Crossdressers-Haven.com

Hi girls,

This was a very sad weekend for me. As many of you may know, I am in the middle of a divorce. And at issue in this divorce has been the issue of where my kids would stay.

For those of you who do not know, my oldest daughter 21 left with my wife, when she left to live with her boyfriend. The three boys, ages 17, 13, and 10 have been with me and for the last two months my wife has been paying child support. The two older boys said they wanted to live with me, and I decided to fight for the younger one, because he and his brothers really need each other.

All of my children are very accepting of me, and all have told me they are not embarassed or ashamed of me. They don't seem to mind going out with me, I dress full time now.

It was very important to me that I show my kids that I have accepted myself, and that I am not ashamed of who I am. In this way, they also would not be ashamed of me. And this seems to have worked really well. All my kids told thier friends about me, and it seems that my kids have suffered no rejection as a result. The kids still have thier friends over, and the kids all seem to be real accepting.

I have a firm beleif that I have done the right thing. Confronting this, and not hiding it, was the right thing for me to do. Showing my kids that I am the same, and that the public really does not care, has in my opinion made it possible to gain real acceptance from my kids and now they do not fear the unknown. They know what it means to have a transgendered dad, and to be out in the public with him.

I have talked to my kids a lot about all of this as we have gone along. I have been concerned about other kids treating them bad. And being picked on at school. I have worried about the implications as my older son has been in a serious relationship with a girl, but her mother does not know about me. How could I as a parent not be concerned about these issues. My kids have told me that other than some minor ribbing, there really have been no problems.

However, a few weeks ago, a sheriff deputy showed up at my door. It seems that my 10 year old had threatened another kid with a baseball bat. The reason? Well it turns out that this kid, older than him, but younger than the 13 year old had been harrassing my kids. Calling them "fags" and saying "your dad is a fag too" and other such comments. My kids kept this a secret from me, fearing it would hurt my feelings.

This event changed everything for me. Would this be the life my kids would lead? Spending thier time defending me? Our lives becoming only about my crossdressing. Them protecting me, instead of me protecting them? Them always worrying about how to tell the next friend, or worse girlfriend about me? And what about the parents of girlfriends? What about those who would strongly oppose this, and look on it as sexually deviant behavior? Would my kids be punished for what I am?

I no longer was sure I was doing the right thing. So I looked at everything, openly and honestly. And did one simple thing. I just removed what I want, from the decision about what is best for my children. Once I did this, it was not hard to see what was best for them. I was doing the wrong thing, for the right reason.

Despite my own personal feelings about my soon to be exwife. I know that she loves them very much. And I know that they love her, very much. And that she has always taken great care of them, and put them before herself.

So I called her, and told her about everything that I just described here. I told her that I wanted to end our custody battle, and send the children to her. Not because I did not want them, not because I did not love them, but because it really is the best thing for them.

It is my belief that my 13 year olds desire to be with me, had more to do with not wanting to leave his friends, than really being with me. And besides, I will get to see them as much as I want under our agreement. They will still spend a lot of time with me, and still have thier friends here.

This is so painful telling all of you, I am crying again now. Anyway, they left on Friday, and I was really crying hard when they left. This was my first weekend without them. I miss them so much. I am just so sad, yet firm in my resolve that this was the right thing to do. I will talk some more when I am composed.

Love always,
Elizabeth

Hi all,

Elizabeth,

This kind of "letting go" is the hardest thing to do; much harder, I think, than showing the world your "true colours." And, really, this is where your courage shows. Bravo! A thousand times, Bravo!

Just remember, it's not your kids you're letting go of (far from it: what you did will ensure, I believe, that they will "always come back" to you), but your sense of "psychological patriotism," so to speak (as in, "my Self, right or wrong").

You amaze me.

Love,
CJ

Elizabeth,

Although this is probably the hardest thing you will ever do You will benefit from it. You will learn things that those who don't have to go through things like this may never learn.

In my opinion you are doing the right thing, the responsible thing. It is important that this is truly what you want to do. For your sake. ( and I am not questioning you here.) Part of letting go includes not regretting the decision

Love Darlene.

Elizabeth,
I commend you. You have shown that what you have for your children is real, true love. I believe that if you held on to them, to hold them close even though you knew it might be better for them with their mother, it would not have been a true love but a dependency on their love. You have shown your strength of character and bared your deepest soul for them. I know it is like cutting a piece of yourself off (I know, I've had to do it) when you accepted the reality of your children not being with you full time. But as CJ said. They will come back. They will be there for you. Keep your heart and door open for them.

