Chapter Four

After the week of shouting and weeping I had come up with a good idea. It was self defense but it was also a genuine attempt to help Vicky say what she needed. It was certainly a better plan than shouting at each other from dawn to dusk. These were the rules, and I wrote about them online in case someone else was going through the same thing, because they actually helped.

I am trying to put some ground rules in place to avoid a repeat of the last week, which frankly has been hell.

If I start crying or Vicky starts shouting, the conversation ends. The distressed person has to deal with their distress before we do anything else. If no other support can be contacted fast enough Vicky is to call Samaritans.

There is to be a family agreement that whatever else we don’t feel able to give each other, we will always give kindness. We won’t ignore each other or dismiss each other’s feelings

Compared to yesterday’s conversations I would say it worked. A couple of times Vicky began shouting and I just said, ‘Right we will have to continue this conversation when you feel able to. She struggled, but she did it, and because we weren’t just trading pain, we got through and managed to discuss what needed to be discussed. Right now I’ll take that as success.

Vicky has apologized for hurting me, she started to apologize for putting us all through this but I stopped her and reminded her she has nothing to apologize for. She is transitioning, it’s a medical condition, she is accepted.

Victoria was of course, full steam ahead, champing at the bit to be put on female hormones that would begin to alter her outward appearance, and according to many of the transgendered women who posted about their own treatment online, bring a sense of calm. Whether that was a chemical effect of the hormones, or an emotional effect of finally receiving treatment and moving forward, we didn’t know, but either way, calmer sounded good. I was still very anxious to slow down the process. The thought of Vicky being recognizably female to all and sundry horrified me. I had visions of our neighbours throwing bricks through the window, and being asked to leave the area or else. Walking about in Soho was one thing, popping into our local shops was quite another.

A much deeper fear was that, after everything we had been through, hormones would change Vicky’s sexual orientation. We were up to this point, still lovers, except when we were shouting at each other obviously. What if after her treatment, she no longer wanted to be with me. What if she’d only been with me because she was male, and now she was female she wanted a man. The thought of going through all this only to be told that unfortunately she no longer felt able to be with a woman. That might actually be the dictionary definition of ironic. The painful truth was that if that were the outcome, she would still go ahead and that meant that though she loved me a lot, maybe it wouldn’t be enough. Maybe she couldn’t really love me?

Vicky found my continued desire to slow down the process incomprehensible. I kept saying I understood her condition and then asking her not to treat it. I tried to remind her that never mind the six months I’d had, what about her step-daughter? How much time was she going to be given to adjust to this? She tried to remind me she hadn’t chosen to have this condition and what she needed was help and support not a brick wall at every turn. Maybe I didn’t really love her? These were the things we quarrelled about. Still, we weren’t screaming nearly as much.

It was still July. The shouting had mostly stopped, and we were managing to keep most of our discussions kind and respectful of each other. I posted online:

One of the issues that is beginning to worry me quite a lot is the impact hormones may have on Vicky’s personality. They are at the end of the day, just chemicals, they can’t intelligently seek out the bits Vicky wants changing and leave alone the parts she likes. Vicky assures me that her personality won’t change, but frankly, what does she know?

I already know I have to remind Vicky when we’re out shopping it’s not all about her! I used to get taken out and looked after -- now I’m the one looking after her. Obviously we need to find a balance. The other evening as we were about to go out I said to her, ‘you look lovely darling’. She smiled and looked very happy and then wandered off without a word about the effort I’d put into trying to look good. Small things I know, but still surprisingly hurtful, so I gently pointed out that I like being complimented too.

I suppose the big worry is will I even recognize the person Vicky is to become. She is so determined to change everything about herself and willing to undergo whatever medical intervention that requires and, at the end of the day, even if that affected her sexual orientation and meant not wanting me anymore, the hard truth is, she wouldn’t turn back.

