Life is Unfair - so what :)

This is a happy post. It holds a sting in the tail but that's okay because it is a sting I choose. If presented with several bad choices, you choose the least bad one and, in doing so, you still have a choice.

I have not posted for some time. I've been busy in love and working myself ragged to get extra funds. Mainly to visit my love in Sept/Oct but also to replace two computers that died in wondrous synchronicity. Without them I could not work - and work is funds hence the need.

I got there, computers are sorted and I have the funds for the travels. All good.

However, circumstance intervened on my loves end and now she will find staying there for too long quite difficult. Once here, expenses will be a lot lower due to us sharing them and all will be good again.

So we decided to bring forward the big move. We'd discussed it before and were planning to have her emigrate early to mid next year. Due to her changed situation - and the fact that we decided it was silly to wait more than necessary - we thought it'd be easier for her to come back with me after my visit.

So we've thoroughly investigated visa requirements and the process etc. Good grief - how naive I was. The process is very involved and lengthy and expensive. It seems, we need to start proceedings now, in order to be able to have her move toward the end of the year or the start of next.

We have to coordinate the movement of her cats and egads, the travel is expensive but the quarantine is way beyond that.

So now I have to settle in and work even harder to sort the dollars. The total will likely be between 5 and 10 grand. It's going to be a hard slog but we're determined to get there. Or, rather, we're determined to get her here. *bounces*

If we were a 'regular' gay couple - as in, I was post-transition, with my legal gender change, we'd have to apply for an interdependency visa. This would mean I'd have to travel to Hungary and live with her for a minimum of 12 months before we'd be eligible.

I can't do that at the moment, with transition ongoing (and I get public health care access here) and my work/clients all being here . I also have a lot more furniture and more cats, so, basically, it'd cost me a vast sum more to move to her.

We're both okay with this - and, because I am pre-transition, we have another option. It is called the "Prospective Marriage" Visa. Since I am still, legally, male - we have this option. There is, of course, a catch: It means we have to get married (which I have no issue with) but that means, once I have completed transitioning, I will be denied my "Gender Recognition" certificate. As far as the country is concerned, I will still be male - despite my anatomy and appearance. I'm willing to do this, however. To be with the love of my life ... there is no question.

Of course - the bureaucratic idiocy of it all is - if I was post-transition and got married where gay marriage was recognised, we could migrate and my gender would remain recognised as female. Why? Simply because Australia, while not allowing gay marriage within its borders, recognises it if another country/state does. So if a gay couple, for example, get married in Norway, it is recognised as marriage in Australia.

Circumstance does not allow us to wait the years for that possibility - so here we are.

For now, we will sort the immediate concerns - get her here and get married. Later, some years down the track after my transition, we might look at other options: such as getting an annulment, grabbing my gender recognition cert, travel to a state in the US of A where gay marriage is recognised, and then remarrying and getting a new visa. Then I'll, apparently, be allowed my gender recognition certificate and a married status all at once.

This is a ludicrous state of affairs. I have never felt more discriminated against in my life. I should not complain too much I suppose. A 'regular' gay couple can't marry in Oz at all. I can and that opens another visa option for me.

There is a saying I hold close - love it dearly - that goes "It's a good thing life is unfair, otherwise we'd deserve all the bad things that happen to us in life."

All up though, this is mostly a good thing. I just wish it didn't come with such a sacrifice, but then what would love be without, at least, a little.

I'm not sad. I'm angry at a system that is so messed up for all but straight people. I'm also terribly ashamed of my country. I've never felt that as strongly as I do right now.

We just have to figure out how to sort the funds in a smaller window than we expected. That, combined with how much more expensive it all is than anticipated, well ... just another challenge is all.

But, at the end of the day, they won't defeat us. We'll be married/together for the rest of our lives and that's the important bit.

Love wins today.
Kate Out.