Tag Archives: trans

Love and loss

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One of the attractive parts of poly is knowing that you get to share a divided self in the appropriate containers. I have found a delightful man who wants to explore topping in ways I find absurdly fun. I have found a delightful woman who is keen to explore submission.

I win!

I appreciate the way that both of these humans are interested in getting to know me and figuring out what a long term thing can mean. I don’t feel used or exploited. I feel like I am going to get as good as I give in both of these containers. That’s lovely.

I got to explain to Gentleman yesterday about some of the ways I have struggled with relationships in the past. I don’t like when I feel like someone is treating me like a service provider only they don’t even pay me. And yet some folks who have sort of done that have actually turned into long term valued friends that I will prioritise going to see at any opportunity. I am a complex creature.

Right now I am trying to ease into poly with two people who have zero experience doing anything like this. I feel like it is incredibly important that I keep my pace slow and careful. I can see long term healthy ways that both Gentleman and Pretty Lady are folks that have the capacity to be stable partners. I’ve watched some folks have a lot of churn in their romantic lives. I’ve watched some folks have really stable poly situations that last decades. I’m moving slowly and carefully because I have my eye on the long run.

I am mindful that when I choose to date people who are 10 or 20 years older than me, when I’m already past middle age, that I am signing on to a situation that will involve mutual care in the not too dim future.

I have to admit that given how young Noah died it feels slightly insane to want to love people that much older than me. It feels like courting more pain. Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Noah was a major risk taker. In very particular ways the two folks I am interested in aligning my life with at this stage are very energetic folks who don’t take risks very often. Maybe that will be more stable?

In the long run I am incredibly happy about how I handled Travel Boyfriend. I’m glad I didn’t give a shit about his impulsive desire to spin up a relationship instantly. I’m glad I forced a waiting period before we saw each other because then he could disappoint me without me having to experience life collateral damage as a result. I am going to move slowly with Pretty Lady like I have with Gentleman. I feel like I have done an A+ job on integrating Gentleman slowly. His inclusion in my life is gradual and in tiny increments with lots of scaffolding.

I am learning that sometimes I need to stop having a conversation in text with Gentleman because I have so much hostility towards me in my brain that I can’t manage to hear/see/understand the correct tone. I don’t like getting butthurt when I don’t need to get butthurt. Some things I need to process with him verbally in person so I can see his body language and properly interpret his tone of voice. When we talk in person we don’t struggle to resolve conflict at all. Sometimes I’m misinterpreting stuff in text; I hear it more harshly than he intends and I hate that I do that. It’s a long term issue of mine and it totally is not his fault. This is a thing I struggle with. My internal narrative is pretty hostile towards me and it’s not because of anyone in my current life. I’m actually way better about this than I used to be! I’ve come a long way because Noah and my friends worked very hard to overwrite the hostile tapes in my head with their voices. With new people I still have to consciously overwrite my impulses/self talk and that’s hella annoying.

I feel so much hostility towards myself that I struggle with not projecting those feelings onto other people. It’s not fair at all and is a thing I will have to manage more carefully in the years to come. I confess that I got really lazy about demanding that Noah engage with that shit. I didn’t manage it all myself.

It feels really good to have earned Gentleman’s love. He is not scarred and broken in the ways I have traditionally tracked down like a blood hound. He feels comfortable and comforting and like a balm to my soul. When we are in a room together I can check and find out that his careful and reserved body language isn’t disgust/repulsion. It’s cultural. He’s not a grabby person. He takes a lot of encouragement before he feels entitled to be pushy. Luckily I am big on giving encouragement so this is going well for me. He gets way more pushy as the months pass and I am here for it. Our sex life continues to be over the top fantastic.

I must say for the record that my desire for novelty and difference is not about me feeling unsatisfied sexually. The more satisfied I am the more novelty I want. Sex is very addictive/additive for me. The more I have, the better it is, the more I want. Gentleman is a fantastic lover–he’s generous, attentive, and incredibly motivated towards getting me off. The orgasm gap functions differently in my life than it does for the average human. I have to really insist on time to adore him and focus on his pleasure. It’s a really fun balance. I like when I can get him to relax and lay back and let me do him for a while. Much fun is had. So much fun.

