Sunday, December 29
Sigh... this has been the most wonderfully busy week. My first Christmas as a full-time girl, my first plane flight (admittedly with boy identification, but dressed androgynously and seemingly passing as a girl), visiting east-coast family who had been forewarned about my transition and seemed to take it... OK... and now at a big conference full of other families and kids my age who are weirdly accepting... but I'll get to that.
First, there was Christmas. Monday the 23rd was the famous "last shopping day before Christmas" (well, really, that's the 24th, but who's counting) and we're basically hunkered down here doing nothing, but with lots of egg nog and cider and Christmas Carols on the sound system and watching one Hallmark movie after another. Plus cake. Did I mention cake? That went on for two solid days. Carlos dropped by for a bit on Tuesday and I tried to explain to him the massive agenda ahead of us this week. We made out on the sofa downstairs, but nothing much came of it.
I mentioned the cake, right?
Christmas morning was just wonderful, and I got everything I wanted (mostly some girly stuff, some clothes, a new pair of snowboard boots, and a new ski suit.) As is out tradition, we had a late breakfast, and then Lilly and Jason came over mid-afternoon and we all cooked and celebrated together. More Hallmark movies, and Jason, Becca, and I eventually migrated to the basement and binge-watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 (yes, another tradition). Eventually, holding our bellies, we all passed out in front of the TV.
The 26th was busy. We put away the presents and trash and finished packing for a red-eye flight to the east coast. Mom says she sleeps like a log on planes (I dunno -- I can't remember) and so we headed for the airport at 9pm. Since my ID all said "boy", I dressed somewhat accordingly, with boy jeans, boy tennis shoes, a boy-ish jacket, but hoping no one would notice I wore a very baggy girls pink golf shirt and a tight, unpadded bralette underneath to try to disguise my budding boobies. It seemed to work, because the TSA nazi's didn't say a word.
My hair, which was now closer to girly length than boy length, didn't seem to matter to anyone.
Here was the shocker, though, I got on the plane and even before we took off I pulled off the ski cap I was wearing, stuck it in my baby-blue backpack (which clearly had the name "Christy" embroidered on it), pulled out a hairbrush and lipstick, and restored myself to a faint semblance of girl-ness right there in seat 9E. Later, when the flight attendant came by with meal and snack services, she called me Miss.
Miss. Did you hear that? Miss. I was in heaven.
After changing planes, we landed on the east coast at 8am on Friday. We were friggin exhausted, but happy to see family we hadn't seen in a longtime. Grandma (Mom's mom) picked us all up in her huge SUV. We hadn't seen her in a year, so she did the whole grandma thing about hugging Mom and commenting about how Becca was looking more mature every day. Then she came to me and took my hands in hers. She looked me up and down and said, "Well, I was told my grandson was becoming my granddaughter, and I have to say you're beautiful either way. If anyone gives you any grief, you send `em my way!". And with that, my Granny transition, at least with one of them, was complete.
I'd tried to sleep on the plane but was still wiped out. We spent all day napping and getting ready for a big Friday night family soiree. I was basically groggy awake by mid-afternoon, and did my best to look semi-human and at least semi-girl. While it was the week after Christmas, it was still basically warm outside and so I just wore jeans, a cute little blue girls golf shirt (which was becoming my outfit of choice for this week), and sneakers. I opted for a small barely padded bralette underneath, just enough to indicate I was growing boobies but not enough to make it look like I was trying out for a strip show.
Mom's east coast family is small and close-nit. My uncle and aunt, their spouses, and their kids. Mom is the youngest of the three, so their kids are all a bit older than Becca and me. I'm the youngest at the party. I could tell when everyone arrived that my uncle and aunt weren't overjoyed with my transition, but were `tolerant'. One of my uncles (Mom's sister's husband) started to crack some sort of joke, but a sideways glance from Grandma shut him up.
Finally, my aunt Molly (mom's sister-in-law), the most sensible of the group, took me aside and we sat down in the living room together, alone.
She was straight with me, and wanted to know what was going on -- why the transition?
