I can't find anything recent here about this, so I've put this together to maybe help people tackle the issue. Maybe there was something in the wiki once, but that is still offline, so if you have anything to add, or amend, or whatever, please comment. This is not perfect, but I can't find anything else like it here. Apologies if I have missed something.
Comes a point for most of us when we have to tell someone else we are trans. Some of us are brought up in circumstances where we can ease into a different gender to the one we were assigned at birth, but most of us are not. Instead we reach a point where we can't live with the gender scripts we've got any more and change has to happen. That moment is hard enough for us to handle, but explaining it to a parent, sibling, child, friend or partner is another thing entirely. For many people reading this it will be up there with the hardest conversations of their life.
Few people have to think about gender – that's the problem. Instead, we absorb gender, soaking it up passively as we grow, until we wear it like a skin. Like our skin, it becomes part of us, part of how we behave, part of how we think and part of how we dream. If you want to know more about how this happens, through a process called scripting,
then read this post.
If the cis in your life is genuinely trying to understand your situation, cheer up, it likely means they are genuinely trying to help. Or, at the least, have empathy with you.
I've known people with binary gender dysphoria who've said, 'I feel like a man trapped in a woman's body,' or vice versa, and a declaration like that can work, especially nowadays, particularly if your cis is a late millennial or newer. That age group have grown up around the LGBTQIA+ environment and know the deal, even if they don't understand it.
Where that statement doesn't work is if your gender dysphoria is non-binary, because for a start, it wouldn't be accurate, and for another the concept of non-binary is still percolating through our cultures. It may also fail if your cis belongs to an older generation, because scripts tying masculinity and femininity to sex assigned at birth are less questioned by boomers and beyond.
If you are non-binary then unless you can help your cis understand that sex (assigned at birth) and gender (which is cultural and which we learn) are different things, and that while they appear to be linked, they are not, you will get nowhere fast.
Even if your gender dysphoria is binary, helping your cis understand sex and gender aren't the same is going to be necessary to some extent. Why? Because otherwise the, 'I was born in the wrong body,' argument won't make sense to them, because surely if you are born a woman, you should naturally feel feminine and not want to be a man?
One argument here is to use the example of how society's thinking about sexual attraction has changed, with most people realising that no natural law means people assigned male at birth (AMAB) should be attracted to people assigned female at birth (AFAB). It is just that
most AMAB are sexually attracted to AFAB and vice versa. Society spent so long discriminating against anyone who wasn't on that binary that 'most' became 'all' as gay people became invisible for fear of abuse.
Even now in the UK a last ditch defence against gay conversion therapy is being mounted, mostly by conservatives on the grounds that banning it would restrict their religious freedom and potentially criminalise saintly folk who are 'only trying to do good'. This same thinking lay behind the destruction of entire civilisations and the deaths of millions of people in the name of 'saving' them. I bring this up because this logic is being used against trans people and is gaslighting under any other name. If your cis uses it, they will be hard to change and it may be easier to leave them behind.
Make sure to ask how your cis feels. This is potentially one of the biggest levers you have, because it allows you to show empathy – showing your understanding of their feelings – without sympathy.
The reason for damping down your sympathy is this conversation must not drift into 'poor you' mode, where by commiserating with the discomfort they are experiencing, you cast yourself as the perpetrator.
Keep focussed on the fact you are not to blame for this – unless you are talking with a partner who you weren't open with at the beginning of your relationship. In that case, you need to own the deception, though you don't need to own their discomfort over your gender. This one is tricky and you will feel conflicted.
If no deception – or 'economy with the truth' as a British diplomat once put it – is involved, then part of the magic is keeping talking. The more the subject is in the open, the more openly you can discuss it and the more you will begin to share the words needed to work through it with your cis.
Human beings are immensely adaptable and can get used to anything through repeated exposure, which is how we adapt to living in war zones and through pandemics.
The aim here is to help your cis reach the point where they can see past their scripting and begin to think of the relationship they have with you
without the overlay of gender. Once they start to think of you as just being you as a person, the core of their relationship with you will become visible and everything will be much easier.
