It's Nice to be Wanted

 

Remembering Warmer Days!
From the Jessie Hart Collection

It is especially nice to be wanted during the holidays as an transgender person. Yesterday my wife Liz and I went to her circle's celebration of Yule. Being a special gathering I was invited since I am not a full member. The circle is heavily LGBTQ involved and actually the leader was our officiant at our wedding. Fortunately I found once of the guests was an excellent pastry chef of sorts and brought two trays of his home made cookies to sample. I am a huge lover of peanut butter cookies and the ones he brought were among the best I have ever sampled. 

The host also has two dogs which were very friendly and I felt again how much I missed not having a dog since both of ours passed away. Perhaps after we get our living arrangements straightened out, we can go to the animal shelter and pick out another dog to spoil. 

Since most of you already know my experience of being banned from attending what was left of our families holiday gatherings by my spineless brother who refused to stand up for me when I came out as transgender to him over a decade ago. I bluntly asked him if I was still invited and he just as bluntly told me no. So that was the last time we spoke. His in laws are very conservative bigots and I think he was afraid to face them with anything to do with me wanting to live as my authentic feminine self. I always felt if he and my sister in law were that shallow, I didn't need them anyhow and it turns out I didn't. I was fortunate, I fell into having an extended family which was far more cohesive than anything I had known in the past.

First of all, through my entire MtF transgender transition, my daughter stood by me and even embraced the change. So at least I had some remaining blood relation which supported me.  What I didn't anticipate was the amount of support I received from my daughter's in laws. Their support was nothing short of amazing to me. I was invited to any or all family functions as if nothing had changed. To add to that, Liz's ultra conservative late father even came to a begrudging support of me. So, all in all I came out of the holiday process in a better space than when I went in. It was nice to be wanted.

I should point out also, the group yesterday at the Yule ceremony the other Gay and Lesbian people there went through being ostracized from their families also. Thus, the group was more giving and happy when gifts were exchanged. The whole celebration felt to me as if I had found s new home. These days with the increasing number of LGBTQ centers around the country and cohesive social media contacts, it is very possible to locate other non-blood family replacements to attempt to sooth the pain of having no family for the holidays.

I hope through the holidays ( it is hard to believe Christmas is almost here!) you have some sort of family to replace the one so many of us have lost in the transgender community.