My Sister

[Guest Crossroads]

So, I just checked my e-mail, and I saw that my sister has friended me on Facebook. I've been telling her to do this for a couple years now. However, now I have my "Coming out" note on Facebook for all to see.

Here's a little background. My sister and I never got along growing up. We fought non-stop and only started talking again when our parents separated for a divorce two years ago. I speak to her every week or two, but I'm wary to tell her anything. This is because she has always in the past told my Dad (who she's pretty close to) everything. She was the one who finally told my stupid, blind father that the girl I was so close to, sharing intimate gazes with, was actually my girlfriend and not just a best friend. For any of you that don't know, I'm on less than good terms with my parents, too. They are on thin ice with me, wavering on a floating iceberg that could tip at the slightest wrong move. I hate them, but deal with them because I live in the same city as them. So anyway, the plan is to not tell anyone in my family until April/May, once I start Testosterone.

But now, if I friend her, she'll know. And even if I insist she not tell, she might "leak" it to my dad or purposefully tell him (I don't really know what's going through her head). But I feel bad not friending her, I mean, she's my sister and we are sorta close now. Anyway, for right now I'm ignoring the request and waiting to respond until later on.

I have a few options:

1. I could call her and come out to her and to hell with the consequences, but beg her not to tell our parents.

2. I could call her and hint that I need to tell her something and ask if she could keep it from EVERYONE for 6 months. She could say yes, lying, and tell anyway. Or it could just make her more curious.

3. I could ignore the request, and hope she doesn't mention anything about it for 6 months.

4. I could not accept the friend request at all, and hope she doesn't call me when she realizes it. This is pretty much the same as the last option.

What do you all think? Please keep in mind, I'm not the type person who believes family is THAT important. I'm not the person who says, "Well, they're your family, so they'll come around." These people share blood only, and only stay on my list of people I talk to because of their actions. But my sister has improved since we lived together.

Please tell me what you think. What would you do in this situation? Is there an option I'm overlooking?

[Guest leo]

id say only you can make that choose.

i wona come out on facebook to but i can for the same reason... family and iv also not decided to tell any of them till i started T either.

just take your time, there is no rush

[Guest Evan_J]

Let's see, you waited "a couple of years" for her to friend you and you're worried about it 6 seconds after getting the email? I would say you have at least 730 days to work with. But then, I'm like that.

<--Mr Gives what he gets

[Guest Crossroads]

I think I was freaking out last night because I suddenly started arguing with myself whether or not I still trust my sister at all.

But you are both right!

@leo: You're right. I have to choose for myself.

@Evan: I shouldn't rush it...you're so right. I shouldn't even be worrying about it. Even though I think she JUST got her facebook account recently because she's internet stupid. She started law school recently, so that's probably why she got into it.

Anyway, I appreciate the thoughts. And as usual, I welcome anyone else's.

I'll repost this in 730 days. lol

[Guest Elizabeth K]

Wait-wait wait?

Why is she on this site? Am I reading something wrong?

[Guest Evan_J]

Wait-wait wait?

Why is she on this site? Am I reading something wrong?

No darlin' she's not on this site, she's on Facebook.

[Guest leo]

hahaha

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

At first I was going to be lame and tell you that "in the end you have to use your own judgment", but instead I think I'll share my experiences with my own sister. Like you, I fought with my sister growing up. I hated her. When we got older, we didn't talk much. Now I'm 30 and she's 28. We're not excessively close or anything. However, I think I've found a new respect for my sister since I came out to my family. In general, everyone in my family has accepted things pretty well. They are confused and don't understand everything, but they are doing the best they can. My mom keeps telling me how I'll always be welcome at home and that everyone loves me. Still, I have an uneasy relationship with my mom. I'm still angry at her for making me feel like I needed to pretend to be a straight woman for all these years. It isn't really her fault but whatever...the relationship suffers anyway.

Because of the "weirdness" with my mom, I tend not to share things with her. Everything I tell her becomes exaggerated with excessive drama. I hate drama, so I don't tell her stuff. The most recent "stuff I didn't want to tell her" was about my chest surgery. My mom was so so so worked up about the possibility of me having chest surgery that I didn't want to say "I've already scheduled it for December 9th". Nope...I didn't want to hear it, so I didn't tell her. Instead I told my sister and asked her to keep it quiet. She did! Since I came out to my family I have found that my sister is actually pretty cool. She's more like me than I ever thought. She doesn't freak out about stuff. She keeps cool. I felt like someone from my family should know that I was having surgery, in case something happened. It was great to find out that I could trust my sister. None of this would have happened if I hadn't gone out on a limb and trusted her.

