This has been a week of extremes, ya know the sort that leave you stumbling for stable footing, and leaves you feeling rather unraveled. I didn't know it was possible to feel the emotions of happy, depressed, surprised, heart broken, and faintly optimistic more or less with in the small space of a week.
While on the computer early in the week googling around the web, I happened across a transgender conference that was being held in Boston in the later part of January, and started to read. Usually, most of these are geared more towards the m2f's, and little if any of the workshops are aimed at f2m's. But oh buddy, not this one! There is loads of interesting things for the f2ms! What I really liked about this conference is that they have two full days of "partners in progress" for partners of trans folk, no matter which way your partner is going. I thought, "excellent! TH (the husband) could attend with me, and get to at least listen to others who are more or less in the same boat as he is. Faintly optimistic
I thought about it overnight, and then showed him the website, opened to the part of the brochure that dealt with him, and he read it, got very quiet and then answered, "no, I cant do that. I cant go to that." And then in the next breath, he urged me to attend. We talked about it a bit, and then he left for work. Two days later, still trying to decide if i should go, I mean for cripes sake its in Boston! he asked me if I had purchased my ticket yet!!! After being asked again the next day if I had my ticket yet, I decided that he really was serious about me going, and that he isn't ready yet to attend. Tonight i bought my ticket, and paid the conference attendance fees. Tomorrow, the hotel will be reserved. So, off I go to Boston! Happy
Last night after we watched the movie "Despicable Me" part of my christmas gifts Th had given me, I went upstairs to read, and TH stayed downstairs watching tv. He had to stay up until 7am before he could go to bed, he works nights. I was tired out and was hoping to be able to sleep after a very long week of not sleeping well, I'll get to the reason for that later on. But, alas sleep was elusive, and being thirsty I went down to get a drink. Turns out, that TH had watched a Nat Geo show called Taboo, and this episode was about transgender people. Now, even though we have been working on this almost a year, I never really knew how much of what I was going thru that he understood. But, there was a m2f on there, and seeing her talk about it, seeing what she went thru to match her inner gender to her outward sex, and hearing her talk about how free she felt now, and finally at peace with herself, he at long last, finally got it. He understands so much better than he ever has! FTW!
If you read my last post, you know that things aren't happy families with eldest son and his wife. We didn't know if they were even going to come for christmas dinner or not. The way our holidays work, is that I make the meat, the yeast rolls, and maybe one more thing, and everyone pitches in to fill in the menu. Being so upset, I forgot to ask for desserts.....so this is the first christmas dinner ever within my memory that we didn't have some sort of sweet to end our meal with. Auntie came, and she was very sweet to me, and was trying to boost my spirits. I've had a solid rock in my stomach this past week, with the worry about what was going to happen on Christmas. Would they even come? Would they come and a huge assed stink happen? Or even worse would people be forced to chose sides?! All of these things have happened before with Dil (daughter in law) at different gatherings, but mostly at Thanksgiving and Christmas....sigh. depressed
Seven o'clock came and....son #4 and his gf and wee doggie. Things seemed ok with them, they seemed happy to be here. A bit after 7, and son #3 and his wife to be, and their new puppy came in. They were fine as well, whew! Now wife to be and Dil don't get on, Dil treats her terribly! Wont speak to her, ignores her, or says very not nice things to her. Wife to be's crime? Who knows, its all part of Dil's craziness. And time passed, and then the doorbell rang....heart in my throat I ran to the door. I felt if the doorbell was being rang, it wasn't good news, because we never lock our door on holidays, and the boys all know to just come in. Whew! It was because Son #2 had his hands to full to open the door! His wife comes in......followed by eldest son, baby and Dil. faintly optimistic
I tried to smooth things over, I gave Dil a welcoming hug, no dice, she didn't return it, wouldn't look at me, sigh. We ate, but she didn't even sit down. She actually left to go and fetch a soda at the local convenience store. Ok...yeah... While she was gone eldest son started to interact with us, but as soon as she came back, he shut right down again. Ok, I asked wife to be to be our christmas elf and hand out gifts. TH and I didn't get a single acknowledgement for our gift for either her or the grand. Now, I luckily didn't see it, but Auntie and TH both saw her rip the paper off her gift and throw it at eldest son. What did we get her? A gift certificate to her favorite clothing store.....I wonder if she just threw it away when she got home. depressed
TH's and I worry now that Dil has broken our family. Son 4 and gf both told me this will blow over, but after seeing her actions we're not giving their views much credence. We are hoping that this will be patched up, but at this point, we are not holding out much hope. Son 3 is getting married this summer, and there will be a round of showers and parties and of course the wedding itself, and these gatherings will be ripe to cause more friction and dissension within our family. Last year, Dil had a baby shower and didn't invite wife to be, and gf, and gf has been with our family now around 6 years..... They couldn't attend she said, cause they aren't married and don't understand anything about babies. However Auntie was invited and she is unmarried and childless, its just more of Dil's way of throwing bombs into our garden hoping to blow it to smithereens. pessimistic
Monday, December 27, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Bloggers!
