A Trans Story - Venting

So this week I was going to continue with my story, leading into my twenties and all the fun stuff that happened during that time. But right now I feel the need to vent about some issues that occurred this weekend - namely with my Sister in Law - my brothers wife.

My sister in law and I have never really gotten along, but still she completely crossed the line this weekend. Ever since she found out I was Trans and that I was accepting myself,

she has been a bit more of a bitch. She was really upset that I told my nieces before I told my brother, her husband. She really nagged on me about that, and I ended up calling my brother to set the record straight.

But over the last year my sister in law has reached out to my wife, and even going so far as to blame my wife for my Transition. The silly woman is of the opinion that my wife has brainwashed me and that I am transitioning for her. Where she gets that stupid

idea is completely beyond me, but thats the way she seems to think. 

This weekend though, things escalated. Just the other week I finally got to court to change my name and I sent my brother a snapchat to let him know right after I had told my

Mother. I then chatted with the sister in law to let her know that I had messaged my brother and that I had changed my name.

She got downright mean from that point. I will write her responses exactly as she sent them to me. I wish you luck in deciphering some of her meanings. Her responses can be

incomprehensible at times. Her response was "Yes Ok no problem I know you say you have legally changed your name but that does not mean you can expect us to call you your new name just of the drop of a hat. You will be Graham to me, your brother, Mum, Uncle and you will be called Uncle by your nieces and nephews thats what they will refer you as to me there granny there sisters there brother there uncle as thats what they are used to so dont expect anything less from any of us things take time and with you not being here it is very difficult for us just to call you a new name so thats life its hard and thats it."

If she had not made such a point of me always being Graham to her, I may have had a nicer response. But to put it bluntly I told her that a few times by accident would be ok, but more than that and I will no longer be answering to Graham or any male pronoun. Also told her it was not at a drop of a hat as I had been transitioning for over a

year and my chosen name had been on Facebook for almost as long. I then informed her that she should educate herself on how to talk to a Trans person before trying to press her opinion.

She didnt much care for that response and quickly came back with "Trying to press my opinion Oh Graham I am not trying, I am. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and its not

like we ever see or hear from you so I suppose to ever call you anything any ways so oh well. Dont ever talk to me again I dont want to ever educate myself on how to talk to you Graham so this is the best of my education I know."

I heard nothing else from her as I was choosing to ignore her. It is a waste of time to try and enlighten this person and she was showing just how hateful she really was. The

woman is incapable of being nice with someone she doesnt understand. Well I actually wasnt choosing to ignore her, that choice was forced on me, as she tends to block me after sending hateful messages.

But on Saturday February

18 I began to receive more messages from her, completely out of the blue, each one progressively nastier.

So here is the

conversation exactly as it occurred - some of her tantrums dont really make much sense

You might think you have changed with bitch zandra brain washing you but deep down you will never be changed ever on your birth certificate your gender will be "M" as in male , am I educated enough to know this..lol Your name might be changed but not gender so go back tell your stupid bitch amnerican lesbian women she is knows knows fuck all (co mon the Trumph)

My responses are dark

grey highlighted.

You

are a nasty bitch and you know nothing

Genitals have very little to do with gender. Gender is in the mind, hormones and many other aspects, but you would not know this since you are so narrow minded. And dont talk about my wife like that. She had nothing to do with my decision to accept myself for who I really am. And if you cannot accept me I do not need you in my life

Your

still male on certificate though and will alway be so go back n tell your idiotic American wife this and tell her triumph xx

Actually

wrong again

The birth certificate can be changed

If you learned about things yo might know that

Whet

if I learned to not let his brother not fall out with him I might be educated?

But

you are nothing more than a narrow minded bigot. And my wife is far more intelligent than you. She can spell. She knows grammar and is far better educated than you. Go stick your head in the ground and stay out if my life. I dont need anyone that is so bigoted in my life

As for the brother comment I cannot even understand what you are talking about. Please speak english

She

might be able to spell and know her grammar 1 thing she will never give you to what I have and what your mum had is 4 wonderful grandchildren, times played,times,dinner it all nothing ever beats ever having that time

I

have a son and a grandchild that I love and love spending time with. Zandra and I are more than happy with what.we have. And I have a wife that supports me in the path my life has taken.

Speak

"English"?just go back to fat lazy bastard how much more English do I need to go into?

Things get said out of proportion so they say it never stopped you with me ?

Perhaps

english that makes sense. And being a nasty bitch does not get your point across anymore. It just makes you sound even more stupid

And since you cannot make sense and can only insult me and my wife, then this conversation is over, as is your presence in my life.

