We’re taking a break from our Stories of COVID-19 series until Jan. 8. But in the meantime, we have a fan-favorite story from one of our online live shows to share with you!
Today’s story is from Sam Long, a high school science teacher in Colorado and the co-founder of GenderInclusiveBiology.com and the Colorado Transgender/Nonbinary Educators Network. Growing up, Sam loves learning about biology from his scientist mother. But their relationship starts to change after he asks her, “Can you change if you're a boy or a girl?”
Sam’s story was originally told at one of our online live shows in November (“The Real Me”). To access recordings of all of our past online live shows, become one of our Patreon subscribers. Find out more about future online live shows here.
Story Transcript
When I was eight years old, I thought my mom was the smartest, most amazing person in the world. It was an honor any time she asked me for help, whether it was folding sheets together, getting dinner ready or helping her with work. "Yes," she said with a smile, "you can help me with my science work." And so I leapt up onto her queen-sized bed and she handed me a sheet of paper covered with these hundreds of thin, wavy lines. They were in red, blue, green and black ink. Above each wave's peak was a capital letter, which my mom asked me to read out loud.
A. A. C. T. T. C. G. T. A. A. G. G. A. T. C.
I lay across the bed, propped up on my elbows, reading out sequence after sequence. Mom sat her petite frame on an oversized office chair and she compared my letters to the ones on her paper. If they were different, she would mark it down. I asked, "Mom, why are there only four letters here? What is this?" Mom looked up and pushed back her long, fine hair. She said, "This is DNA. The strands of DNA contained instructions for life, for making all living things. And I thought, "Wow, four letters only for making every living thing, including me." Mom explained that a machine used the waves to read the DNA code, but it made some mistakes, so we had to check it. By helping her, I was helping scientists understand more about biology. It wasn't just mother-daughter time. It was like a job. I was helping with science. As early as I understood the idea of a family, I understood that science was at the core of my family, my mom and dad had both studied biology at Sichuan University in China. As the top students in their class, they were able to continue their training in the United States. Here they became parents to twin girls, my sister and me. My dad studied bacteria, the tiniest of life. But when we were just babies, he died in a car accident.
My mom studied plants and later yeast, and every time we moved to a new city, it was because she got a new job there. My stepdad had been a science teacher, but he was training for a new career, making computer programs for science research. One day I was helping prepare vegetables for dinner. My mom gave me a bowl of long green beans, and I sat at the table snapping them into bite-sized pieces, removing the thick string that wasn't digestible. As I repeated this task, a question popped into my head, so I asked it. "Mom, can people change their names? Can you change if you're a boy or a girl?" Mom stayed facing toward the kitchen sink, acting hesitant. Was she unsure of the answer or unsure of why I was asking? She eventually just said, "No, not really." And that was it. By the time I was a junior in high school, I found the answer on my own and I knew why I had been asking. I was a boy. Yes, you can become a boy. The realization of who I had been all along was joyous, but I kept that joy inside. I transitioned gradually, first by cutting my hair and going by a new name and wearing the clothes that I liked.
My mom wanted to shut this down immediately. She said to me, "I gave birth to you. I know you are a girl." She said, "You can't change nature. Trust me, I'm a scientist." I tried to give Mom more time to accept me as Sam. I focused on keeping my grades up. My favorite class was Biology with Mr. Coulter, where every day I got closer to fully understanding those As, Ts, Cs, and Gs that I have been reading since I was eight. In the winter of junior year, we learned about genetics and reproduction, I learned that XX chromosomes were for women and XY were for men, except me. I learned that a zygote is formed by the union between an egg cell, always made by a woman, and a sperm cell, always made by men, except me. With every gross generalization that we spoke or read, I felt like everyone was looking at me and sensing that I didn't belong. With every sweeping statement that left me behind, making me acutely aware that I wasn't normal, I would say to myself, "Except me." Mr. Coulter may not have noticed my anxiety with genetics, but he saw my aptitude and he signed me up for the national biology competition in the spring.
