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I was thinking yesterday about the portrayal of fathers in stories here. It seems like for the most part, if they feature in the stories at all, they are a barrier, rather than an aide. I wonder if that matches reality? Do fathers struggle more with a child who feels like they are transgendered? If so, what could we as a community do to help them? Just a thought.
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Is it in the very nature of the father
that they struggle more with the concept of a child who is 'different'? It seems to be understood, rightly or wrongly, by most patriarchal societies that a woman is a 'failed' man. Therefore, a child that doesn't perform to an accepted standard is a disappointment. I know that I was a disappointment to my parents; my mother was clueless in the face of my father who, although he didn't beat me, didn't failed to let me know that I was 'a man and should just get on with it'.
I couldn't confide in either of them because I knew that they loved me and I didn't want to risk that love.
Mothers usually (but not always) seem to be more accepting of difference in their children, whereas fathers can often focus on their own goals.
As for helping them, I haven't a clue. I couldn't manage my own family.
Susie
I don't know...
As a (relatively) recent father, I can say that there ARE differences in how my wife and I treat our daughter. Thinking deeper, I'd say that the main difference would be in refusing to accept "things just happen".
What that means is that a father will often think, "What did _I_ do wrong?". It's a self-absorption, or possibly just a form of narcissism, where it's all about the individual. My wife, on the other hand, doesn't tend to work that way. In fact, she tends to not worry about past mistakes to the point of ignoring that they even happened. Observing that, I'd say that her response would be more like, "What can I do to make it better?"
Does that help at all?
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
It's something I'm trying to fix, yes :-D
In the context of my own stories, it's something I'm trying to fix. In Becoming Robin I wrote the original piece as a personal exorcism in the beginning. The characters, and their fates, were supposed to be symbolic to various points in my own life, but they took on a life of their own, and things are different now.
That's why Allison's dad, Joe, is so supportive of Robin now, and why ... Well, I can't spoil anything, but the next chapter has some serious foreshadowing that relates to this very topic ^_~
More generally and more broadly though, I think on a conscious or a subconscious level, to some the 'father figure' represents everything some of us aspire to escape from. I know for my part, I used to cringe when people told me I reminded them of my dad. My dad was kind of an ogre before he had a stroke and learned to lighten up a little. He's still set in his ways, and I refuse to tell him I'm really his daughter because I know it would break his heart, literally and figuratively.
I don't think ALL fathers are like that, and I know some mothers in-fact are like that too, but the father is the easy target, being the stereotypical male role model and all.
This is all strictly and purely my subjective opinion though, so take it with a grain of salt :-D
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Never really knew mine,
[email protected] He split when I was only three. I guess that I've carried that rejection from the start. I'm quite sure that it wasn't as personal as I took it to be in my youth. I feel that it was more his own rejection of the responsibility that his libido had wrought. It still hurts though. And I'm sure that it always will.
I was fortunate enough to have a very positive male role model in my Grandfather for at least a few years. He was the wisest man I've ever known. I'm not sure how he would've dealt with who I really am, but I'm quite sure that his love for me wouldn't have suffered. Yes, there may have been dissapointment, but I was still flesh and blood. Family meant everything to him.
As to the question of what we can do to establish more understanding from the fathers and other males in our lives, I'm almost clueless. My only hope is that through education and scientific research, the masses might be able to understand that we're not freaks, merely anomolies that need to be given the resources to become our true selves. Not to diminish who we are, but to enhance public opinion to a level that allows the general population to understand, and hopefully, someday accept us as our true, heartfelt selves.
Very intriguing question Dorothy. Hope that you find some answers.
Hugs,
Jonelle
[email protected]
or even the mother
I suppose in story terms, it's easier to use the father as the masculine stereotype (i.e. testosterone riddled, sports playing, very straight, beer drinking man's man archetype) against which to contrast the TG heroine of the story. Thinking about it, it isn't just TG fiction that uses the father (or father figure) as the obstacle in the story. Penelope Pitstop v the Hooded Claw sort of thing. ;-)
Looking at my own writing I can see I split it either way - in one good, in one bad - but perhaps more telling it's the mother figure that's the obstacle in both cases. Which kind of mirrors my personal life in that my father was waaaaaaaaaaay more supportive than my mother when I announced my intention to transition. My father hugged me on the spot but it took my mother months before she did. Both are supportive (thank goodness) but with my mother it feels a little forced at times. I hadn't really thought about it too much until writing this. So perhaps there is a little personal truth buried in what is written.
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
I've gone both ways in my
I've gone both ways in my stories, but I've probably leaned more towards the father being the problem. A lot of that's probably the whole masculine stereotype, I suppose. Perhaps some of it is also based on my own experience.
My father has quite a temper; in the swearing, yelling and banging things around sort of way. His temper always scared me, so the whole 'father-as-ogre' thing has some basis for me. On the other hand, he was the best at getting the pronouns right when I first transitioned. But now he's the worst. I've started to get the impression that he still sees me as male and it's showing through because he's not being as careful as he was at first.
I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he refers to me as 'him' and 'he' so much anymore that it's really starting to bother me (Well, it always bothered me, but I was prepared for a certain amount of that from everyone at first. Almost four years later the expectation is that people would get used to female pronouns, especially when I pass as female everywhere I go).