I tried to explain to her that I was never comfortable in boy mode', and that all my friends were girls, I was never happy doing boy stuff' and really felt a lot more fulfilled and happy in a girl role.
"So, you're going to get... surgery?"
"Aunt Molly, I'm 14. I don't know what I'm going to do just yet.
You can't even get surgery until you're 18, and only then after living for a while in 100% girl mode. Yes, I'm on puberty blockers and hormone replacement so that I can really learn if this is the right path for me.
And yes, I'm developing somewhat `girlish' features, but my doctor says that even if I wasn't on hormones, I'd probably be the most girlish looking boy you'd ever seen."
I went on, "But, look, I'm only a few months into this. I don't know where this is headed, but I know I'm a lot happier today than I was a year ago.
Aunt Molly just smiled, took my hand, and said, "Christy, and it's going to be hard to get used to calling you Christy, we're your family, and we're here for you. Your uncles can be gruff old men sometimes, but I assure you that the women in this family welcome you with big hugs."
We hugged, and I headed back to the big family room where everyone was snacking and fixing buffet plates and getting ready to open "2nd Christmas" presents. Molly and her husband had two kids (twin boys, a year older than Becca) and Sarah (mom's sister) and her husband had a girl Becca's age and a boy a year older. They were all comparing college notes, and I was kinda off in the corner by myself when one of the twins, Keith, came over to ask me how I was doing. "I'm cool, just kinda out of the mix, ya know?"
"Yeah," he said, "How's high school? It's been so long, I forgot."
"It's been 1 year for you, Keith. You graduated last year."
"Yeah, but college is too cool. I've completely forgotten I was ever in high school."
I laughed. "Yeah, I can hardly wait, but you are all just going to make me jealous."
"C'mon over and listen in. At least it will give you something to look forward to."
I followed him over to the other corner where Becca and my cousins were all cross-legged on the floor. I joined them kinda on the outside of the circle, and they were all comparing notes on freshman versus sophomore classes and dorm rooms and roommates and shit like that. I just nodded.
The twins were roommates and both rowed crew, so their lives were completely slammed and they had no social lives. My cousin Lisbet (yeah, she actually called herself that) commented that her roommate was a lesbian, and that got everyone looking at me. I said, "hey, don't look at me. I like boys," and everyone started laughing nervously. I just smiled and Becca reached over and gave me a hug.
After that, the subject of my gender and sexuality never again came up.
I was, for all practical purposes, just Becca's baby sister.
We got a good nights sleep, and the next morning took off in Grandma's SUV for the conference, which was at a resort down on the coast about 300 miles away. Grandma and Granddad used to go w-a-a-a-ay back when (when Mom was a kid) but she didn't really enjoy it anymore without Granddad.
(I was told that this conference had been going on for like 50 years or so, founded by a bunch of politicos and business types.) Mom's sister and brother and their family had standing invitations, but it was a little on the `hyper intellectual' side (to use one comment) and anyway, just didn't fit into their lifestyles. Mom and Dad used to go, and were very popular in this crowd (Dad in particular) but Mom hadn't been since Dad died, and she was hoping some of the attendees would remember her.
We checked into the resort and then into the conference about 3pm, after the 300 mile pedal-to-the-metal drive. Mom started recognizing people she hadn't seen in years and hugs and tears flowed freely. Becca and I had been when we were kids, and so we stared at the crowd, studying nametags and hoping to recognize someone from years ago, but no luck.
The program wouldn't start until dinner at 7pm, so we just wandered around the resort, unpacked our bags, and did nothing. Seven came quickly enough, and afterwards, the program divided into three parts.
First, for the adults (although anyone could stay) there was a big panel discussion welcoming everyone and talking about the big issues of the day. Little kids (under 12) were hustled away to a kids camp. Teens and college kids could either stay with the adults (boooorrrrrr-iiiiiinnnnggg!!!!) or head for a separate roundtable with drinks and snacks and basically "get to know you" stuff. There was (were? I can never make up my mind on the verb) a shit-load of us, but we all sat around in a big circle and went around introducing and saying something about us. When it approached me, I took a huge, big, deep breath, and decided to lay it all out on the table here on the first night.
