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[RMJ12345]

The reason I asked about trans stuff in The Great Indoor Fight thread

I don't understand transitioning from one gender to another. I think it's interesting, and I really enjoy reading trans narratives and trans journals (especially LiveJournals). Even though I don't understand it, I have no problem with people transitioning and going by other pronouns or whatever, and I try to be respectful of their wishes.

Last summer, a young woman who was getting ready to go to my school began iming me. Being a generally friendly person, I was happy to get to know her, and we had similar stated interests - creative writing and feminism. She was - from the start - quite desperately insecure and very vocal about that insecurity, along with her dislike of herself. I recognized also that she was intelligent and witty. She told me that she had recently realized that she was a lesbian, and that she came from a very conservative Christian family. She seemed lost, without any anchor of identity. I was all of these things before I came to Hollins, and so I hoped that we could begin a friendship and I could watch her grow into a confident, awesome young woman, as I had.

She didn't. In the span of time that I've known her, she has claimed pain resulting from many different (and in my view highly glamorized) experiences. These include, but are not limited to: childhood rape/sexual abuse (recovered memory), possible incest (she claimed to beat off the advances of her uncle many times), physical and emotional abuse from her father, anorexia/bulimia, religious persecution, stalking, sexual confusion, depression, self-abuse, suicidal tendencies, et cetera. At first I reacted to these with sympathy and an open ear. After I noticed the high incidence of awful things happening to her routinely and into the present day, I began to react with a little less sympathy and tried to get her to shore up her defenses emotionally - tried to get her to be more emotionally self-reliant by talking about solutions with her rather than nodding while she moaned about the pain, the pain. 

I also thought she was exaggerating a lot of stuff, or taking it too seriously. For example: a boy who had a crush on her in middle school found her on myspace, and then stopped talking to her when he realized that she was a lesbian and not his type of person. She found his blog, in which he lamented how much she had changed and mentioned her by her first name. This, to her, was stalking that could lead to her being kicked out of the house or sent to religious homo-reform camp (because she claimed her parents were just that bad). I thought that was ridiculous, and told her so (i can be a callous person, and I frequently am to her when she irritates me by reminding me too much of myself when I was weak). But I didn't question or suspect the more serious allegations that she made, because I tend to believe that people don't just make that up.

However, when she came forward with her story of sexual abuse, it started to seem giraffey. Details - key details - of her story changed as I heard her re-tell the story, and she told everyone about it pretty much as soon as she remembered it - often in very public spaces. She also claimed that because of this, she couldn't stand to be touched - but when she told me, she immediately used it as a reason to come over and hang out with me in person (which we rarely did) and get a hug from me (I'm not a huge hugger, or even a very physical person). Also, I just got a huge bullshit vibe from it.

This made me look at all of the things that made me pity her or give her sympathy, and every tragedy or struggle started to look like a ploy for attention. We stopped getting along because I stopped giving her this sympathy, and started being harder on her and her endless struggles, pushing her to find solutions instead of whining. This only seemed to encourage her to tell me more of her personal trials, saying that I pushed her to be a better person.  This also encouraged her to start imitating my interests - I did comics, so did she. I said I liked sports, so did she. Et cetera.

Anyway, to truncate this story a little bit, she decided that she was trans about six months ago. It came up pretty suddenly, right after he started dating a transman (friend and coworker of mine). He mentioned it a couple times in the month preceding, that he was sometimes confused about his gender, and then BAM - male pronouns, male name, binder, etc.

I'm all for gender fluidity, but this, again, stinks of bullshit. We had a falling out after I asked him some questions (along the lines of are you sure, don't be too hasty, changing your body is serious) and I guess probably wasn't the most supportive person in the world. He also needed to be rid of me, because I could be mean to him. I apologized for being out of line, because I'm pretty sure I wounded him badly, so we're on okay terms now, but I don't want to be friends. I think he's faddish and does everything for attention.

Anyway, I kinda don't think that the trans thing is going to stick, but I'm going to try and be respectful of his preferences (he currently says he's a male-identified genderqueer/fuck trannyboy), because, a, what do I know? and b, gender is fluid. My problem is that he's positioning himself as the poster boy for the trans community at my campus, and if I'm right about him, I think that might be doing a disservice to the trans community at Hollins and discourse surrounding it. Which isn't a huge deal, but it still pisses me off a little.

