The Wedding!

[Virginia]

I took the lady that I take care of to a wedding today - yes I would have loved for Virginia to have been there, but not this time. I will be brief!!
The couple have been "living in sin" for six years and have a "yours, mine and ours" family. The one that they have as a couple is three years old, he is well here is the rest of the story. It was a small gathering maybe 15 people if that. It was suppose to start at 2:00 but the bride is late! When she finally come in I am in the church foyeur with my charge in her wheelchair. The bride comes in carrying their three year old and with two other girls/women and she is fussing about being late - I am at that point the proverbial "fly on the wall" as she is a bit nervous. It appears that her three year old had thrown a tantrum just as she was getting ready. What you may ask would cause this child to get sooooooo upset on such a happy day????? Well, are you ready for this ?????????????????? It seems his mother wanted to take his blue-green fingernail polish off and he would have no part of that and there he was with his brightly painted nails and a somewhat bewildered mom!
And NO I did not pump my fist in the air or grab him and toss him in the air! but I did have a hugh grin on my face!!!!! Later I did get a good look at him while his father was holding him! He is a pretty boy and I mean pretty in a good female way!!! He looked more like a little girl than a boy, long, blond curly hair and very soft facial features - yes I know he is only three but having a son and a daughter and two grand kids I can speak with some authority.
What I can also say is if he is TS or TG or CD I hope his road, his "Magical Mystery Tour" is paved with rose petals. A lot of us have taken a lot of arrows for our up and coming sisters and that is what it is all about - making it easier for those who come behind us!!!!
Guess you can say it was a good day!
Keepin the faith,
Virginia

[SilverLady(SO)]

Hey, Virginia - it sounds like you had a great time at the wedding today!!

I think it's great that the 3-yr old boy did not want to have his nail polish removed!! I'm curious as to who put it on him in the first place, since a 3-yr old is a little bit too young to be doing that by himself - maybe one of his older half-siblings or even his mother? No matter - it's just cute to think of him insisting on wearing his nail polish!!

Like you, I hope that no matter if he is CD, TS, or TG that his MMT road is paved with rose petals, or at least tiger lilies!!

Thank you for sharing this story, girlfriend!



- SL

[CJ]

Hi all,

Hmmm... I have mixed feelings about this one.

Three or four or five years old is often where this journey starts. As we all know, we can hope for rose petals along the way but, the truth is, it's a road fraught with obstacles, many of them difficult to overcome. Before we become overjoyed at the sight of a boy exhibiting feminine behaviours, we'd probably do well to keep this in mind. From our vantage point, having gone through the things we have and having come out at the other end the better for it (even if a little battle-scarred), we run the risk of forgetting just how tough childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood can be for a transgendered person.

Having said this, I certainly don't consider fingernail polish on a boy or a man unusual. Half the kids--male or female--that hang around downtown wear nail polish... blue, pink, black, whatever. It's a very pomo thing to do. But on a very young boy? one whose gender identity is still in flux? I'm not sure it's a good idea. And I don't say this because I think there's anything wrong with transgendered behaviour (duh!); I only say this because I know how tough that road can be and I don't particularly wish it upon anyone, regardless of whether or not I, myself, turned out to be reasonably happy and well-adjusted after having travelled down (or, rather, up) that road.

A woman I know is having tremendous difficulty with her son these days. He was hospitalized last fall for about a month in the children's psychiatric ward following an acute psychotic episode during which he simply "disconnected" from reality. He's not schizophrenic; he's not depressive; he has nothing that we, here, would recognize as a mental illness. He's just (apparently) transgendered. For many year's he's exhibited some feminine tendencies as well as same-sex attractions. Today, he's twelve years old. He's got hard times ahead of him.

The thing is, his mother, whom I know fairly well, is totally okay with her son. She loves him both regardless and because of who he is and she'll continue to do so whoever he turns out to be in the future. But the boy's father is unable to accept that his son wants to be "like that" and, whether or not he'll say so to him in so many words, the cues are clear for any boy who's aware that he's different. It's these mixed signals, coupled with his father's rejection, that sent the boy into a realm where none could follow. (From what I can gather, he's doing better now.)

