#51 (aka: Boy needs hugs. (Yes, it's an emo post, but it's what I mean when I say "My bio brother's an ignorant ass".))

*I wrote this last night and posted it elsewhere when my bio. brother was being more intolerable and mean than he had been in a long time.*

My bio. brother's being an asshole not just to me now, but to others, as well. He's being utterly disrespectful and cruel to me, and he's being a serious annoyance and general pain in the ass to the rest of my family.
Last week he called me a fag, and blamed it on the fact that when he gets angry or frustrated, he can't control himself. I think that deserves a little attention from a therapist, don't you?
When he calls me those names and says derogatory things to me, though... you all know that it goes much deeper than just being angry or frustrated. And it really hurts to be called those things, even if you say you're immune or jaded to it.

I'll never be jaded to it.

Boy needs hugs.

#49 (aka: The healing game)

It's amazing how well my bio. brother and I are getting along this week. For a long time, we have fought almost daily. This week, we've hardly had a scuffle at all. Tonight, we played darts. We had fun. Lots of fun. We got along, and it felt like he was starting to accept me -- if not as a transguy, or as his brother, then maybe as his friend. I hope so.

#47 (aka: Big steps for Mom)

I'm so proud of my mom.

Last weekend, we were at Borders, and she was looking for this specific book on trans people (True Selves by Mildred L. Brown and Chloe Ann Rounsley). Turns out, they didn't have it (big surprise -- they had a queer section the size of a pinhead). But, she ended up ordering it.

Well, Borders called earlier this week to tell her the book had come in. And tonight we went out for dinner (mmmm, manicotti) and then to Borders, where we picked up the book and then drove back home. During the ride back, I read the Prelude, the Introduction and part of Chapter 1 to her, and she seemed really interested. It's very well written, as far as I can tell. Kudos to Brown and Rounsley. ;)

My mother has consistently been the more understanding parent. Her interest in further learning about what I'm going through with the purpose to show her support and love for me makes me think that things are going to be okay between us.

#32 (aka: New poem)

a poem for my stepbrother (currently untitled)

As soon as you say those words,
I forgive you
I know that he influences you
in bad ways to do bad things
I know that he means those hateful words,
but you don't
not you
Not my sweet stepbrother
with your darling eyes of blue
and your scruffy blonde hair,
and your skinny, constantly-growing-taller body
that I used to give piggy-back rides to
when you were still a young boy

I don't need to hear your apology
to know that you don't agree with him
to know that you don't really understand
You're better than him
because you don't have an angry like mine
on your mother's side of the family

You're better than him
because of who your mother is
and who her closest sister is
and who our family friends are
and because of who I am
and who I see
that you are, too

#30 (aka: An amazing moment in time)

*I wrote and posted this on LiveJournal last night. Sorry about all the "Tonight"s -- that's what I used when I posted on LJ, and didn't think to change it. But, you get the same basic gist of what happened anyway.*

Earlier this week I posted about how excited I was to have rented the entire season of "TransGeneration" from Netflix. Well, both discs arrived yesterday, and I watched all eight of the episodes in one evening (some life I have, huh?). This morning, I talked to my father about the possibility of us watching an episode together. The particular episode that I had in mind was the last one, where one of the cast members, Lucas, is graduating from college and has his whole family come from Oklahoma. This "whole family" includes his father. Since Lucas is an FTM, and I am too, and since I've had more issues with my father about this than I have with my mom, I thought it would be something good for us to watch together. Tonight, we did.

With my father and stepmother sitting on one of the couches near the half-wall and the stairs leading down to the basement and my brothers' room, and me reclining in a cushioned rocking chair, we watched the last 50-minute, commercial-free segment of "TransGeneration". I kept waiting for my father to get up and start doing more laundry or something, but he didn't. Tonight, for the second night in a row, I realized that he really does care about this. He really does care that I'm becoming his son. That feels incredible. *I'm tearing up as I write this, by the way... excuse me... * I never thought that my dad and I would start to see eye-to-eye about this. I thought he hated me, or at least this part of me. But maybe now he's starting to see that it's not so terrible that I'm becoming his third son. Or his first son, depending on how you look at it, since I'm the oldest child.

Something that Lucas's dad said in this final episode was, in short, that he quickly realized, upon doing some reading about being a parent of a Transgendered child, that he wasn't alone in feeling that he was mourning the death of a child. But he eventually said something profound: "My daughter just grew up to be a man". I should have looked back to try to see my dad's reaction to that statement, but I didn't. I wish I could have seen if there was any look of revelation or comradery or shock or understanding on my father's face, but if he was affected to the point of showing that kind of emotion facially, I didn't want to risk ruining it by letting him know that I saw it. So I watched the rest of the episode, and shed a couple of tears near the very end when Lucas and his Transbrother Kasey are telling each other how much the other means to him because I know what it's like to love another Transguy as much as they love one another, and then as the credits were rolling I turned to my dad with as much bravery as I could muster and said, "I hope that, someday, we can have the kind of relationship that Lucas and his dad have. That father/son relationship". He asked why, and I replied, "Well, I know that you already have two sons, but I'd just like us to be able to be friends, like you and the boys seem to be. Most of the time". We chuckled a bit about that last remark, and I said, "Do you think that will ever happen?" I didn't give him the time to answer, really. I just waited through the couple seconds of silence before I got up to come into my room. But I know that what I said touched something in my father. For the first time, I think I can finally say that I'm proud to be his son.

#27 (aka: Darling little rascals)

(Now, I promise that this bit of story will lead into my original topic, because I know sometimes my stories and my initial spark of inspiration don't match up. Anyway...) At my therapy meeting on Thursday, a question that my mom and I both had for the gender specialist was if it would be safe for me to give birth to my own biological child after beginning hormone treatment. She said that, no; it wasn't a good idea, citing some findings that doctors had made about children whose parents were female-bodied people who were taking testosterone before they were conceived. The parents then stopped taking the hormones, with the wellbeing of their child in mind, but the children were still born with birth defects. I never wanted to have my own biological children anyway, so I didn't think it was really an issue anymore.

But, last night, my dad, my stepmom, my stepbrother and I went to a church function where the purpose was to give people food and play games and watch a movie to try to recruit more people to join the church. There were a lot of really sweet kids there. One, in particular, sat on my lap while eating his pizza just so that he could be around me more (he basically followed me around all night). And I was deeply moved by that.

I really don't know what's up with me now. I seem to have the urge to be a dad (someday). I don't want to have my own children -- even before I realized I was Trans, I wanted to adopt, because I don't think I could handle the pain of giving birth very well and I'd rather take care of a child already trying to survive in this messed-up world we're living in than bring another into it. But I want to help raise a child. And I want to be somebody's Transbrother -- somebody's older Transbrother. Maybe it's my desire to be needed and loved and appreciated like I need, love, and appreciate my own Chosen Family that drives me to want to raise children someday -- I don't know. All I do know is that one of the main goals that I had when I came out and began to do activism was to make a difference in the life (or lives) of someone (or some people) like me. I want to be for another what my Chosen Family (specifically the gender-variant members) are for me.

Is this urge to be a positive influence on someone younger a common thing, in y'all's experience?