Is it really our loss?

[CosmicJoke]

Hi everyone. This is just something I have been contemplating lately. I think that transitioning does affect other people. Basically the person they knew you as your whole life is now fading away and becoming someone else.

I think that to them it is a loss that they mourn and rightfully so. It's hard not to feel bad for them but is it really our loss?

I spent roughly the first 18 years of my life in a body that didn't feel like mine. I've been living full-time as female for about 15 years and never looked back.

I guess that brings me back to my original question. Is it really our loss or is it their's?

[tgirlamg]

Hey Sister!

I think it is every bit our gain in the spectrum of personal growth and moving towards a meaningful life in which we can fully engage with ourselves, others and the world... Others may see it as a loss, or a gain... all things are choice... The persona we have projected for so long falls away and that requires others to remake their image of who we are... people often attach mental security to the feeling that they know the parameters within which others operate...

For the ones who are overwhelmed by the challenge of getting to know the "new" us... there may be resistance that may, or may not... be resolved in the passage of time. Giving these people time, space, and understanding is a sound strategy...

Those who are more open to see life and others in new and ever evolving way will need little, if any, time to begin exploring the person they have known for so long at new levels...

Onward Brave Sister!

A 💕

[Lori Dee]

Good question, CJ.

I think it is a "glass half full" situation.

As parents, we try to raise our children to become the people we want them to be. As they grow older and become rambunctious teenagers, we begin to wonder where we went wrong. The reality is that it had nothing to do with how we raised them; they are just figuring out who they are. Maybe they will rebel against us, and maybe we will become closer.

Even as adults, our children may go their own way in the world. We still see bits of ourselves in them, but they are nothing like they were as a child. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I still think of my daughter as the sweet little girl with curly blonde hair. She is now fully grown, married to a wonderful man, and has kids of her own. She is nothing like I envisioned her growing up to be, but I am proud of the person she has become.

My dad still thinks of me as his son. He knows differently and tries to accept who I am. I try to show him that I am the same person inside. I have not changed. I have told him many times that the only difference is that now he knows more intimate details about me that I never shared before.

My brother refuses to accept it. For his entire life, I was the big brother that he looked up to and respected. From his perspective, he has suffered a great loss. But the loss is of his own choosing. He chooses not to accept me and has made that clear. I lost a little brother who meant the world to me. But I choose to live my life for who I am, with or without his blessing.

I knew going into this that there was a good chance that I would lose everyone. I wrestled with that for a long time. Is this something that I can be okay with? I concluded that the decision was not mine to make.

It is unfair of us to force others into a relationship that they find unbearable. I certainly do not want to be in a relationship of any kind where all parties are not happy to be there. If I pretend to be the old me strictly for the sake of appeasing others, I make myself miserable. And the others are not responding to the authentic me. After three marriages, I can confirm that does not work.

So is it a loss? Yes. When I strip the husk from an ear of corn, it is because it is something that was in my way and preventing me from enjoying the good stuff on the cob. Is that a loss? It is a matter of quality over quantity. I have no room for negative people in my life.

Each person must decide for themselves what they are willing to discard for the purpose of better fulfilling a happy life. Some cannot live without family and friends at any cost. And from the outside, we see their lives full of drama and pain. The happiest people on the planet are those who are surrounded by caring, loving people who accept each other as they are. 

[KathyLauren]

I don't see it as a loss.  For me, certainly, it's a gain.

My wife doesn't think she "lost" me.  I am still here, still me, still the person she married.  (And probably still just as annoying as ever! )  I have changed, mostly for the better.

[Pema]

Everything I say here is my perspective, not something I think is absolute truth.

I think that transitioning does affect other people.

No doubt. That's the nature of human interaction; our choices and behaviors do affect others, and vice versa.

