Member-only story
Shortly after I let the world into my gender closet, I had to hitch up my new big girl panties and get in the game. Under big time fire.
What happened was, just after I came out to my daughter just happened to closely coincide with my oldest grandson’s Jewish Bar-Mitzvah. Little did I know at the time how closely I would be involved.
What happened was, since I was one of the grandparents, I actually had a small part to read at the formal ceremony at their temple.
Fortunately, I had plenty of experience in public speaking from my old radio days so I wasn’t afraid of getting back up in front of a crowd of people. Plus, I thought, how many people would show up anyhow and this would be my first chance to interact with many strangers for the first time as a transgender woman. No pressure, right????
When the time quickly rolled around, I was surprised how many people showed up for the ceremony. The rows of pews quickly were filling up along with my anxiety. What would all the strangers think of me and especially, what would my grandson. Finally, it was my turn to speak my part of the ceremony and there was no turning back. Naturally I was petrified and tried to hold back my panic. To make a long story short, the presentation I gave went by in a split second and nobody in the audience seemed to pay any attention to me anyhow as far as my gender…