I’m just trying to take one day at a time, but it’s hard knowing that ‘forever’ is now a negotiable part of our life together. Vicky of course, positive soul that she is, is convinced all will be well and I’m worrying about nothing.

The time had come, as far as Vicky was concerned, to tell the world and start living her life full time as the woman she really was. No more sneaking about leaving the house in long overcoats to conceal the dress beneath. This wasn’t just selfish impatience on Vicky’s behalf. The treatment she was seeking was absolutely reliant on her proving that she had lived ‘in role’, the doctors’ words, not mine, as female for a whole year before they would give any drugs. So it wasn’t that impatient to want to get going.

These words, these labels, are so powerful. They could inform so much and yet often they mislead. ‘Living in role’. It’s not fancy dress, it’s not a game. This is living as your true self - what ‘role’ is there? The worst, most prevalent phrase though is ‘Sex Change’. The medical term is Gender Corrective Surgery or GCS, or vaginoplasty, but the media seems very attached to the idea of the sex change operation. That so strongly implies that someone is born one gender and changes over to be the other gender. A man decides he might rather like to be a woman. A man who lost his genitals in a freak combine harvester accident, (bad example, work with me here) would still be a man. He would still know he was a man and you couldn’t make him not a man no matter how much surgery you gave him. There’s no such thing as a sex change. You are what you are. If you’re born female, you’re female, even if you’re born with male genitals, you’re female. Sorting out the physical results of too much testosterone at the wrong moment in the womb is not changing sex, it’s just correcting a physical abnormality. So. No sex change, just corrective surgery. But I digress.

Vicky was determined that we would inform all of our neighbours, some of whom were great friends, others with whom we were simply on friendly smiling terms. They would all get the same letter. A ‘Round Robin’ to end all ‘Round Robins’. Of course I wanted to wait, I always wanted to wait, but we worked on the letter together, trying to make sure it said what it needed to say and wasn’t in any way aggressive or medically over-informative.

We had been invited as a family to an 18th birthday party for the daughter of close friends and of course there was no way Vicky could go. Her appearance even without hormones, was no longer ‘normal‘ for a man. Her hair was too long, her eyebrows plucked and her ears pierced. We made an excuse of work or ill health or something and we went without her. I remember one of the guests asking me where that handsome husband of mine was. I lied like a professional and thought, ‘where indeed’.

It was strange being at the party, not only without Vicky, but without anyone knowing that I was no longer the wife of Anthony. I had conversations about married life, plans for improving kitchens and possible holiday destinations. The life I was talking about no longer existed. It was all a lie and I was worryingly good at it. While I was at the party, Vicky was posting the letter through our neighbours’ doors. I had asked her not to send it out tonight, but I knew she was going to anyway. She would face their immediate reactions alone. It was the fourth of July and Vicky was celebrating her independence. This is the letter.

Hello,

Please excuse the form of this letter. I am writing to all my friends and neighbours and it is not practical to write to each of you individually. I thought it would be easier to write you a letter as I have something to share. As you read on I am sure it will make more sense and you will agree its easier than if I had just come and knocked on you door to tell you.

I understand this may come as a surprise but I have recently been diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria. Essentially this means that though I appear male I am in fact female. I think it is fairer explaining these things to you in advance so that you understand that this is a medical condition and in no way poses a threat to you or your family. I have always valued the community that we have in our street and everyone’s friendship. Your support and understanding would be even more welcome.

I hope you will continue reading and give me the chance to explain a little more fully.

I now understand this to be a medical condition that has been with me since childhood. It is not a psychiatric delusion and it is not going to go away - I have to address it.

Many people call it Gender Identity Dysphoria or GID. It is a condition recognised by the NHS as developed pre-natally and it means that I self identify as female and have done from a very early age, therefore I find living as a man intensely distressing. If you think of it as being a woman who’s constantly being ‘mistaken’ for a man because of a severe hormone imbalance then hopefully it makes more sense.