This was a written exam for high schoolers with the top prize of a college scholarship to study biology. The exam would test us on some complex topics that we hadn't learned yet in class, which I love to reason through and figure out for the first time.
In the weeks before the exam, I studied hard because I loved science and I wanted to make my mom proud. When the scores came back, I had done the best out of all the juniors in my school. Mr. Coulter said, "You know, you should definitely take the exam again when you're a senior. You could probably win that scholarship." So that evening at dinner, I mentioned this to my mom and she seemed happy about it. She asked me what was on the exam. We discussed a few of the topics. I felt like a real child of science talking shop with my mom. It was a lot better than having my mom grill me over my choice to cut my hair. By the spring of my senior year, I learned much more about biology, and I was confident I could ace this exam, but I didn't mention it to my mom. Our relationship had gone cold and hostile. She stopped asking me to help with dinner and we ate dinner in silence. At one point, she said, "If you're not my daughter, you're not a part of this family." I was hurt, but I didn't have time to grieve, I had to make an exit plan. I was going to turn eighteen on April 30th. I could legally change my name, graduate, and then move out on my own. I planned to work minimum wage for a few years to get financially independent, then go to college. It would be a long way to college, but it would be my way.
I had this all sorted out, except one thing. I needed a notary to sign the name-change forms. So I thought of my friend Melissa, whose mom was a lawyer, and Melissa's mom agreed to be my notary. She said we could walk over to her house just down the street from school during lunch to get the paper signed. We set the earliest possible date to do this, my birthday, April 30th, and I couldn't wait. I would be getting the gift of a lifetime: legal recognition of who I was. But I screwed up. It was the same day as the biology exam -- same day, same time, same lunch hour. I thought about staying for the exam and just going on a later day to get the paper signed -- that way I could get a great score and probably win a scholarship to major in biology, this fascinating science that I was born to study. That might even make my mom smile again. It had been so long since she really smiled. But this would mean delaying my name change, delaying it again when I had already been waiting years. I thought about skipping the exam or leaving early. That way I could get my name change filed and it would probably go through by the last day of school, I would leave high school and walk out into the world as Sam Long, the man and the adult. I want it badly to be my own man with a driver's license and a job, and I even wanted that dinky little plastic employee name tag as long as it read Sam.
Maybe I wanted all this even more than I wanted to be a part of my family or even more than I wanted to be a scientist. I couldn't decide what to do. On April 30th at lunch hour, I still couldn't decide. I was sitting hunched at a desk among 30 other students working on this national biology exam. It was 12:10 p.m. and I had blown through all the questions in just the first 20 minutes. I looked at the clock and I thought, "I could leave now." I could turn in my exam and leave. Then I looked down at my answer sheet. For sure, I had missed a few questions by going so fast -- this wasn't like me. A child of science would take this seriously and stay and check every answer, do what it takes to be the number-one student, just like my mom was. I picked up my pencil and I started checking answers. The first question was something about photosynthesis, but then I thought, what am I doing trying to get a better score? What good is that going to do? Get me a scholarship? Why would I want a scholarship where the name inscribed is not my name? What good is it going to do? Do I really think a perfect score is going to be enough to make my mom love me again? Do I even want my mom's love when she has hurt me so badly?
I am 18 today, and it's time for me.
But maybe I could stay for five more minutes, maybe 10, and still have enough time to go see the lawyer. Could I risk it? What's an appropriate amount of time to allocate to a national science competition versus the legal recognition of my own identity? I'm running out of time. I need to go with my gut. I'm not my mother's daughter. I am my own man. At 12:15 p.m., I packed up my pencils and I raised my hand for Mr. Coulter to collect my exam. My hands shook in the air and my heart sounded like galloping horses. It took all of my conviction to keep my hand raised up, but I did. Mr. Coulter seemed surprised I was already done. He knew nothing of my dilemma. He was probably thinking, "Well, there goes your scholarship."
But then I stood up and I could feel my blood running through me. I walked with such momentum through the door, down the hall, through the double doors and into the sunlight. I knew what I was doing and I knew who I was.