I feel no need to defend myself, or my life, or what I have had to do to accept myself. I pity you and your narrow, closed mind that is incapable of a new thought, or of accepting diversity. Goodbye. I never need to see or talk to you again

See you ya

ignorant wee bastard if it wasn't for me even your brother would not have spoken to you do you have a short memory , yes short memory , I do remember Graham calling trying to arrange a call

Is that your. Bitch? Talking again is she herring great pleasure hearing me say this? Is it turning her on in here weird way,that you marry together.,then be apart is that even legal in Us? Only

You will never be "m""male" on birth certificate ..how much more "educated" should one be ??? Graham

No giving birth or being able to have children with one you love must be heart destroying I as a mother could not imagine the pain of that I am so thankful I (have a decent ,good,man who can do all that no one could ever describe how much love in the blessing involved , also I was. Blessed in sitting in a good kind natured lesbian tonight , she even read my texts n she could understand our good auld Scottish ways

You are still a male registered a male and changing your first name will never change your gender even if you ever come to uk u will be called graham haha

So here I was subjected to a barrage of hatred from someone who is supposed to be family. Granted my responses were not what I would call the best either, but I had pretty much had enough by this time. I knew that my sister in law was uneducated and nasty, but I didn’t think she would be quite this full of hate, especially as what I am going through changes nothing for her at all.

She is wrong in several of her assumptions. In the UK I can

have a correction issued on my birth certificate and my gender markers can be changed on all of my ID’s in both the UK and the US, so I will be female. But to be honest the birth certificate thing had no reason to be even brought up. Why is it such a problem for me to be female for her, why does she hate it so much? Why is she so obstinate about it?

I had known for a bit that she was under the impression that Zandra was making me do this transition and I also suspected my Mother might think something similar, or at the very least she would blame it on my living in America. My mother had intimated as much in the past.

So I called my Mum on Sunday, figuring she would have heard about everything by then. She had and her response was – your sister in law was drunk, you know how she gets. Like that is any bloody excuse for inflicting someone with this much hatred. All I got from my Mother was that I need to understand they have known me as Graham for 40 years and that is hard for me. Yes well its bloody hard for me to you know. When will my family clue into that fact, probably not at all if you ask me. They are all focused on the fact that its not Scottish for me to be doing this. Which is exactly what my Mum said. She told me that I would probably not find acceptance in Scotland and that what I was doing was very American. Which is a bunch  of bullshit. The UK government is more accepting of Transgender issues than the US one is. We have more rights over there, while in the US I have to fight to even be recognized as a woman and to have the rights that Cis gender folks take for granted. But My mother and probably most of my family think and feel differently. They think that I was normal until I came over here. They think I had no bloody issues until I came over here. What they are not realizing is that their reactions right now are the prime reason why I said nothing growing up. I knew they would think it was weird, that there was something wrong with me, so why the hell would I have wanted to say anything to them. It took me 26 bloody years to get the strength to face the truth, all because of their stupid fucking attitudes. The very attitudes I am experiencing from all of them.

Another disappointment was my younger niece. She messaged me after I posted on Facebook that I had had enough of my family blaming  my wife or America and that it was high time they realized that I had always been this way and just never said anything because I was scared. My niece told me that I and her mother had to stop posting stuff on facebook and that she was not taking sides. What was really disappointing is that everyone knows how full of hate the bloody woman is and no one is saying a damn thing about her. Why should I have to put up with her attacks, while they sit back and say nothing until I complain about it online and then they tell me to just ignore her and such. Why the fuck should I ignore her? Why should I be subjected to her bullshit and why is my family not sticking up for me and telling her to shut the fuck up.

They are not sticking up for me, cause they all think the same way as her, they just choose not to say it. So pretty much they are all a bunch of stupid cowards who seem to think that anything outside of Scotland is weird and that nothing weird happens in the country. What they don’t realise is that we are all so fucking stuck up and so tightly wound that we are all completely fucked up. It took me all these years to find the strength to face myself, to accept myself, all because this stupid attitude prevails in my family. It is stupid, it is harmful and it is just plain hatred. I wish they would educate themselves on Gender Identity issues.

All I want is to be accepted by my family. I am not asking for understanding as even I don’t understand half the time. I am just asking for them to accept me for who I am. And I don’t know why they have such a difficult time with it. I am not affecting them at all. I am only trying to live the second half of my life in some measure of happiness that does no harm to them or anyone else. And yet they obstinately cling to their stupidity that causes more harm than anything else.

All I want is for my family to finally realise that while its hard for them, its bloody even harder for me. They have no idea how difficult it was for me to tell them who and what I was. My life has not been a fucking picnic and its not been one since I came out either. Its about time for them to come to terms with the truth. And its coming close to time for them to Step up or Step off.

