Transitioning friendships

by Allison Andrea
Special to The Gayly

As we grow up, we are told that friends are people who will come and go, and some will help build you into the person you will become.

Being transgender, friendships have a completely different view as so many times people do not know what to do when they were your friend before you started your transition. Many times as a transgender person you find that those friends were nothing more than acquaintances or just the every day Joe.

We do have those who are the exception, and they are truly our friends. These are the people that, when you shared this part of your life, were there to congratulate you and wanted to celebrate the future with you.

I have seen people come and go in my life - some I called friends, some I called acquaintances, and others I called people I knew. I also found that while I was planning and building my roadmap of my transition that I knew that I would have to find and build a network of people around me, as I was not sure where others may stand in my life.

People will say that you do not need a lot of people around or to have a large support group to transition, which is true; yet it never hurts to have people around that you can lean on when things are getting a bit off balance. With me, building a support system has helped me with talking about bringing in those around me that were friends before my transition. This does not mean that they are not friends now, but I may not have told them as of yet.

The support and friends that I built were mostly those in the LGBT community with the largest amount in the T portion. I have also made friends that would be considered Cis-Female, as a girl can never have too many girlfriends (LOL). By reaching out to them, I have been able to overcome the fear of telling my parents, siblings, and now one of my longest friends that I have had.

In sharing with these friends in my support section about who I am and what my life is like, they have been able to see me as the person I am; and I know that if I had a friend before I would still be able to lean on that person to be someone that I can call a friend down the road.

I told my longest friend of the transition that I am transgender. It was almost as hard as telling my parents. In some aspects it was almost worse, as it was not only a long time friend, but also someone I see or run into daily. When I sent the email, I was nervous and completely scared as to what would or could be said. What I got in return was nothing but happiness. I was accepted as the person I am - not something that society said I should be. I found by telling my friend that I was able to start moving forward more and more into living my authentic life. I did not know how much it would relive anxieties that I had with coming out.

Since coming out to my long time friend, I have told a majority of people who knew me before. I still have people to explain/tell of my transition, though these people are not truly those who impact my life.

I find that as I spend the time sharing who I am with those that I talk with that are either friends now or friends of the past, I gain strength from them. It is amazing how you can feel like you have all the strength to help others, yet when it comes to your personal strength you are very light in the department. I find more and more strength every day, and I am constantly looking forward to when I do not have to either muster up or dig for the strength to be my happy and true self.

The Gayly - 5/3/2016 @ 1:56 p.m. CDT