Friday, January 6, 2012

Bulldog's right again

Interestingly, DJ the trail blazer for transgender issues, has decided to lay low and not carry the banner for awhile.  Bulldog and I try to support any path she chooses to live her life happily, so naturally, this is perfectly acceptable and understandable to us.  But I always want to try to understand the "why" of things, so I've been pondering it quite a bit lately, especially in light of the fact that her change in perspective came on so suddenly.

Did she have a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" revelation?  December was a tough month because of the former friend issues that I cited back then.  (Back then?  Was that really only last month?) Maybe the "rejection" just hurt so much that she wanted to sink into some relative anonymity and who can blame her?  Maybe being more mainstream and low-key was a relief.  Maybe, just maybe, she got tired from carrying the flag.

She's gone from "This is me. I am transgender; accept me for who I am" to "Let's not talk about our pasts and just accept each other at face value."  WHICH IS FINE AND UNDERSTANDABLE.  What I feel bad about is that I'm kind of slow on the uptake and didn't catch her queues.  For instance,  the family photo montage that I keep in a hallway was suddenly too public a place to display the one or two photos of her when she was quite young and presenting as a boy.  I just reread what I typed and feel dumb as a box of rocks because, ummmmm, duh.  My only defense is that her (former) "This is me, if you can't take it, screw you" posture made me think that it would be ok to keep a few of those pictures around because I didn't want to display photos of just her brothers as youngsters.

Then, until very recently, she was rather public on her Facebook page posting her songs, especially those in support of the LGBT community.  So, I didn't realize that the infrequent occasions where I posted my blog on my Facebook would be an issue to her.  A couple of her childhood friends were my Facebook friends and she didn't want them to see a reminder of how she used to present.  I know, I know, I'm coming across as incredibly stupid, but I was trying to follow her lead.  She just decided to switch paths and I didn't get the memo.

I used to think I was a fairly perceptive person.  In fact, I prided myself on it....."Pride goeth before the fall" could not be more apt in this case.  And shouldn't I know better?  I play on the same team as DJ for heaven's sake, knowing full well that it is a woman's choice (I can't seem to spell the other word that sounds like purr-o-goe-tive for some reason right now) to change her mind.  Yet, I didn't expect the complete about-face that DJ has made recently and so I continued walking in the opposite direction having no idea she and I had parted ways and were tramping around on divergent paths.  My bad.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not crying into my beer, or more aptly put, my glass of pinot grigio, it's just that I don't like being part of the problem, especially since Bulldog and I want so badly to be part of the solution because we want to help.  The feedback I've gotten from other transgender folks thus far is that laying low is a pretty good idea-let other people know you for you, rather than know you as "that transgender girl".  That's what Bulldog has always thought was best but I followed DJ's lead when she went through her trailblazer phase.  Oh crap-there's my answer....Why was I letting the teenager dictate the path? She may know herself well but she sure as hell don't know the world that well.  Damn it, Bulldog was right again.