Post Transgender Day of Remembrance

This past Sunday, Nov 20th, was Transgender Day of Remembrance (T-DoR). My church (FYI, I am a Unitarian Universalist - Pagan) had an evening service and candle vigil for T-DoR, which I took part of in fact by reading off some of the names of those that we have lost in the past year across the world. It was a great service.

To show my support and raise awareness in my church I went to the service as my female side, Gwynn. This would be the first meeting of my church and Gwynn face to face. A selected few in the church knew about me being bigender until quite recently when I came out as part of a LGBT panel to educate the church's youth.

Gwynn

It was a great experience and very supportive in fact though it was not surprising as everyone at the service was there showing their support for the Transgender community, the bigger challenge would be a normal service that we have every Sunday.

Going Out/Coming Out in Oct!

Last weekend, two major things happen in my life about being bigender. First, and the bigger of the two, Gwynn went out in public! Now Gwynn has been out to private play parties, which are rather safe environments and only after John has become familiar with the host/origination of such parties. That was a big step, leaving the house as Gwynn to be seen my people though these people were known to be open and accepting. What I discuss now is a bigger step and far riskier.

I (Gwynn) went out to dinner at Carrabba's Italian Grill on Saturday, which also happen to be some school's dance as there were lot of younger couples in 'prom' dresses and tuxes. Thankfully it was drama free and uneventful, in fact it was a very fun time.

Now I look back at it, it was a rather stacked in my favor. It was a friend's birthday party so I was surrounded my friends and allies, it was the back half of October and a busy night. I thought I handled everything very well though my partner tells me I was white knuckled in the car before coming inside.

The other big deal is I 'came out' to my fellowship, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Peninsula (Unitarian Universalism), or more specifically the middle school children of our fellowship about being transgender/bigender. Let me explain some more.

My fellowship is currently doing the OWL (Our Whole Lives) program where my partner has been acting as a teacher and I have just been just helping out here and there. Well last week we had a LGBT panel so the students could meet LGBT and talk to them. About quarter way through the panel I ended up joining the panel adding myself to the Transgender section and introducing all of myself to the students and answering questions. To say the least, it was a very interesting weekend but over all I am very glad it happen and it was all positive.