A reader writes: “When you were first starting transition, how did you get people to take you seriously? To see that you weren’t ‘faking’ it? Because the LGBT group on my campus – they don’t take me seriously. I can tell in how whenever they say my name it sounds fake, how they refuse to use my preferred pronouns – or even any pronouns. It feels like they don’t believe me and it hurts inside. These people were some of my friends and to find that they don’t (or won’t) take me seriously is killing me inside.”
Actually, yes – I did have a hard time getting some people I knew to take me seriously at first, but for a different reason, no doubt. I was very feminine as a female. People simply didn’t understand that someone who looked and acted so “traditionally feminine” could have any kind of gender issues.
But an LGBT-specific group that does not take you seriously is unfortunate – and I would question what kind of leadership is being offered and what kind of information is being provided to this group. The one place that did take me seriously, even in my dress and high-heels, was my local gender center, because the people there knew that trans people have a wide variety of gender expressions.
There are some possibilities here. Your letter does not give me a clue as to your sex and gender, but I am going to make an assumption that you identify as a trans man. If you identify as a trans woman, what I am going to say will possibly still hold true in reverse.
> It’s possible that your friends don’t want you to be trans. If you have a group of lesbian friends, and they have seen you and formed a relationship with you as a lesbian, they might feel threatened by this revelation. They don’t want things to change. They want you to be who they want you to be, not who you really are.
> It’s possible that you have gotten some extra attention by coming out as trans, and this attention has made some others in the group feel slighted, so they feel the need to discredit you.
> It’s also possible that you don’t fit their narrow definition of what a trans person is. This I would blame on a lack of real information being available. Often LGB”T” groups are really just LGB groups with the “T” added on to present a false sense of inclusiveness. They don’t have the knowledge that they need to support you, and it’s easier for them to deny your identity than to try to figure out how to really deal with it and offer support and help.
(And keep in mind that some people might be making an honest mistake. People are usually able to use a new name before they are able to use a new pronoun. So you might find people who are using your name correctly, but are still slipping on the pronoun. If it appears to be an honest mistake, cut them some slack.)
> And if your friends are trans, then they should know better – but, unfortunately, there can exist some one-upmanship within some facets of the trans community (or any community). They are trans – that makes them special, different, unique, more marginalized, more discriminated against, more whatever than you. If you also come out as trans, then they have no title to claim.
Regardless, how can you get them to take you seriously? Depending on the reason why they are not taking you seriously, you might not be able to change that. Unfortunately, that can be very lonely and sad for you.
I don’t know if you have talked to these people about how you feel, but if you haven’t, that is your first step – a sit-down conversation in which you are honest about your feelings. Your friends might not realize that they are hurting you. They might not realize how very serious this is to you.
If there are one or two friends who you really feel close to, start with them and try to enlist their help. If you can get them to support you, to use the correct name and pronoun, and to back you up when others refer to you incorrectly, the others will probably soon follow their lead.
You could also ask for some feedback from them on why they are not taking you seriously or respecting your identity – but you do not need to change your behaviors or who you are to fall in line with who or what they think you should be.
If you have this conversation with your closest friends and they still refuse to respect your identity, then you will need to find some new friends. If there is no trans-specific social or support group on campus, talk to the head of the LGBT student center about starting your own. If you are already attending a trans-specific group and this is happening there, then you might want to look off campus or elsewhere for friends and support.
But, above all, continue to maintain your identity. Perhaps once they see that you will only respond to the name and pronoun that you identify with and that you will not allow your identity to be disrespected or disregarded, they will change their attitude toward you.
The bottom line is that you know who you are. Remember that always.
Now I’ll turn it over to the readers.
Excellent advice, Matt.
I would also note that the very early stages of coming out as trans make little sense to anyone other than trans people – and sometimes not even to them.
I recall someone once joining my former trans therapy group who appeared to be a very feminine and confident woman – but told us he had realized he was really a trans man. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to support him, but it’s a strange mental adjustment to make. He wasn’t ticking any of the usual “trans man” boxes we were accustomed to… he wasn’t on the “butch” end of the lesbian scale, his hair was cut in a short but clearly feminine manner, his clothing was simple but definitely feminine. Pronoun slippage was constant but it had nothing to do with non-acceptance. It was just stretching our preconceptions about what a “new” trans man was supposed to look like.
