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Letting Go

Dec10

Letting go. It seems I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Letting go of my children, some of whom don’t even want to know me anymore. Letting go of my mother, who died a year ago but whose passing seems as fresh as yesterday. Letting go of the illusions that I wove around myself to fit into the expectations of society.

But one thing I’ve not been able to let go of is my desire to see my grandchildren. Even as that is denied, I continue to hope and pray that the situation will eventually change. Yet even as I hope and pray, I know that I should not expect it in the least, that the likelihood is utterly small, and that I should never expect to see those children ever again.

Perhaps that is what makes this so hard. I had no choice but to let go of mom. Her death took her from us. But then there are my grandchildren. I probably focus on them far too much. I probably think about them more than I should. Little Emma is growing up. Kaiti is becoming a young woman. And I’ve been severed from them both, for no rational or medical reason.

I’m learning to let go, at least of some things. And I’ll keep moving forward with my life. But there are also some things which, for better or worse, I don’t intend to let go of ever.

Thanksgiving? Giving thanks, despite it all.

Nov28

I sit alone at home today and no, I won’t be invited anywhere. I do have friends but they are all away for the holiday or live far enough away that going to their homes was not practical this year. But this doesn’t upset me.

My daughter and her family are visiting elsewhere, or they’d likely have me over. My sons? No, of course not. I am a pariah to them.

And yet today I am amused. I wonder how I could have raised such a gracious and loving daughter yet have raised such vindictive and hateful sons. But friends have reminded me that neither of them grew up that way. One, who was a long time friend of my eldest son, and simply let that friendship slide away, and did so because he watched my son go from being an open-minded, accepting person early in college, to the close-minded, spiteful, angry creature he’s become today after he married into a rigid Southern Baptist clan. So I take solace in the fact that no, I didn’t do that. They did.

My daughter did have me over for dinner the night before last. She wanted to do something for me before she and her family went to visit in-laws for Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful dinner and I got to chat with her, enjoy her hot-lemon-honey-cinnamon drink that she’s created from the lemons from the tree in her backyard, and chat with my eldest granddaughter.

But then I had to excuse myself and went outside and cried. She came out and consoled me, hugged me, and just stood with me. You see, my eldest son is playing a game. He’s threatening to cut off contact with my daughter and my daughter’s children if she lets her children know about my transition. Since my granddaughter by my daughter and my granddaughter by my eldest son are just one year apart, they are close friends. Thus, she’s having to make a choice. And right now she wants to protect that childhood relationship between her daughter and his daughter, which I understand. She doesn’t like this and she has promised that it won’t stay this way, but this is what she’ll have to do soon and for the immediate future. It’s not right now but it’s coming, as I move further along with my transition and things become more and more obvious.

As I told her, this is not an act of love. It’s an act of raw hatred, anger, power. An opportunity for my son to further split our family against me, or at least he believes so. We discussed my eldest son’s wife, a woman who has been jealous of me for years because of the close relationship I once had with my eldest son. She’s done everything she can to break that up and this was the ultimate chance – cut off that competition. And now that she’s done so? She hardly includes my son in anything other than to just let him babysit their two girls. And her? She’s off running with her friends, or visiting her side of the family. She’s ignored my daughter and not been friendly or open to her either.

I had my cry. I was consoled. And I got over it. Today I’m writing about it and I am sadly amused. Sad for obvious reasons but amused because my son’s close-mindedness would deny his daughters a loving grandparent solely for his “superior moral view”.

Let me relay a story about the reality of my son’s hatred. I’ve seen my older granddaughter by my son just once in the last 16 months. It was last spring, the spring of 2013. We had gone to Denny’s for Sunday breakfast because we enjoy Denny’s pancakes, french toast, etc. And it was busy, as usual on a Sunday morning so we were waiting in the lobby. And who walked up to the cash register? My eldest son, who looked at me, grunted a hello then turned to the cashier. Right behind him, I heard a squeal. “Grandpa!” She ran to me and hugged me, saying, “I miss you so much. I love you.” I smiled down at her and replied, “I miss you too, honey. I love you.” And at that moment, her mother snatched her by the collar, dragging her out the door, with everyone staring and my granddaughter having this frightened, hurt look on her face as she was dragged away from me.

That is the reality of my life. That is the reality of my eldest son and his open bigotry, all in the name of Southern Baptist fundamentalist evangelical hatred. So those who wonder why I take a dim view of fundamentalist Christians, this is why. When you and yours openly scorn me, do not expect me to embrace your bigotry. Tolerance does not mean accepting someone else’s bigotry. That is not an act of Christ. That is an act of a Pharisee.