So, I was in Arizona for two weeks accompanying eldest son, Dil (daughter in law) and the grand. We were there for medical treatment for Dil, as our doctors in Alaska for anything out of the slightest realm of normal are nearly worthless. Now, I've had a rocky relationship with her to be sure, and a great amount of that rockiness is caused by her crazy as fuck family.
I've never come across a family dynamic like Dil has. She only has sisters, and they fight all the time, and gang up on each other. Yeah. And to add a moist turkey to boiling oil, her mother choses sides, pits one daughter against the others, and keeps the battles going as long as possible. Lovely, huh?
Well, things went bad rather quickly between Dil and myself, and my son was caught in the middle of the whole thing. He could have made things better, had he tried, but he isn't good with confrontation any more than I am.
But into this maelstrom of unhappiness were two wonderful guys.
New Leaf and I have been email buddies for quite a long while, and when I knew that I was Arizona bound, I wrote and asked if he would like to meet for a drink. In my world of easily getting lost, that meant that either Eldest son dropped me off or NL (new leaf) came to pick me up, which is what he did. I suppose it would have been a bit smarter to have sent a pic so we knew what each other looked like, but hey! That would make life to easy and way boring, yeah? So, there we were wandering around the parking lot of the condo. Luckily there was only one other person, and he headed for a condo, so that was easy, but being me I had to ask.
"NL?"
"Biki?"
Yeah, we are both that smooth. Aren't you jealous now?
Have you ever met someone that you had an instant rapport with? Thats what it was like with NL. We met for the first time on Saturday, and sat and talked and talked. We managed to meet up three times while i was there. And he did really went out of his way to take me to the airport when I left early, due to my being unable to deal with Dil and her craziness any longer.
NL asked me what pronouns I'm happiest with, and that is what he used making me happier than you can believe. The only funny thing was that even though he did acknowledge my maleness with the proper pronouns, he still kept holding the door of restaurants open for me. His mom raised a very polite son.
If you ever want to scout around a deserted Walmart at 3am, NL is your guy! Without a doubt he is fun to hang out with. The hours would just evaporate in the blink of an eye when we were together talking about absolutely every thing under the sun. He really is a very wonderful person, someone that I hope to call a friend for many years.
The weekend that fell in the middle of our trip I flew to spend 24 hours with Mr. Hci and his husband. Now we had shared pictures of each other ages ago, so I knew what he looked like....but not his car! But some texting and a really fun sign in the front window of his car cleared things right up!
It was super to sit and talk and talk and not be interrupted by silly stuff like internet issues, chat programs being silly, or a huge time zone difference. It was nice to finally met his husband, who is just as sweet as Mr. Hci is.
There was one really funny point soon after I arrived, I'm not sure if Mr. Hci forgot to mention to hubby that I'm transgender or if hubby forgot. But when a male pronoun was used in reference to me, it received a "huh?" Only to have it repeated to him again a bit more forcefully, and no, not by me but by Mr. Hci.
