GenderLife Forum: The Information Exchange

I am so glad his child is healthy and I'm so glad Mr Beatie is here, to share in this existence. I hope I meet him one day, and that he and his wife are happy and have a lovely existence.

kat

Look I for one as an open Trans Woman in my circles will NOT defend this man's choice to carry and give birth to a baby to anyone, I cannot defend what I don't believe in. Whatever the reasons they are NOT my concern, my concern is the damage he has done to my credibility as a Trans woman within my ever decreasing circle of friends. I chose not to freeze my sperm for a reason, the main one being how do I tell my child who sees me as their mommy that I am actually also their Daddy. I could not do that too another human being and I refuse to defend someones Else's choice to do it.

I just wish this couple had just kept to themselves and gone about this project in private and not so public. Hello Oprah honey, you go girl.... I mean what where they thinking apart from $how me the Money!

Oh I guarantee you that has nothing to do with this. It has to do with the fact that people suck and can never truly stomach those who are "different."

Many try, though, and can remain your friends for a more or less long while, even years. But, eventually, they all stop trying to get over their gut feeling of discomfort.

The only true friends you can make are those who don't know about your past. And hope the ones who do know don't go around blabbing about it.

It'd be the same if you were the only TS woman in the world.

Do you really believe that this wonderful child who will be raised by a mother and a father will ever know that it was the father who carried it in the womb? And if the child ever does discover it do you think it will make any difference? I don't think it is any different than a child finding anything else unusual out about a parent or parents. I mean how many millions of children have discovered that one or more parents was at one time a criminal or has children by a previous marriage or killed people in a war?

That has not been my experience at all. If anything I have a very stable core of friends that keeps growing. In my experience, people often lose friends because their quality of character becomes known by their friends over time and whatever charms they may have had gets overriden by evidence that they are jerks.

I have had the same experience, Christine. My experience with my friends has been wonderful. Even those few that initially had difficulty accepting my transition have come around eventually (some took a few years, but, eventually accepted it). My relationships with friends and family (even coworkers) has gotten better, not worse. These relationships are much closer and more authentic now.

The other thing is that I have made many more new friends also. Life is good!

My relationship with the friends who know my past has cooled, and in many cases they have slowly excluded me more and more from the significant events of their life, like baby showers, birthday parties and weddings.

I'd say I've lost half of them, and the other half have become rather distant acquaintances for the most part.

With the people I've befriended after transition, it's been the opposite: I've been always included by them, and they are getting closer to me as time goes by. Which is good, but I still grieve losing the old ones.

It could be because the decrease in my earnings, too. The people I had as friend were rather "wealthy college kids," the sort who never had to worry about money and who were quite stuck in their family values.

But of late I've been surprised by one who basically told me she prefers for me to stay away from her life by now because she's raising kids and she wants to give them a certain set of values that doesn't seem to include people like me. I'm sure if she didn't know about my past, there would be no issue.

PS: Actually, what I suspect is that most have told their husbands about me. I knew them when we all were single, then they married and their hubbies are the ones opposed to their keeping me as a friend.

Well, some of the friends drifting out of your life after they get married and have kids is normal I think. I think a lot of times it is just that their (families with children) circle of friends changes.

At any rate, friends come and go. My husband and I have some friends that have remained constant for several years and some that have drifted in and out of our lives. It seems that everyone does. We occasionally hear from someone we haven't spoken to in years. That is just life.

I did have a few friends I lost for a time due to transition. One of them barely spoke to me for about four years and then recently has come back into my life and is now very supportive. The frustrating thing is not knowing who is cutting you out of their lives due to your transition and who you simply grow apart from for other reasons (or no reasons at all).

I too lost a few friends that I had before but that doesn't bother me, it just showed their true character and I don't need people like that in my life. Those that did stay friends with me have gotten even to be better friends than before. My boyfriend I knew for two years before transitioning, and now we are planning on getting married as soon as we can consummate a marriage. Then my photography clients have continued to use my services, they all say I'm a 180 degrees a different person and a better one at that. Now for my family, I got what I expected from them, very little except for my Nieces and Nephews who still love me as always. I think the people that come into your life are a representation of of your true self in a way and the better person you are the better friend's you will have.