Losing emotional legitimacy.

[LittleEmily24]

I realised that i can;t continue being friends with certain people in my life. Two very close male friends of mine were very supportive when i told them, but tbh it's just not working out. One of them has hardly spoken to me since January, partly from work, but mainly we just don't get on too well anymore. We are two different people from the time we were best friends. I also get the impression he is starting to struggle with the reality of my transition. The other friend whilst fully accepts my transition, he continues our friendship as if nothing has happened. He is not being deliberately rude, but he still calls me dude, mate, and 'good man'. I mean it's really, really hard being in his presence and i'm thinking it's time to call the curtain on that friendship. Sometimes you just got to move on.

ugh, i know this feeling all too well... i have plenty of friends who claimed to "accept and support" my transition, when in reality they just accepted it as me being a guy with a girl body... I have a friend who still treats me and talks to me as if I'm a guy, and I've made a habit of avoiding him... and my best friend has pretty much distanced himself from me and me him moreso because we are just different.. I love him to death, but he's a total man's man... i dont think he can handle hanging out with his best friend being a girl now.

I have another friend who still refers to me as bro, guy, man, etc. ugh i cant STAND it... I've let go of a LOT of friendships because while they told me as a vow of support "you'll always be the same person I'm friends with." what they express is more somewhere along the lines of "you'll always be male (othername) to me.." and I simply can not have that.

[Ms Grace]

The other friend whilst fully accepts my transition, he continues our friendship as if nothing has happened. He is not being deliberately rude, but he still calls me dude, mate, and 'good man'. I mean it's really, really hard being in his presence and i'm thinking it's time to call the curtain on that friendship. Sometimes you just got to move on.

Have you asked him to not say that? He might simply not realise/understand.

[Miharu Barbie]

.....without even glancing up away from the screen he said "what can I do for you brother"......

Not to state the obvious, in my experience sometimes people just say stuff in an absent minded way when their attention is on something other than what they're doing.  A recent example comes to mind.

Just to set the scene, keep in mind that I've been full time, mostly stealth for 16 years.  I'm not very tall; I'm slender with large boobs, a slim waist, pink, green and black hair to my waist, and always present sort of high femme glam; I get a lot of attention from men my age.  I can't recall the last time anyone questioned my gender.  So, I was at a pool hall recently, and I approached the bar and asked for a beer.  This distracted, masculine guy in is mid to late 30's set my beer on the bar; I handed him some cash; and he placed change in my hand and said, "There you go dude."  To which I smiled and replied, "You got it girlfriend" and set a dollar on the bar which he scooped up and was immediately on to the next thirsty patron.  Honestly, I doubt he even really saw me.  He seemed as oblivious to the fact that he called me dude as he was that I called him girlfriend.  In fact, I immediately put the exchange out of my mind until this very moment.  It didn't mean a thing.  If, for some reason, I had been feeling insecure about my gender identity in that moment, my mind could easily have made a whole lot more of the incident than was actually there.  But because the only thing I was feeling insecure about in that moment was whether I could kick the butt of my next opponent in the pool tournament I was playing in, when that guy addressed me as "dude", my reflexive response was to reflect back to him the goofiness of his remark in a whimsical way.

It's just a time and confidence thing.  I mean, think about it; after 16 years of being the girliest girl on my block... I guess a good way to describe it would be to say that I take my gender identity for granted at this point.  That is an attitude that will almost certainly come for you with the passage of time.  And sooner than you think.

All is well.  You're lovely.