When I was a kid back in the 1980s, my mom used to get her hair done once a month and would take me with her. Her hairdresser was a guy named Anthony who reminded me of Ricky Ricardo, but if he dressed like a 1970s disco pimp and had a Boston accent.
After my mom had been going to him to get her hair done for several months, he'd come over for coffee once a week while my dad was at work.
Once in awhile my mom and Anthony would also go shopping, usually to the local mall, and my mom would drag me along. Usually I hated going anywhere with my mom, for a lot of reasons, but I loved it if "Uncle Anthony" was around. He was my hero. And my mom was very fond of Anthony, calling him "the brother she never had". He was the closest thing my mom had to a best friend, other than my friend Laura's mom.
My dad didn't like him at all and called him "that faggot Anthony" and threatened to "punch his fucking faggot face". I had no idea what that word meant. I looked it up in the dictionary and it said "bundle of sticks". Why would my dad call Uncle Anthony a bundle of sticks?
One time I told my mom, "You should leave my dad. I want Uncle Anthony to be my dad." Even then, I knew something was seriously wrong at home and my father was an asshole.
My mom laughed. "Uncle Anthony can't be your dad. Uncle Anthony is gay."
"What does gay mean?"
"A boy who likes boys."
"Oh!" I was all of four years old and something clicked in my head. I thought of myself as a boy and didn't understand why I had girl parts. "I'm a boy who likes boys! See, Uncle Anthony really is my dad!"
My mom backhanded me. "Don't you EVER fucking say that again," she snarled.
But, I still felt it in my heart. Uncle Anthony was the only grownup who talked to me like I was a person. Not an annoying nuisance, like my father, and not a living doll to play only the way she wanted to and then be put away when bored of me, like my mother.
I struggled talking to people - the phrase "selective mutism" was used by professionals when I was in elementary school - but I always talked to Uncle Anthony. I liked him. He was the greatest guy ever, next to Jesus. I once asked Anthony if he was Saint Anthony, and he thought I was hilarious. "This kid's gonna be a comedian," he told my mom. But I really thought Anthony had special powers. My mom was actually nice to me when he was around, she didn't call me names or smack me!
"What do you want to be when you grow up, pumpkin?" Uncle Anthony asked me one day when he was doing my mom's hair and I was reading a book.
"I wanna be David Bowie when I grow up," I said; "Let's Dance" was playing at the salon just then, one of my favorite songs.
Uncle Anthony laughed like this delighted him and he tousled my hair and gave me a cupcake from the table of refreshments he kept for clients, while my mom glared daggers at us. "You wanna be Ziggy Stardust for Halloween, pumpkin?" he asked.
"Yeah!"
"ANTHONY YOU ARE NOT DRESSING MY CHILD UP LIKE ZIGGY FUCKING STARDUST," my mom roared.
Uncle Anthony gave my mom a look and said, "Gurl, let this poor child live a little."
As it got closer to my fifth birthday, Uncle Anthony asked me what I wanted for my birthday.
"I want to be a boy," I told him. "I'm a boy who likes boys."
My mother got up, eyes blazing, and began a slow march. For the first time, it looked like she was going to hit me in front of him. Uncle Anthony got in between me and her, shielding me with himself, and put up his hands. "Jesus Christ," he said to her, "if he wants to be a boy, let him be a boy. What's the harm in that? Let him be himself."
"...DO NOT CALL MY CHILD 'HIM'," my mother screeched.
Uncle Anthony blinked slowly and said nothing.
Many years later when I saw the 1984 version of Dune for the first time, I would think of my mom screaming at Uncle Anthony, when the Bene Gesserit used The Voice.
Uncle Anthony stopped coming over as much after that - he seemed wary of my mother now - but he was still supposed to do my hair for my fifth birthday party, and my mom left me alone with him because I would scream and cry when she did my hair at home, it hurt and she didn't care, and she was expecting more of the same but worse. She dropped me off with a case of beer, "because you'll need it," she told him.
