Woodpecker Asks

The tag line under this site’s title reads, The first year of my partner’s gender transition.  This month, that year is up.  So a little reflection.

About a decade ago, my spouse (who’s now known as Siobhán) first admitted to me her gender dysphoria – being transsexual.  I turned to the folk who’d helped me with my son El Punko’s transition – Transfamily –  a web support group with chatrooms for different family member groups.

Their trans-parents chatroom had been full of concern and worry and the grief that comes when you realise your child’s future will always have this gargantuan   

It's behind you!

THiNG in it. 

The spouse chatroom had ANGER.  Understandably so.  Most, like myself, hadn’t been told what they were getting into before they married.  Few, if any, had been through a transition before.  And let’s face it, our culture is SO focused on sex, sexual orientation, sex, sexual identity and did I say SEX, that while the supportive trans-parent becomes an archetype of parental love, the supportive trans-spouse gets tarred with the weirdo-pervert-just-plain-crazy brush.

As one of Siobhán’s friends said, Lora didn’t sign up to be a lesbian.  As if that’s all marriage is about.

I didn’t last long in the spouse chatroom.  The only bits of advice I remember were (1) Don’t let her EVER wear your clothes and (2) be prepared for her to turn into Uber Diva.  

Pre-Uber Diva

To be honest, Siobhán’s clothes are nicer than mine, so I steal hers.  And Uber Diva?  Puh-leeeeeze. The woman’s a huge softy, quietly in the background making sure everyone gets more than what they need.

At least pre-transition, she was.

Fast forward to last June. 

Between the two of us, I don’t know who was more excited about Siobhán’s transition.  I certainly showed it more, although I did have a sense that neither of us could know how much this would challenge us. 

And it was exciting, all the firsts.  First pre-transition talk at work, first hair, first posh do.  Four months into it, though, I started not feeling well You go without me, missing out on this and that until my life gradually became days of watching wildlife in the trees outside my bedroom window.

Blech!  Not this kisser.

For years, they tell me, 

                  an 

insidious medical problem 

quietly sneaked up on me

until . . . 

         POW 

right in the kisser.

Although I didn’t have the focus to write, my brain still worked like a writer’s brain, so I did what writers do – observe, observe, quietly and mutely observe.

As a result, I became a spectator rather than a supporter of Siobhán’s transition.  

And I noticed a few things.

(1)  I'm extraneous to everyone in her life, friends and involved professionals alike.  As any non-professional SOFFA* will tell you, we’re excluded from the process for confidentiality reasons, but there’s also no supports for us in place.  The most important people in the trans-person’s life and no one takes care of us.  As if that doesn’t negatively affect the trans-person.  I’ve offered my professional skills on occasion to develop support groups for myself and others, only to be patted on the head and sent back to my hole where hopefully I’ll stay.

(2)  I suspect when a person waits this long for validation, it becomes addictive once she finally gets it  This means that advice given by casual strangers or the sudden interest from people who’ve not been overly compassionate with Siobhán in the past, carries more weight than the last 10 years of my consistent support.  It’s maybe this particular dynamic that prompted the warnings in the trans-spouse chatroom to watch out for Uber Diva.  There’s certainly been the rare sighting of her in my house during the last year.

(3)  The dominant culture for male-to-female transition equates 

female 

    with 

glamorous. 

Many, many people, both trans and SOFFA, refer to the beginning of transition as a second adolescent.  All of the above, even Uber Diva, is stuff Siobhán should’ve done as a teenager.  And although I’m not her mother, the spouse is often put into that pseudo-parental test-the-limits-in-a-safe-place position as the trans-person explores their representation of gender.

I understand this, but I'm tired from being powed in the kisser.

A year after starting her Real Life Test, Siobhán’s finally had her first appointment at the NHS gender clinic.  In case you're not familiar, the clinic's supposed to help in transition, not rubber stamp it once it's done.  I've been there, done that with El Punko’s struggle to get adequate medical care; the memory wears me out.  

Siobhán’s friends come over and discuss hair, voice, hips, until my eyes roll back in my head.  All my adult life, I’ve dealt with this What A Woman Should Be shite. 

I’ve paid my dues.  

To hell with social norms.  

Be a goddam trans woman, 

not Cait feckin Jenner.

I’ve become a trans-heretic. 

Our woodpecker.

If I were healthy, this wouldn't be so in-my-face because I’d be up to my eyes in writing and gardening, painting furniture and chasing a Doodle over the moors.  With my own interests taking centre stage, I’d be supportive.  I’d play fair.  

But you know what?  Fairness is a social construct with shifting goal posts.  A 16 year cancer patient taught me that.  She said there’s no reason for anything.  

Life just is.  

Get on with it. 

Out the window, I see woodpeckers nesting in the back garden.  In my pantheistic mentality inherited from a Leni Lenape grandmother, Woodpecker is birth medicine; it beats the drum of honouring ones unique path, rejecting conformity.  

Appropriate for a heretic.

If I were healthy, I’d be writing.  Or gardening.  Or painting furniture and chasing the Doodle across the moors, although not at the same time.  I’m not healthy but I am a realist.  Woodpecker says, even though I’m sick, get up from the trans table and find my own project away from the sound of other people’s drums.

I’ll let you know 

when I get there. 

*  Significant Others, Friends, Family, Advocates

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

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. 

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.

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.