Two In A Row!

Okay, so making that effort to sit down and write. I need to take care of some other house things that are easier to do on the big computer (vs. on my phone) so it seems like it would be silly not to take the time to write.

It's all going to be more move stuff so if you are already bored with this you can skip and not even feel badly about it. 

We are in this weird limbo state right now. We have moved. But we haven't closed on the sale of the townhouse. We are in the new house. But we haven't finished settling in. We've ordered our bedroom set. But it's still tracking as not delivered until the end of May. We've had a couple of people come in with estimates for window coverings. But the prices are crazy high. But if we don't order soon it will be winter before we have blinds or curtains. We have gotten rid of a bunch of stuff that doesn't work in the new house. But we haven't replaced things yet. 

So basically the house is obviously being lived in, but it's not yet done nicely.

Oh and we need to get the back yard landscaping done and the porch screened in.

And and and...

I had thought we would be mostly settled in (except for the yard) by June but I'm revising that to July or August. Supply chain issues are still causing us problems. The new dishwasher we ordered is MONTHS out for delivery, for instance. And it's like that for everything we do. We find something we like and get the order process started and...that's going to take 6 to 8 weeks to be done. 

Which is why I was so relieved that the valve for the furnace looks like it will take a week. I feel like once the townhouse is closed and done then at least my brain will stop doing the "remember when you moved to Colorado and the house in Hillsboro didn't sell for MONTHS?" loop. 

As Brent put it yesterday "You've been a little on edge lately."

Yeah, a little. 

I mean if you call wanting to throw my phone into the driveway and run it over three or four times to stop the constant barrage of phone calls and texts a little. Then yeah, a little.

I am peopled out basically. 

And I don't have the luxury of being peopled out right now. I need to deal with workers for some things that need to be done here at the house (at one point Monday morning I had three different sets of workers in the house. THREE SETS!). I need to deal with workers for the townhouse. I need to deal with the sale of the townhouse. There are some sporting events that we are attending over the next few weeks (yes, those are fun and great, but still filled with people). 

And all I want to do is close the doors, pull the non-existent blinds, and just sit quietly. 

Maybe this Fall? 

But odds are quiet time all alone in my new house is on backorder...

Remember When....

So remember when I said last week that this week would be the week I settled into my new routine because this week would be easier? 

Ha!

Next week. Now I'm aiming for next week. 

But to be honest it might end up being June at this point. Which is totally a thing that could happen and I'm fine with it. Really. I mean not being settled in is fine. Not having any sort of routine is fine. It's all just fine. 

Fine.

Or not. 

But I can't really change it so I need to roll with it. 

Last week was the last of the random things I needed to do at the town house so I was going to stop going back and forth between here and there a few times each day. I cannot even tell you how much I was looking forward to that. Isn't it amazing how quickly we let go of old things? I mean, honestly. All it took was moving all of our things into this house for me to think of that one as "not mine." And as it's "not mine" I don't want to be there. And after last week, getting it set up to show and putting it on the market, I was not going to have to do much there. A drive by here and there to make sure things look okay, check the mail a couple more times to make sure USPS did their thing, but other than that. Done, baby!

And then Sunday we discovered the gas leak. 

So Patty had thought she smelled something on Tuesday but it wasn't strong and I wrote it off to just random stuff because I had been there Monday and there wasn't anything. Sunday a realtor that showed the house let Patty know that it was really strong. So I called NW Natural and raced to the house to make sure I got there before they did. 

See, what I didn't know is that they wouldn't wait for me. If they got there first and couldn't get in the house they could just cut the line at the curb and I would have to go through the process of getting it all turned back on before I would even be able to find out where the leak was coming from. So I raced and cussed at every stop light and slow car having visions of my house exploding and taking out the neighbors...

Got there and yeah, definitely a gas smell. I opened up the house to get it aired out and tried to find where it was coming from. Hard to pinpoint because it seemed like it was everywhere. Ugh. 

