The Shaman, My Fire, My Stalkers & Me

Recap for old & new readers:  Last June, I turned this blog over to documenting my partner’s transition from male to female, hopefully to give trans-SOFFAs* a voice.  During the autumn, chest pain and fatigue made me increasingly ill until I lost the creative energy to write.  (See Bounty Hunter Awaits)  In March, I got a treatable diagnosis that requires a lengthy convalescence.  This medical condition had no causal explanation connected with my medical history or current lifestyle.

So I went to the shaman.

While the doctors did their thing, I wanted to pull my psychological issues into my healing.  Most people would go to a mental health specialist, but after 30 years as a trauma therapist myself, I make a really shit client.  And as Bitler says, shamanism turns psychological theory into a tangible narrative, which means I can’t hide behind my cognitive egotism. 

But mostly this experience demonstrates the healing power of the personal story.

So what’s it like, going to the shaman?

After taking my history, the shaman felt I’d traded my creative energy to protect my family during a time when we were stalked and harassed by a group I call the Flying Monkeys (FMs).  As you know, engaging with genus FM draws you into uncharted delusion; your most innocuous act or remark take on complex and evil meaning.  Bitler’s skill at not being drawn in by the FMs scared me.  I felt she under estimated their intent and left me to protect us.  Which I, an inveterate communicator, had to do by keeping my feckin mouth shut. 

The shaman had me lay down on a heated massage table, relax and do nothing.  She sat beside me and went on her journey. 

The Shaman’s Journey

The shaman’s guide told her to pack an invisibility cloak, then follow her to the Middle World where a Dark Entity held my Fire (creative energy) hostage. 

They rescued my Fire under guise of the invisibility cloak and brought it to the Upper World where the rest of my Spiritual Self waited in a pine grove with Elders.  Bitler’s Spiritual Self came in and we exchanged gifts that rectified our interpersonal conflict about dealing with the FMs. 

The Elders wanted to bring in the FMs but my Fire was frightened of them, so my Power Animal came to protect us.  The FMs were escorted in, returned a waterfall (my vested emotion) that they’d stolen from me, and I was revitalised.  They were escorted out with a wooden object of mine.  The shaman wasn’t sure I’d given it willingly – they may’ve stolen it to maintain the connection.

My Fire replaced by Self-Lie stones

The shaman and her guide led my Spiritual Self and my Fire to the dark dark dark Underworld.  The guide lit a fire and had my Spiritual Self lay down.  She directed the shaman to look at the roof of the Underworld which was made of black tourmaline crystals.  Earth Elementals came in and took my Spiritual Self apart, then removed three self-lies that looked like stone but were actually ice.

The lies left holes in me that the Earth Elemental filled with burning wood to melt any residual ice.  They packed the rest of me with black tourmaline except my chest which they filled with carnelian crystals.  My parts were bound together with plants and vines, then washed and anointed.  They repeated the process with my Fire. 

My Fire and my Spiritual Self were then led into a fire where we slowly burned to ash.  The shaman’s guide mixed the ash with water and clay which she used to reform me.  The guide wrapped me in a garland of fire lilies and I reanimated.  My power animal took me on a walk to be fed and nourished.
 

The shaman could see us on this respite walk but was also at my home with her guide to smudge the rooms with sage and protect all the windows with holly.

Nice story, but . . .

A bit crazy?  Reframing, actually.  Much like a therapist helping a client release her sense of responsibility for being abused – if dinner were on time, he wouldn’t hit me. 

The invisibility cloak.

There’s no fire or water or holly, and certainly no invisibility cloak here with me as I write.  They’re images layered with conceptual metaphors that reframe my perception of what I’ve been through.  When I think of my energy, power and creativity as fire, I see it as something that needs tended rather than an inexhaustible flame.   The physical symptoms that come with my illness are so closely aligned with fire and heat sensations, they remind me to stop playing the Little Red Hen who does everything by herself because no one will help her.

My self-neglect gets shored up with fiercely protective holly, the FMs kept away by an invisibility cloak.  Bitler’s policy of not-engaging with their havoc isn’t head-in-the-sand denial; rather, it’s water, a constant flow around objects, malleable yet unstoppable, energetic and free. 

A nice story, indeed.  One that puts parameters round what was a thoroughly out of control and unpredictable situation. It gives me the tools (metaphors) to contemplate my illness, my relationship, my identity as someone who was stalked and harassed.

What happened next? 

My shaman told me the FMs weren’t done with us, surprise surprise.  Sure enough, a week or so later, news of their latest campaign trickled in.  (People let you know it’s still going on without you.  They’re good like that.)

