Kelly and I met in cycling class, and it was love at first pedal. On our first date Kelly said: “I’m transgender. My parents are dead. And, I’m looking for love.” I was touched to be trusted by him and, with his own difficult past, assured that he could stomach my troubled history. Eight months later we moved in together, and over ten years we have built a powerful relationship fueled by a mutual insistence to thrive.
When we discover that our health insurance will cover gender affirmation surgeries, Kelly jumps at the chance. He has my support—but the imminent changes to his body trigger unexpected feelings about the sexual abuse in my past. Suddenly, we are both grappling—again—with how our bodies interact with the world. We decide to chronicle our journey.
While we prepare for Kelly’s surgeries, New York enacts the Child Victims Act (CVA), overriding the statute of limitations and providing me the chance to bring a lawsuit against my childhood perpetrator. When I was 12, my adult neighbor began grooming me to be his girlfriend, a semi-secret relationship that lasted four years. Only in college did I realize this was abuse. It’s been two decades since I last considered the option of a court case, and I’ve been plagued with the likelihood that there have been subsequent victims. Is this my chance to save a girl like me?
Largely self shot, THE SUM OF OUR PARTS follows our intertwining journeys in a diaristic demonstration of the power of love, and queer joy as a balm for trauma.