NW Natural got there and brought out his little sniffer. Stop it, it's not dirty, that's what they call the tool that can detect where the leak is coming from. Not the stove, not the fireplace, dang it, that leaves the furnace. Which is in the attic. And all of our ladders are at the new house. And the dispatcher I talked to on the way over to the town house, (yes, I had my phone on speaker as I drove, it was an emergency!) had said the techs don't carry ladders so if it was in the attic I was shit out of luck. 

But no, he had a ladder! Whew! And it was the valve on the furnace. It had developed a leak and would fill the unit with gas, then when the heater would run it would then push all of that gas out the vents through the whole house. Great...

And honestly in a way it really was great. We had been having issues earlier in the year with the furnace and I think it was the valve failing at that point, so it would have been nice if they had figured out that was what was happening a few months ago, but the good news is it completely failed after we moved out. So we weren't dealing with a gas leak in the middle of the night, which could have been catastrophic. We weren't dealing with no heat in the house we were living in while waiting for the repair, which would have been miserable. And there is a part in the states that we can get. 

Which is SUPER great. These attic combo units are not common and right now if the whole unit fails there is a six to nine month wait for one to be shipped. If it had been that long to get the part to fix the unit we would have been screwed trying to sell it. It would have been trying to convince a buyer that we for sure would get it fixed, and summer is right around the corner so really it won't need to run much anymore while they waited. But there was a part and so we didn't have to. We just wrote as part of our counter offer that we would FOR SURE get it fixed.

Yes, our counter offer. We sold the house. 

To the person who discovered the gas leak. 

Which is amazing. 

And now I'm sitting with my fingers metaphorically crossed that the close and sale goes through smoothly and the part comes quickly and the repair is easily handled. 

And then...then I will be able to settle into my new house and new routine just as smooth as silk and...

Stop laughing.

It could totally happen.

Picking Sides...

So one blog in April. Considering how busy April was I'm taking that as a win. Trying to settle into a new routine here at the new house, it won't happen until next week, but I've got a plan. 

This is actually one of the best times to form a new habit. Any time you break your standing routine it's a good opportunity to sub in a new one. Try it. You don't have to wait until you move house, you can do it if you are on vacation, or if you have to get up at a different time for a stretch, anything that breaks you out of your normal routine. Want to floss more? When you go on vacation, pack your floss and make sure you do it every night before bed, or first thing in the morning, but either way it will be easier to set up a new routine when your old one is busted. For me I am going to set up a new schedule for my daily routine and make sure I block in writing time again. 

Next week. Today is just bonus because I want to write about something that is bugging me right now and get it out of my head.

How do you choose sides? I don't mean in the big things where there is clearly a right and a wrong for your own moral code, but in random things that come up. People tend to choose sides no matter the situation and sometimes I wonder why that choice is made. 

Right now the celebrity gossip is all caught up in the Depp/Heard trial. She wrote an op-ed, he says it damaged his career. He's suing. They are both testifying and the internet world has taken sides. Or mainly side. Like the majority of what you see is that she's awful and he's been defamed and isn't it terrible what's happened to him?

There is the take that her claiming he abused her sets back actual abused people. But why though? Even if she is lying why would her lie damage everyone else? I mean I have a theory and I'll circle back to it. 

There is the take that we need to pay more attention to the fact that men can be abused too. And that is absolutely true. Men can and are the victims of abuse. The stats are more heavily tilted toward men being abusers (of their partners no matter the gender) but you do have cases where women abuse men and the men don't report because of the stigma. The patriarchy hurts everyone. 

There is the take that she should be drowned then burned then fucked. (that one from Mr. Depp himself.) He says it's from Monty Python, with the fucked part added for extra color I guess?

But I don't understand why the majority of people seem to take his side over hers? From what I've read she isn't great, don't get me wrong, but that doesn't make him an angel. They seemed to feed off of each other's particular form of toxicity and escalate.