My physical body is male but my physical brain is female. The brain cannot be altered but the body can. I have now reached the stage where I need to notify you of my intention to align my gender and as part of that process I am beginning to present to the outside world as female and I will be changing my name legally to Victoria.

I haven’t begun any physical changes yet and I’m aware I don’t pass as female, so it will initially be counterintuitive for people to use female pronouns. However the NHS requires that I live in the female role before hormone therapy can begin and though this means initially I may appear like a man in female clothing as the hormones take their effect this will hopefully diminish.

One of the things I have learnt about myself is that whatever I look like on the outside, the inner me has always been the same person and will pretty much stay that way even after changing the outside appearance.

I understand that you may have questions, please feel free to ask Emma or myself and if not face-to-face then you can always email me or just drop a note through the door.

But please also understand that this is a very challenging time for us as a family and what would be appreciated more than anything is your support and compassion.

If you don’t feel able to give that, though we will be sad we will understand and hope that at least you can respect our rights and we will do our best to respect yours.

If you would like to research more about this yourself then may I suggest http://www.gires.org.uk

Thank you for taking the time to read this

By the time I got home everyone at our end of the street knew all about Vicky. Their reaction had been uniformly positive. One lovely person came rushing over to give Vicky a hug, others sent a card of congratulation. I was rather sorry to have missed it. No-one withdrew their friendship, no-one threw bricks. Vicky was very happy and I was very relieved. I hadn’t seen any of our neighbours yet and I did feel pretty uncomfortable that all my secret life was now out and available for discussion. People who wouldn’t dream of asking personal questions directly of Vicky had no such trouble with me and over the next few days I found myself with inquiries about how her genitalia would be altered and how our sex life would function. One well meaning friend speculated that we must now, surely, live ‘as sisters’. Another suggested that loss of a sex life was probably a small price to pay for a secure home. I didn’t contradict them, because really it wasn’t anyone’s business.

Quite a few married couples told us that our news had caused some very deep discussions between themselves about how they would deal with such a situation. The most usual conclusion was they just couldn’t imagine it but hoped they would be able to stay together. Some felt sure it was not something they could accept, but that I was very wonderful for trying. It was nice to hear that so many people thought staying together was a positive outcome, even if not all of them thought we’d succeed. In a way it made me feel more normal. We were a nice couple, and people still wanted to know us.

The experience is not the same for all transgendered people. Some of them do just cut all ties and move cities in order to start afresh with no one to explain to or wait for. It can be a lonely choice. Others try to bring friends and family along but are met with prejudice and rejection. They too can find themselves facing the hardest moments of their life alone. Some move on with never a backward glance and others are so traumatized they never look forward. Having said all that, many have found success happiness and love, and all as themselves. Not all of them feel the need to inform those around them of their medical history. Many tell no one, which is called being ‘in stealth’.

Many debates on transgender supports sites focus on the rights and wrongs of such a decision. Part of the argument says ‘Why should I tell anyone my private medical history, it’s no one’s business but my own’. Another part says, if the only transgendered people visible are those in the early stages of transition, who look like blokes in frocks, then that’s what we will be seen as. What hope have we of being understood by society. The last, most disturbing aspect of the argument points to the murder rates of transgendered people against the rest of the population. It’s not good. In 2010 over a thousand transgendered people across the world were murdered. If hate comes from fear, then it’s fear we have to tackle to help people see the most important word in the phrase ‘transgendered person’, is ‘person’.

Vicky had sent out her letter to many of her oldest friends. As Anthony she had been part of a very close group. They had done everything together since their teens. They went on ski trips, hung out in pubs, played computer games. Two of them had known Anthony since childhood and were as close as brothers. Their acceptance mattered very much to Vicky. It wasn’t to be an instant result. Initially the responses ranged from disbelief to actual anger. One friend declared that Anthony was clearly mad and wanted nothing more to do with him. Vicky’s oldest and closest friend was clearly finding this news challenging. He had been best man at our wedding and was very clear that whatever his friend might feel, he was a he. Why had Anthony married me if he felt like this. This was a selfish and un-choosable choice. Get help and sort yourself out seemed to be the message. One email was so unkind that I felt the need to send my own reply. Particularly to challenge the idea that Vicky had made a selfish choice. There was no choice in being transgendered. What kind of insane masochist would choose to go through this?, I asked. We were doing this because we had to, this was the only way forward.