I think that to them it is a loss that they mourn

"Loss" is a choice of framing, and "mourning" is a choice, too. Life isn't static; change is constant. A given person will see some of those changes as desirable, others undesirable. Labeling them as "good" or "bad" is assigning a value to them, and people will disagree about which value to assign. Nothing is inherently a "gain" or a "loss;" we only label things in those ways because we want or don't want them. And sometimes, after enough time has passed, we change our minds about whether something was "good" or "bad."

If we tried to live our lives so that nobody else experienced a "loss," we'd be paralyzed, because somebody would be bound to see our actions as "negative." And whose life are we living? Isn't it ours? Are we here to make sure everyone around us never experiences discomfort? Is that even possible?

I firmly believe that we are here to discover and express our true selves. As Martha Beck says, "Being authentic means being counter-culture." Society provides us with an extremely narrow range of parameters for self-expression, and the huge majority of people willingly conform. Others find themselves compelled to be who they really are. Society and the desire for belonging and approval create intense pressure for these rebels to fall into line. But that's not what we came here to do.

I've said before that I think learning to disappoint other people and be OK with it is one of the huge lessons in Life. It doesn't mean not caring; it just means weighing the options and deciding you still need to move forward.

As the others have said above, those who love us and want us to be at peace will join us on our journey. Those are the people we're meant to travel with.

[Sephirah]

Hi everyone. This is just something I have been contemplating lately. I think that transitioning does affect other people. Basically the person they knew you as your whole life is now fading away and becoming someone else.

Yes and no. I feel that this hugely depends on how someone saw you at the beginning. If someone saw you as little more than your physical attributes, and that is what keeps you together, then... yeah, it's a bigger... and harder change for them than someone who saw you as who you are inside when you got together. Because I am of the opinion that when you go through this process... you are gaining what you lost when you decided to shove who you are down into that little box labelled "No one will understand". That box... is not airtight. And however much you try to fight this in your life, you can't truly hide the real you. Part of it always leaks out... and, people can pick up on that, even subconsciously.

We do not lose. We gain freedom. We gain the keys to the cage we've built around ourselves. A cage built from a lifetime of sometimes hurt, sometimes shame, sometimes hopelessness. We get the key. Whether we open the little door on that cage is entirely up to us.

Sometimes other people do lose the image they have of you, though. And that can be hard for them. But this self same thing happens in a myriad of other circumstances, well outside the scope of being trans. Life is a delicate balancing act of being who you are versus being who other people want you to be. Even if you aren't trans. We all change, every day of our lives. You don't go to sleep being the same person you were when you woke up.

The thing you have to understand, though, is that a person's image of you is almost entirely dependant on them. Just as your image of them is entirely dependant on you. Granted, someone who is trans has a lot of physical aspects that will change over the course of a transition. And that will be hard for people who are not attracted to what the change in physical aspects will become. You can't blame them and can't expect them to have to change how they feel just because you want them to. It all depends on them, and is their own journey to work out how they feel. As it is yours to work out how you feel. If that isn't compatible then it isn't compatible. No recriminations, or blame. If it is, then it is, and you deal with it.

I just feel there's a fundamental split between "person" and "body". Some people know one, but not the other. And this is where a lot of difficulty arises. For some people they are interchangeable words. For some they are not. And that wholly depends on the relationship and the people in question.

In my humble opinion... transition is never a loss. It's just a question of how people deal with the gain.

[Asche]

"Loss" is a choice of framing, and "mourning" is a choice, too. Life isn't static; change is constant. A given person will see some of those changes as desirable, others undesirable. Labeling them as "good" or "bad" is assigning a value to them, and people will disagree about which value to assign. Nothing is inherently a "gain" or a "loss;" we only label things in those ways because we want or don't want them.

To emphasize what I think Pema is saying, this isn't unique to gender transition.
I remember how betrayed some Bob Dylan fans felt when he started using an
electric guitar.

It reminds me of the third verse of the song Both Sides Now

But now the friends are acting strange
They shake their heads; they say I've changed
But something's lost and something's gained
In living every day.