I mean, he says that he would drink to blackout at times. But then claims that he knows he never hit her when he was blackout drunk. He also says that any injuries she had were self inflicted, which matches with what he said about the crew member who sued him for attacking him during a drunken rage. He also says that her article is what led to him losing parts and damaging his reputation, but in cross examination it was pointed out that there have been articles about his drunken bad behavior since well before he and Heard ever got together. But all of those were hit pieces as well. According to Depp.

But none of that has swayed the DeppStans. They are sure that he is an innocent lamb abused and maligned by that evil witch Amber Heard. 

Why?

How do you choose sides?

Is it because we have "known" Depp longer? He was Gen X's poster boy for gorgeous weirdo. 21 Jump Street to Edward Scissor Hands to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to being able to take our kids to the Pirates movies (the first one at least, even you Stans have to admit the law of diminishing returns on that series set in quickly). We feel like we know this man. 

But we don't. 

We do know that he's an addict. He admits that. And addiction is a nasty disease. Anyone who is an addict or has loved and addict can testify to how personalities change between sober and impaired. I mean, I am a mean drunk. MEAN drunk. Or at least I was. I might not be anymore because I stopped getting drunk a long time ago. Because it makes me mean. So Depp could very well be a mean drunk, and it appears that he was. Doesn't make him a bad person overall, but it does mean that he is a mean drunk.

We also know that he's had a reputation in Hollywood for years for problems with his addiction. Jennifer Gray is releasing her book right now and she touches on her engagement to Depp. She talks about how he was jealous and possessive. Now, that was years ago. People often grow out of behavior like that, but it is another point on the line that he isn't perfect.

But we don't expect him to be right? I mean he can be deeply deeply flawed and still have been a victim. He can be an addict with blackout issues and still have been abused and mistreated. He can have punched one person and not another. He doesn't have to be perfect to believe him.

But she does.

She isn't a good enough victim. She fought back. She was mean. She wasn't passive. She didn't simper in a corner wait for him to sober up. She, for all the stories if we believe him, was really unpleasant. And somehow that means that not only is she not able to be a victim but NO OTHER WOMAN is as well. Or at least it sure makes it hard for "real" victims to speak up. You know, the ones that don't fight back, the ones that passively take the beating, the ones that tell the world it's fine, he's lovely, you just don't know him the way I do. Those victims. The real ones. 

We have a vision in our minds about what a victim looks like. And she doesn't fit that vision. So we discount what she says and we decide that it also damages other victims. The real ones. Which is such bullshit. Even if it comes out that she was the only one in the wrong, that he was the innocent lamb his lawyers and his Stans would like you to believe, that doesn't mean jack shit for anyone else. 

This is why we have a culture that needs a hashtag Believe Women. Because we don't. Not really. If they don't fit the perfect victim mode we dismiss. If the man they are accusing says he didn't do it we tend to side with the man. We have a balancing point of how many victims have to come forward in the case of serial abusers. Too few and it's probably not true, too many and they are just out for money or fame.

If someone tells you they have been abused believe them until you have reason not to. But the reason should be more than "he says he didn't do it."

It puzzles me how people take sides. What they use to weigh in on that judgement.

I think the truth probably is that they were both really damaged individuals whose particular form of damage triggered an escalating response in each other. It was a bad relationship. And you don't have to take my guess on that, you can take the testimony from their marriage counselor. The one that did know both of them. That did hear both sides. And that weighed in that they were both toxic and abusive. 

They can both be awful people. Or at least awful to each other. No sides needed. 

It's Magic!

For a magic trick to work you have to pretend it's not a trick. You have to have an agreement with the magician that they won't show you how it's done and you won't look too hard to see how it's done. You both know it's a trick, but you both have to pretend it isn't. 

A flash is what it's called when a magician misses the trick. When they don't get their fingers closed quick enough and you see the coin in their palm, when the light on stage hits the filament line and you clearly see it. When the table cloth slips and you see the shelf under the table. Any of those is a flash. As soon as you see the flash the suspension of disbelief is over. 

