Our introduction to the world couldn’t have gone smoother. Granted, I paved the way by leaning in on the skinny jeans and patent leather hot pink Dr. Martens, painted nails and a fuck the world if they don’t like it attitude. We call that me Aggressively Nonbinary Jason and still find the guise useful from time-to-time. Now that Jessie is on the scene, I can fall back into a more nonthreatening metrosexual mode where I’ve lived for decades. She’ll take on the more obviously “other” face of this Dynamic Duo, as Ollie calls us. I don’t envy her the role, but I’ve spent years prepping the stage with all the power and privilege at my command. I’m confident it will be more than enough for Jessica to thrive given the courage I’ve seen so far.
None of this would have been possible without our tight-knit community of family, friends, coworkers and found fam. We couldn’t have written this plot twist with all the words at our disposal, and y’all leaned into this new narrative like champions. As our story continues to unfold, we appreciate all the love and support that keeps coming our way. I’m especially grateful to all the new women in our life. Complete strangers who have become fast friends in very short order, each of you helping Jessie negotiate her new life without a single learned skill. This is all new for her and these girlfriends couldn’t have been more generous with both their praise and advice.
We’ve also been making new friends with genderfluid individuals across the spectrum. Many of them in our age range and fairly new to their transitions, which leads us to believe this is another inflection point for humanity as each of us finds a way to live authentically and without apology. Every time one of us achieves that level of honest understanding with ourselves and implements it into our lives, it creates ripple effects with unknown positive impacts to people we’ll likely never meet. There’s something profound in that for me, giving people who may be struggling a glimpse of a way forward by way of Jessie simply making her way in the world.
I met our first Two Spirit person at the Pride Festival last weekend. She is also a veteran and was very interested in the fact that our VFW post has had a booth at the event for six years running. Not only that but to find out how inclusive we are as an organization, quite different from many posts unfortunately, was a pleasant surprise. When I mentioned our conflict over feeling like a Two Spirit person ourselves yet not wanting to denigrate the native communities where the term originated, her response was beautiful. Being Two Spirit isn’t something you choose to be. It is simply who you are and that is independent of where the words were born.
It’s interesting to consider all the friends we haven’t met. So many stories to hear and lives to witness. So many lessons left to learn from so many new people. The possibilities are endless. We’ve learned so much in the few short months we’ve been on this journey. Answers to questions we didn’t know to ask. Revelations without pause. Evolutionary change at an exponential pace. It’s been equal parts exhilarating and exhausting. I assume this will mellow into a more sustainable flow at some point in the not too distant future, but for now we’re holding on tight and enjoying the ride. It will be an incredible novel when Jessie gets around to writing it.
In the meantime, we’ll continue to push boundaries safe in the knowledge that we have a committed group of people who have our back. People who see us in all our glorious mess and embrace us without pretense. We only wish other people in our situation could say the same, but far too many cannot. Given the number of people who still don’t accept our community, given the number of lives lost to hate each and every week, this will be the work of decades and won’t be finished until generations of regressive humans reach the promised land they would deny the rest of us. They’re welcome to it. We’ll be too busy building paradise right here on Earth,