Despite occasional flare-ups, we were beginning to try to function like a regular family again. The normality was healing. To be able to think about something other than transition was bliss.

Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:05 pm

All the support and advice we have received has got us to this point. I can’t quite believe it. All our family and nearly all our friends now know about Vicky, and as I type this Vicky is in the kitchen, wearing a lovely silk Kaftan top with black linen trousers and the silver heart locket I bought her, cooking supper. Normal quiet evening. Our Ellie is on a sleepover, but if she had come home, none of this would have needed to change. As Vicky says, wow wow wow.

That mention of Vicky’s outfit makes me smile. Like many trans women who transition a little later in life, Vicky had missed out on living as a woman for her teens, her twenties and her thirties. Her dress sense, on the whole was pretty catastrophic. Denied the opportunity of three decades of practice, she had no idea how, or much desire, to dress appropriately for a 39 year old woman. Why, I used to ask, do they all want to wear mini-skirts?! What’s with the sparkly stockings and the tight revealing tops?? Do you see any other women in their late thirties wandering around in Barbie-pink leggings??? Poor love, She was trying to make up for lost time. Learning, but also experiencing each missed decade one after another. Eventually we got to stylish, but we had our share of moments when Vicky presented herself ready to go out and I just said ‘No’. It was like having another daughter to guide through the mysteries of womanhood.

Make-up was also a steep learning curve. This was more tricky, Vicky’s dark hispanic colouring was so different from my own pale northern european face. I didn’t really know what was going to work. Also, I did not have stubble to contend with. Vicky had bought make-up to cover the worst of it, but it needed to be applied with a trowel to have any effect, and we all know once trowels are involved, you’ve probably gone too far. Generally though, it was just a question of gently putting the brakes on. It wasn’t just which make-up she chose. It was the amount of time she required to put it on. I remember being a teenager and spending entire evenings applying make-up, tirelessly retouching and perfecting every aspect until it was time for bed and I had to take it all off again. I understand that’s what was going on with Vicky, but after nigh on forty years of applying make-up I had got it down to 30 seconds. Having to wait an additional hour and a half for Vicky to do essentially the same thing, drove me nuts, and when she did finally come down I usually ended up saying, ‘your eyes look really lovely but you’re not going out in that skirt!’. That may sound very controlling on my part, but I was trying to get us stared at less and Vicky’s style decisions could be quite attention grabbing.

A month after Ellie’s birthday I decided that she and I should go away on holiday together, without Vicky. We all needed some time to process life and to take the pressure off. I wanted to do something fun with Ellie, so in a moment of madness we booked a package holiday to Benalmadena, on the spanish Costa del Sol. I am more of a self catering, tromping across the moors kind of gal and Benalmadena was a bit of a culture shock. Sun sea and el Mini Disco. We both giggled our way through restaurants determined to serve us egg and chips and family entertainments that we watched with increasing bemusement.

There was one surreal evening when two tour guides tried to get the children dancing to a selection of 80’s pop whilst dressed as a nun and a gangster. The gangster had a plastic machine gun which he held against the nun’s head as he pretended to riddle her with a stream of bullets. What fun. Everyone else laughed and cheered. Maybe this was the annual holiday of the humanist society. We were speechless.

We spent our days on the beach reading and searching for the mythic spanish seafood restaurant. On the third day we found it. Not a Sunday lunch on offer and a menu with food from the sea, cooked by spanish people using spanish recipes. It was just like Putney. In the evenings we hid in our room, terrified the tour guides would make us join in with one of their merry entertainments. We watched some very bizarre american television. The working life of a beach policeman in Florida is a subject about which we are both now surprisingly well informed.

