I had to do last weekend. I must digress.
For the last 20 or so years of my life, I've been in with a bunch of guys who I loved like brothers. We've been there for one another and they are all great guys. I felt privileged to have been accepted by them as a friend. Almost every weekend we'd do stuff together...movies, RPG gaming, cards, trips to Buffalo to a place called The Super Flea, and much more.
One of the group had even been in prison for something he didn't do, but couldn't prove it, for 8 years, and we all stood by him, knowing he was innocent. When he got out, our group was complete again, and we picked right up, with him a member again.
Last weekend, he left us, to move far away, and I (we) planned a little going away party for him. Nothing fancy. Just a cake wishing him a safe trip, and I bought a calender full of pics of wolves. He's nuts about wolves. When he left, he either forgot, or intentionally left the calender, and left us with a casual wave over his shoulder. Now I didn't expect a tearful goodbye or anything like that, but I felt cheated, and somewhat disappointed that he shook hands with everyone else, and I got nothing...not a handshake, nothing.
I've been transitioning for 16 or so months, and I believed that we had all reached a point where I was fully accepted as the woman I present to the world, yet that night, I felt...pushed away a bit. After he left, I went out on the porch for a smoke and because I was crying a bit. No one came out to check on me...no one comforted me, though I feel sure they would have done so for any other woman who was a friend. I know I would have, if the roles were reversed.
I began thinking about our relationship as friends, and it became obvious to me that, although they paid lip service to the fact that I present as a woman, they still saw me as just a guy in makeup. I felt betrayed and let down and I left shortly after that.
When I got home, I thought about it a lot, and I realized that they really didn't, and don't, accept me as a woman, but they treat me as just another friend who is doing something strange, and fully expect me to stop and revert to the guy they always knew.
I called one of them, the one I thought really DID accept me, and I explained how I felt. He said I was wrong, but I could tell he was only humoring me. At that point I said:
"I've loved you guys like brothers, and you treat me as if I have some kind of communicable disease. In over 16 months, none of you have ever hugged me, or even touched me the way you would any of our female friends or sisters. I can't do this any more and, until you guys can accept me as a woman, and love me like a sister, I can't come over any more. I can't take the feeling that you are all laughing at me, behind my back, and thinking that this is some kind of practical joke I'm playing on all of you, and the world. We've had some great, fun times, but I feel like I have to end that relationship, until you all understand that this is who I am, and who I will be, for the rest of my life." There was silence on the other end of the phone line. Then I said goodbye, and hung up. Yes...I was crying through most of that talk.
I spent Sunday, Sunday night, and most of Monday in a daze, not wanting to believe that you all had been right. That, once I started down this path, things would change. I breezed along, oblivious to the things that should have been obvious to me...that we were growing apart. My interests are no longer the same as theirs.
Last weekend was one of the darkest in my life. I had to end friendships that had sustained me for many, many years, and right now, I am as lonely as I have ever been. I know what I should have done when I began this journey, which is begin building female friendships, but I guess I thought I would be the exception. That MY friends would understand and support me. That MY friends were different. I was wrong...and I'm paying for those mistakes now, and will be paying for a long time to come.
Maybe I am wrong about them and they will call me to tell me that...but I'm not holding my breath. This sucks, and I feel like I have closed a chapter of my life that meant more to me then I can say.
Undoubtedly I have mucked up this blog entry, and have not fully expressed my absolute depression and hurt over this, but I had to write about it to try to sort out how to deal with it. Is this what I can look forward to? Are my old, trusted male friends now part of "the other side?" All my life, I've lived through my friends, seemingly unable to live through myself. Is that all lost now? As difficult as this transition has been on me, emotionally, this makes me want to quit. Give up.
Right now, I'd give anything for someone, anyone, to just hold me and tell me that everything is going to be okay, but there's no one here. I'm all alone.
Catherine Linda Michel
Comments
No roadmap, despite the rumors
Unfortunately, we can only control our own thoughts and emotions. You had no way of knowing how you'd be received, and as friend, understandably expected them to accept you. Sadly, their lack is also their loss. They are either incapable or unwilling to look past their own fears to remember and treasure and keep what they already had; a good friend. I am truly sorry for your loss and I grieve and weep with you.
"She was born for all the wrong reasons but she grew up for all the right ones." Bacci e tanto affeto, Dio ti Benedicta! 'drea
Love, Andrea Lena
Sometimes I think I'm lucky
Sometimes I think I'm lucky that I didn't have any friends before my transition, as I didn't have to worry about them rejecting me or being uncomfortable around me. This just confirms that for me. But I know that feeling of wanting someone to hold you and tell you everything is alright and no one being there all too well. Please don't give up, I know things look dark right now but they will get better if you let them (even if your friends don't come around). I think that's one of the most important things I've learned, that things will always get better if you give them a chance to.