Magic only works if you are willing to ignore the things that you know aren't real. And you can either do that because the magician is so good at their craft that you never see the trick or because you are willing to go along for the ride. 

Which leads us to...Harry Potter. 

Man, what a great magic ride that was! Katie and I started reading the books when she was still in elementary school. We quickly caught up to what was published and started the wait for the new book life. Harry aged with Katie. The books matured with her as well. Went from being lighter to darker stories. But the thing that didn't change is we read them together, I read them out loud to her first; even the last one that came out when she was in high school. That world holds such a special place in my heart because of those memories. 

For my 50th birthday we went to Universal in California and did their Harry Potter World. Walking into that world was so exciting. Being there with my child was thrilling. Getting to touch and feel and see so many things rendered so painstakingly. It was lovely. 

But then...

You all know how I've struggled with JK Rowling and her TERFy ways. How she just needs to keep her mouth shut about things. But she didn't. She doesn't. And so there was the flash. The pieces that made me look at the magic trick a little differently.

And it doesn't work anymore. When you look at how she lets you know you shouldn't trust Rita Skeeter she describes how manly she is. Hunh..well there it was. When you look at the world she built, it's really a mean world. Talk to people about their least favorite subplots and a lot will mention S.P.E.W. But why do they hate it? Because it's boring? Well so is wandering the woods for 300 pages more than you needed to. In my opinion it's because it's written in such a way that you are supposed to find Hermione earnest, but misguided. I mean, house elves WANT to work for no money. It's just the way they are. Dobby was an exception, not the rule. 

So... you will see that exact argument made before the Civil War. Look, they LIKE to work. They are just different than us. We are doing them a favor. Most would keep doing it even if we didn't force them to. It's a kindness really. 

Hunh.

Any magical creature is kept under the thumb of the wizards. The Forbidden Forest, the Goblins, the House Elves. It goes on and on. If you view the stories through a colonialism is actually good lens then they are perfection. If you view them through a lens of I've been soaking in this messaging all of my life so it's really easy to not notice it unless you point it out then they are also perfect.

But once that flash happens...You can't. Not anymore. They lose the magic. I've seen behind the curtain and the great and powerful Oz is a nasty little thing.

I had noticed it during the last Fantastic Beasts movie. We left the theater really confused as to what we had just seen. Was the bad guy really a good guy? Did the wizards decide fighting him was so important that they would ignore stopping WWII? And if the mentions in the book about that battle actually line up with WWII does that mean she is saying that the muggle deaths that happened and were blamed on civilians instead of the wizards that actually did it were from WWII? And does that make her a holocaust denier? I mean...surely not. And of course the next movie might just explain all of that away nicely but...I won't see it. Because the flash has happened. The magic doesn't hold. 

I gave away my Ravenclaw sweatshirt a few months ago. I had stopped wearing it. It would work its way to the top of the pile and I would put it back to the bottom. Not really thinking about why, just I didn't feel like wearing it that day. Or the next. Or any. 

When Katie was here last month I took a deep breath and told her I was thinking about getting rid of the books. Or at least packing them away so they weren't on the shelf. This was actually hard for me to bring up. Because those books are a huge part of us. Those memories of bedtime stories and couch snuggles and her liking my voices better than the actors in the movie and dissecting each movie when it came out to compare to the books and the times we both had reread the entire series and gotten something new to talk about out of them and...she said she was getting rid of her copies when she moved. 

We were on the same page. 

Which, of course we were. I mean JK is a TERF. You can't really get past that part when she's talking about your family or yourself. 

We talked about how important the memories of the books are, and that we will always hold those dear but just can't with the world anymore. 

Then I mentioned I do love my Ravenclaw notebook and maybe I would keep that and just block out the claw part and make it Ravens like Maleficent? And Katie looked at me (her face doing that MY face thing) and said, "Because it's so hard to find a good notebook?"