Knowing that I have the potential for a fun, glowy future with him makes me feel borderline insane for insisting on dating. I still need it. I will do my best to be respectful and careful. All the signs are there indicating that Pretty Lady is going to have big feelings really fast. I get that! I’ve had a crush on her for a long time already. She is already someone I have strong feelings of attachment for given our community associations. She hasn’t had a huge number of relationships and someone wanting her is pretty exciting and novel. Our emails are scorchingly hot.

The things I want to do with her are things I can’t/won’t do with Gentleman. He’s never going to be my buddy for Pride. This is ok. She wants parts of me that are not parts he wants. He is not motivated by submission and he is not a bottom. I accept this in him and it doesn’t bother me. I want to have people in my life also who are motivated by such things.

I like that she described me as more vivacious, energised, and emancipated on our last date. I feel like that. Even though, technically, this morning I’m feeling kind of rubbish. My body is being bitchy.

I like the way Polysecure tells you to find your reason for polyamory. For me the reason that I hold on to is that I need a larger range of loving people than most people do. I need it to feel whole. I need it to feel like I am fulfilling my purpose on this earth.

In many ways I think of relationships as keys that unlock potential. These don’t all have to be romantic but they work best for me when they are. Is romantic even the right word? I need intense emotional connection. Like with the Kids. I need those kind of intense emotional connections with people. The relationships I have with much younger folk allow me to feel like I am healing something for other people that I could not heal for myself. I could not fully deal with my own massive mother wounding. I have mostly spackled over the cracks and moved on. When I can turn to a younger person and give them the acceptance, the permission, and the guidance I didn’t receive I feel like I am completing a cycle. I feel like I am part of something bigger than myself. Yes, it’s great being with my actual children and being an actual mother. That’s a big deal. But the Kids are different.

I give the Kids what Vicki gave me. I find it hilarious just how many of the Kids I find are trans; either they are on the path to transition before I meet them or I meet them as eggs. Part of what I have to offer is my religious belief (thank you Ale) that gender diversity is one of the most basic aspects of humanity.

In general, I believe that one of the things I offer humans of all stripes in Scotland is my fervent acceptance of and devotion to people getting to transition. Even when I don’t “understand”. Even when I privately occasionally have a cunty thought that isn’t perfect because I am a shitty human being. I don’t have to understand. I don’t have to agree. I don’t have to agree with someone’s motives. I will die on this hill. Gender diversity is a human right. I encountered my first transgender person before I had two digits in age. Several friends in high school transitioned. At my first munch, at 18, I met two trans women who would shape my adult life in overwhelming and comprehensive ways. My friends group has always been 1/4+ trans despite the usual percentage in the population being closer to 1%.

I feel like part of what I can give Pretty Lady is also tied to what I learned from Vicki but it’s different. I feel like part of what I can offer her is the belief that by consuming her as prey I can make her more whole. She longs for being possessed. I can work with that. Vicki taught by example that predators are an important part of the eco system.

I’m not talking about serial rapists/massively abusive predators. I am talking about people in the bdsm community who seek out people who want to be consumed. I am talking about tops and dominants and masters and sadists who look for people who need to be used, possessed, forced, and beaten. There is something special in this dyadic meeting. We need one another because alone we are broken and out of sync with what society needs.

I think there are reasons that of all the people I’ve met since I moved here 6.5 years ago this was the one that I went “Her. Her. I want to ask her out.” Noah could see why I was intrigued. Not enough to get in trouble with her. I hoped to earn the right to ask her out after the Indenture. I am grateful I don’t have to wait so long. I’ll be honest and say she isn’t a spring chicken and I’m glad we will have these years to be festive before she needs ever increasing gentleness and support. I would have been up for just the support in the long run but I’m selfish. I’m glad we get to pay into the fun bucket first.

Sometimes, I will admit, I feel a little bit like a wandering prophet. Let me tell you what love and acceptance of diversity has to offer you. Let me tell you about gender diversity and human variance. Can I share with you the glory that can be found on the edges of the bell curve? I am from Queer Mecca and I’m here to share with you stories about how you can be loved and accepted even when you are different from the majority of the population.

I remain grateful that it is not up to me to decide who is redeemable and who is not. I can’t promise that I would make unselfish choices. I think it is a good thing my father is dead. I think it is a good thing that Bad Timing is in prison and likely to stay there for the rest of his life. There are people so bad that humanity has a right to say stop and I am glad that I am not the one who decides who those people are. I do not have faith in my own fairness.

What I do have faith in is my ability to fall in love with excellent humans.

