Yeah, and since there’s so little chance I’ll ever be emotionally strong enough to deal with discussing trans issues and disclosing my history to strangers (or all but the most insanely trustworthy, close – and usually themselves trans-- friends) in real life, I feel kind of obligated to chime in with internet stuff as often as I feel I’m able.
I kind of lost touch with the SDMB a year or two before I started transition, but I came out ~6 years ago on several other forums I had been posting on since I was in my mid-teens and every time someone tells me they learned something it feels almost worth the stress and frustration of discussing trans issues with cis people.
I have a number of trans friends, across the gender spectrum. My most recent SO identifies as trans genderqueer. A significant number of my friends are outside the binary altogether including myself. I personally identify as gender liminal. Not trans, really, but not cis either. Somewhere on a threshold.
I’ve known two.
<note - genders below are based on time frame…I’m referring to MtF pre-op as he, and MtF post-op as she. I don’t know what ‘proper’ protocol is.>
One was a co-worker. My old company was bought, and our building was being shut down. Many of us were offered relocation packages.
One of the guys decided that was a good time to change…he started his transition locally, and moved to his new city as a female. We had more bathrooms than we needed in the building, so we designated one specifically for him during the process.
The other one I’ve only known post-op…she’s also MtF. She dated a friend of mine pre-op, and they are still friends. The only reason I know is my friend mentioned she new a transgendered person, and I told her the story of my co-worker…so she told me her story. One day, her friend showed up in town.
-D/a
For what it’s worth, I’m not a fan of that and can’t think of many other trans people I know who are, either. The thing about being trans is that, at least for a lot of us, your actual self-identity is being rejected by the world around you for a long time, and even if the person hadn’t transitioned yet they were still the same person (though transition can obviously alter your outlook on life pretty drastically). I spent my entire childhood desperately wishing I’d been born a girl and wanting to die every time someone referred to me as “he” or “him,” so hearing male pronouns to refer to myself back then would honestly feel almost as insulting and identity-denying as hearing them in reference to me now.
The only reason I bring this up is because I chickened out of a similar conversation when my first-ever best friend referred to Laura from Against Me! with male pronouns on Facebook, presumably since she hasn’t transitioned yet (?). He was so great when I came out to him that I just can’t bring myself to chime in.
Being fully honest, it raises the heck out of my hackles but I understand it’s not coming from a place of malice.
The proper protocol is to refer to people as the gender that they are, and use the associated pronouns. There is no before and after, really.
The concept of “pre-op” and “post-op” is really seriously significantly broken anyway. There isn’t A surgery. There might be several. There might be none at all, for a variety of reasons. Dividing people along some axis based on whether or not they had some medical procedure (which is none of anyone else’s business anyway) is utter fictional and offensive nonsense.
Perhaps I could say I know myself pretty well. I transitioned in 2007. My perspective on the phenomenon is that it’s a major pain in the ass. But anyway I took care of the problem, medically and everything. I’ve moved on; my present and my future are by virtue of that brighter than my past. I’m just a woman, and am well-established as such in the world.
At the time I transitioned, I took a course of voice feminization training at George Washington University’s Speech and Hearing Center. it worked so well that I can really only speak woman voice now. I read novels aloud to my GF, though I don’t do male voices well. When I try to render the voice of a male character, it sounds like Mulan trying to do a male voice. Uh, how 'bout a girl who’s got a brain? Who always speaks her mind?
Thanks, **Jbee **and tumbleddown. I apologize for my mistake - I meant no offense, but at least it brought out the discussion.
It’s really important to me to be respectful to people in general, and understanding other people’s mindset really helps. Ignorance fought.
I didn’t know either of the people I mentioned well enough to ask a question like that, which is why I put my mini-disclaimer. I appreciate the explanation. Like so many other things in life, in hindsight, it makes perfect sense.
I never see the co-worker any more, since I don’t work at the company and she lives in another state. The friend-of-friend shows up every now and then when she’s in town. If the conversation ever comes up, I know how to participate now.
In the ninth grade, I suffered a severe depression and was institutionalized for several months. There were teens with pretty much every mental illness you could name at the place. One girl actually seemed normal- the rest of us couldn’t decide what her diagnosis was or why she was here. Then, we found out she was officially a boy. The staff even had a meeting announcing that L was a boy. It was quickly obvious to most of us that L’s was here because her family believed she was ‘sick’ and could be ‘cured’. Years of this attitude and ‘treatment’ at the hands of therapists and psychiatrists who agreed with her parents had scarred her mind.
One night, on the front porch of the main dorm, L ended up crying my arms. She asked if I saw her as girl. I honestly said I did. I said I saw her as a very pretty girl. We made out.
Then, a month or so later I was sent home and lost touch with everybody from the Hedges campus of the Deveraux Foundation.
Cut to the age of the internet, and one day I got curious as to what L was up to. I was able to track her down. She was glad to hear from me. Once she was able to move out on her own, she started living as a woman and got on hormone therapy. She’s been living with her boyfriend for the past decade or so. Her parents continue to think she is sick and needs curing.