*sigh* Now I've got myself all teary eyed. Guess I'll shut up now.
Saless
"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America
I think that fathers might struggle more
...since it's their own sense of self and identity that their male to female transsexual son is 'moving away from.' In fact, they're just establishing themselves as the girl they actually are, but Dad doesn't know that. He just sees the boy rejecting his own manhood, and ultimately his father. I can't really speak to what occurs in ftm daughters and mothers.
My mother knew I dressed; she admitted as much the week she died. But my father? In my case, as I was telling someone the other day, if my father was willing to beat my legs hard enough to raise welts for throwing eggs at the shed and punch me so hard as to knock me off my chair into the fireplace for eating my mashed potatoes with a spoon, what would he have done if I had come out to him as a teenager? And that wasn't just because it was the sixties.
I think in a lot of scenarios, it's very easy to paint any parent as being unreasonable. Perhaps if our children came to us after fifteen or so years and told us that they were doing something entirely different than what we had dreamed for them to be, we might be a bit slow in nodding our heads in approval as well.
She was born for all the wrong reasons
but grew up for all the right ones
Con grande amore e di affetto, Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
Fathers.
Sorry.
Can't help you much on this one. My father obviously hated me even at aged six. After that I was 'put away' and I never saw him again.
I never had a proper father image to emulate so I just don't know how to address the issues surrounding transgenderism and fatherhood. I'm drawn to the perception that patriachal societies perceive women to be 'failed men' but it's such a primitive monatheist conception that I can't really get my head around it.
Frankly, in my mind, I see men as failed women insofar as they cannot 'create or grow life within them'!
If this message was put abroad more forcibly it might make men take a good long look at themselves. However I doubt it.
The only good news is that the male chronosome is slowly dissappearing and in several tens of thousands of generations there might not be any 'men' as we perceive them now.
Food for thought though. By then another form of reproduction might have evolved or the human race might become extinct as we know it.
Bev.
Not only fathers
In both the stories here and in the attitudes of a lot of the contributors there is a definite tendency to misandry in general. Men are seen as the source of all evil. Unfortunately, as there isn't really a lot that most men can do about the gender in which they were born, it's as bad as blatant racism and very prejudiced. Not all of us are TS however much you may wish it. In fact one contributor here (can't remember who) even goes to the extreme of using the strange term 'womyn' presumably to avoid the use of 'man'.
Some of you may have been badly treated by a man, possibly your father, but that doesn't mean that all men are like that. In fact the most unpleasant person in my own family was my maternal grandmother who could hate with extreme prejudice. I hardly experienced having a mother, as she died when I was very young and I can only just remember her but my father, who had many faults, was a gentle man although remote, probably because that's how fathers were 60 odd years ago. My half-brothers have much closer relationships with their sons and daughters than I did with my father so perhaps things are changing for the better.
Men are people too and, like all people, they come in all varieties. My wife and I regard our relationship as a team effort and the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts because of the different skills we bring to the partnership. Anyway, it's worked pretty well for over 40 years.
Robi
Just a note here...
On other threads and other comments, I've seen many comlpaints about misogyny, making women out to be the villains too often. :)
Okay, let's be realistic here. Stories need villains, and even on a TG site, most of those villains are going to be male or female, one or the other, or a bit of both.
The complaints about both misandry and misogyny seem to ignore the fact that these are stories.
In blogs, people are often reporting their experiences or their opinions. There is a certain line that is seldom crossed in those blogs and for the most part, I've left them alone.
In other words, I think that as a controversy, this is a bit of a wet noodle, it doesn't stand up to examination. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
At least one parent
Seems to be a barrier in most stories. There are the odd ones that both are or both are not. Some of the mainstream ones (such as Sk8r Grrls and Camp Kumoni/Princess & the Plague) have supportive fathers. In the case of Sk8r Grrls, Mom is supportive too, just not as much as Dad. In the Camp Kumoni/Princess & the Plague situation, Mom is the barrier.
I don't know
so far in my stories there's a really bad Step-dad who's the embodiment of the Alberta right wing ass who is intended to be a villain but then again there's the biological mother in Images who's a completely evil and immoral.
I have been blessed in having a father that before he died was this loving guy and moral center of love and acceptance in my family and community. He was even friendly to the few T-girls in my area or people of any other race or faith. He died too young.
I try to pattern I guess a lot of my characters and the real father types like that in my stories. But yes there's a lot of antagonistic father characters out there but art reflects life as a rule right. I know I've seen some really shitty fathers out there in RL.
Bailey Summers
Some fathers have experiences that allow them to cope.
Some fathers have experiences that allow them to cope. Try this story. http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/21528/tight-money
My own father, when brought face to face with my cross-dressing decided that he should ignore it. See also, my true account "Silence is Golden," at, http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/16415/silence-is-golden That story is 100% true, but stops short of when I, later in life, showed up at his door fully dressed he totally accepted to the point of saying I could park in front of his place when visiting. Simply acknowledging who I was and that he wasn't ashamed to have me be seen by his neighbors.
Hugs
Patricia
([email protected])
http://members.tripod.com/~Patricia_Marie/index.html
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper ubi femininus sub ubi
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt