It seems so often that I hear the phrase 'Living a lie' when relating the trans* experience. I'm curious, how many here really identify with this?
For me, I actually latched on to the phrase at first. Because there was a big lie, it started at day #1 of my life, the lie that I was a boy. That lie caused all kinds of hell that I'm even going to go into. But when I realized the truth, when I accepted the girl that I am, I looked back at all the years of pain I put myself through; I could see the deception so clearly and thought to myself "God I was such a fool! How could I live such a complete and total lie!? Why didn't I realize this sooner?"
So in that sense, I get the sentiments of the phrase. But... there is also an added connotation, and this is what has been slowly grating on me for a while now. To say you've been living a lie also implies that you had the knowledge of the lie, that you had been deceitful, lacked integrity, and were basically lying to everyone. I've even read coming out letters that say as much, that we lied to everyone and are the best liars in the world--and jokingly that we should all be actors, lawyers, and politicians, cuz we'd be the best at it. ;D ::)
I've also seen it in statements made from one transitioner to another, conveying how they lacked integrity and were deceitful and untrustworthy when making a very serious life choice (marriage), and how could they do such a thing without sharing the truth?! :icon_confused: :icon_raving: :icon_boxing: But I digress, that's a rant for another day...
I just want to talk about this idea that seems to have infected our community--that we have been living a lie and are liars, that we are the deceivers. I cannot express how much I do not relate or agree with this narrative nor how strongly I feel that this needs to stop being perpetuated.
There is so much shame and guilt that comes with that narrative. And that is shame and guilt that we do not need to own. This lie did not start with us, it was not from our own intention. It was born out of ignorance and a lack of knowledge and understanding, nourished by fear and intolerance, and told to us in almost every interaction. From the doctor who delivered us and marked that gender on our birth certificate, to our parents, our families, friends, religious groups, society, and the world. Is it really our fault if we didn't understand but just went along with what everyone was telling us? I'm not saying it was everyone else's fault either, they were just relating based on what they could see with their eyes. But they had no true perspective though as they could not feel how we felt inside. They did not understand the wrongness that was there.
Fortunately, there is a lot more education and acceptance about being transgender out there now. And as knowledge and acceptance grows the lie is becoming less and less destructive and the truth much easier to see.
But back to what I was saying. The lie was never our own. We did not give it birth. It may have left it's mark upon us, but we did not live it. We did not perpetuate it--we fought against it in a mighty epic battle! It was difficult wrestling with that bastard and for some of us it took away years of our lives. My point here is this: We weren't living a lie, we were just living the truth as best as we knew how.
At least that's how my narrative is going to be. I shoulder no shame from the choices I made in the past. I was doing the best I knew how according to what I thought was right.
There was an immense amount of self-sacrifice, loyalty, trustworthiness, honesty, and yes, even integrity. For while I may not have felt whole or complete, I was living whole and complete according to my knowledge and beliefs at the time. Over the years new experiences and allowing myself to question some things that just didn't feel right slowly brought me around to the truth. So yes, I can look back and see how wrong my life and some of the choices I made were before. But I didn't have the knowledge I have now back then and I can't hold myself accountable for that. No one should. That's just how life is, we learn and grow from experience and then we hopefully adjust accordingly.
Living the truth as we learn of and are capable of accepting it, that is integrity.
Anyway, I'll step down from the soap box now. But seriously, next time I see someone conveying shame and guilt over having lived a lie, especially if it's projected onto another member, I'm going to send a serious virtual slappity slap!
Actually probably more like a gentle nudge :icon_poke: ;D
I love you all. This community has been amazingly awesome and without it my heart would be a much emptier place. :) :D
So please know that anything I've said here is only because of that love and because I want to bring to light anything that I feel may be detrimental to the community, however subtle it may be in this case.
Quote from: Alaia on September 03, 2014, 10:34:01 PM
My point here is this: We weren't living a lie, we were just living the truth as best as we knew how.
And a good point too.
If by living a lie you mean acting in an opposite manner than you truly feel in your heart and soul by societies dictated norms, uh yes. :)
But it was a lie. I knew I wasn't a man. I don't carry any shame or guilt for it, I was just making the best of a bad situation.
And, in the end, turns out it wasn't much of a lie anyway, most people who knew me well had worked out something was up long ago..
I was living a lie , I still do
I was supposed to be a cis girl , im not , that alone is a lie I have to live for the rest of my life
Thank you for this post, Alaia!
I personally don't identify with this narrative. I'm in my late thirties and only recently realized I was trans.
I'm now trying to make sense of this realization, and like many others I do so by constructing a narrative.
If I were to adopt the "it was all a lie" narrative, I'd automatically invalidate my entire life up until now (that may not be true for others, but for me this is how it would feel). This would include invalidating happy moments that I've had, the relationship with my wonderful husband, my friends. To me that would be like throwing out the baby with the bath.
Instead, my narrative is that of "incompleteness", of not feeling whole. This works better for me, it captures quite well how I feel. It may not be as strong a metaphor as the "lie". It possibly doesn't do justice to how strong and devastating this feeling has been. But it fits me better than the lie narrative.
i don't think i've lived much more of a lie than what many cis people do anyway.
actually, all of my choices were my own. if i lied, that was also my own choice.
living a lie, yeah, of course. but out of my own free will, mostly.
and there's no way i'll try invalidating any of my past. i want a full life, and that is something i can't have without a genuine past.
i'll only be living a lie for real, if i decide to deny all that i ever was, and become someone else entirely.
someone without my past, without my life experience, without the feelings of love and hate, happiness and despair.
i wouldn't be me, if i didn't live the life that i did.
the lies have shaped me just as much as the truths.
and all of it have become the real, true person, who is me.
