Moms

Lately I've been noticing a lot of moms. Not moms of people I know, just women with small children, going through their own lives and I just so happen to witness a few moments of it.

I have to say, I am becoming more and more impressed by modern moms. I do believe it does have to do with modern times, the advancement of feminism. I believe that women finally have enough entitlement to authority and autonomy that they are actually worth more than their children. And that is fucking huge.

We are only just coming out of a time where everything, and everyone, belonged to men. A father owned his wife, his children, his dogs, etc. So in this light, a woman's value is really subjectively in the eyes of the man that owns her at the time. For a husband/father, he may value his wife equally to, or less than, his children, but certainly below himself. As such, a woman's treatment of his children (and we can say "his", not "their", in the pyschosocial context I'm referencing) was clouded by his value of them, and his value of her. She could not violate his wishes in fear of losing his approval, realistically her only avenue of survival. In a convoluted manner, this can change the power dynamic between mother and child; if the father values the child over the mother, than the mother's survival is dependent upon the child's attitude towards the mother. This can result, simply, in children walking all over their mothers because their mothers are afraid of their children becoming upset, and transferring this disproval to their fathers. Worse, when mother and child are alone and the father is not present to make his wishes explicitly known, the mother just make a best guess about what course of action the father would approve of in any given situation, and my observation would indicate that this usually errs on the side of giving the child power and control, to maintain their happiness and approval. Fucked up shit, basically.

Enter a new age of thought. A woman can be independent, even if married. A woman's opinions and feelings are valid and cannot be negated by conflicting opinions and feelings of a male figure. Women can thus treat their children in the way that feels appropriate to them, even if and when the father disagrees. When mother and child are not being supervised by the father, the mother needs not attempt to channel the father's will and can make and implement her own best judgment about a situaiton. This is huge. Because what this translates to is that women exert a much greater amount of authority over their children, and from what I can tell, this is a good thing. They do not let their children get away with bad behavior. They demand a higher level of performance, pushing their kids to their maturity limit. Kids act more like adults at a younger age. I predict that this will translate to better performance in school, fewer delinquency and behavior issues, and better preparedness for the adult world. The next generation, the generation that is 7 and younger right now, is going to be the most mature, well-adjusted, highly disciplined, diversity-literate, teamwork-ready generation we have yet seen. All because moms are finally people.

Dear Adam

If you've found this, please tell me. I'm not bothered that you would look for it, or read it, but I would be bothered if you didn't tell me. I would consider that a violation of trust.

So, yeah.

Getting back into writing

I'm an avid writer. It's something I'm good at. It's part of my identity. But I'm also a perfectionist. So even thinking that someone would ever read what I have written inhibits the writing process entirely. The connection should have been obvious but, like so many obvious things, it wasn't to me until it was pointed out to me, in this case by strangers on the internet, bless their hearts.

So, coming to the conclusion that I would not show off what I had to write about the most recent topic to enter my brain, I was suddenly able to write. And write I did. The funny thing is, in the back of my mind, I still know that I may share this story. But by tricking myself, or by being bluntly honest that this draft will never be revealed to other eyes, I was able to create something that I probably ought to be proud of. I am good writer.

So there's fiction, and that's all well and good. Then there's journaling, which serves the completely difference of keeping a record of my life's adventures. Then still, there is this blog, a lecture to an invisible audience about thoughts I think and that feel important. Except this. Right now I'm just writing. But just wait, I'm sure it will turn into a lecture any moment now. Probably regarding the importance of writing as a way for a cluttered mind to straighten things out, to arrange a vortex of ideas into neat little rows.

Writing about my future has always had an interesting draw for me. I pick out little scenes that I predict to happen in 20 or 30 years time, based on the rather generous assumption that I will still be with the partner that I am with in the present day. Whether or not the stories are happy should really tell me a lot about my feelings for my partner. Or they should tell me a lot about myself. I'm not quite sure whether I'm simply a pessimistic person, or if I have a very good (sub-conscious) judge of a match and I haven't (until now) found anyone that my writer's brain recognizes a positive future with.

So, here's the thing. The first time I started writing about a partnered future, it was post-transition, and filled with sadness because already I suspected that my father would not accept things with compassion. In past months there was at least one story that I wanted to write, again filled with sadness, about meeting back up with a partner post-transition and decades after parting ways, trying to rekindle a romance only to be shut down again and wallow in my physical, emotional and existential loneliness as a migrant physician.

Today I started writing again. I bit the bullet and using the wrong pen and the wrong notebook, put the words to paper and just kept going. I immortalized my self-doubt, my suspicion about how I'd be able to handle being a parent (especially to a daughter), realizing my crippling dependence on a partner for reassurance... and yet this one is going to be different. It's going to end happily. At some point, in this story, 45 year old me will stop being 22. Two decades of love and support, hard work and affirmation will have solidified themselves in me, and I will be confident. I will find strength in myself to be alone. I don't really want to be alone but that's important nonetheless. It is so because I will not need to constantly turn to my partner for reassurance, approval, or validation of my choices. I will already know what he would say, and trusting his judgment, I will be able to draw on that. Knowing that he trusts me, I will be able to trust myself. Then one day, I will simply, unilaterally, trust myself as well.

