Don't Ask, Don't Tell

So as my ever so short time of appearing in public goes I have only had limited experiences. Mind you not carefully constructed ones, just limited in breadth and scope. It took me a while to get over the idea that I could appear as a female in broad daylight and be taken for one. Or so I thnk. Again there we are, always worried about what the other person thinks. This was a subject that my soon to be ex wife hit on with me one day recently.

The topic was my being trans and what she would tell people. Out of the gate she got it wrong. She said I am going to tell them you have decided that you are transgendered. An interesting choice of words. The "decided" was what stopped me. I told her that would not be accurate. I told her I have always been transgendered and by the presently used nomenclature transsexual. I did not decide to be this way. What I did decide to do was start doing something about it.

Her next response was, "Oh, all about you again". She said, "you are not the only one going through this." I agreed with her but with the following caveat, I am the only one who will be a different person at the end of it. You will be the same, just not with me. She said all you do is think about yourself, don't you consider anybody else? And there is the fundamental issue in being trans.

I told her it is mostly all about everybody else. And this is something that I think gets lost with those close to us who really do not get it. If everybody was gone in the morning I could be myself now, and nobody would care. But that is not going to happen, so you worry about what everybody is thinking about you. From your kids, to your coworkers, to the clerk at the 7-11 you just bought a pack of gum from. You want them to take you as are. And so we work ever so hard on trying to be "just right". Conforming to the social norms. Or in many many cases, we do nothing at all becuase of "everybody else". We stew in our own juice. This is why it took me until now, to start. I was worried about everybody else. This is what still keeps me from being FT right now. This is what keeps me from the surgeons knife. Everybody else.

When I get everybody else sorted, or at least those who matter to me, I will be able to move ahead to the next bit. But probably not before.

I have concerns that this never goes away. I have talked with post-op girls about life and relationships after you have "arrived". The answer is the same turds exist, but kind of in reverse. Instead of fearing discovery of your female self, you now fear discover of your former male self. And depending on the situaiton this can be life threatening. I hope you followed the link, yeah it happened in Russia. So what, could have just been some state here in the US, as we have seen in a number of recent cases.

My friends talked about looking for work, they present as women now, but the resume has 20 years of experience as "him". Some are out of work, some have been fired for being trans. Yes there is usually another reason given but in my state only a few localities have laws on the books that they could go and get a prosecutor to execute on.

Then there is the quesiton of intamacy. Here you go to the lengths and expense of making yourself conform to the "image". You can pretty much live your life, assuming you have a job, and friends and family. Hopefully you were skillful enough in your transition not to lose them all. And then that somebody special shows up.

And so you get posed with a challenge. Jeez, I really like him/her. I would like to go further. But now I have this huge secret again. It is the same secret as before but now we are on a visceral level. It is one thing if you neighbor, or boss, or coworker, or relative is trans. It is another if your potential lover is. And so that same person that might be totally tollerent. The one that shouted, you go girl, when they found out. Might react totally differently if intamacy, or love is in question. The Crying Game covered some of that ground. It found us shocked, or surprised, or at least, uh huh - I knew something was up. But this happens in the real world to transwomen and transmen every day.

My friends seem to be tettering on policy questions here. Do I tell, don't I tell. If I do tell will he/she run away. If we are intimate (or maybe even just attracted) and they find out will they want to berate me, or beat me, or kill me. And if you are doing any of that at the kinds of place where adults meet each other you do not have the benefit of a full background check with family interviews before you respond to the "hey, let's get out of here" question. You are working without a net. I do not have an answer here, I will be in the same quandary some day, maybe sooner than I think.

So what do we do in the meantime. Nothing mostly, in fact my take is a lot of transwomen are asexual post-op. It is too risky. Or too hard. The lucky ones whos marriage survives often do ok. I cannot tell you what their intimate relations are like, that would be thier business. Or I see this alot, they end up with another transperson, of the flavor they prefer. This is certainly much easier but I would contend not be what some of us might want. Meaning that our goal is to be taken as women or men, and not transwomen or transmen.

You might ask, so what? Why does it matter so much. Well for one, deception, with a partner, out of the gate is nothing to try and build a relationship on. That would be a foundation of sand. Oppourtunity is is huge issue. Where do you meet somebody that is into you, and does not care that you are trans. Or the fact that you used to be brand X. I know it happens, and there are some out there. The trick is finding them, and filtering out the wierdos. And that is the real problem.

So what is the answer, I will tell you when I figure it out. But I would advise not staying up for me to come back with it anytime soon.