On Rage

I recall, I felt my life was like a child's beloved macaroni art work, in which, pieces were falling off, during last transition. I couldn't stop them: No matter how hard I tried I couldn't make them glue back in place.

I described myself as crazy. I wasn't: that word is used too often. I was sad. I mourned the loss of things I was not sure I had lost. I was afraid of things to come. Of things I didn't yet have a plan for. I did not ever identify my feelings as futility or anger. I think women are taught not the should not feel anger. If a women expresses anger she is labeled bitchy, hormonal, or out of control.

In Fluidity I spoke about my coming out. How I was received and perceived as the wife of a Cross Dresser (or more accurately transgender). How unpleasant it was. The post was selfish, the feelings are self absorbed. It feels good to be selfish about this and to acknowledge my own pain. My discomfort over my new sensationalized relationship did not push me to feeling unglued. It made me feel enraged.

I don't know how other people live with bigotry, discrimination, or ignorance. I don't know how people can calmly live there lives when someone hates them enough to kill without ever having met. I witnessed a hate crime during this period of anger. I was on duty. I assisted man beaten for holding hands with his boyfriend. I cried, privately. I wanted the perpetrator to die, for his ignorance, for his hate. I doubt the victim pressed charges because it would have been a hardship on them, but it really shook me. These things happen.

My spouse would tell me how people reacted when she went out alone. She told me about the woman who reported a Tranny in the locker room to the gym management. When asked by management what inappropriateness had been witness she said that my spouse had been fully clothed, and had wash washed its hands. Management told my spouse that she could not use the communal bathrooms of either gender. I was angry for weeks, at the management. People say and do stupid things all the time. You don't have any right or responsibility to enforce stupid.

My workplace fired my spouse after she came out on Facebook. I wanted to walked around with a chip on my shoulder. I wanted to kick peoples faces in. The ones who took double takes, the ones who used terms like He-She, or It. I wanted to calmly retort to inappropriate questions about genitalia and surgeries with equally inappropriate questions like; how is your wife's infertility? What are the dimensions of your penis? Have you ever had homosexual sex? That was the plan in my head, but I couldn't calm my rage enough. I cried in anger, quietly when I was alone.

My friends, our friends had just as hard of time with the whole gender change thing as I did. Well, I should say almost, because really I lived with 14 year old girl version of my husband, while they saw her occasionally. Much more occasionally than before too. We were uninvited to a picnic because there would be children present. Another time I was invited to a friends birthday but told not to bring my spouse because the birthday girl's new boyfriend was christian and they were not sure if he would be comfortable with a trans-women sharing cake and wine with him. It was just simpler not to see him. I hated them. I saw red.

What do people say about those who stick with you when your ship is sinking...they are worth it and those who abandon you are not. Well they weren't abandonning me, just him. They made that perfectly clear. I hated them. I wanted to shout at them, I wanted them to feel ashamed.

Shame is all anyone should feel when they are confronted by there own bigotry.

I yelled at some. I estranged my parents, my best friend, my co-workers. But mostly, and quite confusingly I understood. Even my biggest champions were not ready to endanger their reputations for his gender presentation, their place in the church, in there family. Would you risk losing visitation of your children by having your crazy ex-wife meet an excentric friend in a dress? How about your job? How about your spouse? I hated understanding them, it interfered with my loathing and did nothing to lessen the pain or betrayl.

I was not angry at my husband. I am still not. The anger is back though. I fear that she will come out again without my knowledge or input as before. That I will be drafted into a war I never volunteered fore.That is the place I don't want to be in again.

Dis-Orientation

Broad shoulders, deep voices, and whiskers on jawlines, these are a few of my favorite things ::sings:: I love how easily men can be distracted and stimulated. I love awkward advances from men who are certain that they are about to be rejected. I could write a lovely lewd ode to the wonders of male genitalia. I love men, this was never uncertain. However, CD's are adorable. I have always found them brave and earnest in their gender expressions.  Put me in a room full of men and I will find the gender variant one the most attractive. It is my six sense. He will be manly, charismatic, and a secret gender outlaw. This affinity and apparent attraction has caused me some confusion. So what am I?

My CDing husband confided in me that he felt he needed to live as a women three years into our marriage. Perhaps I will recount the happenings of trying months that lead up to his revelation but today I would like to share what happened to me when I supported his journey and stayed at his side while our colleagues, friends, and family watched with shock and awe as he transformed. I, a self identified lover of men, suddenly was a lesbian.

Many of my personal heroines are feminist, brash, lady-loving women. I am drawn to tough jobs, military, law enforcement, mining, etc. that call for tough women who are, at a higher rate than the general population, stereotypically, lesbians (or bi-sexual). I had been always proud to be counted in the ranks with my LGBT friends.

I was struck by the positive and negative attention my new status gained me. Acquaintances came out to me assuring me I wasn't the only lesbian in the joint. Others emphatically announced they had lesbian relatives in hopes of making me feel at ease. My father confided that he knew all along that I was one. Some suddenly avoided me as if it was rumored I carried a dreadful antibiotic resistant disease. I was hit on by women (which had happened in the past but not with such frequency or gusto).

I became angry. I wanted to shout I am not a lesbian! In denying the label I was perceived as homophobic, sadly confused, or, in the truest sense, a deviant. If there is a term for a women who enjoys sex and romance with a CD surely it would have almost fit. Right? It was not I who was confused but the public. If I insisted my husband was a women and I loved her I would have to love a women. No one can tell me who I am oriented towards; but they sure tried. I was miserable. My husband laughed off the attention. She took some pleasure from the befuddled looks, answered the personal questions with ease. She took no offense from the mislabels or confusion. Yes, saint like, I know.

I had an identity crisis. I shaved my head. I questioned my motives and inspected myself for signs of hatred. I looked long and hard at definitions of seemingly simple terms like Women or Homosexual. If I had sex with a women once would I forever be a Bisexual? How about if I found the female form attractive and sexual? but what if I disliked sex with a women? What if I found that you could enjoy the touch of a women but could never bring myself to return the that pleasure? No I think one must love women and enjoy sex with women to be a Homosexual women. 

I was not homosexual by my own definition. Why still did being assumed so bother me? So what if the world has got it all wrong? Should I really be bent on setting each and everyone straight? They are wrong. It is very hard to be labeled something you are not even when that label is not negative. Like being called George instead of Jorge, or being (God forgive!) Sir-ed instead of Ma'am-ed, or being mistaken for Mexican when you are Hawaiian. They are just plain wrong.

When my husband came out I felt I entered a closet. I am a dick loving Heterosexual. It is easier let the world think I am a normal lesbian. It is not fair. My husband is back in the closet, and I am out as a Hetero women again. It is good for me. Bad for him, I think. Perhaps he is more resilient than I am. Perhaps I am just cruel for not being more flexible and understanding. I do know that having gone through the coming out with her once. I will not do it again for so many reasons.