One of the things that is true; and that I have been pondering, is that when you come out, your family comes out. I mean; once I am full time, then all of my son’s friends will know. My baby will be fine, I think. I just worry about what will change for him. I know he has a good job. He is ready to start school. He makes good money. He can stand on his own. He has had it hard. We all have.
His mother was the anchor, the glue. I am more like the scotch tape. I could never fill that gap. I am not as strong as her. She just knew stuff. I just want to know that I am doing the right thing. He says everything will be ok, but I can’t help but feel apprehensive. He didn’t sign up for this. He said once I start living as my authentic self; he may not be as willing to be with me in public at first, and that’s ok. I asked why, do you think I won’t pass? He said no; it’s just the idea, the act. So I asked him, “do you not want me to transition?”. His words, “that would be wrong; you should get to be you, it’s just going to take me some time to get used to”.
My middle son (the transphobic bisexual) has not been told. I think he knows; because he brings up something concerning transgender, on a daily basis, but I am not telling him until I am ready.
The baby’s girlfriend? She knows. He said she has always known. When he told her, her reply was duh! She went on to tell him; I wore tight clothes, my walk and mannerisms were feminine, my cologne smelled feminine ( men’s Dolce & Gabbana blue, really?), and I just look feminine. Am I that obvious?
The only other person I care about, is my aunt. Her and my mom were very close. She is like a second mom. In actuality; I think that I would have had an easier time coming out to my mom, if she were still alive. My aunt, it’s hard to get a read on. We talk, or text, at least once a week. She may have already figured me out.
Words cannot express how much I miss my bride. She was supposed to accompany me. Kind of an activities director. It was her; that researched the city we moved to. She researched its acceptance level. When she found out about their “non-discrimination” law, she decided this was the place. She lead us here. She pushed us to be better people. I once said something about just being a man in a dress. She was having none of that. She built me up. Where I am; everything I become, it’s because of her. When I would try to go further into the closet; it was her that would coax me out. Did I already say I miss her. Even in death, she still inspires me. I mourn her daily.
So there it is. Part of my journey is ending, but most of it just beginning. I am full of excitement, fear, and anxiety. This is like a panic attack on steroids. I have become an “expert” on confronting my fears. A “fear of being feminine”, pushed me into the army. A fear of heights pushed me to being a paratrooper. This has helped me. I have learned that every good journey begins with a strong exit out of the door. The aircraft is in the in the air; the door is open, my static line is hooked up. I am staring down the jump master; waiting for the red light, to turn green.
When my night collides with my day
My night will collide with morning, probably without the benefit of sleep. Too many demons this time. They just smiled, and kept on coming. This just feels like one of those nights that would have me screaming in my sleep. I just can’t do that. I will sleep later, after my middle and baby are at work.
God I miss Lilith. She was my strength, when I was week. My Éowyn. My shield maiden. My dragon slayer. My soulmate.
I had lost myself. I was in the Army, at Ft. Benning. I had a counselor that outed me to my first sergeant; he in turn, threatened to put me to the battalion and wife. Emotionally, I was at the bottom. I took a razor blade to my wrist. I told my wife that I was depressed and couldn’t take it anymore, and the army was discharging me. I had planned to get her home and finish killing myself.
My bride drove us, our dog, and our cat, two days. All by herself. I just sat there; in a daze, sleeping. I can’t hear Melissa Etheridge’s Sleep While I Drive, without crying. I won’t go into detail but everything turned out ok. I had to go back to Georgia. My bride pestered the battalion commander daily, until my discharge came through.
She was my soulmate. We knew each other’s thoughts. We were part of each other’s future.
She made me do things I didn’t want to do. She made me do the right thing.
Every time I tried to break down, she stopped me. While she was going through dialysis, I tried to have a nervous breakdown. She would stop me.
She had to see our baby graduate high school. Less than a week later, she had a major stroke. She couldn’t sit up. The part of her brain that controlled her equilibrium was damaged. The neurologist wanted to send her to a rehab hospital. We talked. I told her that I couldn’t live in a world without her. I had to promise I would stay to take care of our pugs, cats, and our youngest. She worked hard. She left the hospital using a walker, but under her own power.
She ditched the walker; but she couldn’t walk the dogs on her own. She loved to drive, but she never drove again. We never made it back to North Padré Island. The grocery store; once a week, was all she could take. The last mall trip, she made it inside to Bath and Body Works. She was worn out.
Every time I find something humorous on my phone; I look to her side of the bed to show her, I forget. I dream a thousand dreams nightly, that she lives in. I can’t sleep because she will not be there to wake me when I scream; to comfort my tears. To hold me.