It may be rough on everyone that mostly what I want is to go forward bouncing off of people and moving forward on my own. I am deeply uncertain how far I will go in binding my life to anyone. I will share time, resources, attention, support, and adventures.

There is a part of me that needs to know that I trudge on forward with the certainty that at the most terrifying and painful parts of my life I will feel alone. I may not always be alone. My children were in the house when Noah died but I am the one who failed to use CPR effectively enough to keep him alive until the ambulance came. I failed him all by myself.

I wasn’t alone very long. Bestie came for me as she has done since we were teenagers when she came for my brother and father’s suicides. I wasn’t alone for any of the big deaths. For most of the other ones I have sought community and support.

But I feel alone. No one is in your soul with you. I need to be able to live with my soul. I need to know that I am going to feel alone no matter how many people I love or how many adventure buddies I pick up. I feel the need to know that no one is leaning on me too heavily.

Just like even though Noah tried terribly hard to isolate me and prevent me from having support other than him I held on to my network of people. The people who came in relays last year. It turned out I didn’t want a full year of support but people were willing.

I am not alone in this life. I am loved in vast and deep and broad ways by a shocking number of humans spread across the globe. I am happy when people hold my hand and walk with me for a time, but I always return to walking alone. I have since I was very small. It’s like the way my first book is chaotic and hectic and full of so much change that it feels hard to wrap your brain around. That was my life and I moved through it alone with the speed of a bullet train. Noah held my hand for 20 years.

I am afraid of holding anyone’s hand too tightly. I need to love with an open hand. I need to be willing to let go and walk away with grace and ease if someone changes their mind. I cannot grasp. I can’t clutch. I can’t need anyone too much. I must appreciate the bright shining moments in between being alone. They fuel me.

Growing up with transition

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I have long wondered if the concentration of folks who are trans in my life is as high as it is because I am autistic and many of them are autistic so we are drawn to one another like magnets. I am not sure. But hoo boy there has been glorious wave after wave after wave of their arrivals in my life.

It started when I was a young teenager. There were people in my middle school who asked for social transition. It was the 90’s. Not as many people knew as much and the “correct language” of that era would get me punched now. Ok, cool. I will use whatever words you tell me to use until you tell me to stop using them. If someone else wants different words I will do my absolute best to accommodate that as smoothly as I am able.

I mean, I had to learn how to be tolerant of friends who were joining churches and who wanted my language around them to shift. Changing words for gender description is really less invasive in terms of my vocabulary. Not a problem.

Over and over I look at my gender and think it would be an awful lot of work to do anything to shift it and I am very tired. Cool. I’m cis.

That doesn’t mean I align with behavior expected of people in my assigned gender. I regularly get told off for being too bold, aggressive, assertive, domineering, insistent on my right to set the terms of my fucking reality, thank you very much. Sometimes when men have called me a bitch in an argument I ask them if they would call a man who was arguing as passionately as I am a bitch or an asshole. They have grudgingly admitted that they wouldn’t–they would just think I was passionate about a topic. And these were “friends”.

When my children were born I developed the ability to change the words of a book at full speed. All of our “get to know your body” books suddenly had things like “Most boys have a penis, but not all. Every boy has a good enough body. Most girls have a vulva, but not all. Every girl has a good enough body. Enbies can have any kind of body and they are always a good enough body.” I do that at absolute full speed with no pauses or hesitations. That is the party line. End of story in my house.

As the kids get older we talk about how everyone’s body is always good enough but sometimes people want to change things just because they do. When a person decides that they need changes then doctors should help them because that is what should happen when a person needs help. Only the person living in the body knows if it is working well enough in the right ways for them and from the outside we don’t get to have an opinion if we agree that they need it or not. That’s not our job. We love and support people getting where they need to go. Period.

My kids have known people at various stages of transition as long as they have been alive. There has never been a time when we haven’t had newly transitioning folks in our community. We have watched together as people talk about and reason through their own desire for change.

What is the party line in my house? If you need surgery to feel ok then you need surgery. Cool. If you don’t need surgery to feel ok then that is equally as fine because having surgery isn’t what makes you trans. It may be something that you want as part of your journey with gender but people don’t have to need surgery.

It’s kinda like how everyone doesn’t need to have a nose job but some people elect to. If someone feels very strongly about having a nose job we will support them and help them how we can and then they will go on with their life. All other changes to the body are equally as case by case and not needed for every single person.

