Oh wow, it gets even "better" (yes, I know, it is "only fiction," but there are too many women in the real world who are just like this):>>Kimberly lay on her bed sobbing, her face buried in the pillow. Her mother sat down next to her, stroking her hair in consolation. "Honey," said Doris, "I'm sorry. I didn't think
That's obvious enough.
>>your father would react this way."
Actually, she knew he would be taken by surprise (see below). Maybe she should've married a military man, someone who has some training in how to respond to an ambush.
>>Still crying, Kim hugged her mother. "Oh, Mommy, he laughed at me. He thinks I'm some kind of a freak. Maybe I am. I'm just a disgusting freak!"
Yep, that's how children think. He's too young to know that his father might've responded differently, had things been presented to him in a different way.
>>Doris hugged Kim close to her, and then held her up to look at her. "Don't talk like that. You know your father loves you."
Yeah, don't talk like that! Mom is the only one in this household with the right to talk nonsense...
>>"He loves Trip!" she sobbed. "He thinks I'm a joke. He laughed at me! He hates me!"
>>"That's not true, Kim! This is just a surprise for him. He's never seen you before today, and I did warn you that he might react badly."
Now, that's really low, laying responsibility on her son for unreal expectations. He trusted her for guidance, and she, knowing that his father would be taken by surprise, set things up to maximize rather than mitigate the effect. Naturally, everyone else but her is responsible for the outcome.
>>"I know, Mommy," she said between sobs. "I thought that he might be angry, or that he might be confused. But I thought that once he got to know me, I mean, as Kim, that he would like me. Maybe I better go back to being Trip."
Again, too young to understand that his father's response was indeed born of confusion, and his best effort to make sense of his incomprehension.
>>Doris looked at Kim. "You don't mean that, do you? For the past three months this summer was all you would talk about. For the past year you pestered me to let you spend the summer as Kim. Do you really want to back out now?"
Lowdown, dirty, rotten... She might as well be saying "Well, you asked for it!" If you like this mother, I recommend to you the forced fem stories of Judi Emmerich (available on Fictionmania).
>>Kim hesitated. "I, I, I really want to be Kim this summer. But I really want Daddy to like me too. I wanted to spend some time with him. He's always at work and hardly knows me, and he doesn't know Kim at all. Why does he hate me, Mommy? Why does he hate Kim?"
>>"He doesn't hate you, sweetie. It's just that this was a surprise for him. I didn't think he'd act like such a big jerk either."
There's a whole lot o' brainwashin' goin' on!
>>Kim started to laugh. "Daddy's a big jerk!" she said.
>>"Now don't you talk that way about your father!
Yeah, that's right. Mom is the only one who gets to ridicule daddy. You still have to act like you respect him, even while we convince you that he is not worthy of respect, thusly:
>>He might have a few rough edges, but you should have seen him when we first met. He needed a woman to straighten him out!"
Oh yeah, you straightened him out, all right, just like you are "straightening out"...your "daughter"! (In her world, the child is not his father's son, being neither a son nor "her" father's.) Welcome to mom's pretzel factory. I am minded of Christopher Leeson's story, 'Prisoners of Tiresias,' where he describes the woman who marries a wallet, and decides afterward how best to "reform" the booby that comes attached to it.
>>Kim giggled at the thought of her mother correcting her father.
What a lovely way for mother and "daughter" to bond, laughing at the foolishness of those silly, ST00PID men. While the child in this story may turn out to be a biological transsexual with a female-organized brain or intersexed, I somehow doubt it from the story so far. I suspect that this mom is as much the source of her son's gender dysphoria as my mom is the source of mine (and my mom blames my father for it all, of course!).
>>"Do you think he won't be mad at me?"
>>"Let me talk to him, honey. I think I can smooth out any misunderstanding." She kissed Kim on the cheek.
I haven't read the rest of the story, so I don't know how this goes. Based on the foregoing, though, I have no doubt she will "smooth him out" by doing her level best to shame, badger, and humiliate him into line, especially since she has him isolated with the rest of the family arrayed against him. This is psychological warfare at its finest, and the source of a lot of the pain, confusion, and dysphoria in the TG community.
"I love you, Mommy," Kim said.
"And I love you too, Kim."
