"You'll have to lie/make things up"

[ktc]

Hey,

Often in trans spaces I've come across people saying that long-term disclosure is untenable because you will at some point be forced to lie about your past or "hide something" in order to maintain non-disclosure in a long-term relationship.

I've never really found this to be the case for myself and I'm wondering whether people can suggest items on which I'd have to lie or generate falsehoods in a relationship to not disclose. I'm not really open about being trans, although I'm a bit open about being infertile, seeing an endocrinologist due to having a nonfunctional endocrine system, and so on. I talk about these things to most friends if it comes up without necessarily being open about being trans.

I started transition at 13, and didn't obtain a credit record, driver's license, or employment until after the requisite documents were fixed - but have a fairly typical background for my age in terms of educational attainment, research placements, and the like. I can't think of any activities I undertook in my youth that I'd have to lie about, though I'd be open to suggestions if someone thinks I might have done something I'd have to make up lies about.

I just hear this trope so often given as absolute truth, and I'm wondering how it applies to my life, if anyone would be able to help me figure out how. What must I lie about if I don't disclose?

[Keaira]

I couldn't lie anyway because everyone, and I do mean everyone, at work knows I'm trans.

[Julie Wilson]

Often times I question the worth of a site like this where people are offering their opinions on such matters.  The person who is contemplating transition answers questions for post ops who transitioned a long time ago.  The non-passing trans person answers questions for assimilated people.  Everyone has their own view of reality and what is possible and what is inevitable. 

I suppose it works both ways, the assimilated person offering opinions, advice and their own view of reality to the non-passing or the person considering transition.

When it comes down to it, only you know what is possible for you.  Unfortunately I think most people limit their own possibilities, shoot themselves in the foot, etc.

[ktc]

Often times I question the worth of a site like this where people are offering their opinions on such matters.  The person who is contemplating transition answers questions for post ops who transitioned a long time ago.  The non-passing trans person answers questions for assimilated people.  Everyone has their own view of reality and what is possible and what is inevitable. 

I suppose it works both ways, the assimilated person offering opinions, advice and their own view of reality to the non-passing or the person considering transition.

When it comes down to it, only you know what is possible for you.  Unfortunately I think most people limit their own possibilities, shoot themselves in the foot, etc.

I'm curious what motivates this behaviour - what causes people to be so quick to jump to conclusions about experiences that are so foreign to their own? Is it a lack of self-esteem or is it more along the lines of a misguided attempt at egalitarianism by trying to see trans narratives as a monolith? I've noticed that there's a resistance to perceptions of division within the trans community, with anger when someone suggests that umbrella terms not be used or that political alliances should have finer divisions. Is this a part of that phenomenon - the perception that any trans person should be qualified to give advice on the trans issues of other trans people simply by way of being trans (even if the issues pertain to things that are entirely outside of the life experience of the would-be advice giver)? I'm curious what motivates the push towards this kind of artificial unity, and whether I'm assessing this correctly as that.

[Sephirah]

If you pose questions in a general public forum, then it stands to reason that you're going to get general public replies. The clue is in the board description. People only have their own experiences to draw on since they don't know you. We have more specialised boards here for various aspects of life that people can post in if they specifically want replies from people with perhaps more similar experiences to their own, and if they're not specific enough then I'm sure there are many niche sites out there catering for every definition of every term you care to mention. However, Susan's aims to be an inclusive site, catering for everyone.

Besides, hearing other people's opinions can be a good thing. By learning about how other people think, we learn more about ourselves. The key is being able to accept that people's opinions are just that. Individual views from folks you don't know, and who don't know you, visiting an internet forum.

But that's deviating from the subject of the thread, so maybe we could get back to that instead?

[Renee D]

I don't lie, I'm just vague about a lot of things.  But as someone else said, since you transitioned so young, I can't see it as being so much of an issue. And really, pretty much everyone has things in their past they may "alter" a tad to downplay it or whatever.

[A]

Basically, I think you're going to have to lie / stretch the truth / avoid details about everything related to before your transition - which, in your case, is only your childhood - as well as everything that makes your body different.

For example,

-Why can't you do in-vitro parenting?
-Why don't you have an uterus?
-How was your primary school?
-Whose name is that on your childhood art projects?
-When was your first period?
-What is this scar?
-Why are there no childhood pictures of you anywhere?
-What were your first toys?
-What did your mother want to call you at first?
Etc.

As you can see, they are pretty precise questions that can mostly be worked around without actually lying. because you have transitioned so young, and as such, contrarily to many such as I, were able to live an adolescence.

