transition fear of rejection by family and friends what canyou do to help yourself

[david]

i started to trans later in life because i realised tht i was realy female inside an being in the forces at the time it was very hard but i came to realise that this was going to be the rest of my life for the future if i wanted to survive with any type of sanity left .It was the hardest thing i have ever done but i thought here goes if i was ostriced by by peers then do they understand or do they realy care anyway so i went ahead anyway and i found out that there is a lot of people who accept others for what they are that is if they are realyfriends.If you are contemplating trans then think carefully and be prepared for rejection but do it with thought. davinax

[Melody Moore]

Hi Davina,

Yes you are right about what you can do to face up to fear & rejection by friends. I find nowadays
bigotry is dying fast. Being confident & strong in your convictions to be a woman makes it harder
for other people to tear you down. If you don't give up & don't let others get to you, they give up
& end up respecting you. There are not many people that cannot deal with it I found out, some of
those are family but most of those that accepted it was my friends. I have had a good friend who
is also my landlord, 'testing' me to see how convicted I was in my decision. But he gave up after I
told him that it was a life long decision that I had made, it wasn't a decision that was made overnight.
So NOTHING would change my mind & want to go back to living as a male. He said that he respected
my honesty, courage, determination & strength & that I was a good person & that is all that mattered.

So I believe that one of the key tools that you can use to overcome fear of rejection by family & friends
is honesty. Honesty is important first of all to yourself & you have to be honest about the fact are you
happy living your life as it is, or would you be happier if you were a female? If other people are really
honest with themselves, they too wouldn't like other people telling them how they should live their lives.

So what right do they have to be telling other people how they should live their lives. You cannot survive
in this world by living your life for other people. Those that try to do it, usually end up with lots of issues
because they allow their emotions to be so easily controlled by others. Learning to be independent & less
dependent on others makes you a lot stronger & gives you so much more confidence. So if you are an adult
aged over 25 & still living at home with Mum & Dad, then its time you found your own place & learnt to let
go of your parents apron strings & stand on your own two feet. Ultra conservative Christian families are the
hardest of situation to deal with But if you become an independent, strong & confident person then you can
deal with the rejection of a bigoted family a lot easier by simply just walking away from them.

The most important thing to remember is that you must live your life for yourself & not for other people.
If you explain to your loved ones & friends how long you have struggled with this & how it's affected you
they often change their attitude very quickly. Those of us who are coming out later in life also have lots of
stories we can share about some of the crazy things we have done just trying to fit into society as males
who were also homophobic & transphobic while repressing our true gender identities. So I think it's important
to talk about transsexualism, it's causes & how it is treated to your family if they don't understand. Even the
most conservative attitudes can be turned around if those people are better educated on such topics. But
you can't change attitudes if they don't want to listen. So beyond that the issue is their problem & not yours.

I believe if family & friends are going to be intolerant then they are not even worth knowing. Walk away & never
look back. Go forward while staying true to yourself, you will find a better path & meet a lot more nicer people
along the way. Just leave all the bigoted & ignorant idiots behind.

[GypsyKaren]

I lost all of my prior friends except for two, and I survived. I lost quite a few of my trans friends when I had SRS (never could figure that one out), and I survived again. I am now stronger than I could ever dream of, because I gave myself my freedom to be who I really am. Losses are never pretty and they do happen, but it's your life for your risks and rewards, and no one else's.

Karen Starlene

[AnnaCalliope]

I lost all of my prior friends except for two, and I survived. I lost quite a few of my trans friends when I had SRS (never could figure that one out), and I survived again. I am now stronger than I could ever dream of, because I gave myself my freedom to be who I really am. Losses are never pretty and they do happen, but it's your life for your risks and rewards, and no one else's.

Karen Starlene

Trans-friends ostracized you post-GRS? Were they all pre-op? That's the only logic I could see possibly affecting your friendship, some level of jealousy, but still seems like a load of horsesqueeze. In my line of thought, if they can't accept you for who you are, then they were never really a friend in the first place.

[GypsyKaren]

They were all non-op or CD's, one CD'er actually got up and left a local get together when I told her I was a postie, telling our host that she had a problem with me because of that. It took her over two hours to get there and she left after 20 minutes. Like I said, I lost a lot of supposed friends, and got quite a few insults from some of the members here, but I somehow managed to survive.