I was going to have a party at Burger King with my classmates from nursery school. My mom had picked out some horrible fucking froo-froo outfit, shiny Pepto-Bismol pink, sequins, poofy, like if the 1980s was personified as a party dress, this was it. I didn't want to wear it, I wanted to wear my overalls and my turtleneck with ducks on it instead. But my mom wanted me to wear that pink dress, and to go with the "princess" look she wanted me to have a perm, even though I was only five.
Instead of doing what my mother wanted, Uncle Anthony said to me, "You don't really want a perm, do you."
"No." I made a face. Perms smelled yucky, and I didn't want to look like a poodle.
Uncle Anthony smiled. "You want me to make you a boy?"
He cut my hair short and I was thrilled. It was the best present EVER. He even said he wished I was his son.
When my mother went to pick me up, she backhanded him, then she backhanded me, and she told him, "I am never speaking to you again."
She made good on that. Weeks passed, months passed. One day when I was sad and crying "I miss Uncle Anthony," my mom said, "It's for the best. He was trying to make you turn into one of those queers. He probably would have started molesting you. given time."
I didn't know what that word meant, but now that I'm (much) older and I do know the meaning of that word: I'm very, very sure he wouldn't have. He didn't touch me when we were alone and he was cutting my hair. He was always a gentleman.
Of course, I would years later find out this accusation was pure projection on my mother's part... like so many abusers.
As the years passed, I still missed Uncle Anthony. I think my mom kind of did too. I'm dyslexic and she used to drill me in spelling, and I struggled with the word "anonymous" and she did an exercise where Anthony Mouse tries to steal a piece of cheese and goes in disguise and becomes Anonymous. I had an imaginary pet mouse named Anthony, and I had a headcanon that the mouse from If You Give A Mouse A Cookie was named Anthony.
When I was confirmed as a Catholic, I took the name Antonia.
When I was in high school, I started going out with Uncle Anthony's nephew, Mike, who was older than me by two years. Aka "Little Mike", not to be confused with his dad "Big Mike", who ran the auto shop that was my dad's competitor. I hadn't seen Uncle Anthony in years - my mom used to make occasional tasteless jokes about how he probably died from AIDS - but there he was at a family reunion, where I was Mike's date. He wasn't dressed like a 1970s relic anymore, he was just in a T-shirt and jeans, and he looked older, but I recognized him right away.
"Hey, pumpkin!" he said and gave me a big bone-crunching hug. "Long time no see!" I was so happy I tried not to cry.
Later that evening, dark clouds began gathering and it looked like it was going to rain and most of the cookout attendants were gone but Mike was helping his dad clean up so I lingered, polishing off the fruit. Uncle Anthony took me off to the side and stole some grapes from my plate, making me smile. "How've you been, squirt?" he asked.
"Not good." I gave him the condensed version of what had happened with my family over the last twelve years since I'd seen him.
Uncle Anthony listened solemnly, and finally he leaned back and said, "Kiddo, what the fuck are you doing with your life?"
"...What do you mean?"
Our eyes met. "Do you still want to be a boy?"
I nodded. Then I looked down, my face on fire, genuinely worried a lightning bolt was going to come from the sky and strike me right there. "It's a sin against God."
Uncle Anthony facepalmed. Then he reached out and took my hand - a fatherly gesture, innocent. "I can help you. I have a friend who went to Thailand and became a girl. She knew she was a girl when she was a kid, just like you telling me you were a boy. And... Mike wants kids. You don't really want to get pregnant, do you? You don't really want this life, do you?"
I pulled back. The idea of being pregnant scared the shit out of me, but I wasn't even sure how a doctor could turn me into a boy and that seemed scarier, somehow. I wanted it, so badly - my eyes teared up; it was like Data or Pinocchio getting an offer to be a real human boy - but I thought of God sending me into the pit of hell for going against nature. "I don't want to go to hell," I told him. "I don't want you to go to hell, either. This is wrong."
Uncle Anthony looked away like he was in pain, pinched the bridge of his nose, and just walked away without saying anything.
We never spoke again after that.
I did break up with Mike, because yes, he did want to have kids and he wanted to start now. But it would be another sixteen years before my brain would make the connection that yes, living as a boy was something I could actually do now.
My mother never accepted me, and it only got worse after Trump. But I like to believe Uncle Anthony would be proud of me, if he could see me now.
I am so very sorry I hurt him.