That’s been my general coming out tactic lately, and I think I’ve mentioned it once or twice before on this blog. Today, K paused (awkwardly, I felt) and said, “Oh, yeah.”

I like “You know I’m trans, right?” because it gives me – the one coming out – some amount of power. It’s absolutely a leading question, which means there’s a social impetus on whoever I’m speaking with not to say, “No! Oh my god! You’re trans!?” The pressure is there for them to agree, say they knew I was trans, and move on.

At the same time, I’m coming to dislike using this as a way to come out (or verify that I don’t need to) because of that same pressure. I always want the response to be, “Oh, wow. No, I didn’t know that,” because it’ll make me feel better about my presentation as a woman. (It’s happened on occasion, but not frequently.)

I’m curious how (or if) other people handle similar issues? I consider my work environment (at this job, specifically) to be somewhere I’m comfortable enough to joke about my trans identity. At the same time, I needed to make explicit that aspect of my identity to K. Or did I? I obviously could have either kept my mouth shut, or told the joke and not explain it. But I’m not thrilled with either of those options.

What would you have done?

Then, I met up with a friend for her trolley party.

Not a great picture, but undeniable proof of trolley-hood

I’m not totally sure why she was having a trolley party – I think a friend of hers was in from out of town, which is as good an excuse as any – but a bunch of people I knew from Northwestern were also there. One of whom hadn’t seen me since I’d transitioned, and clearly didn’t remember who I was.

She introduced herself as Becca, I thought initially because she remembered me but wasn’t sure how to ask about my new name. We agreed that our spelled – Rebecca – is obviously right, and every other variation is wrong. We continued chatting while at one of the bars along the way (we alternated between trolley cruising and stopping at bars) and she mentioned that she knew the hostess from Northwestern. I said I did, too, and kind of awkwardly mentioned that she and I knew each other from Northwestern, too.

“Wait, what’s your last name?” she asked.

“Kling,” I replied, “Rebecca Kling.” She paused, trying to remember. I finally offered, “Did you know [male name] Kling?”

“Oh yeah, I remember him! Did you two get married?” This honestly wasn’t the reaction I was expecting, and made me laugh.

“No,” I continued. “I used to be him.”

A look of confusion spread across her face for a quick second, and then she broke out into a huge grin. “Oh, there you are!” She reached out her hand to cup the side of my face. “You’re so beautiful! There’s your face!”

It was sort of a surreal experience, but a really delightful one. The number of people I need to come out to has gone down over time (obviously) but I still get tired at the thought of coming out to someone I haven’t seen in a few years. In this case, I had a moment of worrying over what her reaction would be, only to be utterly surprised and buoyed by the reality.

It was, my roommate later commented, like the moment in Hook where the Lost Boys accept Peter back:

The rest of the evening was also a blast. How could it not be, with a kick-off like that? Don’t have tons of pictures, but these are from going back to one of the hostesses’ apartments post-trolley:

Intriguing...

Dun dun duuuuuuuuh!

Hey friends!

This is kind of an uncomfortable email for me to write, but it’s something that I’ve been thinking about and need to address:

Please don’t out me. That is, please don’t tell people I’m trans.

I love you all. I’ve said this over and over again: I’m privileged, blessed, and really fucking lucky to be surrounded by friends like you. In a world that isn’t too kind to people outside the norm, you all pretty much shrugged your shoulders when I came out. Not because it wasn’t important to me, but because it didn’t change our friendships.  I really value that. I love being able to have conversations and debates, to share joy and sorrow, with people who I’ve known for years, and who have known me.

But staying in Chicago after high school and college has also made transitioning occasionally more work than I’d like. To pick a really easy example, I went to the bank yesterday and the teller was the mom of someone I went to elementary school with (and not someone I particularly cared for, at that). She knew she sort of recognized me, but totally didn’t know how to respond to my presentation as Rebecca. It wasn’t a problem, and she was respectful, but it kind of threw me out of my stride to have to say, “Yeah, I’m going by Rebecca now…”  Even though I love Chicago, and am glad I’ve stuck around, having to be reminded of that pre- and post-transition disconnect takes its toll.

That’s a big part of the reason I’m asking you not to out me: while I’m working on being proud of my identity as a trans woman, I don’t always want to have to deal with it. It’s part of who I am – a big part of who I am – but it’s not the only part that’s important.  And I’m 100% confident that all of you feel the same way. But (as I said) you’ve known me for a bazillion years, and see who I am as one continual person. For a lot of people, though, when they’re told someone is trans, that part ‘wins’ against all the other parts of their identity.  People have this tendency to totally shift their mental perception of a person when they learn that person is trans. I’ve seen it happen: pronouns immediately switch, awkward and rude questions start to get asked, and (in extreme cases) the trans person gets beaten, raped, or killed.

