Trans-Parents

I'm married to a great guy, his son calls him "Mommy"

My spouse is completing transition. He was assigned female at birth but he's always known he was a guy. There's a period of "coming out" and a period of moving along a continuum from being perceived as a masculine woman toward being perceived as a feminine man that requires new safety management techniques.

(Before you ask, I knew before we got married, and I am still, six years later, absolutely sure that I'm the luckiest woman alive to have this person as MY person.)

Transition: a Journey, not a Sprint

Credit Creative Commons

We live in Portland Oregon. That means that there are some gender neutral bathrooms available, and it feels safer than some other towns. That hasn't changed the fact that going to the movies can be stressful - for a while I'd go into the women's restroom with him so that other women would feel more comfortable. Then there was the period where neither restroom would do and we would sprint home after a long movie, or skip the soda! Now he feels comfortable using a men's restroom in most places in Portland, though I worry...

Now a whole new challenge has shown up. When we go out to eat, we use my credit card because his still has his old name on it. When we forget, and he pays, the waitperson gets all weird when they see the old name on the card and realize they must have been "wrong" about his gender the whole time they served us. Worse, at the doctor's office, when the nurse comes out and calls the old name my husband has to decide if he will answer, thereby outing himself to all the people in the waiting room. Is that safe?

We are working on the name change, but it is tricky. You don't want to change legal name while you are in the middle of selling property, for instance. We do want to get renewed passports and we want to travel. Now that's another area of concern. Traveling... Where can we travel safely. What do we need to think about for safety when walking down the street in Phoenix Arizona? What if there is a medical emergency, will the emergency room doctors respond with care or confusion? Or most terrifying, with a refusal to treat him!

Family Transitions R Us

Our son has special dispensation to call my husband "mommy" since he's been using that name for 30 years. But will that work when we are visiting our grandchild in Arizona, sitting in a restaurant? And what will our seven-year-old grandson call us? He was a perceptive 4 year old who had a really hard time applying "grandma" to my husband, because my husband didn't seem like a grandma to him. That astute little boy settled on "Daddy's Mommy" at the time. (I've always been an easy "Grandma.") We have been trying "Granpama" but last month "Grandpa" began to win...

My own experience with his transition is worth a separate blog post... I've always had an ambiguous relationship with the way I can pass as a femme woman, and my friends who are butch risk so much more just living in the world. It is bizarre how my safety from homophobia swings from high alert when I'm with certain friends to complete unconcern when I'm "passing" as straight. Now that sense of "having it easy" in comparison to people of color, gender non-conforming folks, etc. is intensified when I realize people respond to my family as a straight family. I now have a husband, and I'm allowed into certain spaces in a way I wasn't before.

photo via flickr under the Creative Commons License

All of this Could be Easier

Our lives are really pretty awesome. And we are lucky to live in Portland, and at this time in history... And, it could be so much easier if allies and professionals were just a little more aware and attentive. And of course, I pray for those who are made uncomfortable to pay more attention to their own moral behavior and their own opportunities to learn and grow. I pray for them to spend less energy on judging and meting out judgement on others.

Meanwhile, my guy and I are living our lives, still in love, taking care of the dogs and cat, laughing together, learning together, and having adventures.


Here's a fabulous resource for Allies!

And here's my guy's blog.