Not a lie but a fake,I was a male impersonator.I looked and acted like a badass hard drinking girl chasing(and boy chasing) pool shooting biker
My perspective is I was a woman born with a male body who was not ready to transition for 34 years. Then I became someone who was ready to transition, so I did. So no lies, just someone living moment to moment the best she knew how.
Quote from: kelly_aus on September 04, 2014, 03:15:45 AM
But it was a lie. I knew I wasn't a man. I don't carry any shame or guilt for it, I was just making the best of a bad situation.
And, in the end, turns out it wasn't much of a lie anyway, most people who knew me well had worked out something was up long ago..
all of the above applies to me as well. There are those of us who always knew and those of us that didn't find out till later in life. I'm one of those that knew ever since I was really young and it hurts to think about that I continually tried to be someone I wasn't. I choose to continue to suppress myself for as long as I could. I made a bunch of terrible decisions during that time because of my severe depression that came from my dysphoria. If I had just been honest with myself all those years ago I would of had a better life up until now. I missed out on a lot of things and screwed up great opportunities and was never able to have a meaningful relationship with anyone, all because of this nasty dysphoria. Thankfully I'm making up for lost time but still it's painful to think about. So for me I was most definitely living a lie and fooling mostly everyone around me, except myself. A few people did tell me they always knew something was up with me and these people had known me ever since I was a child. One of those people is my father.
I honestly don't understand how so many of us lead successful careers and relationships, knowing that dysphoria monster lies inside of us. I guess it's about waves and different time periods, if you're able to suppress it then it lies dormant for an x amount of time and when you least expect it, it comes back even stronger than before.
Yeah, for me it really has been a lie, though. I absolutely identify with that statement 100%.
I've tried to live the truth as other people told me it was, certainly. At some points in my life, I've even believed it. But that doesn't make it any less a lie. I knew, absolutely and with certainty, that I was a certainly, and truly, a girl by the time I was 9, and have memories of the notion of the idea as early as 3 or 4 (though I didn't fully understand it then).
The "truth" society forced on me complicates things, to be sure. I've tried for a long time to live up to that "truth", despite the constant, incessant, ever-present whispers, tears, shouts and screams in my soul that were the real truth.
Trying to live my life to the standards forced on me has caused me no end of pain. The person who I project to the world is not at all who I really am, it's not even close. This has caused me so much more anguish and suffering than I can describe to anyone, especially since I always absolutely knew the truth, as much as I passionately tried to deny it. I have guilt and shame about that, absolutely. I was raised to be honest, even though I was also raised to be someone I am not. But I must own that dishonesty to move forward. Even if I never intended it, it's still my own choice, and never anyone else's. There's so many times I can remember that I had the choice to be as I truly am, and denied myself.
I need to accept that to be able to make a better choice.
All that said, I realize that some people realized themselves much, much later than I did. And for them, I can completely understand why they would not be "living a lie" the same as I have.
No statement, including this one, should be a blanket one. It applies to some of us, but not all. I do agree that we should never project something like this onto someone else, though.
I don't think I was living a lie. I was living an unhappy life, someone I didn't want to be, but it wasn't a lie. There was no deception (by me, or towards me). It was what worked at the time.
And then came the day when it didn't work anymore, so I decided to change. But becoming something else doesn't mean that my former self was in any way deceptive or lying about who or what I was. We're all allowed secrets and private thoughts; neither are lies, and just because we keep certain things to ourselves (even when asked about them) doesn't make it a lie.
I too would like to see the "living a lie" applied more specifically rather than generally. I've never been living a lie. I was just living. I imagine there's some who truly believe how they interacted with others throughout periods of their lives was akin to lying, but I'm not in that camp.
Lying implies that someone is getting hurt - generally, in this case, the people the trans secret is being withheld from. In reality, it's not about them; it's not about mom and dad's reaction, it's not about rejection by friends, it's not about being kicked out of your church. It's about you coming out and living the kind of life you want to lead, not the kind of life you've been given or that you're expected to lead.
Not sure I made much sense there - tired today. But a more positive way of describing things would be far more appropriate. Lying is charged so highly, and it gives permission for people to feel deceived, hurt, and cheated, when nothing of the sort has happened.
Quote from: Alaia on September 03, 2014, 10:34:01 PM
There is so much shame and guilt that comes with that narrative. And that is shame and guilt that we do not need to own. This lie did not start with us, it was not from our own intention. It was born out of ignorance and a lack of knowledge and understanding, nourished by fear and intolerance, and told to us in almost every interaction. From the doctor who delivered us and marked that gender on our birth certificate, to our parents, our families, friends, religious groups, society, and the world. Is it really our fault if we didn't understand but just went along with what everyone was telling us? I'm not saying it was everyone else's fault either, they were just relating based on what they could see with their eyes. But they had no true perspective though as they could not feel how we felt inside. They did not understand the wrongness that was there.
Thank you so much for this post, because I for one needed to hear a perspective like that.
I only recently realized I'm trans, so I don't think of my whole life as a lie. I was living the best I knew how at the time, and I went through a lot of things that I don't regret.
Now, though, I feel like a total liar. The person others see isn't the person I think I am. It's normal to judge others to a certain extent, so that you know how to treat them, and I feel I'm lying to them because of how I look, like they're making an incorrect judgment. Even if I had the same personality and a different body, they'd judge me differently because my overall presentation would be different.
