I would like to think I’d be accepting and respectful, but it’s never actually happened with anyone I know before.
My husband has been a Doctor Who fan for years, and they’re a fairly sexually and genderly diverse bunch of folks. He was once talking about a female Dr Who fan who was originally male, and I recall at the time just saying, ‘Oh, really?’ and that was about it, really.
It’s unusual, and so it is interesting to me, but I’d like to think I’d be respectful in terms of not asking too many questions.
I’ve never to my knowledge met a transsexual, but of course I’d try to be respectful and accepting. I think I’d be really nervous about screwing up my pronouns or accidentally putting my foot in my mouth. (And I’d have to edit “hot tranny mess” out of my vocabulary, I suppose.)
As anything other than a significant other? Nope. It’s a hard road to walk, and you don’t get a whole lot of choice about having to walk it. It’s none of my business, and it wouldn’t bother me. I’d just continue to interact with the person in accordance to what they presented, and I’d leave it at that.
As a significant other? I could not deal. My ex-husband (MtF–I’m using husband for the sake of clarity, here) was transsexual. This was a definite factor in the divorce, though it wasn’t the fact that he was transsexual, per se. It was a combination of other factors. His interests changed such that he was only interested in things that I wasn’t. He had a desire to get into the poly scene, because that’s where the other MtFs he knew were. He started hormone therapy using illegally procured prescription pills without so much as a single therapy session or doctor’s visit–this was after asking for my input, and ignoring it. This all also came up suddenly–over the course of a year and change.
If I met the person after the transition, it wouldn’t be an issue. If I met the person before, and then they came to that conclusion? I would not be able to deal; it would bring up too much baggage, and feed into every abandonment issue I have. So, in that case, yes, I would care–even though the problem with my ex-husband was mostly with him being a fucking idiot, and kind of an asshole (he once told me, in the middle of a fight, that I should go kill myself, joining a friend who had within the past few months died by his own hand), it would just be too much to deal with. I would try to respectfully end any relationshp at that time, and would continue to be there for them as a friend if they wanted me to be.
My brother-in-law is now my sister-in-law. She told us 2.5 years ago–by then she had been letting her hair grow longer, also fingernails, and taking hormones. She has gone through the entire process, including “facial softening” and some hair implanting.
It’s really really hard to change the way you speak and write. Just now it is very awkward to say she instead of he.
My in-laws accepted it and moved on. My mother-in-law even changes the gender when she is talking about things that happened when they were all children. My opinion is that back then he was a boy. You can’t make what happened have a girl in it.
We had nothing in common before and we have nothing in common now. Because I’m 50 I’m way beyond dressing really really feminine. I’m into “comfortable that doesn’t make me look too bad.” She wears prissy clothes and lots of make-up. She has backed off a bit on the make-up.
She loves sports, I don’t. She’s a computer geek, I’m not. Etc.
Change is hard. She said that she used to cry herself to sleep every night and knew that she was going to become an alcoholic.
Was married, 2 kids, divorced years and years ago. Was with a woman for 10 years, they were engaged but never married, then broke up. A couple of years later the announcement came.
I do get squicked by transsexuals. I wish I didn’t. I feel very strongly they’re people more or less like everyone else and don’t deserve to be burdened with my issues. I have found I am having less trouble with this as time goes by, and certainly talking with transsexuals over the internet has raised my comfort level immensely.
I do find it easier to deal with people I meet after their transition rather than those I knew prior.
So… I care but I try hard not to care. Does that make sense?
Like a lot of people above have said, it would depend on how close I am to the person. If some customer at work said that, I’d be thinking: okay, fine, whatever. With a colleague, it would probably a similar reaction. But if it was someone like my sister or my fiance, it would take a little more time. Ultimately, I want them to be happy and live the life that’s best for them, but it would take some time to get my head around the whole situation.
