See, sweetheart, see", and then run to embrace Susan. Our father cried and told her how much he missed his little girl with the long hair.

Janyce sat next to Andreas and they discussed how they are both interested in the spiritual world, that they have visitors from the other world. Janyce especially wanted to discuss how superstitious our family is. Apparently, she remembered a story where a witch asked our grandfather to sell his soul. There were ravens. It was quite dramatic.

I told Andreas that he represents hope for this family. What I mean by this is that he doesn't have the same history and views our father differently than we do. He can show us something new about our father and his family.

Later, when I went back to my sister's house, my sister and I talked about forgiveness.

Day Two -- Continued

Lunch with Antje and Tara was a great success. Antje sat directly across from Andreas so they could talk more easily. I impressed Antje with how much German I knew, including the word for opportunity 'gelegenheit'.

During lunch Andreas had mentioned how much he missed good German bread. I suggested that we go to Siegfried's Delicatessen, which is the German restaurant that I grew up going to. Initially we had planned on going to Temple Square but when Andreas found out that we couldn't go into the temple, he had no interest in going.

Since it was raining and we hadn't brought an umbrella, Jeff bought two umbrellas at a bookstore nearby: one with kittens and one with dolphins. Andreas ended up taking the one with dolphins -- the most masculine one.

I could tell that Siegfried's was quite surreal for him. He asked me if different items were sold in American supermarkets but when I told him no he seemed surprised. He bought schwartzbrot and Jeff bought some schokolade.

Then we took him home and went to visit my Mom for awhile. I find it somewhat exhausting to move between my father and mother's world, between English and German.

The Second Day

Jeff and I picked up Andreas at 11 today to take him out to lunch with some of my German speaking friends in Salt Lake City. The day before we had had a preview of my stepmother, Solange, in the form of a rather garish, self important self portrait a la Alexis Carrington from the television show Dallas hanging on her wall. Yes, she seemed like a diva and we were excited to meet her.

Imagine our surprise to meet this very sweet, energetic Brazilian woman who threw her arms around both of us and truly seemed to welcome us from her heart. Andreas is staying in the basement apartment so she called down to him that we were here. We had some time to visit with her while waiting for Andreas. I asked her where my Dad was and she said just a minute, that he was here and she would call him. I thought she would just call out for him but she didn't she picked her cell phone and called him. Apparently, he was out in his trailer behind the house.

She embarassedly said, "He needs to be alone sometimes." After a couple of minutes, he came into the house, looking like he had just woken up. The other piece of news is that Solange has purchased a condo and will soon be moving. My father is refusing to move with her. Another marriage bites the dust, perhaps?

Lunch with my friend, Tara, and her mother, Antje, was wonderful. On the way there I asked Andreas if he had ever wondered if he were a lesbian before he began to transition and he very strongly in German replied, "No, I would have been with a woman. There would have been no problem."

The conversation at lunch was interesting. Antje sat across from Andreas so that they could communicate in German more directly. Antje is originally from Hamburg and her grandparents lived in Itzehoe where Andreas now lives...

(I will post more later. I need to meet my Uncle for breakfast).

Day one of my visit

Sunday morning -- while my Mom made Jeff and me a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast and orange juice, we interviewed her on video about when she first found out about Angelika (the birth name of Andreas). She told us that she knew about her before she married Wilford and that after they married she paid $40.00/month in child support to her. Apparently, someone at the German Embassy in San Franscisco was stealing this money because when my father went to apply for citizenship, he wasn't cleared based on non payment of child support to a minor child. Even though they had proof of payments, my father got angry and decided not to pursue citizenship any more. We got some great footage of my Mom, at one point she even flips the bird to accentuate how she feels about my Dad. I was a little surpised that there is still so much energy behind her feelings for him.

While we were eating my sister Janyce stopped by with her daughter Julia, which gave us another video opportunity since she had met Andreas the day before. She told us that she called Dad to come help her with a flat tire. Andreas arrived with him and was very nice and warm, but they really weren't able to communicate much since he knows very little English. She said the he and Dad are tight, drinking buddies, and they have really bonded. It's hard to believe that he was ever a woman, even though he is shorter than she expected.

After interviewing her, I called my Dad. He and Adreas were on their way to go for a hike near Draper. Even though half way there, he insisted that he turn around and come pick us up. When Andreas and Dad got out of his van, I was surprised at how gray both of them were. Perhaps Andreas has dyed his hair in some of the photos he sent me or he has just recently started going gray. The most striking feature on Andreas is his eyes, they are very kind.

I, of course, forgot what I was going to say to him and merely said, hello. He said, "Das ist Robert" and gave me a hug. Jeff didn't get the video up and running in enough time so the moment was lost to video.

After I relaxed a little I was amazed at how much German I remembered and could understand. All of us had a wonderful time on this hike together. I learned so much about Andreas's life. He told me that he started the transition at 28. He has had so many surgeries and is now extremely tired of surgeries. His grandparents raised him and were extremely supportive of his need to change his body. He spoke of his "seele" or soul a lot that his sould felt like it was in the wrong body. Another interesting word that he used a lot was "problem". He called his condition 'mein Problem'.

At one point Andreas asked me why I didn't have a lot of contact with our father. I struggled to put the right words on the reason but merely told him that after my parents divorced, I went to live with my mother, and there were too many problems between them. I also said that our father didn't accept me because I wasn't masculine enough for him. He seemed to understand.