I asked because I wondered if anyone here knew an individual who decided that they were trans as a fad and went back to their original gender after a period of being very loudly trans.

Also: Am I a bad person for doubting someone who says they have been through very hard things? Should I support people I don't believe, if only because they might not be lying, and might actually be going through this?

[linnea]

Jesus Christ, rumjay. Why would you hang around someone for THAT LONG who was that much of an emotional trainwreck? I got tired just reading that description. 

[wombat]

Jesus Christ, rumjay. Why would you hang around someone for THAT LONG who was that much of an emotional trainwreck? I got tired just reading that description. 

Quoted for having this this post earlier and being unable to think of how to phrase exactly this opinion.

Basically, why are you still this person's friend? The relationship seems a bit one sided, to say the least.

[Nabubrush]

That person has a lot of other stuff going on that is unrelated to the trans thing, I think. I think you have fgiured this deal out, but are being extra considerate, and not dropping this person like a piping-hot brick. For me, I would feel ok being this person's friend and trying to be supportive if he was getting professional help for his not-inconsiderable problems, as long as he wasn't psychically draining me.

[Arachno-capitalist]

this person is, in my opinion, an attention whore. I guess she didnt get enough attention from her family or whatever, but this is ridiculous. I know people like this. We all do. you are not a bad person, rumjay, and i dont think this character is "bad" either. HeShe needs some therapy, the kind of attention that might actually end with positive results.

[littlefallsmets]

I'm actually really fascinated with all human identity structures... gender/sexual just being one of them... and to be honest, this person doesn't sound like a person actually dealing with gender dismorphism.

From what I've gleaned, genuine and healthily-transitioning trans people aren't running around looking to draw MORE attention to their struggles with their identity... they just wanna be the other gender and not feel so out-of-place.

They want LESS attention insofar as they want to be a "normal" member of what they consider to be the opposite side of a somewhat artificially constructed gender binary.

They desperately want to conform to a set of definitions... to the point where they'll go through years of dangerous surgeries and hormone therapies and legal wranglings and so on to be ABLE to conform to that set of standards... it's just a different set of standards than what their body can naturally fit.

They just wanna blend into the world as an unambiguous and unmistakeable member of the other gender.

This person doesn't sound at all like a man in a woman's body transitioning to some semblance of male-identity...

This sounds like someone with, like, a borderline disorder or a dissociative disorder who is probably also tangentally a gay lady but is so desperately messed up that she has taken something she can't deal with about her sexuality that she's twisted it into a psychodrama about... trying to conflate her desire for women with her past of abuse and religious Christian homophobia to the point where...

She's decided that it can only make sense that she's into ladies if she's actually a dude.

Which is way way way different than being transgendered.

Iran's take on gender identity deals with homosexuality in a similar way. Hell, the Buffalo Bill character in "Silence of the Lambs" dealt with it in a similar way.

You are not a bad person at all, Rumjay.

The person in question is just grasping for straws, anywhere, everywhere, because she is hurting and confused and probably possessed of at-least a half-measure of madness.

Unless you're full on into spending the next ten years of your life trying to change this person, you have total right to divest yourself of that drama tornado. She could well be a punk rock chick in two years and a born-again Christian in five.

People in that much pain basically cannot be helped by the gentle ministrations of concerned friends... they will twist the help of friends into ways to get attention or into strange strains of codependence. Whatever good hearted help you try to lend to the situation will only get corrupted into part of the problem by their madness.

Only hardcore therapy or a series of eye-opening shattering life experiences can mend those kindsa wounds.

You are an awesome lady for wanting to help but the person in question is a Pringle wedged in the bottom of the can.

Sometimes you gotta let those hard to reach chips go, so to speak.

[smick]

You are an awesome lady for wanting to help but the person in question is a Pringle wedged in the bottom of the can.

Sometimes you gotta let those hard to reach chips go, so to speak.

Sometimes you can get to them by banging the can really hard on the counter, and then eating the pieces that fall from the can.

[linnea]

Sometimes you can get to them by banging the can really hard on the counter, and then eating the pieces that fall from the can.

I tried to give you another can for that phrase, but I just can'd you for the Shandy comment in A-CAP's beer thread and the board won't let me repeat a Karma action w/o waiting one hour. Rest assured, another tiny can is in the works.