And there you have it: while dad only knows Trip as his son, and loves him as such, mom loves him as Kim. No wonder some of us feel split in half!
Tina is too able and aware an author to have put these elements in the story unconsciously. Her portrayal of a masculine father who worries over the direction that his long-haired, book-wormish son is going is too much a setup for the scene I've included in these comments. Tina is one of those unusual authors who actually has something to say, and succeeds in laying her points quite neatly between the lines of most of her stories. I wonder if she will restore some respect and balance in the family she describes, or if this apparently gentle and well-meaning father will continue to be held up as an object of scorn and ridicule. I don't know -- I've already read far too much of TG fiction that smacks my hot buttons hard, and causes my wounds to bleed more freely.
From part 1:>>"Mommy's inside, Daddy! She has a surprise for you!"
>>"A surprise? Now what would that be?"
>>Maggie smiled. "I'm not tellin'," she said. "You have to find out."
...
>>They walked into the common area that served as a living room and dining area. Three doors opened to this area from the side. The center door leading to Trip's room opened, and Trip entered. Only he wasn't exactly what Will was expecting.
>>Trip's shoulder-length hair had been styled into a flip. He was wearing a pink top with a denim skirt and a pair of sandals. Bumps resembling a teenage girl's budding breasts disrupted the otherwise flat front of his pink top. His toenails and fingernails were polished the same shade of pink, which matched his pink lip gloss. There was a hint of blush on his cheeks and a subtle line of turquoise on his eyelids. And he was wearing earrings!
>>As Will looked on, Trip spoke. "Hi, Daddy," he said, his nervousness betrayed by the quiver in his voice.
>>"So how do you like your other daughter, Kimberly?" Doris asked.
>>Neither Trip nor Doris expected Will's reaction. Stunned silence gave way to a smile, then a chuckle. And then, Will bent back his head and laughed. He laughed so hard his sides began to hurt. He laughed so hard his eyes watered. And as he wiped his eyes, he said, "That's rich, Trip. That's really rich. You had me going for a minute there. Now why don't you get out of all that and we can head down to the lake?"
>>If Will's reaction was unexpected, so was Trip's. Will saw a nervous smile give way to a shocked look of dismay as tears filled his son's eyes. "Oh, Daddy!" he sobbed as he ran back to the sanctuary of his room, shutting the door behind him.
>>Will looked over at Doris, who was scowling. "What was that all about?" he asked.
>>"You know, Will," she said, "sometimes you can be a real horse's ass!" She followed Trip into the center room, slamming the door.
>>He glanced around, finally seeing Maggie. "Kitten," he said, "I…"
>>Maggie didn't answer. She just went to her room, leaving Will all alone. Bewildered, he left by the front door and walked down to the lake.
My goodness, has Tina got that one surrounded! How accurate! How true to life, to the way people actually "think" and behave!
You'll notice that the father doesn't respond to his shock and surprise by exploding in anger and beating his son into a bloody pulp-- I'll say, his response was "unexpected"! At the same time, totally unprepared for what the rest of his family knew, he was presented with something incomprehensible to him, which he could not believe. Where else is someone to go with that, other than "You have got to be kidding!" The guy is not a psychologist, sociologist, or anthropologist, versed in the different ways of different people(s)-- he's a "man of steel," a third generation steel worker! Let me spell it out, large: THE WOMEN OF THE HOUSEHOLD SET THEIR SON UP FOR FAILURE, AND THEN BLAME THE CONSEQUENCES ON HIS FATHER.
I wish I could be a woman, so that I didn't have to be responsible for anything! How convenient it would be, always to have a big, ST00PID, gentle, docile man around, on which I could blame everything when my manipulations go south! How lovely to prance down office building halls with my nose in the air, feeling my graceful stiletto heels sinking into the plush carpet and the backs of the foolish men who built the place, secure in the knowledge of just how easy it is to make them suffer for the mortal sin of breathing while being male! I could do and have and enjoy nearly everything that men do and have and enjoy, while sneering at any man foolish enough to invade my feminine world. Silks, velvets, hose, and heels-- all of the fine, sensual things that aristocratic men and women shared a mere 300 years (or less) ago, would now be mine alone, and no sissy faggot male would dare to touch any of it! Oh, what a glorious time to be....female!