It was a Sunday back in August of last year. Kooky and the kids had walked to the local farmer's market before I woke up that morning, so when I got up I had an empty house. Which meant that I could do whatever I wanted, which was usually to raid Kooky's closet and wear her clothes around the house. So this particular morning I did as I usually did, and got dressed in something more comfortable.
Okay, so random aside: I'd been wanting to transition for ages, but never felt I could actually do it. "I'm too tall," I'd tell myself, or "I wouldn't look good as a female". In fact, I'd known that transition was possible since I was 10, and I wanted to do it sooooo badly even then. But instead I sucked it up, and went through my teenage years and early twenties trying to be the man that I so obviously wasn't.
So this day, I looked in a mirror while dressed in my wife's clothes. And I saw it. See, I had recently forgone the literal "beard" that I hid behind. Just as gay guys have fake girlfriends, or "beards", to hide behind, I too had a beard of my very own: a goatee. But what I saw, was not an awkward guy dressed in women's clothes, but a chick. A girl. Not pretty, not yet. But it was there. I broke.
So I did what any sane person shouldn't do in that situation: I pulled out my phone and told my wife right then by text message. I mean, who does that?!? She took it... well? She was shocked, but she had playfully teased me for years about how much more feminine I was than her. Like I said, I obviously wasn't a guy. So she came home from the farmer's market, and we talked. And we researched together, and we went through so many labels before we settled, eventually, on the one my therapists confirmed: I was a Male-to-Female transsexual.
Now, Kooky's been sooo accepting and wonderful, but my parents.... not so much. So I started therapy, I started living as a woman, first at home, then out in public but not at work. I had just started hormones, so it was time to tell... the parents! So I called them up and asked if I could come over alone and talk to them about something. See, I learned my lesson regarding shocking news via telephone.
So I came over. I had already told my favorite aunt, she and my uncle raised me more than my parents had. I didn't want them finding out from her that their only child was transgender. So i sat them doown for the talk. I explained everything, they sat and listened, they seemed shocked, they asked questions, and at the end we all agreed that this wasn't their choice or their fault and we were okay.
Or so I thought. First my parents wouldn't try to use proper pronouns or my new name, which is understandable to an extent that they might forget, but they weren't trying. My dad became very cold with me, and I overheard my mom telling my aunt that he was only keeping contact for the grandkids. Then he sent me a drunken text one night telling me about how lesbian love isn't real, and it's a crime against God.
I laughed. I didn't cut off contact, I didn't bitch them out. I gave them space, and time. My dad came over to see the kids and saw our family dynamic, saw the kids with me, saw Kooky with me, saw how much happier and open I was. He quit drinking cold turkey, he came around. He used my name, female pronouns - when he remembers. So now, I find out the bigger issue: my mother hates it. She puts on a face when she's dealing with it, but news from the family reaches my ears.
See, my mother is extremely passive-aggressive, so she was using my birth name as a weapon, the pronoun "he" was a bomb to be launched. And she won't budge, so we've made less room in our lives for her because of it. My therapist agrees, and pointed out that our children don't need to be exposed to her behavior. My dad gets invited over alone now under guise of helping his daughter and daughter-in-law handle the home repairs. He's really sweet now that he's dry.
More to come...
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