Trans Woman on board

[alirat153]

Hi family

I am more lesbian than bi - but that's a whole other story. My partner and I are planning a World Cruise (or half of it anyway) and my partner is a transitioning trans woman.  The transition road has been very bumpy, for a variety of reasons - and she still goes under her bio passport and spends some time in her male form. Whether this is ideal or advisable is not the issue here. I would much prefer her to be free to cruise as a woman but she is uncertain about the response of other passengers - its a whole boatload of strangers, literally.  It would be great to find other LGBTQ passengers on the same cruise, but on previous cruises where there has been a 'friends of Dorothy' meetup we have never managed to find anyone else. Whether they turned up and hid, or there were no others turning up - who knows?

 

My question to you, kind strangers, is how do we get support. Should I tell all to the Roll Call in the hope of finding an ally? All we really need is one friendly face to start that confidence.  By the way, she is smashing looking.

[CntPAcruiser]

There has been some discussion of this in other threads on this board, and generally we've found that people have a "live and let live" attitude on board. There will of course always be less accepting people, and even ugly ones, but the worst we've had has been a couple at dinner who did not join us again after the first night. And the staff should also have your back--they do want everyone's experience to be a positive one. 

 

If her passport identifies her as pretransition, she may need to board presenting that way, but once on board, I hope you and she will feel comfortable with her cruising as a woman.

 

As for LGBTQ meetups, they vary a great deal from cruise line to cruise line and sailing to sailing. We've been on sailings where they were very popular, moderate, or no one else showed up or interacted at all. It's the luck of the draw. Hopefully you will find allies on board, and if you feel comfortable with revealing information on your roll call, that may help, too. I'd be more inclined to do that on an individual basis, though, after getting an idea of how that individual seems to be. 

[alirat153]

On 4/13/2021 at 3:46 AM, CntPAcruiser said:

There has been some discussion of this in other threads on this board, and generally we've found that people have a "live and let live" attitude on board. There will of course always be less accepting people, and even ugly ones, but the worst we've had has been a couple at dinner who did not join us again after the first night. And the staff should also have your back--they do want everyone's experience to be a positive one. 

 

If her passport identifies her as pretransition, she may need to board presenting that way, but once on board, I hope you and she will feel comfortable with her cruising as a woman.

 

As for LGBTQ meetups, they vary a great deal from cruise line to cruise line and sailing to sailing. We've been on sailings where they were very popular, moderate, or no one else showed up or interacted at all. It's the luck of the draw. Hopefully you will find allies on board, and if you feel comfortable with revealing information on your roll call, that may help, too. I'd be more inclined to do that on an individual basis, though, after getting an idea of how that individual seems to be. 

Thanks for your answer, I feel reassured by it and will do a search on this forum.

[CntPAcruiser]

You're welcome. There used to be a website dedicated to connecting with other LGBTQ folks, but it isn't around any longer, so I'm not sure where else to suggest looking. The roll calls on here in the G&L cruisers section don't seem to garner a lot of interest or response. Hopefully you will get to know some people on board. We've made friends while waiting in line to board and ended up spending time together on the cruise. You just never know who you may meet.

[atexsix]

I think somebody should be free to do whatever is the most comfortable, in fact I'm always wondering how "out" I should be with my own roll calls and cruises; especially when we're talking 14+ day sailings, that can be a long time to deal with unpleasantness.  I've watched table mates in the dining room go from sweet as honey to complete ogres in seconds when politics came up during the meal, not appropriate I know and definitely not initiated by me, I'm not a big fan of politics!  Another time a woman approached a friend and I after assuming we were a couple (we weren't); she wanted us to befriend her son, who was gay with no friends and she was worried in a genuine motherly way.  I actually felt sorry for her but in the end preferred not to get involved, setups never turn out well.

 

But I digress, most of the time I stay under the radar, at least until I've had a chance to feel out the crowd.  FOD meetings are not well attended on HAL ships. I've attended 3 I think, and a 4th where I stayed in the back to see who showed up, not quite hiding as you alluded to... but it didn't matter anyway, because nobody showed up which was sad because I was very lonely on that cruise. 

[tony11727]

On 5/24/2021 at 6:59 PM, atexsix said:

I think somebody should be free to do whatever is the most comfortable, in fact I'm always wondering how "out" I should be with my own roll calls and cruises; especially when we're talking 14+ day sailings, that can be a long time to deal with unpleasantness.  I've watched table mates in the dining room go from sweet as honey to complete ogres in seconds when politics came up during the meal, not appropriate I know and definitely not initiated by me, I'm not a big fan of politics!  Another time a woman approached a friend and I after assuming we were a couple (we weren't); she wanted us to befriend her son, who was gay with no friends and she was worried in a genuine motherly way.  I actually felt sorry for her but in the end preferred not to get involved, setups never turn out well.

 

But I digress, most of the time I stay under the radar, at least until I've had a chance to feel out the crowd.  FOD meetings are not well attended on HAL ships. I've attended 3 I think, and a 4th where I stayed in the back to see who showed up, not quite hiding as you alluded to... but it didn't matter anyway, because nobody showed up which was sad because I was very lonely on that cruise. 

Have you sailed NCL? Of course every sailing is different but I’ve found their LGBT meet ups are fairly well attended and I’ve maid some wonderful friendships.  part of that I think is that I am from Long Island and almost always sail from NY. I often meet people that are practically neighbors.
 

I also belong to a great travel group. And though I’m the token gay (LoL) they are a great, open bunch and always welcoming of new members. Heck, I joined at the start of lockdown at a friend’s suggestion. Our twice weekly Zoom happy hours/ game nights got me through the worst of the pandemic!

 

 

[CruiserLucas]

As others have said, most cruisers are easy-going and will not care, or remember who you are after a glance when you pass by on the ship. Depending on how big/small it is for a world cruise, more repeated contact with the same passengers could be more likely. 

I do think you might want to speak with the cruise line about their security ID policies. If your partner's passport is more masculine, but they want to present feminine, that may cause an issue depending on the security photo they take for her cruise account. If there's not a close enough match when using it, it could cause a delay using a service. For example, my partner is a cis-male, and he shaved his beard to just stubble one day while onboard. His security photo had a full beard, and when re-boarding at a port they made him present a second photo ID to prove his identity.