"Hi. I'm Christy I'm from (and held up my nametag for everyone to see) and I'm 14 and I'm a transgendered girl."
I put down my nametag, expecting something in the way of a big biblical stoning event or at least laughter. Instead, after a brief "one-Mississippi two Mississippi" the boy to my left said, "Well, I'm David and I'm from New York and I'm 17 and I'm still male." And there were uncomfortable giggles all around, and nothing more was said of it for a while.
Later we broke up and grabbed soft drinks and a couple of girls came over to me and one of them said, "You're terrifically brave for coming out like that."
I said, "Yeah, thanks, well, I figured I could just go stealth for the whole weekend but I'd probably get caught or just come out on day one and see where everything fell."
"You've been here before, right?"
"Yeah, when I was a little kid, before my father died."
The other girl, who's nametag said `Kimberly' spoke up, "Oh, I'm sorry."
"No prob. I'm over it. It was a long time ago."
The first girl, her name was Cyndy with two `ys' said, "So, how long have you been... "
"It's called transitioning, and I've been more-or-less in girl mode since the start of the school year."
"Your school's cool with it?"
"Yeah, it's a very liberal private school, and my friends are all really cool with it. I was basically a really effeminate boy before the transition. Now I'm an effeminate boy with a skirt who has a girls name. Or something like that."
"Well, there's no way we could tell you weren't a girl. You... is the word `pass'?"
"Yeah, `pass'."
"Well, you pass fantastically. Say, the main program ends at 10, but then there's a music thing down in the resort lobby and a couple of people have guitars and there's a piano. Gonna join us?"
"Yeah, sure. I'm kinda fading cus of a red-eye flight yesterday, but my bod's still on left-coast time, so yeah, I'll try."
With that, we all sat back down and a couple of the older kids were kinda running the show and started tossing out some `current events' stuff and getting some reactions from the rest of us. Almost everyone else in the crowd was an east-coaster, so I chimed in a couple of times. A couple of times, LGBTQ issues came up, and everyone kinda looked at me and I tried to be the spokeperson for team Trans, but probably just fell on my face. One guy, maybe 17 or 18, spoke up and whatever gaydar I had went off and he did a lot better job of representing the team than I did.
I started to realize that I knew a lot about ME transitioning but maybe not a whole lot about the bigger LGBTQ universe. I decided then and there to fix that.
So, that brings us to today. The full scope of the conference is pretty bold. There are a lot of people here, and most of them have been to this before. Mostly families, and everyone participates in some way. There are a lot of group breakout discussions and presentations from some fairly significant people. There's a program book, and a couple of the breakouts dealt in some way with sexuality and gender issues, so I decided to attend and see what I could learn.
Saturday night, our first night here, I'd eaten dinner with Mom and Becca and some other people Mom seemed to know. Today, the kids my age seemed to gravitate to tables in the back of the room, and I joined in, although kinda keeping to myself. One boy, about my age, came to sit next to me at lunch and he was quiet, too. Then about half-way thru lunch, in a rather soft voice, he said, "How did you come out to your parents?"
I looked at his nametag, and it said `Bill'. I said, "It's just my mother and sister -- my father's dead."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You didn't do it." He kinda laughed at that, which is what I wanted. I then told him the whole story of how Mom caught me wearing her clothes and how I broke down and cried and Mom told me that she'd always suspected. Etc, etc., etc... I figured I was boring him with the whole "coming out" story, but I could tell in his eyes he was captivated.
Then I said, "Do you have something you want to tell me?"
"Nah," Bill said, "Not now, anyway. I think you were very lucky that your family and friends were so accepting."
"Yeah, I'm really aware of that. It means that so far, my transition hasn't been a hassle, but I'm starting to realize that a lot of people in the community have it far, far worse than me. I'm trying to figure out how I can do something about that, and I have a LOT more I need to learn."
Dinner was more of the same, and Bill seemed to be my little puppy dog now, which was fine, because I suspect I'm the closest thing to a girl he's comfortable around. There was almost no more discussion about my trans situation or LGBTQ stuff at all, but I figured that would probably change soon.