So feel better! ;)
Saless
P.S. Do electronic hugs count? *big hug* ^_^
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
Same here
... aside from the fact until I became a woman, I was not being honest with a potential friend as I was not befriending them as who I am. Now, if I were to tell all my past coworkers and friends that I was a guy at one point in my life I would get the same disbelief in the opposite direction.
I still do not have a lot of friends for different reasons but I did manage to make some at my old job and I think.
But, yeah, people accept you or you don't. For some reason, people seem to feel that it make sense about me being a woman and I had very little difficulty with getting support from my former bosses to get references as a consequence I think.
Hang in there hon, and FWIW, we all share that experience with you to some degree.
Kim
You have many friends
You have many friends hat you just do not know about. The world of transsexiúalism always looks after each other and we all want you to feel better again. If I just lived closer you would have my arms around you already before you put up your open letter to us all. But I cannot afford to go across the Atlantic to hug you. But if I was there I would hug you as warm as i just could. Then have you lay down with your head on my lap and let all the frustration leave you and start to build up the nice person you are. So although from far away please receive my warmest hug and feel free to wite to me as soon as you feel you need the hug again or a place where you could relax without any restriction dear Catherine.
Your faithful reader
Ginnie
GinnieG
Cathy, Even Though We Are Not Close,
To me,you ARE a woman. If I could, I'd be there as a friend for you. Personally, I hope that your friends can accept you for who you are. My family accepts my friendship with T.G. friends, and I have a friend at Church with whom I have shared what I do here, and she accepts that as a part of who I am. No, I NEVER do name anybody here, just my stories.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Just A Thought
RAMI
Maybe, because of your former friend's experience in prison, he feels that you are a threat to him. Or, perhaps he was sexually assaulted in prison. Seeing you as a male who has transitioned to a female, who might enjoy male company, causes him to reflect negatively on those prison experiences.
As for your other friends, I think you said it yourself. You were a group of brothers and engaged in male to male bonding. While you see yourself as female, and expect male to female responses from them, they see still see you as their brother, not their sister and they probably, do not comfort their brothers, with an arm around the shoulders and giving you a handkerchief to wipe away the tears. There may be too much bonding and male things done for them to overcome that and see you differently.
I think you need to decide if their continued friendship, with them accepting you to the point that they do not reject you and humiliate you, but to not react to you as they would their sister or a girl they grew up with, is important.
While around them, how did you dress and act? Did you dress in clothing that would obviously identify you as female, dresses, skirts, high heels or did you wear jeans and an uni-sex design shirt? Did you continue to engage in, what might be normally considered primarily male activities or did you engage in activities that not normally male? Were there any other females in the group, or were you the only one? Did you make them treat you as a girl, open the door for you, pay the bill, etc. or did you act like you previously did "as one of the guys"? Did you make them see a distinction in you, not only how you might have appeared outwardly, but how you appeared inwardly.
Perhaps, they did not know how you felt, and maybe they will learn from this incident.
Woman say men are clueless about feelings. Guys find it hard to communicate with (pardon the expression) "natural born women", How much harder is it for your life long pals to know how to act with you if you do not tell them. Yes they need to be told either verbally or by your actions or body language.
You can not be one of the guys, when you want to be one of the girls.
I guess this was somewhat disjointed, but I hope you understand my point.
If any of this reads as a criticism, it is not. It is only my thoughts about how your friends might react.
RAMI
RAMI
Cathy
Hugs hon.
Grover
This.
Just this.
Biggest hugs, and a few tears from me. T_T
-Liz
-Liz
Successor to the LToC
Formerly known as "momonoimoto"
Dear Cathy,
That really, really sucks.
I'd be glad to give you great big hugs.
About the guys: it might be their age; how some things were acceptable and some things not when you and they grew up.
When I transitioned at work, some friends and my closest 2 male friends thought I was horrible and broke off contact. Others, some just casual technical associates, were very supportive. It seemed to me that religious extremists were against me, but the next most prominate difference (between pro and con) was age.
Big Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Hugs and Bright Blessings,
Renee
Sorry
Hi Cathy. I am so sorry you had to discover the truth of male and female relationships this way. But it is true. Men really do live in the space of some other world or dimension!!!!
The other thing is that your therapist should have helped you realize the nature of changes in your interpersonal relations. I also was a member of a gaming group. It was of very long duration, with a few added and a few moved to other states and were absent, but the core, of which I was one, perisisted from 1970 to 2005. It even survived one of our group, who after years of being in the closet, informed everyone he was gay. No problem.
