As I drove her home at deliberate snail speed, we managed to exchange some personal history of coming out and how our families and religious beliefs were affected. Then when we got home, I just felt that evening would just begin a new episode of change, so I was prompted to plant a kiss on her lips, not before asking her for permission. Something like, “Would you mind but I need to give you this?” Lame but effective because she relented. Well at least there wasn’t a slap across the face in the darkest fears of first-kiss rejections!

Later that week I picked her up and we sorted out many things, which basically was my falling in love with her but my struggles because it was happening too soon after my break up and how that may be messing with my intentions as well as my circumstances as a yet divorced mother of two which may bring her little time and attention. So we thrashed out a few issues about past relationships (too much information shared too early I believe) and by dawn we had literally brought each other up to speed about our lives in a nutshell. So she gave me a back-rub seeing how drained I was by then and the sensation was magical to say the least. I felt like I was home in the arms of my intended. So naturally I leaned back on her thighs and felt the warm intoxicating rush to my head as I could, for the first time smell her realness. Instinctively I turned around and said, “I would really like to kiss you” and I did. And she kissed back with such passion I could only dream about. I thought I was going to black-out from that wonderful sensation where your heart, mind and soul come together for a moment only miracles are made of.

clubbing a lot together

After 10 months since that day which she aptly said was a start of “a new chapter in our lives” things changed, and indeed, for me, being with her felt like a rebirth, to be who I’ve always wanted to be but was too afraid for too many reasons. With her, I could stop being afraid of the things I thought would deem me “insane” or “anti-social” — for wanting to dress like a male, for wanting to be treated like one in appearance, or even for wanting to alter my physique to seem less womanly. These were ‘conditions’ I had kept in the closet just behind the one of my sexual confusion. Being gay was just another layer above the one of being gender-confused. In fact that made the issue even more complicated for me. For her, she is gay but still very much a conventional female in appearance, mannerisms and attitude. For me, I not only felt empowered by my boyishness but also even felt inclined to identify as the male role in a gay relationship. This, in the fundaments of GLBT labeling, would make me a ‘butch-transvestite.’ I even endeavoured to explore this in a little coming-out event, a secret I kept from my family and closest friends.

–> –> physical morphs from ‘aunty’ to butchy to drag

All this she accepted wholeheartedly and even embraced whatever quirks which came with my new identity, be it ‘binding’ or cross-dressing. She would even chide me if I behaved in a womanly manner verbally or in my gestures. So the more time we spent together, the more I realized that with her, I was who I loved about myself but had been too afraid to admit. In that sense, she was my therapy towards self-awareness and acceptance. She celebrated my unconventional attitude about who I wanted to be. Most of all, she even accepted it that being a mother did not ‘immasculate’ me. That would in fact be the center of inner turmoil with regards to my gender/sexual confusion.

So besides having to grapple with my new self, I had to gradually prepare my then 3 and 5 year olds to not only see me as their mother per se, but to acknowledge that I was very different from their friends’ mothers. And they had so much to cope with in a year. Not only were their parents starting to live apart and see other people, having separate weekend outings sometimes with respective new partners, here was their mother evolving physically and mentally till even their graphic representation of her morphed from typical stick-figure mom with long hair and a skirt to one with spiky hair and pants. And my first-born would instinctively distinguish me from her dad in her drawings by adding earrings to my version (though ironically I had already started to wear fewer earrings because they made my appearance too conflicting).

kid’s impressions morph

Physical changes aside, my main concern was that they would feel like I was different towards them, that my nurturing ways may have also been compromised as a result of my ‘harder’ gender identity.

So to ensure that they still felt secure despite all the flux in my inner self, I consciously took time out with them, and ever so often holding them close, showing them a lot more physical affection than I used to. In fact, ever since I came out to myself in 2001, I felt like I had become less of a bigot and learned to accept the differences in others, including the fact that my children were individuals in their own right and had to be given due respect and consideration.

In time I felt that I could even draw closer to them because they had become two unique individuals I could even show my vulnerabilities to, share my fears of being a less than adequate mother to them, apologize deeply for the major upheavals in their lives because their parents couldn’t settle their own disputes and emotional baggage.

the ones I hold dearest