I want to emphasize that those less violent reactions – incorrect pronouns, rude questions – don’t come from bigotry. I’m not accusing everyone who uses the wrong names or pronouns with me of intolerance. They can learn – like I’ve had to, like you all have done brilliantly and in a way that really makes me proud – that being trans doesn’t have to be that big of a deal. But while they’re learning that, they may call me by the wrong pronoun. They may ask awkward questions. They may end up treating me differently. And all of those things hurt, even though I wish they didn’t and even though I’m working on not letting them get to me. I don’t like how easy it is for me to go from happy to miserable by being referred to as ‘he,’ but that’s where I am right now.

I’m also asking this of you for more than my emotional comfort. I’m asking you for my safety. I am absolutely confident that none of you would ever out me to anyone who would give me any reason to feel unsafe. But I don’t know who their friends are. Or the friends of their friends. I’ve led something of a charmed life when compared to the rest of the trans community, and ask your help in keeping me safe from potential violence and harassment.

I also want to make it really clear that I am not mad at any of you. I’ve never given this issue much thought, and haven’t really talked about it with anyone before this week. I’m open to talking about it more, and would love to chat over drinks or a game of Mario Kart. Thank you all so much for respecting this decision.

Much love,
-Rebecca

The first draft was much snarkier and less diplomatic, but a friend (hi Jess) convinced me that leading with a carrot (reminding my friends that I love them and enlisting their help) would be better than a stick (letting my friends know I’d be angry with them if they ignored this request).

This email also glosses over the more ideological issue that they don’t have the right to out me; it focuses entirely on the safety and comfort of not outing me. That was a conscious choice, even if it’s one that was difficult for me to make. Ultimately, I thought this version of the email had more of a chance of working with less of a chance of annoying any of my friends. That doesn’t sit well with me – I always prefer diving into the nitty-gritty of a discussion or argument, particularly when it’s about something so close to me – but I sort of decided to take one for the team.

If any of my friends bring this topic up with me, I’ll definitely explain my more nuanced position, but I don’t think I needed to get into it for the purposes of this email, even if I did really want to.

Bob, chuckling, gestured to me and said, “Right. He’s going to hell because he doesn’t acknowledge the big JC…” And continued talking, using the incorrect pronoun, to the point where I started to wonder if he maybe wasn’t referring to me; most people catch themselves earlier than Bob did.

But no, I finally had to correct him, “She. Not he.”

He apologized, corrected himself, and the conversation moved on. Shortly thereafter I left and went to bed.

And realized I’d never actually told Bob I was trans.

I asked Alice about it today, and she verified that she had told him at some point. I’ve never given my friends any sort of policy on this, because it’s never really occurred to me that I should. I’m so surrounded by people who knew me before I transitioned that I sort of assume people know I’m trans. (Perhaps to the detriment of my confidence in being perceived as a woman.) Alice also said she was 100% fine if I said she shouldn’t tell people I’m trans – she hadn’t really thought about it before either, but she’d definitely respect my decision if that’s what I tell her to do.

The conversation made me remember that my other roommate, Carl, (stick with the naming convention, people!) has also outed me to at least one friend of his. Carl’s friend never had the pronoun issues Bob did, so I never really gave the matter much thought, but now I’m rethinking it.

I don’t like that I care, but I do care. For someone who does performance art about her trans identity, who hands out postcards proclaiming in the show description that she’s trains, I still want that information and that part of my identity to feel like it’s under my control.

So how do I handle this? The cat’s out of the bag, so to speak, but I can definitely tell my roommates how I feel. Should I go so far as to send out an email to all my friends? That seems kind of extreme. Should I give some sort of guidelines? I feel silly emailing…

“If it’s relevant to the conversation, you’re allowed to out me.

Good: Oh, you do performance art about your abusive father? My roommate does performance art about her identity as a trans woman!

Bad: I live with Carl, who likes watching sports on TV, and Becca, who’s a transsexual.

How have other people handled this situation, when you’re out but still want some control over how others are allowed to out you?

That’s a tough one to answer. How did you know you wanted to be a girl, anonymous questioner? (Or wanted to be a boy?)

For me, it wasn’t so much that I wanted to be a girl that I knew I wasn’t a boy. I imagined being a girl was better, I hoped it was right for me, and I wished I were a girl. But I wasn’t positive that it would be until I did it. Maybe a good analogy would be the question, “How do you know you’re hungry?” Well, because you’re hungry! It’s a state of being, something you know you are or you aren’t. I didn’t know I wanted to be a girl because I liked dresses or makeup or dolls. I knew it because it was true.

• What do your family and friends think?  Did anyone give you moral support in making your decision?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am spoiled, blessed, privileged, and thankful that my friends, family, and coworkers have been so supportive during my transition. I’ve had people (family, mostly) react in a confused way, but I’ve never had anyone who was important to me act in a negative or intentionally hurtful way.

