I grew up in a big city. I lived in good and bad neighborhoods. I didn’t personally experience any discrimination even well into adulthood.
When you just hang around with a bunch of your male friends for years, you inevitably hear trash talking about a lot of different subjects. There were always side comments from certain males I knew. Comments about Blacks, Asians, Hispanics and Gays. There was a special disdain for Transgender people even though most of us had no idea what that meant.
Now, I don’t really know how to explain to anyone what it was like to live in an environment where this went on all the time, when you consider most of us didn’t even know anyone in several of these groups. Sure, I had some black and hispanic friends but I had no first hand meetings with anyone who was asian, gay or transgender. Most of these terrible comments I attribute to what they heard at home or grew up hearing between themselves. Every group had a stereotype that people would exploit for laughs, whether any of it was true or not. I would protest and refuse to take part in any of it, but in truth, I was the only one. To this day I cannot imagine why no one else had an opposing opinion. I do believe that people are easy to judge those who they think are different from themselves. An awful lot of people are small minded and can easily be manipulated into bigotry and discrimination.
So it was, that after meeting Annie and her telling me on our third meeting that she was born a boy, I didn’t know how to process that. We knew right away that there was something special between us and that first kiss was going to happen right then and there. She was pretty clear in her fear of that moment as she had never kissed a male. I said all the right things and I wanted that kiss more than she could have imagined. But, at the same time, my mind was reeling. I knew in my heart she is a woman but my mind began playing tricks on me.
Wasn’t she born a boy?
I had never kissed a male.
But SHE IS a woman.
But, she was born a boy.
But, look at her she is a woman!
She looked at me with these huge eyes for the first time and I knew this was the moment. I leaned in and we kissed. Before I knew it we were embraced and kissing with a passion I had never experienced.
My mind was wrong. She was 100% woman. She looked like a woman, smelled like a woman, tasted like a woman. Everything I ever heard about transgender women was wrong. Everything I had heard about asian women was wrong.
I knew right then and there that I loved her with my whole being. Nothing would ever be the same again as long as she was in my life. I had kissed many women in my life. Annie was the first woman I kissed who would change my life.
Surprises in The Road of Life 