We didn’t talk about Vicky until the very end of the holiday. Ellie was so protective of me, but it felt like everything was upside down. I was meant to be looking after her, guiding her through this emotional maze, and all I could do was keep apologizing to her and saying helplessly, ‘I just don’t know what to do’. She would comfort me and tell me it was fine, she was not going to be scarred for life and if Vicky could just lay off the heavy handed parenting, that would be fine too. On the last night the movie on offer was ‘Kinky Boots’, the true story of a Midlands shoe manufacturer who saved his business by catering to the niche market of Transvestites and drag-queens. Ellie and I watched it knowing we knew more about this subject than we had expected, but we still cheered at the end when the shoe manufacturer realized drag queens are people too.

We went home. Vicky met us at the airport and we both hugged her. Life went on. It was the middle of July and my mother was celebrating her 83rd birthday. I knew that my younger sister who lived in Canterbury had been kept up to date with all our dramas by my mother so I was hopeful when I phoned her. Her initial reaction had been, ‘that’s fine, no worries, I suspected something was up’. She had asked if she and her partner could join us for a pub lunch to celebrate our mum’s 83rd birthday. I mentioned, just to be clear, that Vicky was now living in the female role full time and so it would be Vicky and me who would be turning up to the pub. No more ‘Anthony’.

That, it seemed , changed things, though she didn’t tell me that at the time. I found out when I asked my mother what time they would be arriving at which point she had to say ‘they’re not coming’. My sister didn’t feel she could ‘cope’ so to speak. I think the truth was she was worried she would laugh to see her brother in law in a dress and lipstick. I can understand that reaction, it’s a very basic human instinct to express discomfort at anything different by laughing. It’s a fear response, the same as chimpanzees pulling back there lips to show they’re anxious. I get it. I just hoped my sister would be able to get beyond that one day. I knew my mother was really hurt. I was really hurt. It made me uncomfortable when other people responded like that. It cut away my confidence that we would ever be able to live as just another couple. My sister did get her head around it in the end and we are still on her invitation list for her mad birthday teas, a combination of huge amounts of food and the most fiendish games of ‘Pass the Parcel’ known to man.

But despite the people who seemed to be backing away, there were two who took me by surprise with their open hearts. We went to have tea with the family of Vicky’s four year old Godchild. Even driving there I was anxious about how they would respond to meeting Vicky. She had changed a lot since they last saw her. Acceptance by email or phone may not be the same when confronted by the reality of your lately male friend still visible beneath the makeup. But I needn’t have worried, they were so lovely to us both, and encouraged the children to play with Vicky. By the end of the day, both children were asking if Aunty Vicky could stay and if not when was she coming back? It was wonderful for both of us to feel so accepted. They both expressed the belief that Vicky made much more sense than Anthony. This made all the bits that didn’t fit fall into place. When people treated us like this I was able to relax. Who Vicky was, who we were, was acceptable, unusual but not wrong, just different.

They also raised a very difficult subject for us. Church. Vicky had been raised Catholic and I, though raised atheist, had been Christian since my teens and Catholic since my twenties. My children had made their holy communion in my local church, I had sung in the choir and been a regular face at mass. The Catholic church does not acknowledge the existence of transgendered people. They are, according to the church, sinful in their desire to mess with their God-given gender. According to the present Pope, there are only two genders and God doesn’t make mistakes. A transgendered person would be treated sympathetically within a parish, but on the firm understanding they were, as one rather intense young priest told us, an abomination unto the lord. Oh dear.

