Categories: uncategorized
Date: 08 February 2012 19:51:16
A friend published this today and I have his permission to link to it and to comment upon it from my perspective. The post is a coming out post where my friend is explaining the process which has led to his decision to transition and wish to be known by male pronouns. He also has put some helpful links on the post for people who may want to understand more. I have accompanied him on much of the journey and know how much he has been through and how hard these decisions have been to take. As a friend I have struggled at times to understand too, afterall I work by binaries although I have people close to me who are ginger queer and so totally fluid in their identities. I therefore want to support him as much as possible, even through I can never fully understand what is happening. I do worry though that once he starts hormone treatment I am going to lose my friend or something of him. His voice will change and I worry that his character will change too somehow....despite the fact I know it will still be the same person on the inside. I know that there are "support groups" for friends and family available, but I really don't thrive in those types of environment. I do not view my friend as a problem to deal with, rather I want to value this next stage of his journey as an adventure to accompany him on. As a Christian I want him to be all that he is intended to be and I know that for that to happen he has to take this journey. I hesitate to use the language of disability because I know that this is not a disability but I do know the body he has been born into does presents problems for him and what we are talking about here is taking action to "fix" the problem he was born with. Yet, I feel uncomfortable as I say with that language it indicates that his life so far, and the life of disabled people too is somehow "not right" and they do not have the same worth as those born without needing physical change to occur. I certainly do not believe that they have less worth, rather I think they have something very special to show us about the nature of God. I think the above paragraph indicates the biggest problem for me in all this - I do not feel I have adequate language to deal with this situation with the level of sensitivity I require. The language problem relates to being able to express my own feelings about it all as well as feeling I can offer adequate support. Recently I have been asked quite a bit how I feel - this post is my best response yet, I think. No idea what the computer was doing with the funny change of colour thing....but somehow feels right in terms of describing what is going on with my friend, they were living in the lighter text but are now moving to living in bold.