Husband's Tumblr post

Today I was out hanging with the hubbie, and got a new picture of him. We got home and he did a tumblr post. Since he doesn't do Wordpress, and since the tumblr post doesn't import well here I am recreating it. I am also linking his tumblr here if anyone wants to follow him.

Here is the image he made, click the image to see the full size.

His Tumblr is at http://theocraticjello.tumblr.com

I am so glad he is feeling good about himself.

Well back to writing that post I keep trying to do.

Awesome Weekend

Last weekend was fantastic... scratch that make it double fantastic.

As a tradition, my family generally celebrates multiple birthdays at one time (so we avoid having more than one party a month). This last weekend we celebrated my father's 66th birthday, my sister in-law, and both my little sister's kids, the nephew and niece.

Jello has been stressed about this party. He hasn't seen most of my family since he came a few months ago. To make it worse my family are a pack of feral dogs. I grew up with bikers and you could never tell if things would go smoothly, someone would freak out and throw the table over, if cops will be called, and as a child we generally had a tradition of my dad getting drunk and tossing the Christmas tree out the window (ex Vietnam vet, biker, and always in trouble with the law always resulted in a very memorable childhood). However, no matter how "eccentric" my upbringing, our family is incredibly close.

Now, my family has been sober since Christmas, things have been going great and I had a lot of hopes. Jello, understandably, did not. His family is pretty horrific, they would never have accepted him (fortunately he had split off from his family years ago). We arrived at the house, provided the cake and got to hanging out with my family.

The first few minutes Jello was tense, but within twenty minutes my family were going out of their way to use the pronoun he. They would forget occasionally but they have known him as my wife and their daughter in-law for 22 years, I am surprised and pleased with how hard they were trying. So was he.

My brother joked with him about shaving, and treated Jello just like he treated me. None of the kids reacted badly or strangely to having the adults refer to Jello as my husband. My dad and mom joked with him, and treated him just like they treated him before. There was absolutely no freeze, no hesitation and they repeatedly told Jello they loved him.

The biggest way we could tell he was accepted was they were just as brusque and joking as they are to everyone else. You know you are loved in my family if they are picking on you. When we got out of the apartment after a fun birthday party I noticed Jello was crying and I couldn't figure out why. My first thought was I had done something wrong.

Jello then made it clear to me they were happy tears. He had not expected to be accepted so easily. He knew my family would accept over time (they sometimes react in a weird gut level, but always turn it around and accept people for almost anything). Even I had thought it was possible that they may have to warm up to the idea. After talking for a while Jello made it clear that he was just caught off guard that they didn't even blink when he came out. They accepted him, loved him and would do anything for him.

It was a great birthday party, and that made the weekend great.

I know I have been horrible and not posting much (work is killing me), but here is my husband’s 4 month testosterone update!

Jello Update.

Jello did an update video on his two month anniversary of taking testosterone.

My Husband is Writing Again!

I am excited, my husband Jello has a regular spot with Queereka as a writer (he has done it for a couple other places). He has his first article there entitled "But it's just a compliment". He is talking about his experience before his change and how men would aggressively harass a woman on the street.

It is a great article, he is a great writer and this Sunday he will be in a panel as well.

I am so proud of him!

First Month on Testosterone

First month update from the husband about the changes he has had from testosterone.

Something Different!

I realize it isn't really on "subject" for the blog, but sharing anything about my husband should be here. So here is a photo of my wonderful husband and cat, Jello and Marmalade.

Quiet Moment/Jello Video

Just wanted to pop in here for two reasons. One is to showoff Jello’s most recent video about testosterone and his transition.

Second is to just say that things are going well. My job has keep me working so much that every moment with Jello is treasured. His reaction to T is going well, and remarkably he has been working out and starting to show some muscles. I told him he better not get bigger muscles then me :).

I will hopefully update more soon.

First shot of T

My husband got his first shot of T last Friday. I am both excited and proud, yet a little bit sad/worried. We uploaded a video of the shot.

I am very happy. His anxiety has decreased, he has been smiling a lot and I really do think this fits for him. I was happy to be there. I did have a short time of anxiety, but that passed incredibly quickly though.

I know he is worried I won't be interested after his change and I am positive he is wrong there. I love him more than anything and I am not leaving. However, even if that did happen I think this is important that he does it. He would have stayed a woman if I had objected, but no one should ever limit themselves from the fear of losing someone. He needs to be who he is, not who society expects.

I am proud of him, oh and yes that is me filming and making inappropriate comments with my incredibly shaky cam. I promise to work on the filming in the future :).