If neither of us had any faith this would be of little importance. Walk away and never look back. We thought about brazening it out and taking our place in the parish, but the question was then, why were we supporting an institution that denied our existence. I know several gay and transgendered people who do manage to square the circle, saying that it’s our church, we just disagree with that particular teaching. It’s wrong, simple as that. I didn’t feel comfortable with that. I don’t have any doubt God loves Vicky, he made her after all, she is not an abomination unto the Lord or anyone else. Attending mass seemed to me to sign up to all the Catholic church’s teaching, and I just couldn’t. Its standpoint also allowed others to justify their own bigotry by pointing to Her teaching. It was a lasting sadness that I feel cut off from the Catholic church because it didn’t keep up to date with medical knowledge. Or maybe I’ve misunderstood. Anyway, God is Love - extrapolate. We did eventually find a welcome in our local Anglican church which is determinedly inclusive and the richer for it.

Vicky’s relationship with her step-daughter continued to be a source of tension and unhappiness. Vicky so needed everything to be resolved. She obsessively analyzed every interaction, every conversation, such as they were, and found them wanting. By now, she felt, Ellie should have got over any surprise or shock, have understood Vicky’s truth, repaired any temporary damage to their relationship and moved on. Poor Ellie was still very unsure of who this person was. Were they the same underneath or had something deeper changed. She still felt quite angry and let down. Vicky was utterly unable to see any of that as reasonable or even to be expected. It made her very unhappy and angry. I could understand the difficulties Vicky was having, and why she was having them, but I could also see Ellie was doing her best, and to expect more was unrealistic and unkind. I was in the middle trying to keep a fragile peace intact, between a rock and a hard place. I vented my growing frustration online.

Thurs Jul 30, 2009 12:01 pm

The Rock being Vicky and the hard place being my Ellie and me being the idiot in the middle. Arggghhhh. I just can’t seem to get Vicky to stop feeling let down by Ellie’s failure to engage in discussion. She’s 16 for goodness sake - she struggles to talk about any feelings, why should this be any different???? She’s been away for the last week with her aunty in France and she’s away for another week but after that we are all going to have to live in the same space without biting each other’s heads off.

I just don’t seem able to get through to Vicky that by insisting on her ‘rights’ as parent she risks loosing everything with her step-daughter. Vicky says I don’t need to be in the middle here, but honestly where else can I be? I’m not going to tell Ellie to stop being difficult about this because it upsets Vicky.. I’m not going to tell Vicky to stop her journey because Ellie finds it challenging! All I can do is ask both of them to think about how the other must be feeling.

So here I sit, stuck in the middle wanting the happiness of both of them and if it’s not too much to ask... Me

How had I ended up here again? Focusing all my energy on trying to ensure other people’s happiness and forgetting about my own. Ah, self-pity is a wonderful thing. You can be miserable and enjoy yourself at the same time. What an idiot. The trouble was I really did want them both to be happy, and I believed if I could achieve that, then I would be happy. Things started getting very shouty again. Conversations quickly lost their balance and they were always, always about Ellie. Our relationship, Vicky’s and mine, seemed to have got lost in this overwhelming need to have Ellie’s full acceptance. I felt so disappointed, because I had really believed we were through the worst and things were going to go in a nice straight line getting better and better. As I said, what an idiot. I tried to make sense of it all and look to myself for some of the problem.

I certainly wasn’t ever willing to let Vicky and Ellie sort it out without me. I always needed to intervene and protect. The arguments between them triggered such a feeling of fear in me. I didn’t want my child to be shouted at, but it was more than that. I felt a horrible sense of having been here before. Memories of my childhood all being dragged out of the depths to cause trouble in my consciousness. It felt destabilizing to have these painful thoughts interfere with the process of each day. I wanted, I needed to be the reasonable one in the middle, understanding both points of view and gently guiding. Instead I was bringing my own selection of unexamined anxieties to the mix. Honestly, if you’d had us all holding lit fireworks it couldn’t have been more explosive. Something had to give.

One evening after yet another day of hurt and anger we had yet another very intense conversation - we both lost it - but something really important and to me deeply unexpected came out of it. I had not realized how real to me was my fear of the children being hurt. Vicky had been trying to go step by step with Ellie yet I kept telling her she was doing it all wrong, and I couldn’t come up with any example.why was I so afraid - and I mean so stomach churningly all out panic afraid?