Assuming that core is good.
Sometimes your cis will be unable to begin the journey. This is unpredictable and there are bios here telling of uncles living in the boonies who eat ammo with cereal, yet react with, 'Okay, so you're trans, explain how this affects us?' and others of mothers who refused even to open the discussion. The latter situation is unusual, mostly because your mother put part of her into you and will lay down her own life before yours, so they will usually end up on your side. The message? Be prepared for some easy wins and some inexplicable failures.
Another thing to understand about your cis is that when you come out as trans, as they will see it, the changes won't lie purely in their relationship with you. Say they are accepting. They will have to deal with friends and family who are not accepting, with all the burden of going through a similar talking process as they had with you. Except your cis will understand gender dysphoria less well than you do and may find themselves accused of being part of 'the problem' by the people they are dealing with.
It is part of human nature to be stressed by uncertainty, so get ready to support your supporters – do this well and it will open up a whole new side of your relationship with them. Yes, it is very tempting to become overwhelmed by the many problems you will have at this stage, but remember if you can build a team around you, you can fight as a team.
If your cis is a sexual partner, much will depend on where your relationship is at and how you relate to each other. At one level, every relationship is a trade and if your trade balance is good with them – as in you are giving as much as you are receiving – you are in a place at the start. If they are giving more than you, think about fixing that before you open the discussion, because if at the moment you break the news, they are thinking, 'This is just one more thing I have to cope with!' it will not help.
Should gender affirming medical care (GAMC) be in the frame, their relationship with you will change physically as well as mentally. Their sexual preference must be considered as strongly as your gender dysphoria, because in the same way as you cannot change your 'inner' gender, neither can they change their attraction to male or female bodies.
If GAMC is going to change your body, you are putting a partner in the same position about their sexuality as you find yourself in about your gender.
If they want children and you haven't started a family, there will be that to work through, if you have children then they will need to be included, and if you don't have children, there is still your partner's sexual preference to deal with.
The one time where sexual preferences may not come into the frame in a sexual relationship is in later life. Some couples find themselves in a situation where they aren't having much if any sex – if that is so, then the reason you've stayed together is likely because you have much in common and like each other a lot. It still won't be a walk in the park, but there's an opening to reframe your relationship by acknowledging and working into its strengths.
Children are something else. When they are very young, kids accept things as being how they are and their gender scripting is weak, so if they grow up with a parent whose gender expression is mixed, they'll see it as normal. That still leaves them with how to deal with their friends, some of whom will not see it that way, which will open them up to being bullied.
As children become older and their brains mature, it becomes easier to reason through things like gender dysphoria, but by then their gendered scripts will be stronger, so they may be less accepting. These days children are growing up with more subtle messages about gender and while a lot of girls are beginning to realise that femininity/masculinity tips the slope of the playing field against them through discrimination, a lot of boys support the slope.
Don't forget that GAMC will result in family roles changing should your relationship stay together. If you were AMAB and identify as a woman and also with femininity, then GAMC will result in children losing their father and gaining a second mother. That's a lot of change and they will also have to reprocess their entire experience of childhood with you, who was once a father and now is not. This is where pronouns come up because the past is another country and we can't go back there, so they will have experiences and memories of you in another sex that can't easily be reprocessed. Best advice I have is to make your preferences about pronouns and deadnames clear, but roll with it because you cannot and should not own your children's memories.
I have not seen any data on how many people who are AFAB and who have borne children have gender dysphoria, but my understanding of scripting tells me this group is likely to be small in the future, because the dysphoria will kick in long before the question of pregnancy arises. Which is not to say it has not been larger in the past, when GAMC was not available or dysphoria understood, or that it won't be more common in cultures where people AFAB have few rights.
Ultimately, the fate of every relationship will come down to how strong the bonds are between you and your cis. If mutual respect, liking or love are strong, the relationship has a better chance of survival than if those three are weak. If you have a history of being supportive, encouraging and empathic, your cis may lose more from ending the relationship than adapting to it.
