(aka Bike) Part 1934 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad
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I found Trish searching all the national paper websites for articles on transgender or transsexuals. She found plenty on The Daily Mail and surprisingly quite a few on the The Guardian. Then, when I thought about it, The Grauniad carries regular stories usually of a sympathetic nature, although its sister paper, The Observer, did run that Julie Birchill diatribe the other week which caused all sorts of ructions.
I wasn’t exactly worried that she was reading the articles but I did wonder why, so I asked her. She blushed, “Um–shouldn’t I be, Mummy?”
“It’s a bit unusual for an eight year old girl to be reading about such things, yes.”
“Oh,” she blushed even brighter. “I’ll stop then.”
“Why are you reading them?”
“I dunno–just felt like it.”
I had hoped that in transitioning so young she’d be able to leave much of the baggage I have behind. She’d have a proper girlhood unlike my occasional bits. I just wanted her to be as normal a little girl as she could. It seemed in my case, that you couldn’t take the girl out of the transsexual, nor it appears can you take the transsexual out of the girl.
The problem is, Trish is not your average eight year old, she’s precocious and although that’s mostly at an intellectual level, her emotional life is at best an eight year old, possibly at times even younger due to the abuse she had at home and then in the children’s home.
She’s a lovely little girl much of the time, but occasionally she gets spiteful or superior, and then we clash and I can’t afford to let her win. She will one day, and that might mean she’s ready to fly the nest, because I probably won’t be able to guide her any further. Livvie is pretty bright too, but in a different way. We’ll squabble when she becomes an adolescent, but they won’t be the battles I expect with Trish. Livvie is less needy of success, and at times happy to play second fiddle to her sister, whereas Trish will only compete if she’s sure of winning.
I was more like Livvie, probably because I was so used to being in my father’s shadow as a child and also as a non-sportsman with my peers, I was often last to be picked for teams and never got to captain them.
I may have been brighter than some of them, especially in a girly way. I remembered playing five aside in a PE lesson, one group of mainly larger boys announced they were going to cream us. Each game only lasted until the first goal was scored–that meant it hit an upturned bench. We went out and I called for the ball as the team of thugs were lining up to cripple us, and with my first kick scored a goal. The game was ended before it got started and none of my team got hurt. Even the gym teacher thought it was clever, though he’d never tell me–I was the class fairy. I preferred to consider myself a class act–which I proved with Macbeth.
That wretched play seems to dog my life–perhaps reminding me of my Scottish origins–because I can think of nothing else which has a reason for it.
“You’re not listening to me, Mummy,” Trish said indignantly.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, what did you say?”
“Why should I repeat it? You weren’t even listening.”
“I should like to hear what you said.”
She sighed and then told me, “I was reading about the transgender people because I want to know why I am one.”
“You’re not any longer, you’re a bona fide young lady.”
“What does that mean?”
“Bona fide it’s Latin and means good faith, but it also tends to mean legitimate. So you are as legally a girl as Livvie or Mima.”
“Or you, Mummy?”
“Or me.” I gently ruffled her hair. “Why is it important to you?”
“Because it is. I know why Mima and Livvie are girls, they have two X chromosomes whereas I have only one and a Y. So why did a boy’s body want to be a girl’s one?”
“No one actually knows, though if you visit enough websites you’ll find ones which suggest there is research to show that certain parts of men’s and women’s brains are different and in that respect transsexual women resemble biological women, so some would suggest we have female brains.”
“Do you believe that, Mummy?” she obviously picked up on my doubts.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. It’s all a bit rarefied for me.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s all esoteric–um–too technical.”
“I thought you were a scientist, Mummy–and a biologist one?”
“I am, darling, but not that sort of scientist. Besides, I’m not sure I care what made me who or what I am–I think it’s more important to get on with my life than worry about how I got here.”
She looked puzzled, “Don’t you want to know?”
