Recently I was invited to my friend's wedding. I have known her for more than 10 years and, naturally, I was delighted. I went out with my friend a couple of days later and, hesitantly but forthrightly, she told me that the invitation may be withdrawn. I am a male-to-female transsexual in the process of transition, living and working as a woman. However, my friend's husband to be has said that I can only come as a man as he does not appear to be able to treat my needs seriously and is worried about how his extensive family may react to my presence. I sympathise with my friend's position but am extremely angry about her fiance's attitude, especially as he is a very active member of the local Labour party and purports to have a commitment to socialist ideals and human rights. What can I do?
It is their day, not yours
A few years ago I would have recoiled in horror from the insensitivity of your friend and her fiance. Now, having lived for a while beside the transitional phases of a friend's transsexual journey, I see both sides of the story. Your personal path is a minefield, but so is the path that your friends are taking in relation to you. They used to have a man friend; you're asking them to have a woman friend. For people of either gender that's a very different sort of friendship.
For people who meet you for the first time, who might be uncertain whether you're male or female or something in between, it's a strange and discomforting experience - and not one to be undertaken in the goldfish-bowl atmosphere of a wedding.
This is their day, not yours. Thank your friend warmly and say you'll cut the ceremony if they don't mind, but you'd love to come and see them in their own home a few weeks later. Go as a woman, take your present and a bunch of flowers, and give your friend and her new husband time to adjust to your new identity at a time when you all feel more relaxed.
Alison Leonard
Chester
She should fight for you
These people are not enlightened and it is best to stay out of it. Something similar happened to me in 1995 when my brother was to marry. He phoned me after sending out the invitations to let me know that it was "inappropriate" that I bring my same-gender partner to the wedding. It was the usual argument that I should keep my sexuality to myself. My partner was reduced to my sexuality, just as you as a person have been reduced to your transsexuality by both your friend and her future husband.
A decision about a wedding and its guests involves two people, and if one of the parties has reservations in inviting someone based not on somebody's character or friendship but on their transsexuality, sexuality or skin colour, then it is up to the friend or relative of the guest in question to stand up for their values.
Otherwise their own values and opinions get swallowed up in those of their partner, which means that you are persona non grata to your friend as well as for your friend's husband. I know how painful this is, and I also know what violent recriminations can ensue if one starts calling each other names over it. I did not go to the wedding and wouldn't have, even if all hell hadn't broken loose, which of course it did.
Let your friend know that it is just as much her decision as his whether you come to the wedding. If you are not invited it is a sign that your friend is not able to be an equal partner in their relationship and is unable to stand up for who you are. In short, let them know how you feel without making any attacks on them, and then remove yourself from the scene. There are better people in this world, and I recommend spending more time with the latter than with people who can't stand up for you and who you are.
Vicky Temperton
Berlin
Make no concessions
I have been a transvestite for three years, dressing properly at every possible opportunity. I go cross-dressed to all sorts of events - cinema, theatre, parties and church services - and am often the only cross-dresser present. Furthermore I use public transport.
Transvestites and transsexuals may be a small minority but we are becoming recognised and accepted, so there is no excuse for the ignorance and attitudes of your friend's fiance. Make no concessions. At the least attend the wedding service or civil ceremony properly dressed - that is open to the public. If the groom does not relent and tries to bar you from the reception then he deserves to be shamed in public. Joanie Nichols
Wolverhampton
Don't allow blackmail
Of course, you cannot allow your friend's fiance to emotionally blackmail you in this manner. You have made the decision that you are going openly to live and work as the woman you have always inwardly known you should be, a decision that involves enormous courage and conviction, and to revert to being "a man", even for a day, to appease your friend's fiance would be a retrograde step.
I hope your friend will understand this and that she will continue to count you as a friend even if her husband cannot; but if she doesn't, the possibility that you would lose some of your friends must have been one of the painful consequences you considered before you took your decision. You will eventually make new and valuable friends.
Helena Newton
Ilford
Next week
In 1980 our elder daughter, then 13, developed permanent tinnitus. This was a terrible strain. Then, aged around 21, she showed increasing signs of mental illness. She was sectioned three times and eventually went into a care home, which she left to do a degree.
She demands attention and unrealistic "help" from us almost daily, by agitated phone calls or hours of sobbing or shouting in our house. She cannot make friends normally, organise or plan ahead, and often loses money, keys, etc. She is verbally and sometimes physically aggressive. She does not hallucinate but lacks empathy and, though articulate, has problems with rational discourse, so we suspect her diagnosis should lean towards Asperger's syndrome rather than "schizophrenia"; but she resists professional help.
Our health has been severely damaged by our daughter's illness. She could fail or even abandon her college course this year and return to our house, where she will make normal life impossible. What future for her - or us as we enter our 60s?
• Private Lives appears every Friday. Each week we publish a letter to which readers are invited to respond. Replies, giving an account of your personal experience, should reach us by Thursday. Readers are also welcome to propose other problems, of around 300 words.
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