I'm the worst liar to my husband, because he thought he married a pretty and elegant woman. He doesn't want to be married to a man, or anything else. Eh. Maybe he wouldn't mind being married to an androgyne, but not a transmasculine one.
Here's the terrible part: half of the people I've come out to (which is only a handful) don't believe me when I say I'm transgender. I know I'm quiet, gentle, and effeminate, and that I will probably still be mistaken for a woman after transitioning, but there are cismales who have those traits and get the same treatment for it.
For others to say they know me better than I know me, and to insist that the
lie is the
truth...that just compounds the awful feelings.
It was/is definitely living a lie but I embraced the lie because I thought I had no other choice. Mind you I've had to deal with other stuff I thought I couldn't change, but did.
Great question. I resented hearing that so simple 'living a lie' accusation because i worked hard to finally understand and then accept myself. It may sound defensive but there are shades of grey in knowing oneself. I knew i was different, painfully so many days, but i lacked the big picture comprehension and ability to articulate what i was. And then there were the years of denial and repression. I have considered that the biggest denial or lie, if any, was to myself. We have often heard that the hardest person to come out to is ourselves. My earlier failure was in putting the identity puzzle pieces together not in being dishonest.
It might be nice and easy if the ultimate truths had sharp edged brackets but it doesn't seem to work that way. It may be more reasonable to keep checking our hypothesis against the resultant proofs and be able to accept new truths as they are revealed.
I really don't know if it was a lie or just trying to affirm or reaffirm. I always pretty much knew and tried but it always seem to come back to the real me and that ain't nowhere near guy. Everything I tried male, I failed miserably at.
When I was a kid, I used to play dress up. It made me happy. I would play dolls with my sister. It made me happy. When I hit puberty I was happier being dressed up like a female. All my life I knew there was something wrong with me, I just couldn't figure it out when I was young, or I remained ignorant of the obvious when I reached adulthood. I had excuses galore to not transition. The ones who did were always pretty. Or they've brought up as girls. Or etc etc. i could keep rattling off excuses all day. The point is, I was uneducated and frightened to come to grips with the reality of my situation. Until one day I could take it no more and finally did something about it. I don't really think that my past was a lie. More like denial, refusal to accept myself, fear of the future, fear of society, and on and on.
Even if I was born now with the Internet and easy access to support groups and doing it all over, I'm still not certain I would have overcome my fears and denials so easily. I'm willing to bet I would say the same things again and express the same trepidation that I did 25 years ago.
That's not a lie, that is a denial of self and honest goodness confusion and fear.
Quote from: big kim on September 04, 2014, 06:01:01 AM
Not a lie but a fake,I was a male impersonator.I looked and acted like a badass hard drinking girl chasing(and boy chasing) pool shooting biker
OMG, you got any friends from the old days? You just described my perfect type of guy. If so send 'em my way, I'll show 'em a badgirl. >:-)
No, not a lie, but I was living my life as was expected. Basically, I was living it for others moreso than myself and that was a mistake and as a result, I was often quick to anger and extremely self hating. Now I'm fairly easy going, have lots of patience and only mildly self loathing...
Quote from: Jess42 on September 04, 2014, 05:31:35 PM
OMG, you got any friends from the old days? You just described my perfect type of guy. If so send 'em my way, I'll show 'em a badgirl. >:-)
Though I no longer have a bike I still see a lot of mates from back then,they've all been OK with me.I like bikers especially Tig and Chibs from Sons of Anarchy
I don't think I was living a lie, but then, I believe I was a cis man once. I just grew out of it. :)
FWIW, my wife *hates* this one, because when people would say it to her it was terrifying and tragic - it would mean the person she married never existed, and she was shackled to a stranger. As that was one of her huge fears about transition, it was unhelpful when other people reinforced it, to say the least. (that is, she hated when they claimed it was true for *me.* They can decide what was real about their own lives, obviously.)
I never lived a lie. I was always me. I just cross dressed for 24 years. At least, that's how I are it.
Quote from: big kim on September 04, 2014, 06:35:41 PM
Though I no longer have a bike I still see a lot of mates from back then,they've all been OK with me.I like bikers especially Tig and Chibs from Sons of Anarchy
Mates? So I take it you ain't from the US? The badder the boy, the more I like. I passed really good when I was younger and I definitely didn't have a problem riding "bitch". ;D But god if his Bothers ever found out he probably wouldn't be alive today. And I will never tell. He was so scared of anyone finding out but hey, "bitch slap" me once and I am done.
Once I realized it was really a lie, I stopped living it immediately. You know it's a really awesome lie when you actually believe it yourself. And I'm the worst liar ever (or am I?). >:-)
Quote from: Jill F on September 04, 2014, 09:04:21 PM
Once I realized it was really a lie, I stopped living it immediately. You know it's a really awesome lie when you actually believe it yourself. And I'm the worst liar ever (or am I?). >:-)
Nope, we always knew. You can fool most of the people some of the time, most of the people some of the time, but you can't fool other transgenders that you are straight male or female.
I would prefer to think of it as a white lie. Growing up I knew I was different and I would go to great lengths to hide it from the world. As with most I feared the repercussions if I dared tell anyone. Once when I was probably 9 or so, I remember dressing up with a few girls in the neighborhood in female ballet outfits, my sister thought we looked so good we should show are parents. My father screamed at me and threaten me with the belt if he ever caught me dressing like that again. He liked the belt. This was just one example of many where showing my feminine side got a swift negative reaction.
So really is a lie that protects you physically or mentally really that bad? I get the feeling that people who throw this 'Living a Lie' judgement around don't really understand what others have gone through.
