A reader writes: “In sixth grade, I came out to my best friend as a lesbian. Since then I have embraced the fact that I am attracted to women, and most people who are close to me or at least have some sort of friendly relation with me have figured that out. I don’t attempt to hide it, but I don’t make an attempt to spread the knowledge actively.
“However, in the middle of my tenth-grade year, I figured out I wasn’t a lesbian, I was transgendered. It just clicked for me and I then slowly realized that being a lesbian and being trans are two entirely different things!
“Now almost a year later, I am faced with a dilemma: EVERYONE THINKS I’M A LESBIAN. I tried coming out to my best friend a few months ago, but he was pretty unresponsive and now still refers to me as a lesbian because I don’t think he really realizes the massive difference.
“Since then I have come to further accept trans as my identity and want to come out to close friends as trans instead of lesbian because, well, I’m not a lesbian, and it bugs me to be called that because it refers to an entirely different population. How can I try to bring it up again to my friend, and then come out to others?”
Your situation is much more common than you might even realize. Many, many trans guys have come out of the lesbian community. It might have been more prevalent before the Internet offered so many resources for young people to explore and identify what they were feeling, but I think it is still common today.
Young people (and some older people, as well) can get gender identity confused with sexual orientation. It’s pretty normal, when you find yourself attracted to girls, for your first response to be “Okay, I’m a lesbian.” It’s only when you claim that identity and realize that it still doesn’t fit that you realize there’s something else going on there and you start to look deeper.
Before the Internet, many trans guys were isolated, with no resources and nowhere to find information or answers. Lesbian communities were at least visible, and being a lesbian was the only thing that made sense, even though it still didn’t feel quite right. So you have a lot of people who came before you who moved through a very similar situation.
Look at Chaz Bono. And I do mean look at Chaz Bono, because I think that he can be your “saving grace” in this situation. Chaz came out publicly as a lesbian in 1995, and he worked for many years as a lesbian activist before coming out as trans in 2009. Chaz not only had to come out again to his friends, but to the entire country.
Because Chaz is such a public figure, his story is an easy one to use when explaining to your friends that you are trans. They can certainly visibly see the difference between photos of Chaz when he was identifying as a lesbian and photos of him now. And if they have paid any attention at all to him on Dancing with the Stars or in his other public projects, they can see that he is not a lesbian. And, you can explain, neither are you.
So I think that one thing that you could do is approach your original friend – the one you came out to initially – and start over again. You can ask him if he at least knows who Chaz Bono is (I understand that you and your friend were young when Chaz came out, but even people who were too young to be aware of him before are probably aware of him now).
Then you could say, “Well, you might not know this, but Chaz came out a lesbian and lived with a public lesbian identity for many years before he came out as trans. That’s the way it is with me as well.”
You can go on to explain that sexual orientation is who a person is attracted to and gender identity is who a person feels that he/she/ze is, and those are two different concepts, at least in Western culture and for our purposes here. You can explain that you came out as a lesbian because it was the only label and the only community at the time that made sense to you with regard to what you were feeling, but that it never really quite fit.
Now you understand that you are trans, and it is important to you that your friends understand the difference. Then explain what that difference is, as far as it applies to you.
Do you feel like a guy? Do you want to be called by a certain name? Do you want your friends to use male pronouns? You need to make that clear. If you sit down and have a heart-to-heart with your best friend and get him on your “side,” then he can help when you come out to your other friends. He can lead the way by using your chosen name and preferred pronouns, and he can help correct others (kindly) when they slip up.
If your friends say something like “Can’t you make up your mind?” or “What are you going to come out as next?”, you can remind them about Chaz and tell them that many trans guys entered the lesbian community before they came out as trans. You can tell them that this has nothing to do with “making up your mind” and everything to do with discovering your true self and your true identity.
It’s a process, and it doesn’t always all come together at once in a neat and tidy package. Identity can be messy, and discovering it can mean trying some things on before you find something that really fits.
Remember, sexual orientation is who you’re attracted to and gender identity is who you think you are. In most cases, a person’s gender identity is in sync with his/her/hir physical body, but in some cases, it is not. Trans people can have any sexual orientation. In your case, you are attracted to women. But this does not affect who you know yourself to be inside. And this is what you want to explain to your friends.
I never identified as a lesbian, so I did not have to come out as trans as a lesbian. I know that some of my trans-guy readers were in the lesbian community prior to coming out as trans, so I’m hoping that they have some advice to give about this situation.
Readers, what have been your experiences?
I’m obviously not a trans man so not going to try and speak from that perspective, but I can speak from a general perspective. It’s not uncommon at all for trans youth to first think that they may be gay before coming to terms with being trans.
I’m still in my 20s, grew up on computers, and even had the Internet when I first started the struggle of coming to terms with myself. And even though I in the end came to terms with myself as a trans woman who is attracted to other women (despite my asexuality), I at first thought I might be gay or bi. Not interested in guys, and was wondering if I was one who was also into them.
This is because up until the last few years, the most that anyone in society ever discussed trans people at all, male or female, was those people who go on Jerry Springer, living fully female, and then come out to their partner who just proposed to them with “I’m really a man.”
We still don’t talk about it often enough, and people still think gay instead of trans. Which leads to your situation. I think Matt’s advice is sound, but I would also encourage some patience and forgiveness with your friends and family after you come out to them. They’ve known you all this time one way, and now you’re completely shattering those notions. They’re likely to go one of three ways.