“What’s it going to change?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t feel a need to justify who I am. I’m aware that my path to womanhood was different to many women, but I consider we’re all equal and thus should support the cause of women’s equality.”
“But we’re not all the same are we, Mummy. We can’t have babies, can we?” I saw tears forming.
“Not all women can, some need fertility treatment, and some still can’t carry children after that. Not all women have ovaries or wombs.”
“Why is that, Mummy?”
“All sorts of reasons, including being insensitive to hormones or having an odd genetic makeup. There’s all sorts of reasons.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I seemed to have suffered from Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, which meant my body didn’t have a male puberty, though it wasn’t enough to stop me forming a male type genitalia–although my testes didn’t descend and were very small.”
“Does that make you a woman, Mummy?”
“I don’t know how much of a factor it was in anything, except when I took female hormones, they gave me a female puberty and I became quite a female shape.”
“You’re beautiful, Mummy, I hope I’m insensitive, too.”
“It won’t matter because your main supply of androgens has gone.”
“Oh, them?”
“Yes. So any puberty you have will be female.”
“I’m glad about that, aren’t you?”
“Very much, Trish, very much.”
“Am I transsexual, Mummy?”
“Not any more, sweetheart, you’re a young woman in as many ways as you can be.”
“Are you sure?”
“Come with me.” I led her to my study and after rooting about in a filing cabinet pulled out a file. I flicked through it and handed her a birth certificate. “What does that say?”
“Birth certificate.”
I shook my head, “Whose birth certificate?”
“Patricia Watts, this is mine, Mummy. It says I’m a girl.” She bounced up and down, “I’m a girl, Mummy, a girl.”
“I know, sweetheart, I tried to tell you that earlier. So go off and play and stop worrying about anything.”
She hugged me, “Thank you, Mummy.” She turned to leave but then turned back, “Have you got one of those as well?”
“Yes I have, everyone has one.”
“What a girl’s one?”
“No, a birth certificate. Mine says female as well.”
“I’m really glad, Mummy.”
“So am I, sweetheart, so am I.”
Comments
I Don't Know Why
But this chapter had me tearing up. She handled that discussion so well, and Trish knows she's a real girl because the certificate said so.
Portia
The talk that Patricia Watts
had with her Mum shows how much she needed to have her girlhood reaffirmed.
May Your Light Forever Shine
You can't take the girl ....
You can't take the girl out of the transexual nor can you take the transexual out of the girl. In most cases I would offer that's because of the eternal shortcoming that afflicts us all, namely the sense of no fulfilment... no fertility, no babies the way we would really like to have babies namely as our brain-gender would wish to have them. That's what drives the excruciating sense of unfulfilment, or worse the sense of fraud.
It hurts, it hurts like hell!
Good chapter Ang but this time I'll not thank you for the pleasure because being reminded of this shortcoming is no pleasure. I did however, enjoy your insights, painful though they are. They gave me some intellectual satisfaction even if they did hurt somewhat.
I forgive you cos you've brought so much pleasure for so long.
Bev.
XXX
I don't...
Have a BC that says I was born female, yet... *sighs* One day...
As to why it's important for the research to be done, I can relate my own experience... In a discussion with my pastor and some friends, we decided there would be about three groups of people to consider. 1) those who accept, just because; 2) those who have a 'scientific' bent who accept the evidence (my wife is one of these); and 3) those who don't accept (for a variety of reasons). For those who accept due to the preponderance of evidence, the fact there IS evidence that seems to support the idea that people like me can be born with male genitalia and a female brain can help them accept our claim that we're female (or male as the case may be) even if that's counter to what they were taught and/or believed previously. My wife said that, since she's a scientist, the links I provided that allowed her (at her own time) to review some of the literature and evidence helped her accept that the person she married is a woman too. The evidence wasn't needed for my kids. The older one, appreciated the links - but I wasn't the first (or second, or third) trans person she met. The younger daughter was more afraid my wife and I would break up, than that I was "going to be a second mom"... She was also worried how her friends would react (as far as I can tell, most, if not all of them had the "no big deal" reaction).
