Less than 24 hours after leaving, DJ called to tell me about her first night. (Good daughter!!) She was quite excited at meeting people who share a common interest, that interest being (wait for it) ....Dungeons and Dragons. She's attending a polytechnical university, so certainly uber cerebral geeks abound; she is one of them.
When we toured the dorm this spring, I noted a dry erase memo board with glyph-appearing writing on it attached to the door of one of the rooms.
"Is that calculus?" I asked.
"No, it's Elvish," DJ replied.
"What does The King have to do with it?" I asked, in my head, thinking, of course, of Elvis Presley.
What I actually asked was, "What's Elvish?"
DJ explained, "It's a 'language' from Lord of the Rings." (Spoken by Elves....naturally.)
I slowly turned my head to look at her and said, "These are your people."
So yes, her dorm room is adorned with posters of Japanese Anime, her first new friends are Dungeons and Dragons aficionados, and she wore a Kiki's Big Adventure shirt paired with shorts denoting her university. She screams GEEK. She also screams HAPPY GEEK. She doesn't scream transgender. It's her choice to either wave the banner or go stealth. I'm all for stealth for now, or forever...again, it's her life and her choice. She still lives in the Bible belt and deserves to be seen as her true self and not through a prejudiced lens. She's just a young woman leaving home for college for the first time. Why should she be any different from any other young woman?
She's off to a great start :)
When we toured the dorm this spring, I noted a dry erase memo board with glyph-appearing writing on it attached to the door of one of the rooms.
"Is that calculus?" I asked.
"No, it's Elvish," DJ replied.
"What does The King have to do with it?" I asked, in my head, thinking, of course, of Elvis Presley.
What I actually asked was, "What's Elvish?"
DJ explained, "It's a 'language' from Lord of the Rings." (Spoken by Elves....naturally.)
I slowly turned my head to look at her and said, "These are your people."
So yes, her dorm room is adorned with posters of Japanese Anime, her first new friends are Dungeons and Dragons aficionados, and she wore a Kiki's Big Adventure shirt paired with shorts denoting her university. She screams GEEK. She also screams HAPPY GEEK. She doesn't scream transgender. It's her choice to either wave the banner or go stealth. I'm all for stealth for now, or forever...again, it's her life and her choice. She still lives in the Bible belt and deserves to be seen as her true self and not through a prejudiced lens. She's just a young woman leaving home for college for the first time. Why should she be any different from any other young woman?
She's off to a great start :)
I'm so proud of you and her! Yes, stealth is hard, but having the stigmata of trans, ie. "not a woman" hanging over you is soooooo much harder. I just hope she doesn't succumb to the "popularity" of all things trans that pervades college campuses these days and out herself, because it's damned easy to let the genie out of the bottle, and damned near impossible to put it back.
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ReplyDelete"These are your people"...
ReplyDeleteHahaha! Too funny! I'm curious as to if there are many other girls on campus, I hope so for her sake, I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be.
Rachel-yes lots of young women on campus and happily LOTS in the sciences, math and engineering dorm where DJ is. Women are starting to outnumber men on college campuses in the US-especially at graduation.
DeleteShe just called Bulldog and me and she's had a great few days so far. So happy for her ;)
I don't know exactly how numbers would stack up here, sadly I don't think girls would match boys for numbers, but I could be wrong.
DeleteIt's very cool to hear that there's lots of girls in those fields, I do hope the world is changing, I know (and you do too) how hard and exhausting it is to be surrounded mostly by men in my profession.
Miz Know-it-all-I love your moniker. I thought I was Miz know-it-all!! I seriously doubt she'll let the genie out of the bottle. She is so incredibly private about everything, especially her history. I'm curious-is it annoying to see what is some people's reality (being transgender) become a "fad", or is it possible that the "faddishness" will lead to more acceptance of those who are not living the fad, but living the reality? What are your thoughts?
ReplyDeletePJ
I'm so glad she's the good sense to keep a closed narrative! Or as my own mother put it, " Why tell? Ain't nobody's damned business but yours!"
ReplyDeleteAs to your questions... hummmmm...
Annoying? Ohhh my yes! It's been annoying since Arnold Loman coined the word "transgender" purposefully to hide behind our skirts, but here in the last few years it's all transmogrified into something so utterly bizarre and with so little relationship to my or any of my sister's reality (DJ obviously included) that it's almost become amusing! Just when you think it simply can't possibly get anymore bizarre or blatantly misogynistic, it does! (Nail polish is the defining characteristic of the female of the species isn't it?)
As for it leading to greater acceptance? Ya know? That's a tough call!
DJ's generation in particular is accepting of "differences" more so than any previous ones, and
I really and truly would hope it portends real change. But as a woman actively working on aquiring husband number 3, I will say, while folks have become far less willing to light the torches and grab a pitch fork... at least in public, once their guard is down and they think no one is going to call them bigoted for saying what they really feel... Well, that veneer of "acceptance" vanishes! Maybe, in several generations? Perhaps... but for now? It still seems we are a sexually dimorphic species...
I'm sitting here having a private laugh, and thinking it's probably a good thing that yours truly is rather well past the age of college... otherwise I'd be soooooo tempted to insist that I be given a completely different "identity" and preferred pronouns for every single class, Maybe I could identify as a creature of light with the preferred pronouns zizxle and zannex for my humanities classes!
ReplyDeleteOn that note, me thinks it be half past wine time!
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ReplyDeleteSeems my hand held communication device is hiccuping out a duplicate every time I post something, and yet, they dare to call them "smart!"
ReplyDeleteMiz-I think I may have a girl crush on you!! You're obviously sassy, smart as hell and your point of view is fantastic!! When is half-past wine time, BTW? I need to determine when it is socially acceptable for me to imbibe? Thanks for the comments and for sharing your perspective. Enlightening!!
DeleteKid with issues Mom to kid with issues Mom? Pretty much any Ol way Micky points is already HPWT! Consider it the universal Greenwich Mean Time of mother hood! As for the girl crush, hate to say it, but it's mutual! After all, you've managed to ease your daughter through the "trans-verse" relatively unscathed... and that M'dear aint no small feat! Why about the only thing left now is getting her past all the assorted eye candy that's so tempting, but so bad for a young girl!
ReplyDelete"Hi Mom! This is Rocko! We're totally in love and we're going to get married just as soon as he makes parole!"
(Bad boys! Sigh... my one weakness!)
Now where was I?
Ohhh yes, HPWT! Yeppers, I'd say you're still on safe ground in picking when it's arrived!
PS,
My old blog email is still active... if by any chance you'd like to see just how delightfully irreverent I can get when it's not accessible to any and all wandering eyes!
Tah!
MKIA
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