So I decided this morning was a good time to tell my parents about my decision to look into transitioning from male to female. Since I live at home and can't really work a regular job, I had a pretty short list of people I need to have this discussion with. I'd already told my brother, but he wasn't difficult at all to tell. He's a very open minded person (I'd like to think I had something to do with that), and he's bisexual, so he's not really one to judge.
Here's the thing. I've read so many stories around here about coming out, and I know it's a pretty different experience for everyone. But even considering that, I feel a little weird about how the conversation went. It started by me telling everyone in the family to come to the table so I could discuss something important with them. We all sat down, and then right when I was about to start talking, the phone rang. The result was sitting awkwardly at the table while my mom yelled at a plumber that overcharged us for five minutes. I almost lost my nerve right there, but I had been thinking about what I was going to say for so long I felt like I just had to say it or my head would explode.
I started by asking them if they had any idea why I wanted to talk with them. I mean let's face it, they already knew I was taking anti-androgens and given my appearance I assumed there was a good chance they had noticed something was up. Well, no, they apparently hadn't. So I asked specifically if they had noticed any changes in my appearance recently. Again, blank stares. I tried to sort of lead them into it, but they were just not following me. My Mom actually started to get annoyed at me for not getting to the point. So I just went ahead and said it directly. I told them I was unhappy with my current gender identity, that I'd felt that way for a very long time now, and I was looking into changing it.
Let me tell you a bit about my Mom. She is about as far away from the image of a sensitive nurturing Mother as you can get. She's not a bad person or anything, but she has a very take charge, masculine personality. She's not exactly the best person to rely on for emotional support. When she found out my brother was bisexual she didn't talk to him for a month. Though I think that had more to do with the way she found out than anything. He made a post to facebook about it, and pretty much everyone in the world knew about it before she did. Still, that's not exactly the way you'd like a parent to act when you come out, and it really upset my brother a lot. I more or less ended up being his entire emotional support base during that period of his life.
I didn't really know what to expect when I told her, but to my surprise, she reacted almost without emotion. She asked if I was looking into counseling. I said yes, but wait a minute, does this not bother you at all, or anything like that? Apparently it didn't. So then you did notice something was up with me right? No, not even a little. Well, wait a minute, what about this, or this or that? (I came up with quite a few examples of times when it had been fairly obvious I was behaving in a way that was inconsistent with my birth gender.) Nope, nothing. She said she just thought that's the way I was, and after all, isn't everyone a little different? Okay then, moving on...
I tried to explain a little about how difficult things had been for me and what my motivations were for wanting to transition. She said that she hadn't really noticed, but that she was sorry things had been so difficult, and that I really should talk to someone about it. I reminded here I was already planning to, and told her about the place I was looking into. She said she thought I should try to get an appointment somewhere closer. I explained that I had already looked into places nearby and I really wanted to go to the place I had chosen.
If you're wondering what my dad was saying during all this, he pretty much didn't say anything.
Things more or less continued along those lines. There were some sticking points, like how she refused to believe there were any timelines for transitioning that didn't take around five years before they let you take hormones. Or how she continuously wrote off any examples I could think of of signs she might have noticed that I wasn't happy with my current gender. There were a few points where I was really struggling to keep from crying, but I managed to say everything I felt like I needed to say. She said okay, I understand what's going on, and you don't have to worry, we will accept you for whoever you are. She then went downstairs to do the laundry. My dad asked me to help him fix a problem with his printer.
So I am kind of ambivalent on how this whole process went. On the one had, at least they don't have any problems with what I'm doing. On the other hand, seriously, who reacts to their child coming out to them like that??? At least with my brother they had a reaction, even though it wasn't exactly a positive one. I'm still holding onto some hope that maybe they will just have a delayed reaction, or something like that. Still, I do feel a lot better now that I have that off my chest, so I'm trying not to get too upset about it. I'm sure if I keep going with this, something I do, at some point, will get an emotional response out of one of them. Probably.
