Rapid modernity in the world has actually caused a lot of unique things that have surprised people, caused fear and even made others happy. Transgender is the ability of a person to have desire of being an opposite sex and identify with it everywhere without shame. These kinds of people will always expect respect from the society and have never imagined that they can be underrated. Noelle Howey has shared her story perfectly well through the book Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods - My Mother's, My Father's, and Mine.
Throughout her life, Noelle struggled to gain the true affection for her father who she termed as distant. The father was to take place for her real father who was already very unfriendly and rough for her to enjoy being next to. She also lived with her mother whom she says that also had very many characteristics of a man and so was a tomboy to her. This clearly shows how much she felt so low and unhappy at the beginning of the life making her see that nobody around was willing to help the situation being the grandmother was also very conservative.
Surprisingly, Noelle could not clearly understand the real happenings until one day at the age of 14 when her mother told her the truth. Her father’s transgender desire was almost like a secret in the family because she could not be put in the light early enough. This was until her mother could now come up and tell her. She either suspected the happenings but believed that the grandmother was also very conservative. However, the mother could not fully explain to her what it really was for her father to like the women clothes. This was although enough for her to complete in mind that the father admires being a woman. She did not have any power to resist or add because what she was told was already happening and above all she did not find it so easy to face him due to his brusqueness.
“There is no news as to hear indisputable evidence that you are not the exclusive reason of your parent’s problems and sufferings. One’s steady feeling that you are not put together in a right manner and later find out that the problem was from before brought about by the father who for a long time was trying to evolve from one form to another without any mind of revenge but yearning for angora,” Said Noelle in her book Dress Codes.
Additionally, she had to cope with the life although a very turbulent adolescence which made her to be more confused about the kind of role models she can decide on. She got it so hard to understand the concept of taking people the way they are and whom to emulate in life because things were not to her expectation of life. In her era of nurturing what the reality about her family was, is when her father metamorphosed into a very loving and kind parent she ever longed for. She felt happy although whom she now called with passion was ever in pink lipstick, pedal pushers and very many other women clothes.
The truth shall ever come out so clear about how the family felt before they could gain the courage of putting everything in public that at the beginning was not so easy even to let the children know of what thy called a family’s secret. Noelle at first could refer her father as, “I have a girl for a father.” The dress codes that her father came up to start putting on that were actually women’s, made her make a conclusion of the dress codes are not sensationalistic but is rather poignant. She further says that when she saw her father dressed like a woman, she felt torn up. This is when things were not right with her and her emotions were highly triggered and felt so disappointed by her father. The putting on of women make ups made her feel the he was going an extra mile of more shame and a lot of disgrace upon her.
In conclusion, all that she had longed for about her father came to pass after he had fulfilled his dream and could now be called a lady or woman. Otherwise, the transgender parents have almost gone through the same problems Noelle’s family passed through.
Work Cited
Howey Noelle, 2006, Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods-My Mother's, My Father's and Mine, NY, Picador
