Transgender comedian and writer Jordan Gray explores what it means to be a woman
When my father first learned of my plans to transition, he said: “I will always support you. It’s just that… every parent imagines their child getting married and having children”.
Putting his outdated understanding of the world aside for one moment, I understood what he meant.
I told him: “Dad, let’s imagine for a second that instead of becoming a woman, I was marrying one instead. The advice would be the same: “Don’t think of it as losing a son, think of it as gaining a daughter. And, moving on, can I please have £2,000 for a dress I’m never going to wear again…?”
It’s now 2018 and, with that once-hypothetical lesbian wedding fast approaching, I am more determined than ever to explore what it really means to be a woman by “design”, marrying a woman by “default”. You’ve heard of “nouveau riche”? Think of me as “nouveau femme”!
It has its upsides. For example, we get to avoid that tired, old question that so many femme lesbian couples have to deal with: “So… which one of you is the man?” And though our closest friends would never dare question my gender, it’s amazing how so many of them have no qualms questioning my partner’s sexuality. Same difference! I’m a woman. Ipso facto, she’s a lesbian. It’s not rocket science. It’s biology, with a smidge of semantics.
Read the rest of Jordan’s column in the February issue of DIVA, available to buy in print or digitally here.
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