Stereotypes

I met a someone I've known a long time for coffee in Birmingham city centre on Friday. We first met over 25 years ago at university because we went to the same church, and became good friends, sharing a house for nearly three years, and doing drama and radio together. Some distance crept in when he moved to Birmingham, then got married, then divorced, then I moved and got married, then he got married again. My wife and I supported him financially as he was starting up in Christian radio, and then, four years ago, I dropped the news of my transition on him – contact had reduced to one or two “contacts” a year by then.

On Friday he said he was very hurt, primarily because he felt I’d presented him with a fait accompli. Quite what he expected to do to make me change my mind, I don’t know. But apparently I did his head in, so he effectively dropped contact. Because he’s arranging a church reunion in May, he got in touch again and apologised, and we agreed to meet up.

Now, here’s the thing. He couldn’t cope with the idea that I was still the same person inside, and seemed freaked that I could remember things from our past. He also didn’t seem to cope with the idea that I could have “lost” faith. (Was I “disillusioned by God” – no, I was disillusioned by the church, initially.) He wanted to start a new friendship rather than adapt the old one. He still couldn’t say that I’d done the right thing in transitioning, despite me saying again that the alternative was probably death – I don’t think he believes it. And my “hope that was OK” message has so far gone unanswered. My thoughts – he can’t cope with me at all. As a female ex-Christian, and one who has rationalised herself out of faith, I’m simply no longer the kind of person who he would naturally socialise with. To be honest, that hurts, especially given the distance and time given. But then he has always been one to want to control the rules around a relationship.

It seems that evangelical Christians tend to only think in stereotypes – Christian or non-Christian, male or female, leader or follower. When the stereotypes get merged – like a female Christian leader – that’s where the problems start. What I’ve done, of course, is just completely override the stereotypes. The view being that someone who looks like a guy simply can’t be female inside, it doesn’t make sense. And so my friend, along with pretty much all the evangelical Christians I’ve known, just dropped contact. I don’t fit their world view any more, so I must be wrong. Of course, there are a few exceptions to the rule. But I find it incredibly arrogant that the majority of Christians should simply assume that their world view is completely, 100%, unalterably right.

Then I remember Saturday night. Another, even longer-term friend (from school) came to a choral concert I was singing in – I’d invited him and he had willingly accepted. Now this friend, also an evangelical Christian, (but softly evangelical , if that makes any sense) has accepted my gender change, on the surface at least. He said on Saturday night that that was largely because he saw himself as leading a colourful life, and so viewed me in the same sort of light – someone who didn’t know how to deal with the issues they had. But even so, he still said that he took time to adjust how he related to me. Now, I might be being super-sensitive here (a big problem for transsexual people) but once again this “stereotype” came up. But then my wife also says that she relates to me differently now than when I was male.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s very releasing and relieving not being treated as male, but why do people who know me well still want to revert to stereotypical gender relationships? Or is this simply because I’m surrounded by evangelical or pseudo-evangelical Christians?