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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

To the Reluctant Parent

It is just so important to me to see parents in this day and age recognize a perceived gender issue prior to the point where their child reaches puberty and to deal with it accordingly.  

Spunky Bookworm is a parent who has done just that for her son.  It took a lot of strength and understanding on her part.  I just love this post, and I hope you do too.   

Perhaps we can see a spouse someday author a similar post.
Posted by Calie

3 comments:

Sonora Sage said...

While I understand the sentiment in your last line, Calie, I think that it's important to remember how different a spousal relationship is from a parental one.

In most cases, we chose our spouse based on the characteristics we perceive in them. Romantic love develops because of our attraction to those characteristics. I suspect a majority of people would include gendered characteristics in that list, aspects which will change when transition occurs. While I'm sure we'd like to believe that love for a spouse is unconditional, is it realistic for that to be the case? If one day they were a completely different person - mentally and physically - with the single constant factor being that we were married to them, would we still love them? Should we still love them?

With children, I think, it is different. We don't choose our children based on who they are. We love them unconditionally because they are our children, no matter how they may develop emotionally, mentally or physically. (And yes, I know there are sad exceptions to this.) Our love shouldn't change as they change, because it started before we even knew who they were.

I've seen posts by spouses who lose attraction to their post-transition partners and can no longer say they love them, perhaps because of the anger and hurt they feel. I've seen posts by spouses who lose attraction, but retain affection, where the relationship develops into something different - perhaps divorce and a close friendship, or an open marriage. And yes, I've seen posts by spouses who have retained romantic attraction, those who were originally most drawn to the non-gendered qualities in their partners and/or whose orientation falls into the bisexual or pansexual definitions.

For these reasons, I'm not sure what a similar post by a spouse would look like. I am sometimes faintly disturbed by a handful of spousal posts who give me the impression that they view their transitioning spouses as a child, almost as if the relationship itself transitions from partner to parental. I know that they may be searching for a strategy that allows the unity of the family to be preserved and perhaps that's the only one that works for them. But I can't help feeling sadness for the unspoken loss of what they felt for their partner.

December 20, 2011 7:56 PM
Calie said...

Sonora, you are absolutely right. The post is about parents and young children who question their gender and I should not have made that comment.

My own blog, for the most part, is about being trans but dealing with it along with love, marriage and family. That's what I believe in. Nothing is more important to me than my spouse. I don't expect her to ever fully understand me nor do I expect any spouse to fully understand their trans partner. Therefore, to contradict my comment in the post, how can a spouse author such a post?

Calie

December 21, 2011 7:30 AM
Shirley Anne said...

Here is a lovely video from an 11 year old transsexual..

http://theangels.co.uk/2011/10/testimony-of-a-transgendered-child/

Shirley Anne xxx

December 22, 2011 2:56 PM

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