Gone, My Lilith
In the morning of October 15, 2016; at Methodist Hospital, in San Antonio Texas, My Lilith passed away. She was my soulmate. For over 25 years we followed each other on an amazing adventure. She was the voice of reason; but always gave in to my spontaneous ideas. She was the strongest woman I ever knew. She was my soulmate. She was my night sky watching, dance in the thunderstorm, listen to the ocean, goddess. I feel broken. I am lost. She had been ill for sometime. She had a major stroke in June; right after our baby graduated high school. Sometimes it’s as if she wanted to leave us all sooner, but wanted to make sure everything was going to be ok. I told her in June; while she was in ICU; that I could not live on this earth with out her. She assured me I could; that I would have to. She made me “pinky swear” that I would go on. I had to promise that our pugs, cats, and children would be taken care of. In that order. She had her priorities.
I am not the easiest person to love; but she did it, unconditionally. She is the one that knew Brenda the most. She knew that my male self was just a shell. She knew that the only reason I kept in my male self was because I had a responsibility to be her husband. now, that is gone. We had a gameplan. Move to San Antonio. Get the baby through high school. Let Brenda live. We were waiting until we moved from this horrible pay by the week hotel, into something more permanent. Now that is becoming a reality; but I have a lot of guilt and trepidation. I know she would want me to be happy; but I just don’t know. I don’t know what my next move is. I just need this pain to leave; or lessen.
Our ideas of death and ceremony had changed throughout the years. I wanted to be cremated; but she wanted us to have a traditional burial. As time wore on, her views changed. The way that her health had deteriorated over the past several years meant that she had to under go varying types of diagnostic procedures. Her most dreaded procedure was the MRI. She had become increasingly claustrophobic. After he last MRI she told me; “when I die please don’t put me in a coffin”. She referred the MRI’s as “fucking” MRI’s. She said that she wanted to be cremated; and her ashes scattered at a place special to us, on the Texas coast. I am going to do that, but I am just not ready to part with her ashes. A couple of months back; she fell in love with a beautiful Coach handbag. Her ashes are in a plastic square container. I am going to buy her that purse; put the ashes container inside, and set it on her bed side table.
People are well meaning: they mention God’s will, God’s time, God Never gives us more than we can bear. Well, that will not work with me. She’s is here. She is in my heart. She hides in my peripheral vision. I can hear her whisper. I feel her warmth in the morning when I wake up; and at night when I sleep. She never left.
Normal for us.
Our Normal
With advent of Black Lives Matter, some pockets of our society have become more empathetic towards different minority groups. I can honestly say that a dose of empathy can go along way with understanding the plight of disadvantaged groups, but you will never truly know what it is like to live and breath as that person.
You will not know what it’s like to see a stranger in the mirror; every morning. You see you. A you no one else can see. The eye color is the same; but your hair is longer, your nose has more of a point, your cheek bones higher. A complexion, and face structure that has remained unravaged by testosterone coursing through out your body.
You won’t know how they know. Closet, or not. Straight as an arrow. They will know. They will call you: sissy, gay, sodomite, faggot. You just sit there shocked, hurt, confused. How did they know.
You won’t know what it is like to out alpha everyone. Killing, parachuting, shooting, look at me I have to be a man. That little girl hidden.
You won’t know what its like to go past racks of clothing; crying inside, because you can’t try it on. Your heart breaking each time you put on the male costume.
You won’t know what its like to have to balance your true cost of living authentically. What can your spouse accept. What will she accept. Even if you never transition, will your shear existence drive her away.
You won’t know what its like to check your friends; make sure that they are there. To make sure you didn’t lose anyone during the night. Like a squad leader; making sure your squad made it back from the last patrol in Fallujah.
See; all if that is the normal, in my community. Its not for the faint of heart. Its just what we do. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. Sometimes the demons win.
The Fucking Pink Grenade.
The act of being transgender is the utmost act of societal rebellion; in a world that respects normality. We forsake so much.
I call it the fucking pink grenade.
Once you pull the pin, that’s it. Sure; you can put the pin back, but it’s not going to fit right, and it will be a matter of time before it falls out again. Once the fucking pink grenade blows; it will affect everyone it touches. Those closest are the ones it affects the most. The shrapnel cuts deep.
Friends and acquaintances are scarred; and cut, but functional.
Aunts, and cousins will take or leave you. Parents that will morn of what’s become; but wives, that’s a whole other garden of emotions.