Today I was able to write about a future in which I have the body, voice, and place in society that I desire, and my family still loved me. Sure, I shoved in some angst about being a parent of a teenager, a parent that was responsible for dragging my kids along on my world-saving adventures without taking enough time to figure out what they wanted for themselves... but at least, in this fantasy, I was functional, and happy, and so was my family. My parents weren't there, but my partner's mom was. Because that's the future I want for myself. I haven't yet encountered anyone who has explicitly wished for parents-in-law, but I do. What stemmed from damage may turn out to be a positive contributing factor to a very healthy marriage. Alliance, cohesion, family love that isn't made up or owed. Real, true affection. I shy away from labeling it as child to parent because that is a bit incestuous, but I will borrow from cultures where such relationships are normal. Heck, there's even such a one in the bible. I need to review.

So, anyways. Writing. It's cool. It shows me that I still have a lot to work through, but I can see a light at the end of this tunnel that shines much brighter than any other. And now, the source of issues is not a lack of acceptance or divergence of life plans with my partner. It's a very valid worry about how I'm going to get along with a person I haven't met yet: my kid. At least, I think it's valid. Of course by saying that, clearly I'm not so sure. Anyways. I was able to write a fantasy in which my partner was supportive of me and attracted to me in the body I want, and it wasn't some huge stretch of the imagination. That makes me feel good. A whole lot better than I've ever felt before about a boy. Because this, this isn't a relationship. It's a partnership.
I think I may be in love.
I am so fucked.

Entering a New Space: The White Gay Man

So I don't write all that often, which means that a lot happens in between the times that I don't write. I've gotten a job that moves me 1,000 miles from my home (indeed, that is a great part of the reason I took it), and I met someone.

Last Friday night I was spent, and worse than that, bored. I chugged a few plastic bottles of wine and turned Supernatural on and off while reading progressive-to-a-fault articles on the interwebs. On a whim I checked okcupid, that night or maybe a few days before. My ex was going to a wedding for the weekend. We are still friends, and you can pretend it's the same, but if we had still been together I would be going to that wedding with him, celebrating as a member of his group of friends, so to me the difference was stark. I was quickly running out of time to say goodbye to people, moving plans were still frighteningly nebulous... it wasn't surprising that I was turning to a dating app for distraction.

I scrolled through the matches. Artist, artist... hmm, an engineer. Like a cold glass of water, a welcome relief from the parade of moths that flutter around Hollywood, waiting to get zapped. To keep things short and relatively private, for a blog, we talked for an hour or two on the phone while he drove to a hotel near my place. At 2am I excused myself from the household and went to meet this interesting man. He was a lot shorter than I expected. But handsome, in a willowy sort of way.

The rest is history and so, so none of your business. Skipping ahead, I passed as male with everyone we met for the rest of the weekend. I knew I had been passing more consistently, using the men's room at the university, but this was the first time that I was encountering people who were not in on the secret, one after the other for days straight, and getting tagged as "he" again and again. It was a little amazing.

So I have to realize that I have entered a new space. Racial minority in a community; been there. Fat kid; done. Conspicuously in transition and asking for support; still there, realistically. In some contexts (especially on the bus) I have had to manage my perceived privilege as a able-bodied, homed, young white American man. Here, for the first time, though, I have entered the space of a man in a relationship with another man. Whether this was obvious at every restaurant we visited, or if we seem like we could be dorm buddies or brothers, I can't say. But my relationship status is going to come up many times, and I have to be prepared for this.

While being a woman comes with a lot of degradation, being a woman in a relationship with a man was never a notable situation; if anything, it increased my status, by implying the approval of a man. I think that's a thing worthy of study but for another day. My point is, I have never occupied a space where my romantic relationship was of interest to strangers. The obvious concerns are moral outrage, disapproval, anger. But just as invasive of my space will be the thumbs up, nods of approval, declarations of support; as much as I am thankful for acceptance, I still don't want to be singled out based on my and my partner's gender/gender presentation.

But beyond how I am treated. Being a white man comes with new roles and privileges that I am still navigating. Being a white gay man, depending on where you are, can be much less, or much more privileged. That last one seems counter-intuitive but let me explain. In certain areas, support of gay rights has been so fierce that gay men actually carry a higher status in their communities, the martyrs of our modern civil rights movement. I do not believe that this status boost transfers to lesbians or homosexual persons of color. Transgender rights are only just getting there, and transgender people are only just becoming visible, so there isn't any status boost yet in the supportive communities, and in unsupportive communities, it is still very dangerous. Bisexuals are of course, still basically invisible, with their sexuality assigned based solely on the perceived gender of the person whose hand they are holding at the time.

That applies to me and my partner as well. Neither of us identify as gay. He is pan and, until I meet a non-cis person... well okay, I think I'm pan. There's a mid-blog revelation for ya. Anyways. Our acceptance of a broad combination of gender-sex combinations is not apparent when we are walking down the sidewalk holding hands. We become representatives of a sexuality that we do not have. I think that's a problem, but I'm not really sure that there's anything to be done about it. Heck, just being gay in a small town can be a step in the right direction. One step at time, exposure to the unknown will garner acceptance. I hope.

Here's the other thing that I really like about "us." We both tip well. He much more generously than I but that's because he has far greater means. I think his reasons are a little different, but they accomplish the same goal; we are representatives of our perceived sexuality, and when we tip well, we make a good impression. We solidify positive opinions about gay men in the minds of people who probably have not encountered very many. Those people will treat gay men (and hopefully other non-traditional persons) better in the future because of our behavior. And as a call girl once said, working people don't appreciate generous compliments; they appreciate generous tips. This is my hope, anyways.

So, I'm the representative of a whole new group, with a history much older than my own. I feel almost invasive, but I don't really have a choice. So I accept my responsibilities and my privileges, and will use them conscientiously and responsibly for the benefit of all under-represented people. If I can. Or I'm just going to live my life. Whichever works out.