I came out to my daughter about a year ago, when she was 11. I'd been kinda semi-transitioned for a year or so at the time, and I thought maybe she already knew, but I was wrong. I blurted it out and my timing was awful. We were waiting for a bus and she was laughing at me when I said I'd wear her new nail polish. I asked her if she understood why it was funny. She said it was because I'm not girly. I answered that it was funny because I'm not a girl. I said I'm not a girl, I've never been a girl, it's been really hard to pretend to be a girl all this time, and no matter how hard I try I'm not going to ever be a real girl. That was a stupid thing to say to a kid. She burst into tears and I spent the next half hour trying to take it all back and make the world okay again.
So maybe be careful how you break it to your own child. Other than my idiot introduction, the matter has been pretty chill with my kid. She accepts who I am and doesn't overthink it. She's a kid, and honestly she doesn't really go for subtlety. I used to be an embarrassingly un-feminine mom, and now I'm a big strong man who can do anything.
She's still coming to terms with the gay thing though. She used to really want a second mom (I always admitted to being gay but never explained the trans part, so she thought I was a lesbian who dated men), and now she just wants a mom. I have guilt about that.
I've always been pretty straightforward and scientific with my kid about other things, so she took it at face value when I explained that I'd been keeping a secret and needed to start being honest. She seems to see it as a medical problem.
