My father, the woman

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 23:30:00 +0000

My siblings and I have a hard time on Father’s Day. It reminds us that the anniversary of our dad’s murder is around the corner: July 7, 1993. I was 22 when he died, shot by strangers in his basement, and every year we wrestle with how to honor his complicated memory. Lately, we can’t even agree if he was a man, let alone our father.

I fought with my sister about this two years ago on Father’s Day, when I was back home in Seattle visiting her. We avoided the topic all day, until she came home in the wee hours from her bartending job at a gay bar.

“I was talking with Jean tonight about Dad,” she said. Jean was one of her transgender customers. “And Jean said, ‘Maybe you were never meant to celebrate Father’s Day, because your dad was always meant to be a woman.’” She looked at me as though this might be a consolation, but I was having none of it.

“That’s absurd!” I said, because I believe our dad was a man through and through. He was 6-foot-7. He was lanky, deep-voiced. I often described his personality as somewhere between Anthony Bourdain and Howard Stern. What was most damning, in my mind, was how physically abusive he was to my mother and me. Bridgette missed much of this. She was 5 when I went into foster care at 15. The court made my dad take anger management classes after that. “He was always talking about how he hated women,” I said. “If that’s the case, how could he have really been one?”

Salon.com > Tanya Quaife

My father, the woman