Another off the wall question from me.. (personal relationships, Part 2)

Wayne K said:

I'm writing a creative memoir about how three generations of my family see the things I've done in my life.
You guys were incredible when I asked the interracial question here. Thank you.
Now the next weird one: I dated a woman who was once known as Jose. He had the full sex change thing and was working behind the perfume counter at Macys. She was beautiful.
We went our separate ways when she siad to herself "Oops" and freaked out on me.
Anyway, how do you look at a relationship like that? How old are you(No cheating) and honesty may be brutal in your mind, but not for me. I want it.
Thanks.

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I don't understand what you mean by "we went our separate ways when she said to herself "Oops" and freaked out on me". That sentence completely threw me off and I have no idea what it means.

My take on personal relationships---find love where you find it. I don't quite get what you're asking because of the confoundedness of that one sentence in your post, but if you're asking what I think of a relationship that you had with a woman who was once a man...who cares? You find yourself attracted to another person and you have a relationship with that person. Period. What kind of acceptance are you looking for outside of that relationship? It happened. Maybe you can clear up that clunky sentence...I think you may have left something out.

Wayne K said:

Now that we've been beamed over.
The big Oops was that after she had the sex change she realized that she was a man, a very feminine man, but a man. She was surgically able to reverse the top, but what's gone is gone.
I've always liked androgeneous people male and female, but I need to know how younger and older people see a relationship like that. We were pretty sexually free in the 80s in Greenwich Village. AIDS changed that.
Generation gaps do exist, but I want to understand them before I write something the way I see it. I am open to the fact that my perception is wrong.

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I see you explained the oops. She realized that she would have been happier as a man, but it was too late. I still don't understand why this caused her to freak out on you, though.


I'm 42 and I say: It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. Love is between the two people sharing it.

Here’s a big bone for my critics to chew on.

Many who believe in what Gods says on the matter are afraid to speak out. In some areas of the world it is called prejudiced to speak against such an arrangement. Men don’t follow their own laws. Why should they be expected to follow Gods?
Would I be a friend with such a one? No. That would show acceptance on my part. Am I out of step? On this and may other things, I hope to be found so.
There used to be a saying …”If you flip, you flop.”

I just wanted to say something else. You should get out of the mindset that things like this are 'off-the-wall'. Acceptance of the norm is a two-way street. Your story is not really off-the-wall. It takes us all to make a whole. To say 'this is weird' or 'that is odd' or 'this is off the wall'---these condemnations work against the broadening of our acceptance of norm. We are all normal.

How do I look at a relationship like that? Both as a life anecdote and as literature I'd be interested and want to know all the details. But be brutally honest. If you're going to tone it down to please a conservative audience, why tell it at all?

Wayne K said:

after she had the sex change she realized that she was a man

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I have never before heard of this happening, and I have done a ton of research into gender reassignment counseling and surgery. Wow. He (because someone who is a man is a "he" regardless of their plumbing status) has had an extraordinary and possibly unique life journey.

So now my thought is "this is a fascinating story, but it's so unusual that if I were Wayne K.'s editor, I would encourage him to leave this out of his memoir unless this was a significant and/or long-term relationship, because its very uniqueness might draw too much attention from the other stories in the book."

IceCreamEmpress said:

I have never before heard of this happening, and I have done a ton of research into gender reassignment counseling and surgery. Wow. He (because someone who is a man is a "he" regardless of their plumbing status) has had an extraordinary and possibly unique life journey.

So now my thought is "this is a fascinating story, but it's so unusual that if I were Wayne K.'s editor, I would encourage him to leave this out of his memoir unless this was a significant and/or long-term relationship, because its very uniqueness might draw too much attention from the other stories in the book."

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I've heard of this before, hunted down a few links:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/jul/31/health.socialcare
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/aug/12/health.mentalhealth
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/30/1062194756832.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article532095.ece

As for personal opinion, i don't see anything 'wrong' with that kind of relationsip, i think it would make for interesting reading. That said, i doubt i would find myself in a relationship with someone who was transgendered. I'm in my twenties btw.

A Mix

You have engendered quite a mix of responses. If what you are looking for is socially liberal and conservative attitudes and opinions, I can answer for several people.

My daughter - she would have no problem with transgender; would probably make a friend of anyone who has an alternative lifestyle because she would find them interesting;

My husband - he would probably run and hide, maybe vomit; and

Myself - I would applaud someone following what he/she believes is the best path to follow through life. I couldn't imagine being trapped in a body that is different from my emotional and mental inclinations. Sadly, society is not supportive of that rocky path.

Someone who has crossed over has to be forthcoming about the change before the relationship becomes intimate. It seems to me that would be the difficult part.

Wayne K said:

You guys are great, thank you for all of your responses.
The creative part of this memoir will be the personality of one-maybe two-of my family members. I'm not fictionally creative really, so I write true stories. The responses here did give me a good ides which way to go, and it made me consider things I hadn't.
ETA: I want it known too that i consider strange interesting, not bad. I met someone who had a sex change to date a lesbian. That's strange to me, it makes me want to read on. It's like "Man bites dog" for people who like a weird love story.

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Yaay, Wayne. Someone who has crossed over to this level, presented as a female and emotionally felt she was one. You related to that. What a great experience is what I would say. It is about people and their hearts and minds, not bodies. Judgement is often through fear. True life writing is fascinating. Maybe you met to tell the story and broaden others perceptions. Cool stuff!