Whether Trish would accept that is a good question. She's young and at times very literally minded. She also accepted the "fact" shown on her birth certificate without question... (Makes me wonder if she'd look at mine and be confused, or such.)
Thanks for the discussion above. It's worth thinking about.
Annette
I had to pull out a Kleenex on this one
I hope Trish is satisfied with her girlhood. A brilliant move on Cathy's part.
She bounced up and down, “I’m a girl, Mummy, a girl.â€
I'm sure there will be doubts and insecurities later in life but I loved the simple passage above. Now, on the "we can't have children thing" ... Cathy only has to point out, "I have you don't I? Do you think I could love you any more if you'd come from within my body?"
I have a friend
She has never undergone what so many of my colleagues call 'the nip and tuck'. She has a BC that has the correct gender. I am still astonished, and wonderfully gratified, that such a thing can be done. How such a generous piece of legislation got through our Parliament makes me proud beyond my powers of adequate expression.
I recently reviewed our departmental instructions re TS folk, and apart from one bit of silliness it was clear: these people are men/women according to what they declare they are. No ifs, no buts.
Sometimes our legislators get it so right I have to cry. There is still a long way to go, but it beats what I grew up under into that proverbial cocked hat.
Well there is the constant reminder
Called dilating? I would venture that it is probably extremely rare that a genetic woman needs to dilate to keep their vaginas open. So as I lie back with a solid piece of plastic between my legs forcing it to undo my body's effort at trying to close an opening that to the body does not belong, well it is a powerful enough and sad reminder.
Kim
Trish and research
Trish was researching something important to her, not as an assignment for homework on some subject, but because she wants to learn about it. The talk with her mother, and seeing her birth certificate was a big help - but genetically, she is a male, and always will be, regardless of how many surgeries and hormone medications she will take over the years. The same is true for female to male trans-sexuals, except they are and will always be genetically female. I mean no disrespect to any, but unfortunately, it is a fact of life for the trans-sexual - one that all have had to cope with at one time or another, and may still be copeing with. I certainly wish each of them the best they can have in their desired niche in a world which is not yet quite ready to accept them, but getting closer with each passing day it seems. Perhaps by time Trish reaches adulthood all the problems of being TS or TG will no longer be around and procedures will have evolved to the point that the transexual can become a true male or female.
Trish should continue her research on transgender and transexualism , and learn and try to understand all she can about it. It will probably be a very important part of her life as she continues to grow. I can see her as an adult being a well-respected advocate for transgenders, pre-op, and post-op transexuals by other professionals in the field.
And of course, Cathy should be one of her primary resources as Trish learns what is known and believed about this topic, simply because she wants to know. There is a vast difference between the way Trish is growing up learning to be female, and the way Cathy was brought up. Trish will have a girlhood growing up, Cathy did not have that luxury.
And could there be future mother to daughter talks on this in future episodes? There probably should be.
Don't let someone else talk you out of your dreams. How can we have dreams come true, if we have no dreams?
Katrina Gayle "Stormy" Storm
Amateur Theoretical Psychology
It is also my opinion that those who transition and have the op are no longer T anything. I found that my saying I was T appeared to be keeping me suspended between two worlds.
I think the soonest a T can start calling themselves a Woman; even a preop. It allows us to escape the limbo.
AndConsidering the use I've had from my Vagina, I think that simply getting the junk removed and sculpting something that looks like labia could save one lots of money.
G
Nicely done
Cathy the production of Trish's birth certificate was a masterstroke, Hopefully that will put to end Trish's questions... Mind you though, This is the little genius we are talking about, So maybe we ought to take a rain check on that...
Kirri
I will never
be able to be the female I wish to be, finances just have never been there for that. At 65, I don't think I would recover well from it now, so this one was even more painful. Loved it anyways, time to buy more tissues.