Transgender Inclusion

 

My Fave Girls. Liz on left, daughter on right
from the Jessie Hart Archives 

I actually survived my second "Seder" Jewish ritual service and dinner in fairly good shape. The one my wife Liz and I were invited to last year proved to be very uncomfortable due to my back's reactions to very uncomfortable chairs. This year I was greeted by my son in law to my own comfortable chair which ended up fitting perfectly with the table we ate at. I was so relieved. 

I also was happy my trans grandchild was the "moderator" and led the lengthy service which was partly in Jewish. Since lately I seem to struggle with English, speaking nay Jewish was certainly out of my reach. 

It turned out,  my grandchild who is re-enrolling in The Ohio State University this Spring seems to be coming out of their shell quite a bit and was there with their partner, whose name I promptly screwed up when we arrived. So much for making a good second impression. Which has been normally the story of my life. Open mouth, insert foot. 

Being included so totally in their rituals of the Jewish Faith has always been amazing to me. In fact, years ago at my oldest grandson's Bar Mitzfah  I was asked to get up in front of many people in his temple and have a part in the service. I was still early into my Mtf gender transition and was petrified but was able to come through it all unscathed.  I am not a real expert but the Jewish Temple my daughter and family belong to are Reform Jews and not the stricter Orthodox Jews which is possibly why I was welcomed and included with open arms.

For the day, as I wrote about briefly yesterday, since I was never allowed to even think about wearing a pretty, bight colored dress like the girls and women were allowed to wear,  I resorted to wearing my own bright colored clothes. What I attempted to do was wear as much as I could of the clothes and accessories my wife Liz has made for me over the years. She knitted me a pink and blue sleeveless sweater vest which I wore over a white camisole top and my bright patterned leggings. Then I added the earrings and hand beaded trans hair beret she made me. As I said yesterday, she is very talented and has her own shops on the Etsy craft platform under "Liz T Deigns" if you would like to visit it. 

Outside of being able to wear what I wanted to relieve myself of past anxieties, the best time I had was when my transgender grandchild made a special effort to sit down with Liz and I and discuss their advanced Physic's course she was taking soon at OSU when classes resume. They (chosen pronouns) most certainly didn't  get any of my genetics from me in the math or science area's of academia. I can barely add or subtract on a good day. I wish I could say I understood all they were talking about but I didn't. I was better suited in understanding the history behind the "Seder" ritual and how in it's own way intersects with all the problems going on today in the Middle East. 

 As I thought of all of sadness in the world and discrimination against the transgender population, my fondest hope is I can leave some sort of a legacy on how you can lead a successful life as a trans person. Being included in such an inviting ritual such as a "Seder" was a start.