[RMJ12345]

Ah, thanks guys. He's not a bad person, and I've probably made myself sound a lot better and him a lot worse than in reality. But I think I will stop talking to him - I don't need a crazy friend in addition to all my other shit. I'd rather spend my time with imaginary people on the internet.

[wombat]

I'd rather spend my time with imaginary people on the internet.

Yes!  We are so low maintenance.

[linnea]

Ah, thanks guys. He's not a bad person, and I've probably made myself sound a lot better and him a lot worse than in reality. But I think I will stop talking to him - I don't need a crazy friend in addition to all my other shit. I'd rather spend my time with imaginary people on the internet.

He sounds like a crap dude who has made no effort to better himself. The last thing you need is that kind of stress. You've done your best to help him, he won't accept help, so I would just dump him and move on.

[Nabubrush]

Ah, thanks guys. He's not a bad person, and I've probably made myself sound a lot better and him a lot worse than in reality. But I think I will stop talking to him - I don't need a crazy friend in addition to all my other shit. I'd rather spend my time with imaginary people on the internet.

I'm a raving loony; you might want to limit your exposure to me as well.

[RMJ12345]

I'm a raving loony; you might want to limit your exposure to me as well.

Yes, but you're imaginary. So you're just a figment of my imagination that's gone a little wacky. I can tolerate that.

[Nabubrush]

Yes, but you're imaginary. So you're just a figment of my imagination that's gone a little wacky. I can tolerate that.

It'd be odd if I wasn't a madman, at that.

[side_show]

Hmm.. I don't know.  I have a friend a lot like the one you're describing with a list of "all the way's I've been done wrong" about a mile long, and interestingly enough when she was over for dinner last she said something like "I'm basically trans anyway" and I said "huh, yeah right."  Then she was like "What? I am!"  And I just said, "Oh really, because I don't see you having your pu$$y turned inside out into a functionless c*ck.  Am I right?"  And she was like "Yeah, yeah, that's true."  When it comes to my friend, she's basically a lovely person who has schizophrenia, and in my SO and I she's found two people who will care for her no matter what and she sort of tests the boundaries by spouting a lot of her paranoia and looking for our sympathy.  So when she tells us she's been intentionally poisoned by three different restaraunts, we say "yeah sure, whatever you say." And when she came over to visit after her murdered sister's funeral we were as kind as we could be.  A real friend, no matter what their mental state, can handle you calling them on their bullshit, and will call you on yours too - and either sort of exchange should be done with constant good humour.  It's actually an important part of friendship. 

If you call bullshit on your buddy in a fun humours way and s/he turns him/herself into an instant victim, every time you should tell him/her to talk a better look at what being a feminist means.  Does s/he long to be male because s/he's always had the wrong body parts, or is it about claiming power s/he feels s/he doesn't have as her current gender?  It sounds to me like his/her identity is more tied up in the role of "victim" than anything to do with his/her long list of personal hindrances.  No doubt much of the shit that's done down in his/her life is legit, and that most of the early stuff was out of his/her controle.  What's not healthy is to continue to build on and collect a list of victimizations.  It's right of you as a true friend to be concerned about this.  The gender issue is just the surface of something deeper, a pattern that you've recognized and are naturally concerned about.  If s/he wont address your totally rational concerns, she's probably running from something.  There's nothing wrong with being unwilling to feed a friend's cycle of victimhood.  It's self abuse plain and simple, and even if s/he cleverly masks it by taking on victim roles that are too "politically correct" to touch, that doesn't mean she's not addicted to the pity party.

Being in a fairly similar friendship that is much further along all I can say is that it's important to beware of emotional vampirism from a friend like this.  The friend I mention is never interested in my talking about my own personal traumas and likes to minimize them because no one, no one, has suffered as much as she has.  So my SO and I both focus on the happy times with her, and are only willing to talk about her bad stuff in a limited way, give our support/advice/criticism then move on to other things.  If she wants to wallow, we just shut down and wait for her to participate in the friendship again.  We only welcome the give and take now, and with these ground rules established, our friendship is much healthier.  Like me and my SO, I'd say it's best to keep a third party in the friendship.  Someone who's not "on her side" you can check in with and say "is s/he being legit about circumstance A, B, C, etc.?"  It's much easier to see when you're being honest, when you're giving too much, when you're being callous, etc. when there's someone else there with you to serve as a barometer.