Real life has been eating up my time pretty heavily as of late–school has been incredibly stressful this semester due to the higher level of the courses I’m taking, and the fact that they all involve a ton of reading and writing. On top of that, I’ll have to move in a month, so I’m pressed to find a place. Of course, I’ll be moving in with my girlfriend. Whom my parents know absolutely nothing about.
I’ve come out to my parents before, as asexual. I was met with little success; my parents are still firmly convinced that I must be a lesbian. This time, oddly enough, I’ll be coming out to them as… not lesbian, which of course they will probably expect a firm statement of how “this is who I am” or something like that, but as just simply being in a relationship with a girl. Again, from their perspective, since they thought my pre-transition FTM ex-boyfriend was a girl. Except, of course, what I don’t plan to tell them is that my current partner is still legally male. Oy.
I’m not even sure whether I want to tell my mother or not–okay, no, I DEFINITELY don’t want to tell her, but what I meant to say is, I’m not even sure it’s wise to tell her, given that I am still financially dependent on her for my schooling (and since I am working a student job, I would lose that too if I had to drop out of university). But, at the same time, I’m not sure how I’m going to hide it from her given the fact that we plan on getting a one-bedroom apartment and sharing a bed (which, actually, we’ve already bought and use regularly). My parents are pretty horrible about all this stuff–absolutely convinced (my father to an absolutely pathological degree) that God says homosexuality is wrong. My mother, there might be hope for, maaaaybe, but my father unfortunately is the one who lives (most of the time) close by, and whom I might have to rely on to move my stuff–at least from his house back into my car. But on the upside, I don’t have to rely on him financially.
Of course, the irony in this is that I’m not actually homosexual, or even homo-anything. I’m asexual, but if they don’t believe me about this now, how on earth will they believe me after they see that I have now been involved in a “second” so-called “lesbian” relationship (to their eyes–of course, there is no reason to tell them anything whatsoever about M, and I don’t plan to. The less they know about my private life, the better!) I’d be two for two. Personally, I find it extremely difficult to come out to someone without using a commonly accepted, easily identifiable label. There are some asexuals who recommend avoiding labels in favor of explanations, but in my experience, I receive skepticism either way, and all the more so because the people I’m talking to are totally unwilling to sit down and listen to a long, drawn-out explanation, which I am loathe to give them anyway. The less time I can possibly spend around these people, the better. I don’t really care if they believe that I am asexual; I just want them to drop the conversation, and I don’t want to have to deal with the shit they’ll inevitably give me for something that isn’t even true.
But it seems doubtful that they will simply leave it at that. This is pretty much a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. There is probably nothing that I can possibly do to make them leave me alone about it, except not to tell them, but even then, that can only be a temporary solution. They’ll eventually get suspicious, especially since my girlfriend and I are very, very bad at hiding the fact that we’re together–and in most situations, we don’t want to.
And if you take all that and then factor in the trans stuff, it gets even MORE complicated. My parents certainly haven’t reacted well to any mention of trans people before–in fact, my mother seemed to think I was a pervert when she found out (by my sister’s spying on our conversations and subsequent tattling) about my ex. Another piece of ironic contradiction to my asexuality. Of course, I’m not too worried about that, since my girlfriend passes pretty darn well. Still, it just adds another layer of difficulty to the already precarious situation (like, what if our parents meet? Her parents don’t use the right pronouns), so we will need to be that much more careful when dealing with it.
I mainly wanted to post this so that I could get some of my concerns articulated before Wednesday. My gf and I are scheduled to go and have a talk with someone who might be able to give us some advice about it, and then we’ll decide from there. If anyone else has any suggestions, feel free to throw them out there. I might not have the time to make a long post to update about the situation, so I’ve decided to try something different. I was a little wary of trying this service at first, since I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about how spammy and annoying it is, but… I now have a twitter account integrated into my blog, so you can read my tweets on the sidebar on here, or follow me as you like. I probably won’t be making super-frequent updates, and I’ll always post something at least tangentally relevant to this blog, which is interesting or amusing–i.e., I won’t be posting about what I’m having for dinner! Hopefully, the focus will keep it from getting too irritating. Anyway, it’s bedtime now, so until next time!