In this instance, the FMs’ method was as hilarious as it was nuts.  They disparagingly ‘outed’ Bitler to everyone, 9 months after she’d started her Real Life Test.  I mean, as my son El Punko put it, a transition isn’t an inconspicuous tummy tuck that people may wonder about – did she or didn’t she?  The FMs’ chosen listeners included people who work in Bitler’s medical specialty but’ve never met her.  Like, if you were a bus driver in Stirling, you’d be interested in a bus driver who transitioned in Wales.

I figured here was a chance to regain my fire by doing what I do best – communicate.   So I lifted the invisibility cloak and sent a mischievous wee missive to the FMs, pretending their latest campaign had no malice aforethought.

I hear you’re spreading the news about Siobhán’s transition, and I’m here to help. 

Treating it like a press release (Spoiler alert – you learn Bitler’s real name).

Grp Capt Siobhán Smyth is the highest ranking openly trans officer in the UK military; she also shares with one other person the honour of highest ranking openly trans officer in the WORLD.  How great is she?

Suggested they read this blog for more intimate details, and attached a dead good photo of Siobhán. 

No longer invisible - Siobhan & Doodle

So knock yourself out, spreading the news.  The more people who know what a trans woman can do, the more trans folk who’ll be inspired to lead amazing lives.

Gave them our blessing and belled the cat.  In Flying Monkey form, that is.

I felt grounded.  Not spiteful.  Not helpless.  Not under attack or on the offensive.  There they were, the FMs, living their story, and here I was, fully visible and living mine.

When I started work on this blog entry, I remembered when one of the FMs forced her way into our house.  Siobhán’d been all waterly about this invasion (i.e. politely asked the FM to leave).  The memory infuriated me and vwooosh! I was consumed with rage, imagining violence, feeling impotent against them, let down by Siobhán.

Then I noticed that my chest muscles sizzled.  Well, shit.  For the sake of being my smartass self, I’d undone all the shaman’s work.  What an eejit.

The power of story.

I reread the shaman’s healing journey, taking time to visualise each part of her trip with all of their metaphoric actions and nature symbols.  My rage did a sudden switch, a sort of fireworks explosion of mirth through my body. 

Powerfully instructive.  My fire isn’t one that consumes and destroys.  It cackles and dances like my gleeful Doodle dog.  It counts coup with your soft spots, rides away laughing.  But never destroys someone for revenge.  Never seeks violence.  And isn’t impotent or betrayed.  Mirth and joy and creativity are the only ways I should use my fire.

And that, my dear, is something worth dancing about.

* Significant Others, Friends, Family & Advocates

Airbrushed Transition

Doodle & bra.

Bit-ler’s too busy with curling irons and HRT patches and chasing a bra-snatching Doodle to realise, but it’s true – there’s power in transitioning. 

We weren’t the easiest couple to work with, Bit-ler being a doctor and myself still a trauma therapist at the time.  A handful of tattered professional egos lay in our wake when we met with Newest Counsellor.  She stressed not putting me in the position of co-counsellor, so Bit-ler and I thought we’d found a keeper.   

Until Bit-ler admitted to being trans.  Newest Counsellor gushed about her one and only other trans client, someone who hadn’t transitioned (please transition o goody o goody o goody).  I was a bit creeped out.  

When Newest Counsellor realised I’d been side-lined, she made a rule that a portion of each session be allotted to me.  The next session ended with her saying we didn’t have time for me that week, Bit-ler’s issues had been so pressing.  The following session, Newest Counsellor decided I was an attention seeking whiner who got plenty of air time. 

Our wonderful Newest Counsellor was more than a bit trans-fixed, one of those folk who have a diversity bracelet and’ll give their eye teeth for a trans charm.  This is the power of the transition – it shows people for what they are.

Like Bit-ler’s friend and colleague.  The more she had to drink, the more honestly (offensively) she expressed (1) her fears of how Bit-ler might’ve presented as female, (2) her relief at being wrong, and (3) her conviction Bit-ler should never wear a bustier and fishnets.  Ever. 

What could’ve been an afternoon of culinary debauchery and raucous laughter became a ‘First Viewing’ of the female Bit-ler in an environment where, if necessary, awful things could be said.  In other words, while the transition was the catalyst to Friend & Colleague’s reaction, her emotions had more to do with her needs.  It’s what I call subjective compassion. 

Bit-ler’s patient with this onslaught of subjective compassion from her friends.  Gender transition is uncommon enough that however a person may think they’d handle it, they’re never prepared when a transition’s happening in the office or living next door or is attached to the memory of changing clothes in front of someone before they knew.  Normal concepts like gender, friendship, honesty get turned on their head.  How you apply those concepts to the person transitioning, well, that says something about who you are.  Maybe something you never expected yourself to be capable of.  Something you really don’t want to know.  

