It's not going anywhere.

A few weeks ago I read She's Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan. It's an incredible memoir about a transsexual man embracing his female-ness and making the transition to womanhood. It was a riveting story and I devoured it in two days. However, the night I finished it, I could not sleep. I lay in bed tossing and turning, surprised by how angry I felt at the author. I am all about people having a choice about what they do to their bodies and I fully support transsexuals who want to change their outer gender to match how they feel on the inside. But this woman had a wife and two sons and while I wanted to be supportive and understanding, as a married woman myself, I couldn't help but feel like she cheated them out of a husband and father.

Finally, after an hour or so of heavy sighs and twisting myself in and out of the sheets, Michael's tired voice came out of the dark.

"What's going on, baby?"

"Ugh! That book! I'm so mad! I just... I feel like her wife got such a raw deal. I just don't think I could stay married to you if you came up to me one day and said, 'Hey, I know I've never mentioned it before, but I'm really a woman on the inside so I'm going to have my penis removed and made into a vagina.' I would be heart broken! I just don't think that our marriage vows included 'through sickness and selective gender transition'. Am I a horrible person??"

By this time Michael was sitting up in bed and he took my face in his hands and stared into my eyes very seriously and said:

"Pumpkin, I would have both of my legs, both of my arms, both of my ears and one of my eyeballs removed before I would cut off my penis. You have nothing to worry about."