My experience, however, is the exception. It’s (unfortunately) not the rule. But I’d like to work toward a world where my experience – of the people important to me being supportive and enthusiastic of my transition – is the norm.

• Did you lose friends or family relationships?

As I said above, no one important. Some relatives, who I already wasn’t close to, I’m now even less close. Likewise, some people I was casually friend/friendly with drifted apart. But – thankfully and knock-on-wood – I haven’t had any really, openly negative reactions to my transition, or my coming out to someone.

• How long have you felt you were transgender?

This is sort of related to the first question in this post. Rather than expand on that, I’ll quote myself. From “I think I want to be a girl”:

…as early as I can remember having a concept of gender, I knew I would gladly switch bodies with any of my girl friends. There was not a doubt in my mind I’d be happier with the prospect of growing up into a woman rather than a man. I fantasized about magical gender-swapping spells, sci-fi mind-transfer rays, alternate timelines, and even more outlandish possibilities (and I still do…see any of my posts on trans fiction for more on that subject). I had no problem asking, “Why am I not a girl?” or saying “If only I was a girl” or “I wish I was a girl.”

That’s it for tonight. Not even half way through the questions! I’m speaking to the Loyola (college and above) class on Thursday, and the high school class that submitted these questions on Friday. I’ll definitely try to post more answers on this blog, though. It’s been a good writing exercise.

I’m fourteen, sitting on the chair in my therapist’s office.

I started going to therapy by choice, because the year before, at thirteen, I still couldn’t get past the panic attacks and separation anxiety that had kept me from sleepovers and overnight school trips and sleep-away summer camp for as long as I could remember. The pattern was always the same: I would get excited about staying at a friends’ house, at an overnight event at the Museum of Science and Industry, at whatever. I would go, convincing myself that this time would be different, that this time I’d be able to make it all night.

But as we started to get ready for bed, the panic would creep up. For those of you who have had a panic attack before, you know how it feels. To everyone else, it was a very physical sensation, a creeping along my arms and legs to my core, to my center. My blood would start to rush, tears would inevitably spring to my eyes, and if I didn’t go home, if I didn’t get away from whatever mundane childhood experience was driving me to a panic, I’d go into fullblown hysterics.

Finally, the summer after seventh grade, when I’d missed most of the seventh grade weekend trip to Wisconsin because of a panic attack, I decided  I would go to the eighth grade trip to Washington DC. So I started seeing a therapist. We worked for months on controlled breathing, biofeedback techniques, ways to divert my focus from panicking.

But the trip to DC is in the past. (I made it, by the way, and haven’t had problems being away from home since.) Now, I’m fourteen, sitting in the chair at my therapist’s office, across from my parents, about to come out to them.

When I first came out to my therapist – although I didn’t call it “coming out” yet – he was supportive, accepting, and utterly clueless. He did the best he could, and he absolutely never made me feel like I should be ashamed of who I was, but he really just didn’t know how to handle this little trans girl sitting in his office.

I’m sitting across from my parents. “I think I want to be a girl.” I can see they’re not sure how to respond.

My mom says, “We love you no matter what.”

My dad, “We’ll love you whatever you are, as long as you’re not a republican.”

(The source of my sense of humor was never a big mystery.)

I sigh in relief, there isn’t any rejection, but my unvoiced hope goes unanswered: that one of them – my mom, my dad, my therapist – will say, “Alright then, here’s how we’re going to make that happen.” That my parents, who raised me with love and support, would continue as they always had: When I wanted to play the piano, they found me a teacher and took me to my lessons. When I started to read, with a voracious appetite, they took me to the library. When I wanted to be a girl, they didn’t know what to do.

The middle-class code for “I approve of your transition and support you in it” is “Wow, you look great.”

Now, lets place this on the Axis of Support:

How supportive and tactful are people?

As you can see, A, “Wow, you look great” isn’t bad. It’s not horribly tactful, but it is pretty supportive. On the other side of Tactfulness, but still on the positive side of Support, you have B – those who feel it necessary to share their own stories (and start every sentence with “Oh.”) For the full effect, imagine them with speaking like Woody Allen. That captures the Jewishness and the awkwardness of the interaction pretty well…

They start off, “Oh, you’re [male name]?”

“No, I’m [female name].”

“Oh, but you used to be right?”

(Sigh.) “Yes.”

“Oh, OK. Yeah. I kn ow your mom from way back. And my cousin’s friend knew someone whose husband…switched over. So I’m familiar with this whole thing.”

(Apparently you’re not, but you think you are, so whatever…) “OK.” (And I’m thrilled that you think a shiva is the appropriate place to have this conversation.)

“Well, nice meeting you, [female name].”

