Jello is officially two thirds of the way through his initial training. He heads out for his final two weeks in about 10 days, and it is making me super anxious.

Don’t get me wrong, he is a smart guy. He has been in dangerous situations before and I have no doubt he could take care of himself. However, he is heading down into the heart of conservative hell.

It probably wouldn’t be so bad, but I have been down there for training and I saw first hand the homophobic, racist and undoubtably transphobic horror that is Georgia. I realize there are good people there, but coming from the Pacific Northwest, it is a literal hell hole of bible thumping people who feel they are persecuted even though they are the majority and who hate anything that isn’t white and christian.

Jello is a small guy. When we got married 23 years ago he appeared as a small woman and I was always physically protective over him. Then again I am physically protective over all my friends, and even random strangers I see in trouble.

I didn’t realize until we had married the danger women were in. After we married and with the help of him and my female friends I saw how women would walk on the other side of the road from people. How they would always park near lights. How they would always check in with people on their way after the advent of cell phones. I never understood when I was a teen why women walking alone would walk across the street to avoid me, now I do and I feel like an ass that I wasn’t more aware.

I assumed I wouldn’t feel as protective with his transition. He doesn’t appear as a tiny slip of a girl anymore and honestly with his tattoos and normal dress he isn’t at all an “easy mark” to most people. However we now have the other problem, homophobia and transphobia.

It wasn’t until his transition and our marriage evolving into a same-sex marriage did I realize the violence against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and especially transgender people. Once we grew into our current life I started reading and now evidently my anxiety over his safety has morphed into his safety as a small gay man (transman at that, making the worry even more heightened).

Let’s now put this into context that he is traveling to a very religious, very conservative state that doesn’t recognize same sex marriage rights (well that is changing, but very slowly). He is alone, and to be perfectly honest most of our coworkers would run at the first sight of problems and not try to help if he got attacked.

I have a lot to post about this subject, but I wanted to start here explaining in broad strokes my anxiety over his travel (and partially explains why I haven’t posted, wasn’t sure how to even talk about this). I am sure you will be tired about me ranting on this when the series is over. 🙂