I would like to think it was coincidence with other factors including the not unexpected death of a core member and a marital breakup over finances and a suit involving two others, but within two months after I told everyone about me, the group was no longer happening. Considering our gaming group was already gender mixed, I did not expect the dissolution, and for that reason I do not really think it was me opening up that did the deed. If it was me, I did not realize the power I had. :)
Anyway, there have been some friendships that have persisted, there are some that are fine over the phone with frequent calls back and forth, just no face to face interactions, and that is the way it has gone. I did expect some of that, but with other friends, married guys that I knew and even lived roomates with in early college years, well they react to me as a woman, and do not do things alone with me anymore than they would with any other unattached woman, rather preferring to be around me with their wives, and that may be appropriate to my current gender (though my perception of them in terms of platonic friendship is no different). I do spend more time talking to their wives than to them often even though we do share still a lot of interests, but maybe that is as it should be as well. I am afterall, no longer perceived male (and maybe just a little dangerous to a certain male mindset or insecurity), and you just can't have it both ways when you transition.
It isn't too much different from when I was at a party of colleagues when they had their wives with them, pretransition. I was not married, never had been, had no children (they all did) and therefore my participation in the group conversations were often limited by a lack of shared experience in some areas then too, so not too different from that, in a way.
You can survive this, and even make lemonade out of the lemons. Make new friends, look to GGs for your friendships, and understand and accept that your relationships to past male friends, even good ones, must change. And for that matter, that change should be validating for you, as you are now being treated as a woman and are no longer part of that male club. The way you are learning it may hurt, but really, it's OK and not even a bad thing in the long run.
Go chew your therapist out for not better preparing you. There are few that really do a very good job at that, and a few employ life coaches that can help extend the therapy/preparation to support after transition/surgery, but most really only have a limited clue about what we go through.
CaroL
CaroL
My Grandfather's Advice
My grandfather imparted a piece of advice that has stayed with me long after his death. Your true friends are the ones that stick with you through thick and thin and accept you no matter what. I found out how true that was when I transitioned. I found out that friends I have had for over 20 years have really been there and shown me their true colors. It is pretty sad when people only accept you if you meet their own ideas of acceptable. They really don't understand the true meaning of friendship. They are the one's who are losing because they are missing out on getting to know a very special lady in the person of Catherine Linda Michel. You are loved by a lot of people and I am blessed to know you! Keep your chin up Girlfriend!
Hugs,
Jen
Half your friends will leave you.
Catherine,
expect to lose half your friends when you transition. That's the reality of it. And you never know who'll be in and who'll be out. The ones that stay your friends are the ones worthy of the name. You cannot, I repeat, cannot, predict the result. It is amazing how unpredictable this is; my most religious aunt had no problems whatever accepting me, but my most liberal male friend is now avoiding me. Bah.
After I transitioned I found I made new friends faster than I lost them, simply because I was happier than I had been before transition. This is important to keep in mind. Some people will come around if you give them a few weeks. You thought about this for years before deciding. Give your old friends some time.
And no, female friendships are not all that matters. People are people before they are male and female. Whoever is your friend is a friend first and foremost. Seek new friends among men *and* women and you may well be surprised at whom you get along with, and who will be *your* friend.
And here at BCTS, we are *all* your friends. Without exception. Hang in there; Some things are done for your own benefit and not for the benefit of your friends.
- Moni
Lucky
I have been lucky since all of my close relatives and friends have accepted me. I think the reason is that I transitioned very slowly and my change is not that much different from what I was before. I was not very masculine and I am now very much a tomboy. I have a theory that the more masculine one is to start with, the more feminine they need to be after transitioning.
Hilltopper
I was so sad to read this
It's true that life just isn't the same. 'Men are from Mars, Women from Venus' is not that much fiction; we are different animals. I still have a few male friends, including one with whom I would entrust my life, but most of my friends are women.
I always felt that I didn't fit into the straightjacket that society said that I should, and transition allowed me to break out of this and be myself. That's not to say it was easy by any means; my relationships with both men and women changed significantly and I had to work to escape the initial loneliness after transition.
We are all different; what works for me may not work for you, and vice versa.
I lost most of my family, and many of my so-called friends, as they clearly couldn't accept that I would 'want' to change. I didn't 'want' to change, I had to change.
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again. Difficult to do, but real friends, those who really accept you, will help you to do so. They may be few but they will be good.
The most important person for you to love is yourself - you can't love anyone else until you do. And once you are able to be a lovely person, people will flock to you.
Please forgive me if I have said anything hurtful or insensitive; I really didn't mean to do so. I just wanted to give you my take on life after 7 years of freedom, and give you a virtual hug from across the pond.
Take care,
Susie