Update on the Life of the Sophie

Well, it’s been around two and half months since I came out as Sophie, and it’s time for an update on my life. Unfortunately, it’s mainly bad news.

But first, things haven’t been all bad. I’m more confident in going out wearing feminine clothing. Yes, I get quite a few strange looks, but I tend to just ignore those. There was also one time where I walked past a group of school kids, and, once I’d passed them, I heard one of them say loudly, “Is that a man?!”, but I just ignored that too.

But, generally, it’s been OK. For example, the guy who works in the local comic shop, which I’ve been going in for many years, still has friendly chats with me in the same way he’s always done. And I was once recognised and referred to as Sophie whilst out – it was by a girl working in the local branch of Waterstones (I’d had a few interactions with the branch’s Twitter account), and we had a pleasant chat.

All in all, most people have been OK with my new identity. However, not everyone appears to have been OK with it.

A few days after I came out as Sophie, there was one guy who blocked me on both Facebook and Twitter. The only reason I can think of as to why he did this was that he wasn’t OK with my new identity. There doesn’t appear to be any other explanation, at least, none that I can think of. It’s not a major loss – I hadn’t known him for that long, and if he does have a problem with my new identity then good riddance. But it’s still sad that this happened.

There have also been some bad things in my life recently that haven’t been to do with my gender identity. I recently had to unfriend someone on Facebook due to them posting some very islamaphobic statements. He believed that all (or, at least, most) Muslims supported violence and terror. I pointed out that it was wrong to blame an entire group of people for the actions of a few, and that the vast majority of Muslims abhor violence and terror. I come from a Jewish family (although I don’t follow the religion) and all of the Muslims who I have personally met have been peaceful, law abiding citizens who I am happy to live and work alongside. However, this person wouldn’t be convinced by my arguments. He believed that Muslims wanted him dead because he was gay. Bizarrely, on one hand he claimed that he was tolerant of others, but, on the other hand, he expressed a desire for Islam to be made illegal in the Western world. In the end, I decided that it was pointless to continue arguing with him as it was going nowhere, and so I ceased to be his friend. And that was sad.

Elsewhere, I’m also embroiled in another dispute at work, the latest in a long line of disputes I’ve had there. I won’t go into the details of the dispute here. I’m having a meeting regarding it on Monday, but, either way, I’m now looking for alternative employment.

And finally, and most importantly, there’s been some other sad news, as earlier this week I split up with my girlfriend, and this has made me very upset. I won’t go into minute detail about everything here. But, over the past couple of months, she’d become very uncommunicative with me, and would sometimes not even reply to messages I sent her (including one I sent her on Valentine’s Day). In the end it became clear that she didn’t want to see me (not even when I offered to travel to go and see her where she lives, after she said she couldn’t travel long distances due to health reasons), and that she didn’t want to talk to me. When I said that we couldn’t carry on like this, she was all too keen to end the relationship. I’m very sad about this, and it isn’t how I wanted things to end up.

The worst thing is that I don’t know the exact reason why the relationship ended, why it was she wanted to end things – I don’t know if it’s to do with my gender identity (which she was aware of before we got together) or something else. I don’t know the real reason as to why she didn’t want to see me anymore, or why she had become uncommunicative with me. She never spoke to me about what specifically had gone wrong in the relationship, that made her act in the way that she did. She seems to be perfectly happy now, but I’m still feeling very upset.

So, overall, I’m feeling pretty miserable at the moment. I’ll live, and, somehow, I’ll get through all of this, but, right now at least, I’m feeling very sad and upset...