Yes, poking is fun.


But swooping is bad.

And who is swooping? :unsure:

The barbarians, of course.


Anyway, I suggest we get back on topic. I'm becoming a professional derailer... :sadvaultboy:

Becoming.....

?

I have to disagree, the way it has been described, it seeems to me that they were acting like a man, because bodily they were. But they felt they were a female so they were hiding their true feelings. SO the friendship you had with thsi person IMO is different. Likewise they could easily be the same person adn just want to be a woman. Of course you seem to be suggesting that they are changing what they do, who they are, their identity into something they never were when they were friends, essentially becomeign more womanly, or at least what sciety in general considers to eb womanly.

i believe he is insinuating that you have always been a de-railer of topics :whistling:

delicate situation... you don't agree with his choice, then say so; as a friend, you are allowed to disagree and say what you thinks, all while still staying friends. if he ever was your friend and had any respect for your, he'd understand... and remain your friend. if either one of you initiates a split after a honest exchange of opinions, etc, then it is bigotry and hypocrisy on the part of one who initiated the split. and if he does split, but later comes back and wants to be friend again, yours is to be a friend and accept the new offer of friendship.if he throws a fit and accuses you of disloyalty or whatever else, then consider the possibility that he was never your friend, just wanted you around as someone to support him through anything he does... or kept you around as long as you agreed with him. on that note, if he did not get unconditional support and or love from his family, etc, that in itself may be the problem that triggered the, hm, change of his perception of himself, the GID.

and if you refuse the possibility of this being a GID, mental problem to be taken care of, then this is what you have to accept as normal: he 'she' might come and ask you to marry or otherwise get romantically involved with him 'her' because you were such a good friend and stuck around and he 'she' thinks he 'she' may be in love with you. but again, if you don't agree with that then say that you don't agree with that idea but still will stay friends.

Yes, if you are acting a certain way for years and years and years, and lead people to believe something, then tell them something else later, that is deception. Whatever the reason for the deception it is still deception, and so people are going to feel lied to and deceived. It is a perfectly normal and human reaction.

You are neglecting the fact that it takes a lot of strength and willpower to even admit to yourself that you feel like you should be female and not a male if you've physically been born a male (and vice versa). Acting like a male for years in that case is only deception if you count the person in question as being deceived as well, which doesn't make much sense. If someone isn't consciously aware of something about him-/herself then how could (s)he inform other people about that anyway? You can't know something before you know it, believe it or not.

Oh really? Because I keep hearing pretty much the same scenario over and over again, about how they (not just transgenders, but the gay community also) are that way from birth, and have known it for years and years, since they were young in fact, and yet, for whatever reasons, be it fear of rejection, feeling like they should feel wrong to feel so, or whatever reason, be it society, family, etc... they don't say anything about it. You don't just wake up some miraculous morning being attracted to somebody, or decide that you are in the wrong body. If they feel that way, it's probably been there for a long time, slowly growing in force. I'm pretty sure they've wrestled with it way longer than a year or 2.
He wasn't projecting himself as a female but as a male, and he apparently has already decided that he's going to change some of his ? because females don't do ? (I can't say because the OP never elaborated on what the female stuff is that the friend decided to not do anymore) so he is already deciding to change some of his behavior as a woman that he did as a man? And you are right, I don't think the friend was deceiving himself, only the people whom he projected himself as a man to. :shrug:

in a context of transsixuals though, it does makes sense if one considers this possibility: when the transsixual believes that he or she is the opposite "gender" from their birth six, a lie, then indeed he or she is being willingly deceived since belief implies choice of what to believe.

Ditto.

I think what Veeno is saying that, the transgender person doesn't necessarily understand their condition or wants to admit to what their feelings are leading to. They might feel their body is wrong or struggle with trying to be manly while having a definitely feminine psychology, (or vice versa) but they don't necessarily understand why they feel that way.

You're right, in general.

There are reports of transgendered people and homosixual people who say that they knew they were somehow different from a young age. What you fail to understand is that they don't know how they are different - it is just a feeling they have. Perhaps they like different things than the other boys, for example. Generally around the age of 13 / 14, when puberty hits in and the body begins to ramp up hormonal changes and whatnot is around the time when some of these feelings begin to solidify - that boy may begin to feel attraction to other boys. But all he's ever known and been taught is that boys are supposed to love girls - not other boys. And that transgender girl has been told her whole life that she is a girl, but she feels, inside, like a boy.

