forgive me if this comes out a little ranty, but...
i just came out to my parents. I noticed it was friday the 13th, and being totally spiteful about silly superstition, I've always made sure to take big risks of fridays that fall on the 13th day of a month, and try to have a really great day. so between me being contrary as all get out, and the fact that impatience has finally overwhelmed anxiety, my boyfriend help me break the news to my parents.(although he isn't ready to come out so i completely avoided him in the discussion, he's totally supportive of me wanting to be out, he's awesome~)
my mother's initial reaction was "... okay.", with that kind of "this is weird but i love you anyway" smile. then my dad went into the questions that would probably be uncomfortable for most people, but he's always been a blunt man and I've always been a blunt girl so i had no problem with them.
they made sure to reassure me that while it might take a few days to digest and get used to new nouns and pronouns, this is totally cool and i am totally not homeless now and I am their daughter, Katie. my dad was a little weird with the name until i explained it was him that gave it to me. a dim memory of childhood involving finding some katydids and him possibly making stuff up completely for the sake of a joke: "you know, if you'd have been born a girl we would have named you katherine, so if you did something we could joke, 'who took the last cookie? Katie did!'" it... kind of stuck with me and i really like that name.
i knew that they would be cool about it, but this level of nonchalance and cool about it was just... staggeringly awesome of them. i could not have expected it, although maybe i should have, at least from my dad. he's had training as a social worker, so dealing with trans people might have been part of his training...
my hands are still shaking a little from the effort of such a big social encounter, but.. that was amazing. my family is even cooler than i thought!