Dancing around the elephant...

[Ceera]

I had a lovely post-holiday visit from my sister on Tuesday. Yet throughout the day, my sister deftly 'danced around the elephant in the room', talking about all sorts of things, while carefully avoiding her talking about my transgender situation. This is the same sister who got upset at finding my Ceera Facebook page, and subsequently outed me to most of our family (her husband, her 4 adult kids, and her kids' spouses). The kids and their spouses all accepted me, her husband hates me, and my sister is still coming to grips with my situation, and though she is supportive she is not ready to 'meet Ceera' yet. She clearly still loves me unconditionally, and she says she wants me to be happy. But she just isn't ready, yet, to embrace the idea that her big brother is becoming her big sister. She seriously is trying to learn about transgender stuff and to understand and accept the new me, but it will take time. This her first in-person visit with me since I told her I knew that the family now knows I am transgender.

She was with us for six hours, most of it in my home, which I share with my 22 year old daughter and with an MtF Trans woman (Rebeca) who rents a room from us. I was careful to be in male mode, being considerate of the fact that that she still isn't ready to meet me as Ceera yet. But my fingernails are always done in feminine style and polish, and I wear stud earrings in my pierced ears. She made no comments about my very feminine nails or my earrings.

Almost as soon as she arrived, she ended up meeting Rebeca, who had planned to already be out of the house by then, but was running late. My sister was quite cordial and accepting to her. My sister never misgendered Rebeca, nor did she question Rebeca's gender identity or even refer to her as transgender, despite the fact that Rebeca doesn't have the feminine voice or facial structure to pass very well as a cisgender woman. My sister did ask how I had met Rebeca, and I said it was through a local support group for transgender people, which I had joined. That still elicited no comments from her about my situation.

We had been unable to exchange Christmas gifts until her visit yesterday. I was told they were doing a very scaled back' Christmas this year, ansd so y daughter and I celebrated with other friends and family. But by now I had already seen Facebook photos of all my sister's other immediate family members who had been there the previous year (except my daughter and I), this year sharing a meal which included a whole roast pig, and exchanging Christmas gifts, and playing with her grandchildren (twins from her eldest daughter). Did not look like they scaled back at all, aside from excluding us. Being excluded had hurt me, but I said nothing about that, and I allowed her to talk about how their 'scaled back' holiday had gone.

But as she continued talking to us about her Christmas, it became clear that the reason I was excluded this time was much less because of anything directly about me, and much more to do with my brother in law's ill health. He has diabetes, he is grossly overweight, and he has been in the hospital twice in the last year for sepsis infections. All of this I already knew. But what I had not known was that both infections had almost killed him, and that the prognosis now is that he will never really recover from this last illness. The bit with the roast pig? Something he wanted to do 'just once in his life', and frankly, this might be the last year he would be capable of it. My sister said he damned near gave himself a stroke cooking it over a portable outdoor fire pit that he set up at the end of his daughter's carport, only partially protected from falling snow by a tarp over the end of the carport. They only stayed long enough to cook and eat the meal, and after dinner to open packages and briefly play with the grand kids and get pictures of that, and especially of him with is grandchildren, then my sister and her husband went home quite early. The stress of him also having to deal with me being there, given how much he hates me, seriously might have been too much for him, in his condition. Right now, my sister is uncertain how much longer he will live. So, I think I can forgive them for not inviting us to join them this time. This Christmas needed to center on my brother in law. It might be his last one.

While we were exchanging Christmas gifts, my sister also got a perfectly valid excuse to cut her visit short, had she wanted to do so. Her second oldest daughter had been taken to the emergency room after 12 hours of vomiting! But that daughter's husband was taking good care of my unfortunate niece, and so my sister remained with us, while keeping abreast of the situation via messages and phone calls.

We took my sister out to brunch at a local restaurant with my daughter and I. Had a lovely meal, and more general conversations.

Then we came home again, and continued catching up with each other. She made it clear that she wanted to come down and visit us more often, and we said she is certainly welcome. Then, just before she was going to leave, she use the bathroom in my master suite. That meant she had to walk past a door-mounted shoe rack with 30+ pairs of high heels and other women's shoes, two dressers with several purses scattered on top of them, an into the bathroom, where women's cosmetics and perfumes were on the counter and my rack of over 100 pairs of pierced earrings was on the wall. Lots of other feminine stuff in that area as well. And she said nothing about those feminine things.

It's okay. I can wait.

But if she waits too long to be ready to talk about my feminine side, she'll need to be seeking her big sister, and not her brother any more. Because I think my transition is going to continue now, whether she is ready for it or not.