Hello Penny T.
I want to thank you for your thoughtful reply to my post. Do I recall correctly from the old CDDF that you are a ways down the TS path yourself? Your post struck some cords, particularly in the of area who your real friends are, and where your friends come from in your daily life. Got me to thinking about that, and it is really largely true. I do have a few friends of long standing that have nothing to do with work, some that friendship started as a result of work that I have been friends with beyond and through some rough times, and those that I work with and like but I never visit the homes of nor do they drop by mine.
I was pretty dispirited when I wrote part of my post to Christina, but I was also "fresh" from the Christmas encounter I wrote of. Since then a few changes give me some hope. The controversy over gay marriage had an interesting effect on my brother-in-law, because I guess, he is at the root of it all a fair person. It was his carefully considered statement to my sister after watching news coverage for several weeks, that he saw nothing wrong with gays having a legal marriage, and they should certainly have the right to be married if they were in a committed relationship.
What really got to him, according to my astonished sister (and paraphrased) was the fact that even though a gay couple may have had a sustained relationship for years, a partner had no rights to common property, couldn't even visit a critically ill partner in the hospital as family or make necessary decisions for his care, and other points of unfairness. He also commented that of course, that meant divorces could be just as nasty. His final word on the subject was to the effect that since we were supposed to have separation of religion and state, it made no sense that there could not be a legal marriage with all the rights of a heterosexual one, but he could see where a church, as the kind of
moralistic entity ( his words- I didn't know he knew what it meant) it is, could have a choice about a wedding in the religious sense. He also said he figured even that day was due.
The fact that he could come to that conclusion on his own, and say it, does give me some hope for future events. I know that his thoughts were in the abstract, as he probably does not knowingly even talk to anyone who is gay. But he did think, and that surprised me. My sister has known and has discussions with several people of both genetic genders fairly often, and is OK with them, but as far as I know, she has never faced up to it from within the family, nor has she ever mentioned knowing someone who is TS. Our future will be interesting, I suppose, if potentially stressful. I hope she will enjoy getting to know her sister.
CJ, I've said it before and I'll say it again, you have class and you are awfully fortunate in the career, the place, and the people you work with. I will be interested to see the photos for the calendar. There would never, ever be anything like that in our small unit of 16 people. Most of my coworkers are too old and/or too staid to have that much fun with themselves, even though they work with students daily in a university environment that should make them more at ease. But they're not.
Our secretary is young enough in her thinking that she and one of the students tried to organize a Halloween dress up day two years ago, which was University sanctioned with prizes offered, no less. The secretary, one student, and I were the only ones with any costume elements, though one other did don a Lone Ranger style mask as a token. No, I did not try any gender bending or gender blending either. I thought about it for, oh, about 3 seconds, before reality check set in and just what I expected, happened. Oh well, two years and counting! ##oo##
Thanks again Penny and You too CJ.
My best to all.
"It’s not given to anyone to have no regrets; only to decide, through the choices we make, which regrets we’ll have,"
David Weber – In Fury Born
). Anyway, as things stand, almost half the members on my team already know about my CDing so, now that CJ is peeking out of the closet, I imagine this calendar will force me to step fully out of the shadows and face the gaze of all my colleagues. I've decided (after turning the issue this way and that in my mind) that, should anyone inquire as to whether I'm a crossdresser, I'll simply tell the truth.
Sorry.