About halfway up the trail, Andreas's wife Lisa called and I was able to talk to her. She has the sweetest voice and laugh. Apparently, she really misses Andreas and he misses her. They talk all the time. I told her that Jeff and I would come to visit her next summer or fall. She was extremely excited about this.

My father was extremely nice to Jeff and me. At one point Jeff captured us talking in German together about Andreas. Then I started talking a little about how difficult my journey was to accept myself.

I have to admit there were a couple of strange moments for me. When I told my Dad that Susan offered to have Andreas stay with Jeff and me at her house. He said that Andreas has come mainly to see him and that Andreas is extremely protective of him. I had no idea what that meant. Then, the other strange moment was when I went into my father's house and saw how much he pampers his current wife and stepson. I couldn't help but compare this to the poverty that I grew up in but I also realize that he is in his twilight years and probably realizes that he can't take it with him. I think he is less of a hoarder these days.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to upload any photos but will do so later.

My questions for Andreas.

The problem with asking any of these questions is that I will have limited time with Andreas and I am of the mind that you need to find the appropriate time for personal questions like these. Also, Germans, from my experience are more reserved about personal questions than Americans.

I think I will have to wait to see how our first meeting goes to know if I can ask some of these questions. My partner, Jeff, who is more forthright than I, will have additional questions I am sure.

These are the questions I hope I will feel comfortable asking...

How old were you when you made the transition from female to male?

• Auf Deutsch: Wie alt warst du, als du den Übergang von der Frau dem Mann machst?
  

What types of obstacles did you encounter?

• Welch tippt von Hindernissen, begegnetest du dich?
  

How were you treated once you became legally male?

• Wie wurdst du behandelt, sobald du gesetzlich männlich wurdst
  
  
  
  There are also questions I may not ever feel comfortable asking...
  
  
  
  Why shouldn't I feel comfortable asking my brother any and all of these questions? Well, the truth is that I do not really know him that well. We have exchanged a couple of letters where I get the impression that he transitioned a long time ago and might wish to close that part of his life.

The day before...

I called my Dad last night. He and Adreas were out driving around taking photos of people's houses. My Dad said, "We took a picture of Susan's (ny oldest sister's) house but we didn't go in."

This is odd to me except I don't know if he feels exactly welcome in any of my sibling's homes. I am sure there are reasons. I have heard rumors of drunken excess on his part and have witnessed enough of them firsthand. Obviously, he is proud of his children's material accomplishments but he has such a difficult time connecting and feels like such an outsider. Why would he want to keep Andreas to himself? Is he protecting him for some reason.

I have sensed that each time I have called my father in the last two weeks since Andreas has been in town that he has seemed excited to hear from me. "Are you in town?," he always says with a great deal of enthusiasm. When I tell him that I'm not, he seems disappointed.

Strangely, I don't know if any of my brothers and sisters have even met Andreas. My Dad works for my older brother, David, a couple of hours a day as a delivery driver. I don't feel comfortable calling my older brother to ask him because he has some marital problems. So instead I called my nephew Jason who also works with my brother to find out if he has met Andreas yet. He told me that he hadn't.

I wonder if Andreas is uncomforable to meet them because of the whole language barrier but this doesn't account for everything since I know that Andreas speaks a little English and our Dad can translate for him. His English is quite limited, though.

A few weeks before his trip to Utah Andreas called me and left a message on my answering machine. He said, "I speak a little English". And then he cleared his throat for a few seconds and continued, "I fly...Utah..October...okay?"

I have been on a crash course to learn more German. I am a little nervous to speak German with him but I'm sure that we will communicate just fine. I am hoping I can introduce him to more of my siblings once I get there.

Two days before the trip...

On Saturday I am flying to Utah to meet my oldest brother, Andreas, for the first time. Andreas lives in Itzehoe, Germany with his wife of more five years, Lisa. Our father immigrated from Pineburg, Germany near Hamburg at the age of 19 to a suburb outside Salt Lake City when Andreas was only two. Andreas only saw him one more time when he was 4, when our father left my mother and moved back to Germany for a short while. Andreas still has a photo of our father and himself as a four-year old Angelika at that time.

Yes, that’s right, Andreas, the one on the right, and I have different mothers, grew up speaking different languages but share the same father, the same gender, if there even is such a thing as a gender that anyone shares, even though he was born legally female. Although now both legally classified as male, we do not share the same sexual orientation: I am attracted to men, he to women.

His birth name was Angelika and that is how I first heard of my “sister”. Angelika Kohler, I always imagined her living a more glamorous, worldly life than my life as a conflicted, bookish Mormon gay boy striving for perfection in Utah.

From photos I have now seen of him he appears “all male”, in fact much more masculine than I, with his goatee, enjoying a stein of beer and a Marlboro cigarette at a restaurant in Barcelona, or in a suit and tie with his beautiful, blond wife by his side at their wedding in northern Germany.

In fact, I must confess a secret fear that comes from years of feeling rejected by our father and coming out as gay in a small Mormon community. I am actually afraid that even though he was born female, he might be the son my father always wanted, that he might be more male than I.

Of course, this is silly and puerile. We are not brothers doing stunts in our backyard at the age of five to impress our father. We are not in competition and I am not that invested in being male.

Or so I tell myself. But I wonder if this is a luxury that we whose minds and bodies are in agreement can afford to have. Would I want to become a woman if given the opportunity?

I have great respect for women, some of the best people in my life are female but I’m fairly certain that I don’t want to become one. Not that I’m overly invested in being male either. I think though that if I woke up yesterday and felt that I was in the wrong gender, that my body did not reflect the essence of who I am, I am certain that gender would matter more.