Another problem I’ve seen a lot is around people who know they’re trans, but don’t know what they want to do about it. It’s a lot easier for other people to understand a firm decision to transition then it is for them to understand the phase of figuring out the right path for you. Other trans people for whom this decision was obvious sometimes have a difficult time believing someone else can be “truly” trans unless the transition path is just as obvious and definite. That’s not fair, but it’s pretty widespread.
In any case, as Matt said, if anyone on your campus truly understands the trans experience you should be able to find support and get taken seriously. I wish you luck!
Great observations! Thank you very much.
Excellent advice! I’m a first-time commenter, but I’ve been lurking for a while – always enjoy reading this blog.
Another additional point – there will probably be some people who will say that them using an incorrect name or incorrect pronouns never used to bother you. The flaws in that argument are obvious; a person may not have realised what it was that was bothering them, may not have thought about it, nobody tells others how they feel every moment of the day, and it’s called the closet for a reason, as well as any other refutations that may have slipped my mind. That one can be hard to answer though, because it’s subtly designed (even if that isn’t the person’s intention) to undermine you and make you feel as if you’re being unreasonable. You’re not being unreasonable to ask for your self to be respected and recognised.
I’m having this problem right now. People will use my male name but still call me she and miss and girl.
I submitted this one and I want to thank you all for your responses.
[I am indeed a trans* man, just for the record.]
I do know that people make honest mistakes-I’ve also had that happen and there’s a difference between what the group is doing and honest genuine mistakes.
And, as for my presentation, I fall more towards the “butch” end, I suppose [I am pretty much full-time at this point, binding/packing-and all I have are girls' jeans so it is fairly noticeable-9/10ths male wardrobe]. My hair is short, yes, however it’s in a distinctly masculine cut.
I have brought up these concerns to the officers-as they’re the ones who are doing this-and have been dismissed. That is, nothing has changed.
That is bad – when the leaders are the ones who are doing it, so you can’t even go to them for help.
I am assuming that these officers are not trans, which is one more example of a group being LGBT in name only.
I don’t know if they’re uneducated about trans issues, or if they’re just being jerks, but it makes me wonder about some stuff, like where the funding for their meeting space and any student events they hold is coming from; if they have made any false claims about being trans inclusive on their application to be recognized as a campus group; or if they have a faculty adviser that is aware (or not aware) that they are not trans inclusive.
I, of course, am always inclined to make a stink about stuff like this and to try to find these things out, but I am not a student at a college who has to endure backlash from my peers if I do so.
You might consider finding out how to start a student group on campus and try to start a trans-specific student group. Or maybe you could just start an informal group that meets in a free space on campus or a coffee shop and put up fliers about it around campus.
If you are experiencing this, then perhaps other trans students have as well, and they might welcome a different group. And there has got to be some paid staff or faculty somewhere on campus who is in charge of these various student groups.
If enough students complained, maybe something could be done – or they could at least be forced to change their name from LGBT to LGB, with a separate group established for trans students.
I hope we hear from some other readers – particularly college students or faculty who might have suggestions.
And I know it’s hard being alone out there, but you really might want to seek out a different group of friends, because I think these “friends” are proving that they are not.
You are correct, these officers are not trans.
It’s a little of both, but mostly they’re being jerks. [The president has told me such things as "Every time you post something stereotypically T.V. male, I twitch a little." and then, in the same paragraph told me that he supports "every trans-person's (sic) journey."]
The adviser was notified about this stuff-and other incidences online-but as far as I know nothing was really done.
I am raising a stink about it, mostly because, if they’ll do this kind of stuff to me, who knows how they’d treat a freshman just coming out?
It’s West Virginia, so there aren’t that many out trans people on campus.
Oh, actually the other trans person [a trans woman] they treat her completely different- they say her name without any hesitation, they use the correct pronouns and everything.
I am sending a letter to several people [including both advisers, all of the officers, and the head of Student Organizations], regarding the officers’ behavior towards me and how it violates the constitution they have sworn to abide by [and why I'll be leaving the organization-tonight was actually my last meeting].
I do have a wonderful group of people who support me, thankfully. And an amazing therapist who understood exactly why all of this has distressed me so much.
Good for you. I’m really glad that you are pursuing this. It takes a lot to do that, but that is how change comes about.
And I’m glad you have other supportive people. I was worried about you being alone out there. I am so glad that you are doing what you are doing, and I would be really interested in the outcome, as I’m sure other readers would be as well, so I hope that you will come back here and post what happens.
