coming out, how to do it?

[Lilly19]

soooo ive known im trans for a while, and recently ive been making active steps in pursuing transition, and i know a big one of those is informing my family. which im terrified of. but im desprate to as i know my parents arent going to be around much longer, as my dad is drinking himself to death, and my mom stoped taking her cholesterol meds and is waiting for a heart attak, so i feel im on the clock ya know? i was just hoping you gals might have some advice.

thankfull my parents are accepting of gays and lesbians, ive just no idea how they feel about trans people, i THINK my dad would be accepting, maybe. but imk pretty sure it would throw my mother for a loop.. like i said jsut looking for some tips, sorry for the horrible grammar i suck at it heh.

[Sephirah]

Before saying anything, hon, I would suggest writing down the way you feel, and your thoughts. You don't even have to show it to anyone. But the thing about trying to express your feelings when you feel nervous or on edge is that you can sometimes lose track of what it is you want to say. I've done that no end of times. Had everything rehearsed in my mind, then come to speak and I might as well have been a highly animated goldfish for all the effort my mouth was making with no sound coming out.

Writing down how you feel, and what you want to say, serves a few purposes:

• It allows you to express how you feel to yourself in your own mind.
• Seeing something in black and white gives you a psychological boost sometimes, in that it makes it feel more real to you, rather than just ideas floating round in your mind.
• It shows you put a great deal of thought into what you want to say, and can sometimes make people be more receptive to it when they see that it obviously isn't a spur-of-the-moment thing.
• If you do feel flustered when you're saying what you want to say, you can refer to what you've written to gain a more grounded feeling, and get you back on track.
• If you feel that you really cannot say anything, then you can always show the people you want to come out to what you've written instead.

[Megumi]

Before saying anything, hon, I would suggest writing down the way you feel, and your thoughts. You don't even have to show it to anyone. But the thing about trying to express your feelings when you feel nervous or on edge is that you can sometimes lose track of what it is you want to say. I've done that no end of times. Had everything rehearsed in my mind, then come to speak and I might as well have been a highly animated goldfish for all the effort my mouth was making with no sound coming out.

Writing down how you feel, and what you want to say, serves a few purposes:

• It allows you to express how you feel to yourself in your own mind.
• Seeing something in black and white gives you a psychological boost sometimes, in that it makes it feel more real to you, rather than just ideas floating round in your mind.
• It shows you put a great deal of thought into what you want to say, and can sometimes make people be more receptive to it when they see that it obviously isn't a spur-of-the-moment thing.
• If you do feel flustered when you're saying what you want to say, you can refer to what you've written to gain a more grounded feeling, and get you back on track.
• If you feel that you really cannot say anything, then you can always show the people you want to come out to what you've written instead.

I second what Sephirah said.

I'm in the same boat right now at this very moment. I can't come out and say it, the fear just has me frozen so I'm giving them a second letter that I wrote tonight after we eat dinner and watch the walking dead. My first letter after looking over it over and over again was really for ME coming to terms with who I am and not really a letter to my parents telling them I was transgender and why I felt this way and what my future looked like. 

Coming out to my parents has been by far the hardest thing I've ever attempted in my life where I have felt so much fear, anxiety and real sickness from attempting to tell them. I think it has to do with the fact that we spend many years reinforcing our fears of telling them to where it becomes this massive mountain before us.

[kathyk]

And I'll add a third to Sephirah's reply.

I've always had something in hand when I came out, and I'd give a copy of it to whoever I talked to.  Here's an example of something I had worked on for my sons.  Can't find the original, but this draft is kind of the way it turned out.

I wish you the best.  But you know, we all deserve the best. 


FOR THE BOYS   

You deserve to know what's happening with me

I'm not sick or dying. 

Not inherited illness or a genetic defect

Something has happened to me, and it caused Gender Identity Dysphoria, or more simply ->-bleeped-<-

I'm not gay, bisexual, queer or deviant.

It's not a mental or personality disorder.

It's not a choice I made, and nobody would do this unless they had to.  And I've tried to avoid this, but no matter what I do this can't be changed.

Dysphoria is overwhelming, and it gets worse as I get older, so I have to change the way I live.

Talked to psychiatrists and doctors, and see a gender therapist. 

I can never apologize enough for keeping this a secret.  I didn't know what was wrong, but I thought I could overcome my problems.  I was wrong, and should have known.  No matter what my reasons were, it was a mistake to keep it a secret.

I don't expect you to fully understand why I'm doing this to my family.  But you will have to decide how to deal with me, and I hope you can accept who I am.

Sometimes I can't understanding what's going to happen from now on, but I have to do this. 

Just know that I love you.  But my feelings for you can't stop the compelling need to transition, take hormones, and over time even more. 

References - discard or read them, it's up to you.  Although I'd like you to read these.


REFERENCES:
　
A brochure with some good information, even if it tries to cover too much and ends up a bit too brief.

http://www.apa.org/topics/sexuality/transgender.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These are two links through the University of Michigan.  The first is a link to professor Lynn Conway's home page, and the second is a transgender history, with a large compilation of resources and definitions.  They also contain links to health, legal rights, and support organizations for the transgender, transsexual and intersex community.  But this is an extensive work, and goes way beyond what you may ever want to know.  However, if you read through these pages please remember that I'm transgender, and specifically transsexual, and not in other categories discussed.

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/conway.html
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TS.html

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Frequently asked questions about transgender and transsexual people are all over the internet, and I can't find a list that I liked well enough to reference. So I decided to link the Wikipedia page for Transgender discussion because it covers many topics with headers you can easily choose. But as with everything else I've read, the Wiki page also contains some unnecessary or biased subject matter. Please be careful if you search the internet for information about transgender issues or studies . Some of the sites linked on Google contain hatred or sexual content, and that information is not appropriate in any honest dialog of how GID deeply effects the lives of transgender individuals and their families.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender

[Lauren5]

This has made me think. I'm going to write myself a letter, just to get my bearing, of what I want and don't want from transition, and how I going to communicate it to others.
This just means that getting that bodygroomer has to wait until tomorrow.
And Kathy, those may come in handy with my dad, being a Michigan fan.
He is upset that I go to State though...

[kathyk]

... And Kathy, those may come in handy with my dad, being a Michigan fan.
He is upset that I go to State though...

Writing a letter is a good idea, because it puts it all in order. 

And anything to help.   By the way I went to Tech (MTU). 

[Lauren5]

Writing a letter is a good idea, because it puts it all in order. 
And anything to help.   By the way I went to Tech (MTU).

Organization is not one of my strengths. Sitting down and just thinking is about the only way I can organize. ANd then writing it down, because I won't remember it until a month later.
That's where my dad went. Class of 89' he was. Small world.

[Lilly19]

thank you all very very much for the advice, it has been very helpfull. writing a letter seems like an awesome idea ^^ i do believe when the time comes thats how ill do it, which will probably be much sooner rather then later.

[Sabrina]

This sounds like exactly what I need to do. Maybe I'll give it a try.