When I have to talk about health care needs that some people think of as gendered I tend to say, “If you are inflicted with a uterus then there are things you need to know how to manage. There are choices to make. If you are not inflicted with a uterus your choices are different. Let’s talk about the two sets of choices.”

Having a uterus does not make someone a gender. The uterus is not the magic key that unlocks the gender. It’s just one more squishy thing in the middle of a meat sack. Meat sack shape ≠ gender.

And as a result so far 2/3 of my children are not cis and I have a lot of wonder as I deal with youngest. There are some mixed signals at this point. I make a guess at birth (I don’t raise children “genderless”.) I tell them from when they are tiny children that I am guessing about their gender but I am not the authority–only they are. Hoo boy they have some strong damn feelings by 2/3.

Amusingly my son tells me often that he wants to be like me when he grows up. He wants to be strong and intense and independent and willing to go do things that other people tell him he can’t. He does not associate being like me with sharing my gender. He does not think about most manifestations of behavior as being gendered. He thinks people just are what they are and then they go do what they do.

I feel sad when I see so many people in the world insisting that people be shoved into preconceived holes based on their assigned gender. You are allowing yourself to be hobbled. You are allowing yourself to view the world as small and limited and constrained by stupid rules.

When you could just go live. You could be free of most of the expectations of you based on your gender. Behaviors, body shapes, adornment, hair length… all of these things are gender neutral. You can do whatever you want with any of them. You have the body you have and you can use this gift in whatever way you want going forward.

Of course, if you were inflicted with a uterus there are some choices to make about managing that. There are some processes you need to manage. During your life you will have a variety of ways of managing. If you want help researching the options I am a damn good researcher.

But the decision will not be mine. It isn’t my body. It isn’t my life. You are the only person who has to wake up every day and face you in a mirror. Do what you have to do to be ok with what you see looking back at you. Fuck other peoples’ feelings about your body.

You have to be ok with you.

Never enough time

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I spend a lot of time feeling overwhelmed by how lucky I am. I recognize the gift that is my life. I get to decide how I want to use my time. The vast majority of humans I know get few choices about their time. Most of it is spent on earning money, the rest of their (too little) awake time is a juggling act of mandatory tasks that never get properly finished: cleaning, cooking, laundry, commuting, child care…

I never run out of tasks but I get to pick a lot of them and if I skip others… well my kids and Noah do more with every passing ear. It’s pretty rad. I hope I get to live with competent adult children roommates because they make managing this big house so much easier. They are increasingly capable of just doing a share. Even Shorty is on the road; it took me a while to figure out which chores were best for her at this stage in this house–the Fremont tasks just weren’t right. This house is set up differently.

Shorty told me that on her next birthday (turning 5) we are going to pass along the baby plates/cups/silverware/bowls because she isn’t a baby anymore. It makes me sniffle a bit. I will miss having a baby around. She is already so independent and sassy. We have been letting her do basically anything she wants to do for herself and pushing her towards independence in ways that piss her off. She would strongly prefer to still have us dress her every day; we don’t. She would prefer never to clean and set the table; we insist. It’s a delicate dance. I wonder how I am going to start teaching her that sometimes it doesn’t matter how you feel you have to get it done.

The important thing is to not teach it at home with house chores because that teaches you that rest is not important and that isn’t the goal. But sometimes you are going through airport security and you need to hold your shit together so you don’t draw scrutiny. Sometimes you have to get home even when you are tired and you want to quit. Sometimes you have to shut your mouth and not say what you think and deal with something.

Both of my older children have that in their bones. I am not sure when and how I taught it. I am already noticing that it’s a real problem that Shorty doesn’t have DisneySchool. Did you know that an annual pass to Disney*(whichever) is more effective than a paid for preschool at teaching children how to wait in line patiently so everyone gets a turn? Did you know that Disneyland (the one and only) is the most amazing place in the world for a small child to practice asking for help with meeting their needs? The entire staff is trained to do backflips if necessary to meet any possible request. It teaches an extreme amount of confidence in trying and it’s hard to get that out in the world where most people are mercurial and challenging and hard to predict. As an autistic person Disneyland is the only place on the planet where I believe that I know the price of people being nice to me. I ritualize my understanding of what I have to do to make it more likely people will be nice to me. There is only one place I trust that I know how to do enough. Shorty won’t learn any of this.

