What a Blow!
Entry posted by UsernameOptional
2,527 views
A [very] few here know that I was sweating bullets when I decided to tell the three most important people in my life about my trueself - my mum, my girlfriend and my brother. I was worried that I would lose their love. I didn't, but things didn't remain all that smooth. While I lost the support of my mother a few short months later, my g/f and brother seemed to stay the course.
Now, I have to question just where my brother's feelings are on all this. He has been understanding and supportive. But today, he sorta shook my faith in him. Maybe it's unfounded. I dunno.
I took him to take care of something. I stayed in my truck. When he came back to the truck, he said he had seen an MTF, but sorta bragged that it wasn't the first time he had seen one. Well, I had seen a woman earlier pass by, and no, she didn't have much of the classic "hourglass" shape and wasn't graceful as some ballet dancer...but come on, geez...not all women are. Doesn't mean right off that it's got to be a man in drag or a transwoman. But for some reason, when he said what he did, I asked, "a woman in a brown t-shirt?" He said, "yes."
Then he went on to point out that the area is cool with stuff like that. I told him I never said anything about the area he lived in being intolerant or anything like that. We had had a discussion a few days prior and I had made comments about in general... society is not quite as accepting of transexual people as society might like some to believe.
So he went on to say that it was no big deal in his town, and that no one had even paid him any attention. I commented that, "yes, I had seen her, but I didn't see her and think to myself, there's a transwoman."
That my brother called the woman "him" had not escaped me, and I asked him, "why did you refer to her as "him" then?" He got a little indignant, as if I was implying that he had a problem with transexual people. So I said to him, she identifies as female, I don't think she would like someone referring to her as a man.
He actually went through an explaination that even though she is MTF, if she looks like a man, and after all she is genetically a man, that's why he referred to her as a man. I was astonished. I didn't even know what to say. He said it was no big deal, that it shouldn't matter what anyone is or what they are called. Then shortly after, he asked me if I would have questioned our mother if she had said the same thing. I told him that I would, not that she would bring the subject up anyway...but that yes, I would have asked her the same question.
He got a bit ticked and didn't talk to me for the rest of the afternoon... not because he was wrong (he doesn't feel he was), but because I challenged his tolerance. I dunno how to take this from him. I mean...he has told his friends that his "sibling" is transgender. Unless absolutely necessary...he no longer refers to me as his sister, but he doesn't refer to me as his brother either, which I can sort of accept 'cause after all...I'm not transitioned yet. He knows I bind and pack. I really thought it was all cool with him. Until today.
I now have one solid ally left... my girlfriend. She's the only one now (of the three I've come out to) who hasn't let me down. Dunno what I'll do if she snatches my faith in her out from under me....
-David Michael
10 Comments
Recommended Comments