Still trying to be supportive, but not particularly tactful.

And then there were the cousins who said two words of hello and two words of goodbye, making very little eye contact, C. I’d have to file them under positive Tactfulness, negative Support. (I think two of ‘em are worried I’d infect their already-theatre-obsessed son… Run! Lock up the children!)

Fortunately, I didn’t have to deal with anyone this past weekend who fell into both negative on the Support and the Tactfulness axis… (I suppose my boob-grabber from a few weeks ago would quality, so he’ll be D.)

Thoughts? Does anyone have any other Middle-class Codes? Or stories that I should add to the Axis of Support? (C’mon you! I know I don’t have a huge readership, but there are some lurkers out there… I know it!)

Other ones I came up with:

• E – uses wrong names/pronouns intentionally
• F – tries to use correct names/pronouns, usually fails

-R

Well, today the special events director, RW called the guy who did it. She started the conversation something along the lines of, “So I wanted to discuss the…incident…that happened this past weekend at the benefit. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

At that point, D responded, “Wait, are you joking? You mean when I grabbed [male name]‘s fake boob?”

The full story below…

So last Friday, before the benefit, D came by to pick up some things for a gig he was working the next day. He saw me in the hallway and said, “Oh, hi [male name]. I didn’t expect to see you like that…” He hadn’t seen me since I’d transitioned at work, so I said, “Yeah, I’m actually going by R now.” He paused, shrugged, and I helped him get out the stuff he needed for the gig. I assumed that was the end of that.

Apparently, he thought I was in costume for the show we were doing that evening (which I was and am not in) and was getting into character… He didn’t stay to see the show, so when he saw me at the benefit he assumed I was still in character and decided to be silly and honked (what he thought was) my fake drag boob.

He couldn’t figure out why I was pissed (somewhat understandable from his perspective) and was thus super-confused when RW called saying it was an ‘incident.’

He was apparently quite mortified when RW explained things to him, and was super apologetic. She said it seemed like he’d probably send me an apology, by way of her (as I’d said I didn’t want any contact with him). All in all, I think it’s probably the best way a bad situation could turn out, as I’d rather him be oblivious than an asshole…

At the same time,  part of me would rather have D know I was trans and just be a jackass than think I was just a guy in drag… I could deal with being groped by a bigot, but not ”passing,’ even by someone who I wasn’t out to and so had no reason to try and see me as a woman?  That does hurt, and I don’t know how easily I’ll be able to forgive him for the that, something that – even after talking with RW – probably wouldn’t occur to him as a cause for insult.

-R

PS – I’m really offended he thougt my breasts were fake! I’ve worked fucking hard to grow these, and I’ll be damned if he calls them fake!

A while back, right before I came out to my highschool theatre class, I was speaking with the lead teacher of the class and we were joking about posisble transitioning-related theatre games. Here’s what we came up with, but I’d love any more ideas to help the list grow!

• Coming Out Tag
  • Spoof of: Scene Tag, where each time someone is tagged they have to go into a brief scene scene before moving on as the new person who is ‘it’
  • How it works: Rather than going into a random scene, every time someone is tagged the tagger has to ‘come out’ to them. To make it really accurate, the person who is ‘it’ – the tagger – always stays ‘it’ and has to come out over and over and over and over and…
• MTF (or FTM) Machine
  • Spoof of: This requires a little explanation, and is very much an in-joke. Machine is a game where a group (usually 6-10) builds energy one at a time with a repeating sound and motion to construct, as a whole, a ‘machine.’ It can be a generic machine, or a specific type of machine (weather, popcorn, magic, etc).
  • How it works: Basically a normal game of Machine, but the call is to change the energy during the machine from masculine to feminine, or vice versa. (Probably would quickly become very bad stereotypes of “manly” or “womanly,” but sometimes those are fun to play with.)
• Coming Out Fingers
  • Spoof of: Fingers is a game played by partners, where they agree on three locations or occupations. They then ‘throw’ the locations/occupations at each other randomly and, when they land on the same thing, they go into a random scene prompted by that location/occupation.
  • How it works: The partners choose a location, and each scene is a coming out scene at that location.

Any to add?

Heya. I wanted to let you both know that I’m now using the name R, along with female pronouns, instead of J and male pronouns. I’ve been trying to catch you both when you’re home to let you know, but it’s never seemed to work out. (Although I’m pretty sure [my roommate] A’s referred to me as “R- I mean J” about a million times, so maybe this won’t come as a huge surprise.)

And their response:

That’s cool!  We already knew, so you’re right it isn’t  a surprise. P and I just wanted to respect your privacy until you told us otherwise.

I’m still feeling sort of like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop… Not a single person has had a negative reaction to the transition. Which isn’t to say family and loved ones haven’t had a hard time, but not a single “What the fuck?”

Ridiculous.

-R