A Trans Story, Part 2

So if you read my last blog you might begin to understand how difficult life is for Trans people. Childhood and growing up is particularly difficult, particularly around puberty. When your body begins to change, hormones rage and you resent all the changes, it makes it hard. Speaking for myself I was completely confused with what was going on. The changes occurring to my body, were not the changes that I dreamed of, and made the difference between my mind and body all the more apparent.

But life is not always sad, atleast not for me. I obviously cannot speak for any other Trans people, but there were many happy moments in my life. From the outside I would have seemed like a normal boy. I had friends, I had interests and I did the usual boy stuff. Yes it wasnt all sad, but in my life there was always an undercurrent of sadness. Many of the things I did, I forced myself to do just to fit in.

I played football (thats real football. Not the American version) when I was younger. I was reasonable, not bad, but not brilliant. I was interested in it, I enjoyed it, but part of me pursued the game to get approval from my Dad. However I always felt that I would never, could never completely measure up. If I had an off day my dad was extremely critical of me and that hurt. I felt that I was never good enough at football to truly impress my Dad. I went through many years just seeking approval, trying to be the son I thought he wanted, but always felt that I was falling short.

Even when I turned 13 and had my first girlfriend it did not feel like enough. She came to see me one night. I was out, I think at the Boys Brigade, so I missed her. When I got home my Dad told me she had been there. But almost the first thing he said was how did you manage to get her. She was pretty, or so I thought, and my Dads words seemed to confirm that, but he also seemed astounded that I had managed to get a girlfriend. Just felt like more evidence that I was not measuring up. But even having a girlfriend actually reinforced how different I was. Even then I was so content to snuggle with her, to always be touching her hand. And I loved, loved, loved kissing for the longest time. I could lie there kissing her all day long and it was always so wonderful. And yet, when I talked to guy friends they were always talking differently than I felt. They were all about trying to get into the girls pants, about getting to the next stage. Basically about banging them and moving on. I had so much more of an emotional attachment to girls than other boys which made me feel differently than my friends seemed to. It also made it easier for people to hurt me and take advantage of me. Several of my girlfriends at that time ended up two timing me, and I was usually so head over heels for them that I would end up forgiving them and taking them back, only to have them do that again. And at that time my guy friends were treating girls with disdain, cheating on them and just messing around, while I would fall for every single one of my girlfriends.

Other than Football, girlfriends and such my childhood was fairly normal. I was far from an outcast. I had mastered the art of fitting in. Of hanging out with friends and just appearing normal. The time I spent with my friends was good. I had fun with them and could even, at times, forget about my feelings. Several of my friends were boys, but to be honest I always felt more comfortable with girls.

My comfort with girls as friends did add an element of confusion because I was also attracted to them. I could enjoy spending time with them, just talking, but there was still that attraction and ofcourse the jealousy that I always carried around with me. I have always been and always will be attracted to women, so I knew that I was not Gay, but why did I feel more drawn to them as friends. Another thing I really loved was long hair, but I also longed to have that myself. I was jealous of my female friends who had long hair. Long hair on boys was not right, atleast so everyone said, and so in order to fit in I had short hair. But oh how I dreamed of having super long hair, of being able to wear dresses like the girls. Most everything I did as a child was designed to fit in and I resented so much of it. I resented my Dad for making me feel inadequate. I resented the world and I resented myself for always feeling different. I resented my family and friends for not realising that I was different, mostly my family. But also I cannot really blame them for not knowing, since I never spoke to anyone about it.

Not speaking to anyone was my choice and one I have to live with. It is a choice I regret to this day. But also to this day I am still surprised that my family did not realise it. I never even hinted to anyone that something was bothering me. I always appeared to be a fairly happy child. And that was not far from the truth. I was not what would be considered depressed and the thought of suicide never even entered my mind at any point in time. But I always carried with me the sadness deep within, the feeling that I was wrong and that I would never fit in with the world. But I remember how I used to love wearing my Mums winter boots, always wanted my ears pierced and even had my Mum teach me how to knit. I thought any of those might have made them wonder something, but I guess I am just too good an actor and they believed I was just a boy.

One other reason I chose not to tell is that at first I had no clue what was going on. For many years I just felt out of place and knew that I was insanely jealous of every girl I met. I was a teenager before I had even an inkling about what it might be. That was when I was exposed to cross dressing. Back in the day there were a couple of TV celebrities who were cross dressers and that did appeal to me. But when I saw how people made fun of them, couldnt understand them and treated them with derision I knew that I could never ever tell anyone about my desire.