[Asche]

Also, from what I've seen, most people don't change all that much when they transition, other than their presentation.  I suspect that when people say that they've "lost" someone because they transition, it's because the trans person's "gender" presentation was essential to their idea of who the person was.  All they've lost is their deluded idea of who the person is.

In short, gender essentialism.

[Lori Dee]

I suspect that when people say that they've "lost" someone because they transition, it's because the trans person's "gender" presentation was essential to their idea of who the person was.  All they've lost is their deluded idea of who the person is.

This exactly.

My dad thinks he lost a son, but my mom is happy that she gained a daughter.

[Pema]

All they've lost is their deluded idea of who the person is.

Agreed. And with it, their deluded sense of who they were.

[Sarah B]

Hi Everyone

Reading through the question what Cosmic Joke presented in her post and reading the comments that were presented by others.  It seems that I seem to be far removed from the problems others describe and I have spent some considerable time thinking about why that is.  Maybe it's because of how I handled things from the very beginning: deliberately, quietly and entirely on my own terms, without me thinking or planning on what I was going to do.

When I made the decision to change my life around, I did not tell my family or friends.  Not because I did not care but because I did.  I did not want any of them to suffer from the fallout from what I was going to do, face uncomfortable questions they were not prepared to answer.  I did not want them blamed, embarrassed or hurt because of something I had chosen for myself so I stayed silent.

At the time I cut all of my ties.  Family, old friends, everyone.  I moved clear across Australia far from where I lived and I was fully prepared to live the rest of my life without them.  That is something I just did without thinking about it.  I guess it was necessary.  I just wanted to live my life as a female.  I needed freedom, peace and space to do what I needed or wanted to do without pressure, guilt or resistance without even thinking about what or why I did what I did.

By the time they found out it was not through me.  It was my uncle who told them. Whatever they thought after they were told I do not know.  I was already well into changing my life and living far away from them.  They were not there when I had surgery so they could not stop anything that followed.  My life had moved forward.  There was nothing left to argue with, nothing they could influence or change.  Maybe that's part of why things went smoothly.  They never had a chance to intervene.  They did not go through the emotional roller coaster of watching things unfold in real time. They were simply presented with a new reality or a new me, already in motion, although my personality did not change.  Just a slightly different appearance, body and clothes wise.

When I eventually caught up with them again they accepted me.  Not with questions or judgement just acceptance.  Maybe we are just that kind of family.  Maybe time had helped.  Or maybe it was because I never tried to explain or justify what I had done.  I rarely talk about it even now except with a few family members and I always tell them they can ask me anything.  Most do not.  They just let it be.  They never asked me why I did what I did and this question or something similar has rarely come up and I have replied along the lines of, "I have known, I was a girl since I was four or five" or something similar.

I think time plays a big role.  This happened nearly 40 years ago.  People change, adapt and soften.  But honestly even from the beginning they did not fight it, well not as far as I know.  Then again there was nothing they could do about it  They saw me living my life not asking for permission or approval not causing chaos not demanding anything.  Just living.  Calmly, clearly and authentically.  Maybe that made the difference.

Is it really our loss?  For me the answer is no.  I did not lose anything.  I stepped into the life I needed and never looked back.  What I gained is far more important than anything I left behind.

I know others in this thread have spoken about loss.  Some have seen relationships change.  Some have faced rejection or silence.  I understand that.  For them the experience came with pain and conflict.  That was not my path.

Maybe that is why I feel so distant from the question.  What I lived through was not about letting go of someone.  It was about becoming myself although I was still myself.  The people in my life did not mourn me or whatever.  They simply continued on with their lives and when I returned they were still there.  Whatever they may have felt privately was never shown or as far as I know never discussed.  What I saw was acceptance.

So for me the answer is no.  I did not lose anything.  I gained.  Others may have felt differently but what my family lost was not me.

They did not meet someone new.  They just caught up with me after I had been away for some time.

Best Wishes Always
Sarah B
Global Moderator
@CosmicJoke