It's an odd one but, for me, I tend to agree with Jane and her label of collateral damage. I'm only speaking personally here, so it's more of my opinion than anything else and I don't claim it's right or anything.
But... For me, the best way out of this has been to try and avoid the tendency towards solipsism. This is probably the most personal journey that I, and others, will make. Which is needed I suppose, yet by concentrating too much on personal factors we risk losing sight of other people. I mean, we could just ask who needs them anyway?
In my case the answer is me!!
I need my family, I need to have friends and friends of friends. I have to have that to enjoy life, and I think that social acceptance is the way we'll eventually integrate into wider society. I'm a nicer person now than I ever was, I've started voluntary work and all sorts. Maybe that's society's gain? However I also take from them.
I don't think we can realistically expect to turn up one day and say: "Hi I'm Missy now, this is how I dress and this is what you call me" and expect everyone else to just get on with it. That's not fair - other people have emotions too!! For me it's been a matter of coming out and trying to be nice and making an effort to show everyone that I, once broken out of my dull little cocoon, can try to be a better person than I used to be. More friendly, more giving and more emotionally responsive maybe. And maybe it works. I have more friends now. The people I used to know have become closer, they want to see me more. Certain barriers have gone
And it's lovely.
But the only way I think that can happen is by considering their feelings. They have, or had, an emotional attachment to the old self. In some ways it's like a separation or even a death. I feel that I've gone through a conscious process to get rid of the old character. Even though it was nothing, just clouds of contrivance spun together until they resembled a person, some people liked it. And to learn it was gone was upsetting. We have a unique power. We can say: "You're never going to meet [John] again because I'm [Jessica] from now on". Nobody else does that - has the facility to, legally
, remove someone from the world entirely. Perhaps, I don't know.
So for others the emotions will run all the way from, on the loss side, feeling like a close friend has moved away all the way through to death of a family member. My parents, for example, did all they could. They bought me presents and took me out and gave me experiences they thought I would enjoy. And then to go and tell them that none of it really mattered, that in many ways I didn't enjoy what they were doing, was hard. Hard for me, but so much harder for them
For them it's a total loss of a huge emotional investment. The person they thought they were raising, they thought they loved and did everything for, no longer exists. I think that, in some ways, I'm asking them to do something way beyond normal human experience. I'm asking them to accept the loss of someone they have loved, and to love someone else. And it's not like they've even got any choice. Bless them - they are getting there
But to essentially get someone to learn to love someone else takes time. And all this talk about being the same person doesn't do it for me. I'm not!! I look different, behave differently and do different things. It feels like a truer expression of what I am, and I enjoy it more, but on the other hand that's only half the picture for me. I wouldn't want to have fun at someone else's expense, and I couldn't live with causing people emotional hurt.
So I try not to.
Which, for me, does mean dealing with rejection in the best way that I can. I have had it. Yet I don't think, personally, the way forward is to necessarily label such people as transphobic or whatever. It is complicated for other people.
