I would like first preface this by saying that my initial anxieties and emotions were gut reactions and are not necessarily my beliefs. I cannot control initial thoughts that pop into my head. I have a weird kind of self-dialogue that starts with the fear, then is kind of worked out in my head, the rational side of me that helps me cope with that. Maybe that isn't that weird, I think we all do that to a certain extent.
I also want to say that I understand the use of "he" and "she" can be a touchy subject. I'm still new to all of this and mean no offense. In my particular instance, I basically use "he/him" referring to times before we accepted as a couple that we were going to explore the idea of a true transition. Right now, I feel that my spouse is a "she", but in the beginning, it was still "he" in my eyes except maybe when dressing up was involved. My references to those terms are how I felt at the time.
When I was first told about how the person I had begun to fall for felt about his gender identity, there were a number of mixed emotions. He was so afraid and emotional about revealing this secret and looked absolutely terrified. (Of course, who wouldn't be?) When he finally told me, I was relieved that it wasn't something more serious like maybe he was a serial killer or something. I guess I wasn't really terribly surprised. We had been friends for years and I had seen him dressed on Halloween before. It was pretty clear, at least to me, that he was not mocking women or trying to be funny. He genuinely wanted to look pretty. He was always very respectful of women and listened in a way I had never seen a man do before.
I felt quite confused at first about what all this might mean. There were a lot of questions, but many more to come later. First questions were things like: Are you attracted to men? Are you really attracted to me? How long has this been going on? Did you ever tell anyone else? Do you want to be a woman? I'm sure there were more, but right now, I can't think of any other questions that I had from the very beginning. I was assured that he was not attracted to men and didn't think that it meant that he wanted to do any physical changes. It had been going on his whole life as long as he could remember and had briefly spoken with a therapist.
I know one of the things I said in the beginning was that I was okay with the idea of cross-dressing as an outlet for sexuality, but couldn't handle any type of body alterations. I like sex with men. I could maybe lean toward bi-sexual but didn't have much experience with women, but the idea of it turns me on as sexual exploration. I didn't want to be a lesbian full time. At that point, we hadn't even had sex yet, but I was completely opposed to the idea of changing the body. I don't know exactly what about the thought scared me so much. I think my general stereotype of transsexuals before I learned more about it was that they were flashy, flamboyant, and confident almost to the point of aggressive. I have no idea why I thought that in the beginning. That's a whole different subject I'm sure I'll address later...
So, I had the choice right then. Could I handle something like this? He said he would understand if I couldn't, but had to be honest with me so I knew what I was really getting in to. My immediate reaction was yes, of course I still want to pursue this relationship. I can't say I wasn't afraid that I might find myself someday down the road not being able to handle it, especially if it went further than occasionally dressing up. I was afraid because I didn't want to end up bonding with someone who would eventually leave me because they needed to pursue something I couldn't handle. He shared that fear because he didn't even know what any of it meant.
I think what outweighed any of the fear for me was that I was able to talk to this person for hours on end and not get bored. We could have wonderful discussions even if we disagreed about something. We could make each other laugh. We were both empathetic and sensitive, but were strong when we needed to be. We think a lot alike and respect each other. I had never experienced a relationship that deep before. I was amazed that a man could be able to be so considerate of others.
So that was it, we were on our journey through life from that point forward. Ready or not, we were going to face the world together.
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