The same person
Autumn wrote…
One morning I woke up only legally able to marry women. That evening I went to bed only legally able to marry men. What changed that day was that a judge signed a document that legally changed my gender from male to female. But, I felt like the same person between when I woke up and when I went to bed.
What’s your experience?
Posted by Freiya on July 5th, 2012 at 08:00 am
Category: your voice 6 comments »
July 6th, 2012 at 5:07 am |
Good luck Autumn!…Anarchists would say that people should be able to marry who they want without interference from the state:D…
[Reply]
July 6th, 2012 at 8:09 pm |
Yes…the same person…’legal’ meaning everyone else but you gets to decide this for your life. There is something deeply wrong about that…
What you wrote cuts me to my core and moves me deeply: if I fully transition, then where I live, suddenly my marriage of twenty-three years will be ‘unconstitutional’ and people who don’t even know me will be indignant that I would dare to do and be this. Why should they have that power over us? But they are powerless to change who we are as persons…
[Reply]
July 6th, 2012 at 11:27 pm |
I had this discussion the other night with a friend I’m very close to. We were joking around and I said “you should just marry me” and she said “I couldn’t even legally do that now in this state. Though, in a few years I guess it’ll be legal, huh?” and it really struck me – in a few years all the rules will be the other way around for me. I honestly don’t know how to feel about it, and I can only imagine the strange feeling that must wash over a person when they go through the situation you’ve described.
Because, really, who we are doesn’t REALLY change. So… strange.
[Reply]
July 11th, 2012 at 10:53 am |
In my youth it was all about “we don’t need no piece of paper from the city hall, keeping us tried and true now…(Joni Mitchell) If marriage has any real meaning, apart from as a civil, legal contract between consenting adults (and their kids) it is a life commitment to someone and something outside of yourself. It is a sharing of life, a co-mingling and compromise that brings together two parts and results in something greater than the sum of the parts…. Such is the ideal. It takes work to make it work. Often times people are not ready or able to work like that, together, sharing risk and benefit. Lots of people I have known got married for no better reason than that the sex was good.
I love my partner and would love this person whatever their circumstance: of age, of gender, of health, of sexuality. For my part, it is up to me to be part of the solution to the problem life poses them. As they are for me.
[Reply]
Brett Blatchley replied:
July 11th, 2012 at 12:31 pm
So true Jesse, so true…
My wife and I are in our twenty-third year of marriage, and we’ve stuck together through all our hardships and ‘stuff,’ and she continues to love me even as I become a de facto woman. Your words are an encouragement to me! :-)
[Reply]
J.D. replied:
July 12th, 2012 at 11:16 pm
Your wife sounds amazing! She gives me hope that mayhaps there is someone out there for me and for all of us. 23 years is certainly an accomplishment even irregardless of the complexities gender stuff. Congratulations – really – here’s to 23 more years!
[Reply]