I ran around out in the yard helping work on the built in sprinkler system the next afternoon, and yeah I throughly enjoyed doing that! I mean really, whats not to like? With good friends, outside, beautiful afternoon, and running from sprinkler head to sprinkler head, hollering questions and orders to each other. Life is good.
Finally meeting two bloggers that I've been either chatting or emailing for over a year now was perfectly wonderful. Being with two people who knew the real me, that I could just be me with was like a drink to a man dying of thirst. There isn't anyone in my "real life" that I can be that open with about being transgender. I'm out to a few people, but one lives in Utah, and the other one lives in Kenai, so its not like I see them that often, and they are rather new at this whole GLBT world.
Life is good on blogger, and I hope this year to visit with a few more blogger friends.
I've never come across a family dynamic like Dil has. She only has sisters, and they fight all the time, and gang up on each other. Yeah. And to add a moist turkey to boiling oil, her mother choses sides, pits one daughter against the others, and keeps the battles going as long as possible. Lovely, huh?
Well, things went bad rather quickly between Dil and myself, and my son was caught in the middle of the whole thing. He could have made things better, had he tried, but he isn't good with confrontation any more than I am.
But into this maelstrom of unhappiness were two wonderful guys.
New Leaf and I have been email buddies for quite a long while, and when I knew that I was Arizona bound, I wrote and asked if he would like to meet for a drink. In my world of easily getting lost, that meant that either Eldest son dropped me off or NL (new leaf) came to pick me up, which is what he did. I suppose it would have been a bit smarter to have sent a pic so we knew what each other looked like, but hey! That would make life to easy and way boring, yeah? So, there we were wandering around the parking lot of the condo. Luckily there was only one other person, and he headed for a condo, so that was easy, but being me I had to ask.
"NL?"
"Biki?"
Yeah, we are both that smooth. Aren't you jealous now?
Have you ever met someone that you had an instant rapport with? Thats what it was like with NL. We met for the first time on Saturday, and sat and talked and talked. We managed to meet up three times while i was there. And he did really went out of his way to take me to the airport when I left early, due to my being unable to deal with Dil and her craziness any longer.
NL asked me what pronouns I'm happiest with, and that is what he used making me happier than you can believe. The only funny thing was that even though he did acknowledge my maleness with the proper pronouns, he still kept holding the door of restaurants open for me. His mom raised a very polite son.
If you ever want to scout around a deserted Walmart at 3am, NL is your guy! Without a doubt he is fun to hang out with. The hours would just evaporate in the blink of an eye when we were together talking about absolutely every thing under the sun. He really is a very wonderful person, someone that I hope to call a friend for many years.
The weekend that fell in the middle of our trip I flew to spend 24 hours with Mr. Hci and his husband. Now we had shared pictures of each other ages ago, so I knew what he looked like....but not his car! But some texting and a really fun sign in the front window of his car cleared things right up!
It was super to sit and talk and talk and not be interrupted by silly stuff like internet issues, chat programs being silly, or a huge time zone difference. It was nice to finally met his husband, who is just as sweet as Mr. Hci is.
There was one really funny point soon after I arrived, I'm not sure if Mr. Hci forgot to mention to hubby that I'm transgender or if hubby forgot. But when a male pronoun was used in reference to me, it received a "huh?" Only to have it repeated to him again a bit more forcefully, and no, not by me but by Mr. Hci.
I ran around out in the yard helping work on the built in sprinkler system the next afternoon, and yeah I throughly enjoyed doing that! I mean really, whats not to like? With good friends, outside, beautiful afternoon, and running from sprinkler head to sprinkler head, hollering questions and orders to each other. Life is good.
Finally meeting two bloggers that I've been either chatting or emailing for over a year now was perfectly wonderful. Being with two people who knew the real me, that I could just be me with was like a drink to a man dying of thirst. There isn't anyone in my "real life" that I can be that open with about being transgender. I'm out to a few people, but one lives in Utah, and the other one lives in Kenai, so its not like I see them that often, and they are rather new at this whole GLBT world.
