Transitioning And "Crying Wolf"....

I haven't been here as often as I'd like lately for several reasons.  Among them would be that I've been busier with work lately - that's partially due to us getting ready to move the latest versions of our software out of beta and partially because of J's new schedule.  With her working nights I tend to do spend part of my evenings working to pass the time.

The other, and really bigger reason is that I've been trying to avoid Reddit somewhat, especially the Trans-related subreddits.  And I know it's not just me, I've observed plenty of fairly active and helpful people more or less disappear from there as well and a couple of those particular people that I am friends with have done so for the same reasons.  I'm not a huge fan of "over moderation", but it sure seems like some of those subreddits really are in dire need of more active moderators, but I digress.

That all being said, I do still visit there every so often, and I ran across a topic a few minutes ago that sort of struck a nerve and I thought I'd expound on it here.  Now as this was posted on the MtF subreddit I'm going to make the assumption that the OP was a Trans-woman and refer to her with the appropriate pronouns for the rest of this post; hopefully that's a fair assumption.  The gist of the post was a rant against Discover Card over getting her name changed with them.  She apparently was able to get her *full name* changed via a marriage license in lieu of a court order, which is something I'm not sure is normal in her state (Illinois) or if it slipped through the cracks; but regardless she did it.  Well Discover has apparently given her a bit of run around over them changing it as they require a court order for "legal name changes".

Now let me say a couple of things before I go on.  First off I have been through the process myself and they did require a copy of my court order (and my license for that matter); but truthfully the process was very easy.  I sent them a short note with copies of each and a week or two later I got a phone call saying it was done and asking if I did want new cards shipped out.  Frankly I thought that was a given, but I guess not everybody would and either way I appreciated the call.  Secondly, I have no love loss for Discover themselves.  When I went away to college (27 long years ago) my Mother had a Discover card and got me a "secondary" card in case there was an emergency.  I *never* used it, not once; nor did I ever sign anything, etc.  Well fast forward maybe 10 years and my first wife (M) and I are closing on our first house.  Now why this didn't come up earlier in the process I do not know, but my loan wasn't going to be approved because Discover had put a negative entry on my credit reports when my Mother filed bankruptcy a couple of years earlier.  My options at the time were to wire them the money (about $2k if I recall) so they would remove the entry (or whatever exactly it was that they did back then) or the loan would not have gone through - at least not with that lender.  Could I have fought it?  Definitely.  Would I have been successful?  Maybe, who knows.  But we would have very likely lost out on the house we wanted; so we did it.  Now over the years the grudge has faded enough that I do now have a Discover Card again (obviously since I said I've dealt with them over my name change); but I've never really forgiven them for that.  Although, it was in reality my Mother's doing I suppose.

So that being said, what sent me off?  The fact that this Trans-woman framed this as a "Trans issue" as well as a "discrimination issue"; and I firmly believe it is neither.  The rules are simply that a court order is required.  It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman, cis or trans, or anything else.  The requirement is easily accessible via their website and probably buried in the terms and conditions that have to be agreed to in order to use their card.  It's not like this is something that was made up on the fly, or is just applied to a random trans-woman.  I get that she's in a bit of a bind since her name was changed without a court order; and I understand she's upset over how they've supposedly dealt with her; but just because the rules in place don't work for her - well they don't make them a trans and/or discrimination issue.

So the fact that she was trying to frame this as such does really bother me; and from the comments I saw I obviously wasn't the only person who felt that way.  But it also made me think about how often I do see people try and frame things as either/both "trans issues" or "discrimination" when they really aren't; and the amount of disservice that this really does cause.  "Cry wolf" enough and people will quit listening and there are far too many legitimate cases of discrimination in general, much less discrimination against those of us who are part of the trans community to have these things marginalized by stuff like this.

I think as a whole, the trans community really needs to toss those phrases around a lot more carefully and perhaps before doing so, give the situation some objective thought before doing so.  And don't get me wrong, when there is a legitimate issue then by all means it should be brought forth.  I just don't feel this - or a lot of other things I see - are legitimate issues and I feel that's wrong.  Of course, as always that's simply my opinion.  But in this case, to me it's as simple as it's "Discover's ball" and if you don't like their rules, then go play somewhere else.  Now, I will say that I do think that the "right thing to do" would be for Discover to work with this woman; but regardless of if they chose to or not, I can't fault them for this policy.

- M

Happy Valentine's Day To My Sweetheart...

So why am I spending time writing here versus spending time with my sweetheart?  Well, as of last Sunday she's started an overnight rotation for the next six months and this is the first night of her first full rotation - she had two overnights, then her four nights off - which were great.  I'll get into her new schedule in a future post as there are plenty of pros/cons to it.  But since she's at work and I'm here I spent some time giving though to the last year together and how much she's meant to me.  She's always meant a lot to me, but each and every day she means more and this past year has been to me the best year we've had together, though I believe this coming year will be even better - as well each subsequent year.

But this past year will always be special to me, especially for the time we spent together exactly a year ago.  What was special about that?  Well, right about now exactly one year ago we were in a hotel in Novi, Michigan trying to sleep before my orchiectomy the next morning.  I won't go into the details since they are well documented in this post, but suffice it to say she was wonderful.  She took such great care of me, and it was truthfully the best few days I think we had ever had together.  The sacrifices she made for me for that trip/surgery, not to mention all of the other sacrifices she's made over the years - no matter how much I try and do for her I don't know that I can ever do as much for her as she has and continues to do for me.  Don't get me wrong, it's not like we "keep score" - in fact - we both probably wish the other never did anything nice for us - we both want to take care of each other.  But the fact that she does do those things - well it means the world to me.  

This year in comparison was a touch boring.  We went out to lunch on the 13th like we had last year, but instead of hitting a Valentine's Day special, we actually just had a quickie lunch at Longhorn since I was working.  We even dragged M along as we both feel a touch sorry for her at times as M2 doesn't really take her out much, and when he does it's always to places *he likes*.  M gets on my nerves (and J's) at times, but I do think we both agree that for the most part she means well and she gets the "short end of the stick" from M2 more than she should, but that's another story.  Since J needs to sleep during the day, I let her do that while I worked and then we went running to the grocery store late night to get some things for meals the next few days.  But despite the fact that it was "more boring" than last year and we weren't driving all over the country, it was a wonderful day and even into today.  J and I were able to nap together this afternoon, though I only sleep a couple hours at time for the most part so I was up early - but it is so nice to be able to curl up next to her and drift off into sleep.  We may not have gotten much done these last few days, but the time spent together was wonderful and it made me appreciate her all that more.

So sweetie, I know you read these entries, so let me once again tell you just how much I love you and how much you mean to me.  I've cherished the years we've had so far and I look excitedly forward to the years we have coming.  I love you. <3

- M