I couldn’t believe my male friend’s reaction after I came out as trans

Staring at the text message I’d composed on my phone, I felt both ecstasy and fear.

It read: ‘I’m a woman, always have been. From this day on, I will live as a woman.’ 

Simple and direct. At the age of 33 in 2019, I was done with wasting time. 

Taking a deep breath, I hit send. Instantly, all my friends and family found out at the same time that I was trans. 

The responses were very telling. Especially from cisgender male friends. 

Before I came out as trans, l felt trapped in my male body prison.  

I’ve always known I was female. As a child I felt awful wearing boy clothes – it never felt right – and playing games with the boys was awful, too. I didn’t want to rough play – I wanted to brush dolls’ hair with the other girls and play hop scotch.  

In my teens I completely retreated into myself. I felt anxious and had no lust for life.

As an adult, I struggled to form meaningful relationships. I had a few close friends but I always felt hollow inside.

One day when walking through a park, a group of teens circled me on their bikes. They started throwing stones at me and shouting homophobic slurs.  

Following that incident, I felt like I was drowning, suffocating in my body. I simply could not live as a man a moment longer.

I couldn’t see a way out other than ending my life. The pain was all too much.

But just as I was about to do it, a soft voice cried, ‘Don’t let them win!’

I turned around to see an elderly woman. ‘They’re not worth it. Trust me dear, no matter who they are, they are not worth more than you,’ she continued. 

I collapsed to the ground and sobbed. It felt strangely good.

The woman helped me up, gave me a hug and asked if I was going to be OK. I nodded and started to walk back home.

If I saw her again, I would give her such a big hug. She saved my life that day. 

I wanted to live. Not as a shell of a person, but as my true uncensored self. That’s when I decided to send the text message to all of my family and friends. 

The response to my coming out ranged from affirming, to lukewarm, to outright hostile. 

A family member even disowned me and said to my mum while I was in earshot: ‘How could it do this to our family?’

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I was referred to as an ‘it’.

My female friends reacted best. They were eager to help me buy clothes and make-up, which was lovely, even if it did make me feel like a fancy new accessory for them to show off with.  

My male friends, on the other hand, became incredibly uncomfortable around me. 

One close male friend, Kyle*, in particular said some very telling things. 

He didn’t reply to my text. However when we met for a drink a couple of days later Kyle blurted out: ‘I thought you just batted for the other team?’ 

In his estimation, I couldn’t possibly be a woman. I was just a campy gay man. I didn’t even know how to properly explain it myself to him. 

But his offensive remarks didn’t stop there. He also asked when I was ‘getting the op’, meaning when was I having gender-affirming care. I remember just saying, ‘I don’t know but I’m definitely a woman’.

I felt flustered and uncomfortable. It was beginning to upset me.  

He also said, ‘We can’t have the banter with you anymore’; banter, of course, being that not-so-thinly-veiled casual sexist commentary men often have at the pub. I took this to mean ‘We can’t chat about women around you now’. Not that I was bothered – that kind of chat always made me feel uncomfortable. 

And finally: ‘Does this mean you’re no longer one of the lads?’ – which felt like Kyle was throwing me out of the boys club.

I burst into tears. The pain of rejection was overwhelming. I made an excuse that I had to leave to get up early. When I got home I cried myself to sleep.  

I stopped talking to him for a couple of weeks. 

Meanwhile, other male friends didn’t invite me out for drinks as often and were more abrupt in conversations with me. They would say hi and then leave a long and very awkward silence – like they didn’t know what to say.

Once, I was walking through a park with an old friend and he got all embarrassed when a woman he knew passed us; he was worried that she thought I was his girlfriend.  

As a result of all this, I spent most of my time hanging out with other women. But gradually, they began to drift away too.

They’d had this idea of me that suddenly shattered. No longer was I the shy, meek, and chronically anxious man. I was quickly becoming a strong, fierce, and courageous woman. 

I never felt truly accepted in their company, which led me to become increasingly uncomfortable.

Then something remarkable happened. I started to meet and become friends with other trans people at support groups, meetups, and gigs. 

Before long, my entire friend circle was trans people. And in many ways, it’s just easier – you don’t have to explain anything to them, they just get it. 

You don’t have to exhaust yourself explaining what trans is to them. There is no weirdness around your transition because you share a similar lived experience.  

My life now is great. I have loads of supportive trans people in my life and I could not be happier.  

I do sometimes miss my cisgender male friends. The silliness and nights out together were a lot of fun.

But I don’t regret sending that mass text message – even if it meant I had some uncomfortable conversations. Now I know who my real friends are.

Name has been changed

Originally published October 12th, 2025

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