Is anyone else in a home situation where they have to lie about their gender to keep the peace? Or, more relevantly, where you have to use hate speech to make certain people believe your lies?

My mom's girlfriend is extremely transphobic. She's said multiple times that if I "turned into one of those misogynistic ->-bleeped-<-s" she'd kick me out of the house - and since she doesn't have custody of me, that would necessitate kicking my mom out too. So I have to cross-dress around her, act feminine, show interest in other boys (this has more to do with her worry of 'corrupting' me into liking girls, but whatever) and - the thing that makes me feel the worst about myself - make transphobic comments so she'll believe that "I'm a girl."

I hate myself for doing this, I really do; I know that the right action to take here should be to try and inform her about trans issues, and to an extent I have done that. She's becoming more comfortable with me doing things like cutting my hair, and we just had a conversation where she admitted to understanding where I come from in terms of being a guy. But I had to reassure her - lie to her - about being OK with my body, loving being a woman, and I had to use the phrase "->-bleeped-<-" and deride several of my transsexual peers in order for her to accept that.

I really hope I'm not alone in this, and if I am, well... I guess I'd just like to hear that it's OK. That I'm doing the right thing in placing my family's security before my gender expression. It's been a rough evening and I feel kind of awful.

No, that's not OK and if you are looking for reassurance that it is, I doubt you'll find that here.  You are your own person.  You have to be in this life. 

I have met lesbians that have a problem with transmen...rarely transwomen...because they are radical feminists.  These women actually hate men and stereotype them horribly, making us all out to be these hidious mysogynists that hate women and treat them like dirt.  That is seriously binary thinking and you, as a transman, are going to clash with that big time.  I can't stand people like this, as gay people they should know what it is like to be marginalised and should not willingly push that onto others. 

How much does she love your mother?  She would risk losing your mother over her hatred of you?  How does your mum feel about that...because to me that isn't love.  Have you spoken to your mother about this?  What is her standpoint on it? 

I'm sorry but I am not going to tell you it is OK to put your gender expression last.  It seems to me that this woman is not a good person and you can't just pander to her needs.  She is bullying you.  You are going to have to stand up for yourself because if you settle and become like her, you'll feel terrible down the line.

Quote from: Alessandro on July 13, 2010, 04:38:14 AM
I have met lesbians that have a problem with transmen...rarely transwomen...

Um, there are quite a few second-wave feminist lesbians who believe that transwomen are the worst kind of men.

For an eyeful of invective try reading:

The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male (1979) - Janice G. Raymond * Amazon * WorldCat

(Yes, it's as bad as the title seems to indicate.)

Quote from: Alessandro on July 13, 2010, 04:38:14 AM
No, that's not OK and if you are looking for reassurance that it is, I doubt you'll find that here.  You are your own person.  You have to be in this life. 

I have met lesbians that have a problem with transmen...rarely transwomen...because they are radical feminists.  These women actually hate men and stereotype them horribly, making us all out to be these hidious mysogynists that hate women and treat them like dirt.  That is seriously binary thinking and you, as a transman, are going to clash with that big time.  I can't stand people like this, as gay people they should know what it is like to be marginalised and should not willingly push that onto others. 

How much does she love your mother?  She would risk losing your mother over her hatred of you?  How does your mum feel about that...because to me that isn't love.  Have you spoken to your mother about this?  What is her standpoint on it? 

I'm sorry but I am not going to tell you it is OK to put your gender expression last.  It seems to me that this woman is not a good person and you can't just pander to her needs.  She is bullying you.  You are going to have to stand up for yourself because if you settle and become like her, you'll feel terrible down the line.

A VERY good post indeed. Attacking others as a smokescreen and pretending to be something one is not is NEVER justified and just allows pathetic childish small minded bigotted bullies to avoid having to grow up and join the human race.

We are all different, but we can all only live our own lives.

I guess tough love is the name of the game tonight. I just finished a similar conversation with one of my best real-life friends - I've gotten over my little spaz-fit about needing validation.

Here's the issue, though. It'd be lovely if we lived in a world where kids could express themselves without repercussions and parents accepted their childrens' choices and never physically or psychologically harmed them. But that ain't how it is. I don't think this is about her thinking little about my mom - she probably hasn't thought this through to the extent that it would entail kicking my mom out, also. It's probably an empty threat, but it does illustrate the fact that she is currently the arbitor of my actions in her house.

My grades right now are impeccable - I'm set up for a free-ride scholarship to my college of choice - and I know far too many trans youth who forced their gender on their parents when the issue was of being misinformed, instead of easing them into the idea. I know one transgirl who ran away from her home because her parents forced her to cross-dress. She's now seventeen, and lives in the nearest major city with a college-age transman who prostitutes himself for money. I don't want that to happen to me.

"Is it OK" was a terrible question. It's been brought to my attention tonight that I'm very cautious - to a feminine extent - in terms of making decisions, in fear of not being validated. It makes me feel like half a man, and I'm sick of it. What I'm doing with her is what must be done with immature power figures; I have to give her the illusion of power over me, and somehow find a way to express myself in the process. And I don't know how to do that, but I'll damn well work it out.

Well, I think we do live in that world and if we don't we should.  There seems to be a gap of decades between the UK and America in some respects.  If your parents love you, they'll accept you. 

If you feel that you have to pander to this woman to protect your interests, then by all means do it.  But one day you'll figure out that validation isn't important.  I understand that you are in a bad position and you need to do what you need to do to move forward - will you be living away from home when you get to this college? 

You have a more positive attitude in that post than in your first one, keep it up   

Instead of saying stuff to back your moms girlfriends bigotry how about simply saying that you do not believe her when she says something hateful and that you would like to know why she feels that way.
Question her bigotry in an inquizitive way. Try and find out why she believes what she does instead of just blindly accepting her hate.

