Tomorrow there is an election in NZ. I beg of you go out and VOTE. I don’t even care who you vote for just do it!

As for me I’m going to make history…

This is a speech I gave at the Legalise Love Rally on Thursday the 20th of October 2011

Like all little girls I spent a large amount of the years 6 through 12 drawing my perfect wedding dress and thinking about what my wedding was going to be like. Back then the groom to be was Jonathan Brandis, who I would even watch karate movies with Chuck Norris for. It was going to be perfect New Kids on the Block were going to play and my dress was going to be just like Princess Diana’s was. My tiara was going to be bigger and my hair and make-up was going to be just like Jem from Jem and the Holograms. My mum would cry at how her baby was all grown up and my dad would walk me down the aisle wearing a teal sequined tuxedo. We were going to dance all night and everyone was going to be invited except Joey Johnson who picked on me at school. The party was going to be at Chuck E Cheeses Pizza Parlour and Funland. It truly was going to be the wedding of the century.

As I aged I realized that finding someone you really connected with was the most important thing, and then marriage would be more about making things easier day to day. My preferences in the perfect partner seemed to constantly changing one day I was looking for my Ms. Right, the next Mr. Right. They needed to be tall, no short! Blonde, no ginger! Cute, yes very cute! As I matured even more they just needed to love me, all of me and everything about me. From my fashion obsession to my down right geeky love of science fiction and role playing games. Love my body and my spirit all that makes me the woman I am. That was always going to be that hard part.

When I transitioned I knew that I was making many sacrifices. I was choosing a life of internal honesty over a life of pretense with all the benefits. Instead of a life where I was more likely to have a good job, with a nice salary, a much easier chance to find a life partner, easier to adopt a child, or even immigrate to another country. Instead of this, I chose to be me. Most transwomen make the same choice, being themselves over an easier life. We choose to live our lives with a higher risk of cancer, poverty, and violence. We choose risk over certainty.

Those of us who are lucky enough to transition while we are still under 25 or even 30 are far more likely to find a partner than those who are over 30 at time of transition. The other lucky ones are those who happen to retain a partner from before their transistion. These are both minorities in the transwoman community. Things luckily are changing for everyone and for the better but not fast enough. I think in my own transition this was the hardest risk – to accept the possibility that I would be alone all my life. I still made the choice gladly because for me it was worth it. Transwomen choose a life where we are less likely to find love let alone someone who would marry us. That doesn’t mean that shouldn’t be an option though.

It takes a special person to love a transwoman, and an amazing person to openly love a transwoman. Your average person has a hard time with what caring for a transwoman marks them as, mostly a freak. Many people get further scared off when they enter the world of daily harassment and discrimination that is a transwoman’s life. All the things that society inflicts upon transwomen become the burden of a significant other of a transwoman. I have had more than a few partners who buckled under the pressure that can be massive at times. Women, men and gender neutral, all those who ventured to love me eventually found it all too devastating. So It was amazing and wonderful when just as I submitted to a life alone, I finally found my soul mate, my love, my best friend Ryan, who is just the most amazing person I have ever met. I still feel lucky that I have him.

What was not so amazing was having to have a civil union instead of a marriage. I have nothing against civil unions or those who choose to have them. It was just not what we wanted. As Christians we believed it was our right as man and woman to have a marriage. Also on a practical level marriage came with more benefits for me as an American. In order to take my husband’s surname legally with a civil union I have to change my name by deed poll through the American court system. Is this a special right? Or something that every legally bound couple deserves? This is all we want, equality.

A civil union is not the same as a marriage, it is its awkward and annoying cousin. It promises everything that a marriage offers and falls drastically short. And its failings not only affect the couple but the entire family that may blossom from the beautiful union of two people. The negative effects are just yet to be discovered as more and more people in civil unions begin to start families. As someone who is planning and hoping for children I will want the best for my children and for their future. I have to be convinced that the limitations of a civil union is the best. I’m not saying civil unions are evil and bad, but they don’t fit everyone, and EVERYONE deserves the right to choose marriage or civil union. I’m not asking for any special rights or privileges just those that every other man and woman who want to take their relationship further legal step. Maybe in other circumstances a civil union would be what Ryan and I would have chosen, maybe were we not Christians, or fans of marriage, or wanting a family.

I just wish we had been given the choice of having a civil union or a marriage.