Quoting Tiny Tim

No matter your belief who is God, if there is a God, by what name you refer to God, or if God is only a father figure, or perhaps a mother figure as well, most of us will recognize that if we break religious teachings down to their simplest forms, they usually have at least one belief in common:  that we are to treat others as we would like to be treated, and that the surest path to redemption is loving others, serving others and surrendering our own will so that we may do that.  It is incredibly difficult to think of others if we are constantly consumed with thinking of ourselves, however.

Some years ago, before the births of my two lovely nieces, Flying Pig suffered multiple miscarriages.  While we all were saddened, needless to say, our sadness did not hold a candle to the sense of loss both Flying Pig and her husband were feeling.  At that time, I was experiencing my own bout of depression.  Somehow, it came me to do something for Flying Pig.  An inner voice told me we would both feel better.  So, for the remainder of the afternoon, I created something to commemorate her lost babies.  And when I stopped thinking of me for a bit and instead thought only of Flying Pig for a few hours, I did feel better.  And my efforts at remembering her lost little ones meant something to her too.  She still has it.

This was a revelation to me-I literally tripped over the idea of helping others to help me.  Don't you think that God, or natural selection, or the Creator, somehow hard-wired us to feel good when we help others?  And that message, helping others and surrendering ourselves, is a common theme in nearly every major organized religion in the world.  So, forget the Sodom and Gomorrah stories, and any other story that just serves to incite hatred among us.  God did not hand out guidelines so that we could use them as weapons against each other, yet that is what we have done since the beginnings of organized religion.

Hindus, Buddhists, Protestants, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, and Mormons all share a common belief in serving others.  All of those religions mention in one form or another, doing good deeds for others, that our choices dictate the states of our souls, that we should sublimate ourselves for the good of others.  At this time of year, when two of the major religions, Christianity and Judaism share religious holidays within a week of each other, perhaps now would be a lovely time to celebrate what we have in common rather than what differentiates us from each other.  I don't think God is going to ask for a religious identification card when we meet Him or Her, but I do think we will be asked to show how our lives mattered to someone besides ourselves.

So, as I listen to Christmas carols, and Adam Sandler's Chanukah song, and peruse "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, I am heartened to remember Tiny Tim who states simply and perfectly:

God Bless us, every one!

Getting to know your new son or daughter

Remember when your child was first born?  You didn't know him or her.  Your child was a complete stranger to you, yet you loved your child, desperately, in fact.  You may have had future expectations of your child, but those expectations were limited and came from your heart.  You wanted your child to feel loved, to be healthy, to grow, to be happy.

It's only as our children grow up that we start to impose more expectations on them, and usually those expectations have to do with what WE want to be happy.  Sometimes the expectations become less about our kid and more about us.  It's an easy trap to fall into.

Maybe you feel like you don't know your kid at all right now.  After all, for so many years your son has been....your son.  How can he now be your daughter?  You don't know anything about this person as a girl, you don't know her as a girl at all.  But remember, you didn't need to know anything at all about your child to love your child when she was born and that has not changed.  You love your child because she is yours to love.  You will step in front of a truck for your child because he is yours to protect.

This whole gender identity thing can be so confusing to those of us whose minds and bodies agree.  We can't understand it anymore than we understood anything about our child when he/she was first born, and yet we found a way to love that stranger-child anyway.  That is all you have to do right now.

When your brand new infant kept you up all night and would cry constantly and you didn't know what to do to help, you kept trying, even if your heart wasn't in it.  The last thing in the world you felt like doing at two in the morning was changing a diaper and pacing the floor for two hours but you did it, even if you felt like walking out of the door and never coming back.  And why did you do it?  Because not only did you love your child, but you made a commitment to care for your child.  When you felt like you just couldn't give anymore, you went through the motions anyway.  And the love grew.  The commitment grew.

You will get to know this "new" child too.  It will be a process similar to the one you employed when you first laid eyes on your kid, but in some ways a little easier, in others, a little more difficult.  It will be easier because in so many ways, you already know this person.  The core of the person is the same-your child will likely still be passionate about whatever made her passionate before.  He may not enjoy all of the same activities as he used to, but just because you don't like golf anymore, it doesn't mean you've changed as a person, right?

Trust in your love for your kid.  Keep saying the words, "I want to try" even if you are not sure you mean it.  Love really does conquer all.  It doesn't always make life easier, but it makes life possible.  It doesn't always make relationships easier, but it makes relationships possible.

When you feel like you can't give anymore, just keep going through the motions.  The love will grow, as will the acceptance.