So as the old proverb goes:
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins
Take care,
Paige :)
Oh and by the way Alaia, I agree with everything in your excellent post.
Thanks,
Paige :)
I was living the best I could a decade ago. It was not living a lie. That was during the period I knew I could be TS, but that does not retroactively change my actions in any way. I feel this treads on very dangerous ground to attempt to dismiss the past prior to transition. If a person was a monster before transition they are still a monster, and their actions were no lie.
I'm not living a lie, I feel more like an actor, the world around me wants me act in a certain way and I do it. I'm sure that I will never change as a person, and right now, even with the fake persona I've created, people see glimpses of my real self, and like the sensitive, peace loving person I am and appreciate me for it. That won't change whether or not I feel like I'm in the right body.
Yes, all this hiding is stressful and preventing from expressing myself, I'm unhappy, yes, but i don't think it's stopping me from being what I want to be to other people, and I will always be the same person in both body and heart, at a spiritual level, I know who I am, and I was always the same, and will always be the same.
Going off what Cin said about feeling like an actor...
I felt like I was method acting, constantly auditioning for parts I didn't even want because I had to pay the bills somehow. And now I'm starting to feel that way again, except I won't be disempowered to the extremes I was before of putting myself in denial and letting fear of others rule my life (even if they are paying my bills).
I think of my life as more of a play that kept on going without intermissions or even a finale. Thankfully, as I start HRT next month, the play is about to come to a conclusion and the audience will start crying, throwing temper tantrums and getting angry because they don't want it to end but it has to end or else it will just have a gap and never finish or continue (suicide). I'm also reaching the point where I'll make the ending speech "Thanks for coming tonight folks. I'm glad you liked my portrayal of <birth name> but show's over, the curtains are going down and it's time to get to know the person because the character.". This whole world, timeline, childhood story, etc. seemed like a long script that spanned a little over two decades.
Quote from: Marcellow on September 05, 2014, 06:43:16 PM
I think of my life as more of a play that kept on going without intermissions or even a finale. Thankfully, as I start HRT next month, the play is about to come to a conclusion and the audience will start crying, throwing temper tantrums and getting angry because they don't want it to end but it has to end or else it will just have a gap and never finish or continue (suicide). I'm also reaching the point where I'll make the ending speech "Thanks for coming tonight folks. I'm glad you liked my portrayal of <birth name> but show's over, the curtains are going down and it's time to get to know the person because the character.". This whole world, timeline, childhood story, etc. seemed like a long script that spanned a little over two decades.
Now its time for the sequel!
I have always wanted to become a movie star and I love acting so I saw it more like a charcter I had to play. It was the role of my life and if I could convince everyone I was truly a man then I told myself perhaps I could make it to Hollywood! :)
Very well written, Alaia!
I think the meme of "living a lie" started as how it feels once we internally put all the pieces together. It's not something we deliberately did, though my spouse and sons accused me specifically of that. (I retorted that if I'd fully understood and transitioned at a younger age, they wouldn't even exist, so think on that. :P)
And I think the concept of "living the best we could at that time" is more accurate but also does not convey the internal conflict we undergo to outsiders.
It did feel like I was living a lie, and I was always afraid someone would find out the secret I was hiding. That was my experience.
QuoteTo say you've been living a lie also implies that you had the knowledge of the lie, that you had been deceitful, lacked integrity, and were basically lying to everyone.
Yes.
Because I was afraid.
Quote from: LizMarie on November 26, 2014, 10:18:34 AM
I think the meme of "living a lie" started as how it feels once we internally put all the pieces together. It's not something we deliberately did, though my spouse and sons accused me specifically of that.
Hi LizMarie,
Is it just me or do you find there's a weird juxtaposition here. On the one hand people accuse transgender people of living a lie but on the other hand maintain that gender dysphoria doesn't exist. Too often it seems transgender people have both of these things thrown at them by the same person. These ideas seem mutually exclusive to me.
Anyway just a thought. Take care,
Paige :)
Quote from: Paige on November 26, 2014, 11:15:17 AM
Hi LizMarie,
Is it just me or do you find there's a weird juxtaposition here. On the one hand people accuse transgender people of living a lie but on the other hand maintain that gender dysphoria doesn't exist. Too often it seems transgender people have both of these things thrown at them by the same person. These ideas seem mutually exclusive to me.
Anyway just a thought. Take care,
Paige :)
Yes, Paige! The cognitive dissonance of deniers is sometimes astounding. But I've learned to just move on with my life.
I gave my spouse 35 years and each of my children 18 years of encouragement and support. And one of them went to college on my dime (he hates me now and doesn't speak to me) and one of them took 8 years after high school living at home and trying different employment paths before he found himself (he's still distant but appears to be slowly opening up to me). For the deniers, it was about me "abandoning" their mother, yet when I pointed out that she wanted the divorce, not me, they claimed I "forced" her into wanting to leave. And yes, that eldest son said I "lied" to them all yet he insisted that I can't be trans because trans people don't exist (because the SBC says so).
When we come out, if there is denial, there will be plenty of cognitive dissonance flying all around everywhere. Be prepared for it, but also be aware that pointing it out does no good. Those in denial aren't acting rationally anyway.
I ALWAYS felt I was always living a lie. Even when trying to pretend I was trying desperately living a man's life. i would hear the voice within would SCREAM you know you're being a fraud and many times uttering out loud I KNOW. I can relate.
I think the "living a lie" thing is mainly a defense used by trans women who were in denial pre-transition, or doing the whole "trying to get super-manly, maybe that will make the dysphoria go away." So they feel they need to explain to everyone how they, who everyone perceived as a typical manly man, could actually be a woman. To them, it probably does feel like a lie, because they were deliberately doing things that they knew they hated just for the sake of blending in. So saying that you were "living a lie" makes sense.
