Wedding Cake

[stacis-leak.livejournal.com]

Becca and I attended a wedding this weekend. Big family do, very religious, lots of waffle.

I sort of mumbled my way through the ceremony and Becca whispered "I'm going to have a rant after this if over." to me about half way through.

I thought she was going to rant at me for being so half hearted but it turned out she wanted to rant at the wedding itself, how boring and drawn out and full of religious rubbish it was.

I knew I picked a good one :)

Anyway, this isn't about that. This is about this:

"Are the two of you getting married?"

That's how Rebecca's mother phrased it. Now there lies a tricky question.

I started thinking about these new Civil Partnerships they've been giving to gay couples. Strictly speaking I don't think there's anything to stop us getting one while I'm still legally male and then keeping it after I get my GRC and ultimately birth certificate changed.

More to the point is who would come to our 'wedding'.

Considering that no one in Rebecca's family actually knows what's going on yet, I'm not particularly convinced that they'd want to come. I'd like to present the event as a union of two women (Again, unsure if I'd have to present as my legal gender or not for official purposes. Is there a resource for all this?) and I have no idea if anyone (or everyone) in her family or mine would boycott such an event on principal.

Which opens problem 3.

Mass outing.

Less wedding related I need a way to inform large groups of people of my transiton without having to do the nervous twitchy "We need to talk" hour long uncomfortable chat for each and every one.

I'm thinking of setting up a website with some (but not all) of the information I first posted on my blog to explain the basics of the process, what I expect from them and what they can expect from me, and then printing the URL onto business cards to give to people, which say something like, "You will not be seeing *oldname* again. To find out more, visit here:"

(Sorry about the *oldname* bit, I know you all kinow my old name but I'm trying to phase out usage of it in as many places as possible)

But of course that'd be useless to a large chunk of our families because they'd don't even have computers, never mind understanding how to use the information hyper bicycle lane.

Possibly printing out loads of letters to send to everyone would work but oddly it seems less personal than something I've given them by hand, and more direct than something available on a website.

Then again I suppose it's less direct than giving it by hand and more personal than the web page so it depends how you slice it.

What would be super is if my parents weren't ashamed of me and would tell relatives for me, but I guess I have to work through these things myself.

But until we've sorted these details out all Becca and I have to squabble about is what 'our song' is and which one of us should spend more on a dress.

On a completely unrelated note I wonder could anyone tell me some legal details about transition in the workplace in the UK.

Do I need to be registered to a GIC and on official therapy before I can present female at work and be legally protected against discrimination?
I mean can they fire me for breaking the company dress code by crossdressing if I can't legally prove I'm dysphoric? I've been pondering that for a while now.


I think I'll crosspost this one to transgender too, and tguk!