My Group of Mom Friends…

April 16, 2006

Years before my transition, I spent a lot of time caring for our children. My social group and close friends during that time were a group of moms. It’s been over 15 years since our first child and a number of my mom friends have know me for at least that long. Some of my women friends have recently had children. One is currently pregnant with their first child. Over the years, my mom friends have cared for each others children, picked them up from school and took them home or to an event when their parents were unable to and shared lots of play dates together. We spent family dinners together with me sharing with the other moms. They told me of their relationships with their hubbies and just about everything else in their lives. They were my support group during my transition.

I though it would be interesting to share some of the events from their lives. It is a small window into the lives of a number of these women.

*Mom# 1,
She has four daughters and married to a hubby that is usually not home. He is an accountant and spends most of his time at work. When he is home, he spends little time with his children. Mom#1 has been frustrated with hubby for years and feels he should do more with his children. They don’t spend much time together sharing life or interest. In many ways, she has a pretty separate life from his. The children consume most all of her time and resources. She has little time to spend with her friends. I ask her if she is happy one day, “generally, yes, but I wish my life was more than just raising children.” Her eldest daughter is getting ready for a teen beauty contest and we have been talking about the entire thing involved with getting her daughter ready for this event. Yes, she invited me to the pageant, but at $150.00 per guest, it’s expensive. Not sure if I’m going to go yet, it’s more than I really want to spend for an event like this.

*Mom# 2,
She has two boys and married to a dentist. I knew her for my high school days and we were both very surprised our kids ended up in the same school, same class. She was a stay at home mom when their children were young and recently, she went back to work. She worked part time in the beginning and a year or so later, full time. Both her boys play on a basketball team. She still spends much of her time transporting them from practice to game. She and her hubby is a really nice couple, they spend time together when possible and they know how to take care of each other. We usually end up talking about cooking, our history and what our kids are currently doing. When our kids had play dates, we would bake or cook stuff for the kids. We spent lot of time together in her kitchen. They have been a happy married couple for over 16 years.

*Mom# 3,
She is has two girls and married to an electrician. She works from home and cares for their kids as required. Her eldest is in a girl’s basketball league. Our daughter and her daughter were really good friends during pre-school and they both ended up in the same elementary school and class. Mom#3 is great at sewing and altered clothes for me. Her youngest daughter asked me one day when she came over to play with our daughter, “Are you a boy or girl?” I replied by asking her, “What makes you a boy or girl?” She thought about this for a moment and told me, “It’s what’s on the inside that makes you a girl!” I smiles and told her she was correct. Later that night, I called her mom and talked to her about this. Mom#3 told me that she was not surprised by her daughter’s answer since they have been discussing my transition with her at home. THis happened during the first months of my transition. Her kids don’t even think about my past these days, I’m just another one of their mom’s friends in their eyes. We still chat for hours on the phone when our schedules permit. Her dear hubby has been fine with me too. They are one happy family 

*Mom# 4,
She is a law professor and married to another lawyer and they have three children. We have known each other for nearly 20 years now. Over all those years we have shared births, birthday parties, travel and a host of other events. During lunch one day, I told her of my transition and how my ex has been fighting me over custody. She was thinking of writing an article for a professional legal publication and was considering topics to write on. I shared more details of my family problems and it was then she decided to do an article on the parental rights of trans parents. A year or so later, that article was published. She gave birth to a new baby a few years ago and like her previous children, she breast fed them. Only this time, she had problems with milk supply. It was a coincidence that I was trying to inducing lactation and we shared information on this topic. I ended up lactating for a short time and discovered what it was like to do this (not always fun) and learned that my breast are mature and function in the ways that surprised me. The same meds I used to induce lactation helped Mom# 4 to increase her milk supply. We have shared more of our lives since my transition and I’m thankful for her emotional support over the years.

*Mom# 5
We met at work and initially did not spend a lot of time together in the beginning. Eventually, we ended up taking walk breaks together, lunch and doing stuff away from work. She is married and has two kids. One of them is just two years old and the other is seven, both boys. She got Breast Aug about a year before I did and we spent a lot of time during our walks talking about this. I got to watch her deal with surgery and the recovery process watched and shared how they changed over the months post-op. It turns out, nearly every mom in their family got Breast Aug and none of them had any serious problems or regrets. While know this helped comfort me during that time when I was still struggling and totally stressed out with what to do about my BA date, I was so thankful for her sharing her BA journey. She believes that I’m quite attractive and could be a man magnet due to my height, pretty face, size, hair, boobs (post-BA), personality, and wisdom, I got to say she is right. There are definitely more stares from men in public places and tendencies to start a conversation with me. She has since left where we work and went back to being a nearly full time mom. I really miss our time together as our interest and personalities were so similar. There was so much that we shared together.