First, the best of them will accept you wholeheartedly and try to adjust, though it will be a struggle sometimes. The second group will try to cling to their old notions of you, but once they see you living as a guy, they’ll likely come around. Sadly, the last group will be the haters. I hate to say it, but you may have some friends cut ties with you, and possibly share your identity with others you don’t want to know. So be careful in who you tell. You can never be 100% sure how someone will react, so test the waters a bit. Ask their feelings about Chaz and people like him. If they respond negatively, they most likely aren’t safe people to come out to.
Matt is right that it may help to think in terms of what you want your friend to DO that is different. To him, there might not be much difference in what you look like or how you act, so to him “nothing has changed.” This is especially true if he doesn’t really understand transgender and thinks of it as being like “butch” or another category of being gay. Beyond that, it’s normal for friends to not “get” it the first time you come out to them. So you think you DID come out and they didn’t hear it that way. It would probably help to come out again as trans and explain both what that means as well as the ways you expect your friend to act that are different because of it.
The other issue I would raise is that while it is understandable that you want to be recognized and respected in your true identity, you also sound like the “lesbian” label bothers you a lot – and I think it might be helpful to separate how much of that is “I don’t like being thought of as female” vs. “I have internalized bad thoughts connected to lesbians and being called one.” Of course, you don’t want to be misgendered. But it’s entirely possible that while you identified as lesbian, you were able to ignore internalized homophobia but now that you don’t identify that way, the internalized messages we get from society that lesbian = negative might be affecting you more. Also, unfortunately, many trans communities and forums on the internet are negative about lesbians or being viewed as one, which might be reinforcing how much it bothers you. That isn’t to say you should embrace being referred to as female in any way if it is uncomfortable. Rather evaluate why you react so strongly to being called a lesbian of all things and say “How much of this is really about being misgendered vs. all the othe baggage of how society views gays and lesbians.”
Heck, people think I’m a lesbian and I don’t even date women ^^ As long as there is no physical changes like a beard, people are just convinced that butch looking=lesbian. I haven’t found a way to stop them from that.
It’s really annoying esp because they not only assume that I i as female but that I like women as well. So I have to struggle against both, and when I say I’m not into women, I get called a homophobe ^^ You just can’t win with that situation.
What’s I’m trying to say here- don’t wear yourself out with constant struggle. I get that it’s important to talk to your best friend. But with other people, don’t expect too much or you get an ulcer faster than you can say *bleep* ^^
Yes, this is a problem – people think trans guys are dykes. I, too, deal with this issue. The only lesbians I don’t like are the ones with the radical lesbian-feminist politics where they hate all that is male on the planet. It’s their politics, not that they are lesbian. I’ve had good friendships with the non-feminist lesbians.
That said, I get annoyed at being thought as lesbian BECAUSE that is me being misgendered and nothing more. What I find is that this happens in areas where there is a large, out LGBT community and I live in one of the areas with a high number of LGBT folks. I still have no real beard yet as I am on a low dose of T and have been on it for almost two years now. I have not yet had breast removal surgery and I don’t bind much as I have relatively small breasts.
When I go into a community that isn’t really LGBT, I will be properly gendered as male. Especially if the weather is cool and I wear loose shirts and a jacket.
I am now 62 years old but look 40. I, too came out of the lesbian community in the 1970s before anyone ever said anything about trans. This was during the time when the second wave of feminism was in full swing and lesbians rejected the butch/femme way of life and many looked more like what we call “soft butch”. I looked and dressed androgynous. I never fit in with dykedom but never knew why. I went back into the closet and repressed all my LGBT feelings and lived straight (dating men) but more male presentation for many years before coming out as trans. I thought blindness was the problem. At my blind center, I was always assumed to be lesbian because of my masculine presentation. Now, most of the lesbians I meet are more femme, or “lipstick lesbians” – what we used to call “straight appearing”.
As for the reader who asked the question: You are young and I sure don’t know what it would have been like to know about gay or trans while I was in HS. In the 1960s, NOTHING was ever mentioned about these topics. I came out at 58 as trans but felt male since i was 10 or 11. I had struggles with being blind and in public school and the backwards attitudes about disability then. I think blindness colored my perceptions as to what gave people discomfort about being around me. Gender was never even thought of. Now, I’m trying to make up for lost time and being myself at last. Matt’s and the above folks have good things to say and try to be patient with people. The concepts of gender identity is still new to us as a society.
No matter when or in what manner you decide to tell your friends and family, keep in mind that YOU have had a long time to think about this and become comfortable with the idea that you’re trans. Your loved ones haven’t had all the time you’ve had, and therefore may still need time to process this new information. If they don’t accept your new gender identity right away, it may not be because they don’t love you, but more likely because they are still trying to absorb what you told them and connect it to the person they knew you as. I find that if you give people a little time, offer to answer any questions they may have (understanding conquers fear), and perhaps provide them with resources so they can learn more and be better allies, you won’t feel so misunderstood and alone. I wish you the best of luck!
As others have mentioned, there’s honestly not a great way to deal with this issue. I myself came out as a lesbian in high school and then lived in the community for 15 years before transitioning. Many folks just don’t understand the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. Sometimes I explain, sometimes I don’t. I’ve come to realize it is not my burden to educate every person I come in contact with. Sometimes that means I’m misgendered, or misidentified – but I know who I am, and that is way more important (IMO).
What I can say is that if folks are open minded, give them time – they might just need to ease into the “new” you. Good luck – and keep your head up.