April 28, 2004

I started out trying to be cute and funny, but this time I'm trying to address a serious issue.
My partner seems to be at all times either traveling or planning her next trip. So far in the past four months she has been to California and back, to Brasil and now is planning a trip to Stockholm.
In the case of California I went with her to visit her sister. I guess will call her Commodore Burburry.
In the case of Brasil I actually got as far as the travel agency and even had a tentative flight booking. Then, a combination of one of the girls in tranyhouse getting out of the slammer and moving back in and some other stuff provided some good reasons for me to be here to deal with this place. The clincher was Captain Jacket's insistance that my being along with my wife would 'ruin his vacation' and I ulitmately said "sod it" and decided it was best all the way around if just she went.
Today we're talking about going to Sweden, and this has forced me to confront a real problem head on. I am terrified of flying. I'm not afraid of anything at all once I'm actually on the airplane, it's all of this new security shit that scares the hell out of me. You see, the last time we flew to New Orleans I was picked out of the line. I had taken off my shoes, my earrings, my watch and every possible piece of metal.
An african american woman in fatigues searched my purse and looked at my passport and then six very large soldiers thouroughly and quite roughly searched me very intensely with metal detactors. Finally one of them waved a wand over my chest and it beeped and he said "what's this" and I told him it was my underwire.
"You're what?"
"Underwire..you know, my bra"
"Bra? You're a woman?"
"Well yeah, that's why my passport says 'female'

Then all hell broke loose as the employees of the airline itself started to panic for fear that I'd sue or something because the men had searched me. They wanted me to stay and discuss the matter, but my partner and I decided that it was best to get on our plane which had already started it's engines and just go.

This is part of life as a transsexual. The entire experience was very, very frightening and very, very humiliating. There were moments there when I had NO idea what they were looking for, who they thought I was or with all of this scary Patriot act stuff, etc. what they might do to me in some kind of case of mistaken identity or God alone knows what. I don't even know what to say about it except that this was a MAJOR trauma for me and I really, really don't want to go through it again or even to try to get on an airplane without a DAMN good reason. Today my partner and I were discussing whether I need to get a new passport with a more recent photo, etc. and to see if there's some kind of counseling available. I know from the research I have done already that although the actual trans thing is of course pretty rare, there are MILLIONS of Americans who are afraid to fly or who have quit flying NOT out of fear of hijackers and terrorists or shit but because they feel terrorised by all of this so-called security shit and how the whole experience of getting on a plane these days feels like being a prisoner of war as one person described it.

Naturally unless or until I get past this hurdle, which is NO SMALL THING at this point in terms of my extreme reluctance to travel by plane again the fact that my partner seems to have a need to be either working until after midnight at the university until she gets a few days off and then she feels that any time off not spent travelling internationally is wasted--is of course going to be a tremendous problem.

The additional complications I'm TOLD is that Commissioner Coat and Sgt. Sweater seem to interpret my
heartfelt desire that my partner and I have some time alone together BEFORE it's down to yet another protracted situation due to travel as some dictatorial attempt to CONTROL my partner rather than simply feeling a very real and legitimate need to put time in finding a way to overcome a very real and serious problem.

This comes in addition that in marked contrast to all of the other boyfriends and short term partners that the rest of Commissioner Coat's "Menagerie of Haberdashery" seem to find my presence at any 'family' get-together such as dinner in a local diner, etc. as an unwarrented intrusion on the sanctity of their family privacy or something in spite of the fact that London Fog and I have proven to be the LONGEST LASTING AND MOST STABLE RELATIONSHIP THAT HAS SO FAR BEEN SEEN IN THE WHOLE FAMILY. This is something that is really eating me alive as I look to whether this is because of some irredeemable character flaw on my part (possible but frankly doubtful) of because of an inability to see a long term committed relationship between a same sex couple where both partners are transsexual as being a legitimate committed relationship no diffference in kind than a committed heterosexual relationship or even a marriage, which for any practical purpose of which I can think it is.

But, that is an issue that will be a major part of this for a very long time to come.

Commissioner Straight Jacket.



- posted by Chelsea @ 10:49 AM

 
I am the TransLesbian partner of the parent of Commissioner Coat and her siblings who will be henceforth known as Captain Jacket and Sgt. Sweater. I live with Commissioner Coat's parent henceforth to be known as London Fog at Transy House--an experiment in communal living for the trans community that in practice is like a cross between Kids in the Hall and Priscilla Queen of the Desert with a little of Vincent Price's
House on Haunted Hill thrown in. I am also a professional piano player so feel free to contact me for gigs--jazz all styles: New Orleans Traditional, swing, bop, r&b, Soul.

Commissioner Straight Jacket
- posted by Chelsea @ 8:42 AM