There are a few more mom friends in my life, and I could go on yaking about them. It was during this time when our children grew up that I realized there was far more to my gender issues than just wanting to play dress up. Spending time caring for our children and sharing so much of my life and their lives with these other women pushed me towards the realization of who I really was. I discovered how much women share of themselves and support each other in special ways. It all felt so right for me and helped with discovering my femininity. They supported me emotionally when I felt alone when our family fell apart. They were surprised to learn of my transition and not surprised in many ways from all the times we shared together. Thinking back to my childhood, this was really an extension of my childhood friends which were mostly girls.
After meeting and talking to many other TS women who were married before transition, I discovered my history of “being one of the mom’s” is unusual. Proposing marriage to my ex in a wedding gown was unusual. Looking back, that was my way of sharing with her how I felt, but not know why at the time. She really wanted to get married, I was less than motivated. We got married because I felt this would make her happy. This was the same with having children. Later in life, I learned the hard way that you cannot make another individual happy. You can only support them in ways that could foster their own happiness. After our first born, I discovered the “mother in me”. Our first child really bonded to me since I was his primary care taker. A similar thing happened with our second child. The break-up of our family was one of the most difficult things for me, our children and my ex to deal with. That is a story for another post.

I honestly believe if Jen and I had not met, I would have tried to meet a man who was divorced or widowed with children, gotten married and lived a rather plain wife’s life. Being a mom and caring for family is one of the things that brings me great joy and happiness. I have no regrets for the life that Jen and I share today, but every time babies or children are around, the mom in me comes out. Being a mom has become so ingrained in me after caring for our children over so many years. Yes, I’m a gender stereotype of female folks, but I can’t seem to shake it or hide it regardless of my physical packaging. Only recently has my physical packaging really fit me and being at peace with me both physically and emotionally.

A Short History Lesson..

April 1, 2006

My folks immigrated here in the early 60’s, I was a young child at the time. I grew up in the ghetto of San Francisco’s Chinatown. During the 70’s when I grew up, Chinatown was still a pretty closed community with many of the remnants of self-government within its borders. Many of my lonely days of childhood was spent reading and learning about Chinese history in Amerika. I visited places in Chinatown from written history. There was lots of San Francisco history I learned about in addition to Asian American history. What I learned back then has become part of the foundation of how I view the world today.

Many Chinese immigrants coming to this country during the turn of the 20th century looked to America as a land of opportunity and wealth. America was know as, “Gold Mountain” in their native china. Chinese men would come to America seeking their fortunes in what ever work they could find. Most history text books would credit the Chinese with building the railroads. The Chinese contributed too many other aspects of the Wild West that were not mentioned in these books. They opened general stores, operated farms, panned and mined for gold, and just about anything associated with country living. Many of these Chinese men never planned to stay here, most sent what they earned back home to their families with the idea they would return back home to live a better life from the wealth they earned in America. Most would never see their families again due to the actions of congress in the years ahead. Their success was scorned by their western peers. In time, congress and local governments made it their goal to eliminate the Asian plague in America. The Chinese exclusion act was passed in 1882. It was designed to severely oppress all Chinese living in America. Chinese men were not allowed to marry by law and immigration restrictions against Chinese women coming to this country were part of the government’s idea of how to eliminate the Chinese from the America population.

When Japan invaded China during world war two and China became a militarily important place in the war against Japan, Congress and military leaders understood the importance of improving relations between the US and China. This was the beginning of a huge propaganda campaign to improve the image of Chinese in America with the idea of improving US relations with China. Congress turned the Yellow Plague into the Model Minority. In time the Chinese exclusion act was repealed and immigration restrictions against Chinese were relaxed and this is one of the historical events that resulted in me and my family’s journey to America.

I write about this in the light of all the laws currently debated about the rights of those who are LGBTI. Through out human history there has always been an oppressed group. Rome was built on the backs of “barbaric slaves”. They were the cheap labor of their day. Black slaves were part of this country cheap labor force until it was outlawed before the civil war. We have “Illegal immigrants” today as cooperate cheap labor. Women’s rights were part of this struggle too. So much of human history has been about gaining wealth on the backs of servants and blaming the troubles of society on marginalized groups or individuals. They use their “morality” to justify their actions and keep marginalized groups fighting among each other wasting their resources and energy in the process. When economic empowerment is denied to an oppressed group, they have little chance of altering their position in society. Consider the economic burden to cooperate America if every same sex couples gained the same benefits of married couples. When cooperated America discovered the LGBTI segment of the population can equal dollars to the bottom line, they began to cultivate their business. Economic empowerment also means cultural and political influence. Equality means those with the most political, economic, cultural influence must give up part of their wealth and for many of them, they have no motivation to do this. There are only so many slices of American Pie for all who want some.

Pro creation and population increase equals greater support for those who are wealthy. If a religion or belief system has no followers, it would simply die. If you have every member of the population following your belief system and you are the one controlling the belief system, this will put you in a position of wealth and power.

All those pro-lifers out there crow about saving the lives of the un-born, but do little or nothing for the lives of children or adults without a home or are considered undesirable. Greater population significantly increased the demands on the earth’s resources and reduces the overall quality of life in a society.

As the world we live in grows closer by modern means of communication and transportation, every country needs to learn how to put aside the perceived differences and understand how similar we all really are. For the future survival of humanity and the human family, we need to understand each other beyond our perceived differences and care for mother earth so she can take care of humanity for now and for future generations.