*sigh*
(this is going to be quite long, but you can't say this right in 20 words)
I'm not even going to get into an angry argument, and I'm asking right now for my actual friends to not go there either, however tempted you may be. But I did want to share it to make this very important point:
It is absolutely and unequivocally true that my transition has caused her indescribable pain and loss. She seems to believe that I can't imagine that or simply don't care (if I simply didn't care I'd have seized the moment and ran at the first of the year or, more exactly, left empty handed years ago, but nevermind that) but she couldn't be more wrong. I'm far more aware of the pain she's feeling than her or any of her allies could possibly hope to understand of what they would have me accept and live with, moreover, I doubt seriously any of them even think they need to try. Yes, I do in fact understand what she's feeling - a loss she would feel in one form or another whichever solution to me no-win dilemma I might have chosen (or could chose now) - but more than that I know how and why we got to this place, and THAT is the reason for this post, not any desire to hold her and her supporter up to criticism.
Here's why:
Because I, and everyone else in my generation trans or not were raised and formed in a world which was almost completely ignorant on the condition I'm dealing with. Even the "experts" were just reacting to outward signs and flailing for explanations, often getting it wrong - one of the most notorious explanations of it was entirely wrong. BECAUSE I was completely ignorant, I was SHAMED into fighting an impossible battle to deny this reality. BECAUSE the world was ignorant, it doubled and tripled the shame. Reveled in it. Wallowed in it. Took great pleasure in humbling and humiliating the very few of us willing to endure it in order to live the truth of their heart and soul. Those of us ashamed and afraid not only saw that shaming but even learned to do it to our own selves.
And so, like so many others, I tried desperately to "do the right thing" - hide my shameful secret and be "normal" - dare to fall in love, have the temerity to get married and have kids, and (in my case) become the very sort of shamer that had made me hate myself. And because I dared. Because I thought, honestly thought, that being what I am with something that could be controlled, repressed, repented of, I involved an innocent and unsuspecting woman in my life. I made her promises - in LOVE - and in all sincerity, that I'm not able to keep.
Because. I. Was. Lied. To.
Lied to by the whole world I lived in, the whole culture that surrounded me, all of it. Jokes like the one in this image were "everybody knows" and "common sense" and THAT is the lie. THAT is the shaming that everyone like me learned from their mother's knee and THAT LIE is why she is in pain tonight. Because of THAT lie, I put her in a no-win situation right along beside me.
It is an absolute abomination that one so desperately hurt BY that l;ie now thinks it makes sense to stand among those trying to push that same lie on a new generation of trans people.
You know what that means? A whole new generation that feels shamed and disputed and degraded by even those very people they trust most to love them; a new generation of parents ashamed of and abusive towards their own kids because they feel shamed to have a child who's trans; a whole new generation of people who, far more than half the time, will try to take their own lives rather than endure it (and far too often succeed)...and a whole new generation of trans people who will subject themselves to THAT LIE and try to "do the right thing" and fight it...and they will dare to fall in love...have the temerity to marry and have kids..and someday come to the breaking point and do to some other woman just what was done to my wife.
And yet in every single word and act in which she, and those who support her, and those who simply don't understand, and those who are still mis-informed about what the Bible says - all with the best of intentions! - that seeks to shame, humiliate, and mock trans people, all those well intentioned folks join hands with the hateful and mean-spirited folks to ensure that some innocent woman in the years to come will be hurting just like she is now.
And the worst part of it all is - she can't conceive that any of what I just wrote is true.
Those of you who REALLY want to be good, do good, treat people like you think Christ would have you treat them - please, for the love of the God whom you serve, STOP POSTING HATEFUL, CALLOUS, COLD-HEARTED BULLSHIT LIKE THIS!!!! When you do, it says far more about your heart than it does about mine.