Now, it isn't like this can't backfire. I told my brother not to tell Mom that I got a GIANT tattoo of a koi...but he let it slip anyway. He didn't mean to. It wasn't a big deal, but it let me know that I need to be careful what I tell him. I don't know your sister. It sounds like she's let you down in some pretty major ways and maybe doesn't deserve your trust. On the other hand, maybe she's changed. I don't know.

The way I made my decision was like this. First I thought...if my sister blabs, will it change anything? It would have been annoying, but there was nothing that my mom could have done to stop me from getting surgery. The next thing I considered was my own level of comfort in giving my sister a chance to prove that she was trustworthy. I was okay with it. The end result of my experience is that I am probably closer with my sister than I ever have been. She seems to "get" me. She doesn't blame me. She gives very straightforward and honest advice. It worked out well.

Yeah...so I don't know if it would work this way in your situation. Family stuff is difficult. I'm not on great terms with my family...okay...but not great.

I should probably quit posting on here and call my mom. *sigh*

[Guest Crossroads]

This was so helpful! Thank you so much. I think I might call her and ask her if she could keep a secret for at least 6 months. And I don't think my sister would ever think that I would be doing this. I'll argue this out with Angie and see what we come up with.

Thank you, Ainsley, for not just saying "in the end you have to use your own judgment"

[Guest Cody_T]

it doesn't tell you if someone denies your friend request... if she looks you up it'll show "request friend" under your name if you refuse it, "friend request pending" if you don't.

What I would do to get the maximum time is to refuse it; if she's mostly computer illiterate and just got a facebook, she'll be getting tons of friends and probably won't notice. If she does, you can do one of two things. If it's very soon, say you haven't gotten it and then maybe even refuse a later one or two and pretend it's a facebook glitch. If it's a long time from now say you never got it. Then ignore the next one until she says something and say you haven't been on facebook. Then refuse it and when she says something say, "but I accepted you". And then if she persists you can pretend you've stopped using your facebook entirely.

If she knows that you know that she friended you, just use the "but I accepted" excuse early on and then good luck.

Or else, you can create a completely separate but nearly identical facebook account and invite friends to it and everything, get some apps, have your friends write something on the wall and then they can just stop doing so and you say you don't really use it. If she's computer literate enough to find out that you have two say that you made the one you actually use a long time ago and didn't know until after you'd made your current one. Leave the request pending and then invite her to your mockup account.... only if she says something though. And give yourself some time for the mockup to not look like it was just made. Don't friend yourself or your other account will show up under people she might know. This is a last resort cause it's kind of really overdone and also hard to pull off and if you can pull off ignoring/refusing/whatever then do that.

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

it doesn't tell you if someone denies your friend request... if she looks you up it'll show "request friend" under your name if you refuse it, "friend request pending" if you don't.

What I would do to get the maximum time is to refuse it; if she's mostly computer illiterate and just got a facebook, she'll be getting tons of friends and probably won't notice. If she does, you can do one of two things. If it's very soon, say you haven't gotten it and then maybe even refuse a later one or two and pretend it's a facebook glitch. If it's a long time from now say you never got it. Then ignore the next one until she says something and say you haven't been on facebook. Then refuse it and when she says something say, "but I accepted you". And then if she persists you can pretend you've stopped using your facebook entirely.

If she knows that you know that she friended you, just use the "but I accepted" excuse early on and then good luck.

Or else, you can create a completely separate but nearly identical facebook account and invite friends to it and everything, get some apps, have your friends write something on the wall and then they can just stop doing so and you say you don't really use it. If she's computer literate enough to find out that you have two say that you made the one you actually use a long time ago and didn't know until after you'd made your current one. Leave the request pending and then invite her to your mockup account.... only if she says something though. And give yourself some time for the mockup to not look like it was just made. Don't friend yourself or your other account will show up under people she might know. This is a last resort cause it's kind of really overdone and also hard to pull off and if you can pull off ignoring/refusing/whatever then do that.

Wow. You younger guys are so...Facebook savvy. I'm impressed. I'm old enough that I can pretend to be dumb. "Oh....I didn't realize I had a friend request"... Yeah.

[Guest Drew]

Wow. You younger guys are so...Facebook savvy. I'm impressed. I'm old enough that I can pretend to be dumb. "Oh....I didn't realize I had a friend request"... Yeah.

not all us younger guys are that facebook savvy....i think for the first few weeks i had facebook i accidently set my privacy settings way too strict and nobody could find me...not to mention i'm still not sure how to get pictures from my camera on to facebook ...i'm kind of a technology illiterate also..