I had loaded not only my fear about how the children would cope with Vicky’s transition, but the fear from every previous situation, right back to the lack of protection I felt in the face of my father’s mental illness and his violence towards me and my siblings. Even my ‘failure’ to protect my son from autism ( I know that one wasn’t my fault but when did that ever stop a mother feeling guilty?). I needed to start responding to what was happening right now, rather than everything that had ever happened. It was way too much baggage to bring to such a difficult situation.

Transition is not just the experience of the transgendered person. It is the whole family, coming to terms with their own new position not only with each other, but in society. Mother not of a son, but a daughter, no longer a wife but partner to a woman, step-daughter to a woman not a man. I had my own transition to make.

The issue of Vicky’s title within the family was surprisingly tricky. She very much wanted to be recognised as a step-mother. I wasn’t having that. Ellie had a mother, she had no need of a second one. Vicky was going to have to accept being referred to as step-parent, and not because I thought so. This was Ellie’s decision. It wasn’t about what Vicky wanted or needed and it wasn’t about me either.

In retrospect it’s amazing that I still thought it was Vicky and Vicky alone who needed counselling. We had so many complicated areas to deal with. So many assumptions to reshape, as individuals and as a family. Really I had just as much need to start talking and unravelling as she did, but at this stage I was too busy seeing Vicky as the problem to be solved and the rest of us as the ‘normal’ people around her. It’s quite a common solution within a family, I am told, to designate one person as the problem, allowing the rest of the family to dump all bad stuff at their door. Common but wrong. As Vicky became more and more distressed over her situation, the possibility of resolving it within the normal structure of a family became smaller and smaller. And now the time had come to tell my son.

It was the beginning of August, the day after my birthday and I went to visit him on my own. This time even Vicky could see that was the best idea. There was no way of telling how he would react and I had long experience of how to talk to my lad. He listened very intently as I explained the medical realities, the practical difficulties and what I was planning to do about them. Then I told him it was absolutely his choice how much or how little contact he wanted to have with Vicky or with me. He said, ‘The only perfect person died on a cross two thousand years ago. We’re all monsters, just trying to find the beauty within the beast’. It was the most poetic and beautiful response I had had. I felt so proud of him. He was understanding this a hundred times better than me and so quickly. It seemed the dream response and I congratulated myself I must have handled the whole thing very well. Also, I must have raised him very well to instill such an open heart despite all his problems. I congratulated myself quite a lot.

My boy is complicated. Second-guess him at your peril. He has always been a very thoughtful person, but sometimes things take a bit of time to process, and the first reaction may not be the lasting one. I was so delighted by his response that I forgot it might not last. A few days later I asked him if he’d thought anymore about Vicky’s news. He said he didn’t want to talk about ‘that person’. In fact, he didn’t want to have anything to with her. He understood perfectly well that she was a transgendered woman, but he felt lied to and tricked into accepting a step-father who didn’t exist. There was no discussion to be had, that’s how he felt. A few days after that he called home for a chat. He wanted me of course, but Vicky happened to pick up the phone. He politely asked to talk to me and that was that. Then a few days after that, he called again. He needed to know something about guitars. Something I certainly didn’t know about, so grudgingly he agreed to talk to Vicky about it. Within seconds he was chatting away, all reserve forgotten. He said he would call her Vic, because it was more androgynous, and if she came to visit, it should be in trousers. Vicky was happy to accept such small compromises to have this level of normality with him.

That was the reaction that stuck. He said it wasn’t so hard for him because he didn’t live with us, but he was happy to walk around his home town with us, go into restaurants and cinemas and never expressed any embarrassment. Caused a bit though. A few weeks later we were all walking through a trendy part of town, known for it’s diverse population and cool shops. There was a poster advertising a ‘Women only sex shop’. ‘There you are,’ he said loudly, ‘You can both go there, it’s for lesbians’.