Telling Angry Mary

So let’s tally this up. I came to terms with being transgender in June. I waited 40 days to get my first appointment and wasted another 30 days waiting for my second appointment and followed it up with another 30 days to get my third.

But…

With Estrogen in hand we were just two weeks away from our cruise to Mexico.

Although I was much more confident going out as a girl, I was still having doubts about being in the public eye 24 hours a day for a ten day vacation. Back then I was really afraid of being outed and since it had already happened on many occasions, I knew exactly how it would happen.

It would be either Kimberly calling me her husband or my kids calling me dad. So I told both my kids, please, please either call me mom or by a made up name…Before I started transition I kind of called myself Kristy, no one else knew that name, it was just my name for me.

Well my baby girl, Miranda suggested Kendra, that way if Kim started to call me Ken she could finish it up with dra… Ken…dra. And both my kids agreed that’s what they would call me.

I also had concerns about driving to Florida, stopping at restrooms along the way. Yeah, stopping in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. (I guess I was lucky we had the trip before all of the bathroom stupidity going on now.)

Kim also had a concern of her own. Her mother, Mary, who was going on the trip with us, had to be told about me being transgender. “I will tell her.” Kim said in a demanding tone. “Just sit there and shut up, let me handle it.”

I was more okay with that than she knew. I was fine staying out of that conversation, mostly because her main personality traits were: angry, furious, irate, irritated and annoyed. Besides, it was Kim that had the rule about us NOT telling other people.

The only reason we had not told any other members of the family yet was Kim really didn’t want to have to answer the tough questions. She is a very private person and I totally understand why she didn’t want to explain how she was happily married to a transgender spouse who liked men.

It’s kind of funny now because as soon as her Mary got to our house, Kim said, “Just tell her, I can’t”

I really didn’t have to say much, instead I just took out my phone and showed her a picture of me, dressed as a woman. Mary didn’t say much either, she just wrapped her arms around me and said it’s ok but then followed it up with, “So are you gay?”

I chuckled to myself because I had already planned out what I was going to say, something I figured would save Kim from explaining more to her mother. “No Mary, I am 100 percent straight.” I knew when I said it she would never make the connection that I am and always have felt like a woman and I like men so therefore I am straight.

It was a very angry Mary who escorted me into the restrooms as we traveled south. It was her tough, grumpy soul that gave me strength not to be afraid. And once again my biggest problem was not actually going into the women’s room, it was just the fear beforehand that caused me anxiety. Not one woman looked at me funny, said a bad word or caused me to feel unwelcome.

It was around that point that I realized that the problems with being transgender mostly start and end in your own head…It is not as bad as you imagine.

It was when Kim, Mary, Brendan, Miranda and I finally arrived in Florida that I realized that I could never go back to being who I was…NEVER. I was alive for the first time in over a decade and I didn’t want to give that up.

#Mary #Miranda #Estrogen #Transition #Cruise #Kim #Brendan #Bathrooms #WomensRoom