If you are related to, or have had a very close relationship with someone who then decides to have a sex change it is incredibly difficult to deal with. Its not being prejudice to say you are uncomfortable with it. It is being honest - as honest as you often feel you can be without going further and hurting feelings. It is incredibly difficult to 'be honest' about it, as you have no idea how that person will react and how you will be judged for what you have said.
When someone has a sex change it changes your entire understanding of a person and makes you question your relationship and knowledge about that person.
It IS uncomfortable because you are effectively being told that black is white. Imagine then not being allowed to express that view in any way. You have to just accept it. No questions, no time to adjust, just deal with it. It is impossible.
As much as the person going through the change has to cope with their emotions, so do those who know and indeed love them. If you are denied the opportunity to be honest about your feelings; which often include things like confusion, guilt that you let that person down, anger that they have 'ruined' you perfect perceptions of the world, resentment that you never noticed and feel like they have made a fool of you, feeling like you aren't trusted by the person going through this.
It is MUCH easier to deal with someone who has a change if you have a clean slate and a blank canvas. You simply form an impression from the person you meet, not the person you knew.
This is precisely why so many families break up because of a sex change. Not because of prejudice, but because it destroys everything that gave you security and you believed were the foundation of your life. Equally, even if a family are supportive, someone going through a change can often distance themselves from all those pillars of who they were as its a constant reminder of the past which can never be wiped clean.
I think it is desperately unfair to Audley as a result. And it completely neglects to understand that there are very often two groups that struggle with a sex change without any malice being present what so ever. Both sides are struggling to readjust and at times being clumsy in your language is an inevitable and in my honest opinion, essential part of that adjustment.
Instead the focus is on the person going through the change as the 'victim' and those who know them are either cast as the villans or are forced to simply suffer in silence and never deal with their own emotions.
In my experience this can often ends up coming across as massive chip on the shoulder of the person who is having the change; its based on a deep seated insecurity which is totally inward looking and incapable of seeing how their situation impacts so much on others too. To be blunt about it, its all "me, me, me".
Guess what I'm seeing on my TV... the same scenario playing out to the letter.
I am actually both furious, and deeply upset at the way Audley has been treated. Audley has not being anything but supportive, and has tried to explain how he feels in the best way he possibly can. Big Brother clearly has no concept of understanding how it can be difficult to get your head around and has put Audley in an impossible situation.