“Normal” is not a welcome word in transgender circles. We are, irrefutably, relatively rare in number, and our take on gender and sexuality is probably not shared by the vast majority of folks.

While “normal” can be a statistical term, it can also be a value judgment. The opposite of “normal” in that latter sense is something like “different.”

The jump from “different” to “sick because your different” is one that many people make without a moment’s thought.

But, it behooves us to insist that people ask themselves, “Why?”

Ok, I am different than most people. Why do you care? Why do you think it is wrong? Why do you think it is sick? Think about it. And then again answer the key question: why do you care?

I was once asked about how my girlfriend copes with the way I go back and forth between genders.

Unlike someone on the street arbitrarily passing judgment on all of us, she obviously has a personal stake in this – her attraction to me is a key ingredient in the vitality of our relationship; I am no stranger to whom she can simply relate on the basis of “live and let live.”

Really, the answer is simpler than you might expect.

After she got over the initial adjustment period – which incidentally required some effort and determination on her part to want to think about things rather than just react apoplectically – and came to terms with having to deal with the stress and risk of being turfed from our social circle if the news ever got out, she realized that she finds me attractive as a woman and attractive as a man.

Some of the conflicts that go on in the battle of the sexes go away when I am Janie. And, we can share certain experiences, feelings and insights that no “normal” couple can.

And then, when she wants the spice, the yin and yang, the sublime tension and passion of a male-female relationship, she can have that too.

Which I am, when, how much, etc., these are all part of the normal give and take of a relationship.