Saturday, October 1, 2011

Transgender Mother in Law

The signs of an aging population in our country has reached our transgendered culture.
In an article I found from a site called "10,000 Couples", a woman tells the story of her transgendered mother in law her husband was so reluctant to talk about or even know.
Here is part of the story:
"I wanted to be sure in the early days of our courtship that we were aligned on the values and principles of life, and accordingly, I put him to a few tests. Among the first was the acceptance test. Tolerance was a deciding factor, so being from San Francisco and thrilled by the opportunity, I took him to a transgender bar. Asia SF was well reputed for gorgeous transgender starlets and amazing food.  Not realizing, of course, that I was exposing him to the world I found so normal and fun, he had a heck of a time wrapping his head around the idea that the headliner, “Jasmine,” was a transgender, as she cooed to him to the tune of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” in her provocative and skimpy wedding dress and promised abundant and firm cleavage that, quite honestly, gave me a run for my money.  Later that evening, while we talked of the fun we had had, he blurted out, “My father is transgender.”  I remember smacking him in the arm hard, telling him that it wasn’t funny to make a joke, and then I watched all the color drain from his face, and he cast his eyes downward in what I perceived at the time as shame.  Barely audibly, he whispered, “No joke.”
When we began to plan our wedding, I wrote a personal letter to his “dad,” expounding on my personality, tolerance, and absolute acceptance, and I made clear that “he” was welcome in our lives at any time. I didn’t share this with my husband-to-be, writing the letter instead in confidence and quiet, as we never spoke much of “Dad.”  A few days later, we got a phone call from “Dad,” who told my future husband about the letter and the relief "he" had felt upon receiving it.
Ann made her transformation in the years before modern medicine recognized the possibility. Funded entirely by Stanford Hospital in the late 1970s and cared for in the children’s wing to assure privacy and avoid media sensationalism, this remarkable man, after a life of inauthenticity, joining the Navy as a man, marrying his high school sweetheart, seeding three children, and ultimately discovering he could no longer live this lie, saw fit to allow science to use him to pioneer the way for medical alterations that are all but customary on many fronts today, almost 40 years later.
Thirty-plus years later, Ann is now 72, and although many deal with the needs of aging parents, our aging parent in need is much different than the norm. Being a “lab rat” for modern medicine to pave the way for the future left in its wake medical obstacles and an entirely new understanding of the human condition in aging."

This story sheds a huge amount of light into some of the transgendered or transsexual "pioneers" in our culture and the absolute resolve to follow their path into another gender. Not to mention the wonderful courage and caring soul of the woman who wrote it.
More to come...follow the link to experience it!

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