My bride is my soul mate. When I hurt; we hurt. When she is sad, we are sad. There are two times in our marriage when I have shut her out. The first time I sliced my wrists; the second time I had to fight to make her stay. Now she knows why. Her knowing doesn’t make it any easier.
The truth shall set you free. Well, the truth leads to showing each other posts of clothing, shoes, and purses on Facebook. Hushed tones in public, “OMG! did you see what she was wearing”. Her shopping at Ross, and me holding up blouses and asking “how does this look?”. Am I serious? Depends on the top. We have always had this playful banter. I ruined her crystal encrusted heels on a football field, (sorry) I ruined her favorite bra, (sorry I have bigger boobs than you). some of that before I came out to her on July 17, 2012.
The truth is a lot has changed in the past four years. Except for her support. She says she has no limits. I am afraid to test it. If I could I would shield her from the pink fucking grenade. I don’t really care about anyone else. Let the shrapnel land were it may. Lilith, you are amazing.
Christine Daniels/Mike Penner
Christine Daniels, Mike Penner
On November 27, 2009, a post from a transgender girl named Brianne came across my Twitter news feed. “Today we lost one of our own; Mike Penner (Christine Daniels) is dead.” I knew Penner had reverted back to his birth name. I had no idea that he was going to hook a garden hose up the exhaust on his Toyota Camry. This one hit me hard.
There is no right way to do this one. He was born Mike Penner; he changed his name to Christine Daniels, then she switched it back to Mike Penner when she de-transitioned. I am going to use female pronouns and name.
She was before Jenner. I was familiar with her writing. She was a sports writer for the Los Angeles times. She was their soccer expert. When she came out; it was news. She was at the center of a Newsweek story about MtF transgender.
So much of her story was relatable to me; soccer fan, writer, married, and now transgender.
I wasn’t ready to accept myself yet. I didn’t know about any normal transgender girls. I still thought there was a magic cure. I had started seeing a therapist that was coaxing me little by little from the deepest closet. Christine Daniels, she made it seem ordinary.
Each day I would look for an update on her blog. Sometimes it was about David Beckham’s foray into the MLS; other times it was things like receiving a friendly gift of delicate handkerchiefs, because a friend said she would shed many years before it got better.
Her normal made me seem normal. She seemed to have it all together. Days stretched to weeks without a blog update. Weeks turned into months. Then one day, Christine was gone. Everything associated with Christine Daniels was gone. Mike was back.
Well, in name, Mike was back. Her writing was forthright and no nonsense. Gone were the little quips of humanity. She wrote like a robot putting together sentences. Her column became a chore to read. My trips to the LA Times website were fewer and far between. Then she was gone completely.
While she was still Christine; I sent her an email. I told her of my trials and tribulations. I told her how much her story meant to us. I told her a few things about me. She gave a quick reply and said she would like to talk more in depth when she had the time. She never had the time.
When I found out she had passed; I didn’t ask why. When one of us dies at our own hands, I never ask why. We live in a calloused cruel world. One of her transgender friends spoke in an interview and said that if she just would have finished transitioning; she would have been OK. Maybe, but who really knows. She probably couldn’t straddle two genders. She had divorced her wife, but moved back in with her wife. All traces of Christine were absent from anything involving her funeral.
Her death affected me deeply. I am embarrassed to say that. Someone that lived 1400 miles away; that I only knew on the Internet, had an impact on me. I don’t know why. I was really sad for a while. Eventually, it faded. I still say a prayer to the Goddess on the transgender day of remembrance for her.
I still think of her. I think how important her story would be. I think about how she would have been strong in the bathroom fight. How strong in our fight for civil rights. May she RIP
Mother’s Day
I know that girls and guys like us don’t always have the best family story. Mother’s Day sometimes is hurtful. One of the saddest prices of advice I ever heard was to make an exit plan: have a friend you can stay with, gather everything important you want to take with you, that way you can make a quick exit when things go bad. That would have been my strategy, but my mom passed away. I am no teenager. I loved my mom, but she wasn’t perfect. I would have been out. She believed the bible, literally.
When it comes to motherhood; my bride is everything my mom wasn’t; which has made her perfect for our children.
She managed to track our oldest down. In a large metropolitan city. Millions of people. She found him. He was surprised. She is the mother they have always needed. A person that says life can suck; but so what, you can’t have that excuse.
Everything that makes her a good mother; makes her an excellent wife.
She refuses to give up, even on me. She is amazing.
Transgender validity and affirmation
The link is an HRC video speaking out against bathroom bills. What’s interesting is the spokes people. Pediatricians, therapists, teachers, and parents. All speaking out in support of transgender children. Amazing. The support is needed.