Geez Elizabeth, I'm sitting here crying too! I sure hope they can adjust to the latest changes fairly easy. Seems they had a good bunch of friends.

Was it only the one kid doing the harrassing?

Hi Elizabeth--
I believe that you did the right thing, and it is a very hard thing, too. I thought that your post might be about you going back to male mode "for the children," and that would have been hard to read, too, because I don't think that would work long-term.

I have watched other TG people who have tried to back-track their progress in situations like yours, and the ones I know it has not worked.
Eventually they had to move on and do what they originally set out to do.
Their stories are very painful, in a different way. If I read of what you're doing, or what Julie is doing, I at least I know that you're both doing what needs to be done, a step at a time.

It is still a very emotional post for me, and I find myself crying, too. Children may have lots of love and goodwill for a parent, but they just don't have enough life experience to be able to fully understand what happens to us. I would venture to say that kids might have to be in their middle thirties before they can really identify with the kind of disruption that some of us go through.

I hope you can start building that circle of friends soon, Elizabeth. I see friends as even more important than a special partner for you, right now. Of course, you have a circle of friends HERE, and that is worth something. It can help get you to the next level of support, hopefully.
Love,
Anita

Hi girls,

This was not a decision I made one day. I had been thinking about it from the beginning. But what happened was, I convinced myself that the outcome I wanted, was the right thing to do.

It is not a question of one kid teasing my kids. It's hard enough being a kid, I remember. They will be teased by somone no matter what, that is the nature of "kid politics". The question is, what is in thier best interest. The 17 year old is not really at issue because he will be 18 before the divorce is final and has already said he will not live with her, because she lives too far away from his peer group. But the 13 year old is right in the middle of puberty, and the other is already starting puberty.

I know at this age that a young man needs a strong role model. And I have a great relationship with all of them. We talk about everything, including, and most importantly to them, girls. But also about what it means to be a "man". And I don't mean this in the gender sense, but what it means to become a responsible adult who can someday take care of themselves and a family of thier own. About being an honest , hard working person. About doing the right thing, just because it is the right thing, not because someone is looking. About asking the best of yourself.

I beleived and still beleive that I am the best person to do this. There are things that a guy just can't talk to his mom about, but still need to be discussed. I felt that this outweighed any embarassment they may suffer as a result of my being transgendered. As many of you know, I went directly from not dressing at all, to dressing full time. I figured that it was going to take a certain amount of time for everyone to get used to it, and the sooner the better. I could see no advantage to a gradual approach.

I admit I had a great fear that if I did not do this, and my soon to be exwife got custody, she would use the backbone of society to teach my kids her belief that this is sick deviant behavior and possilby destroy my ability to ever show them the truth. However, once I started dressing and going out with my kids, it turned out it really was no big deal at all. No one gawked at us, no one was rude. In fact, we got treated great. This reaffirmed my beleif that this was the right thing to do, and that because my kids needed me, that this really was going to be the best thing for them.

But in retrospect, I did not consider the longer term issues. What happens when one of my kids calls from school, ill or hurt and I am in a dress, makeup and nail polish? What happens when my kids need a ride to thier girlfriends house and the girlfriend and her mother are waiting to meet me? What happens if my kids don't tell me the truth about how much harrassment they are really getting?

The answer to all these questions is, there is nothing I could do. I would have to expose myself, and hence my kids to a social liability. One much greater than I initially predicted. Not for me, because I don't care, but they are not like me, they do care. And even though in a perfect world I could teach them not to care, in the kid world, this is just not a reality.

I have shown my kids that I am not a social deviant. I no longer have to worrry about them having a tainted view of me. They have already seen the truth. I can not change this about me, if I could, I would not be on this road. I am a transgendered person, I do live my life as a female, and at least right now, do not see this ending. I know that my wife will take good care of them, and they will feel loved from both of us. But this has also started a new era of cooperation between my exwife and me, which has already benifited the children. The hostility is now gone. Now we just have issues to resolve.

Yes, it really hurts not having my kids, but as the exwife pointed out, she has had to endure this hurt for months now. I will still see them plenty. We still talk about "dude" stuff. I know I have made the right decision, and I know that in the end my kids will see that I put them first. That I did not treat them like property, or a tool to use against thier mother. I know in thier own time, they will come back to, in thier own way.

When I spoke of letting go, I did not mean my children, I will never let go of them. What I let go of was fear. The fear of being alone.

Thank you all, I get so much strength from all of you. I love all of you dearly. And at least for now, you all are my family.

Love always,
Elizabeth

Sending many hugs

Anne