For parents whose kids have just come out

Dear Parents,

Your kid has just dropped a bombshell that you never saw coming.  Maybe you feel physically sick, like someone is playing a sick joke on you, or perhaps you are completely at a loss for words because so many thoughts and feelings, many of them foreign and uncomfortable, are running through your head.

You are not the only parent to go through this and you are not alone.  Before you do another thing, remind yourself:  This is my child.  This person is the same person that I brought home from the hospital and nurtured all these years.  I love my child and I will not abandon my child.

Look at your child and remind yourself again:  I love my kid and I will not leave my kid.

The thought that saved me was, "At least we get to keep our kid.  Some people lose their kids, but our kid will continue to come home to us." While that thought alone did not make the process of acceptance any easier, it did serve to remind me that my not accepting could cause my kid to never be a part of my life again; and worse, could cause my kid to not want to be part of life at all.

The first few days, you will not be able to stop calling your new daughter "he" or your new son "she."  In fact, you will still consider your child to be the same gender that you always knew him or her to be.  You can, however, promise your kid that you will try to see him or her as he/she sees him or herself.  Do that now-find your kid and promise your kid that you will try.  If you can, tell your kid you love him/her too.  In all likelihood, that will be enough to start.  Perhaps, don't call your child by any name at all, but rather by a term of endearment like "Sweetie" until you can do better.  These small things will make the change more manageable for you and will let your child know that even if it's hard, you still love your child enough to make an effort.

Now what?  Reach out to others so that you can help yourself.  For some reason, this can be a painful process because it means letting go of something, or someone.  If you want to help your kid, you must help yourself first.  In an airplane, they tell you to  put the oxygen on yourself before you put it on your kid.  There is a reason for this:  if you are not well, you can't help your kid stay well.

You are not alone.  Explore this blog, and visit the links.  E-mail me for moral support.  We're here for each other so that we can support our kids.  I am at Openarms2lgbt@gmail.com

Quoting Clint Eastwood

Dear Devoted Blog-followers, mine,

I had a lovely comment from a reader, who I will call "muscle spasm" as it loosely relates to her e-mail address.  Muscle spasm offered help in getting the word out to help other transgender, gay, or "other" groups, which I greatly appreciate.  I wrote to her hoping to hear more about her: her life, her experiences, whether she's a teen or an adult.  I've put this request out one other time in my blog and so far, I have no takers.

Perhaps my request was too general.  I will put forth a specific request and my e-mail address so that any information  you choose to share will not show up in the comments section of the blog and perhaps we can further guarantee your anonymity, if that is what has kept you from sharing your stories thus far.

I cannot begin to tell you how excited I feel when I think about the possibility of linking up with people all over the country, or even the world, to talk about this issue.  DJ has opened a whole new world for us and I feel like we (Bulldog is totally behind me on this) might have a unique opportunity to share and spread the word.  So, from time to time, I will be posting, for lack of a better word, a questionnaire, or topic.  I sincerely hope you will respond.  If you are hesitant I ask you to consider this:

This could be an opportunity to help yourself and others like you by sharing small details of your life.  You could be that tiny pebble that gets dropped into the water that sends ring after ring of knowledge, support, and truth out to the LGBT world, and possibly even the world in general.  Who knows, maybe we can be a grass roots effort that will help change our corner of the world.

So here is this month's specific question:

If you could come up with a list of Dos and Don'ts for other people you work with, or go to school with, what would they include?

For example, "Do use the correct pronoun and Don't apologize more than once if you forget."

If all you can come up with is just a "do" or only a "don't", that's fine too.  If you want to be credited with your "Do or Don't" come up with a code name for yourself and if I include "names" you will possibly see yourself in a future blog.

My e-mail is Openarms2lgbt@gmail.com

I will not share your e-mail addresses with anyone.  Please respond.  "Go ahead, make my day."

Fantasy Island

Holy cow-I feel like I've been run over by a truck.  This has been a  L O N G  week.  It feels like the last six days have taken two weeks to pass.  The stress, the worry, the close attention we must pay to most of DJ's waking moments is tough on Bulldog and me.  Forgive me for talking less about DJ today and more about being the parent of a child struggling with the strains of being transgender in our world.

We desperately love our children-that goes without saying.  Goodwrench, Romeo and DJ are the best kids any parents could ask for.  Most of us feel this way about our kids, and we are no exception, but that is not to say that our love for them doesn't come without a steep cost.  The cost is gray hair, wrinkles, stress, aching joints, financial strain, worry, more worry, and the feeling of being run over by a truck.  I wish the cost would be something like losing weight in my butt;  unfortunately, that is not how the world works.  As my father always used to say, "Who ever said life was fair?"

