I must be a bad judge of character.

[Cimara]

Someone outed my bf as trans to a friend of mine. I've known her a little over a year. She knows I am trans but did not know Lucas was. She told him she had heard a "rumor" that he was trans. (We still don't know who outed him) Lucas doesn't advertise the fact he is trans but he doesn't deny it. He explained that yes he was trans. She got a very weird look on her face but all she said was "oh, ok."  But she acted strange the rest of the evening. She stayed as far away from him as possible.  I also noticed her staring at him several times.

She asked me to have lunch with her today which I did. She asked me why I had never told her about Lucas. I told her because it wasnt my place to tell people his trans status. I asked her if she had a problem with him. She told me yes she did. She said she thought he was a man and that she didn't appreciate being deceived and lied to. I told her he IS a man. She just shook her head and told me I knew what she meant.  I don't understand her reacting like that. Its not as if he had gone home with her and dropped the bomb right before they were going to have sex or something.  Then she told me she had always been a little envious that I had such a hot boyfriend but that now she was trying to figure out what is wrong with me. She said it was a "waste" for me to have gone through the trouble of becoming female if I was just going to end up with someone like Lucas. I asked her what she meant by that. She said Lucas was not a man no matter what he did to himself. She told me I could easily find a "real" man who would be interested in me. I told her Lucas was a "real" man. She just rolled her eyes and said "sure he is".Then she said she really hoped I wasnt one of those "weirdos" that become a woman just to end up a "dike" .  Her words.  I didn't bother trying to educate her on the difference between gender and sexual orientation.  I didnt bother saying anything else at all. I just told her not to call me anymore and I got up and left.

Her crack about Lucas never really being a man told me all I need to know about her. If she feels that way about him then she must feel the same about me. I really thought she was a friend. This has really hurt me. It made me cry which I really do not do a lot. It hurts to know how she really feels about trans people. I guess I am just not a very good judge of character.  What I can't figure out is why she had such an awful reaction to Lucas being trans. She never seemed to care that I was.

This makes me suspicious of my friends now. I am wondering if they are as accepting as they act.

[Dani]

Some people just are not as accepting as we would like them to be. We are a minority of the population and we just have to be careful who knows our personal health issues.

[Wednesday]

I'm really sorry you received all that crap from that girl.

I don't think you have to be necessarily a bad judge. When speaking about "open-mindedness" I think it's not as easy as black or white. I had met people from all flavours you can imagine: people who "accepted" gay folks but rejected transgenders or transsexuals, people who accepted to some degree transgenders but rejected gay folks, people who had a hard time understanding a MtF girl can be a lesbian, people who literally thought a MtF + FtM couple were in fact a man (the MtF) and a woman (the FtM) who just were really weird... Sometimes it's not easy to figure out what a person is going to think about those issues.

I just think it cames to each individual way of thinking. Saddenly those who look so accepting may not be as open-minded as we believe, but what you went through can happen to any of us (even if we are really sharp at observing people).

[bubbles21]

Seems like she had that horrible reaction bcz she deep down was attracted to him and probs wanted him, i mean why would someone who you arent in a relationship with react like that lol The fact that she said she was envious and then she reacts like this is very telling. If that was me i know i would have had to get up and walk away because i would have punched her in the face. I dont think you are a bad judge of character, i just think some ppl take a while to show their true colours. Hopefully you find out who outed Lucas so you can ask why they thought it was their place to say anything?

[EmmaLoo]

It seems like her issues are with being a "homosexual". I've run into this several times online of late and I just don't understand it either. She may not give your BF a pass because she assumes he can't have a penis and that's a mandatory feature of being "male" -thus the headshaking and incredulity.

Actually, this has all the hallmarks of your typical Christian, "I'm going to save them" intervention. This would explain why she felt privileged to delve right into your deepest personal business and then be disrespectful. They typically start with the one on one lunch invitation and then spiral out of control fairly quickly. There must be a handbook on this somewhere where they give instructions on how to turn us away from the devil...or dikes, or the gay lifestyle, or whatever the case, lol.

It sounds like you handled it pretty well. Bravo.

[Cimara]

People are so genital obsessed.  Its not limited to straight people either. When I first started dating Lucas one of my gay friends asked me why I would want to date a trans guy since he doesn't have a Dick. Its very annoying. Lucas looks better and more masculine than a lot of cis guys but since he doesn't have a penis none of that matters to a lot of people. I always thought people were more accepting of FtMs but since I have been with Lucas I see that is not true at all.

[Kylo]

It's not something most people even think about for a second until pressed, and then you find that gender specificity and sex organs are more important to them than you might think. Or not - I figured completely wrong on several people, the ones who had bragged about being tolerant and LGBT friendly turned out to harbor denial and disgust, and the more conservative guys who I expected to be grossed out and disown me were totally fine with it and never treated me differently for a second. You never can tell till... well, you tell.

If you're trans you probably have a different and more adaptive outlook than the average cis. If you've lived your whole life with sex organs you don't like much, you'll probably have automatically learned to appreciate aspects of people beyond their label or their junk because you had to do it for yourself... but this isn't the experience of most other people.

[Elis]

Just want to add how the 'what sex you are determines gender' argument doesn't make sense. We start out as a female sex in the womb, the clit turns into a penis which means cis women have underdeveloped penises basically. So I consider myself already having 'male parts' and nobody looking at my 'clit' can not tell me from looking at it that it doesn't look like a penis. People making this argument seriously need to retake some biology lessons.

Sorry this happened to you Cimara; hope you find some better friends soon.

[Kylo]

To be honest some people out there complicate the issue when explaining things to cis people. Biologically there are two 'distinct' sexes for reproductive purposes; there are no inbetween sexes recognized by science, extra chromosomes etc. do not qualify as some other sex, but there are people out there who claim it does, or that there are infinite genders. No wonder people get confused.

[Rambler]

This has been sort of on my mind lately. Since coming out and actually joining the trans community online, I've found that transmen tend to face more backlash than transwomen. I think it has something to do with stereotypically patriarchal culture. Transwomen are shunned enough as it is, and the ignorants out there have trouble enough with the idea of a man becoming a woman and "lowering" their status to what many consider the lesser sex. Now just imagine how they would view transmen. Of course the idea of a woman attempting to elevate herself to the status of the "greater"  sex would only cause more backlash in my mind. Of course, transwomen also get the vast majority of the exposure both within our community and in the media, so it might also have to do with an acceptance gap simply because it's just one more thing society at large needs to get over.

[Maria77]

Your "friend" is no friend to you.  She was getting in her digs at you while also aiming at Lucas.  If she feels that way about Lucas she feels the same way about you.   I agree with Bubbles-she was attracted to Lucas to further complicate things.