catch up (update: now with line breaks!)

It has been a very long time since I last posted here.


Let's see. Ally has gotten on hormones, started presenting full time, switched jobs, switched from electrolysis to laser, and has legally changed her name. Soon she should have her gender marker changed on her license, which shouldn't affect the legality of our marriage or my health coverage, thankfully. Her parents have also made significant progress. They're both using her new name and pronouns (though her dad still makes it into a dramatic performance each time).

There have been a lot of ups and downs on that end. Her mother has been mostly good news; she did research and found support (inside and outside her church) and started using Ally's new name and pronouns right away and everything. We met up with her at the train station one day and it was swell. Ally was so nervous, but her mom had /such/ a huge smile on her face to see us. The same smile I'm used to seeing whenever we visit. I've missed her.

Her father has had a much harder time. I'm not sure he's used to having a parent-child relationship with Ally; he's used to talking to her as a peer. So when this came up, he didn't give her distance from his insecurities -- he presented them full force. Because, hey, you might do that with your best buddy, right? It'd still be horribly immoral -- telling someone they are obviously not suffering from the thing they say they are because they can't make their case against you (while they are sick, uncertain of themselves, in need of your support and significantly less able to make such a case.) But it is definitely something people do.

Finding out that Ally is transgendered just isn't an emotional thing for me, so I totally don't get either of their responses, let alone her dad's response -- which, to me, is ludicrously overblown. I can imagine that's a bigger deal when she's your child, and you've known her 18 years longer than I have...but I just don't understand the investment in the gender. He (made the mistake of saying) that he feels like he's losing a son. On one hand, I know that is an emotional thing, and emotions are stupid. On the other hand -- what? That's not how transgenderism works! You never had a son, you aren't losing any child, you are /gaining/ information about the child you always had. You should be rejoicing, because the child you LOVE can /finally/ seek treatment for an illness she's been suffering from for her entire /life/!

More than anything else, I wish it had occurred to him to call me. Ally says it probably never occurred to him because I'm an in-law. But while he was so worried that Ally was making a wrong decision, or that he was losing someone...he could have called me and I could have reassured him. Ally is the same person I married. And more than that... She's happier, she's more energetic, she's more stable, she smiles more, she laughs more. As I explained to my own mom, these are the classical signs of overcoming depression with successful treatment.


I returned to school last semester and finished up the Spanish class I dropped out of. It was an important class that is a prerequisite for every other class in my major. Now I only need 33 credit hours, 24 from the Spanish language school and the other 9 from any single discipline outside of Spanish. I've chosen linguistics to supplement my in-major focus on Spanish linguistics, so I'll be taking 3 classes in upper level "regular" linguistics and 3 classes in Hispanic linguistics. There will be some overlap in material, since the Hispanic linguistic courses are designed for students who haven't taken any English-language courses on the subject, but I hope there will be a divergence in information covered. I'd particularly like it if the Spanish courses focuses on morphological rules. That would increase my vocabulary exponentially.

The others will likely be literature courses, which have so far been pretty stressful and work-intense classes -- but quite productive in terms of increasing vocabulary and command of the written language. I'm also impressed at just how much classical culture gets packed into those courses. Even playing video games has turned up references to some of the things I've read, watched, or talked about in class.

This semester I'm taking an introduction to linguistics and an introduction to African American studies -- or: "OMG Language!" and "Remedial American History for White People". They're both pretty awesome classes. The linguistics class doesn't count toward my major, but it is a prerequisite for other linguistics courses. It'll also be super useful for when I take Hispanic linguistics.

gender perspective, Baby Storm, and other things

Ally and I have been eating out a lot. That means she has to present as a man more often than she'd like, though when we at our favorite Italian restaurant, she was wearing makeup. She looked beautiful, of course. She is getting very good with make-up: she's already better with it than I am.

During dinner she mentioned that it's interesting to have a new gender perspective on our relationship: for example, now when she holds a door open for me, it's just because she's being nice. I laughed and responded that my new understanding of our relationship means that I can and often feel like I'm being "gentlemanly".