I have revisited in my head the details of what led DJ to her recent step backward.  Like many parents, my initial reaction is wanting to hunt down the person who hurt DJ and make that person pay, in some manner.  It's not rational-it's mother rage.  Fortunately, the more rational parts of my brain inform the parts that are in a rage that I need to take a step back and remember that these people who are basically shunning DJ are just kids too.  OK, OK, I know that what they're doing isn't right, but maybe they're at an impasse themselves.  The study of sociology and anthropology is quick to point out that people tend to gather in groups and then those groups tend to try to be as different as possible from each other.  DJ's group is not a very populated group;  for all intents and purposes, DJ's group is the size of a committee, while many teens belong to groups the size of congress.

Because DJ is transgender, she is on the fringes of most groups.  I hate it.  I don't hate that she's transgender, I hate that we, as a society, marginalize others.  Truthfully, I can't believe we've gone this far without major difficulty, but that may be because she's been rather sheltered until this semester.  When she first came out, she was finishing up her freshman year.  The first semester of her sophomore year, she was home-schooled, except for attending one class at school.   The second semester, she attended school all day, but spent only half of it in the regular student population, and spent the other half in the computer lab taking her advanced placement classes online.  This semester is her first semester back in regular classes all day and we made it three months before the pressure got to her.  I am not finding fault with DJ-I think she's done an admirable job of maintaining a standing position in spite of the drag of an ocean's current of misunderstanding and avoidance pulling at her.  But I am so discouraged with the world right now.

We try to shield DJ from much of our feelings because we know she doesn't want to worry us.  We try to shield her from our worry by trying not to look as if we are watching her every waking second of her day to be sure she is ok.  We try to gauge her mood, we try to distract her, we try to keep her busy and we try to monitor that she's eating well, all without her knowing that that is what we're doing.  And while I wouldn't trade a second of my life for a different life, ever, that is not to say that I don't feel like I need a break from the routine that is all encompassing of my time, attention and emotions.

I feel a bit isolated myself.  I don't want to unload on people, which is my problem, I realize.  I am lucky enough to have a few friends that I can talk to about this, however.  And then work is another issue-DJ will be missing some school, has doctor and therapy appointments and has medicinal and nutritional needs that we must monitor.  I'll have to explain any absences I may have but don't want to breach my privacy, yet I feel like an explanation will be required.

In short, a bunch of crap is settling on my shoulders and I am engaging in my fantasy of running away to Montana and becoming a waitress in a diner.  My only personal responsibilities will be to myself: showering, eating, getting to work on time, paying my bills (which are practically non-existant in my fantasy).  My only other responsibilities will be work related:  getting food to the handsome cowboys on time, cleaning their ashtrays and refilling their coffee cups without being asked, and with a smile, so I'm sure to get a great tip.  And then going home to my small apartment that takes 15 minutes to clean, getting a bowl of cereal for dinner and spending the rest of the evening reading, watching home improvement shows and perhaps having a glass of wine before bedtime.  It all sounds great, my little fantasy, until I remember that there is no husband and kids and that reading and watching TV every night can be boring and that no matter how great the cowboy looks in his Wranglers, that I would have no real relationships.  That small break from reality, my fantasy, reminds me of how much I love my life even if I need an occasional break from it.  The worry, the sadness, the necessity of having heightened awareness of DJ's every shift in mood-this will not last forever.  I have to give myself permission to wish we weren't in this current predicament of non-acceptance, and the fallout that ensues, while still recognizing that "we will get through this, together" (quoting Bulldog again).  In the meantime, I'll treat myself when I can-I'll let some of the household chores go for a bit, highlight my hair and get a pedicure.  This bump in the road is nothing that a little self-love and a glass of pinot grigio can't help.

Two steps forward, one step back

We are in a process of having to regroup.  The group of kids that has DJ feeling so alienated are likely to be in at least half of all her classes because they too are in the advanced placement classes.  We're in a small town with a relatively small high school, and the advanced placement kids are an even smaller group, which makes it very likely that DJ will have many of them in her academic classes.  We're going to have scramble to get her through the rest of this semester and then come up with a game plan for next semester.

We're learning how difficult many social situations actually are for DJ.  She has painted a pretty, if inaccurate, picture of what her school days have been like, up until now.  Now we know that in reality, roughly half of every day is a struggle as she is forced to face a group of kids who, for the most part, ignore her.  I can imagine some folks would say we should force her to face them, because she's going to have to get used to it.  Bull$- - -, is my response.  She's vulnerable as hell right now.  We'll make her get back in the saddle but not while she's still injured.  Once she's healed, we'll hoist her up onto the back of the horse that threw her, but not yet.

