René Roberts

Straight women have a very special gift. Some of them have many. They all have one in common – they can carry on a twenty-minute discussion about shoes. Just shoes. Any shoes.

That should have been my first clue.

Not the fact that I wanted to undress Barbie more often than I wanted to dress her. Not the fact that my Barbie’s were powerful beasts who totally dominated Ken. I had one Ken and fourteen Barbie dolls. He was their bitch and could be found on his little handmade couch while the girls were out. By out I don’t mean dancing or shopping. They were out swimming in my dad’s fish pond and having a braai – my dad bought me the complete barbecue set. He also bought me the hair salon. I made it into a bar. All of that should have set off some alarm bells for my poor mother.

I digress.

Shoes.

We all wear them and some of us – mostly the straight women – worship them. I think shoes are a huge part of all of our lives. This is why there are so many profound sayings about shoes.

Take a walk in someone else’s shoes; if it hurts you, it probably hurts them too.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It’s ill waiting for dead men’s shoes.

I think one’s life can be likened to a favourite pair of shoes. Sometimes certain aspects of your life chafe and cause discomfort, but with passage of time, we settle comfortably. That’s exactly when it’s time to take a walk in someone else’s shoes.

I listen to a podcast every Friday. It beats office banter and we all know I’m just not a morning person. Nor am I an afternoon or evening person.

On the podcast today, they spoke about Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner. Now, what I hate more than Justin Bieber, is anything and everything Kardashian. I avoid it like herpes. So, I don’t know much about him/her apart from the fact that he/she should never have reproduced. On this podcast they also had a transgender guest called Rye Silverman. She used to do stand-up comedy as a man, but has transitioned and is now a woman. She probably now has the gift of talking about shoes for extended periods of time as well.

The host asked her if she’d ever felt unsafe as a result of her appearance, especially before she’d transitioned and she relayed an incident where she was assaulted on a train. For looking different. She also spoke about the newfound freedom she has, now that the world knows who and what she is.

This made me realise how fortunate I am.

I’d love to say that I had a struggle with my sexuality and that my coming out process was a nightmare, but I’d be lying. It was never a struggle for me. I knew from a very early age that I was different. At the age of eight I stabbed my “boyfriend” with a clutch pencil, because the girl I had my eye on smiled at him. He probably still has lead in his thigh. At the age of sixteen I knew that I looked at Pink a little differently than my friends. They didn’t have drool all over their chins. Realising what I was, didn’t send me into a depression. I didn’t lock myself in my room and listen to Celine Dion – I’m not self-destructive like that. I didn’t work up the courage to finally tell my parents about my sexuality. I blurted it out one night in the flat old Freestate at the age of twenty-four, because I was in love for the first time and scared out of my mind.

Sure, it was uncomfortable. I had to explain to my mother that the same things she cried about, I cried about. We both had to give up on certain dreams we had for me. We both mourned the fact that I won’t have a traditional white wedding. We both mourned the fact that I won’t give her naughty grandchildren. I lost as much as she did. I allowed her to mourn, but she moved on. Not once did any member of my family treat me any differently. Not once did I feel judged or tolerated. I felt loved. I felt wanted. I felt like I’d been on a long journey and had finally come home.

This is my reality. Sadly, it’s not the reality of every other person who found the strength to own up to the truth.

Today, I’m in the extremely fortunate position of having two families. I’m surrounded by people who love me unconditionally. People who will walk through fire for me. People who don’t shy away from what I am. I haven’t spent one day not living my truth – not because I’m awesome. I live my truth, because I’m surrounded by people who encourage and inspire it.

We should all be such people.

We don’t allow people to live their truth often enough in this world.

And if the shoe fits……