I've been fortunate enough to have friends in various parts of the country who support DJ and our family. These fine folks understand the difficulty transsexual persons face in attempting to live their lives amid intolerance, or worse. They share resources and pass on helpful information.
One young woman, a gifted writer in her own right, has been at the forefront of supporting all marginalized persons, and our family in particular. It so happens that her church friend has a young TS daughter. This church friend also writes a blog, from the perspective of a mother raising a young child, not a teenage child. Parents, if you're looking for direction, advice, understanding and support from people who are walking in your shoes, please visit this lovely mother's blog:
http://with-out-conditions.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-cold-dose-of-reality.html?m=1
I love the title-"Without conditions." Loving our children, hell, loving each other, should always be without conditions, shouldn't it?
Keep learning, keep reaching out-there are other kids and parents like you and yours that are striving to love without condition. You are NOT alone.
XOXO
The Author
One young woman, a gifted writer in her own right, has been at the forefront of supporting all marginalized persons, and our family in particular. It so happens that her church friend has a young TS daughter. This church friend also writes a blog, from the perspective of a mother raising a young child, not a teenage child. Parents, if you're looking for direction, advice, understanding and support from people who are walking in your shoes, please visit this lovely mother's blog:
http://with-out-conditions.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-cold-dose-of-reality.html?m=1
I love the title-"Without conditions." Loving our children, hell, loving each other, should always be without conditions, shouldn't it?
Keep learning, keep reaching out-there are other kids and parents like you and yours that are striving to love without condition. You are NOT alone.
XOXO
The Author
Heya Author. A friend pointed out your blog to me, and I've read it mostly through. It really affected me, your parenting style is the opposite of what my wife dealt with
ReplyDeleteTo give you a little background on us, my wife R is a post-op trans-woman. She transitioned in her early twenties, I met her in her late twenties, she is now 31. When I her, while she had a law degree, she was working at a fairly dead end job, and living in an awful rental room.
We've now been married for two years, after dating for three. We ended up moving together halfway across the country to get her a better job, and then moving back again. She had a private law practice for a year, and has just started working for a large law firm, where she has gotten promoted in her first six months, and is doing great. We live in an excellent apartment, and are saving up for a house, looking to adopt kids within a three to five year span.
I'd say that R's experience growing up and in transition were the exact opposite to Dj's. Her parents were divorced, her Dad comes from an older European tradition (he is German) and was a little distant. Her mom had some untreated psych issues, and would often beat and abuse her, often locking her in closets, etc... One time her mother decided to 'toughen her up' and make her more manly. Gathered up all her beloved stuffed animals and burned them in front of her. This was remarkably cruel, as she was at the time in an all male catholic school, and to a great degree the stuffed animals were her only friends. Needless to say R suffers from a lot of PTSD and self-esteem issues.
Like a lot of trans folks, she eventually went to extremes to deny what was going on, and became very orthodox Jewish. That lasted throughout her college years (oh and this was pre-transition), she eventually joined a kind of orthodox jewish cult, and ended up nearly stuck in Israel, where they took her passport and wouldn't let her leave.
The saving thing for her? Her dour German Dad loves her, and came through, got her out of that, gave her a lot of support, and our Father in Law to this day is a good friend and a great source of support. (though darn did he interrogate me when I had to go to him to tell him R and I were dating serious like).
So that's her background, as for me. I met R actually on an online dating site, and we hit it off immediately, same sense of humor, like the same weird TV shows, etc.., and I had to deal with on our third date she told me she was trans. I'm pretty much WASP, white, cis, male hetero privileged I hadn't even met or thought about a trans-person ever before. the first thing I said was, "oh, man, that must have been so scary for you to admit to me".
My initial reaction was, that I had to think about it, and it blanked me out for a couple of days. I must admit, I made R nervous for that time. I really had no frame of reference, Did you feel similar when DJ came out to you?
Anyway, my eventual thought process was does this really change anything? I like her a lot, still do. I was attracted to her physically, still am. Should I care? Of course the answer was no, not really. I was a little worried about the complications of it, but that is what other people think, not what is between us. I figured I could sort that out.
The complications are a pain. We've had situations where (our hobby is camping and hiking, and heck, everyone looks pretty androgynous in hiking clothes, right?) coming back from a weekend backpacking, some jerk attendant in Texas won't let her use the ladies room.
Difficult stuff, and the only thing you can give is unconditional love and support.
R, when I met her, was scared of her own shadow.
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