I'm reading The Social Animal by David Brooks.  The chapter I am currently in talks about "culture."  American culture is markedly different from  Asian cultures, or Mexican cultures.  In some ways better and in others, worse.  One hallmark of American culture is INDEPENDENCE-a valuable trait, certainly.    But true independence is practically non-existant in this world.  Almost nothing of importance is accomplished truly by oneself.  We have elevated independence to a ridiculous pedestal so that a person is looked on as weak if they need help or must take a step backward to regroup.

INTERDEPENDENCE- a much better word and one that is considerably more accurate in describing the reality of most people's lives, the reality of successful business ventures, the reality of any important accomplishment that has ever taken place in human reality, in my opinion.  In fact, I recall a conversation between my Uncle, who we'll call Boatman and his daughter, my cousin, where she stated that she didn't want to marry because she didn't want to be "dependent" on her spouse.  Uncle Boatman explained that a good marriage doesn't foster dependence but rather interdependence so that each partner enhances the other, and supports the spouse when needed, without robbing the other person of his or her autonomy.

The truth is we need each other because this world is a brutal place.  Physical survival is not the same challenge in many parts of the world as it was 10,000 years ago, but social and emotional survival will continue to be a challenge for all of us.  Whatever helps DJ get past this hurdle is what we will do. We will not discourage her from taking a step backward to get her bearings again. We will not make her feel weak because she needs some help.  We will applaud her courage in asking for help.

She's cacoon-ing right now.  She needs to be in the shelter of home. DJ has plenty of school assignments to keep her busy and as always, she's composing music.  We will encourage her to take steps forward in braving the outside world again, and soon.  Sometimes we take one step forward and two steps back; other days, we manage to take two steps forward and only step back.  Either way, we get there. Bulldog and I love our girl.  Right now, all we care about is that she knows she's safe at home.  We'll worry about the rest of the world next week.

They are the broken ones

Do any of you watch the TV show, "Glee?"  Admittedly, both Bulldog and I watch with DJ.  Many weeks that show annoys the holy crap out of me, particularly the petite dark haired girl with the beautiful voice because she always looks like she's constipated.  But, once again, my attention deficit disorder has intervened and caused me to digress.

Santana, a cheerleader on "Glee" is a lesbian who was outed at school.  She is forced, therefore, to come out to her parents and grandmother.  Her parents accept her, but her grandmother flat out rejects her and basically kicks her granddaughter out.  The actress that portrayed the non-accepting grandmother was quite convincing.  I could almost imagine having to personally face a person like that, and I could imagine the humiliation and pain of being subject to that kind of rejection. And then, this afternoon, I found a wonderful comment from one of my blog followers who commented on her own lack of support from family.  I ached for her.

Add to that, my own fragile feeling in light of recent events in DJ's world, and I felt defeated.  And please, it's not even my own personal pain we're talking about here.  Yeah, I'm DJ's mom, and that's about as close as a person is going to get to being in another person's shoes, but who am I to talk about my pain?  Because, seriously, you folks who must live with being "different" are truly the tough people. I don't know how you do it, I really don't.  But can I say I admire the hell out of each and every one of you? You may not choose to be born this way perhaps, (none of us gets to choose that) but you do choose to be who you truly are, who you were created and meant to be, in spite of potential and actual rejection you face.

With DJ's recent setback, I am reminded again how limited so many of us are.  And how important it is for me, as DJ's mom to remind her that rejection she faces is NOT about her limitations or undesirability as a person, but is about the limitations of the person who rejects her for being who she is.  Why is it when a person publicly mistreats us that we feel like idiots?  How can the limited person make the object of their ridicule feel like she is the flawed one, when the reverse is so clearly true?

I had to share with DJ my own moments of being ridiculed.  I had to share with her the deep pain I felt when others verbally assaulted me: how it made me feel, initially, like I deserved it;  how I wanted to change myself to avoid a repeat of the ridicule.  And how crucial it is to dig in and hang onto the truth that you are not deserving of someone else's meanness and insensitivity. Bulldog and I couldn't let her continue to think that if she were just prettier, or thinner that they would actually treat her differently.  We have to let our kids know that no amount of changing ourselves will make the other people nicer, or make them accept us because, to borrow Bulldog's words, "they are the ones who are broken, not you."

These people who don't accept and who mistreat others-they are the broken ones.  Do not let them break you in the process.  Keep on keeping on.