She's right. 

Once you see the flash the magic is gone. 

I See You....

You all know I love a pattern and what I love THE MOST is when a pattern comes without force.

Today I published the last blog from what I wrote while Katie wasn't out yet and I was processing the new information that I have a daughter. Today is International Transgender Day of Visibility.

How fucking cool is THAT timing? 

(For anyone who hasn't read the other 8 pieces start here)

Katie let us know when she was ready to come out at work. That was the piece we were waiting on for her to fully come out everywhere else. We wanted to tell family first before there was a change on Facebook to Katie's name and status and we were worried about how it was going to go. 

Or not exactly worried, but not at all sure it was going to go well. I knew my brother's kids would be perfectly fine and my brother most likely would not be. My sisters were wild cards on how they would react. Brent's family is also very religious and conservative and we weren't sure. Though his cousin had posted something a month or so ago that made us both think....hmmm....maybe this is going to go well. And it did. Family was all on board with expressing nothing but love for Katie.

She came out at work and we got rolling. She changed her name and posted a "Hey! Great news!" status and I followed suit. 

And the reaction has been...

Well great actually. 

Mostly, like 98%, positive. A few responses that were clearly written to be neutral. Which I will take over negative for sure. And one hiccup. And even that hiccup was met with a long discussion about why what was posted was not okay and how to be better followed by a sincere apology and moving forward with more understanding. So I mean, that's outstanding right?

So here we are. Now we don't have to do the "which pronouns are you privy to" tango. We can freely use daughter, she, and Katie. Which I have to say feels so great. Just such a relief to not have to self censor when talking about my child and how great she is. Because I do spend a lot of time talking about her. I always have, that has not changed. 

What I hope this series did was give you just a little insight in how we processed finding out that our child is trans. I hope it gave you a little information on how families can adjust. And you know that when you've heard one story about transition you've heard, well, one story about transition. There is no standard transition story any more than there is one standard story for anyone's life. Everyone is unique. Everyone has their own challenges and their own blessings. 

For Katie we all really understand and appreciate that support from her parents was never going to be a challenge. She knew she could tell us and not worry about being rejected. But the world isn't just us. She also knows that there are going to be real challenges out there. 

For instance, because of where she was born unless the Federal government steps in with rule changes she is never going to be able to change her birth certificate. If she had been born where she was conceived or where she was raised that would be different. But Idaho is not California or Oregon so she will always have to have a paper trail of documents showing her old name to her real name. 

She will always have to be cautious in ways she wasn't before. When she was here cat sitting for us while we were on vacation we watched some Michigan basketball the day before she left. Her father and I were both in our Michigan shirts and I said something to Katie about not wearing hers. She said, "I'm saving it for tomorrow." I said, "Well aren't you optimistic!" thinking to myself that she was sure we'd win and she'd want to wear the one Michigan thing she brought the next day. Her response was, "Sure, let's go with that." It wasn't until the next day that I tripped to why she had saved it. She was flying back home that day and by wearing her Michigan shirt she presented a little more masculine. And all of her ID is in her old name right now. And she needed to catch and Uber for the ride home and that's a lot safer as a guy than a trans woman. 

She will always have to be cautious. 

The whole transition process will take a few years. Her HRT is going well and her doctors are happy with her levels right now. I also understand that there is a lot of curiosity out there around the whole process and I will answer questions. Sometimes the answer might be "that's really none of your business" but I will answer. What I will answer and talk about freely is what it's like as a parent of someone who came out as an adult. That's my lane. 

Right now I am torn between how much easier it is being the parent of an adult going through this and how much better it would have been for Katie if we could have started this much earlier. 

There are challenges on both fronts. If we had known before she went through her first puberty we could have stopped that and she would have a much easier time now with her image and her identity matching. But that would have been almost 20 years ago and I am not sure if we would have known enough to be helpful instead of harmful. My ideal thought would be to know what I know now, to have access to the resources I could get now and do them then. So you know, realistic wishes.