Me, I’m usually not so nice as Bit-ler, but when I watch this struggle in people, I witness a psychological awakening of sorts that often forces me to accept harsh things about myself.  It’s honest and intimate.  It’s a process that demands patience from everyone involved, even the little dog SOFFA, too.

Unfortunately, this interpersonal process gets swept away by advocacy guidelines on what language to use, protocols for sharing information, agency expectations on getting it all done and dusted after a 30 day absence from work – for both the trans-person and innocent bystanders. 

Airbrushed transition, I’d say.

Little dog, SOFFA, too.

We stopped going to Newest Counsellor because she objectified us.  As to Friend & Colleague, Bit-ler loves and respects her as much as ever.  I, as the little dog SOFFA, feel gifted to’ve seen Friend & Colleague’s bravery at facing the power of transition full on.  She was real and that’s all anyone can ask for.  It’s the best a friend can be.

The Trouble With Compromise

It doesn’t take a genius to realise this has been the year of the Great Compromise for me.  But it took a Doodle to make me consider what I was doing.

Ready for Samhain!

The plan, light a bonfire and supervise it while partaking in some nearby pruning.  When the Doodle grabbed a burning stick and raced across the garden, my multi-tasking idea went straight to hell. 

I got a canvas chair and sat by the fire.  No great chore because October’s probably my favourite season, the beginning and end of the year.  The expectations of spring, the hard work and giddy results of summer are over.  All that’s left is to clear away success and failure, get ready to hunker down for the long dark hours of Winter’s death and gestation.  Maybe do a bit of reflection.

Which brought me to the Great Compromise.  Not that I’m one of the shocking holy martyrs, mind you.  When the Bit-ler’s friends ask about my reaction to her transition (Lora didn’t sign up to be a lesbian, sure she didn’t), she’s lying when she tells them she couldn’t do it without me.  (Did you never feckin think that maybe I didn’t want to go through another goddam transition????)

One of each, please.

Sometimes another person’s dream is so big and so hard, there’s no room for you.  It’s what any Great Compromise is about.  If you need the last slice of cheesecake more than I do, you can have it.  But how do I know when you need it more than myself?  

While in Dublin trying (and failing) to sort out her mother’s care arrangements, the Bit-ler was invited home for dinner by an old school chum.  She offered to come as male, as if somehow this were a kindness to the family.  Old Chum accepted, so the Bit-ler pulled back her hair extensions, ditched the bra and went a la man-boobs. 

No explanation of her U2 Roadie hairstyle was given to the adult children, but another school friend was there.  After the kids scattered, he asked the Bit-ler if she were transitioning, got confirmation, then asked the usual question about what junk she still had in her trousers and that was about it.  No big deal.  Except that the Bit-ler’d been left sick in herself, relapsing into that male façade.

So really, what was the reason for the compromise? 

Let's make a joint decision.

That’s the difficulty with compromise, knowing where you end and I begin.  Should I do something simply because I have the strength to do it?  Should you accept my offer simply because I’ve made it?  Or should we both take responsibility for what’s happening here and decide jointly what’s fair to us both?

To be honest, I don’t know many people who do that, which is more a statement about myself than about most people.  During this year of the Great Compromise, it’s been the friends who were closest to me, who didn’t understand what I needed.  I suspect that’s because I don’t know how to not compromise.  And people like that.

So that’s my resolution for this coming year.  To figure out where you end and I begin.  To not do things simply because I’m strong enough.  To figure out what my Great Want for myself is.  Probably something to do with cheesecake. 

There's No Place Like Home

Four months into the Bit-ler’s Real Life Test, she has to go sort out her mother. 

Raise your hands, all you who had an involuntary shudder at that sentence.  I'd need a pint of damson gin myself, with a baby sham chaser.  Fortunately, I didn’t have to go.

The last time these two women were together, one presented herself as male and told her mother she planned to transition.  That’s when her Disinterested Mother confessed she’d always thought the Bit-ler’d been switched at birth with some queer folks’ chillen, then followed up the visit with phone calls about whether or not the Bit-ler should absent herself from Disinterested Mother’s funeral, or the funeral itself be moved to some other city, possibly some other country so no one would know about the transition.

‘You’ll be dead, Mam.  What’s it matter, so?’

With this sympatica between them, the Bit-ler trots off to Dublin to pry her mother out of a geriatric ward against her will and settle her into a nursing home.  The Bit-ler’s hair extensions mean she presents as female but travels with a male passport, hair pulled back, inciting a curious look or two from Border Control. 

Her mother’s delighted to see her, says the Bit-ler’s looking well.  It transpired that Disinterested Mother didn’t recognise her daughter, and the next hospital visit produced a litany of improvements the Bit-ler should make about her hair, her clothing, and jaysus, didn’t the Bit-ler’s school chum drop by wearing a three piece suit and why wouldn’t he, since he works in the hospital? 