I’m going through this right now. We have an old friend who married a woman that I’ve never really clicked with. They have two kids in elementary school. And she has decided that she needs to live life as a man.
And while I don’t have an issue with her personal choice, I do have an issue with what this is doing to her marriage (ending it) and - more importantly - her children.
I have come to realize that I believe this is one of those things that you need to suck up your own personal misery until your children are old enough to deal - or at least until your aren’t responsible for their well being any longer.
As a done deal, I don’t care. I’ve known a few transsexuals and while I don’t find myself “comfortable” with it yet, I recognize that that is my issue, not theirs. Its the discomfort of ideas that are still alien enough to me that I just haven’t established comfort. More exposure would fix that. As a decision being made, you need to weigh your own happiness against those whose happiness you are entrusted with. Ending the marriage - I’d feel the same way about it had he decided his true happiness was with someone else - that it sucks for my friend to throw the marriage away, but long term, its probably best not to be married to someone who doesn’t want to be married to you. The kids thing, I’m not going to get over someone deciding to switch genders when their kids have to deal with it.
(Forgive the gender slippage, it doesn’t seem appropriate to talk about his marriage. The marriage was hers - it ended when the pronoun switched)
I’d like to say it wouldn’t make any difference to me, but I have to admit that deep down I feel somewhat differently about Ts than GLBs. I’ve got no objection to anyone doing pretty much whatever they want with their own body, and I especially couldn’t care less if what they do makes them happier.
My impression is that the category or “transgendered” folk is somewhat broad, with people having a variety of causes for being transgendered. With this impression, I am hesitant to make a blanket statement as to how I would feel about each and every transsexual I might encounter. I hope I would just treat them as a human being, but I am aware enough of my shortcomings that I could not promise as much.
Have had several casual interactions with Ts, and no, it didn’t have any effect. The same way the sexuality or non-infective health history of people I interact with casually rarely comes up.
I’d be mightily surprised if any of my family members were transgendered, but that’s just because they’re my family. But I’d like to think I’d be generally supportive of any family, friends, work acquaintances, etc who have gone through or are going through the transition.
The only issue I have is that a fair percentage of M2F transexuals I’ve met or seen make rather ugly women, whereas most of the F2M ones are much less obvious in appearance. But that’s an aesthetic judgment, not a moral one.
I actually have a friend who is mid-transition now; it took me a while to get my pronouns straight, but aside from that, it’s not a big deal for me one way or the other. I know a few other people who are post-transition, and it’s more of an interesting aside, along the lines of ‘played football in high school’, ‘used to be a woman’, etc.
An ex-co-worker transitioned a couple of years ago. I knew him as a married man with 2 high school age kids. My SO and I enjoyed hanging with him and his wife at company functions. He and I chatted and ate lunches together. 7 years after I left the company and the state (I was now his customer, rather then his co-worker), he became a woman.
I’m happy for her. I wish her all the best. I still like her. But the accumulated memories are all of a man. I don’t have enough contact with her to overwrite them. So I alway have to do a mental check, to be sure I’m using the correct pronoun and name.
Based on my experience, I’m guessing that it would actually be a lot easier for me if it was either someone I was in contact with frequently (create the new memories) or who I met after the transition (never any old memories).
I’d care (in the sense that I care about what happens to my firends) but I wouldn’t mind. I might pester them with questions if they were a very good friend and I hadn’t seen it coming, but other than that, I’m OK with whatever people want to do to themselves. I anticipate a future where this would be a non-issue, where the meat is moldable like so much clay, anyway.
FYI, I was completely and totally stunned by the news when he told us he wanted to be a she. There were no signs, in my opinion.
We went to support group once (before she went for the big surgery). Afterwards we all went out to eat. I found it almost easier to accept the other people then my own relative. I think it’s just very hard when the person is a family member. It feels like, wait a minute, was our whole relationship non-existent? Who were you? Who are you? It’s just really hard to get used to the change.
