Well, I guess I"m a special and unique snowflake then, because I personally have no trouble telling my best friend everything about me. I'll admit(unlike Veeno, who told me I was either a Liar or not human If I claim to have never held anything back from my best friend)) that other people have different behaivours. I still believe, personally, that a person who is best friends with someone, shouldn't feel the need to hold something back from each other, but, that is apparently just me and my best friend.

Regardless, I'm just trying to make the point that everyone posting here, being so harsh and critical towards the OP, needs to understand that is hard for him as well. No matter how much he posts and tries to explain the situation, none of us are ever going to fully understand the full intricasies of the situation. He came here for advice on how to handle this, not to be judged and hated on for having doubts and confusion, ya know?



I was merely trying to point out the fallacy in Reneers earlier argument. He was trying to point towards Transgendered being the way you're born, and he was specifically arguing against someone who was claiming it was a choice. But just above, he's claiming people can be a change, obviously in reference to being transgendered(or at least, that's how I take his statement to me). Of course I agree that both nature and nurture have an effect on a person. You can be born having both six organs, or being hardwired with a feminine personality, but it also depends on how you're raised, and the people around you, on how you end up handling the situation. Giving two people with the above condition, but two entirely different environments, of course one could become transgendered, but the other person might be content with being a male with slightly feministic qualities for their natural life.

Well there you go.

For your information, I am most certainly not a closed-off person. I have told my parents personal things about me which are too humiliating (and also a bit against the forum rules) to mention here. I simply haven't told them absolutely every little thing about me. There are things which they would misunderstand and would certainly worry them too much, I don't worry about them hating me - I am worried about them. There is nothing closed-off about that. If, however, a situation arose in which it was absolutely vital that I tell them any or every of the things which I didn't tell them (although I don't see what such a situation might be, but hypothetically speaking) I would immediately tell them without even thinking about it.


And OP, I've got another thing to say which just came to my mind. Let's say that you met a friend who had a blonde hair (a girl or a guy, it is irrelevant) and (s)he never noted to you or anyone else outside her family that blonde may not be his/her natural hair colour. Then after a dozen years of friendship you suddenly see your friend with brown hair and it turns out that that is his/her natural hair colour but (s)he has been dying it blonde all this time. If abandoning that friend because of that in this hypothetical situation sounds stupid, then so it should in this real-world situation as well.

I don't think it's as hard for me as for my friend. I'm not the one making a life-changing decision, I'm merely making a decision that impacts a single friendship. But I'm going to be honest and say that a lot of you don't seem to understand what I'm trying to say. It is a lie, because it is a personality that was put forth that he, at some point in his life, acknowledged as an untruth. It's not about knowing everything about people (though my innermost circle of friends do share everything with each other) but the fact that there are parts of your friendship with this individual that aren't true. Things that you thought you knew about them but really didn't, because they told you so.

Yes, this is more difficult than confessing you are gay or bisixual, because that doesn't really change your friendship. It changes your six life, but I'm not a part of their six life. If a woman finds out that her husband is gay, she has a right to feel somewhat lied to. She's loved him for years, what does she do? Does she resent him for lying to her all these years, or does she support him in what is essentially ruining her own marriage, a marriage she was quite happy in? It's not an easy choice.

What I do know, however, is that there is something in this individual that still values our friendship. Me specifically, because he came to me about it first, but he also told everyone else as well afterwards. I'm not sure if it's a reach out to continue our friendship, or a warning that he knows we were close, and things may change and go in different directions. But he does want support, and support I will provide. That's the least I can do, and for that matter, probably the only thing I can do. Call me self-centered, but I do prefer them as they were (as they still are until they actually start the transition) because this is the person I've been friends with. If I was able to get over this change so easily, it would mean that I didn't really care about the person that I knew.

Oh wonderful, so it's a "decision" again.

Weird, the concept of being completely honest and open with someone is an... alien concept to me.

That's a stupid comparison because it's in fact a stupid comparison, not because you should automatically accept that a long-time friend is transgendered. A big difference between omitting the truth about your hair color, and hiding the fact that you've always felt like a woman on the inside.



I agree, it is apples to oranges, as is veeno's above situation. I merely responded to Vometia's question if I've ever had to give an announcement that entirely changed the course of my life. Which I have. That wasn't the only example, just the one I felt most comfortable sharing.

The decision to come out with it. Gay men can live and die without anyone being any the wiser, and it's not as difficult for them because they didn't come out with it. They can accept that they are living a lie, and that is their choice. If coming out as transgendered isn't a choice, then I don't know what's been stopping him all these years.



Superficial traits and your personality are two different worlds, my friend. I would truly be a superficial a**hole if I cared about my friends dying their hair or getting tattoos. My parents taught me to love people for who they are, not what they look like. But as it so happens in this situation, I have no idea who my friend really is after all.

the fact taht they told you shows they still want to be your friend and not just go off and "start over"
the fact that youre here asking advice shows you care about your friend.

perhaps just drop what it means for a minute and talk to your firend about this.

Incorrect, as I stated above. I was not referring to being transgender as being a choice. I apologize if that is how it came out, but that was not intended.