But after trying cross dressing I knew it was not for me. It did help me, temporarily anyway, to feel better. I felt so much more comfortable in womans clothing, but oh how I wanted so much more than that. I wanted the body to fit within those clothes. I dont even know how many years passed until I came across information about Transexual people, but that thought terrified me. I was always afraid that if I went down that path that my family would not accept me. My Dad was not supportive of Gay people. My mum had some Gay friends, but everyone back then made fun of them and my Mum absolutely hates flamboyant, effeminite men and so the thought of telling her about me did not even bear thinking about. I held it all inside. Another fear was that I would appear to be a fraud, a freak in a frock and that I would look like a scary dude in a dress. Those fears are what held me back for so many years. Those fears were always with me and always made me hide who I was. I was always afraid that my body would never be the shape I longed for it to be. I had no idea what could be done back then. This fear is a terrible thing to carry with you. And if you look like a freak in a frock can you imagine the derision you would open yourself up to. All of that is what makes our lives so difficult. And when you get people like right wing conservative christians who constantly speak against anything LGBT it makes you feel even worse. Truly humans are one of the worst things in all of creation. We offer very little support to anyone in our society, less support to those we do not understant. Indeed many people go out of their way to make you feel even worse if you are the least bit different. How can you expect any Trans person to be honest when they face such adversity. How can you expect a child to grow up strong when all of your actions belittle what they feel and all your religious talk makes them scared they will be going to hell if they embrace who they are.

Its really such a shame that many humans cannot accept diversity. I truly believe they belittle their own God when they do not embrace differences. I mean lets say for the sake of argument that God did create the Universe and everything in it. That would mean she/he is a Universal being, infinite and eternal. Earth is such a tiny, miniscule part of the vast Universe, and humans even tinier. If a God did create the Universe and is as vast as their creation then they made us to be diverse. I can only imagine that any God would be so bored with everyone and everything being the same.

When Christians belittle people, they do the same to their God. The spout a bunch of religious reasons and facts from their bible, but they are forgetting that they are attempting to define a Universal being through their own limited understanding. They are limiting God and that Gods creation without even understanding that any God might actually like diversity and indeed encourage it so as to make a more interesting creation.

There are many religions in the world, many of them with the same God, but having somewhat different beliefs. Perhaps there is a reason for that. Faith, spirituality and any other belief system is not a one size fits all prospect. God is not a one size fits all prospect and if we are supposedly created in the image of God that would mean we are not a one size fits all prospect. Every particle of each person is different and until you embrace diversity you are not embracing your God. You are actually limiting your God and your Gods creation. You are arrogantly stating that you know what is this divine beings mind and you are arrogantly limiting Gods entire creation, all to suit your very limited understanding of the Universe and life. You are a insignificant thing compared to the Universe and even smaller compared to any creator. Who are you to state that God is not happy with a diverse population. What gives you the right to try and tell me that I am an affront to God, that I am living in sin, that I am an abomination. What gives you the right to even try to make that claim. You have absolutely no understand of the greater truth. Any being who created the Universe, and life would have a far greater plan and mind than you can ever comprehend. And you trying to force everyone to be the same is the sin. You are arrogantly trying to control the creation of your God and make it what you think it should be. Only when you embrace diversity, embrace everyone as they are will you completely embrace your God and only then will you begin to understand the Truth. We are all meant to be different. If God made life then he made me and he made me Trans. He made me with the intention that I transition at some point in time. I cannot believe in any God that would want me to live in misery all my life, and just because you believe in that small, mean thing, doesnt mean we all should. Its time for you to grow up and accept that you are the one being mean and divisive.

I suppose though, that this life, my holding my secret deep inside and all my experiences helped me to develop what my therapist has come to call my "Fuck You" attitude. I have developed an attitude where I will say Fuck you to the world. If you dont agree with me, with how I live my life, with how I have come to accept myself, then my answer is Fuck You, as I really dont care.

Since I accepted myself and came out this attitude is even more prevalent. I really do not care what anyone thinks of me. Your acceptance or lack thereof does not concern me in the slightest. If you have a problem with me being Trans and with me becoming the person I am supposed to be, then that is your problem. I am content with myself, I am happy with the path that I am on and you are of no concern to me.

The only reason I am writing these blogs is in the hopes that I might open some eyes, that I might expand some minds. I live in the hope that my brothers and sisters will have more acceptance and if my opening up about my life helps with that, then my life has a purpose. I also share this for those Trans people that might be in the denial stage. If they recognise some of these feelings and know there are others out there, then hopefully they will draw strength from it. If I can help some people accept themselves, and if I can help some others be more accepting of diversity then I will be happy.

All I ask is that you open your eyes, your mind and your heart. Look at us, read my story and see that we are only trying to live our lives. We only want to be happy, to succeed in life and achieve or personal goals. Nothing we do in life will affect you in any way at all, so just support us and let us live as we are meant to, and let us be our authentic selves.