Validation and affirmation are two terms consistently used in the video. Those are very important. The positive compliments in a child’s life can make all of the difference in the world. They encourage. They feed. When the bullying happens; when the world happens, validation and affirmation save lives. In all honesty; you are either for us, or against us. There is no inbetween. Love the sinner; hate the sin is total bullshit. How about we tell children words like brave, strong, cute, handsome. Cute dress. Handsome haircut, beautiful shoes, awesome jump shot.
I can’t believe the hate, the negativity. It would seem the most vitriol is levied on our lgbt children. Reserved for the most delicate. Are we at a point where we will have to march in step in the schools? Who knows. Federalize the national guard? Somethings going to have to happen. We all have a right. It’s easy to be nice.
That validation is important. My Lilith asks me when my next post is. She validates me. We had a salon day. We talk about fashion. She helps me put on concealer. She corrects me when I say man in a dress. That validation is like air; like water. Just knowing I have it gives me life.
Trans is the New Black
Trans is the new Black
I must preface this by saying my intent is not to anger or offend anyone; but the target audience of bigots that are usually offended by our transgender existence. I use this title as a parallel.
This country has been flooded with bathroom bills. In most states we can still be evicted, terminated, and openly discriminated against. The panic defense is still allowed in the majority of states. Even our history has been scrubbed and white washed. Movies made refuse to show Sylvia Rivera throwing the first stone in the stonewall riots. Jared Leto, Eddie Redmayne, and Jeffrey Tambor play us on the screen, in their own version of black face. The problem is with the general public; but the problem is with us, as well.
When you looks at the civil rights movement; you see a progression of leaders, as a whole, becoming more radical and passionate with each generation.
The existence of Malcolm X made the powers that be realize that if they refused to deal with the nonviolent means of Martin Luther King; they would be forced to deal with the “by any means necessary ” tactics of Malcolm X.
We are at the crossroads in our movement for equality. We need to figure out our direction. As the states enact neo-jim crow legislation; we need to march strongly. We need to march with purpose. Our interests must not be silenced.
We should not cater to the “remove the t movement”; nor to the Uncle Tom like stance that Caitlyn Jenner is modeling. Too much blood has been shed to settle. We have momentum. We have Kristin Beck pushing the military further in acceptance. We have Mia Macy using the civil rights act of 1964; showing it is still relevant.
We are so much more than our stars. We need our Malcolm X; we need our March on Washington. We need our Black Panthers; our Huey Newton. We need our defiantly clenched fists on the podium in the 1968 Olympic games. We need to take what’s ours. Our closets should be burned; and the ashes scattered on the graves of the last generation’s dying bigotry.
Are you wearing that?
I work in a call center. My company happens to be both the largest, and the first home shopping network. Yeah, that place. I get to peek in your closets; and frankly, I am scared.
Pull on boot cut jeans; with glitter butterfly applique on the legs, aren’t a good look for anyone. To the kind 80 year old lady asking if your great granddaughter will like this? No, no fucking way.
One thing that I see is both a blessing and a curse. One of the great things is that the fashions are the same in both Missy and plus sizes. We are also fortunate to have some good designers associated with us. The problem comes in with the way some of the plus sizes are cut. Just making clothing wider, but not longer doesn’t solve anything. I can’t tell you how many people return coats and shirts because their stomach is visible. Plus size pants become an issue as well. Designers assume that large stomach, and hips mean large legs. What happens is leggings that fit properly on the mid section, but are baggy on the legs. Another issue comes to shoes. Just because a foot is wide width doesn’t mean the boot shaft needs to be wide. How does this play into the transgender community?
Well…although I have been blessed or cursed with short stature, most are not. I am 5’4″, me and my bride wear the same size shoe. I owe her a pair of crystal encrusted heels; mud doesn’t wash off. I also owe her a bra, its not my fault she is less endowed than me. OK back on task. I get all kinds of calls from people with male names, having me ship to addresses other than their home. This is the commandment; don’t be afraid to ask questions. We have broad resources when it comes to sizing. I can tell you in inches, how big an item is. I can tell you if it runs true to size. I can tell you what it looks good with…well, pretty much everything. My point is this; ask questions. Nobody really cares what your name is in relation to your gender. Give us the hard questions. What is the chest size? What is the length? What is the hip size? Where does the hip size measure?
We have to get over this innate fear. Its not really our fault. Years of specific gender coding has warped our brains into dividing everything into gender. Clothing just needs to be clothes. Makeup just needs to be makeup. I don’t know. Sometimes to transgender people gender is nothing; sometimes gender is everything.
Confessions of a transgender mall rat 