As of November 16, I’m a grandma! Not a “Trans” Ma. I will probably simply become “Grandma Gen.” My grandson will probably never concern himself with it because his parents (my son and daughter-in-law) don’t. Hopefully, my current guy will become a grandpa and we will have three grandpas and three grandmas. If my grandson wants to explore his family tree later he may find out exactly how that occurred.
It’s a huge gift and one that might not have happened. There were a million ways this experience might have been lost to me. A million future experiences I never considered before transitioning. The pain of those lost experiences very possibly unbearable. I usually don’t think of these life markers until I arrive at them. That’s when I think to myself, “Wow, I am incredibly lucky!” I know these are things many of my sisters will not be allowed to share with their families. That knowledge or awareness is not lost on me. I often tear up when I think of this precarious fortune. You could balance it neatly on the tip of a pin. Tipped in any direction and it would have slipped from me and my life as it has for so many other Trans women. I see and feel the pin’s sharp and pointed tip. But it missed skewering me and my little grandson.
I share these experiences as they come so anyone contemplating this path may know what lies ahead. It's good to consider your way carefully through the transition forest if possible. Making it through the dark wood to the other side is not always guaranteed to Little Red Riding Hood or Grandma.
