We can get married now?

Here is the BEAUTIFUL irony.  We have been planning a wedding.  We have been hoping against hope that times would change enough and in enough time that we could actually get married on our wedding day. 

I will leave the majority of the marriage equality arguments aside, I assume if you are reading this at all I’d just be preaching to the choir.

So the funny thing is … it seems that a doctor’s appointment or two, a trip to the Drivers License place, and maybe order a new birth certificate (please don’t yell at me if I am way off, I don’t know for sure how all this works yet) and POOF … legal marriage is an option.

So we go from being a lesbian couple who can’t get married due to tradition/bible/bigots/whatever.  To the SAME PEOPLE and just a bit of paperwork and genuine desire to transition … … and then we can get married.

Someone tell me WHAT is the huge difference?  Two consenting adults who want to get married.

Before transition:  NOT ALLOWED OMG WRONG

After/during? Transition:  Oh yeah that’s cool.

SAME PEOPLE.  It boggles my mind.

But … … I’ll be really glad to get married.

Picking a name

Okay how fun and crazy is this?!  We get to pick a NEW NAME!  Who gets to name themselves?  Like, really for legally reals name themselves.

Oh my goodness it is SO hard.  We go through so many things.  No that doesn’t feel right, you aren’t that cool, you aren’t that dorky.

No, you CANNOT be Consuela Bananahammock.

We go through names of idols and characters we like.  I learn towards names that sound like and roll off the tongue similarly to Katie.

Oh Katie.  My precious Katie.  Can you understand?  This is the part that gets me the most emotional.  She has been my dearest Katie for ten years.  When you say you love that person, it’s their name you say.  I love Katie.  I am going to have a hard time letting go of “Katie”.   So, yes, I want a name that sounds like Katie.  Katie has been MY Katie for so long.  It’s very hard to re-wire my brain to allow this change.  It’s like parts of my brain don’t understand … my body almost gives a reaction as if I am cheating on her or changing my partner.  Yes I know I am not, the person I love isn’t changing, just becoming the socially accepted form of his (hah!) inner self.

Tangent.  Names.  Okay, hard to let go of Katie tangent, check.

I was all for Cody (Kody to keep the same intials).  Katie thought Kaleb.  Neither felt quite right.  We had mostly decided on Kody when my best friend threw out the idea of Kaden.

Kaden.

Well that rolls off the tongue like Katie.  It’s kind of hip.  More modern the Kaleb and more mature than Kody.  And it doesn’t have a forced K (I am, against all odds, a strong traditionalist). 

So, my boyfriend’s name is Kaden.

The “wrong” bathroom??

One of my first concerns was relative to how hard it was for each of us to come out as gay 12+ years ago.  We have each been relatively lucky (besides the straight camp Katie’s parents sent her to…) and have encountered little push back from society in general.  We were denied a wedding cake once, got lectured in a King Soopers, and had the general run of awkward looks and such.  But coming out is never easy.  Now Katie has to do it again.

I get worried for the idea of trans people.  Reading things online about using the correct bathroom and very honest phrases like “if it’s safe”.  I don’t want her to face that!  The world isn’t as open to trans people now as it is to gays now, very much like it wasn’t open to gays those years ago when we each were coming out for the first time.

But we have to, and we will together.

I told her (yes yes, I know I am using the incorrect pronouns, but this will take time) about these concerns.  She looked at me and said … that already happens.  And it was like a light bulb.  It does!  She currently gets told several times a week that she is in the wrong bathroom.  Transitioning will fix that misconception.

And I can’t even imagine what it feels like when you identify as male, but are outwardly female … and you go into the female bathroom only to be told you are in the wrong one.  On the inside she (he) has to be screaming I KNOW … but in our current reality she has to correct them or ignore them.  And continue to use the bathroom that feels wrong, arguing that she is in the right one.

What a relief this will be when the change can be made.

Okay, how to begin?

Katie and I met when we were nineteen.  She was certain about “us” from the beginning, it took me a little longer.  Ten years down the road and she is my favorite person in the world and I love spending every part of my life with her.

I’d asked a couple times  (probably three or four separate conversations) if she wanted to be a boy.  Told her (very genuinely) that I would still love her.  Every time, she said that she thought it would make more sense …. But that no, she didn’t want to be a boy.

We are getting married in three months, our ten year anniversary to the day. 

Two weeks ago, my girlfriend of ten years came out to me.

“I just makes sense, right?”

I’m not surprised.  But I am suddenly aware of a lot of adjustments that will need to be made.  Pronouns will likely be the most difficult (and maybe I can use this area to practice saying “he”, and “him”). 

I have processed a lot in that time.  Looked up chest binders, looked up packing (learned what a pack’n’play is).  Learning the terminology.  I am trying to remember the different mental phases I went through already to briefly cover them.’

The bottom line?  The most important thing I have wanted for Katie is to feel comfortable in her (his) own skin.  I am so happy that we have found a path to make it true.

And two days later, it came to me.  Yes … Yes it does just make sense.