Life is good on blogger, and I hope this year to visit with a few more blogger friends.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
The FAIR Education Act
I received this email from Equality California a few days ago, that I quickly read, and didn't really think to much about it. But then a few hours later, I found myself reopening my mail and re-reading it again. This occurred several times over the course of the next few days. Finally it dawned on me that what kept bringing me back to this mail was that what a good idea this is, and yet a sense of sadness that we have to resort to the making of laws to be treated equally. But if we have to legislate ourselves into being equal, so be it.
LGBT youth deserve to thrive in school and in life.
But to thrive, they need to feel safe and confident. They need to see and be inspired by LGBT role models who are changing the world for the better. They need to feel like they belong. Too many of our youth are struggling with harassment, feelings of worthlessness and even suicidal thoughts. We have to make our schools safer and more positive environments for LGBT youth.
It’s time for us to come out of the education closet. Ask your legislators to support the FAIR Education Act, SB 48, authored by Senator Mark Leno.
Existing laws require classes in the social sciences -- including history, sociology, anthropology and similar subjects -- to teach students about the contributions of men and women, racial and ethnic minorities and other groups. The FAIR Education Act, sponsored by Equality California and the GSA Network, would require these same classes to teach students about the contributions of LGBT people.
This important Act would also prevent the use of teaching materials that have negative images of people for being LGBT. Current laws already protect other groups in this way.
This bill can give LGBT youth hope, both for their future and for their lives today. All students will learn about how LGBT people have helped shape history, helping them to better understand their LGBT classmates.
Share your own story with your legislators about how this law would have helped create a safer, more welcoming environment when you were in school. They need to hear about the difference it will make.
Equality California will also be sponsoring a major anti-bullying bill -- authored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano -- that is designed to significantly strengthen and expand California’s existing anti-bullying laws.
Together, we can and will create an environment across California where all youth -- including LGBT youth -- can achieve their best and know that they belong.
In solidarity,
Geoff KorsExecutive Director
Equality California
P.S. If you are already registered for Equality California's Action Center, simply reply to this email and your message will be sent automatically to your legislators.
At this point in time, I'm trying to think who in our Alaska government to contact to see about getting a similar law here. This is one law that I would like to see copied all across our country. I'm sick and tired of living in a country that is held hostage by the views of religion.
LGBT youth deserve to thrive in school and in life.
But to thrive, they need to feel safe and confident. They need to see and be inspired by LGBT role models who are changing the world for the better. They need to feel like they belong. Too many of our youth are struggling with harassment, feelings of worthlessness and even suicidal thoughts. We have to make our schools safer and more positive environments for LGBT youth.
It’s time for us to come out of the education closet. Ask your legislators to support the FAIR Education Act, SB 48, authored by Senator Mark Leno.
Existing laws require classes in the social sciences -- including history, sociology, anthropology and similar subjects -- to teach students about the contributions of men and women, racial and ethnic minorities and other groups. The FAIR Education Act, sponsored by Equality California and the GSA Network, would require these same classes to teach students about the contributions of LGBT people.
This important Act would also prevent the use of teaching materials that have negative images of people for being LGBT. Current laws already protect other groups in this way.
This bill can give LGBT youth hope, both for their future and for their lives today. All students will learn about how LGBT people have helped shape history, helping them to better understand their LGBT classmates.
Share your own story with your legislators about how this law would have helped create a safer, more welcoming environment when you were in school. They need to hear about the difference it will make.
Equality California will also be sponsoring a major anti-bullying bill -- authored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano -- that is designed to significantly strengthen and expand California’s existing anti-bullying laws.
Together, we can and will create an environment across California where all youth -- including LGBT youth -- can achieve their best and know that they belong.
In solidarity,
Geoff KorsExecutive Director
Equality California
P.S. If you are already registered for Equality California's Action Center, simply reply to this email and your message will be sent automatically to your legislators.
At this point in time, I'm trying to think who in our Alaska government to contact to see about getting a similar law here. This is one law that I would like to see copied all across our country. I'm sick and tired of living in a country that is held hostage by the views of religion.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)