We had lunch together recently and as we parted we hugged. I am not a hugger. But I guess when you become a woman you automatically become a hugger? I hugged back.
For others: do you ever get to the point that you really can forget it?
I’d think it was kind of creepy and weird, and none of my business.
If you are a casual acquaintance, I don’t even want to hear about your hernia surgery. If you are closer than that, well, it depends on how close, and how much you want me to hear about it. I would prefer it to be in the range of “not very much”.
Somebody I knew in high school allegedly went thru this (I was told at second hand, FWIW). We never met after high school, but he was a little light in the loafers then, so I didn’t have a chance to see how I would react to such a person live, when I knew that was what they were.
I wouldn’t be interested in a romantic relationship, and I wouldn’t care to beat her up. I also don’t particularly care to hear all about it.
I guess I would treat it like the news that some one is about to marry somebody I thought was a bad match. You say “Best wishes” and hope things work out.
My friends father made the transition in our freshman year of college. Surprisingly it has not been particularly difficult or challenging for me to get used to referring to her as “Sally’s mom”. Once I wrapped my head around what to call her when referring to past experiences and childhood memories, everything became second nature. It does help that she has been very open and honest about the process and the reasons behind it. Not that I am owed any type of explanation at all but it is still interesting.
My other experience with this was slightly different. My childhood friend’s older brother also transitioned at the beginning of college. Initially I thought it was kind of random but after talking to her and thinking about it I realized that when younger he was the stereotypical older brother. Like my big brothers he would beat us up when we get out of line but he also drove us places, gave us our first porn, taught us about girls (like Diogenes the Cynic’s bandmate, he was quite the womanizer back then), showed us how to beat Robo Dr. Robotnik, etc.
Seeing how much more at ease both of them are now makes it a sensible decision in my book.
Your experience is quite similar to mine, only it was a member of my husband’s family and I therefore had less of a history. The thing that was most difficult in the early stages (the family member had lived 40+ years as male, married with 2 sons, then started dieting, growing long hair, shaved off facial hair, went on hormones—eventually had electrolysis, multiple facial surgeries, and the final MtF surgery) was the pain and confusion it caused immediate family members. The older generation just did not understand, and this woman’s brother was enraged for many years. Now they all use the female name, including when talking about past events, which I agree is disorienting—when SHE was in Boy Scouts, etc.
Overall, I wold say that time has soothed a lot. I know her parents went to an excellent therapist who said he could help only if their goal was to grieve the loss of a son and accept the change, not if their goal was to get the individual to change his/her mind. There are some family members who still use the masculine name.
rivulus, I have had fashion and makeup talks with her. Not in the “Good God, what’s up with the hooker makeup” vein (as evidenced by a lot of the things that she was able to afford in her transition, she is fortunate enough to be a wealthy and stably employed transsexual. There can be a lot of mental health and addiction issues that are a result of feeling born into the wrong gender and I have known people who could not afford the changes that would allow them to feel more comfortable, such as electrolysis or surgery, by virtue of being on SSDI for mental health issues and/or un/underemployed. Anyhow, my point is that she can afford a better hair salon than I can.) But she actually loves talking about these things and doesn’t feel like I’m being intrusive—she said that she had to NOT talk about them for so many years that being able to just ask, “Have you tried the new Diorshow mascara?” or whatever is a relief.
Would you guys like an “Ask the transsexual” thread?
I’m a long-time lurker…I think I’ve only posted once before now, and that was a long time ago…but hey, if you want one, I’m game. I’m willing to talk about pretty much anything to do with it. I’m FtM, but I think I have a pretty good knowledge of transgender and genderqueer people in general.
So if anyone here wants it, I’m happy to oblige.
To answer the OP: I’d care, but only insomuch as it gave me added insight into my friend/acquaintance. I like to know things about people. As to whether I’d care, no, it’d be more of an “Oh, okay, hey, me too!” moment for me.
