Transitioning Reality

The night of December 3, 2006 my understanding of gender would change dramatically and it would continue to change even through today.  Now I already understood that some people felt they were actually not the gender they were born and I myself have dealt with questioning whether I was supposed to be a boy or a girl in my teen years but I had not really spend much time researching and certainly never had the opportunity to ask someone questions and learn from their point of view before.

So back to that night.  I was on a website http://www.butchfemmematchmaker.com as I was a femme lesbian looking for a stone-butch or butch.  I expanded my search to ftm (female to male) thinking that someone ftm wouldn't be much different than the stone butches I had dated (I would learn differently) and found a profile that had some references to The Princess Bride which is my favorite movie of all time so sent him a "virtual kiss".  Later on that evening he would open up a chat and we started chatting.  The interesting thing was that he actually had found my profile months before and it kept coming up as a match except I was not looking for a ftm.  We chatted (IMed) for hours that night laughing and joking and he sent me pictures of himself - one clean shaven, one with a goatee and one with a full mountain man type beard.  There was absolutely no way I would have ever guess he was born in a female body.  I struggled after I saw the pictures - I mean he was cute for a guy but I had never been attracted to a guy before so I really wondered whether I should keep chatting with him but I did.  He answered many questions I had and he promised to call that night (since is was now about 3 or 4 am on December 4th.)

Unlike most "I will call you" promises that never came through - he did.  His voice was low and soothing.  We talked about everything and he answered questions and corrected the many misconceptions I had in a polite way.    He told me he transitioned at 40 and he was now 46.  He had lived as a lesbian for 20ish years before he transitioned.  I then asked how he knew he had been a lesbian and he corrected me and explained that since his earliest memories he felt he was a boy he only lived as a lesbian because he thought transitioning would be too hard on his family, but that by 40 he knew it was either transition or suicide and the thought of a female name on his gravestone was horrifying so he figured he should try to transition first.  I am so glad he made that choice.

For the next couple of weeks we talked on the phone every night and the weekends.  Finally we decided to meet.  I was nervous the whole 2 hour drive to his house.  I promised myself that I would at least give him a hug - after all on the phone I had been falling for him - but when I drove up and he opened my car door - I was instantly attracted to him and felt at ease.  I have to admit as he cooked a wonderful dinner for me I kept trying to imagine him as a female and just couldn't.  We talked and watched The Princess Bride.

That day would lead to a lot more in depth discussions about gender and sexuality and identity as I would have my own mini identity crisis - I mean after all I was a lesbian and could not find anything feminine about him and yet I was attracted to him.  Was I still a lesbian or was I bisexual or was it that I just feel in love with a wonderful person no matter what his gender or sex was or my sexual orientation.  I have to say he was so patient with me and has always explained or answered any question I had and gently corrected anything I did not understand correctly.

So why am I writing about all of this now - well despite my original belief that he transitioned (except for lower surgery) when I met him so he was a guy and now being born as a woman was a non-issue, I find that transsexuals continue to transition throughout their entire lives and really for my hubby (yes I married him!) he was born not quite a woman and no matter how far he transitions he will never be quite a man.

I want to take a moment suggest a book called The Gendered Self: Further commentary on the transsexual phenomenon by Anne M Vitale - I read it this past weekend and it helped me understand things even further (yes after 5.5 years I am still learning) and allowed for some in depth conversations that helped my hubby and I to become even closer as we discussed much of what was in the book.

My hubby told me when I met him that he felt he needed to have lower surgery at some point.  This is a very expensive surgery (actually I would find out SURGERIES) and it would not be covered by health insurance (I am talking over $60,000).  I had hoped that us getting married and him being a father to my children would allow him to feel "man" enough he wouldn't need it but I did know from past relationships that I did want to make sure we had the money available because I never wanted him to say he didn't "need" it because he felt the money would be spent in better ways.   Well I am glad I was always working on saving up and finding ways to get enough money because each year my hubby got more and more depressed until April of 2011 he was like a walking zombie.  I had seen him anxious and stressed before that someone might find out (our mini honeymoon we took 6 months after we got married was horrible because he stressed for weeks about going through security for the plane and as soon as we got there he was stressing about the plane ride back.) Now he wasn't stressed and anxious as much as saying he wished he had never dragged me into this relationship because now he feels he couldn't kill himself but he just is waiting to die.

I called his best friend (his ex-girlfriend who transitioned the other way - mtf) and asked for her help to talk him into using the money we had saved and such and to look into going.  She did and I scheduled his consult the day before his 51st bday.  That was last September.  On February 28th he had the first of his series of lower surgeries.  There have been some complications and now he has to wait until the end of November until his next surgery.  So basically since the end of February he has been uncomfortable and dealing with some level of pain and healing.  Through these last several months I came to understand that he will never really be who he wants to be (a biological male) but instead just get closer to who he feels he should have been.  He will never be fully male - he will always have to edit his history as he talks and never have "fully working equipment" and never quite attain what it is that he wants to be.

I have realized that our reality will always be a transitioning reality.


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