... how is it a lie? Please, explain this to me. Your friend realized something about herself. That she was transgendered. It takes time for people to come to terms with this, since before they had a different self identity. Once they have come to terms with what they feel they are, they then have to come to terms with how others will take this news. This whole process can take only a few months or it can take years. To say that the intervening period (or the person's whole personality) is therefore a lie is absurd simply because they held something back from their friends until they fully came to terms with it themselves.

It is just as difficult. Coming out as gay or transgender can be just as life-altering for people. And there are thousands of gay and transgender youth out there who can not come out and be who they truly feel they are because, in their cultures, there is a very high likelihood that they will be killed for expressing themselves.

And, again, not everyone realizes they are transgender or gay at the same point in their lives. It's not like you hit 14 and suddenly proclaim "I'm gaaaayyyy!" with little streamers falling from the ceiling.

Coming out as gay and coming out as transgendered are both choices people have to make every day. Neither one is any easier than the other to have to "live down" and never do. It is just as emotionally painful for either group to have to deny who they are to the world.

A reaction exactly like this. Hahahahaha, too much over anolyzing the situation, people looking for excuses.

Well to me there's no difference between a person's hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, mental six and sixual orientation. Those are all things which you can't choose but are already decided long before you are born (let alone conscious) and none of those things, imho, determine a human being.



Hm. Well, okay then. You are heterosixual, right? Good. Try living as a homosixual and pretending that you're sixually attracted to men and not to women. Do it, and accept that you're living a lie. According to you, it shouldn't be difficult for you living as a homosixual and not coming out as a heterosixual.



Then I suggest you exercise that attitude in this case as well.

Ok, so it's a sudden bombshell then(possibly. Again, we don't know how long OPs friend has been dealing with their feelings, and how long, if at all, they've been hiding them). It's just as sudden for OP as it is for OPs friend. Yes, it's difficult to believe, but not everyone can just come to terms with something like this. Some people may have been conditioned against stuff like this their entire lives, so when it's dropped in their laps, it suddenly becomes a very real, very distressing issue for them to deal. instead of criticizing the OP, help him understand where his friend is coming from. Which, co-incidentally, was given back on the first page. Great advice as a matter of fact: Go receive counseling. Read up on the issue, more then what you already have. Take your friend to counseling with you so they can have the help of the Counselor in explaining where they are coming from, and where these feelings are coming from. Don't just drop the friendship right away, at least try to see if it's still salvageable. Be supportive. Honestly, after that advice, I think this thread should have been closed, it's doing nothing but causing divisiveness amongst fellow forumers, because, naturally, it's a very touchy, sensitive subject.

Agreed.

Fair enough. I guess it's because I live in a fairly liberal state that has a reputation for being open and accepting for homosixual and bisixual individuals. This state is one of five in the nation that actually allow gay marriage, the only one out west being California, and the other three are immediately north and south of our border. Homosixuality is a common occurrence, so individuals generally aren't judged for it.

But the main difference with gay and bisixual individuals and being transgendered is that your sixuality rarely spreads into your friendships. Who you choose to mate with is irrelevant to your personality. A person who comes out as gay doesn't really change that much about their usual behavior (rather, it's only bad in places where people are trained to fear homosixuality) because they are still the same person. When one becomes transgendered, a lot about them changes, not just their sixuality, but their gender identity, their everyday behavior, and their role in society.

In the end, I am really hoping that this is just a phase as he undergoes some soul searching about his identity. My personal stance on gender is that I don't think you need to be confined to specific mannerisms because of it (e.g. effeminate men, masculine women), but it takes a certain something to completely deny your very biology just to justify your behavior. You shouldn't have to call yourself a woman just because you have a large feminine side. For girls, they call this being a tomboy, and that's perfectly normal. I don't know how to properly explain this point perhaps. I might need to think this over more.



I am asixual. I said this a while back. I find it difficult to truly sympathize with anyone when it comes to sixual attraction. I guess you do have a point, but my main argument is that the decision was to come out to everyone, instead of waiting to leave your past behind you and waiting for a time where no one would care.

Yeah, I was going to say. You live in friggin' Massachusetts, for crying out loud.

In Michigan? We have the KKK. And rednecks. And KKK rednecks. And the Michigan Militia. Oh! And a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Really?

Being bisixual or gay totally affects your personality, if only because for a few months or years you hide in fear of the consequences of coming out and that leaves an indelible mark on your consciousness. Or you never come out and that too leaves an indelible mark on your consciousness.

Agreed on the thinking it over part.

Also, transgender people express that they feel out of place in their own body. It isn't about mannerisms. It's about the body that you live in. How it looks and how it feels and what bits it has attached to it (or doesn't have attached).

It's really not the same sort of thing as being a "tomboy", nor is it simply behavioural. There's a more fundamental issue with not being at ease with what one is that goes far beyond soul-searching. In some cases people will be confused, but they need support rather than inhibition. If someone's put themselves on the line here, it's not a trivial issue and it's not really respecting them to try to push them back.