Prismatic Entanglements 
Wait, blogging isn’t real life? ;-)
Anyway, I wish I could offer some advice, but I think my parents would probably be delighted if I was dating any (reasonably appropriate) person of any gender. So…you can adopt my parents? I hope it goes well, or at least neutrally…
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Ooh… that is a tough situation. I honestly don’t know how to approach this- kinda hard to offer advice when I don’t personally know how your parents would respond- but I can at least offer my support… :)
I have my doubts about Twitter too, but I like the way you’re choosing to use it. It’ll be cool to check up and see how your situation evolves.
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Asexuality is the only non-straight orientation that may require you to come out twice to the same person.
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Asexuality isn’t the only orientation that requires multiple coming out.
Personally I’ve had to come out a few seperate times to the same person about being bisexual, since they usually assume you are only interested in one gender.
There is also transexual. While not being a sexuality in the traditional sense, it does require you to come out to someone once for a non-relationship and more depending on what your orientation is before and after transition.
In other words: You come out as gay, then you come out again as transsexual, then later you come out as straight.
That depends largely on the individual and if their sexuality changes during transition as well, so you could easily come out many more times than just 3 times.
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Transexuality is not a sexual orientation, but a sexual identity. In the example you gave, the trans person came out 3 times to the same people, but came out as a different thing. If a questioning person revises their sexuality and it differs from the sexuality already disclosed, they may come out again, but as a different thing. For instances, a guy may come out as gay but, after discovering attraction to girls, he may revise his sexuality and come out as bi.
My comment was about coming out to the same person as the same thing. I don’t know why, maybe because of the refusal to choose, bi people and ace people share a lot of issues. I didn’t know that bisexuals suffer unbelieving and may need to come out several times to the same person. The bi-coming-outs I’ve lived were accepted since the beginning. Conversely, I’ve had to come out as asexual several times to the same bi person.
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Actually, in that example, the person IS coming out as the same thing each time, sexual orientation-wise–the direction of attraction doesn’t change, the only thing that is changing is the way that person’s own self is viewed. Say we’re talking about a MTF transsexual. First, he is viewed as a male, and since he is attracted to men, he comes out as gay. Then, she comes out as trans, which doesn’t say anything about whatever gender she’s attracted to. Finally, after transition, she comes out as straight–but her attraction to men has never wavered. So, although sexuality certainly can change during transition, in this particular example, it doesn’t. But since people don’t use “androsexual” and “gynosexual” to define sexual gender preference, she has to come out multiple times as being the same thing.
So, while trans isn’t a sexual orientation, I think it’s rather silly in this case to separate it by calling it a “sexual identity” (it’s actually more of a gender identity) because trans people are still having to deal with the exact same issue of having to come out multiple times. It’s like, a really small semantic difference that doesn’t make sense practically, and the only purpose I can really see it serving is to support the idea that asexuality is unique in that regard. Which, although I can see why you would think that, I don’t think is true, even if you keep transsexuals out of the picture, because a lot of bisexual people still have to come out more than once. Asexuality may be less likely to be accepted right away, but even lesbian and gay people have a hard time being taken seriously, and as far as queer culture goes, they’re the ones with the most acceptance.
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I claimed that upon my own experience, but mine must be an unusually bi-supportive college. None of my bisexual mates suffered misunderstanding or had to come out again as bisexual. I’ve had to come out several times to the same person as asexual. I am pleased that my comment has served to generate debate.
About transsexuals, this is horse of different color. People don’t say “I am gynosexual,” but “I like girls.” If a transsexual comes out in different stages of their transition, it’s different of having to repeat the same coming out because your sexual orientation is denied as legitimate.
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That’s happened to me quite a bit. Before I used to believe I was straight, then I thought since I was so open about what girls were hot and stuff I thought I was bisexual, but the idea of getting with a girl never appealed to me, I didn’t understand what asexuality was until around last Christmas
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