Small Change

Most things are fine here. We’re getting used to the current situation, I’m managing to do things I like most days so long as I don’t move too much, and we’re managing to get food deliveries even if it’s not exactly what we ordered. So that’s good.

There has been a little change though. My lovely spouse has come out on Twitter as a trans woman. Her new name is Izzy. I’ve known since last year, but due to how horribly transphobic the UK is at the moment, she’s been terrified of coming out in public. I’m really proud of her getting the courage to do so, and so far the response has been really positive. Sammie now calls her Mum2 (I’m Mum1) which makes Izzy smile every time she hears it. It also means the only clothes of mine that are safe are my shoes, as I’m a size 9 and she’s a size 6. When I bought it, I thought my Trans and Tired top would be safe 😛

There were early signs I noticed. When I originally met her on Second Life, Johan Yugen was a female avatar. She claimed that it was just because there was a better selection of purple clothing, but it wasn’t that hard to resize clothes for a male avatar. She also had a tendency to go for female characters in video games when given the chance. There was also a lot of denial – being too afraid to by hair bobbles when she was growing her hair out (though was fine buying menstrual products for me) and when I jokingly suggested she wear one of my dresses since she was already stealing most of my tops, she had a rather extreme negative reaction. These and other things meant I suspected that she wasn’t a cis man, but since it’s a very personal topic (and seeing her reaction to the suggestion of wearing a dress) I kept that to myself.

We’re lucky to know lots of different trans people, many of which have come out since we first got to know them. As I’m also trans (being genderless) trans issues were a common topic of conversation, and we were talking about them when she told me she wasn’t sure she was a cis man. It didn’t take long after that for her to say that is a woman. The hardest part after that was keeping it a secret until she was ready to come out publicly. Although it was relatively easy for me to continue calling her Johan in public thanks to her Second Life avatar being female, it got harder and harder to continue using he/him pronouns and so a bit ago, with her approval, I swapped to they/them instead, including on this blog. Now she is out, I’ll be sticking with she/her.

She’s still very early on in her transition journey. She went on the waiting list of the local gender clinic a few months ago, but even before this pandemic the average waiting time for a first appointment was years. Now she has a paid job we were going to look into going privately, but that’s now on hold because of the virus. I’m just glad she’s figured it out, and the grin on her face whenever I call her Izzy or refer to her as Sammie’s mum is worth it.