Oh, and transition at 13? That deserves a whole pack of envy flame thrower fuel.

[luna nyan]

You don't always have to lie.  Omission works perfectly fine.  I'm going to have a go at answering the questions just for fun! =)

-Why can't you do in-vitro parenting?
My doctor has told me it's not possible.

-Why don't you have an uterus?
I'm sorry, but I find that rather personal, but if you really have to know I was born without one.

-How was your primary school?
It wasn't the happiest time in my life as I didn't fit in so I don't think about that time.

-Whose name is that on your childhood art projects?
I was a bit of tomboy when I was a kid and liked to sign my name as X.

-When was your first period?
Sadly I was born without one.  (Look suitably upset)

-What is this scar?
I had tummy surgery to fix up a urinary problem.

-Why are there no childhood pictures of you anywhere?
My childhood photo albums were lost/damaged during a move.

-What were your first toys?
A big white teddy bear!

-What did your mother want to call you at first?
I've never actually asked her this question *lol*  (My gran named me)
Etc.

The general tactic is to give an answer that isn't really an answer, but at the same time make the questioner feel uncomfortable enough that they don't pursue the questioning further.  Most people have enough social grace to leave well enough alone.

I agree with this->

Oh, and transition at 13? That deserves a whole pack of envy flame thrower fuel.

And I'm very happy for you as well as you've had a chance for a more normal socialisation. =)

[Sephirah]

A lie of omission is still a lie. Or, at the very least, a deception since you're actively, and intentionally hiding the whole truth from someone. At least, that's my view. The trouble with being vague or creative with the truth, is that people can usually sniff out when you're hiding something, and that makes them all the more curious than if you'd just been up front. Body language often gives it away. And if you know what you're looking for, it's relatively easy to tell when someone's trying to hide something. What comes out of your mouth can be very different to what's written all over your face.

That being said, no doubt there are a lot of folks who've managed to work out conditioned responses to certain questions in such a way that they become second nature and may probably even be able to beat a polygraph. If those folks are happy enough to do things that way, fair enough.

[eli77]

If it ever reaches the point that someone keeps pushing me on something I don't want to talk about, I'm perfectly willing to be upfront: "I'm not answering that. Drop it." Though that has yet to happen. Mostly people respect boundaries. Or at least the people I like and want to spend time with do.

There are things that have happened to me that nobody has a right to know. That's my choice whether to inform and only my choice.

I don't see my trans status as any different, though I'm more willing to share that than some other things.

Everyone has a right to the absolute and complete truth from your lips? Otherwise you are lying? Well, that's your choice and if you are happy that way, fair enough. I have lots of things I don't talk about.

[Sephirah]

Everyone has a right to the absolute and complete truth from your lips? Otherwise you are lying?

Of course not. No one has a right to anything. And not wanting to talk about something is entirely natural. Everyone has lots of stuff they don't want to talk about, because it's not really anyone else's business.

The point I was making is that if you do choose to answer a specific question, and answer it in such a way that you omit something in order to give a different impression, inference or representation of an event or situation based on something which is technically true but not the whole story, then it's a kind of deception.

Like, for example, if you told your home insurance company that your very expensive TV was stolen by someone who got in your house while you were out, and you found it missing when you got back. But didn't tell them that you'd actually asked that person to house-sit, given them the keys to the front door and even made sure the fridge was stocked.

As I say, if people are comfortable with that then it's no one's place to tell them what they should or shouldn't say to anyone else. It's their lives to live how they wish.

But saying that finding ways to tell people things that skirt around being trans and emphasise the effects rather than the cause is being completely honest with them, well, personally I don't think it is.

[Julie Wilson]

I'm curious what motivates this behaviour - ...

I transitioned beginning at 35 years of age.  I think I was somewhat unique because in over-compensating to attempt to become my birth sex I had gotten into bodybuilding and I was using black market steroids and because of that steroid abuse my body had been creating estrogen and my gonads shut down.  I quit bodybuilding and never recovered from the steroid abuse so perhaps my damaged endocrine system helped me by sparing me time-related testosterone damage?

I damaged my endocrine system at the age of 20-21

Anyway... though I had always somehow been female inside...  Time, Socialization and Life Experience had made me a Man.  I would never have admitted that back then but it was the truth.  True, being a man was wrong for me but I had been a man for a while (effectively) though it was wrong for me, though it was against everything that was 'me'.

