Jason writes about the conference in his latest blog post; he attended IFGE 2008 with his amazing mother:
First, a rough address of the timeline: My mother and I, having signed up for only Thursday and Friday of the conference, left Sunday morning for a sort of pre-vacation vacation, as it were; and we arrived in Tucson on the eve of Wednesday. After some discussion, it was decided that registering would be more important than dinner at the particular moment the decision was made. There were as it turned out various slight complications regarding a number of things having to do with our registration; fortunately, no damage was done and the incidents were waved away with little consequence.
And so came Thursday morning with much excitement, anticipation and certainly some level of reserve. For me, having only been in the company of other trans people merely once or twice in my lifetime, I found it simultaneously comforting yet strange: I of course had known of the existence of other transfolk experiencing exactly the same as myself, but somehow the reality that a great many of them were in fact residing directly in my physical vicinity was slightly shocking: They really do exist!
On a particularly noteworthy note, Jamison Green gave an opening speech prior to the onset of the sessions. Having attended presentations of his twice before yet, having been unfunctionably shy prior to T, been unable to actually meet him personally, my mother dragged me determinedly to his side and introduced us. And so it came that I was finally able to shake his hand after having known of his existence for many years.
My mother, incidentally, I do believe will hold a lifelong reputation among the population gathered there as the holder of the honorary Amazing Mother award. “Jason,” I was to hear several times over the weekend as people’s eyes traveled to my nametag, “Oh, with the amazing mother from the other session!”
And that she is.
In the rest of the very well-written post, Jason shares some of the emotions that came up in a late-night, long-distance car ride — emotions that will be familiar to many of the transgender people reading this. Jason’s blog is very compelling and personal look into one young transman’s ongoing journey, and we thank him for opening his life to his blog’s readers.
