Feeling okay with leading a double life?

[leolapyre]

Does anyone here lead a "double life" and have no intention of ever coming out to certain people? I have one identity that I use with my family and at work and another that I use with close friends and people I can I feel I can trust. To my surprise, it hasn't been all that bad leading a double life. As long as I can keep my temptation to go on

Comments

[gymx]

Well, I mean, there's my grandma, who stresses over everything, and other older relatives that I don't see very often. But I don't think that's quite what you're talking about. Personally I find any sort of double-cross really stressful. I'd make a horrible spy.

[amhrantine]

It's not really double cross, because I'm pretty damn up-front, but yeah I keep some things quiet in some company and out in others. I never plan on filling my family (strongly conforming gender-normative homophobes) because it'd just make too much mess, and I never plan on telling my work (people really aren't as accepting as they think and in my line of work, any "mental instability" spells disaster). Plus I'm tentatively moving out into a community of people who are like me - queer and genderfucked. I'd be "out" with that crowd, but cautiously so.

[slanderouslibel]

I'm sort of doing the double-life thing right now. My girlfriend is going through a divorce and her ex is trying to get the kids, so they don't know I'm trans. My mother refuses to acknowledge it, and my 5 year old brother is obviously not old enough to understand changing your name, let alone gender. It's hard sometimes, because when I'm not with any family members, I am known as a man. I'm referred to by my male name and everything. So I have to do a lot of explaining sometimes.

But as soon as everything is legally done with, I'll be coming out as trans to the kids. The only reason it's a secret right now is that their father is a bigoted, abusive ass, who will use whatever he can to claim the kids are suffering with us.

And now I'm done rambling about things no one cares about.

In short: I feel ya both.

--Kai

[meegosh]

Just wanted to say good luck and I hope good sense wins.

[meegosh]

I'm f at work and with family and currently most of my friends, but m at home (mostly).

But thinking about that double life reminds me of before I came out to friends that I was bi. It ended up feeling like I was hiding part of myself from people I was apparently open with. That's when I decided to come out.

With my transition I'm at a much earlier point. But already I'm getting fed up of those I'm fairly close to not knowing, of not being able to be myself around even friends.

But we're all individuals. If you're okay with it then that's fine. You can re-evaluate further down the road if you need to. Any decision who make now is not set in stone.

[aumentou]

I used to. It worked for a while. I had a lot of different compartmentalised identities, with enough similarities that they were all recognisably me, but enough differences that things got awkward if two groups of people met unexpectedly.

Then I stopped caring.