So though I was not the most manly of men, I wasn't an Alpha male by any stretch of the imagination...  I was familiar with negotiating life and the thinking process as my birth sex, as a man.  And I had a construction of reality in my mind.  Some of my "reality" was the way it was because of experiences I had and some of my "reality" existed because of my ignorance.  Like most people, as life went by I created a prison reality in my mind that I used to filter actual reality.

For example...  When I was first considering transition and early in transition I believed that I would always be trans.  But later on I realized that always being trans was like always being my birth sex.  We are what we think about, being on this site makes me trans.  Avoiding this website and just being a woman in my day to day life (when that day to day life is not opposed by outside forces) allows me to just be a woman and to create a history or a past of having been female.  People talk about, "hiding the past".  The past will bury it self, the past will consume the past, process it and turn it into fertilizer for the future But only when you make the past, 'THE PAST' most people bring the past into the future with them because they never let go of it, they keep it active and refer to it as the past when in fact it is the present (for them) and those people will be the first to tell you that you can never escape the past or hide it.  O_o ...

For a while I believed that I would always have a neo-vagina and believed I would always have to tell partners that I transitioned.  Then one night I thought I was having sex with someone who knew my past but I was wrong, he didn't know, he just knew me as a female woman and our interactions that night caused me to realize that I was living inside of a prison inside of my mind, one I had created myself with preconceived notions and ignorance.  This man had somehow managed to push me out of my mental prison without even realizing what was happening to me.  It was an enlightenment experience and I realized for the first time that I didn't have to place limitations on my experience as a female woman.

People who construct mental prisons for themselves use ideas like bars of metal.  They say things that support their belief.  They might say, "It's dishonest not to tell your partner that you transitioned."  But if someone really is their true sex (not their birth sex) and if that person managed to overcome their medical condition or birth defect (or whatever you call it) and has become his or her true sex then denying that 'truth' is not honest.  That is what I learned, I learned that "outing" myself as trans kept me in trans space.  "Outing" myself as trans kept me out of 'true sex' space.  And it was better to remain true to myself and create history as having been my true self rather than to continue to admit to people that I was something other than my true self.  I realize my 'truth' and my needs, what is right for me obviously isn't right for everyone but I can only speak to my experience.  I am an expert at my experience whereas I don't know dirt about other people's expertise.

People offer advice and knowledge based on what they know, it's what they do.  They don't mean any harm by doing it.  But transition creates situations for people that are dynamically different from one another and unless there is a way to create separate forums for people with different needs we are always going to have a smorgasbord of different views and opinions.  I don't know if that is a good thing, I do know it was really difficult to find the support I needed and when seeking support I often received judgment or opposition. I would come to a site like this for a boost and instead of the boost I needed I was shoved back down.  I am surprised this forum is as good as it is.  I have seen far worse than this on privately run forums.

[Julie Wilson]

Basically, I think you're going to have to lie / stretch the truth / avoid details about everything related to before your transition - which, in your case, is only your childhood - as well as everything that makes your body different.

For example,

-Why can't you do in-vitro parenting?
-Why don't you have an uterus?
-How was your primary school?
-Whose name is that on your childhood art projects?
-When was your first period?
-What is this scar?
-Why are there no childhood pictures of you anywhere?
-What were your first toys?
-What did your mother want to call you at first?
Etc.

As you can see, they are pretty precise questions that can mostly be worked around without actually lying. because you have transitioned so young, and as such, contrarily to many such as I, were able to live an adolescence.

Oh, and transition at 13? That deserves a whole pack of envy flame thrower fuel.

My experience ...

People NEVER ask these questions.

UNLESS ...  they already read you as trans or someone told them you are trans.


Contrary to popular opinion O_o not every question warrants an answer.  And it is okay to return a question with a question or a confused look or rolling of the eyes or with nothing at all.

Example ...

Person A.  What is that scar on your neck?
Person B.  Does your mom make your clothes?

Person A.  Why don't you have a uterus?
Person B.  Do you eat your snot after you pick your nose?

Person A.  What did your mother want to call you at first?
Person A.  What were your first toys?
Person A.  Why are there no childhood pictures of you anywhere? 
Person B.  Why do you ask such creepy questions, get a life!


BTW...  in light of my previous post, I see this current line of reasoning as a way to bring attention back to the "box" - the mental prison.  But once someone escapes her mental prison the suggestion that the prison is valid and needs to be stayed in becomes an agitation.  Who is going to stay in their mental prison once they have tasted pure freedom?

