Why do people always say that transition is harder on family and friends than a trans individual?  I understand that it is hard for them, but why do people always insist it's harder? Some family and friends don't understand it but that's ok because it's 'hard for them'. What about the trans person who more than likely has spent their whole lives hating themselves, not feeling 'normal' in society, the person who loses their friends and family, the person who has probably contemplated suicide on several occasions? Nobody stops to think about them. Throughout my transition I have always thought about my family and friends and how it will affect them because it's 'hard' for them. But not 1 person, not even 1, has asked me how I feel in all of it.

It's just an observation I've made lately about people saying it's harder for friends and family and it's annoyed me slightly.

There are likely multiple answers to this.  In general, when people feel they're 'saddled' with something that seems unfair to,them, empathy tends to go out the window.  This of course causes them to see their own difficulty as disproportionately greater than others.  (There's probably a logical fallacy that applies to this.)

Another possibility is that, where families are concerned, they see you as one person, and the family as a group of people--since 'multiple' are more than 'one' they see the 'harm' done to family as of greater impact. 

Bottom line, I think much of it in the general human sense is more psychological than personal.  Which doesn't make it any less irksome for you.  I'm sorry it's got ya' down, Joe....feel better....

~V.

I think the transition process is harder on family/friends while the time before transition is harder on the transsexual. Transition is the time we look forward to. In most ways (besides surgery anxiety) transition is when we become happy but it's also when those around us feel like they're losing the person they've always known. Many fail to see it as we're just changing our shells to be who we always were inside. They may see us as selfish for taking away the person they loved. Do know that for the close people who stick around they eventually get over it. It's typically when they see that we're a lot happier with life. It just takes awhile for them to come to terms with it. 

Those are both good responses, thanks. I just don't understand how somebody can ditch somebody because they're trans and they're finding it hard. That only accomplishes that person getting what they want and the trans person feeling more alone than ever. I can't understand it 

I dated one (m-to-f) who had the full support of family.  The tricky part really was having a 4-yr old son at the time of transitioning.  He had a little difficult time adjusting to not having his 'dad' anymore, but it was getting better with time.  There is nothing worse than a trans feeling lonely and depressed.  It's even worse when one is suicidal as I had witnessed. 

Been through it,my parents disowned me on the spot when I came out 15 years ago.Then they had the huge heart to change recently seeing I am very happy now finally coming to terms that I was never happy as a boy.My sister Liz,she has been great about and adjusted very well having a sister in her life that is transgendered.

Quote from: Valerie on December 26, 2013, 07:56:41 PM
Another possibility is that, where families are concerned, they see you as one person, and the family as a group of people--since 'multiple' are more than 'one' they see the 'harm' done to family as of greater impact. 
~V.

Valerie has made a very good point here. This is something that I'm faced with every day. My family, relatives and friends have known me for a very long time. Now I'm asking them to forget the person that they use to know and accept the new person that I'm presenting to them, which is hard for them to do. I was just recently thinking that it would probably be best if we could just disappear for a while until our transition was complete and then return as our new selves.

My family has been 100% supportive of me, but they sure have had their challenges:

1. Getting used to the idea. At first this was something that came out of nowhere for them and was a bit of a shock where I had known about this for almost 3 decades before telling them.

2. A sense of loss. From their perspective their "son/grandson" as been slowly replaced by a "daughter/granddaughter". Thankfully they're beginning to see this as a gain.

3. Frustration when they upset me. They will often either slip up on pronouns or say something that they now is a touchy subject for me and I can see how guilty they feel about it.

4. Not knowing how to be supportive to me when I'm having a more challenging day for whatever reason or wishing that they could somehow help more. In all honesty I've been a little b*tchy at times too and that simply isn't fair to them.

I agree with all the comments but would like to add one. I've been fortunate to do some therapy sessions with parents of transgender children, nothing special, they are asked that if they wish they can be put into contact with a transgender woman who is happy and open in society.

They end up meeting me! All of the families I have met have been very loving of the transgender child, and other children of theirs, but they are so frightened for their special child that they may be shunned, not reach their potential and all the stuff parents worry about. I can help with those feelings as a bad example 

When we are older and come out to family it is often the same fear, they often feel why? Their son or daughter was perfect to them, where did they go wrong in raising their child. Of course they didn't, but given how so many of us fight our feeling in private for so long they never knew the problems that we faced.

For some it results in denial, we are their failure. They cannot accept that. Their denial is as strong as many of our feelings were in denying what we are, but we struggled for years in secrecy. They never knew.

That denial manifests in all sorts of was, including rejection. When we come back and proudly say 'Hi I'm me finally your new son or daughter' it is, for some, an insult that they take a long time to get over.

Others of course accept their child with all the love and respect we all hope for.

This is not just our parents, but all members of our family, and given the complex relationships in family dynamics it can be hard for any individual member to accept who we are.

Just some thoughts!

My wife pointed out (while not saying it was harder for her, per se) that at every step in transition, I got more of what I wanted, whereas her "reward" for sticking it out was going to be getting back to the status quo, if she was lucky. In other words, she *had* a happy marriage and a stable life before I upended everything, and the best she could hope for was to get back to where she was before, more or less. While I was consistently more satisfied and got the bliss of living as I truly am.

In general, I agree with her now; transition was incredibly hard for me too at times, but I didn't lose anything that mattered to me, and I gained an infinite amount of happiness by doing it. She lost some things she valued, and even though she is also now actually happier afterward (neither of us dared hope for that much), it's fair that she first had to grieve what she gave up.

However, that's just us. I do agree that, like, a third cousin claiming my transition was harder on them than me is ridiculous.