For those of us who were of the more twinky effeminate variety, who people always assumed were gay anyway no matter how much we tried to hide it, that "lie" thing doesn't work as well.
So yeah, I think it's just a matter of perspective.
I myself don't use the "lie" narrative, because well, if I was lying and trying to pretend that I was someone that I'm not, I am a REALLY crappy liar. I wasn't fooling anyone.
As with everything, it's complicated. Everyone's understanding of their own trans journey is different.
Quote from: LizMarie on November 26, 2014, 12:52:34 PM
Yes, Paige! The cognitive dissonance of deniers is sometimes astounding. But I've learned to just move on with my life.
I gave my spouse 35 years and each of my children 18 years of encouragement and support. And one of them went to college on my dime (he hates me now and doesn't speak to me) and one of them took 8 years after high school living at home and trying different employment paths before he found himself (he's still distant but appears to be slowly opening up to me). For the deniers, it was about me "abandoning" their mother, yet when I pointed out that she wanted the divorce, not me, they claimed I "forced" her into wanting to leave. And yes, that eldest son said I "lied" to them all yet he insisted that I can't be trans because trans people don't exist (because the SBC says so).
When we come out, if there is denial, there will be plenty of cognitive dissonance flying all around everywhere. Be prepared for it, but also be aware that pointing it out does no good. Those in denial aren't acting rationally anyway.
Hi LizMarie,
SBC = Southern Baptist Convention right? I must say you are a trooper. I think my coming out would be hard, but Texas, SBC, wow that's sounds like a tough slog. Do you live in the Austin area? I hear it's a little more friendly to transgender people.
As for people being rational, my father would tell me as a kid never to expect more than 10% of the population to be rational.
Take care,
Paige :)
Quote from: Paige on November 26, 2014, 02:53:52 PM
Hi LizMarie,
SBC = Southern Baptist Convention right? I must say you are a trooper. I think my coming out would be hard, but Texas, SBC, wow that's sounds like a tough slog. Do you live in the Austin area? I hear it's a little more friendly to transgender people.
As for people being rational, my father would tell me as a kid never to expect more than 10% of the population to be rational.
Take care,
Paige :)
Houston, and I work in the IT side of oil and gas, which is actually amazingly supportive. In fact, I just took a Code of Conduct refresher today and my company lives by this paragraph:
QuoteDiscriminating against or harassing a co-worker based on race, religion, color, sex, national origin, age, pregnancy, citizenship, disability, marital or familial status, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, size, gender identity, physical appearance, HIV status, ancestry, genetic predisposition, or family responsibilities is prohibited and may violate state or federal law.
I've heard of people dismissed for telling racist jokes or behaving in a sexist manner. No one I've known personally, but apparently it has happened rarely over the years. But management here has a zero tolerance policy for disruptive workplace behavior here. When I asked HR how they would handle another woman being uncomfortable with me in the restroom (it has not happened to the best of my knowledge), she said that she'd tell them the same thing as if they were uncomfortable with a person of color in the restroom - get over it or find another restroom. :P And my HR rep is black, so that made the statement all the more amusing and bonding. (She and I get along great so far!)
The major cities are not too bad inside the urban areas. Houston actually has a longstanding transgender community that goes clear back to the 1970s at least. Living "inside the loop" is far more liberal and forgiving territory than living "outside the loop" in the suburbs, which are predominantly white, protestant, and mostly SBC. But as I've said in another thread, most of these haters and deniers don't even know there are trans people (and particularly transwomen which seems to be the biggest sticking point) all around them every day. One very cute and young trans woman relayed coming out in a bar to a guy who was hitting on her and making homophobic and transphobic remarks through the evening. She didn't like him so she told him she was trans and he refused to believe it, insisting she was just saying that to get rid of him.
So the cognitive dissonance and the stereotypes can be very ingrained, and not impacted by rationality at all.
Quote from: LizMarie on November 26, 2014, 04:22:35 PM
Houston, and I work in the IT side of oil and gas, which is actually amazingly supportive. In fact, I just took a Code of Conduct refresher today and my company lives by this paragraph:
I've heard of people dismissed for telling racist jokes or behaving in a sexist manner. No one I've known personally, but apparently it has happened rarely over the years. But management here has a zero tolerance policy for disruptive workplace behavior here. When I asked HR how they would handle another woman being uncomfortable with me in the restroom (it has not happened to the best of my knowledge), she said that she'd tell them the same thing as if they were uncomfortable with a person of color in the restroom - get over it or find another restroom. :P And my HR rep is black, so that made the statement all the more amusing and bonding. (She and I get along great so far!)
The major cities are not too bad inside the urban areas. Houston actually has a longstanding transgender community that goes clear back to the 1970s at least. Living "inside the loop" is far more liberal and forgiving territory than living "outside the loop" in the suburbs, which are predominantly white, protestant, and mostly SBC. But as I've said in another thread, most of these haters and deniers don't even know there are trans people (and particularly transwomen which seems to be the biggest sticking point) all around them every day. One very cute and young trans woman relayed coming out in a bar to a guy who was hitting on her and making homophobic and transphobic remarks through the evening. She didn't like him so she told him she was trans and he refused to believe it, insisting she was just saying that to get rid of him.
So the cognitive dissonance and the stereotypes can be very ingrained, and not impacted by rationality at all.
Thanks for educating me about Texas. It's good to know that there are some safe places there. I'm glad things are working out for you in Houston.