Apparently a couple in Canada has decided that they are raising their 3rd child without telling others what its sex is. Apparently, they want their child to determine its own gender and abilities, and not have it decided for it based on what's "between its legs." Obviously, people are accusing them of "child abuse" and all sorts of other nonsense. I guess we can (mostly) agree that gender stereotyping may suck, but only some of us think we can do something about it! Others think our duty to raise and protect children includes the need to indoctrinate them in harmful gender stereotyping, because /obviously/ that's the only way you could possibly protect them from the effects of it.


Today Ally and I went to Games, Comics & Stuff. I got a couple dice (they have numbers on them in languages I can't read, yay!) and she got Puzzle Strike. Puzzle Strike is a Dominion knock-off she told me about a very long time ago. She tried it out at Gen-Con before Dominion, it, and other Dominion knock-offs were on the U.S. market. I've wanted to play it since. It helps that she compared it to puzzle video games.

On the drive to the store, she was talking about Exalted (a Whitewolf setting), and I accidentally referred to her as a man (you know, one of those third-person referral things). Obviously, it really upset her. Which upset me. I tried to analyze what made me think of her that way, and kind of fumbled around looking for the cause. At first I decided that I guess it was some weird combination of her talking about gaming, which didn't really help, since she wanted to isolate a cause she could remove (she can't really stop talking about gaming, that's one of her major hobbies!) We then decided that it probably just came down to the fact that I've known her for 10 years, and mostly as "C"--sometimes I'm going to regress and think of her as a man. We figured time and effort was going to fix that, so as long as I'm okay with her getting teary-eyed, then it's something we can deal with.

I have noticed that, for some reason, when Ally is talking about games, I tend to regress to thinking about her as a man. To a certain extent, I'm influenced by her speaking, because when she's talking about games, she slips back toward her "man" voice--speaking in a lower pitch and with a faster pace. She's getting much better about pitch, though. Maybe just talking about games in general is something that "takes me back", or resets the way I think of her. We met through games and gaming--it used to be all we talked about--so that's a topic that makes me think "C and I, talking about games", as opposed to "Ally and I, talking about something traditionally girly" or even "Ally and I, talking about saving up to buy a home", and so on.

It really is hard to analyze. Normally I can try to figure things out by comparing my experiences to what I've learned in school, or at least by comparing it to others' experiences...but there's just not enough information /out/ there on this topic. I'm really not used to that.

(title here)

My wife and I recently celebrated the 5th anniversary of our marriage. Five years ago, a priest in Florida pronounced us husband and wife. To clarify, my wife was pronounced the husband and I was pronounced the wife.

I can't say I was /expecting/ to discover that my husband was my wife. At least not at the time of our marriage. But there had been things I'd been picking up on while we were married. In retrospect, I can't quite say what they were.

I find it all strange, in a meta sort of way. Specifically, I don't find it strange, and others seem to find it strange that I don't find it strange. Then, some people who initially find our situation strange quickly decide that it's not really all that strange. Some of the people who don't find it strange that A's transgendered still expect /me/ to find it strange. I don't get it.

I guess I feel a lot of this pressure, because sometimes I feel a little guilty that I have such a blasé view on it all. I mean, this is a big deal, right? Shouldn't I freak out just a /little/? I've asked A if it's okay that I "just don't care" that she's transgendered. (Doesn't she want me to freak out, even a little?) But she's okay with it. (She does not want me to freak out, even a little.) She /likes/ that I don't care. I suppose that makes sense.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that it's a big deal that she's stuck in the wrong body. I know that she's going to have to deal with the issues associated with having grown up that way, the pain of gender dysphoria, the costs of transition and the terror of giving up all her privilege. But those are her battles: I can and should only care so deeply about them. She's strong, she's smart, and she's brave, and I know she'll get through them. I hope my certainty can lend her strength.

If not...well, at least it lends /me/ strength. I need it, too. I do care about her and I want her to get through this okay. But I know better than to try to "fix" this for her. I have experience with codependency--at best, I'll just frustrate the both of us. At worst, I'll destroy our relationship. No thanks.

I know that this is affecting me more deeply than it often seems. I'm less productive and I need more time to myself. A's emotions have become a rocky as she tries to reconcile her "real" knowledge with her emotional reality, her psychological needs with societal pressures. I love A, so when she's upset and stressed, so am I--even if I'm confident she's working toward a healthier self.

So I've decided, like millions before me, to blog about it. Writing down my thoughts as A transitions will help me understand what I'm feeling and keep me from repeating any mistakes.