Will Relationships Change After Gender Transition?

In becoming who we are, we're bound to piss off a few people.

I hope I don’t look this simiam - Image via DALL-E, modified by the author

A friend of mine celebrated a birthday recently. Even though I tend to downplay my birthday, I enjoy making others feel special on theirs. As I have for years, I sent my friend a text wishing him Happy Birthday.

He did not respond. I was surprised - he and I have celebrated birthdays together for years. Instead, I received an email weeks later.

In short, my friend told me we cannot be friends any longer. No - he did not say we cannot be friends. He said he needs friends who are male, and if I cannot fill that role...

So I made the final decision to end our friendship. I sent a reply asserting I would not fill a male role any longer, precluding a relationship. I sent a blessing to him and his family, and wished him a happy life.So

I knew it was possible - probable - that relationships would change as I transitioned gender. That said, I have received almost universal support during transition. My father's widow is a notable dissenter, and I was not bothered by her response. The email from my friend, however, is the first true casualty during my gender transition.

Oddly, I found I didn't care.

Existing relationships

For the most part, friends and family approved of and supported my gender transition. In fact, people I never expected to understand my experience embraced it. I became an ambassador of sorts - helping people see transgender issues in a new, rational light. That said, my relationships have changed.

Since I began social transition, it is difficult for me to hold hands with my wife - which is saying something. After 23 years together, people still comment on how we always hold hands in public.

At the beginning of my transition, however, I worried if I held her hand, other people would clock me as male more easily. I feel a bit ashamed of myself for that behavior - that I would withhold love from my wife for my own comfort.

Now, however, as I seem to pass in public, my concern turned toward my wife's image. She became a member of the LGBTQ community. I did not ask her to join; I handed her a membership card with the first estrogen patch I applied.

I was also worried about relationships with male friends of mine. One ex-military friend and I had a "punch-each-other-in-the-shoulder" kind of relationship. A relationship in which putting each other down is evidence of friendship. If I bruise easily now, am I still a good friend?

I had a more emotional relationship with another friend. A relationship in which we confessed deep feelings about ourselves. If I present as a woman, am I still a good confidante?

But I had no reason to worry in any of these cases.

My wife doesn't care about how I changed. I believe she feels more deeply for me now than a year ago.

Shoulder punches turned into hugs. I am still a good confidante - better, maybe, because I listen more attentively. My friends and family see a valuable person, even if different.

My friend's arguments

To return to the email I received, then - my friend explained three major points why he could not be friends with me.

1. Gender transition defies his religion's scripture.

2. Gender dysphoria is caused through brainwashing by the pharmaceutical industry.

3. Misuse of mind and body with pharmaceuticals further defies his religion's scripture.

There are many rebuttals I could make against my friend's arguments. I could cite WPATH guidelines regarding transgender care. I could send statistics of transgender suicidal ideation. I could show how much more stable I am since beginning hormone therapy.

If I wanted to be snarky, I could observe the only brainwashing going on is using a lovely story of a kind man who loved others as justification to promote violence.

I might point out the kind man in his religion recommended we live authentic lives in his lessons.

Sure, he might suggest a few behavioral modifications:

• He might instruct that we have no other lipstick over his.

• He might direct us to remember the Transgender Day of Visibility, to keep it holy.

• Above all, he might charge us not to covet our neighbor's minidress.

Other than that, though? I doubt that kind man would give a good God damn (thus keeping another Commandment).

Rapid surrender

I made no rebuttals. Instead, I folded immediately. My reply simply agreed to his assessment and ended the relationship.

But why?

Why would my friend choose to drop me because I now wear a skirt? Is it just about men and women being friends? If his wife is truly worried about a married, transgender friend making moves on her married, heterosexual husband, perhaps a conversation about trust is in order, not an end to his friendships.

But I just let it all go.

After the fact, I wonder: who is the bigger fool? Is it my ex-friend for not seeing me as the same person I was before I began gender transition? Or is it me for allowing my ex-friend's religious leaders to depersonalize me and then accepting it with no further fight?

Setting our own boundaries

The truth is neither my ex-friend nor I is a fool. Both of us are simply human (although Douglas Adams contended the two words are identical).

In relationships, each of us is responsible for setting boundaries. Each of us determines the nature of the relationship: the level of intimacy, the way we show we care about the other person, the way we choose to be treated.

Some people will respect our boundaries; some will not. Is it ever appropriate to lose friends? Perhaps more to the point, were they really friends to begin with if they do not respect our boundaries?

These are unfair questions. Relationships - whether we like it or not - are founded in context of society. Most social mores revolve around relationships - how we group together into cliques, how we protect our own clique, how we treat those outside our clique. The rules of engagement are written as social structure.

And of course, gender is founded in context of society as well. As such, it is unreasonable to expect nothing will change after transition.

Who am I, then?

Are we the same person before and after gender transition? Identity is a complex of physical structure, cognition, and the expression of both within socio-environmental factors, quickened by a soul that stands outside them all. Gender is inextricably linked to identity.

In my transition, I changed physical structure through hormone therapy. I changed thoughts and emotions as I began to accept myself. I changed behavioral patterns, including how I interacted with work colleagues.

My soul, I believe, stayed the same. But my soul, I believe, is the reason I experience gender dysphoria. My soul resonates with feminine energy, and rebels against masculine presentation.

But every other aspect of my identity changed. I communicate differently. I move through the world differently. I live differently. As I grew into the person I know I am, my identity was strengthened to the point I can let go of people who will not support me.

So I set a boundary: I will not conform to my ex-friend's template for relationships.

I will miss him. He and I worked together for years. We stood shoulder-to-shoulder through many difficult projects. We will never do that again.

In exchange, I live a life of contentment, as a woman stable in her Self, capable of giving more of myself.

My ex-friend got the short end of the deal.