Attuning to the Self

I have always been tone-deaf. Occasionally I will pick up the tune from the person standing next to me during singing, and to my delight, I am for a moment with the others melting into something incredible.

It was also incredible when I found that indeed I could be in tune with my whole being. Most of my life I have been struggling to fit the gender assigned to me at birth. Really it has been a series of accommodations that have left me safe and fragmented. Before I was five years old, it seemed like we were all just “kids”. I heard “You are just a baby, when you are older, you will be old enough for that.” Well, that was hopeful.

I had just begun to hear about the things that “girls” couldn’t do. I was told that I was a girl. When I was six, we moved into a new house. I was supposed to share a bedroom with my sixteen-year-old sister. When I walked into that room it was very frilly. It was not at all what I wanted. I was very uncomfortable. Fortunately, there was a fantastic walk-in closet. There was a window at one end. I gathered a pillow and blankets. I was happy there. My parents came into the room and found me happily in the closet. My mother exclaimed, “Why any little girl would be delighted to have such a room” (my sister’s frilly bedroom.) I remember screaming, “I’m not a little girl!”

For some reason, my parents panicked. I learned later in life that I had been taken to a psychologist, who told them that I was a lesbian and very bright. That explained, my parents each had a different way of raising me. To my father it was like having another son. I assumed that was his interpretation of what a lesbian was like. My mother, who was largely raised by nuns, was inconsistent and discouraging.

The next few years were filled with trauma and fear (because of family and my brother’s mental illness). It was also with some remarkable people who helped me survive and grow. I developed leadership skills and managed to have a good time with “boy” like activities. And then it happened.

Puberty happened to me. Around that time, I would borrow my brothers' clothes and hunting knife when he wasn't home. I would go off into the woods and pretend to be a trail blazer. Then one day I found blood in my underwear. I didn't know what that was about. I was ten years old, and it was 1958. My mother seemed pleased. Later she told my father, in front of me, that I had my period and now I was a woman and could have babies. I felt totally humiliated. Mother was determined to turn me into her 19th century view of what a woman should be. Often it involved a kind of torture. She and my sister pinned me down and tried to pull out my eyebrows.

I was told what men expected. “Don't let them know you are smart. They need to feel they are better than you.” I found that impossible. Academics was my joy. She told me that I should get married for financial security. Much of what she said to me was a reflection of her own life issues. Yet, I didn’t know that there was a choice.

After graduating from High School, I was married. We had two children. He and I were friends. He was a gay man, and I was vaguely aware of this from the beginning. He was not completely “faithful”. This infidelity did not bother me. It was a time of my life when I was not very self-aware.

I attended a Quaker worship in Bellingham, WA in 1969. I felt at home and more. I did not return until the 1980s. I became involved quickly and felt at home. In the mid 1980, I became aware that I was attracted to women. This was a very difficult time for my family. My son, who was eighteen, adjusted. Our daughter did not do so well this news. She is estranged from me for several years. My husband had a bicycle accident and doctors discovered a congenital brain condition. My partner and future wife, Judy, and I supported him for a few months until we were told that we were enabling his dependency.

I met Judy during the late eighties, and we were married at University Friends Meeting in Seattle in April of 1990. We had a commitment ceremony. There was one woman who stood in the way of marriage so it was a commitment. Judy and I raised her two school age children. She would sometimes tell me I was butch and I accepted that for the time as an identity. We helped a group of foster children. Judy painted. She was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2008. After years of physical disability and finally dementia, she left her body in September 2018.

Her passing was an incredible spiritual experience. The last days of her life she became clearer mentally. She smiled when loved ones expressed their love. The night before she passed, she repeated our granddaughter’s name, Ana, until finally the name seemed to be coming from a place other than her mouth. I don’t know if anyone else heard this. Ana arrived from Spokane that next morning. After she left Judy passed peacefully. Later I experienced a place of peace and connection with everything.

Adjusting to life without her was a challenge. I was lonely. I began a journey into my life’s experience. I processed the early trauma by exploring family history, and came to understanding and forgiveness. After that work, I still felt that there was something unacknowledged.

Years earlier, during worship a message clearly came. “There is something obvious that you are not seeing.” I went through some stages, deciding that I was non-binary. A Friend and I presented an interest group at North Pacific Yearly Meeting in 2024. It was titled Authenticity and Its Risks. We wanted to address the suicide of LGBTQ youth in Montana. We showed the film The Science of Gender, which is an account of the development of gender during fetal growth. Linden Jordan produced this film and was featured in a second hour at Bellingham Friends Meeting. We had been talking about this interest group with him. In October, Linden presented at an event sponsored by Bellingham Friends Meeting's Social and Environmental Action committee and other organizations. I had heard this information several times. Yet, as I listened, I realized this was me. I am trans.

When I found that it was possible for me to live into that knowledge, I was euphoric. I experienced a feeling of finally being attuned. I allowed myself to fully be who I had known I was. I no longer had to eke out small bits of myself in the ways that my culture would tolerate. I could let go of that complicity. I have begun to transition and look forward to the alignment of my brain and body.

As I write this our federal government is attempting to erase or demonize those who are living the gender their brain has told them they are. Those whose brain is not attuned the sexual anatomy their bodies seem to have. There are many other ways that our culture, that even in the best times, tries to limit human potential. The freedom to be authentic must be nurtured in all of us.

I still attempt to sing sometimes. I am probably still tone-deaf.

Mateo Hayes Hansen was an attachment trauma therapist and a member of the Western Friend Board of Directors. He was a member of Bellingham Friends Meeting (NPYM). He passed away in March 2026.