Chapter 8: Miracles/progress

I’ve been trying to catch up with each chapter to get to where we are now. (In correct order of the journey)

I still have more to write, but I have to pause and be current, in the now!

I just wrote about pronouns yesterday. A few weeks ago hubby and I got into an argument about pronouns and he just wasn’t seeing the “big deal” or even the “big picture”. It got very heated and I knew I had to give it time before things got worse. He basically said that he wouldn’t use male pronouns or stop calling Mel, Melanie (full “female” name” until it was “official”. (Mel being trans)

That’s all Mel has asked of us, to just call her Mel, not Melanie. Mel has been pretty lax on pronouns, but would prefer they/them, he/him. They get that it will take time and that she/her is a 13 year habit.

I did tell him, just like he doesn’t like being called Dude, Mel doesn’t like being called Melanie.

Hubby has been supportive in other ways.

Over the weekend we went to a huge family party where an uncle was commenting how much they like Mel’s short hair and how much it suits them. Hubby finally said something like, “Do you understand why it’s short?” Uncle said no and I’m not sure exactly what hubby said, other than something to the effect of Mel being trans. Awhile back, hubby said if anyone had an issue with it, they wouldn’t be in our lives until they were ok with it. Of course we hoped that no one would have an issue and we hoped we wouldn’t lose certain people that we were close to. Hubby worried about this uncle, because he really likes him. Well, he didn’t seem to have any issues with it! Phew! What a relief. I also told a niece who shrugged it off as no big deal.

Also, Mel’s older sister has been working on using male pronouns. She did it in front of grandma at the party. This grandma vaguely knows a little about what’s going on with Mel. Grandma picked up on it and asked sister how she felt about it, sister said she was fine with it, neutral. (I need to name Mel’s siblings for the blog. Lol)

I’m ready to tell the rest of the family and have typed up a letter with Mel’s stamp of approval.

So anyway, yesterday hubby was referring to Mel and said she and then he. Oh my gosh, I about fell over. It came out of nowhere. Then we had taken the kids out back to school shopping and he referred to Mel as her/him at least twice. I don’t know if he was correcting himself or trying it out or what, but it was beautiful progress! 😃❤️

Mel didn’t hear any of it, but I told them and they were very happy and shocked.

Now, I need to work on it…