With all the discussion about abortions and many people courageously putting themselves out there sharing their personal experiences, I thought I’d share a little tidbit with you as well.
A little over 52 years ago my biological mother lived in Stuttgart and had a boyfriend from Italy. She had just moved out at home and was trying to make it on her own. He was a foreign worker who came from Southern Italy.
Both were 18 years old when they met, and both came from very strict, Christian families. Sex was never talked about in their families, and contraception was definitely a taboo.
Like any teenagers who are in love, they soon did have sex, yet had no idea what to do to protect each other.
So, they did the best they could come up with, which was that he always tried to pull out before ejaculating… Until… one night, there was a vehicle collision in the intersection where they lived and one of the cars slammed into the wall of their apartment building exactly when my biological dad climaxed and should have pulled out.
He didn’t, of course, being startled by the deafeningly loud impact of the car which made the entire building shake in its foundations.
His sperm went its merry way, and I was conceived.
It took my mom ages to realize she was pregnant. When she did, my dad and her both panicked. He ran away to Italy, and she tried to go back home to her parents who promptly disowned her because they wanted nothing to do with a sinner who had sex before marriage.
My biological mom had no choice but to go to the only place back then that would take her: a refuge for pregnant prostitutes, where they were allowed to stay until they gave birth.
Abortion was never discussed. She was never given a choice. And thus the road to disaster was paved.
As soon as my mom gave birth, she was told to leave the shelter. Then the German state took charge and declared her unfit to raise a child due to not having any family support.
They took me away from her at 3 months old and brought me to an orphanage.
What ensued from there were incredible hardships and struggles for both her and I.
Traumata and pain that never healed on both sides.
So, I ask, what gives anyone the right to tell a young woman who finds herself at a dead end what to do? It is her life and the life of her child which hangs in the balance. It should be no one’s decision but hers.
And adoption is, from own experience, a bit like Russian Roulette. You can get lucky or plunge from one nightmare straight into the next one…
Outlawing abortion is about as far away from being pro-life as I can possibly imagine. It is a blatant violation of human rights.
And no one, especially not a bunch of privileged white males, should ever be allowed to tell women what to do with their bodies.
Yesterday, on June 18th, 2022, the annual Zurich PRIDE parade took place in the center of town. It was the first parade after the pandemic. And it was fabulous in so many ways… let me tell you more…
Arriving at the meeting point, I already thought, “Oh, there are way more people here than in the years before.” However, at the time, I didn’t see all the PRIDE participants who didn’t fit into Helvetia square but were waiting in the adjacent streets for the parade to begin.
When the 8 trucks started going, everyone cheered and our parade slowly, slowly began making its way through downtown Zurich. As soon as we all filed into one of the larger streets it became quite obvious that we had far surpassed the usual approximately 10’000 participants.
All around me was a sea of rainbows, goodwill, and happiness. It was so strong and tangible in the air, you could almost touch it, bottle it, and take it home with you as an antidote for dreary, less inclusive days.
I wondered why people had turned up in such high numbers in our small metropolis. Maybe it was a general urge people felt to throw themselves into the masses after being cooped up at home for so long? Or maybe it was the fact that on July 1st, 2022, the same sex marriage will be officially legalized in Zurich? Or, maybe, times really are changing and have changed much more than we even realize?
This year’s parade motto was “Trans – Living Diversity.”
We had gone as a team with members of the PRIDE network of our company, BCG. A few allies came along as well which was fabulous. All of us together had a great time and we spent most of the day losing each other, then searching and finding each other again in this sea of joyful human beings.
As we immersed ourselves more deeply into the parade, we began following one truck in particular. It was bright green and offered by far the best DJ of all the trucks in the parade. The music was fantastic. Getting your body moving all on its own.
Even more fantastic was that on the side of the truck was written in large letters “Trans Rights Now” and on the back of the truck the creative organizers had written in flowers “Heroes.”
Letting the beat go through me, I felt the words and actions of the people around me going through me as well. And I was in tears (joyful ones!) most of the time.
When I transitioned 27 years ago, it had been such an isolated, lonely road. And definitely no one considered us to be heroes.
I had been luckier than most to have amazing friends who, for the most part, stuck by me and still do, to this day. I had also been lucky to live in a country where I didn’t need to fear for me life due to being a trans man.
But, nevertheless, I had needed to jump through way too many, emotionally painful, bureaucratic hoops. And, over the years, living and working abroad in 11 different countries, I often did need to fear for my safety and my life.
But in the first few years of transitioning, the bureaucratic and medical processes were the hardest. The doctors who did the surgery to remove my breasts didn’t care much to do a good job and left me with enormous scars. For many years this made it hard for me to take my shirt off in public.
Then, I was assigned to a psychiatrist who sabotaged me when giving his professional evaluation needed by the authorities. This man deduced I wasn’t manly enough because he felt my handshake wasn’t strong enough. So, he wrote that I wasn’t truly transgender. Thankfully another psychiatrist supported me all the way and ended up being the heavier weight on the scale.
After injecting testosterone for the first time, it took 10 years until I was finally allowed to change my gender in all official papers. For most of those 10 years, I already looked like a man and spent way too many moments needing to explain to total strangers in official places why I looked like a man but had a passport that stated me as female.
I always tried to move on and see the positive side of life. For the most part, I succeeded (interspersed by the odd depression and anxiety attacks). Overall, however, if I am completely honest to myself and to you, there were way too many long years of challenges, adversity, hardship, and pain.
So, seeing this wonderful, boisterous truck in the parade, and seeing so much evidence of support for trans people, I was overwhelmed by a flood of emotions.
Never had I thought I would ever see a pro-trans parade like this. Never had I expected to see a truck like this, loudly and happily proclaiming “Here we are!”
Several of the large businesses along the streets we were marching through put up enormous rainbow banners.
It was scorching hot. In some houses people were throwing fans from their balconies into the crowd (when I say “fans,” I mean the kind you use to refresh yourself by propelling air towards your face, not the human kind).
In many other houses along our route, the inhabitants were using hoses, buckets, water bottles, anything that could hold a little water to pour over the crowd. Each squirt and drop of water raining down on us from above resulted in loud cheers of thankfulness from hundreds of people.
We even passed a church where several old ladies helped rehydrate us as well. A sight which again brought me to tears in its infinite kindness and clear display of love, mutual respect, and open-mindedness.
Overall, a day to remember forever.
And, as we found out afterwards through the news, it had been 40’000 people who took part in this year’s Zurich PRIDE parade!
40’000! Plus the amazing supporters all along the parade who were showering us with water and preventing us from sun stroke.
Here is to diversity and inclusion, and the freedom to be exactly who you know you are! 💛🧡❤️💚💙💜
Liam Klenk 