We can only do what we can do, right? And what we can do is be here for her however she needs us to be. 

And for us, for right now, for today the best thing we can do is say, We see you. In all of your newness and shine. We see you. 

And we love you. 

Updates and Catchups!

Part 8
One Two Three Four Five Six Seven 

Also at the bottom of this piece will be a link to the next and last one in this series. 

February 2022

Updates and Catchups!

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this space. Mainly because I started writing as a way to process everything. I thought it would take a lot of effort on my part to work through this transition space. Surprisingly and happily it really hasn’t. I was more worried about not being able to handle it than was warranted.

She is who she is. All that’s changed is she is feeling better about herself than she ever has. She has a language at her disposal now to explain why she felt the way she did growing up. It’s been really good for her. The pictures from Disneyland showed a much happier person than the pictures from Disney World did. Almost two years apart in time but worlds away in smile size.

She came home for Thanksgiving and for Christmas and we got to spend some time together. We misgendered her a few more times than we wish we had. Zero being the ideal number but our brains are used to using the other pronouns and name and when you get on autopilot it’s easy to slip up. But it’s not done out of malice, and it’s always corrected, and she says she understands so that’s good.

We also bought her a Christmas gift. As a family we’ve stopped exchanging presents but this year needed something to mark it. See all of the “Baby’s First Christmas” ornaments we have, have the wrong name on them. So, we bought an ornament that is a snowflake made out of Katie written over and over again. Katie’s First Christmas. She got a little teary eyed, so it was a hit.

She was able to tell one of her close friends. Like I mentioned Covid has slowed her coming out process down significantly. She wants to tell people face to face if she can, but face to face has been difficult. But she was able to tell him. And that went well. She thought it would, but you never are positive until you do it.

She’s also started the process of coming out at work. She told one of her managers and as soon as their HR person comes back from maternity leave she will start that process in full. We are getting really close to her being all the way out.

I am sure at that point there will be more things to deal with. Helping where we can with the legalities that need handled. Telling our friends and extended family and dealing with the fallout from that. I am hopeful that the majority of people we know handle everything in stride. She’s happy. She’s who she is. That’s all that matters. But, realistically, we know that there is probably going to be fallout. We are prepared. Or at least we think we are.

But for now, things are progressing. Katie seems much happier. We are having a really hard time not correcting people when they use her former name, so the switch is happening in our heads as to how we think of her. I found some photo albums to put the pictures from the wall in. I’m not getting rid of anything. She doesn’t feel that we need to, but I also don’t want to have this big HEY THIS WAS YOU WHEN YOU WEREN’T HAPPY wall of photos up anymore. That’s the part I’m still reconciling in my head. That my memories of their childhood are mine. And it’s okay.

Oh gosh, speaking of using “their childhood” I picked that up from Amy Schneider the Super Champion on Jeopardy. I noticed when she talked about her mother and her childhood she used “they.” And it really resonated with me. Because I didn’t raise Katie as a girl. I just didn’t. I didn’t know I was supposed to. My memories are of my little boy, but my adult child is a woman so how do I reconcile these things? They. They works so beautifully. Having a trans woman on TV night after night really helped a lot of people see her, I mean really see her. And hearing her speak about her life helped me find a new way to speak about my daughter’s childhood so I will be grateful for her for a long time.

Which brings us to now. Mid-February. We are still in a holding pattern but about to really take off. I would guess within a month Katie will be fully out and public and we will be able to talk about our daughter and what she’s up to in the world. If not I will try to keep writing here so I don’t miss capturing this time in our lives where our daughter is becoming herself.

Next

Family Time!

 Part Seven
One Two Three Four Five Six

I know I said I wasn't going to edit these, and I'm not, I'm just adding a piece right here. First off, as you can see there was a large time jump. The shopping blog was in July and this is October.

