August 1992 — First International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy, Hilton Southwest, Houston, TX

My son is named Randy, and I love him very much.  We were separated back in 1976, before his sixth birthday. He’s now 22 years old, and up until last December in 1991, he and 3 I had only seen each other one time during that span of 16 years. Last month in July of 1992, he and I celebrated his birthday together for the first time in all those years. He blew out 5 the candles and the whole nine yards. It was worth the wait.

Our families are very important to all of us in the gender community. Yes, George Bush! Yes, Pat Buchanan! Yes, Pat Robertson! And yes, the boy vice president, the transgender community does have families, and we care about our families. There is so much pain that we in the gender community experience with relation to our families merely to be true as to who we are.

Recently, a friend of mine named Jim had a heart bypass. Doctors took out a large vein from his leg, ripped open his chest to put it in there. He’s recovered, and as we were chatting about it, I was doing some self-talk. As you know self-talk is whenever you’re chatting with someone or listening to them, and at the same time your talking in your own mind, preparing a response, or thinking about something even though you’re listening. As he was talking, my self-talk went something like this. “They tell us that if God wanted us to be women, those of us who are male to female, God would have done so. And yet God probably didn’t want this man to die because there was an  interference of a very special surgery. Speaking of surgery, what makes the gender community surgery sinful, and yet his surgery was not sinful?” While he was telling me the story, I kept thinking about that all the while. He was surrounded by his very loving spouse and his children, and since we are friends and we were celebrating his life, I kept my thoughts to myself.

Being alive and being whole, that is all that we, as transgendered people seek. Yet The love of our families is always placed in jeopardy. Divorce, estrangement, ostracism, embarrassment, you name it. It’s just not consistent. In. addition, it’s just not fair, but it happens to all of us to some degree. It happened to me, and it took almost 16 years to work it out with my son. Even today, it’s still not completely worked out with my parents or with my siblings.

What I’m going to offer to you in the next few minutes is not THE solution to families, it just happened to be my solution in 1976. My solution in 1976 would definitely be different than my solution in 1992. I don’t want this to be construed as the solution in 1992, but it was what l did then, and I know we’re discussing different solutions today.

My first spouse divorced me in 1972. My son was two years old. She divorced me because of my cross dressing. During the next several years I visited Randy, and I spent days with him. Because my self-esteem was very low 13 at that time and because this was the 1970’s rather than today, 1992, I did, at that time, not choose to fight for possessory conservatorship. I do not want my remarks today to be construed that you should not fight to get possessory conservatorship. The judge, who’s going to be talking in a little bit, and I talked about that extensively, and I’ll let him carry that ball. But while I was visiting Randy, I still had hair on my face: I was growing a beard. I was trying very hard to make it as a man.

In 1975 I began to cross dress in public. My hair on my head got longer, obviously, I was clean shaven, my nails got longer, my eyebrows got thinner. Randy, my five year old, became very puzzled by my appearance, and his mother became very nervous whenever I visited. So, at that time in 1976, I made a decision. I would give my son and his mother all the space they needed to come to terms at their own speed with who I was.

I made that decision after much thought and prayer because I knew that even though I had spent most of my life surrounded by my mother and my father, and my sister and my brother, we were growing apart over the issue of my cross dressing and my transgender nature. Even though we had much physical nearness for all those years, it came to me that physical nearness was not the guarantee. Physical nearness was not the guarantee. It had to be more than that. I figured if I sacrificed some time now, back in 1976, Randy and I might be able to put it together in the future, and spend the rest of our lives as good friends.

What bothered me, though, was how did I insure that he would not grow up hating me, feeling that I had abandoned him? So, I wrote to him, and ! wrote, and I wrote to him every single month for years. I wrote to him. I just wrote what was happening in my life: What was going on.

Much happened during that time. His mother and i almost squared-off twice in the legal arena. She remarried. At the age of 11, my son decided for himself that he wanted to meet this Phyllis person once to see who she was and what she was all about. Also, his 16 mother asked me, and I complied with an inflationary raise in child support.

When he turned 18, I pledged to him to continue that same child support payment, even though it was no longer a legal obligation, for four more years until he turned 22. What I wanted to do was give him a stake towards his college, or any other future, and to help him out, ’cause let’s face it, when he was getting his braces and other things, I just didn’t have the money to go above what I was paying at the time.

I cried a lot during that time. Each of us sitting here who have children and who are facing this situation, or face this situation, we cry a lot. Every month when I wrote Randy, my son, the wound would reopen.  I was very honest with him about who I was.

Before he met Phyllis, I would sign the letters PH blank L. I would not sign PHIL, because that was not who I was, but I wasn’t going to force the of Phyllis on him. After he met me, I signed them Phyllis. Whenever he would send me a letter, which was a couple times a year, or his school picture, or whatever it was, it was addressed to Phyllis. As you can imagine Father’s Day was hell for me every year because my father would not be close to me, and my son had not yet figured out how to.

Then came three days before Christmas 1991, I was sitting in my office and he called. He was visiting his grandmother in San Antonio. And he said, “Phyllis?” And I said, “Yes.” And he said, “This is Randy.” Well, I didn’t know what his voice sounded like, and I said, “Randy who?” And he said, “Randy Frye, your son.” And I said, “Oh my God.” And I started crying, and I came completely undone, and I cried a lot.

When we decided that I was going to go to San Antonio the next day, I cried several times that evening. I had to go to Court that morning, and as I was driving to Court I broke into tears. I was on an elevator going up to the Court, and I’d see some of my friends, and I’d say, “Guess where I’m going today?” Where are you going? And I couldn’t even get it out, I’d start crying. I was just so screwed up — you know — and it was really something. When I got finished at the courthouse, I was going to the airport — driving to the airport — I was crying. When I got in the airplane I started crying. A lot of tension was going on.

Anyway, that day I saw him and we hugged, and of course, I cried, and he hugged me back. His mother and his grandmother were very gracious and loving, and we all hugged and all that healing was taken care of. He’s not shy about me at all. He s very warm and healing and once during that day when we were chatting he said, “Phyllis, you did a very good job with me. You stayed away from me long enough for me to come to terms with who you were, but you wrote me every single day for 16 years. I never ever doubted your love. I always knew that you were close by, and I always knew you’d come at a moment’s notice. I always knew that you wanted me.”

As we parted that day in December, he indicated that we would get together again, and we have done so often. He’s come to our home in Houston. He is now in graduate school, a professional school, studying to be an occupational therapist. And Trish, my spouse of 19 years, we’ve seen him several times.

Last week while we were talking on the phone, Randy and I visit on a weekly basis now, we got into a philosophical discussion. I again told him that his mother and his grandmother and his grandfather had done a very good job putting him together. I stated that I was so proud of him and that I was sorry that I couldn’t be there, and again he stated, “Phyllis, don’t worry about it. I knew you were there. I knew you loved me. I knew that you would come at any time.” And he said,

“Besides, I know you were catching a lot of hell, and I know you were going through a lot of problems, and I know people were assaulting you, either mentally or emotionally, time and time again.” And he says, “I think considering what you went through, you came out pretty good yourself.” That’s my son, and as we parted, once again, we stated our love for each other.

Source: “My Son,” by Phyllis Randolph Frye, Speech, 1992. Digital Transgender Archive. https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/n009w234m.