So.. your mom's partner is a woman and she doesn't want you to like girls? WTF?

Not hate speech towards trans, but gay yes.

If I started making it obvious that I liked girls (dunno how it could be any more obvious imo) and started talking about how I hate my body how it is I'd probably be in a lot of trouble. The mother-bitch often talks about how im gonna get my degree and get married have kids ect. and how i need to do that. 

Some people are idiots
Though you shouldn't have to deal with it, you said you've got a free ride coming, put up with it for just a little while longer then get the hell out. I'm in a similar position. If money was no object I could probably get into 90% of universities without a problem (I have nearly perfect grades, taking AP and honors classes) and am relying on accidemic scholarships to get out of this house before i'm 19.

It seems odd how a person you would ASSUME would be more accepting turns out to be a bigger bigot than most.

I don't suppose there is a flight of stairs in your house...  You know... to walk down...  lol Jk

But going past that, I agree with everyone who said you should question her hate.  She may find it annoying at first and only give you rude and blind remarks, but eventually I believe she will actually try to 'educate' you with her way of thinking, rather than bash the air with verbal slurrs.

You can't validate these people. You don't have to come out, but don't validate their bigotry by playing along with it. You can lie about yourself (say you're not trans) without hurting/insulting others. And it's more convincing that way anyway.

If you want to know what the endgame of what you're doing looks like, look at George "Rentboy" Rekers. Self-hate, or hating one's own people, isn't pretty. Even if you just dabble in it, it's only a lesser version of the same ugly phenomenon.

It's ok. You're doing it to preserve your own safety and stuff. I personally think you have more balls than I do for this cause in that situation I wouldn't hide anything cause my dysphoria overshadows any consequences I'd face for not hiding the fact that I'm trans. So yeah. I admire you for even being able to do this.

actually , i was just going to make a similar post with the same title
living in a completely anti-LGBT country , where L ,G &B are even somehow tolerable but trans is not even understandable and not in anyway tolerable , i do have to lie about A LOT of things regarding who i am , how i act , even years of lying about it had a change in my personality  , so i totally get how you feel

i even feel guilty sometimes for BEING trans , which i know doesn't make since , but when i feel that i'm constantly hiding something and being always around people who think the whole thing is wrong , i guess that guilt feeling unconsceiously grew inside me

however , when ever the issue comes up , i try to look 'neutral' i don't take sides , i always try to explain as much as i can as in 'i read that.. or i have a friend who is trans who told me that...' but i don't show what side i'm on . and i never ever  say anything mean about trans people because if i do ,the image of all the good  people i know (with myself included) just flashes in my head and i feel like i'm saying that to each and everyone of them  which feels awful (and yes i'm talking from experience because i did that 'trick' once when a lot of evidence were pointing at me)

overall , you don't actually have to lie or agree with bigoted opinions , i mean a completely non-transsexual person wouldn't necessarily. as for everything else , all i can advice you to do (and what i'm doing myself) is..wait. just wait until you could leave this environment , and while you are waiting just be as much of yourself as it's safe to be , not the other way around . she can't just say 'hey , your trans' with out you actually say it no matter what you did or say as long as it's within  certain limits
all in all , good luck

Are you out to your Mom? Does she support you?


Jay

If you live in this house and are dependent upon these people, then, given your position, those who suggest that you contradict this woman are also advising you to endanger your future for their own benefit and comfort.  Morally, threat is incompatible with both volition and communication; I advise you to protect yourself and do whatever is necessary to preserve your life and future until you can get free of that house.  Lie like a rug, dance like Ginger Rogers, keep this woman happy.

When you are no longer dependent, you can tell this woman exactly where to shove it, how hard, and what color of crushed glass to use for lubrication.

- N

Thanks, all. It looks like the opinions here are split 50/50, but that's fairly representative of my feelings on the matter. *shrug*

Yeah, I plan to live on campus. And I am out to my mom. She doesn't quite understand, but she supports me, to an extent. Her feelings are that transmen take something away from the dyke community when they decide to transition and "get male privilege," but I've observed that these days, there's much less division in the GLBT youth community between lesbians, gays, queers, transfolk (at least in my school) and I told her such. So... a little progress, maybe.

The problem is, I moved in with Mom and her girlfriend when I was eight, and immediately the girlfriend started correcting my masculine behavior. I have to accept that this is all about her, because she has an incredibly inflated opinion of her own ability to influence me, and I think she imagines that her wearing boxer briefs "caused" me to act masculine.  So basically, I took her corrections. And because of that, it's not intuitive to me to act the way I'm supposed to. I feel like I lost all the years of my life that I've had since I was eight, in a sense, because I didn't fight back. Because I was raised wrong.

Point of that whole self-pitying monologue is, it takes a lot of extra effort to make her believe that she's been successful, especially since recently it's been getting a lot more difficult to present the way she wants me to. I see it as a balance between how masculine I allow myself to behave, and how vociferous I am in reassuring her that "I'm not trans."

So - I do understand the value of fighting back. It makes me feel like crap to have to act like such a sissy, and it makes me feel like worse crap to say this stuff about my closest friends, which is why I'm not gonna anymore. But I think the kind of fight I have to take on, here, is more... subtle, I guess, than forcing her to become accepting of every choice I make and to discard every illusion she has about trans folk.

I'm beginning to transition socially with my friends, and I'm going to buy a binder as soon as I get the chance, to wear to school. You know - little stuff. The things that change how I see myself, not necessarily how she sees me. I figure drag queens manage to act like a gender they're not, in a certain space - but as soon as they're out of that space, they're men again. And on the inside, they always were. So if that works for them - and if that's what it takes to not have to talk ->-bleeped-<- about my friends - then that's what I'll do.