[Guest Crossroads]

lol, Cody...that was so awesome! I laughed myself silly. How many times have you had to do this?!

I think she gets Facebook pretty well. And if she doesn't, her husband probably does. Anyway, she called me that next day and said "By the way, I finally got a Facebook account, so you really need to friend me". lol. Great. I probably could do a "I don't get on very often", but I'm only the WORST liar in the whole world. I think this is the first secret I've kept for more than...5 minutes. And I'm even worse at keeping up a fabrication.

Thank you, Cody. I really appreciate your thoroughness!!!!! I think I'll just call her and ask her if she can keep a secret for 6 months. (I'll say it better than that)

::sigh::

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

lol, Cody...that was so awesome! I laughed myself silly. How many times have you had to do this?!

I think she gets Facebook pretty well. And if she doesn't, her husband probably does. Anyway, she called me that next day and said "By the way, I finally got a Facebook account, so you really need to friend me". lol. Great. I probably could do a "I don't get on very often", but I'm only the WORST liar in the whole world. I think this is the first secret I've kept for more than...5 minutes. And I'm even worse at keeping up a fabrication.

Thank you, Cody. I really appreciate your thoroughness!!!!! I think I'll just call her and ask her if she can keep a secret for 6 months. (I'll say it better than that)

::sigh::

The problem with the "I don't get on much" excuse is that, once you DO friend the person, they know everything you've been doing on there. Man...I do not like the whole "broadcast your business" stuff.

FYI, just because you delete something out of your own news feed doesn't mean that it goes away in other people's newsfeed. A while back I did the.... *gasp*... relationship status change. I thought I'd made it discrete. Nope. I got all these "OH NO!" emails from people I don't talk to often. I so did not want to explain. I'm not out to everyone on Facebook, but will be very soon. It will make things much easier. Mostly I want to make sure I tell people I am close to and don't miss anyone. I wouldn't want a friend who deserves an individual "coming out" to find out via mass media. Not cool.

[Guest Crossroads]

The problem with the "I don't get on much" excuse is that, once you DO friend the person, they know everything you've been doing on there. Man...I do not like the whole "broadcast your business" stuff.

FYI, just because you delete something out of your own news feed doesn't mean that it goes away in other people's newsfeed. A while back I did the.... *gasp*... relationship status change. I thought I'd made it discrete. Nope. I got all these "OH NO!" emails from people I don't talk to often. I so did not want to explain. I'm not out to everyone on Facebook, but will be very soon. It will make things much easier. Mostly I want to make sure I tell people I am close to and don't miss anyone. I wouldn't want a friend who deserves an individual "coming out" to find out via mass media. Not cool.

When I came out to my close friends, I could not for the life of me get in touch with my best friend, Rachel. She's always been hard to get a hold of. Anyway, I ended up posting on MySpace and Facebook without telling her. She got on her MySpace that next day for the first time in almost 9 months. Luckily, she didn't see it, but it startled me. So I called and left a message telling her I had something REALLY important to tell her. She called me back that next day.

I don't want that to happen with my family. I want them to hear it from me. And I definitely don't want to get in that whole "We heard..." situation.

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

When I came out to my close friends, I could not for the life of me get in touch with my best friend, Rachel. She's always been hard to get a hold of. Anyway, I ended up posting on MySpace and Facebook without telling her. She got on her MySpace that next day for the first time in almost 9 months. Luckily, she didn't see it, but it startled me. So I called and left a message telling her I had something REALLY important to tell her. She called me back that next day.

I don't want that to happen with my family. I want them to hear it from me. And I definitely don't want to get in that whole "We heard..." situation.

I have a couple of pretty close friends that are hard to get in touch with too. At least now you know how to get her to call you back ASAP. I'm afraid I'm one of those "won't call people back" dudes. Yeah. I am. Internet is the only way to get me.

Since I've already gone pretty far in the transition process, it increases this sort of "we heard" worry quite a lot. My family is HUGE. They are everywhere. Just when I think I've found everyone and that it is safe to post on MySpace/Facebook...I remember someone else that doesn't know. I've gone so far as to tell people to go ahead and gossip. That way it is getting spread around my friend group in my home town without me having to talk to everyone.

What's going to happen with me is that I'll show up to my sister's wedding and August. By then I will have been on T for a bit more than 9 months. That'll out me to the rest of the extended family, for sure.