Thank you for taking this on for the sake of others who will come after you.
It is taking a lot out of me but I keep reminding myself-and having friends remind me-that it’s for the best, that it’ll be better for me.
Oh, I promise I’ll come back here and post the outcome.
I know they deserve a support group that will actually support them.
And thank you for answering my question in the beginning. You’re one of my heroes and your book helped me so much over the summer during my darker days-just knowing that I wasn’t alone, that other people had had these feelings and had made it through.
Thank you for your kind words. I’m flattered and glad that I could be of help to you.
And thanks for what you’re doing at the college. I am really looking forward to seeing what happens. Good work.
I have seen this before- LGB places with little trans inclusion tend to be pretty tough for trans guys. It used to be much more so in the past when people knew only about trans women.
There is a strange resentment to trans guys, a lot of nit picking etc. People made all kinds of strange excuses against pronoun change, but I’m not sure why. Are the people who resent you lesbians or gay men? For lesbians, it’s often that they feel you are “one of them” and don’t want to “loose” you. For gay men, there can be a tendency to just not take trans men seriously as men, often for a lack of experience with transitioned trans men, or out of a subconscious fear of gender blurring.
That’s an excellent point about gay men, because I find that many gay men have a hard time accepting me, and I think it’s because they have been taunted and harassed and discriminated against for so long for being “feminine,” even when they’re not actually displaying “feminine” characteristics, that they worry about being seen that way, and trans men are a threat because they don’t want to be seen as “one of us.”
And they have a resentment about “women” invading their turf, because they lack an understanding of trans issues. Just as they don’t want to be seen as “one of us,” they don’t want us to be seen as “one of them.” Some also have the notion that we are “tricking” them in some way. I do think that some gay men feel threatened by trans men, and often it just boils down to a lack of knowledge and understanding.
Both gay men and lesbians.
Although I identify as bisexual so, quite often, lesbians didn’t want me even when I ID’d as female.
I was, like Matt, a very femme woman before I came out as trans, and I ran into a lot of resistance in my college’s LGBT student group as well. One guy tried to train me to be more masculine by telling me he would only call me the pronoun of the gender I was “acting like.” Which meant he was quite unabashedly withholding support for me until I “learned” to comply with his personal criteria for gender.
Additionally, I think Cal brought up something really important–the president of this LGBT group’s comment about being irked when Cal posts “something stereotypically T.V. male”. I think it’s really unfortunate that in spite of their purported support for gender diversity, they can’t support someone with a masculine identity they deem distasteful. That’s not okay. Being supportive of gender diversity means being supportive of all genders, not all genders except for one. I understand that as the dominant gender presentation in our society, the “stereotypical T.V. male” presentation is a problematic one, but that doesn’t mean we’re allowed to reverse-discriminate against all straight-presenting men.
That said, I do think it is the responsibility of a traditionally masculine man (or a person perceived as such) to be aware of the ways in which their gender presentation might afford them privilege in a patriarchal society, and it is their responsibility not to wield that privilege in a way that perpetuates gender hierarchies.
Matt, what you wrote about gay men-
I have experienced that a lot with the older gay generation who came out during the 1960-early 1980s. They are tough cookies. The younger ones are a lot more relaxed.
“Some also have the notion that we are “tricking” them in some way. I do think that some gay men feel threatened by trans men, and often it just boils down to a lack of knowledge and understanding.”
I have seen that accusation of being tricked a lot in the past. I think, with the older gays who have struggled very hard, they just flip when they are under the impression that someone forces them to have “straight sex” in some way.
Also, this is a generation who was brought up with very strict gender/sex stereotypes during the 1950s, and it shows. They can think past that stuff only so far, they deem themselves “free” but they are hardcore essentialists. It sucks dealing with them.
I do think there is definitely a generational difference in many cases. I have seen it, too. Good point and glad to hear I’m not the only one who has experienced that.
[Not sure if I should make a new question yet but I figured y'all deserved to know]
Yesterday, I delivered the letters to the officers of the GSA, the advisers to the GSA, and to the head of Student Orgs.
Now, it’s just a matter of waiting for a response.
Okay, this is really getting interesting. Keep updating us, because I absolutely want to know what happens. Thanks! And good job.
I will. And thank you, having your support as well means a lot to me.