Summary and links

Well. Now you all know why I said in the introduction that my Unwrapping the Onion series was intense to write and publish! I had no idea how it would be received, but the response has been amazing.

Some of you have come over from where this story was summarized and linked at Jezebel, and many of you have left sweet encouraging comments. Thank you. In fact, I’ve been pleasantly surprised that the comment section has been so great, ever since I wrote the post on comments to announce that I would begin to censor anything that lacked respect, I have only had to delete two comments, out of several hundred that were left! This is some of the most positive reactions to our story we’ve had to date, we are grateful for your encouragement and the chance to hear your stories.

Emails and comments keep trickling in, telling of each writers experience with someone they love who happens to be transgender. Their father, their brother, their boyfriend, their sister, their spouse, and in some cases them self. Every story is different, and yet every story told lets all of us know we are NOT alone! I have also received very moving emails from religious readers who still do not affirm LGBTQ, but stuck with me through the whole series and relate that this is not as simple to handle or easy to dismiss as they may have thought. Thank you for sharing your stories with me, I’ve read every comment, and if I had time to reply to each comment I would. I do plan on responding to each email, thank you for your patience.

To answer a couple of the questions posed in the comments, yes we are aware that many Christian groups are LGBTQ affirming, and we have looked into which churches are in our area. And to the people who have left comments concerned about “selfishness”, don’t worry. No one is being forced to do anything for anyone else, I am not making my Hunnie become a woman because I happen to have same-sex attraction, and my Hunnie is not forcing me to remain married to her. We have discussed everything at length and continue to do so. This journey has not been out of obligation, we are just grateful that somehow we are still compatible and able to be together.

I also wanted to thank my good friend Libby Anne. She works as an editor and she generously offered to edit the Unwrapping the Onion series after I wrote it, and she did a great job spotting the mistakes I missed and helping to split the story into nine parts. I’m so grateful for her help and her friendship. She has also been there for phone calls and email vents as the drama of coming out has unfolded. Libby Anne is posting the first chapter in her “Raised Quiverfull” project today, and it is going to be very interesting. You should go check it out!