Oliver Radclyffe was a 40-year-old mother of four and homemaker who had gone from an upbringing of privilege into a marriage of privilege (with a brief detour into biker culture as a young adult). Yet he was suffering from unexplained pain, mood swings, and hair loss that his doctor suggested could be from mental stress. Then one day in 2011, watching a motorcycle rally with his children, he had the epiphany that “I could see exactly who I was: a man on a motorbike, in love with a woman.”
He first identified as a lesbian and began dating a woman; his marriage fell apart. Eventually, he realized that he was a trans man. While this didn’t sit well with his then-partner, a woman, he knew he had to be true to himself. Throughout these changes, he sought to continue being a loving caregiver to his children while he also sought queer community at an LGBTQ-run bookstore and in the Late Bloomers LGBTQ affinity group. His earlier upbringing has insulated him from much contact with or information about queer identities, and he takes us sometimes self-deprecatingly through his learning and coming out journey.
Radclyffe also muses on parenthood—on the ways that it is gendered in our society, on his concerns that his transition will screw up his kids, and on his own parental identity. He writes, for example, “I’d pushed four children out of my birth canal—two of them within three minutes of each other—and then spent the next thirteen years single-handedly tending to their physical, spiritual, educational, and emotional needs. Nobody was going to tell me I wasn’t a mother.”
And despite his concerns, he ultimately realized the positive things that his transition had given his children, saying, “I didn’t know who or what my children would become, but whatever my failings as a parent—and I knew there had been many—my children would walk out into the world armed with all the tools I’d once lacked: courage, curiosity, the confidence to form their own opinions and trust their own instincts.”
The story has its share of pain and loss, but it is not a story of tragedy. It shows how being our true selves helps our children be theirs, and affirms that queer joy is possible, even when it comes late.
Content warning: Substance abuse.
