A peculiar comment from therapist, friends

[Guest Lizzie McTrucker]

With respect to the transgender community, I think this is meant as a compliment about me but I'm not exactly sure what it says about the community. A few times (it was mentioned during more than one session), my therapist told me that she's reluctant to introduce me to some of her other transgender clients (for friendship and camaraderie, I assume) because I'm nothing like them. I've heard this from a few friends as well who also have transgender friends, and they have mentally compared me to them and told me I'm totally different from (so-and-so) or (so-and-so) doesn't act the same way you do or that I carry myself differently or the way I act is more natural and normal whereas (so-and-so) still has some male behaviors like in the way they sit or the way they act or the way they talk.

Now I'll admit, for someone who normally is pretty good at observations, I haven't been very observant or critical of other transgender women I've seen when I'm coming or going from my therapist or electrolysis. I haven't seen a girl before my appointment but usually after my appointment I'll pass by one on the way out. I treat her like any other woman: I smile to be polite and I give her the once over. That's how I am with all women so it's not like I'm singleing them out. However my mom, who is nice enough to drop me off and pick me up from my appointments has usually been in the car waiting for 10-15 minutes prior to the end of my appointment so she's had more time to get a better look at them. I usually don't notice much other than "oh hey another girl like me!" and smile as I pass.

So when I get in the car, some time during the drive home (or lunch or wherever) I'll ask "Did you get a chance to see the other girl that was waiting?" and usually my mom will say "yes" and then I'll ask in her opinion what she thought. Now granted she only has me to compare against but who knows, maybe this girl is doing something better than I'm currently doing it or maybe she does something that I should start doing to make me a better woman. Usually her first response, which I find humbling is, "well she's not as pretty as you are." but that could be my mom's bias of her children being more beautiful than anyone else's.

I think her most frequent remark about these other women is that they're a lot more nervous than I am. Nervous, fidgety, bouncy, timid. We guess they aren't as out as I am or they may not be full time or who knows maybe they are full time and haven't been as fortunate as I have with my experience. I remember being nervous and timid but I had to fake it a lot of times and pretend I wasn't eventhough I may have been totally freaking out on the inside.

But I digress, it's an interesting comment to be told you're nothing like those other transgender women and I'm not exactly sure if I'm supposed to say 'thank you' or just smile and nod.

[Guest sophia.gentry58]

Hi Lizie;

You know, it's one thing to be different from other transgender women because they reflect, say, more masculinity than you, but it is quite another to be told by your therapist that you are not like the other TG women. I, like you, wouldn't be quite sure exactly how to respond to such a statement either, except my inquisitiveness would have me asking my therapist "in what way exactly was I different".

Sophia

[Guest Cassy-M]

You have written very nice , so which one was tied up really fast and just wanted to read more.

[Guest KimberlyF]

I would have had to ask. I ask my therapist what she means all the time.

If she saw you as more confident or whatever, you could only be a positive experience for these other people. I don't understand her reluctance.

[Drea]

With respect to the transgender community, I think this is meant as a compliment about me but I'm not exactly sure what it says about the community. A few times (it was mentioned during more than one session), my therapist told me that she's reluctant to introduce me to some of her other transgender clients (for friendship and camaraderie, I assume) because I'm nothing like them. I've heard this from a few friends as well who also have transgender friends, and they have mentally compared me to them and told me I'm totally different from (so-and-so) or (so-and-so) doesn't act the same way you do or that I carry myself differently or the way I act is more natural and normal whereas (so-and-so) still has some male behaviors like in the way they sit or the way they act or the way they talk.

You touch on something very telling here.

Have you encountered terrible loss? Have you encountered big problems with acceptance?

I am going to guess not cause those other people are in confiding their feelings with you, expressing their experience with others.

I had a very similar experience. Uniformly, the folks who had some hesitancy in accepting it was because they had bad experiences with other trans folk. For those who never met someone else trans, there wasn't that problem. So from that point of view non-awareness of people in general worked to my benefit.

Fact is that not all trans are the same. Based upon these reflections like you describe, the perception is sometimes they seem uncomfortable, sometimes unnatural, sometimes act too guyish (when it is MTF). Small things and attributable to someone being early on. The most negative were impressions these other trans people gave that they were angry, unhappy and/or embittered. So when my uncle first heard I was dealing with this he was concerned because a co-worker of his seemed very unhappy. Seeing what has happened since then he has decided I am certainly different.