All this to say that we shouldn't gloss over the potential obstacles we encounter growing up transgendered. They're real. And if we can find a way to let young people make their own gender choices once they're old enough to understand what those choices entail rather than guide them early on into gender variance, we should.

I hope I didn't sound like I was condemning anyone. I'm not. And there's no woodshed for miles around. It's just that these are tricky enough waters for a boy (or a girl, for that matter) to navigate at such a young age without their having to deal with mixed signals from their entourage and it's probably best to let things take their natural course rather than force the issue by having, say, a young boy wear nail polish.

Still, there might, indeed, come a time when gender expectations will have relaxed enough that such an occurence as this will be a moot point. Everybody and their grandpa will be wearing nail polish. Just you wait and see!

Love,
CJ

[Virginia]

Thanks CJ
I guess to add a bit to what I was attempting to expound on was that this is how many of us started. You are also correct in that is is best to let nature take its course, this child could have just as easily had a tantrum over his shoes or shirt or whatever. Children this age are prone to tantrums as they are beginning to sense many different emotions and they have to learn to deal with them and this is their first attempts and that his how they express their frustrations with not understanding -listen to me telling you when your the expert! Anyway I guess the other things I wanted to touch on was the child does have some very soft, feminine features.
My primary point was that I can only hope that if IF this child is "one of us" in the making that the sacrifices that you, me. Elizabeth, Anita, Maggie, (even Loretta), Danielle, Sally, and many, many others even those who have made the ultimate sacrifice whom we honored by closing this forum for a day in their honor that their sacrifices are not in vane and that as science learns even more about the complexities of human development and passes these findings on, that society will become even more accepting and appreciative of our gift! That "people" learn to accept the wide divergence in human kind (and maybe some will learn to wish they had our gift!)
Love ya,
Virginia

[Absaroka]

This is a very deep thread with paradoxically so little to be said-it's all summed up so nicely already.

VIrginia you are right about 3 year olds having tantrums and quite likely the root cause of the tantrum was just the excitement of the day.

Being different is just plain hard for a kid. I certainly hope society is moving towards a place where it will be easier for this child.

Absaroka

[CJ]

Hi all,

Virginia, Absaroka,

Amen to that!

Diversity is a treasure; it even makes room for those who think otherwise.

Love,
CJ

[Virginia]

CJ CJ CJ,
Please don't take offense, but can I assume that is your phrase??
That is so nice!
Diversity is a treasure, it even makes room for those that think otherwise!
That belongs on a bumper sticker! or burned into the forehead of a lot of the bigots I have run into!
Love ya,
Virginia

[CJ]

Hi all,

Virginia,

Gosh, why would I take offense? They may be my words but, certainly, the sentiment is universal to those who believe it to be true.

Of course, that statement remains an ideal, one that's sometimes not only hard to live up to but impossible to live up to without the setting of some kind of limits (as we've seen here in the last couple of days where a member "who thinks otherwise" was suspended--something I'm not proud of but which I found necessary).

Back in university, my Hinduism professor said it best (in reference to Hindu beliefs): "Why so much fighting over religion? To a Hindu, the entire universe is one universe and God is one God everywhere." Now, I'm not religious, myself, but I understood his point. If we're truly "large" enough to make room for the fluid nature of our own ideas, thoughts, views, beliefs, and opinions, we'll be able to include those of other people as well in our outlook on life and only feel that we've been made richer by the deed.

Again, thanks for the compliment, Virginia. I hereby authorize you to freely produce and distribute those bumper stickers.

Love,
CJ

[Violet]

A child growing up with gender-bending identity issues certainly does face obstacles including madness, violence, and rejection - I know this firsthand having had to deal with all of these things. This makes it all the more important that we show encouragement and support for younger people heding down 'that road', even if only by being unafraid and standing for what we believe to be right and true in our own lives. If the child is a boy, he's a boy; if she's a girl she's a girl, and whatever degree of a continuum may exist between. It takes strength to walk the path, whichever way is your way in this life.