Take care,
Paige :)
Since discovering that I'm trans, I feel like society, culture, and science has been lying to me all these years! They tricked me good thinking I was a woman and a lesbian even though it didn't feel right.
I never lied to myself. I was simply ignorant, and steamrolled over my feelings for so long that I didn't hear the woman screaming inside anymore. Maybe she gave up at some point, for me not listening, only to return to blast my emotions when I finally heard her, ...and she was me all along.
Quite a few interesting points. Many that mirror my own thoughts through time.
I am often tempted to say I lived a lie. As hard as it is not to say, it is even harder for me to say all the events of my life, all the things I value, all that has gone into making me me is all a lie. That I am not me.
Sorry, I spent the better part of the past 6 years undoing that thinking. Yes, I did feel I was trying to live up to an image. I was an actor. A Hollywood facade of a man. Fueled by shame, it led to me believing none of the great things I achieved were really mine, but earned by some other person since I wasn't being the real me.
During all that time though, I now know I was being the real me. The only me I could have been at that point in my life. I did everything I knew was right. I followed my core beliefs. I did what I needed to do, at that time. I was ill equipped, ill prepared, too fragile to do anything more. I was being true to the person I was then.
Today, I know better. I feel and believe I legitimately earned, and most importantly deserve, the gifts I have. Today I know I would be living a lie if I succumbed to my now rare "WTF am I doing???" funks. I know better. I know I'd be stopping this progress for a lie I'd be telling myself. I know all that I have and am doing is the right thing for me to. Even my wife had to hit me up the side of the head with the proverbial 2x4 when I ventured there.
Perhaps there are some out there that have "Lived a lie" under this criteria. I don't believe in absolutes when it comes to people. As hard for me to believe that anyone who feels so strongly about their gender, who eventually started the process and came out the side said... "Nah.. not today". Somehow I suspect they felt they really weren't up to the challenges, at that point in their life.
How can you be living a lie when you are living as the only person you feel you are capable of being? In other words, Reality is Truth
Sometimes I feel like the past was more the truth then the present. Although I never attempt to hide being trans people used to assume some fairly accurate details of my life from my facade. Now I don't think people get an accurate reading at all. In fact, if I met someone like myself on the street I'd probably assume they were a typical straight white douche bag with no extraordinary problems or conflicts in life. I get asked about things all the time that take me off guard because its just so not my life. Oh well. Like I said... I don't attempt stealth status, but I also don't go shouting it from the rooftops inappropriately. Sometimes it does feel like lying by omission. Lots of people have those things in life though... trans related or not. Tragedies and traumas from the past that have shaped who they are..
That being said I feel 75% more comfortable with my physical form than I did previously. (still waiting on that other 15% after bottom surgery.. of the remaining 10%... 5% is just human... 5% for the downsides of a phalloplasty compared to "real")
I wouldn't say my childhood was a lie, I don't even remember all that much from it. Neither would I say my early teenage years were. But I remember a certain point in my high school when I promised myself that I would compromise as best as I possibly could to avoid the arguments I was having with my mom every other day (mostly over my appearance). Everything on from that day until a couple of months ago, that was a lie. The memory of having made that promise to myself had completely repressed itself and when it resurfaced several weeks ago, my first thoughts were "this isn't me, I've spent the last 5 years living a lie." And it was a lie, because I wasn't being me and I spent too much time believing things were part of who I am when in reality, had I not forgotten about that promise, I would have known that all I was doing was going through the motions of what was expected of me. I wasn't being me, and that was a lie. It was a lie to myself primarily though, in hindsight I can tell that most of my friends knew I wasn't being me, it seems like I was the only one who didn't.
I found that I was more honest with myself and my feelings when I was on my own for the day. When family members were around , I would stifle these emotions and needs because my biomother was an extreme "christian". Meaning that if she found out that I was dressing in girls clothes ect. That she would hurt me with a horse cane. She would use lesser excuses to hurt me. I could never tell people I know as they could end up telling my biomother. I tried really hard to shut off my emotions and not portray my female side but my brothers still thought that there was something off about me. Now, I have no reason to hide myself. I have grown as a woman, I relearnt to trust people and there are many family and friends who have my back when I need them.
My early life was definitly living a lie as it was all I could do to protect myself.
How would it be a lie? It all happened the way it had to happen. If my past was a lie then so is my present and the future o.o.
I never lived a lie, I just never got the chance to express the other side of myself.
FYI: I'm IS.
In a way yes. When I had a physical around 10-11, the nurse asked me if my testicals had always been the same size. I told her yes, and she told me to tell them if one got bigger than the other. She never told me why or told my parents anything. I think she suspected something, but didn't say a word (as per Intersex cases often happen.).
Even when I was around 18, my doctor didn't say anything even thou I had female secondary sexual characteristics.
So, yes I feel that in a major way I was living a lie because no one said something, when they should've.
Yes, it was living a lie for me. Everything was fake.
When I was in college, and things were more accepting, I could just be myself, mostly. There, I think that, while I didn't know what I was... I was living as best as I knew how with the information that I had available. After that point, I'm not so sure that I can say that this is the case. I still didn't know exactly what was wrong. I'd heard the words "transsexual" and "transgender", but I'd always figured that this had nothing to do with what I was feeling (of course, I never looked anything up).
After college, came the "working environment". I quickly learned that there were some things that those perceived as "male" were virtually required to say, otherwise, their would be immediate and sometimes harsh social consequences. After having my hours chopped harshly on my second job due to "not fitting in", I learned how to maintain my mask. No more slip-ups, and I keep the most elaborate fiction alive.