‘Which is why he did, Mam.’

The Bit-ler tells me all this on the phone, thinking it’s funny that said chum described her hairstyle as U2 Roadie and I’m all, What-er you on about, your hair’s gorgeous, and then she admits she’s spent her whole Dublin visit with her hair tied back. 

No curling iron. 

No straightener. 

No hair spray. 

Gargoyle Possom (RIP)

I don’t understand.  All those mornings up at stupid o’clock so she wouldn’t look like Gargoyle Possum dragged backwards through a hedge.

It’s because she’s home, she says.  Her mother, her porcupine aunt, the neighbour’s chillen, her school chum, there’s no place like home to show you that the longer you know someone, the more you have to lose. 

My Butler-in-Transition with her suede boots and turquoise jewellery and lemon shoulder bag, the look of pure joy on her face when she got her hair extensions, and she ties it all back so people’ll still love her.  My heart cracks a little and a small animal inside it, keens. 

Porcupine Redoutable

‘What have I ever done to you, that you treat us this way?’

The first words out of her mouth when she got me on the phone.  The Bit-ler’s formidable aunt.  She’d never married, worked as a PA to someone powerful, the best a formidable woman could do at the time.  She cared for her parents, then her bachelor brother, living four score and seven years in the house where she was born, spreading her porcupine love. 

The Bit-ler was the first and last grandchild in that Irish Catholic family.  Her mother fared badly during delivery, so baby went home in Formidable Aunt's prickly arms until the disinterested mother could manage on her own.  I always felt you weren’t mine, you’d been switched at hospital with some queer folks’ baby.

The sisters' great war has lasted nearly a century, the Bit-ler sometimes ground they fight over.  And now Formidable’d rung about Disinterested thwarting best laid plans, etc.  The Bit-ler herself, out garnering support for her transition, her work, Disinterested’s care plans, leaving me fair game to Formidable’s tongue. 

‘What have I ever done to you, that you treat us this way?’

I hadn’t a clue, which was just as well because she didn’t want to start a fight with me.  Formidable vented her spleen about her Disinterested sister, then moved on to the Bit-ler, using male pronouns and names, asking why in the world I hadn’t left him, if it’d been her husband, sure to God she’d be long gone by now.

During the Bit-ler’s long ago childhood when DeValera and the clergy were still gods, Formidable knew what needed done, dragged an unenthusiastic Bit-ler to swimming lessons and scout meetings, altar boy practice and long, dull visits to relatives in the country while Disinterested Mother babysat someone else’s children.

I was spared witness of that, but not the bachelor brother’s 90^th birthday, attended by the only grandchild, the elderly siblings themselves and a couple no one seemed to know (descendants of someone’s illegitimate child, it was whispered).  Formidable had planned a tight schedule that required a forced march through dinner.  At the end of the meal, the waiter offered Bachelor Brother coffee.  Formidable said there wasn’t time and the waiter lost his mind.  It isn’t up to you if he has coffee. 

The manager was called, but by the time he got there, Bachelor Brother had talked Formidable out of making a complaint.  The couple nobody knew tried to make conversation while Disinterested Mother pretended to be senile and Bachelor Brother stared at his empty coffee cup.  Formidable across the circular table from me, silently waiting to pay the cheque, the expression on her face not anger, but shame.  I saw in that moment a lifetime of getting smacked in the face for being a porcupine, when a porcupine was what was needed.

I feel sorry for you, she says to me on the phone, sure I do, what with no family and I understand his principles, he thinks he’s a woman but couldn’t he put on a pair of slacks?  Lots of women do, you know.  And then she invites me to come over.  You like looking at old buildings, you could walk round Dublin and I wouldn’t tell a soul you were here.  I wouldn’t say a thing to anyone.  We could take in a couple of shows and I’d feed you a meal and then you could look at old buildings.  You’d like that, sure wouldn’t you?

And I realise here’s the first person to initiate support for what I'm experiencing.  There’s been coos and whispers of compassion, and poor El Punko has patiently listened, but here’s a concrete offer of befriending the invisible SOFFA in this maelstrom.  Not, Aren’t you brave?  Be sure to take care of yourself.   He . . . I mean she’s very lucky to have you.  An actual, Come here and let me take care of you.  From a porcupine.  God, it'd be hysterically funny if it weren't so terrible. 

