8 March 2009 – Whew!!!

Okay folks,

First off, if you haven’t read the previous entry, please read it first.  It’s real short. I’ll wait.

dum de dum dum….

Ah, back? Good.

Okay, so, we had a nice lunch (I’ve learned to make a pretty decent fried chicken), and I informed the kids that I wanted to have a short family conference.  Sweety handled the lunch dishes and left the 3 of us to talk.

(Reminder:  daughter K is 20, son T is 17)

So, I started with the "nobody’s sick, nobody’s dying, nobody’s getting divorced, nobody’s moving", and they went, "oh, okay". then I went with "well, you’ve probably noticed I’m not the most manly dad, and the truth is well, I’m transsexual".  And we went from there.  I had written a letter previously, both for them to refer to later should they want to (the ex’s therapist’s idea) and to remind me of the points I wanted to cover.  Talked about how I’d struggled with this since I was 9, how I’m actually happier with myself, and how I think I can be a better person through this.  Their reaction was basically, "well, we’re shocked, but okay".  We talked about various implications, how they’ll have the summer to get used to things, and in general, this went much better than I feared, and probably as good as one can hope for.  So, then we retired to the tv room, where K is working on her short story and T is playing his new handheld video game.  Nobody really seems to be bothered.

But on the other end, i get an email from ex’s husband, a right-wing homophobe, about how i’m a security risk (funny, the company and the security investigator didn’t seem to think so, nor did anyone bother to tell all my friends who work classified DoD programs who transitioned years ago) and blah blah blah and don’t forget trans folks are subjected to a lot more random violence.

That last part sounds very close to a threat.  I’m contemplating what to do about this.  I’m considering forwarding his email to the company, and let them step in here.  I’m tired of being intimidated.  The "Transsexual Menace" Rides Again!

Anyway, thanks for all the notes.  The kids have exceeded my expectations, and I love them dearly.  Life looks pretty good right now.

hugs

Jude