The Appointment

My husband posted another video, about his first appointment. I was there during the appointment and it went really well. He is pretty fantastic (Jello, the person talking in the video :)).

Working out boundaries

I realize my post from earlier today was a bit maudlin, but I would like to say we had a great conversation overall with Jello. Another portion of that conversation I had with Jello in the car from Ikea was about boundaries. Mainly about what he felt comfortable with me talking about publicly about our relationship pre-transition.

To give a little feedback, I am on several FtM blogs/tumblrs/etc and some of the posts indicate that the transitioning husband (and wife sometimes) did not want their significant other of several years to keep pictures or talk publicly before they transitioned. Basically they were upset that their significant other wanted to keep pictures public, talk about publicly or in any way reference about the relationship pre-transition. 

First, I want to say I understand why some people who transition want to do so in a stealth manner. They are in a situation that could be violent, lose their job, etc. Or perhaps they just don't want to acknowledge it. I completely understand that viewpoint... However (and you knew there was going to be a "but" in this) I don't think its entirely fair to the significant other that they have to forget about publicly at least (and in some cases they weren't supposed to talk about the relationship pre-transition privately as well).

As the spouse of a transitioning person (and I would have felt this way beforehand), I don't think its very fair to have someone who is not transitioning not only have to adapt to the changes of the transition, but not acknowledge or even celebrate the relationship that happened before the transition. So not only does that person have to grieve the loss of the dynamics of the previous relationship, they have to burn the entire set of publicly talking about those memories of that relationship.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why the transitioning person feels this way so its that dissonance between what the two parties that worried me on how Jello felt. I am reluctant to even consider not talking about Jello being my wife for 20+ years. I have a ton of pictures of him then, some of them even were quite sexy.

So we talked about it. I suspected he would be ok with me talking publicly and still keeping pictures and stuff like that. He confirmed it though, he has no problem with it. Then again he isn't trying to stealth, and is fairly loud about being someone who is transitioning. He especially believes this is needed to give outside people more context about transitioning people. The more outside people see that, the more they realize that people that are transgender are not weird, unusual or anything other than their neighbors, family and friends.

I don't know how I would have felt about getting rid of all photographs, but I was definitely willing to delete the super sexy ones. He reiterated he was fine with it. That is who he was for 40+ years. This means you will probably see pictures of Jello pre, mid, and post transition.

This helped a lot with my anxiety yesterday. It really offset the gut punch I had felt a few minutes early (and that was my problem, not Jello's to begin with). I am very happy that I am married to a hot guy, but I am still allowed to show off and be proud I married a hot woman 21 years ago. I was worried that he would be uncomfortable with old pictures of himself, but the opposite seemed to be how he felt. It felt good to know I didn't have to bury my history as I head into the new part of my life with the best spouse in the world.

That is about all there is on this subject at the moment, its early morning and I notice my post is starting to ramble, but I really want to write these things as they pop up and not let the posts slip away.

Gut Punch

Getting to know my husband’s new look one day at a time excites me. I realize I already deeply know the innermost secrets of him, but his look is new and slowly changing. I think he is a hot guy.

 Yesterday at Ikea, we were starting our drive home when Jello asked me if he looks like a guy from behind. I was honest, not really. Part of the problem is Jello has very girl like hips and ass, and the other problem is the sway that he has when he walks. An incredibly feminine walk, one of those melty, hot walks that some women have. The hips will disappear as testosterone kicks in, plus the jogging (and if those two don’t finalize he is getting liposuction). The walk is a different matter.

Jello has always walked like a woman for as long as I have known him (age 16). I know when he was young his school mates accused him of walking like a lumberjack so he intentionally developed one of those walks that sways hips and butt. When he was a woman in outlook (before he knew he was transgendered) he practiced that walk. Ever since I have married him (actually since I got a crush on him at age 17) his walk was almost magical.

Jello then asked me if I would help him get rid of that walk which had been reinforced by 25 years of practice and habit. It was built into his day-to-day movements and he couldn’t really determine when he was walking like that. I immediately said yes, of course I would help. I completely understand, I wouldn’t want to walk that way (and while it might be funny to have someone come out and call me on walking like that, I could understand his view). Especially since he wants to put being a woman behind him, I can definitely help, and I want to.

A strange thing happened though, even while I agreed I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I am not at all against his transition; it is something he needs to do. I knew that his physical appearance will change and I am ok with that. I love him. The gut punch though was hard enough that for a brief second I almost felt like I should cry.