Small town life is different. We don’t live in a neighborhood of retirees (we wouldn’t by this point even if we had stayed in California–those folks were selling out and moving really quickly in the couple of years before we left) so Shorty doesn’t get to spend all day practicing conversation skills with all the bored retired people in the neighborhood. She doesn’t have a dozen substitute grandparents. They wouldn’t have been there anyway but it still feels like a way I am letting her down.

There is no such thing as enough time to do all of the things I would like to do with the amount of obligation I have to the kids. They are at such dramatically different stages. It’s interesting to me how much the older kids have shifted such that they do not have similar interests or needs. I used to be able to treat them as more of a block–maybe I was understanding them wrong? I don’t think so. At this point I cannot assume that something is appropriate for both of them it almost never is. Neither of them are adult but they feel like kids who are a lot more than two years apart. EC is squarely teenager and is hilariously low key in terms of what that manifestation means. He occasionally tries to be edgy but I’m his mom so that is a bit weird for all of us. MC is physically heading for puberty but emotionally and mentally they are going to be a late bloomer. I am glad that MC has not been an earlier bloomer because they are not going to handle being hit on by adult men very well.

In a way I feel that Noah and I have done a serious disservice to MC in getting them to stop attacking people verbally or physically. They really struggle with defending themself with folks outside the family and that feels very much my fault. It was hard when the main person MC was physically and verbally aggressive with was EC. We have stopped that. We didn’t mean to stop the ability for all people. Sometimes you have to be able to defend yourself if a stranger is going to perceive you as a woman.

I am having an interesting time trying to figure out how to talk about some things with the kids around gendered language. Until the organs in the body have been surgically altered it is important to pay attention to their health. Having an organ does not mean that you are a gender. Your experienced gender is not always the same thing as your perceived gender by other people and sometimes that matters.

I’ve watched Boys Don’t Cry; I know that my son is going to have to assess safety in environments differently than other boys and men. I have to talk to him about what dietary supplements he needs as a person with the body he has in a way that includes both his EDS and other needs. I have to figure out where and when it is a better choice to hand-make a cocktail of pills because a single multi-vitamin with the wrong word on it feels like an erasing choice. I am grateful that my son remembered his martial arts classes enough to win every fight with every person who came after him in secondary school. I feel incredibly anxious and worried about what we should do to help him maintain his fitness and strength because he may well need it.

My kid is very strongly motivated towards being cute and eye catching. They don’t get more adult attention yet because they still read as so young even though they are just about exactly my height. This trip to London may well be the first time they really catch eyes and that’s going to be a real challenge for them. I worry about how intensely they freeze when they feel intimidated. I feel like I taught this and now I need to unteach it. I am anything but a perfect parent.

I wish there were more hours in the day so I could spend more time with the kids and have more time alone because my hobbies are fun too. Ah well. Be grateful for what you have: I have freedom to choose. I am lucky in a way few people get to be lucky. Sometimes it is challenging trying to figure out how to have a well regulated body. I have to put so much thought into all of my choices. No, my body doesn’t just “do the right thing” automatically no matter what some people want me to think. Unfortunately living on bread/noodle products alone makes me sick. Damnit. That’s what my body wants. Life isn’t fair.

Life isn’t fair and no one gets what they deserve. You get what you get. It isn’t about justice because almost no one gets “justice”, not really. There is chance. There is circumstance of birth. There are a million factors at play and there is no way to get “fair” for everyone like that.

My life is so good. This level of safety and security should be the bare minimum for every human being. Governments could make this happen if they chose to view the planet as a collaborative place that is non-renewable. A safe place to live. Enough food. I can afford to heat my home. I am only called names when I ask very very very nicely. We work together as a family to divide tasks and chores and we work together to maintain the building because there is the serious possibility that my children are maintaining the building they will inherit and you want it to be in good shape so…

This is enlightened self interest, baby.

I think the roads are clear enough for us to walk outside. I am really happy about that. I think Shorty should come with MC and me this time. I am looking forward to the day. Let’s go look at plants.

I like the right people

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I was talking to one of my kids earlier today about some of my old friends and they pointed out that it is something like half of my friends-made-before-we-had-children group that has at least one child who has transitioned/is transitioning.

This seems like an excellent sign of my good taste in people. I have always been attracted to my people. I also have a significantly high rate of befriending neurodiverse folks. I suspect some correlation there.

(I think it is probably actually somewhere in the 30% – 40% range of families I know but even so that is phenomenally far outside the 1% rate of transitioning in the general population.)