In my imagination, Formidable and I become porcupine buddies, like nuns who always go round in pairs.  We take in a show and I shop for Christmas, poke my head inside old churches and listen to trad sessions in pubs.  In reality, I’d most likely end up throwing myself into the Liffey, but knowing that, I still feel a kinship with this Formidable woman, all quills and thorns and knowing what’s best in situations where she has no experience.  I see myself at my worst in her, so why not go over and be my worst, cackle at conjoined proclamations on the lesser-thans, get rid of all this anger and distress and disappointment, this feckin invisibility of being the one who always copes, plans, rescues, cheers, supports, while weeding gardens, painting furniture, cleaning, washing, and writing writing writing stuff that’s longlisted and shortlisted and destined to be rejected.  It’d be comforting to bond with the wicked in a place where I could be wicked and say it’s not fair, then leave it behind, a psychological dirty weekend.

I may pack my best porcupine outfit and head off to Dublin.  But don’t tell a soul I’ve gone.

Why the Bit-ler Cried at Brekky

It was an innocent enough thing to do, putting my hat on the rack, but it started a row of domino falls that ended in the Bit-ler crying. 

To know why that rack was there in the first place, I’d have to go back to a time before I knew her, when I lived in Ireland, my sister and her husband came to visit.  He went for a walk and came back with a mahogany board he’d found dumped in an empty lot.  He planned to hand wax it, then mount hooks on it for me.  He killed himself instead.

When I left Ireland, the man packing my things slagged me about the board – are there none in Scotland?  I said, there were none like this one.  I didn’t say it was a remnant of my dead brother-in-law’s love.  And where did that love start?  Well, because of the age difference between us, my sister brought him into the family when I was still a child, so I can’t say when it happened.  He was there until he wasn’t.  That’s not as glib a sequence as that sentence’s brevity implies.

It took five years for that board to become a coat rack.  Wherever I live, it lives, even though my brother-in-law's death destroyed my sister, and eventually my relationship with her.  So it came to the new house where El Punko and the Bit-ler bolted it to the wall a few weeks ago.  The fuzzy alpine hat that I hung there, I bought it on a shopping trip with that same sister when I took the Bit-ler to meet my family for the first time.  I loved that hat when I saw it in the shop.  I love it still.

And so does the Doodle.  She sees it hanging unprotected while the Bit-ler and I have brekky, and up she jumps, all 24” of her, to a 6’ height and I imagine hung her 50 pound self for a fraction of second, but long enough to pull the rack off the wall and make her escape, fuzzy hat in mouth. 

We hear the noise, the sound of wood rack against wood floor muffled by coats and scarves, the noise of crazy Doodle running through the house.  I keep brewing coffee while the Bit-ler checks on the odd sound, then comes back, sits at the table and cries.  The theft of the fuzzy alpine hat tipped the scales for her; she’d had enough.

Her tears could be explained by the 15 hour neurosurgical list she played gas-lady for, or the 250 page document bundle about a work conflict that takes her into a place where young soldiers and pregnant Afghans and dusty children who don’t scream, are torn to bits.  Or the request to console the family of a man she helped resuscitate on a train to get her hair, a man who later died.  Or maybe just the fact she’s expected to deal with things most of us can’t, and still organise care for her 90 year old mother, try to paint a manger for the strawberries between rain showers, and her wife (that would be me) wanting to drag her Irish Catholic arse to a pagan Samhain celebration, not to mention do her real life test when her hormones have her sanity by the throat.

How she got here, not so easily traced as the mahogany board cum coat rack torn down by the Doodle.  A favourite TV program about a GP watched forty years ago that led her to medicine.  An Ireland with no choice but to export its young.  A church, a society that says others are worse off than you, suffer now for a fictitious, posthumous reward she has no hope of receiving.  Prepped for sacrifice, served up to narcissists and scroungers, flying monkey children, bystanders pointing fingers YOU’RE WEAK YOU’RE WEAK YOU’RE WEAK all to keep her in harness, emptying pockets, casting off pride, locking caskets of dreams for the sake of other people’s agendas.  Because she was taught not to think of herself, so it’s herself she always thinking of, but in a not-nice way.

The vagaries of life, dependent on whether a hat’s hung on the rack in the hall or the closet. 

The Goddess of Femininity

For those of you coming late to the party, I’m married to a trans woman who started her Real Life Test about seven weeks ago. 

There are many gates a trans person has to go through in order to transition; to my eye, the Real Life Test (RLT) is about the most asinine.  Essentially, without medical intervention, the trans person is expected to live in their identified gender for a specific period of time (often a year, but gender clinic waiting lists can protract this) before the medical folk get on board. 

While it’s easier to pass as male during the Female-to-Male RLT, it isn’t especially easy and it’s potentially dangerous if you live near roving Neanderthal tribes.  The Male-to-Female RLT is not only difficult and dangerous, but a lesson in humiliation.  So in other words, if you aren’t killed or don’t kill yourself during your RLT, we’ll give you medical treatment. 

