Do you want to be friends?

Why I don’t contact people I haven’t seen for a while.

Logically, being transgender should have no bearing on my friendships. Like yeah, it’s probably annoying that I changed my pronouns a couple of times and I have a new name for people to remember, but overall I’m the same person.

In reality though, I’ve gone from being a strange socially awkward girl, to a political problem. I’m something you’re either for or against. My presence makes people uncomfortable. And now when people don’t message back, I don’t know whether they’re just busy or if they’re cutting me off because they don’t like trans people.

Recently I went on a business trip to Canada. I had my first author signing event and attended a writing conference the following weekend. During the time in between, I could have hung out with my mates. I could have told my family I was in town. But I was afraid and chose not to.

I didn’t even let them know I’d be in the country.

Even though I miss them and want them in my life. The risk felt too big.

What if I meet with someone and am stuck there for hours while they tell me I’m deluded, that they “don’t believe in that”, or try to argue with me about trans women in sports (which I guarantee I know more about than most)? Would I need to explain for the hundredth time that no, I didn’t trap my husband – I didn’t lie about who I am, hiding my transness until he “couldn’t get away”? What if they refuse to see me at all? These people were my husband’s friends and family before they were mine – what impact will our fallout have on him? He’s suffered enough from my transition.

I often wonder how different the past three years might have been if he had a support network like mine. If more of his people stepped forward and said “hey, I know this must be hard, but we love you and Caelus and we’re here to help you get through it together”? There might have been less resentment between us and he might have been better equipped to show up for our kids in the ways I, as the problem, cannot.

Instead, many of people we turned to (on both sides) advocated for our divorce.

I know who those people are in my life, but I don’t know who was saying that to him.

Would I be sitting down to dinner with someone who believes he’d be better off without me? Someone unafraid to tell me that if I “really loved him I’d set him free”?

And no, that’s not paranoia – people say this stuff to me.

People I thought I knew have chosen not to know me at all.

Why am I telling strangers on the internet this? Because maybe it will make a difference. Maybe you will reach out to your trans friend and tell them you still want them in your life, or maybe you’ll reach out to your cis friend and let them know there’s nothing shameful about having a trans spouse. That whilst change can be scary, they’re not alone and things will probably work out much better than they’re imagining. Maybe you, as a follower of a trans blogger, will shut down the next dehumanising ‘joke’ that one creepy uncle is telling at Christmas. Maybe you’ll be a little louder about being a safe person – because so many people communicate their disgust through the weight of their silence.

Miriam Caelus is the author of four fantasy novels, alongside being a content creator and disability support mentor. He has three beautiful children, two cats, and a fledgling pigeon.