Opening up about our journey was inevitable. Writing is how we’ve always processed the heaviest and scariest thoughts and feelings. It allowed us to heal in places we didn’t even know were broken. It let us make sense of the insensible. Words offered us an infinite palette to describe things that might have never come to light. This has been true since Jason penned his first lyrics in 1987, hoping to become a world-famous singer/songwriter.
Poetry took a back seat to prose once he joined the Navy in 1991, but the ability to tell stories whatever the form has long been our main superpower. When He became a We a little over a year ago, that skill became vitally important to our shared sanity. It allowed him to quickly incorporate the reality of Jessica being on the scene. Once she found her voice, this site became a perfect catalyst for our evolution in real life. It gave form and function to our instinctive, headlong dash down this exciting new path. JEM’s Guide also provided an easy way for our friends, family and coworkers to better understand our transition.
What we didn’t consider was how these posts might help other people in our community who still struggle with processing and understanding their own stories. Not everyone is as lucky as we are to have an addiction to truth, however painful or profound it might be, and a compulsion to write it down with all the courage and candor we can muster. Veracity is key when it comes to using the spoken or written word to reach an audience. We are incapable of lying, to ourselves or others, though that wasn’t always the case. A plethora of blind spots, a massive ego and a hair-trigger temper defied Jason’s best intentions and his bleeding heart.
Honesty and vulnerability were always the first casualties when it truly mattered.
Our weaknesses have been mostly fixed over the last six years, but it would have been an impossible challenge without intense psychotherapy had we not enjoyed this ability to work shit out via writing. As this site heads toward its final conclusion, we are widening the focus to encompass all the beautiful humans we’ve come to know and love. Our community expanded exponentially once the true nature of our identity emerged last year. Turns out Jason was never just a cis straight male, though it always felt right to him, so we have an obligation to incorporate that unique perspective into our writing.
These revelations certainly explain the hell Jason went through growing up. Gives new meaning to 54-years of not fitting in, no matter how closely he reflected the rooms where he lived. Jessica being his missing half means his inability to meet women likely came from her passive presence. Jason loves women the way women love women. He never felt comfortable with the head games and half-truths required by his cis male training. The identity assigned at birth came with tools and techniques he was genetically incapable of using to full effect. Of course, being genderfluid brings its own difficulties in that regard.
Despite the lingering uncertainty, excitement remains at the center of our hopes for finding a partner to join this beautiful mess of a life we’re creating. We want a mulligan on marriage. Jason’s biggest regret was allowing his demons to destroy his family, although there was no way to avoid that end. No relationship can stand against the chaos and frustration that are the primary byproducts of not knowing yourself. Living a lie cripples most humans, even if they are ignorant of the facts. It causes a fundamental fissure in the center of their soul. An echo of confusion and pain that can only be silenced by the truth.
When we were shown our truth by way of our child discovering his first, our community welcomed us with open hearts and plenty of hugs. We fit in without pretense or prevarication. As we head into our second official Pride Month, the emotional atmosphere couldn’t be more different than the first. The anger and fear are palpable. Transgender and nonbinary people are under attack in ways that seemed unimaginable last year. We assumed the new regime would be bad but couldn’t have imagined it would become an existential threat in such a short period of time. That being said, our community has never been stronger.
With a lifetime of straight white male privilege as the default setting, we committed to using our inherited power in the service of equity and equality. Being visible and vulnerable in all of our varied spaces has turned into an act of defiance in the face of tyranny and violence. Our ability to chronicle the fight and communicate it to our community’s would-be allies became a sacred obligation to ensure that silence isn’t turned into acceptance. Living life out, loud and in living color provides a brave example of authenticity for a cis world living desperately in shadows. Don’t let the bots, the haters or the mad legislators own the stage.
Our community is fresh, funny and easier on the eyes.