My partner, the Bit-ler (Butler-In-Transition) is fortunate that firstly, she can afford to spend a coupla thousand quid on a hair system with a monthly maintenance bill of about £100, (not counting transport costs, since there’s only a handful of places in the UK who ‘install’ this type of system).  She can also afford to attend an endocrinologist privately – not only does she have this B cup I keep rabbiting on about, but her facial hair has really decreased its growth.

(O yes, the MtF is expected to do her RLT with no tits and a fully functioning beard, just as the FtM is expected to do it with breasts and menstrual flow but no beard or upper body strength.)

The Bit-ler’s additionally lucky that she works for an agency that has protocols in place to deal with transitioning employees – she knows she won’t lose her job.  AND . . .  remarkably, her colleagues weren’t content to sit quietly through the announcement of her transition, but after giving her a round of applause, have been proactively supportive of her.  She’ll probably live through her RLT.

And of course, she has me. 

You’d think the MtF’s wife would be a font of feminine wisdom, but the Bit-ler drew the short straw in that department.  I don’t cook.  Doing my hair = pulling it back in a scrunchy.  My fashion sense, according to my son, is various levels of plaid.  As to being quiet and decent, well . . .

And this isn’t helped by the Bit-ler’s periodic channelling of the Femininity Goddess – an Irish Mother Superior/Hyacinth Bucket entity who walks through our house, hands clasped, uttering phrases like, ‘How common, something I would never say, especially with the windows open.’ 

I’m sure the old lady next door has heard the phrase, ‘You fucking whore,’ before we moved in, but anyway . . .

While I’m not great at beauty or fashion tips, I do see in technicolour when the Bit-ler doesn’t act ‘female’ in a social setting.  As we discuss what women typically do in this or that situation, a little voice in the back of my head asks, ‘Why?  Why are women expected to be this way?’  I feel like I’m taking some great beautiful wild thing and trying to tame her.

The Bit-ler always sweeps my hesitation away – No, tell me, tell me what it is women do when they’re hither and yon, or inside places men are never permitted.  She has to know what the expectations are before she can decide to accept or reject them.

As I share this ancient lore, I wonder when I ate that lore-bait, hook, line and sinker, why I’m the type of woman who smiles and laughs and shares and endures. 

Three steps later, I wonder where my life went, that my mornings are spent curling her hair when I can’t be arsed to do my own.  That when I spend time considering why her outfit works or doesn’t, I’m wearing the Jack Skelton T-shirt my son gave me, over unflatteringly skinny jeans with dried mud from the garden and dog walks.  That I police her gender-appropriate social niceties and have given up screaming, ‘Fuck!’  At least when the windows are open.  That I live knowing someday someone will call me a lesbian and maybe treat me badly for it, and I’ll have to deal with that like a seasoned pro instead of someone who hasn’t a clue what lesbians have to suffer in order to live and love.

Wow, eh?

I don’t have answers to my questions, but I’m still willing to do this.  Mostly because I’m amazed at the Bit-ler strapping on her bra and marching out with her lemon-yellow shoulder bag to take on the world.  I’m a bit too selfish to deny myself the adventure, no matter how many outfits I have to pass judgement on.

But the questions are there.  I wonder if I’ll know sometime in the future, what I’ve put to the side so I can do this now.  I wonder if I’ll regret or be happy that I did. 

Let Me Tell You ‘Bout the Hair

It’s rather astounding, how powerful a woman’s hair is.  Before officially starting her real life test, the Bit-ler went to work with her B cup breasts and her somewhat androgynous women’s clothing.  She was never clocked as female or even gender fluid.  She was male, full stop. 

More than any other transition accoutrement, she needed hair.

Some trans women have their own luxurious locks; others get by with a bit of judicious styling.  The divide on the Bit-ler’s scalp could only be breached by the wigs she had, none of which fully satisfied her, all of which precluded being physically active.  The Bit-ler reconciled herself to a demure life. 

I, on the other hand, did not think beauty was a good swap for giving up my partner in crime, so I researched the whole thing and found out about hair systems that allow you to do sports and take showers and yes, even wear hats!

At this stage, I’m an enthusiastic, supportive hag. 

And so off to Edinburgh the Bit-ler goes to get a hirsute-ish pate.  I’m left in the new house with the fencing guys who’ve promised they can erect a barricade that’ll keep the Doodle in our garden.  A Doodle, I should add, who has already learned how to open the childproof door locks and escape the house.   Repeatedly.  With a big ol’ grin on her doggie face.

The fence guys themselves were civil enough.  The neighbours were a different matter.  We’d left the land of UKIP-pery and Mad Farmers to join the Uppity Nouveaux Riche too busy espousing capitalism to weed their rose beds.  New neighbours sensitive about property boundaries.  A sensitivity that extends into our garden, apparently.