I’m surprised by how many people in this thread have been talking about FtMs, since they are relatively rare compared to MtFs. I’ve met many MtFs but never an FtM - there are tons of the former in L.A. (especially West Hollywood).
Yes, I know several people who transitioned MtF. As far as I know, I don’t know any FtM, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The ones I know about I only know because they’re open about it. I tend to be fairly clueless and take people at how they present.
Jennifer Finney Boylanis a professor at my undergrad. I took classes with her before she transitioned. I have not seen her since, though that’s only because I haven’t been back to campus in 15 years.
A couple of other people who I’ve lost touch with over the years as well - more because I moved so often for about a decade that by the time I started getting more settled, I’d lost touch with a lot of people.
And a two women who I regularly see at professional conferences. I know them to speak to, but I’d call them acquaintances rather than friends.
Ha! I’ve actually slow down a lot what I used to do activist/support/network wise, because I’m now in my 30’s and I can’t deal that nicely anymore with so many young teens/teens/young adults.
I’ve met a bunch, both MtF and FtM. I’m not aware of having any as close friends right now, but many of my close friends exist on the internet. They could be male, female, both, neither, or small wire-haired terriers, for all I know.
Some I’ve known in person have told me outright, some haven’t. If they don’t say anything I keep my hypotheses to myself. If someone is introduced to me as “Doris” and “she”, then I stick with that unless later asked to change. I’m the most anticlimactic person in the world to tell these things to, honestly. You say, “I have something important to tell you,” and my brain goes, okay! prepare to receive important information! Then you say, “I’m gay/transgender/transsexual/Bolshevik/Martian/whatever.” And my brain goes, okay! this is vital context I will need in order to properly understand the important information! … … … oh, wait…
The only time it’s ever been more than a thing I file away in the internal Rolodex with hometown and birthday and shoe size was the one time I met someone I was absolutely sure was biologically male and mentally/emotionally female, but either hadn’t realized yet or was deeply in denial. Apparently everyone else thought so, too. It was awkward on a par with when you meet one of those perfectly nice, pleasant people who are the last human beings on the face of the Earth to notice that they’re gay, only times about a million. I’ve lost touch with that one, but I hope things eventually turned out all right.
I don’t think they are rare–they just blend in better, and since the surgery is so drastic, more of them just try to live as women, or androgynously. We *pretty *much know what causes the condition, now–prenatal hormonal imbalance that knocks the hypothalamus out of whack–so it makes sense that just as many boys as girls are affected.
Actually, a relative . . . way back in the '50s. He was physically female; surgery back then was rare, crude, extremely expensive and very risky. But beginning as a teenager, he lived the rest of his life as a hetero man, partnered with a woman. Wish I had known him better.
My ex-spouse. Pronouns get tricky there, I guess; if I were to talk to her now (we don’t speak), that’s one thing, but during the marriage, before any kind of transition…I suppose that’s a bit trickier.
The marriage blew up for a lot of reasons. I married young and too quickly. The TG stuff was only tangentally part of it. In a nutshell, I guess you could say that I was cool with the pursuit of it, not not okay with the methods. Instead of going through therapy and getting a prescription, my ex-spouse decided to order hormone pills off the internet. From Vanatau.
I have a very hard time dealing with stupid. It’d’ve been one thing if there’d been a concerted, failed effort to get the medication before, but that wasn’t the case. No medical consultation, no therapy. It really was more, “Oh, I want to try this and I’m doing it!” The word “experiment” was used by my ex-spouse to describe it to me. This struck me as pretty fucking dumb.
That being said, there was a long laundry list of other things that were wrong with that relationship that had nothing to do with gender identification. It did make me a lot more aware of the shit TG people go through on a daily basis. Woe betide the person who learns about my experience and thinks that bigoted jokes or hateful speech are still okay. Sorry; that shit don’t fly.
I’ve known one, whom I’ll call Paul*. Through Paul, I got to know a few others, but I’ll concentrate on Paul in this post.
I first knew Paul when there seemed no question that Paul was a man. But then, one day, he surprised his buddies with the news. He was going to transition, and he was going to be known as Sandra. Some of those of us who were his pals took the news fairly well; sadly, his family and other friends did not. Paul went through a very painful divorce, and was essentially shunned by many other family and friends.
Those of us who stood by Paul–er, Sandra–during transition found that our buddy was still there. The looks changed; the essential person did not. Sandra remained a person with a great sense of humour, and educated insights on current events; and was always a good friend.
I lost touch with Sandra when she moved to another city. Some time after that, I moved too. It is unlikely that we will meet again, but I hope she is well and happy.
Oh yes, plenty. The youngest is 5 (male to female, just started kindergarten as a girl) - I worked for her parents for years, since she was a baby. She started expressing a desire to be a girl at age 3.
Two people I was friends/friendly with in high school transitioned within two years of graduating (one male to female, one - who I was fairly good friends with but am no longer in touch with - female to male). And I’ve met a couple people who have been fully transitioned for years. You wouldn’t guess when you met them.