People who have a functional understanding of meditation and the law of attraction realize that "the truth" is what you think about.  The successful wood-cutter thinks about cutting wood while he cuts wood.  The successful woman does not think about things that run contrary to what and who she is and instead she focuses on the task at hand like confidently going about her business.  With practice it becomes a way of life.

[A]

Well, as I said, in your case, you won't have to lie much. But as you see, even though those questions are sort of rare, you do have to work around them; you can't be fully honest about them.

That's just how much you'll have to "lie". It all depends on your personality, actually.

[Julie Wilson]

Well, as I said, in your case, you won't have to lie much. But as you see, even though those questions are sort of rare, you do have to work around them; you can't be fully honest about them.

That's just how much you'll have to "lie". It all depends on your personality, actually.

No one has to lie about anything.

It depends on your sense of what the questioner is entitled to.

In my own experience the truth only began to exist after transition and I don't have an alternate truth burning a hole in my pocket.

[A]

As I said, it depends upon your personality. Personally, I believe that anyone who asks me anything is entitled to the entire truth, and I feel bad whenever I have to work around the question or stretch the truth or something akin to that.

But especially in ktc's case (who I thought was you at first; gotta be tired!) even I would be mostly comfortable. I mean, she can basically get away with the full truth in 90% cases, and partial truth in 9% cases.

[Julie Wilson]

A lie of omission is still a lie. Or, at the very least, a deception since you're actively, and intentionally hiding the whole truth from someone. At least, that's my view. The trouble with being vague or creative with the truth, is that people can usually sniff out when you're hiding something, and that makes them all the more curious than if you'd just been up front. Body language often gives it away. And if you know what you're looking for, it's relatively easy to tell when someone's trying to hide something. What comes out of your mouth can be very different to what's written all over your face.

That being said, no doubt there are a lot of folks who've managed to work out conditioned responses to certain questions in such a way that they become second nature and may probably even be able to beat a polygraph. If those folks are happy enough to do things that way, fair enough.

Person A.  Are you trans?
Person B.  Get a life much?

Lie of omission?

No one needs a conditioned response.  All an individual needs is to know who he or she is, what he or she is.  I am a woman, I don't care what other people think, I don't need to engage in a debate about my essence.

Got questions?

Get answers.

Some of us realize that our past was the lie and we live for the truth.  The suggestion that we might be hiding, "the whole truth" can be valid cause for resentment and agitation.  It feels a lot like oppression to me when people suggest such things.  It's obvious they don't know what I know or feel what I feel thus they don't understand, how could they?

Not giving life to a lie, not perpetuating the harm caused by a birth defect, not living out of obligation for someone else's "truth" or "whole truth" is okay.  If it's "deception" then more power to the deceiver, except it isn't deception when it preserves the real truth.  Liar liar pants on fire?  Sometimes the real valor is in avoiding offense, live and let live.  When preserving the "truth" for the sake of the "truth" harms people, it becomes ignorant.  And ignorance of the law is no excuse.  The first law, 'Be true to yourself.'

All these metal bars being thrown my way, want me to build something with them?  How about a ladder instead of a prison?

[Julie Wilson]

As I said, it depends upon your personality. Personally, I believe that anyone who asks me anything is entitled to the entire truth, and I feel bad whenever I have to work around the question or stretch the truth or something akin to that.

That has to do with your belief system, not your personality.  You believe it is wrong therefore it is wrong.  That says more to me about your situation than anything else.  When I was younger I used to believe that my beliefs were sacred, as I got older and experienced life I began to realize that my beliefs were beliefs.

[Julie Wilson]

... The trouble with being vague or creative with the truth, is that people can usually sniff out when you're hiding something, and that makes them all the more curious than if you'd just been up front. Body language often gives it away. And if you know what you're looking for, it's relatively easy to tell when someone's trying to hide something. What comes out of your mouth can be very different to what's written all over your face.

In order to be hung or sentenced to death (death of you as your true sex) they have to find you guilty which places the burden on "them".  Feel free (to whom this concerns whoever you be) to not carry other people's burdens.

And most importantly of all, there is nothing more damning than a confession.

The law does not require that one testify against one's self.


My final thought of the day ...

"If you are going to live your life out of a sense of obligation to others make your first priority to only present them with your true self."  If trans is your truth then present that.  If trans woman or trans man is your truth feel free to present that.  If man or woman is your truth then feel free to present that.

[A]

I really don't want to get into a conflict with you, but it feels like I somehow provoked you. Sorry.