Thus I sit home alone today, debating what to make for myself for Thanksgiving. I have a few ideas and we’ll see what I decide. And I do give thanks, for my daughter, for my close friends, for my siblings, and for my transgender friends, all of whom have stood beside me.

Finally, just for further reading and viewing about trans experiences, here are two links. Neither is what I would call a perfect instance of journalism. The Rolling Stone piece is laced with binary gender assumptions despite its attempt to be generally positive but they do document different aspects of life as a trans person. The video is one trans person’s experience and is valid for her but each of us is unique and though we share so much, we also walk different paths in certain respects.

About a Girl: Coy Mathis’ Fight to Change Gender

I Am Not My Body

Enjoy and may each of you have a happy Thanksgiving and joyous Hanukkah.

More Great Results from Yeson

Nov27

Yeson Voice Center has a new pitch centric technique for adjusting pitch for male-to-female transsexuals. I’ve been following the progress of several transwomen who have gone there and have been just floored at the improvements in their voices as they’ve healed and continued voice therapy afterwards.

This is Sarah’s voice experience thread and she’s begun posting about her progress now that she’s a bit more than 2 weeks post-op for her voice. Already her voice sounds great. Jenny, another poster at Susans forums, also has experienced great results as have several others.

For someone with an actual physical problem that hinders voice retraining, this looks like a god-send. The patient still has to retrain to focus on head voice (female) rather than chest voice (male) but I’ve found that is not all that hard to do.

I am looking forward to having saved enough to go there in a year or two.

I am somebody, even if others treat me like a nobody

Nov21

Today was the birthday of one of my daughter-in-laws. She’s married to my eldest son, about whom I’ve written before. I previously contacted her and my son on my old Facebook account and told them I would invite them to friend me on my new account. I know that she saw the PM. I do not know if my son ever did or not. Anyway, I tried to tell her happy birthday when I discovered that she had unfriended even my old male account. So I checked on my son. I can’t reach his account from my page though I found a way to reach his page via other means. Very odd. So, I am not welcome at their house. They don’t accept phone calls from me. And they never come over here. So I’ll say this here, even though she’ll never see it and probably doesn’t care even if she does – Happy Birthday.

My sons have not spoken to me in months, despite efforts to reach out the them. It took me quite some time to get over the rejection from my spouse, a rejection that basically said “no, I don’t love you; I love an image of you”, to grieve over that loss, and to come to terms with it. But I’ve known for a long time that my spouse didn’t have deep feelings for me. This simply confirmed it.

It’s a bit different when your own children reject you. There’s sadness. There’s tears. And despite months and months, it never seems to truly heal, just grow slightly more tolerable over time. It’s an ugly revelation when you find out that those to whom you gave decades of your life will willingly and happily pretend you don’t exist.

But the greatest loss are my grandchildren, who I am not allowed to see, to hold, to cherish. My grandchildren, in whose lives I’ve been made a ghost. There are no words for that, just tears.

A Small Smile in November

Nov18

This last weekend, I bought and tried on my first pair of leggings. I got a black set and a purple set, and of course, I chose to wear the purple set the first time. They fit wonderfully and I love the feel on my legs. I think they look pretty good too.

This prompted me to revisit an outfit I’d put together but wasn’t quite happy with at the time. It’s a knee length black skirt and a purple mid-sleeve blouse. I put those together with my favorite open toed sandals and everything clicked! It was right and I felt right about it.

This got me to thinking about my own comfort zones. I’ve been really reluctant to wear mid-length or shorter skirts, preferring longer skirts and dresses. I’m critical of my own legs though two different cisgender female friends have insisted that I have “great pins”, as one of them said. So I’m beginning to think that leggings, and later maybe stockings might be a way to get past those hyper critical thoughts about my legs.

We’ll see. In the end, I enjoyed that moment for what it was. Looking in the mirror, I see more and more of Liz and less and less of him staring back at me. Yes, there are some things that still trigger me, like the heavy beard shadow, but that too shall pass over the next year or so.

Next big goal? Losing 15-20 more pounds. At 5 foot, 10 inches, I want to be around 155 to 160 pounds, not 175 pounds. Honestly, I’d love 150 even but I’m not sure if I can get there. Again, we’ll see.

And the final observation? Estrogen, finasteride, and spiro, plus minoxidil and now adding microneedling of the scalp with a dermaroller do appear to be thickening my hair slowly. This could be a multi-year process before I feel comfortable without a wig, if I ever even get there, but it does seem I’m moving in the right direction.