I think there is a really important lesson to be learned. Non-acceptance has less to do with someone being trans but rather has more to do with the individual. That trans is far less an automatic negative than the personality involved. This mean that one can have a influence for positive acceptance and influence to gain non-acceptance. Certainly demonstrating one is angry, unhappy, embittered doesn't help. Demanding acceptance is another one of those negative response items.

[VickySGV]

I have not heard that from a therapist, but people i know in the TG circles I have been in have given me comments that I really did not follow the "unwritten instructions" of what the others were like. I have had the experience of being "read" as natal female by people who were extremely interested in Trans* females going back several years before I ever hit the brick wall that demaned my acknownledgement of my being transsexual. When I began publically coming out and telling some drag queen friends of my upcoming surgery, I was told that I had never really behaved as either drag queen or CD even though I had wanted to stop in those categories. All of my body language had been natal female very early (except for keeping my knees together or crossed when I was sitting) and I have easily slipped into feminine voice and language patterns. Other than one shift in voice origin from upper chest to to the back of my mouth, I have never had to alter my voice to be in-person female voiced. (A noted voice teacher in the TG community actually told me NOT to try and change my pitch.) It has all come together smoothly and without a great deal of conscious effort. When I went full time two years ago I rapidly noticed a release of social stress, as if the mannerisms and general body bearing I had as a male were sloughing off like a thick coat of dust and mud that has dried out and could no longer stick on me. I could literally feel a load falling away from my body.

A TG night club experience that I had two years after starting hormones, and have repeated once since then, is illustrative of what I have experienced. The "night club" is held at a bar that 6 nights a week is a lesbian bar with an area for a DJ and dancing. Some of the lesbian customers do come in on TG night, and the ones that come seem to see the TG crowd as their cheap entertainment. (The bar owner has given them "house courtesy passes" so they do not pay the TG Club cover charge) Both times I mentioned above, I have been almost totally ignored by the TG crowd which is CD's and a crowd of admirers. The lesbian women though have invited me over to their section and we have had some good chat even when I told them I was (then) still pre-op TS, we connected well and had a good time with woman talk. I actually got told off by one CD in the women's rest room that I could not be Trans* because I did not have appropriate make-up or clothes on. When one older acquaintance who I had known in my early CD days heard that my breasts were real me from hormones, she just about had a cow.

Other TG's do not always readily accept me into their crowd as I have found out.

[Guest Caliana]

Just from reading your posts, which I enjoy very much, it seems to me that you have a strong feminine core being, that you are very much in touch with. I feel that in your writing and imagine that extends through your daily life. We all have that core, and we're all in different stages of connecting to it.

As to your therapist, I'd say, what the heck you mean?

[Sakura]

i find that my therapist says the same thing to me at times. just at our last session she said " i would never allow you to meet any of my other trans clients(3 others that i know of ) i don't know if it would better thier situation or tear them down by meeting you " i asked her what she ment by that. she said simply " you know full well what i mean by that "

and the little bit of time i have talked to you , i suspect i know what yours ment as well. though if i put voice to my thoughts i suspect i would also open a can of worms i don't wish to open right now

take it as a compliment as it was ment to be one

[Guest Sarah Faith]

Ive actually been told the same thing, and I think its meant as a compliment. You're definitely one of the most confident girls I've met here, and there probably isn't that much that her other patients could offer you that you don't already have.

Hugs,

Sarah

[Guest Jenn348]

Honestly, I think it's confidence. You had enough confidence to transition/go full time without HRT. That says a lot.

[Guest LizMarie]

I think it's a compliment, Lizzie. Be glad of it!

[KathrynJulia]

It definitely is confidence and the absolute knowledge that you are through and through a woman. Kathryn

[Guest ~Brenda~]

You are a natural hon

Enjoy Lizzy.

Love

Brenda

[Guest Bellexia]

It's possible your transition might cause her other clients to become doubtful about their own. There can be a deep bitterness in some, I've seen it personally. "You are so lucky, you looked so fem pre transition" etc etc. I tend to be more cynical about these things but that's just me. I would wonder why she said that.