That is something I haven’t done in front of someone for 26 years (I think 16 is the last time I cried in front of anyone, although there have been probably a couple nights over the years that by myself it was close enough to crying). Its not that I think crying is bad, but since I reached an adult I tend to get quiet and shove it down inside. Yes, I have a definite slew of my own problems that have NOTHING to do with the journey Jello is on.

I knew logically this would involve a little pain on my side, but it’s the first example of watching the woman I married get stripped away into the man I love. It is stupid really, I have never considered how Jello walks, never even talked about it to anyone. Yet for a moment (well a few minutes) it was the weirdest sense of something being torn from my life. I was doubly upset because I knew logically I know I shouldn’t be bothered by it. It is his body and his life. I have no control over how he walks, I do not own him, and so that made me even more upset that I was upset in the first place. Yes, even then I realized the ludicrousness of that outlook.

I couldn’t really talk for the next couple of miles. When something really upsets me (even watching the cartoon UP) I can usually shove it down into the hole and forget about it. It took me a lot longer than normal. All I could do was nod, agree I would help and smile, I wasn’t really capable of in-depth conversation.

It was a weird sensation watching as a portion of my old wife was discussed and stripped away. It is probably the only time so far that this transition bothered me. Not in a way that I want to stop it, but in a grieving way. 

I know I am going to grieve losing my wife, no matter how excited I am about my husband. It won’t lessen my love for my husband at all, and I think this will make us closer that he transitions. If he feels more real to himself that can do nothing but help our relationship. I was just taken aback by the sense of loss over something I had never really considered more than watching “her” walk from behind and imagining being with “her”, when he was my wife.

This is probably scattered, I woke up at no-god early in the morning to write this.

Even though it has been awhile (a few weeks) since my husband came out to me that he wanted to transition from being my wife to being my husband. I wanted to give a little feedback about that from my perspective on that situation.

First, let me say it wasn’t a huge surprise that Jello wanted to transition. Jello has always been an overly masculine tomboy per our cultural norms. Jello has always been the one to work on cars, to talk loud, to take sex as a one night stand situation (Jello has always held the iconic male view on sex). I also know that Jello has been crushed in the past because Jello was treated differently then the other guys because he had boobs.

Also, we are tabletop/videogame/LARP role-players. I have ran games for Jello for over twenty years and over that time there have been dozens of characters he has played that rode the gender line or completely jumped across it. Our fantasy life sexually has been the same, we have reversed genders in role-play (it sounds weird, but it can be a lot of fun).

Jello has always talked with me about his worries. He started slow; by saying he wasn’t sure if being a woman felt right. Funny thing is, I already knew that. Twenty years of marriage to your best friend leaves both sides understanding the other far better then the other thinks. I told him I loved him no matter what.

He then came to me one Sunday night, after I had ran a role-playing game session for him and said he wanted to transition. It wasn’t a surprise, and I have always believed a person’s body is their own property. When he decided to get a tubaligation early into our marriage I originally ok’ed it from my side purely because it was “her” body and her right (since then I have determined I am happy without kids myself so it was win-win situation).

Jello expressed to me that he was worried that once he started taking testosterone, that I wouldn’t love him anymore. Up until this point, while I have played with both boys and girls I have ever only sought out relationships with girls. That did give me a little bit of a pause. Not a “will I leave Jello” pause, but rather a “how would I handle sex with him” pause. It took about 10 seconds to determine that this could be a completely new and fun exploration.

I do want to say that I totally realize its one thing to say it is ok, and another after he has been taking testosterone for a year and looks like a boy, not like a well-endowed woman. I have no doubts though; I will just take it day by day. I think the key here is to keep communicating with each other.

Jello was so surprised that I hadn’t even really hesitated and that I already knew. I mean there was a surprise that he had actually, finally said he wanted to transition, but I knew it had been coming for a long time. The only sadness I had about him saying it is I wished he had said it ten or twenty years ago. It bothers me he has lived in a body he doesn’t want for so long.

Jello stated up front that he would not go through transition if it meant I would leave him. I stated clearly back that if someone tells someone else to not be whom he or she feels they are, then they should leave. I would fully expect (and hope) that Jello would leave me if I refused to accept him. People deserve better, and keeping yourself unhappy just for your spouse or family is such a bad thing that I would counsel anyone to leave.

I want to address the fact that your mileage may vary. Our situation is very unique, and I realize a lot of spouses out there will be hit out of the blue by this revelation. Each case is unique and I don’t think I can do anything but empathize with someone who didn’t see it coming.