But the main thing I wanted to point out is how many of you noticed a change in Katie around this trip but couldn't say what it was. Not because you knew and were keeping her confidence (though a few of you suspected and I'm grateful for you giving her space to come out on her own) but that you didn't know and just saw how much happier she looked in the pictures. When I posted them so many people commented on how much fun she looked like she was having, how happy she looked. And it's true. The difference between the Disney World photos and the Disneyland photos is striking. 

October 2021

Family Time!

I haven’t written in a while. There wasn’t much to talk about or to process so no need to write. Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is moving along. A new name has been chosen. Some clothing style shifts have started. We talk on the phone weekly. But I try to make sure that I’m not just talking about transitioning. We’ve always talked on the phone weekly about what is happening in our lives, and there is more going on than just transition.

But what that has led to is feeling like nothing has really changed. Which for me it hasn’t. Not really. I had a child that I loved dearly and now I have a child that I love dearly. Their father and I have been working on a comfortable way to use pronouns and get used to a new name but without getting so comfortable with the new name and the pronouns that we out our child before they are ready.

Weird sort of limbo space.

Then came Disneyland. We had decided last year during the height of the pandemic that we would go to Disney as a family vacation once it was safe. That would be our Christmas and birthday presents. A fun family trip.  Once we were all vaccinated and it looked like Fall was going to be Covid contained, we booked. Delta variant made it a second consideration, but we went ahead with the trip figuring we were probably still pretty safe. Vaccinated and all.

Part of this whole process for us (Brent and I) has been trying to make sure we weren’t doing anything that would make this harder on our child. We need to be the safe space. The place they always know is home. Which means questions. Which can feel a little awkward, but only because they aren’t things we are used to asking. The round of questions for this trip included, “How do you feel about pictures?” “Are you comfortable sharing a room with us?” “What do you want us to call you?”

And that last one was a big one. Because this was going to be out in public. Everyone listening. For the first time. She said she had been thinking about it and wanted us to use feminine pronouns and call her Katie. So we did. Usually. Mostly. I mean, we slipped up and apologized each time we did. Because it’s hard. She’s been on HRT for four months basically and the changes are subtle at this point. Her hair is longer, her clothes are a little different than what she used to wear, but mostly just more colors. But she still looks pretty much the same. She still sounds the same. She still acts the same. Which makes sense. I mean she is still who she’s always been. Just starting to be more comfortable in her body and her feelings. So we screwed up sometimes.

But we really tried.

And as you’ve now noticed I’ve switched to using she and her in this writing. If she’s comfortable with us using them in public then we are progressing to using them full time. I’m still not sure when she will come out to everyone. The pandemic has slowed that process for sure. She wants to tell people face to face. Hard to do when you aren’t seeing people. So for now it’s still just us and an online community she has.

But she’s Katie. She’s Katie on our shared accounts. She’s Katie when we talk about her. She is she and her and our daughter. Except when we are talking to other people and then we are back to trying our hardest to not use pronouns at all. It’s temporary, eventually she will let us know that we are able to talk freely. But for now and while at Disney we really made the effort to transition name and pronouns.

I said earlier that the changes are really subtle. At one point Brent said he was going to have to stand next to her to really see but he was pretty sure she is taller than she used to be. I said I didn’t think she was any taller in actuality, but she’s standing up straighter. Her posture is reflecting that she feels better about herself. What more do you need as a parent than that?

We all say we want our children to be happy, but do you really understand what that might mean? She is happier now. And I hope that as she goes through all of the steps of transitioning and starts to interact with the world as a trans woman that that happiness holds. I hope that the feeling she has right now that she is on the right track, that she is finally feeling herself as whole, that she feels like a person, a whole person, I hope that holds. Because I just want my daughter to be happy. I want her to experience a full and joyful life.

And the fact that the first time her name and her pronouns were used in public was at the Happiest Place on Earth seems like a good omen for that.

At least it does to me.

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