Oh...my 15 year high school reunion will be fuuuuuuuuuuuuuun. I am SO going to enjoy myself with that one.

[Guest Evan_J]

Oh...my 15 year high school reunion will be fuuuuuuuuuuuuuun. I am SO going to enjoy myself with that one.

You should go and pretend to be the person they remember's husband lol. Tell em that person they remember got p'd off at the last minute and wouldn't accompany you. See what they say if they think you're not there to listen LOL {yes I'm kidding}

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

You should go and pretend to be the person they remember's husband lol. Tell em that person they remember got p'd off at the last minute and wouldn't accompany you. See what they say if they think you're not there to listen LOL {yes I'm kidding}

Ha! That would be classic. The way I'm actually thinking of playing is that I am going to go and not say anything. I'm just going to act like nothing is different.

[Guest CharlieRose]

Yeah, I recently was outed on Facebook... kinda. I'm friends with my cousin, and early in the evening he was all, "Oh, what kind of music do you listen to? What's going on with your life? I go on facebook and see your statuses and stuff sometimes." and at first I was just all, "Oh, ok." But later, I realized he was hinting that he had noticed my friends calling me by my guy's name because his mom later was all, "Merry Christmas, ___! Or can I call you ____?" hella casual, smiley. I was just like, "Um, sure, ok." (Internally: ZOMFG!?) So he totally saw it and told her. I have my girl's name on my facebook, and display myself as a girl, (though I did just recently change my "Interested in guys" thing to "Interested in guys and girls," eep!) so all they know is that I dress like a guy all the time and my friends call me a guy's name that I might be able to twist into a girl's but not really.

But they were really careful, casual, nice about it, so I think they just want me to admit it. So that's lucky for me.

[Guest Crossroads]

Just called her. She was a little angry I hadn't friended her, and she brought it up. I told her that I had some stuff going on and I didn't think she could keep a secret. She said that was smart of me.

lol, so yeah. Yay, still not outted to my family and the problem is solved! (For now) Although I felt like I almost had a heart attack.

::breathes a sigh of relief::

Thanks everyone for your moral support!

[Guest My_Genesis]

Wow, this makes having a facebook so complicated. Only two of my facebook friends (other than a few trans friends lol) "officially know". One's a close friend, one's someone I hardly ever talk to from college with that one I kinda told him cause I had no other good option..long story..)

I still have female and leave interested in blank (although you have no idea how badly I wish I could just change that to "male" and "interested in women" )

The thing is I can never actually bring this up to people in person, face-to-face. So I was planning on emailing it to people I want to tell. Like my RA (who, for anyone who doesn't know, is a hardcore Republican who thinks being gay is a choice but is close friends with 2 other gay RA's.) Way to torture someone trying to make a decision like this! lol.

So I was planning on messaging her on facebook about it....funny thing is there was this one day not too long before break started where she said to someone "I'm your RA, you can tell me anything, no matter how creepy or weird it might be."

So yeah I don't really plan to go all celeb status with it on facebook until I actually

1.) am pretty far along in transition, or

2.) get my T levels tested and get that whole prostate thing cleared up, and get any interesting results. Because it would be a lot easier to go around telling all my friends "I found out I have a prostate" and then go into the trans thing than just "I'm ftm". Having a physical anomaly makes it seem more "normal"

[Guest Liam]

I have a lot of family members on Facebook, and what I do is put them all on my "limited profile" friends list. From there I can prevent them from seeing certain parts of my profile, such as my notes, status updates, groups, etc. You can create the limited profile list from the friends tab in Facebook, and you can dictate which parts of your profile they can see from the privacy settings tab. I have found it works really well, though it makes me feel like I'm living a double life or something (which I guess I kind of am).

[Guest Crossroads]

I have a lot of family members on Facebook, and what I do is put them all on my "limited profile" friends list. From there I can prevent them from seeing certain parts of my profile, such as my notes, status updates, groups, etc. You can create the limited profile list from the friends tab in Facebook, and you can dictate which parts of your profile they can see from the privacy settings tab. I have found it works really well, though it makes me feel like I'm living a double life or something (which I guess I kind of am).

Awesome. I'll check this out. Thanks, Liam!!!!!!

BTW, My sister said my dad is on facebook. Eww. <---immature

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

Awesome. I'll check this out. Thanks, Liam!!!!!!

BTW, My sister said my dad is on facebook. Eww. <---immature

My step-dad is on Facebook. Oh the horror! Parents don't belong on Facebook.

[Guest Evan_J]

Lemme burst the facebook bubble......My minister is on facebook.