Humans are funny creatures. We never see the entirety of a person. Often we build an image up in our heads of what we think they're like. And then we imbue that image with our love, hopes, dreams, ambitions, fears and insecurities.

Everyone becomes, in essence, two people. The person you are, and the person you're seen as.

It's this second person, the perceptual construct, that those around you interact with. It's this second person that becomes an extension of the other. The brother, mother, father, sister, uncle... anyone who has contact with you. It becomes a vessel for a part of the other person. A fragment of themselves in you. How many times have you had conversations where you're convinced the other person is basing an entire argument on what they think you think, and not what you actually do?

What these people are dealing with, I think, when someone tells them they want to transition... well, I think it's a transition of their own. A change in emotional state, a readjustment of all the values they placed on that perceptual construct that grew up in their own minds. A restructuring of their world. They're dealing with not only a change in you, but a change in themselves. And for a lot of people, self-change can be hard to deal with. Especially if it isn't a change they instigated.

Is it harder? I would say that depends on the relationships you have with people. For some, yes. For others, no. Maybe it depends on how much influence you had in the building of their mental image of you. And how close it is to reality. The further away, the more adjustment is needed.

In the context you're posing the question, Joe, I think there's a possibility that some people, not all, use that as a shield to not have to face up to the reality of the situation. One doesn't have to deal with it by just saying "it's too hard". Which is shorthand for "I'm not even going to try."

"Why do people always say its harder for family and friends?"

To answer the question, I think it has to do with an obsession with guilt. The TG person has the notion their actions are in some way 'wrong', they look for fault where really there is none.

Saying that transition is 'hard on family and friends' is like telling a person that is blind, it is not easy coping with their being blind.

Think about it, you didn't choose to be TG. It's not like a choice of career that makes life difficult for the people around you. This isn't some casual decision that could have been avoided on a whim.

Personally, I'm tired of the pity train for the people in our lives that can't cope with my life. It's not going to hurt them, it will never cause them physical discomfort of any sort at all ever. It might cause them some trouble in the case of a spouse, but for everyone else, stop whining, accept the fact that it is like as I said above, telling a blind person they are a nuisance for being blind.

I honestly can't justify the statement that it's harder for others. They may THINK it is because they have trouble accepting it (and perhaps it can cause some arguments), but when they have to see a stranger in the mirror, detest taking their clothes off, deal with discrimination, hatred (from others and self), worry about losing their family, and pay for surgeries and wonder when they're going to not have alien parts on them anymore...then I'll consider that it may be harder for them. It may be hard, but it's never harder. Not even close. And I hate when we get a bread crumb of transition, and someone goes "oh see you should be happy, why do you want more, we just accepted this tiny part of the process!! Shouldn't that be enough?" It's a huge issue, encompassing our bodies, our brain chemistry, and our social life.

Mini-rant there but I feel very strongly about this. Albert Ellis has a quote that I like "Acceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you accept everybody just because they're alive and human."

The way I see it is that the trans person has had their whole life to understand how they feel and come to terms with being trans, even if it wasn't all conscious.  Although it's hard to admit to yourself, and some people spend decades in denial and repression of their true selves, it's possible for us to look back and make sense of it all, because we lived it and felt those feelings.  Some family and friends never pick up on the same things as us, or just think we're masculine/feminine for our sex.  To the average cis person the last thing that is going to be on their mind is that the person is actually trans but in the closet.  And then one day they're told that the person they care about is actually the other gender to what they spent a long time believing.  They have none of the background to make sense of it all with, it's not a gradual process, it's sudden.

At the point we come out to the world we've already processed our thoughts and accept that we're trans, family and friends are just discovering it.  We come out and often we're ready to be making changes in our lives.  It's all "hey, I'm trans, I want to be referred to as this, dress like that, go on hormones and have surgery (delete as applicable)".  There's no build up to it.  It's right there in their face, and they're pressured into getting on with it and coping straight away.

And they don't know about the struggles we've been through, they don't feel the same pain as us, and they don't understand dysphoria.  How many of us have self-harmed or attempted/idealised suicide without ever saying a word?  I know for me it's not something I'm proud of, or talk about, to anyone.  Some people know bits and pieces, but that's because I cope by making a joke out of everything.  I was seeing a mental health team, did anyone outside of those meetings know why, that I was in a deep bout of depression, self-harmed and attempted suicide more times than I can remember?  They knew anecdotes of it, they saw the evidence, but never knew the pain because I laughed and said that I was off to get my strait-jacket fitted.  I wasn't telling them the truth.  They don't know our pain and they don't understand why we can't just be masculine/feminine people.  Dysphoria isn't something they know the pain of, and how it's do or die.

It's no harder for them than it us, but it's harder in a different way, and I think that's the way people are referring to when they say that.  It's harder for them to accept than us, because it's a shock, but it's not harder in terms of the mental toll it takes.

It is harder for family and friends to come to terms with us because they are close to us. Strangers are more likely to take you at face value. Changing ones perception of who someone is is difficult. I struggle with it and I know better.

I always viewed it in terms of the shock followed by trying to adjust factors.

We spent years, even decades trying to get some sort of understand of ourselves followed by months years, even decades, of agonizing over what to do and finally actually following through on our choices.

In other words it took a very very long time for us to accept us. Others in life have had only hours, days, weeks, or months at best in comparison. Without being obsesed (hopefully) about what is happening. In other words, using a far smaller percentage of processing time overall.

To that add in the Hollywood machines sensationalizing of all things trans and of course the Jerry Springer's of the world. All which tend to make and reinforce negative images of trans people. Which collides with what they know of you