Dear Mom,

This wasn’t the blog you had hoped I’d write someday. I established that much in the one post I managed during my two months out of jail. Last time I sat here in Dane County Jail, I sat with the finger pointed at everyone but myself. How else do you survive life crashing down around you, hoping the fall comes at you no worse than anyone else, riding a ballistic missile aimed at self-destruction, only to find you’ve been sequestered away in some transgender layer of jail hell? That part, that one cruel part that wasn’t your fault, becomes an easy target for that ballistic missile packed full of shame, regret, confusion, and outrage. And it’s true; I was treated like subhuman garbage in the Dane County Jail based on my trans status. I did things to land myself there, though. Let’s set the record straight: this blog won’t be a conspiracy theory. This blog needed to zoom way out to get a much bigger picture of what led me there, though. 

And mom, it’s possible—in fact, let’s say probable—that you are sitting there reading this wondering what you did to deserve not just a vagabond criminal-turned-addict, a daughter-turned-son, but now the entire theme and title of a public blog post.

Here it is. We fought. We’re still fighting. I’m in the darkest, most brutal days of my life, and we aren’t speaking. I don’t need to count the times in my 36 years that’s ever been the case because we both know the answer is zero. I’ve been a part of you since the day I was literally a part of you. Even when I became my own person over time, we did not stop. That’s not a bond or love I need to describe in a blog post. That’s what a mother and her child are. 

But even as I grew older and became my own person, we grew closer, not further away, as parents and children tend to do. We grew together, not apart—not just as parent and child but as evolving human beings. 

So when I woke yesterday for the first time in jail with a newfound will to live, a will to fight, and a will to carry a message once again, I asked myself who in this world would listen to this mentally ill, literally broken (yup, my ribs), addicted, lost soul anymore. I didn’t pause; the answer was you, my mom. And as I sat there, thinking of how I could explain myself to you, the realization dawned on me. If I can explain who Eli is to you, Mom, I can explain who Eli is to anyone. And that’s the direction the blog has been lacking, which left me uninspired to work on it. It’s about something bigger than the solitary confinement cage they put me in for 46 days. It’s about more than some criminal charges; more than addiction; more than transition; more than law, order, crime, and punishment. 

It’s about the fact that, for some reason, when everyone else seemed to understand Eli, and I looked good on paper, I didn’t understand a single thing about my own identity. I lived my life from the cockpit of an airplane I wasn’t flying, just watching the clouds drift by. And with no reason to steer the plane in any intentional direction, I let life steer me. I let friends and family be the pilot, my career be the flight plan, privilege be the airplane, and alcohol be the gasoline. I merely rode along and wondered what might happen if I disrupted the most outwardly stable seeming flight of all time so I could try flying. 

Here’s what happened: I took control just in time to learn that airplanes can’t run on booze, and neither can human lives. I learned that fact hard and fast just as I became Eli and tried to fly for the first time. I went into a tailspin – resurfacing trauma, mental illness, alcoholism, drug addiction. And I crashed, loudly and publicly. The debris field was thousands of lifetimes long. And all anyone could conclude from the wreck was that I was the shittiest pilot of all time, and this had been a terrible idea. 

But here’s the truth, Mom.

I’ve come to love Eli, to love parts of him in ways that I could never love her. She wasn’t me. And as I sit here in jail, I know I’d let him crash that plane straight into the Earth 100 more times before I rode along watching her coast on auto-pilot even once. 

And Mom, you understand why that sentiment is insane; you’ve lived and watched the story unfold. The story that just today, a Dane County Judge called “just sad.” But let me bring those joining in for the first time up to speed on my evolution, or what some would call a de-evolution. Because on paper, this is the saddest story you’ve ever been told. But once you understand the joy I get to experience as myself, as Eli, learning to rise each time I fall, you’ll understand what it means to be transgender. Maybe someone who may not otherwise connect with my experience will find a way to see what it means for me to finally belong in my own skin.

At some point down the road, I’ll discuss the Dane County Jail. But for it to make sense for what it was, I need to explain who I am first. So as promised, here it is on paper:

Honor roll high school student.
Record-breaking competitive swimmer.
Dual-degree college graduate.
Bilingual world traveler.
Eight-year veteran of the Madison Police Department.
Two-time Ironman finisher.
Marathon runner.
Happily married.
Homeowner.

Transgender.

Alcoholic.
Mentally ill.
Divorced.
Chapter 51.
Criminal.
Officer Safety Bulletin.
Fat, lazy.
Drug addict.
Jail. 

My approach to this blog is different today. I have found the will and the determination to sit with my past, to confront the consequences for the things I have done, and face the music for mistakes I’ve made. 

But taking responsibility for what I have done should not include accountability for things I haven’t done. The false allegations made against me, made more believable by those that are true, are traumatizing, dehumanizing, insulting. Mom, I want the truth out there. I want you to understand the truth. I want people to understand me. 

Some of the truth will be honestly criminally implicating, and public. And maybe I’ll be punished more severely for that. If that’s what needs to happen, I’m at peace with that. What I can’t live with is these guesses trying to pinpoint who and what Eli is anymore. They call me a monster, and if I’m a monster, I’m a far more weird, nerdy, nonviolent, traumatized monster than what has been presented to you. A very human monster, that I think you’ll come to understand better than what’s listed on a rap sheet. 

So why is this blog to you, Mom? I’ve never met a single person who hasn’t liked you and found a way to understand you on some level. You’re not just the kindest, but the most relatable person I know. If I can make you understand this, all this, and help you to understand and get to know Eli, then maybe someone else can, too. 

So, let’s start here:
I’m still me.

Love,

Eli