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By now, most of you in the t-community are
familiar with the drill. Man meets woman. They
fall in love and have children. Man wants to be
woman. Woman freaks. Man flees to find
herself... Woman wants the "freak show" to stay
lost. Man comes back a confident woman and ain't
having it.
Well, Marti Abernathey has done that “drill”
twice. Ex wife #1 we shall call Macy. Macy and I
didn’t beat around the bush. We met in the month
of August, and she was pregnant in October. We
hardly even knew each other, yet soon after we
met…we were married. It was a doomed marriage
from the start. As the marriage went along I
found that we were polar opposites on many
things. Even mundane things such as music, we
differed on. She’s a little bit country. I’m a
little bit rock n roll. Even our taste in
clothes differed! Believe me, I bought my own
clothes!!! I’m not a two steppin’ kinda girl.
As we came to know each other, we began to
despise one another. She was everything in a
spouse I didn’t want. I wanted a stable,
soothing, reasonable partner. She was none of
these. Within a year and a half, we divorced.
Six months later I met ex wife #2. We'll call
her “Sarah”, to protect the guilty from harsh
realities. In the beginning, She treated me
like I had never been treated before. She
respected me as a father and appreciated me as a
person. Her goals and vision of the future
seemed compatible with mine. Both of us had
children and ex’s of our own, so hooking up was
something that we took very seriously.
Sarah and I dated for three years before we
actually got married. All along, I hid my
transgenderism from her like a dirty secret.
Hell, I hid it to my self. Slowly, but surely,
that one secret slowly unraveled our
relationship. Our last argument ended with her
going to jail and charged with battery. After a
couple weak attempts at reconciliation, I ended
the relationship. The divorce decree was a
fitting bookend.
Almost a year ago, Sarah asked me to go to
counseling with her. During the session I told
Sarah about my transition, and she flipped! She
has denied me visitation ever since. I thought
over time that both ex-wives would come to
accept my situation and come to some workable
solution. As of yet, this has been nothing but a
big mudfest.
One of the ex-wives has publicly raised the
question of whether I can be a father. (Click
here to read the post) Well that depends on what
your definition of a father is. Clearly, her
idea of what a father is has more to do with my
penis than my ability as a parent. I am no Ward
Cleaver. I am not in the Cleaver family, on
their block, or even in the same zip code.
Can I be a parent that loves and respects their
child? Yes. If being a father is about teaching
masculinity and manhood, im not a good
candidate. If being a father is about teaching
your child about how to deal with hardships and
adversities in life, I am perfectly qualified
for that!
Sarah’s own therapist said it best. “Marti’s
gender issues are not as important as the kids
losing a parent.” Curiously, soon after that
session, that therapist became Sarah’s
ex-therapist.
I ran away from Indiana, and my son has been
very hurt by all this. I personally accept this
as being my fault. I am human, I make mistakes.
My hope is that my kids will someday be able to
accept and love me for who I am, imperfections
and all. I want my children to be in my life.
The current state of affairs leaves little room
to work out a solution.
Sarah recently called and left a pleasant
voicemail illustrating her own thoughts on how
to make this family whole again. In her typical
passive aggressive demeanor, Sarah told me to
"rot in hell." Charming. For those of you that
don’t have children, I would like to share
Sarah’s response to my “homecoming.” Click here
(real or
mp3) to listen to what your typical
Transgender-American must accept as a reasonable
approach to healing families.
Classy, huh?
I won't “stay the hell” in DC. I want to see my
children and am willing to do the work it takes
to make sure that happens. Macy wants to run
around and tell everyone what an asshole I am,
but she really hasn’t suggested or been open to
fixing the problem. A lesson my therapist taught
me was that I should deal with what I can
control, and ditch the rest. I cannot control
how my ex-wives act. I can control how I respond
to them.
The way I see it, who I have sex with or what
genitals I have is hardly germane to the
upbringing of my kids. I never brought potential
girlfriends in front of my children, unless I
knew the relationship was going places. That
won't change now that im out as a bisexual
transsexual! As far as genitals, I must have
missed the part in sex-ed where they explained
how they give you some magical powers that make
you a better parent than those without their
birth genitals. Is that some strange parental
heterosexual voodoo or what?
I have an accepted medical condition
(transsexualism) that is rare. (1:30,000
according to the American Psychiatric
Association) Some have insisted that I am a
freak and a pervert. Words do mean things:
Perversion
1: the action of perverting: the condition of being perverted
2: a perverted form; especially: an aberrant
sexual practice especially when habitual and
preferred to normal coitus
Aberrant
1: an aberrant group, individual, or structure
2: a person whose behavior departs substantially
from the standard
I surely do depart from the “standard.” If
wanting my brain and my sexual organs to match
up makes me a pervert… so be it. This “freak”
loves her children very much.
In most modern usages, a perversion is seen as
having some kind of criminal penalty involved
with it (child pornography, rape, incest, etc.)
I have a disorder that is recognized throughout
the medical community to the point that some
affected transsexuals can draw SSI, because of
the condition. While a schizophrenic or a
bipolar person is different from the societal
norm, would you call them a pervert?
My ex-wives may think my goal is to be "femmeslut"
and walk around in skin tight micro skirts and
six inch stilettos. My goal isn’t to look like a
hooker or a transvestite. The last thing I
desire is to get the “man in a dress” comment.
That mindset is exactly why I am taking my time,
and why I am willing to go through many painful
and expensive surgeries.
My hairdresser in Georgetown said that with a
little plastic surgery I could look like Morgan
Fairchild. I told him “fuck that, I want to look
like Suzy Q Public.” Beauty to me is as
important as it is to any woman, yet being seen
as a woman is more important. I am not a
crossdresser or a drag queen, and I don’t want
to appear to be one! I want to be Marti full
time, aligning my mind and body together. This
won’t all happen overnight, and im not rushing
it. My goal is not to embarrass anyone but to
integrate my mind and body.
I find it ironic that both Sarah and Macy seem
to act as if I have done something that is
ghastly horrible. When suggestions are put
before them, they seem to slide into personal
attacks, not working out a solution. It seems
the only workable solution for Macy or Sarah is
me NOT transitioning. Anyone who has been in
this situation will tell you that delaying
transition does NOTHING but prolong agony for
all involved. I’ve put a lot of time, effort,
and thought into this.
Despite their problems with reality, I'm coming
home... a proud woman. Deal with it Sarah and
Macy. And deal with it, America!
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