By Day 2 of making bacon butties for the fencers and failed diplomacy with the neighbours – tasks previously the sole responsibility of the Bit-ler, as legislated by law and gender inequity – I’d redefined her trip north for hair as a luxury spa holiday that left me holding the can, an unappreciated Cinderella SOFFA.

Despite my self-pity, the fence got raised, no neighbours murdered in the process.  The Bit-ler came home looking the happiest I’d ever seen her.  It’d all been worth it.

Until the next day.  The Doodle’s early morning escape from our newly fenced garden required a run to the DIY shop.  Only, the Bit-ler had to get ready so she would pass.   Therein followed a long, drawn out prep that included visual demonstrations from myself.  Amazing, how complicated brushing your hair in a mirror really is.  Something second nature to little girls but that takes a while to master if your first attempt is as an adult. 

The next three days, Doodle found new escape routes, so three more trips to the DIY.  Three more preps by the Bit-ler while I twiddled my thumbs.   On that last trip, I was having trouble with the Sat-Nav.  The Bit-ler looked over just as we came into a curve.  The car drifted toward the centre line and she pulled it back before we crossed it.  I lost the plot. 

For me, losing the plot isn’t telling her she’s a feckin eejit who should keep her goddam eyes on the road.  Nope, losing the plot is taking a sample box from psychiatry’s diagnostic manual and giving her an assessment at 120 decibels.  A little knowledge with a lot of sharp edges.

She says nothing.  In her mind, she has to put up with an outburst like that because she considers me long suffering.

‘I wondered when I’d start shouting at you,’ I said.  A declaration of how long suffering I think I am. 

I eventually apologised like the alleged adult that I am.  The Bit-ler eventually agreed she didn’t have to take shit off me because I’m supportive.  But the first shot had been fired in what probably won’t end at a 21 gun salute to our old way of living.  Everything’s changed, from how long it takes to get ready to go, to what people perceive of our relationship.

And all because of her hair.

So Your Loved One is Trans

Taking off the costume.

Today, I waved the Butler off to her (yes, her) coming-out party at work.  Well, not exactly a party.  A meeting where she (yes, she) tells the last tier of her colleagues that she’s gender dysphoric.  

Anyone who says that transfolk are something other than brave, strong individuals, hasn’t a clue what they’re talking about.

I hope to expound on that statement, but today I’m thinking about trans-SOFFAs (significant others, friends, family & advocates).  People attached by a twist of fate to a transperson’s tailcoats, dragged along at full speed through terrain they never imagined, let alone chose to explore. 

People who go through that & still hang on.

Ten years ago, I learned I was a trans-parent, the mother of my lovely FtM, El Punko.  Seven years ago, I wondered if I were trans-contagious when I discovered the Butler is also trans.  There’s undoubtedly a statistical improbability at work here, having a child & spouse who aren’t biologically related, but are both transgender.

Now that the Butler begins her real life test, I’m finally able to speak about what it’s like for transfamilies in this country & this system.  Being a trans-parent has different pressures than being a trans-spouse, but consistent in both cases is that once treatment begins, there’s a bevy of professionals circling your loved one. 

And then there’s you. 

The psych field here thinks there’s something sexy about trans-clients, & by God, the SOFFA should be all things supportive, gracious, even thankful to be aligned with this magical crittur called Trans.  And while you’re at it, please shut up about your boring issues.  (Why are you even in my office?)

In the medical field, no matter that an unpredictable changeling has replaced someone very dear in your life and you think the doctors aren’t doing their best. Whatever treatment they inflict on your adult loved one, it’s none of your goddam business.  (Feck off, Madam No Degree.)  

A normal trans-family

The LGBT community.  Well, there needs to be someone for the parents, the spouses, the wide-eyed chillen of transfolk, but really, between supporting the transperson & storming the Bastille, there’s no time or energy for it.  And indeed, in my experience, the SOFFA’s sometimes considered to be three steps removed from the enemy, politely tolerated or, in rare instances, treated with overt hostility.  (Why oh why won’t you stay in the misguided straight world?)

No wonder some SOFFAs are mad as hell.  I’m not one of them.   

Recently, while shifting furniture, it became clear how much the Butler’s upper body strength had given way to HRT.  It was lift, walk a few paces, rest.  After I set down my end of a behemoth cabinet, the Butler kept shoving like nobody’s business, the behemoth not impressed. 

‘What the hell are you doing?’ I ask.  ‘You can’t do that without me.’ 

‘I’m an eejit,’ says the Butler, ‘but I’m enthusiastic.’

You know, there’s a motto for life.  Any life, really, but definintely the SOFFA life. 

While there are guidelines for transitioning, there’s no Harry Benjamin telling SOFFAs how to do this.  No Dark Lord professionals acting like we’re the One Ring.  No political factions educating us on the appropriate vernacular & what shops to boycott. 

