When I first met the man I would eventually marry, I knew about his gender history up front. He told me his story. I told him mine. We listened and learned from one another, taking in the intimate details of each other's life and savoring those early days in our relationship where so much is still a mystery.

As we got to know one another, we delighted in the discovery of mutual interests while tentatively exploring new or unfamiliar territory together. As our relationship deepened, we became more than just two people sharing stories, at once familiar yet distinct.

Inevitably "his" story and "my" story converged, with the separate threads of our lives overlapping, at times intersecting and then diverging, to form the intricate tapestry that has become "our" story.

Entering into a committed intimate relationship with someone else can make you pretty vulnerable. I've bestowed precious trust on him as he has with me, along with a promise to be worthy of this gift. Together we face the world, stronger than we could be as individuals, but each knowing things that no other person knows about the other.

By nature, I am a very open person, willing to talk your leg off given the chance, whereas my husband is a very private person. Nevertheless, we agree that his stories are his to tell, as mine are mine alone. We do not share those stories without being sure it is okay with the other person first. The distinction between what is and isn’t fair game to disclose is sometimes pretty difficult to figure out. I often find myself trying to strike that delicate balance between which parts of our story are okay to share and which parts of "our" story would reveal too much of "his" story.

To help keep that line in focus, we spend a lot of time "checking-in" with one another to gauge where we're at, where each of our comfort zones are, because they have been known to change over time. So, without further ado, let me tell you a bit of his, mine, and our story.

In general, I've been more out about my sexual orientation and activism than my husband. Unlike some transguys, he did not make a pit stop in the lesbian community before transitioning, so queer community was not a familiar space for him. On the other hand, I had worked as a community organizer and activist in both the queer and, to a lesser degree, transgendered community for several years prior to meeting him.

While some transfolks are out to everyone: family, friends, co-workers, strangers on the street, either of necessity because they cannot pass or by choice because they do not wish to pass, my husband is not among these guys. He is selective about who needs to know his gender history. Partially this is due to his naturally private inclination, but when pressed, he admits that personal safety also plays a part.

His tendency to be "stealth" does not usually make much difference, but it has caused some difficult situations for me. I particularly felt the need to share this part of our lives with my own immediate family. Before meeting my husband, I had come out to my parents about my own sexuality after finally deciding that trying to keep secret such a major portion of my life was just too damaging to my relationship with them.

When faced with the possibility of marrying a transguy and keeping his secret from my family for the rest of our lives, I was seriously torn. I wanted to respect his wishes, but I also wanted to be honest with my family. I had lived through years of lying by omission and it was terribly corrosive to our family ties. When I came out and they were receptive, I had promised myself then to trust them to be able to handle anything I might have to throw at them in the future.

Even though this was technically his story to tell, I knew that keeping this from my parents would only get harder and harder. How would we answer when asked seemingly innocuous questions about our "vacation" to DC in February for the True Spirit Conference? What if he ended up having additional surgery? Where we just going to completely fabricate a story to explain his recovery time? What would we tell our children if and when we decided to have them?

The notion of being completely stealth with my immediate family really concerned me. So we talked about it and decided together that it was okay to talk to them about his transsexuality. I'm so glad that he was receptive to the idea, because his worst fears of rejection did not materialize. My parents now know. My sister and brother-in-law also know. They are very accepting and have never treated him any differently since finding out about his past. It has been very affirming and empowering to receive this sort of love and acceptance.

Part of my own story involves being a committed activist in the gender community. I have conducted workshops and sat on panels. I have served as programming director for an LGBT community center and write for various trans+/SOFFA publications. I also moderate a list for a local support group. I am a web developer by trade and have also put this skill to good use in the non-profit/volunteer sector. Being this active is pretty difficult to do and remain completely anonymous. So my name, and by extension his name, tends to get out there and associated with trans issues.

This past summer, I was approached by a national organization that works for transgender equality and asked to run for a seat on their board of directors. I was reluctant at first, partially because of the extra time commitment, but also because I was not sure how my husband would take the idea of his wife being on the board. Would he see it as tantamount to outing him?

Again, we talked about it. We considered how it might impact him and our family. We considered the time commitment and how that might strain our relationship as well as the possibility of major press coverage that might accompany events or activities I might be involved with in such a role. Would his job be in jeopardy if my association with the organization were discovered? Could we handle an interruption in his employment if that came to pass?

It was precisely because his employment might be in jeopardy that we decided it was worth the risk. The hard work of establishing basic civil rights for trans people needs to be done, and I am competent and able to do it. I offered to use my old name, but he said it was okay to use our married name. I ended up running for the board seat and was elected to a two-year term. Within three weeks of the election, our last name was indexed in the major search engines with that organization's website being pulled up as the number one hit. All this nascent Java programmer could say was, "Hello World!"

My husband continues to be very supportive of me and is understanding in the extreme of the considerable time commitment my activism involves. In fact, he often "subsidizes" my own activities by doing extra chores around the house, thus freeing up more of my time to work on special projects. While I'm spending hours on the latest release of a website, updating a database, conferring with other activists on a marathon phone call or IRC meeting, writing newsletter articles or press releases... he can often be found doing laundry, vacuuming, mowing the lawn, cleaning the kitty litter, or more directly helping by proofreading articles or troubleshooting database glitches--he's a geek too--all without complaint.

Knowing that he too is contributing in an equally compelling though perhaps less visible way to the movement, we sometimes joke that behind every great woman there is a great (trans)man!