Trans in Cyprus?

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

[Crossposted to transgender and genderqueer]

This is probably a bit of a long shot, but since there doesn't seem to be any traffic in alt.culture.cyprus, I'll ask here.

My mother wants to take a trip to Cyprus this spring before she gets too old/frail to travel, and to take me along both as caregiver and because I haven't been there since I was too young to remember and she knows I won't be able to afford it myself. Me, I'm looking forward to seeing kin I haven't seen in decades (or ever, for some), and seeing other kin when they're not in tourist-mode (though I will be), and to feel what it's like to walk the land of my ancestors.

I'm trans (duh) and rather visibly so (MAAB, presenting as genderqueer for the last few decades, finally taking steps to feminize my body, still have a beard so far). Whether I'll get to dress as myself or have to go about in boy-disguise for a month is going to depend partly on negotiations with my mom and whatever relatives we wind up staying with (Mom knows I'm trans but hates being reminded, and long ago extracted a promise that I wouldn't "dress like that" in her house^[*]), but one factor affecting how hard I push that issue is how much I can find out about how Greek Cypriot culture is likely to react to somebody like me. (Let's go with "genderqueer" even though that's not how I identify, since that's how my presentation is going to be read.)

A possible additional wrinkle is that I've now got enough breast growth that strangers -- and I presume anybody not used to seeing me and expecting to see what they've seen for years -- notice, even though my family and friends either don't notice or aren't sure enough of what they've noticed to comment or ask. So I'll be around people who don't have years of looking at male-chested me to condition them to not notice the recent changes, and in the warmer climate I'll be wearing lighter clothing. So even if Mom and/or my aunts convince me I gotta wear pants the whole time, I'm probably going to be conspicuous.

Are there any T* Cypriots reading this community who can give me some clues what to expect as a conspicuously trans/genderqueer person visiting Cyprus? (I'll probably be sticking to the Greek areas, but clues regarding the Turkish-controlled part of Cyprus are welcome just in case I do any sightseeing there too.)

And maybe some relevant Greek words I'd better know that won't be in a normal tourist phrasebook?

[*] For years and years the pattern was that I wore pants one or two dozen times a year, when visiting Mom (and Dad when he was alive), but skirts everywhere/everywhen else. Mom has seen me in my preferred style, at Thanksgiving and Christmas parties at the home of my sister-in-law's parents, but prefers to act as though it's a shocking surprise any time she's reminded I'm trans -- a behaviour which predates any signs of the dementia she's starting to exhibit. The past few years, I've been living with her again, barely spending four nights at my own house in the last thirty months, and wearing pants when I take Mom shopping or to the doctor ... or to the in-laws' holiday parties ... and changing into a skirt in the car after leaving the house when I go out to do my own stuff by myself, as though I were back in high school and back in the closet. It's driving me nuts, but I'm the only one available to help take care of Mom, so I feel stuck. (I do still wear high heels, with the excuse that the only flat shoes I've got are the medieval-style ones I wear on stage. But with trousers and boring shirts.) When I'm "dressed boy" I feel like I'm wearing a disguise, like I can't feel fully present in whatever situation or environment I'm in because I'm Hiding, like I'm deceiving everyone around me about who I am and somebody will call me out on that deception at any moment. I feel dishonest and off-balance and, oddly enough, I feel even more conspicuous than I do when I'm being conspicuous. I really do not relish a month straight of that; all the more so if now people really can tell thanks to a year of hormones. At the same time, I dread having to learn to navigate a foreign culture's attitudes toward LTBG people (learning that in my own native culture was 'interesting' enough) and in a language I don't yet speak (I'm starting in on the phrasebook now -- at least I grew up knowing the alphabet).