What sports teams? What did you do last weekend? What are your thoughts about ________? - It was all one big creative writing/speaking exercise designed to avoid drawing attention to the fact that, no, I don't fit in at all. For me, quite literally, I can say that my current life is a lie. I'm working on changing this, but it's not something that's coming easy at all.
I wasn't living a lie, it was more a case of making the false assumption that just because my parents, my family and everyone else around me was either a man or a woman, the same must be true for me too. I now know that a lot of who I was previously was fake though, that I'd subconsciously been copying what male people do, and had used that to create a fake male persona so I could better fit in with my assigned gender.
Part of reason it was a lie was that yes I wasn't truthful with myself and others, but also the fact the doctor's and others around me were not fully truthful with me either. My parents were told no more than they had to be told. Society and how they have handled cases like mine and many others are why we feel like the lives we lived to some extent were a lie. I can honestly say the life I lived or more like my existence wasn't fully a lie. Parts of my personality and who I am shined through all those years even when I didn't realize, but the friends around me did. They kept silent about some of the things they noticed. Society's beliefs and mishandling of things is what forces us to live lies until we have the courage and strength to free ourselves from those chains that kept us trapped. Regardless I'm glad I'm free of those trappings and able to fully move forward and live my life.
Mariah
Quote from: Emily King on December 21, 2014, 04:21:13 AM
FYI: I'm IS.
In a way yes. When I had a physical around 10-11, the nurse asked me if my testicals had always been the same size. I told her yes, and she told me to tell them if one got bigger than the other. She never told me why or told my parents anything. I think she suspected something, but didn't say a word (as per Intersex cases often happen.).
Even when I was around 18, my doctor didn't say anything even thou I had female secondary sexual characteristics.
So, yes I feel that in a major way I was living a lie because no one said something, when they should've.
I can relate to the whole 'living a lie' thing a bit, I felt aweful in going along with things I hated and such.
In general though, I was more of 'not living at all' than living a lie. I kinda cloistered myself up so I didn't have to be fake with people. :-\
I think if I were to say I was living a lie then I would have been fully aware, for the past 33 years, of what was going on with me. I think I was living as genuinely as I knew how, keeping myself distracted with music, photography, books and writing. I never really put on a facade of masculinity or some male gender role. I've just been Me the best I knew how as I slowly tried to figure out what my underlying identity was.
I always hated male pronouns and compliments like "handsome", but I just ignored them, that is, until I started relating more to an androgynous state of being. I would say I was "a sentient being inhabiting a vessel" as I really didn't identify as male or female in stereotypical fashion. I was always far more emotionally sensitive and more "effeminate" than what was accepted, and I was repeatedly accused of being gay in hostile ways (i.e. ->-bleeped-<-, homo, etc.) until the point where I actually had to question it, myself. Nope, I definitely had no attractions like that, so what the heck was going on?
I started becoming highly fascinated by androgyny like Placebo's Brian Molko (http://img-cache.cdn.gaiaonline.com/e743742c43e0bdf24c5ba5f55fcc092f/http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v389/viperedumer/brian_molko_sc01m_0012.jpg), thinking I wanted to look like that. Still, the concept of transgender was nowhere to be found. Also, I've always been more attracted to women who were more often lesbian or just more aggressive. So, here I was... not into guys, but attracted to girls who had boyish personalities. I was eventually starting to really believe that I was, as the phrase goes, a lesbian trapped in a male body. My brain had taken a freakish turn in development giving me the neurological makeup of a gay female.
I know the ->-bleeped-<- crowd would love to try to deconstruct that into some kind of fetish, but I've never been a sexual person. I've been with less than 10 people sexually, all of them monogamous relationships. A couple of them became very frustrated with me for not wanting to get it on regularly. So, how could I possibly be autogynephelic if I am not aroused by any of this? I simply know who I am now and what needs to be done.
I've read that if cis men were to take HRT they would become very uncomfortable and dysphoric. Well, I can safely say that I am not a cis male. HRT has been a blessing.
So, I wasn't living a lie; I was just living in oblivion until I finally learned what transgender means. At first, I thought I could just identify as genderqueer, but that wasn't satisfactory. I had to get away from any chance of being referred to with male pronouns. My friends are now using female pronouns with me and for the first time I'm not quietly cringing. The only way I could live a lie, at this point, would be to stop transitioning. That's just not going to happen.
To put it quickly - no.
It *was* me there, but only such of me that was allowed on the surface.
My ... experience of life was very internal. By contrast I can now express and explore that private self ...
Not in lock-down anymore ... :~)
A bit complicated. Since I'm still not like 100% of what I'll do I can't (don't?) want to believe my destiny (?). Anyway, I wouldn't exactly say it's been a "lie". Since I was very young I wanted to be a girl but at the same time I "knew" I was a boy. I tried to put things as fetishes aside (I do have certain fetishes - hair, nails, high heels) but didn't work. Sometimes just daydreaming I caught myself imagining my future myself as a girl and then I ask myself "wtf are you thinking". So you could say that even REALLY wanting to be a girl (numerous circumstances - if I try to remember I keep finding more and more) I somehow know I'm a guy.
Told you it was complicated.
Hopefully things will get clearer in the future...
I think it is more important to try to live an authentic life, where you strive to be the happiest you can and hopefully you can better the lives of those around you. I guess it's applicable to call it living a lie if we're talking about people who learn they need to change but refuse to because of how scary change can be. This is not just a transgender thing. It's all about learning self-actualization, instead of repressing your thoughts and feelings for whatever reason. Internalized homophobia or transphobia, being an ethnic minority and republican, in a loveless marriage but afraid to leave your kids with your spouse or being single and having to work again, etc.
