So I'm transferring to a different college next year and I am hoping to enroll as a male student. However I recently learned that one of my current friends is going to the same college at the same time and asked if she could room with me. Don't get me wrong this girl is my good friend and she is bisexual, so I assume she is LGBT friendly. But she is also a self-identified extremist feminist. I am absolutely terrified that she will consider me a misogynist for being ftm. If I room with her then I would have to come out to her if I want to be a male student, and it makes me uncomfortable.
It's a tough situation. I would recommend coming out to her before you tell her whether or not you are willing to room with her. That way you can know ahead of time whether or not she'll be okay with it. Still, if you're not ready to come out to her, that's okay. Do you want to room with her? If you don't feel strongly about it, you could say no to rooming with her and tell her that you want to hang out with her a lot while you're there but that sometimes rooming with a friend can strain your friendship and you don't want that to happen, or something like that.
Ugh... Sexism... I won't comment to much on that sort of attitude because I don't think it'd be fair to you for me to stand in judgement of one of your friends. I will say though that from my current personal experience rooming with friends is no picnic.. especially in my case... Rooming with a bunch of guys >.> (No offense it just drives me crazy) They all drive me nuts, I love them but I want to do much harm to them... None of the friends I'm rooming with are aware of my status and its actually putting a bigger strain on living together than I thought. So over all I don't recommend living with friends ^^;;
^^^ this is good advice. you could also see if your college will give you a room to yourself (mine did after i told them of my situation), and tell her you want to have some privacy (hence a single room), but you can still hang out a lot.
Hey, thank you all for posting! I have had some internet problems for the past few days and couldn't check the posts until today. I know, I would feel like a feminist would be all for gender and sexual equality, but when debating with her on other topics I discovered that she has a bit of what I would consider a double standard. As I understand it she believes that it is only be sexist/racist if the person is not in "power" . Like it is okay for her to discriminate against males and whites because they have social power, I guess? Even though I disagree with her on this I still think that she is a good person, and I love her as a friend. But I feel very uncomfortable with the idea of coming out to her, and my desire to start living as a male is much stronger than my desire to live with her. I think I'm going to try to talk to my college about my situation and see if I can get a private room. If not I think I'm going to have to tell her that I don't want to strain our relationship. Thank you all for your advice!
Well, I can understand the position, but I might phrase it differently. Bigotry against those who have power doesn't lead to oppression of that group. The bigotry and power need to go hand in hand to do real damage across a group indiscriminately. So if someone thinks of sexism as the bigotry and the oppression, then they aren't really dealing in a double standard. But I also think tying too much implied meaning into a term makes that term unwieldy, which I think is starting to happen is misogyny and sexism. That mentality seems to lead towards saying that misandry or sexism against men doesn't exist, even though it does in a non-systemic way, and in many cases is the result of systemic sexism acted upon the woman. Being able to talk about sexism and systemic sexism separately without muddying the two I think is valuable, if the goal is open communication about it between the sexes to stamp it out. Now, if she has a problem treating others the way she wants to be treated (assuming they haven't proven undeserving of it), that is her problem. From where I'm standing, it doesn't sound like she will outright reject you, but it may put her in a tough spot. I would echo darkcomesoon's advice and try to come out to her before hand if you can muster the courage. She may just surprise you, but your fears certainly aren't ungrounded.
This makes sense to me. I think that bigotry exists towards every demographic of people, it's just that bigotry towards certain groups of people by people in power causes a systematic problem where one group is at a major disadvantage. I still would say that on a person to person level racism and sexism applies to all. If she was trying to say what you just said, I would feel a lot more comfortable coming out to her. Maybe she just explained such things poorly and I'm worrying over nothing? The way she worded it made it sound as if she were talking about individuals, and I've seen her be a bit personally discriminatory towards people in majorities. Maybe before I try to come out to her I can see if she can clarify her beliefs on the matter?
You actually made me realize that you just stumbled across a really awesome way to resolve this without having to come out before you are ready. Yes, do talk to her to clarify her beliefs on the matter. Don't bring up your gender identity yet though, because it isn't the issue here if I understand you. The issue is that you don't like her talking up stuff that comes across as misandry, and that you will be uncomfortable having to live in an environment where that is the norm, because of how it makes you feel. Now, she could react well and start to understand that this behavior is hurtful to you, or she might just double down right then and there on it. But if she's willing to back off because you brought it up, then you might want to discuss why it is hurtful (i.e. that you identify as male). But in the end, while I'd hope for the best, I can't guarantee it will go well. But it would be messy trying to room with her without sorting out the effects of her behavior on you first. Not worth it. At the very least, your friendship should be able to survive you airing your concerns there. And I agree that bigotry has an impact at the 1-on-1 level, but the most harm still comes from a situation where there is a power imbalance. Say she had a son, and she behaved that way around him while he grew up. That's... pretty messed up. But two friends on equal footing can't really do that sort of damage.