There’s freedom in that.

Don't go stealth.

The trick is to approach it enthusiastically.  That doesn’t mean to ditch the anger, or forget the grief.  Everything you feel, or they feel, it’s real & justified.  What it means is, be terrified when you wait outside a public loo, then laugh about how weird it is that you’re lurking outside a public loo.  Feel embarrassed over their latest ‘new look’, but not too embarrassed to be honest about whether it works.  Don’t go quietly stealth in this brave new trans world.  Face your life & kick anybody to the curb who says you don’t have a right to it.

It may not seem possible to grab with both hands right now.  Not today, when your trans-love has stepped out of a lifelong prison and bolted to freedom, dragging your security and dreams and expectations through the gorse and hawthorn.  Not today, when you don’t believe it’ll get better because how can it be better when the unthinkable has happened?

Being a SOFFA isn't for the faint of heart, but you, who created a space where a trans-person felt they could take the risk, you deserve to stop screaming.  There will come a day you’ll wake up without that elephant stomping on your chest.  It may surprise you how quickly or how long it takes to happen.

In the meantime, enjoy the view from the tail of the kite.  Insist that you touch ground on a regular basis.  Don’t let anyone tell you to shut up, or stand to the side.  Be as brave as your trans-person, expect as much for yourself.  Listen.  Love.  Laugh.

Follow the multi-coloured road.

Insist on technicolour.

A Trans-Parent Request

Not Friday yet, but I didn’t expect the week to be like this.  It started so well.  I finished draft 7604 of my Afghanistan novel, the blog post here did nicely, I even (with some technical aid from my son, the peripatetic El Punko) entered into the Twitter world.  Nature cooperated by keeping our snowfall in the ‘pretty’ rather than the ‘I-hate-feckin-snow’ zone and Big Bang had a new episode.  Then there was Julie Burchill.

My first reaction, to wonder if Burchill understood the what-happens-next after publishing an article like that.  But then, I always go all left brain when faced with things that should knock me on my ass.  Which is why, about ten years ago, my son had the research ready when I asked him, ‘What did I do to make you like this?’

The morning after Burchill’s rampage, I woke before dawn with what felt like a clunk of The Hopeless on my chest.  Someone who doesn’t know him, hates my son.  How do you fix that?  But when people objected to Burchill’s hate mongering, focus switched from transphobia to freedom of expression.  A slight of hand that equated hurling epithets at a marginalised group as a civil liberty. 

I wanted to take a sick day from life.  An image kept going through my head, a photo I put on Facebook to make El Punko’s cousin in the US laugh.  

I ask you, how can anyone hate an elf?  (Read what my son says about Burchill here http://saschk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/open-letter-to-julie-burchill.html.) 

Ten years ago, a lot of the research pointed to the mother as the cause for Gender Dysphoria, either for psychological, sociological, or physiological reasons.  I suspect some social scientists have issues with their mothers but hey, I’m willing to say to Julie Burchill et al, don’t hate my son.  It’s my fault he’s trans.  Hate me. 

Because even if I didn’t psychologically, sociologically, or physiologically make him into the man he is today, I aided and abetted him.  I stood outside the men’s room when he went in until he pointed out how pervy that was.  I chanted that being trans was a special gift, then shut up when he said he wished he weren’t so damned special.  I visited him in a hospital where it was injudicious for the doctor to admit what type of surgery he’d performed on my son. 

Hate me, because I didn’t even try to stop El Punko.  While you’re at it, hate his friends for not doing a mass intervention to keep him a real girl who fights the male hegemony because hey, that’s more important than his gender identity. 

Hate the men in our family for sharing male greeting rituals with him, because doesn’t that separate us into first class and carriage?  Hate the university that prepares him for his ivory tower existence where miraculously he won’t suffer anymore.  (We’d all get Ph.Ds if that were true.) 

Hate his cat for loving him, too.

Each and every one of us is connected to someone else who’s connected to someone else who’s connected to someone else.  It’d be exhausting to hate all of us, so come on.  We have more in common than we have to separate us.  Julie Burchill attacking transfolk in defence of Suzanne Moore is motivated by the same thing that makes me want to step between her and my son. 

Her results, however, are less attractive.  It doesn’t matter if you’re working to gain equality for women if you’re swatting at transgendered people.  Or persons of colour.  Or Muslims.  Or gays.  Or my Big Nose dog.  The swatting cancels out the gains you’ve made. 

Hatred is an easier tactic because it dismisses the conflict person or group so we don’t have to deal with what we don’t like.  It’s self indulgent.  It’s theatrical.  It’s cathartic.  It’s destructive.  It’s a cop out.  It’s beneath us. 

Here’s my kid and the Big Nosed dog.  Please don’t hate him.