[Melody Moore]

Trans-friends ostracized you post-GRS? Were they all pre-op? That's the only logic I could see
possibly affecting your friendship, some level of jealousy, but still seems like a load of horsesqueeze.
Jealousy between members of the trans-community is a fairly common phenomena & it is not only those who are
post-op that are scorned upon by other envious transsexuals. I have experienced some of the bitchiness of others
purely over the fact that I went full-time as a female before starting on hormones whereas it took the other jealous
person 2 years to reach that point. I can't help it if I am naturally feminine. And personally I never thought about
transitioning as any sort of a competition, but in some people's minds it is a competition. I have also detected the
same air of jealousy towards younger transsexuals from the older transsexuals because they will obviously feminise
a lot more easier. It only stands to reason that some pre-op transsexuals might become envious of the post-op girls
because they only want to be where you are if you are post-op. I know I do, so I am a little jealous I admit but not
enough to dump good friends.

[noeleena]

Hi,

Seems to me there are a few things going on or have done . friends real ones accept who you are no matter how you dress . to them & dare i say it you are stiil you . they look beyound the clothes make up surgerys what ever you have done or going to do. i have friends going back 53 years . many of my new friends over the last 15 years are still my our friends. like glue they are stayers. .
People i know & who are friends . i dont count in the 100s now because i have to many .

One reason being is i invited people in to my life i told them what i was doing & every thing that was taking place so they are a part of who i am as a person .
What Jos & i went through is another matter. try 8 years of hell will give you some idear , we are through that & are a lot stronger for going through that. because i was different any way i did not have many trans friends fact is mine were women i did not look for help in the trans community because i did not know any & any way what i did was different to those in the trans community. & they would not have understood where i was any way . just some of us are born different & i have found that trying to fit in was not really going to work. that does not say i dont have trans friends over here i do just many dont wont to understand others who are different , rather a pity tho. so most of my trans friends are on our forums & many are over in Austraila & yes i'v met them face to face.
Depends where you live & who you know.

...noeleena...

[Kaitlyn Michele]

thnx for the post !!

you said alot of good stuff..sometimes overcoming the fear is a matter of simple desperation...other times you really can get focused and prepared..

[Hope]

They were all non-op or CD's, one CD'er actually got up and left a local get together when I told her I was a postie, telling our host that she had a problem with me because of that. It took her over two hours to get there and she left after 20 minutes. Like I said, I lost a lot of supposed friends, and got quite a few insults from some of the members here, but I somehow managed to survive.

If it makes you feel any better, I told my therapist about you the last time I saw her and described you as one of the most amazing and well grounded people I have ever met. Well, I did that even if it doesn't make you feel any better.

David, being trans is a HUGE, and VERY efficient jerk-filter. You will find out who the cool people are in almost any group, almost instantaneously, just by walking in to a room and observing their reactions to you. Don't loose sleep over the ones who sneer - they are not worth your time and you should be glad that they self identified before you invested time and energy in building relationships with them.

[Sara Jessica]

I have made some extraordinary friends of people who reside all across the gender spectrum. Being grounded on a middle path myself, I would be deeply hurt if any of these people were to shun me because I wasn't rooted in their perspective. At the same time, I couldn't fathom dismissing any of these friendships should my "status" migrate to transition at some point.

That said, I believe the OP has to do with what happens to those pre-coming-out friendships once someone discloses they are trans. This of course is something which must be carefully considered as part of the decision making package. As I've said before, hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Doing so should help one cope with the fallout.

[Nicki S]

I find nowadays bigotry is dying fast. If you met my boss, you would rethink that statement.

[Melody Moore]

If you met my boss, you would rethink that statement.
No need to rethink it because in my part of the world it is fact. Anyway,
I would love to meet someone like your boss & challenge their ideology.

[Rianna Humble]

i thought here goes if i was ostriced by by peers then do they understand or do they really care anyway so i went ahead anyway and i found out that there is a lot of people who accept others for what they are that is if they are really friends.

Hi Davina, thank you for these thoughts. Like you I began my transition later in life because I could not face continuing to live the lie.

I know that some people on these forums do find they are rejected by people they had believed to be friends but as you say, those who are really friends don't let you down.

You are definitely right to suggest that we should be prepared for rejection and that we should give thought to what it will mean for us to transition, but like you I have found a lot of acceptance not only from friends and work colleagues but also from people in my community. I have also found people at work who didn't even give me a second thought before butwho have befriended me since I began my RLE.

Others have mentioned that sometimes older trans folk can be jealous of younger ones, but jealousy in and of itself does not have to be negative. On more than one occasion I have told someone that I am jealous of their look or how feminine their appearance is, but that has not led me to want to be negative about that person or to shun them. For me, jealousy is not the problem, it is what you do with it.


I lost quite a few of my trans friends when I had SRS (never could figure that one out)

Karen, I share your bewilderment about how people in this community can turn against you because you are TS, or in your case post-op. Unfortunately being transgendered does not always make you a nice person and anyone who can shun you because of who you are is definitely not a nice person.