Summer Visitation 2010

In a few days I will be driving with my partner from Virginia to Albuquerque, NM to pick up my kids (ages 7 & 9) for summer visitation. They live there with their mother most of the year, and the summer visitation is the longest; virtually the whole summer, with a week or so buffer at the end and subsequent beginning of the school year.

This summer will be different than summers past. This will be the first summer I will have my kids and be living full time as female. My kids were first introduced to 'Jessie' at the end of last summer. I transitioned gradually through that summer of 2009 in my manner of dress in order to break it slowly; giving the kids time to adjust. The scant week of Christmas visitation was entirely as Jessie, but such a short time.

This summer almost did not happen. My ex is a fundamentalist Christian, and vehemently opposes my transition. She took me to court, in Virginia, with a motion to amend visitation. She demanded supervised visitation only, in New Mexico, and asked the court to order me to come to visitation dressed as male. Fortunately, she failed in her endeavor. Even a notoriously conservative judge in southwest Virginia stated that he believed some of us are just born in the wrong body.

Our situation is very complicated. My oldest daughter actually 'came out' to me as transgendered before I came out to her. She was barely eight years old at the time. Most of the year her gender identity is repressed in an environment of religious dogma and indoctrination. When she is with me, she can be who she wants to be. That usually involves being very boyish. She has even asked to be called boy names, and she has gone through a few of those. The situation is further complicated by the fact that she has XO Turner Syndrome. My ex blamed it all on me in court (of course) and claimed our child is now living happily as a girl with no desire to be a boy. This time next week I will see for myself, as my child is afraid to tell me too much on the phone (we are constantly monitored by her mother). Perhaps it was just a 'phase', or perhaps it was repressed.

I am now well into transition. Over eighteen months on hormones and my face and body have feminized fantastically. Fortunately, I see my kids on webcam regularly so my appearance should not be a surprise. I will be a full-time 'mom' for two months for the first time this summer. I can hardly wait!