I agree that "living a lie" bugs me, just as much a "woman trapped in a man's body," or vice versa. But that is a whole other can of worms :-\
There are a lot more levels to lying and telling the truth. It bugs the crap out of me when people equate lying with other things.
So here's a truth table apropos of nothing.
| Vocalized | Unvocalized | Unintentionally Divulged | Implying the Opposite While Telling a
Truth | Honest | Lie by Omission | Blurting the Truth (Secret) | Disingenuous / Insincere
Untruth | Lying | Honesty by Omission | Blurting a Rumor | Sarcastic / Sardonic
Partial Falsehood | White Lie | Withholding a Misconception | Spreading a Rumor | Hinting at the Truth
Partial Truth | Hedging the Truth | Withholding the Truth | Gossiping | Misleading Someone
I'm 60+, headed fast for 61. Not quite 2 months ago, a path appeared, a door opened, a cagedoor unlocked - none of these metaphors do justice to the extremity of the event that occurred. And in truth, it wasn't even definable as an 'event', it just was what it was.
As they say, hindsight is 20/20. And over the past several weeks, I have been daily, even hourly, amazed by new insights into the word 'denial'. It sure aint the way we use the word in very-day pop-psych slang. No, I haven't spent my life living a lie, at least not an open one. Ive been seeing so many moments throughout my life when a little window into my dysphoria would pop open and in the very same instant would immediately be slammed closed - so quickly, I never even saw it happen at the time. I always assumed that my unhappiness, my depression (and I did a pretty good job of denying even that), my 'failure to launch', my inability to fit in anywhere, was just innately me. I see now that I adopted my 'lone wolf' persona as an acceptable way to embrace my loneness, but over the years it just became who I am, and I denied the deep hurt that went with it.
I often had underlying thoughts that "I" was wrong, and even had moments of insight in which I said to myself I was in the wrong body, or in which I begged some higher-power to let me wake up tomorrow in my 'correct life'. But I always attributed this to other crap in my life, or as a sign of my self-diagnosed mental instability that I needed to keep hidden.
I am daunted by how tangled a web I have woven over the years, between depression, generic dysphoria, gender dysphoria, self-hatred, lack of self-belief... with no real explanation for any of it. I almost envy those who've spent their lives knowing why they felt so miserable.
I am in therapy for perhaps the 6th or maybe 10th time in my life. I want to believe that this time it will not fail, because this time I am on that couch for the right reason, and without the inherent dishonesty & lack of trust I always carried into that room in the past.
For me it was only living a lie once I had the language to deal with who I was. Before learning about trans identities and transition options I was just making do as best I could, and dishonesty was not a part of the equation.
Yep, from 14 to 32 felt like I was acting, badly, i felt cut off from my family friends girlfriends and achievements and was carrying a huge millstone around my neck.
a month since coming out, i love it, nothing much has changed except im much happier, my family and friends seem to like the difference and dont mind me
dressing as a girl. work is going great, its awesome. i wish id done it when i was 22.
The phrase "living a lie" seems to imply that you know the "truth", but you are lying about it to yourself or others.
This may be true for some, but for me, getting to the truth took a very long time.
I spent many years trying to understand who I was and what I needed, and then more trying to accept that I was OK, and then even more before I began transitioning.
For me, "Through a glass, darkly" is a better description of the experience...
The question has wormed its way from my eyes and brain and finally I think I can answer. I haven't been reading this thread, so whatever I touch on is pure happenstance and not influenced by the other responses here. Not an invalidation, but a validation that we share experience.
Living a lie? Not necessarily, but what I was living was a quiet paradigm of who I actually am. I'm not a loud person, despite the current bright purple on top of my head. As a kid I rarely said anything about things being too girly for me. I knew that I didn't like the pink flowers on my walls, but I never said it. Why? Because I was a GOOD kid. It wasn't my place to complain. I did ask, but one explanation that seemed logical - We can't change it, it's too expensive. Or. If you want to change it, buy the pain yourself. - I didn't have the money so there goes the complaint. I wore the dresses the first day of school and such. I was called a girl and so I was. A. Girl.
But when someone you respect and admire gets exasperated with you because "you think like a male" and you want to scream "WHY IS THAT SO BAD?". When that happened, I swallowed my arguements, because the inside and the outside matched and I assumed that the outside dictated then inside. And so I was. A. Girl.
I tolerated the pink. I made my favourite character of my favourite show be the strong female, because I thought that I Was. A. Strong. Female.
But I look back, and I did the things the girls told me to do so they'd be my friend. But I really would have preferred to wrestle. Even as a girl, I couldn't do that. Why? Because I was broken and delicate and needed to be protected. No organized sports - her vision and kidney issues make every tackle a life threatening possibility. But I was given my "own" sport - despite my desperate desire within to scream "I just want to play soccer!". I swallowed that desire unconsciously. In its place was and is the pride that it is more or less unique amongst my co-workers and friends (except the Karate friends, which is why we are unique).
In the Dojo. On the field. Climbing the trees. In the Pow Wow, dancing grass not jingle. In my mind. I have always been unconsciously male, but trying in a disjointed way to present as female, because the outer must refrlect the inner. Since the outer is female, I must be female! Logic, at its ... innocent and superficial .. apex.
Logic that is now failing as I connect the dots. The truth is that outwardly, I should present as male, because inwardly, that is who I am.
Consciously, I didn't live a lie. Sub-consciously, the world fed me a lie, which I swallowed and believed.