So, finally having these feelings - that they may have had for their whole lives - begin to finally become clear in the light of puberty provides the individual with new (and scary) information. They begin to sort out just what these feelings mean - are they really attracted to other guys?, etc.

Seriously? From what I understand you are saying, you think the OP's transgender friend was deceiving her friends? Come off it. As I said above, gay and transgender people may feel different, but it only really begins to solidify as feelings for the same-six or feelings that one doesn't feel right in one's own body around puberty. And even then it can take years for someone to fully come to grips with all of this.

Now, if the OP is like 40 and his transgender friend is also around his age, then that's a totally different thing. But my guess is the OP is in his late teens, early twenties.

What? No, no. It doesn't work that way.

Let's just assume that you're a guy, yes? Throughout your life, you've been told that you're a male - you're supposed to be tough, boys don't cry, etc, etc. You have had that sense of being drilled into you both by society and by your own mental sense of self. But what if society is the only thing telling you that you're a boy and your mind is saying otherwise? Which do you believe?

A thought experiment would be to try to tell yourself that you're the opposite gender and truly feel that in your heart - it probably won't work. Both society and your own internal sense of self would tell you otherwise.

There's a difference between feeling it and not understanding it. And Veeno put it as not KNOWING they felt that way, which is ridliculous. They knew they felt it, just not why, or, just didn't know how to handle it.. So they were not deceiving themselves, only others by pretending they are one way, but feeling another. Still deception.



I won't restate what I said, above. I think I already answered with my reply up there.

No. You have it wrong.

I don't know how else to explain it to you. And I can only explain it from my own experiences and perspective as finding that I was gay / bisixual in high school - but it is simply something that happens - that really begins to make sense - once you hit puberty. Before then? I wasn't attracted to boys. I wasn't attracted to girls either. And it wasn't even when I hit puberty, either. It was maybe around 15 or 16 when I really started to realize that I was feeling attracted to some of the guys in my school. This put me into a very crazy state for a little while until I finally came to terms with it. Then I started telling my friends - it would take several years until I could bring up the courage to tell my parents and immediate family.

I have to imagine that realizing you are transgender is a similar kind of thing - once puberty hits and the body begins changing, the gulf begins to grow between the physical being and the mental being until the person realizes that what the issue is is not that they are fat or ugly or whatever society tells them is wrong - but that they are in the wrong physical body.

And to tell me that people are "lying" because they were confused about their self-identity and didn't immediately tell their friends "I'M CONFUSED ABOUT MY sixUAL IDENTITY / GENDER GUYS!" is utterly preposterous.

No, I don't think it's preposterous at all. If it were apparent from the get go that he is a woman in a mans body, the friends wouldn't be all upset trying to deal with it. They would just laugh it off and say "I KNEW it!" But apparently he was acting a certain way all along (like a man) with no hint that he actually feels like a woman. So, yes, in a way, he deceived them into thinking he is "all" man. I'm not downgrading the guy, just pointing out that since everyone is so shocked by this turn of events, either they are complete morons and couldn't see the obvious in front of their face, or he has been deceiving them into thinking he is a manly man, not a woman trapped inside a mans body. :shrug:

You are assuming that the transgender / gay person knows from age two or whatever that they are gay or transgender. And that there is a way to tell if a person is gay or transgender simply by their actions or looks.

It doesn't work that way.

As I've explained multiple times in this thread - biology plays a role in whether a person will identify as transgender. Hormones also play a role - they kick-start everything when the individual goes into puberty. So, for roughly 12-13 years, the person doesn't have any real inkling they are transgender or homosixual. It is only until around age 13-15 that they begin to have these different feelings - and typically these feelings take a year a more to become integrated / self-identify with those feelings. And then comes the part where the person has to come to terms with telling his friends and other people about all of this confusion and change in his life - this can likewise take time. So, in between the person self-identifying as transgender and the person telling his friends about all of this could be warped into being construed as a "lie" it is generally a very short time frame - maybe a year or two - almost a blip in a 12+ year friendship.

That also doesn't take into account that the guy has been told from about the day he was born that he has to act a certain way to be a "man" in whatever society he grows up in. To go against all of that "manly" stuff is to be seen as weak, cowardly, etc, etc. To begin to fight against that sort of societal conditioning is likewise a very difficult and time-consuming process as well.

Deception requires intent. From what I understand from everything the OP has said, there was no deception on the part of his transgender friend.

