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.

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?! 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   

I love you all. This community has been amazingly awesome and without it my heart would be a much emptier place.
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