The thing is, even if something is "a lie", it is not necessarily YOU being lied to. While the situation of course varies with the person, many people do not promptly and aggressively accept this (judging by the time you've known them, this person obviously hasn't either). It's not typically something they just discover. They spend many years knowing something is wrong, miserable because they don't know what or how to deal with it. They don't like the way they dress or look or act, but are told by the world around themselves that that's normal, and therefore THEY are abnormal if they deviate from them. They may hide these factors so others don't hate them, peers and family, or repress them in the hopes that they will go away, and they will "grow out of it" and become "normal." They might misunderstand it as sixuality, mental disorders, and spend years depressed and confused about themselves. If they DO eventually come to the conclusion of being transgender, they might spend more years in denial because they don't want this, refuse to accept it about themselves, and delude themselves into thinking it's something else.

When the truth of the matter is finally accepted and confronted, they have several choices to make. Ignore it and quietly suffer for the rest of their lives, being at high risk for developing a lot of disorders under the stress? Tell their close friends so they have some outlet, risking that these best friends they've known all their lives will no longer accept them? Try to change their lifestyle and finally put an end to some of the pain they've had to deal with, accepting further risk of alienating those around them and more of society as a while? These questions alone are huge issues that people can spend a long time trying to decide on, or working up the nerve to do anything about. None of this is an active attempt to deceive. The only case in which you'd be lied to, ironically, is the one in which the change never happens. Your problem only came about because this was revealed, and you admit to preferring the "original" person, effectively stating that the situation you want is the one in which you are lied to, and that you are unhappy because they chose to tell you the truth as they finally accepted instead of lying to you.

"If I was able to get over this change so easily, it would mean that I didn't really care about the person that I knew." Not quite. If you CAN'T get over it, that's the case. As has been repeatedly stated to you, there is not a new person coming out of this. A lot of people stop playing with action figures in the sand as they grow up, because they change, but a lot of people also manage to remain friends with people they were friends with as a child, because the core person that they were has not suddenly become a new person. If you can't get over the superficial change that does not change who they are, it means that you didn't really care about the person you knew, and the only lie of importance was apparently whichever one you were telling yourself.

Then I'll amend what I said:


Try living as a homosixual and pretending that you're sixually attracted to men and not to nobody. Do it, and accept that you're living a lie. According to you, it shouldn't be difficult for you living as a homosixual and not coming out as an asixual.

Clarification request: Did you friend actually say they intended to get six reassignment surgery?

I can see myself getting over this. If it's not because if what I myself want, then it's because of what my other friends, who are all better people than I, do want. If I reject a friend, I may as well reject all of them because that only proves to everyone that I am an intolerant individual who himself is not worth saluaging.

But I would be lying if I said I liked this. Ignoring my own friend's opinions, I preferred him as he was. The friend I've had for years is the friend I intended on keeping, same applies for any of my friends. But after this is over with, I must see them as a different individual, call them by a different name, and essentially abandon the identity of my friend as he did to himself. Ignorance is bliss in this situation, and if I were truly a selfish individual, I'd end the friendship here just so I wouldn't have to see my friend become someone else. That is not the case, but it certainly doesn't help my outlook on everything.



For the sake of my spouse, I would continue living the lie unless they themselves want to end our relationship. I couldn't find it in my heart to betray anyone after I had already led them on, and I would deny my own existence if it meant preserving the love that I thought, and they still think, we had.



It has not been brought up (possibly because they want to take this one step at a time) but it common for transgender individuals to shed as much of the gender they were born with as possible. Taking estrogen to feel like women do, wearing more feminine clothes than many women themselves wouldn't be willing to do, and if they have the courage and the money to do so, get corrective surgery to make their body into that which they want to be. No, they haven't stated the intention, but I've accepted this as probable because they've been a supporter of six reassignment surgery for a while.

I am puzzled. You resent your friend for having "lied" to you and "deceived" you for years, and yet at the same time you're saying that if you were in a similar situation you would do the same thing throughout your entire life.

I don't think you are appreciating the courage and the willpower it took your friend to admit both to himself and to others who (s)he really is as much as you should.

I think he's trying to say he would have preferred if his friend had just never told him at all. IE: If he was in his friends shoes, he is basically saying that he would have remained who he was, even if it was a lie, in order to spare his friends/loved ones feelings. Which...even I have a hard time believing. I can understand just not wanting to know about it all, but to say you'd live a lie your entire life to spare others feelings...Ehh.

Yeah, that could never work out. Maybe for a year or maybe even for a dozen years, but eventually you just wouldn't be able to cope any more.

Hmm. You think that conversations about things like six reassignment surgery might have been them dropping hints about their transgender status?

Once again, they're not becoming a different person. This seems to be your main issue. Why are they no longer the person who was your friend? What changes? Their name, their appearance, their pronouns? Do you honestly think those things are at all what makes someone your friend or not? While it's good that you admit to prejudice and seek assistance in getting past it, I don't think all this really goes beyond that. For all these pages of long arguments, you seem to be convincing yourself of things that are not true in order to justify rejecting something you're simply uncomfortable with.