"Deceiving" implies intention. I will again attempt to explain to you that there is no intention and, thus, no deceit.

The will to not be a "weirdo" (in the unfortunately still current social sense) is in most individuals as strong as the will to live, especially at younger age. Thus, the mere thought that (s)he might in fact be a man/woman in a woman's/man's body is at first dismissed on the most basic mental level, and the thoughts and feelings of uncomfortableness (or however exactly one can describe what transgender people feel) are attributed to something else. At some point in his/her life the person realises that these thoughts and feelings are not the "something else" that (s)he has been attributing them to, but that they do in fact mean that (s)he is a man/woman in a woman's/man's body and that's when (s)he realises that it's been the case for him/her since (s)he knew about him-/herself (because (s)he remembers having those thoughts/feelings since early childhood, but only now knows what they actually meant). That's why and how a person can be transgender since childhood (and know that it was indeed so) and yet not having been aware of that since a certain age. Again, since they didn't know that themselves, they couldn't have intentionally misinformed other people when they presented themselves as though their mental and physical gender are the same. Thus, no intention.

(This whole thing works the same way for gay people as well, not just transgender people.)

I'm not saying the guy intended to deceive everybody. But as a person finding out something dropped on them like that, when all along they've been perceiving someone a certain way, and that person has projected themselves that way, it can definitely be seen as deception. Whether on purpose or not. The person in question has known for years that they feel "different," and have had time to comes to terms with it. The people in their life they decide to tell get told and it hits them like a bomb. (most, not all) and if they've had no clue, no inkling that there was something going on inside that person, well, it can feel like deception. Yes, the age has a lot to do with it, because if a friend my age told me something like this right now, I would definitely feel deceived by it. If they purposely hid it and pretended to be a certain way, and yet were another I would feel betrayed and I have no compunction about ending that friendship, it would have been based on lies anyway, so what am I losing? :shrug:

There has to be some gap between "any change at all" and "completely new person". If I go to a restaurant a lot and have a menu item that's "the usual" for me, but one day decide that I think I'll try something different, the people I'm with don't scream "I DON'T KNOW YOU ANYMORE!" and become uncomfortable ever speaking to me again. I'm not arrested as some identity-stealing impostor if one day I step outside wearing a light blue shirt instead of a dark blue shirt. Teenagers have a reputation of trying to reinvent themselves at the start of a new year, or when changing schools, and I couldn't begin to count how many sappy TV specials I've seen that emphasize what a jerk these people are if they try to exclude their old friends from their new image. Whether or not the viewer believes it, part of the moral is generally that these changes do not, in the end, make them a different person inside. Outside of some major traumatic event, a person's personality generally doesn't completely and abruptly change unless they themselves are attempting it. It seems to me that if this person is trying to retain their friends, they are NOT trying to abandon everything about who they were.

Separately, all the talk of deception continues to baffle me. Most of us are not sharing our real names and addresses with each other. Security is a part of this, of course, but most of us are not thieves. Another part of it is "it's none of their business and they don't care and I don't feel comfortable letting them know anyway." Are we all bad people intentionally tricking one another by withholding this information? We've done or experienced things we're not proud of. We have personal info we don't wish to share with every single person we see. This does not make us lying con artists. We aren't all best friends with each other, true, and a lot of that is because, as I mentioned before, best friends are not made at first sight. Is there an officially accepted grace period for how long you have to know someone, or how many times you talk in that interval, before you can acceptably tell them your darkest secrets? What if it's information they don't even WANT to know, that doesn't do them any good, is it a better "friend" action to hide it or tell them anyway? What if WE don't want to know and don't bring it up in the hopes of it going away, instead of being talked about and made topical? And this thread only exists because they DID tell him. It's not like he found out because his friend suddenly moved away and broke contact and he tracked them down to find out they were now a woman and chose to leave without ever saying anything.

You have such a succinctly simple way of putting things that it can only be described as a work of art. (No sarcasm here.)

And yet we are once again making GENDER changing as no more important than a new menu order or a shirt color change. Good grief... I've heard enough. :shakehead:

Deception requires intent. Period. What you are describing is not deception. It is a state of unknowing, that slowly becomes known to the gay / transgender person over a long period of time. The only difference is that, yes, the transgender / gay person has had somewhat more time to deal with all of this and make sense of it in their head versus their friends and relatives. But it is emphatically not deception. Nor should it be perceived as deception by anyone.

out of curiosity, are these hormone injections life long or is it only for a limited amount of time?