Working on coming out (just kind of a ramble/vent)

[Hayley]

Ok I don't even think this is a question or anything more than a ramble but I need to get it off my chest. I have only come out to a few people. My wife and some friends all of which are really supportive. My wife had already "known" before I officially came out to her. I told her when we were 20 but my family meant the world to me at the time so I didn't do anything but try to force myself to be "the best man I could be for them".

Eventually (7 years later) it ate me up and I couldn't take it anymore.  I haven't told my family yet because I know how they will react which will be a whole awful thing. I don't want to ruin their holiday even though it is driving me nuts not telling them.

Saying that though everything I've seen of my family says they will not support me. Hopefully I am mistaken in not having faith in them. But when I think about coming out to them the only thing that pops into my head is my family discussing Chaz Bono when he came out. My mothers exact words were "How could she do that to her poor mother?" Which makes me feel that she will try to turn this around on me doing this to hurt her instead of doing this so I can be happy. I really want to come out to everyone but my mother has a way of making me feel like I am 5 again and I just broke the glass table again. I just can't speak at all. So my plan is a letter I can give her in person but I know once I tell her it will be everywhere and she will get them to believe that I am doing this to hurt her. Which makes me just feel awful because my grandfather has said to me "You're my best grandson, never gotten into trouble or disappointed me." This I feel will change that statement by him. Just don't really know how to tell them all.  Sorry for the vent and again if this isn't quite the right area for this.

[LordKAT]

Your fears are real. Now you have to do what you can to survive them. Be strong in knowing who you are and what you need. Whatever happens, you still have Susan's and the many wonderful people here to back you up and comfort you when things don't go quite right.




just to help a bit.

[Lauren5]

Don't worry about ruining your family's holiday; they will ruin it themselves if they don't accept you and then blame you for it.

[Hayley]

just to help a bit.

Cute cats will always help.

Don't worry about ruining your family's holiday; they will ruin it themselves if they don't accept you and then blame you for it.

Right it would seem logical to think that. Being rational is something I have been struggling with I know it should be on them if my coming out ruins their holiday but I will feel like I ruined it after being told that it is my fault. So I will most likely stick to not telling them until january.

[Lauren5]

Cute cats will always help.
Right it would seem logical to think that. Being rational is something I have been struggling with I know it should be on them if my coming out ruins their holiday but I will feel like I ruined it after being told that it is my fault. So I will most likely stick to not telling them until january.

I'd agree and way that's when way I feel about it, but also, there's the issues of the gift that they'd give me, often mostly clothes, which would be of the wrong gender, and if I told them afterwards, they'd probably be angry at themselves for not figuring this out, or angry at me for not seeming pleased with them.
I've only asked for money and a graphics tablet this year, however, like always, I assume these requests will be ignored.
I know it's a little selfish, but I believe it to be justified.

[Robin Mack]

*hug*

I had to go through all of this fairly recently.  Fortunately, I had a positive outcome... more positive than I had dreamed.

Of course, I can't guarantee that you will have the same success, all I *can* do is communicate the place my head was in that gave me the courage to go through with it, in hopes that it might be helpful to you in some way.

First, I had been keeping many things back from my family.  Being staunchly conservative, I had never even gotten the courage together to tell them I was bisexual, much less mention any gender issues.  I didn't want to hurt anyone; my family had been through enough pain.  But not telling them, keeping things secret, eventually drove me away from them.  In my head I believed they couldn't love me and accept me for who I was, and eventually this turned to keeping them away because (again, in my mind) they didn't love the real me.

Secondly, I had a lot of guilt and self-hatred going on.  This is fairly typical for trans* people... Having determined my real gender was unacceptable, it became something to be ashamed of, to hide.  This took years of therapy to get over.

So, I knew it was time to come out to my family when I realized that I no longer *had* a relationship with them.  If they were to reject me after I came out to them, what would the difference be?  I'd just have confirmation of my fears and still would not have a relationship.  If they refused to accept the truth about me, the real me, just because it was painful, then they were people I didn't need, couldn't count on, in my life...

On the other hand, if they really did love me, I reasoned, no matter what, I deserved to give them a chance to get to know the real, happy, fulfilled me.  Not just some tragic empty husk without a future.

I hope this might be helpful for you.  As far as ways to do it, I strongly encourage you to look at the odds of survival for people with GD that continue to try to suppress or hide it, and the odds of survival/happiness who *do* transition.  I can't imagine any parent on earth who wouldn't prefer a living, happy trans* <insert gender> to a dead (emotionally, anyway) <insert bio-gender>.  Really, it does come down to that, for many.

Wishing you luck, joy, and peace.

[Hayley]

Robin, thank you for the response. It was very insightful. My main issue is I have a really good relationship with my family. My mom basically calls me everyday. This is basically all based around the male persona I fake infront of them. He is confident and always joking. When I am actually frightened to death to let thme see me. It's an elaborate lie that I've perfected over my time of denial from when I was around 20 when I stopped letting my depression and other things show thru. "Always happy" is something I would say everyday to myself for 7 years to trick my brain into believing it. Most people did believe what I portrayed. I loved my family more than I loved myself at that time. I finally have had enough of the lying but it's hard to tell the truth after lying to them for so long. I am hoping as I gain courage from seeing bits and pieces of the person I am meant to be that I'll have the nerve to tell them. I have given myself the deadline of feb 1st to tell the mainly because I work better with a deadline. Thank you again for the comment I will think more on what you wrote. I have a therapy session inbetween thanksgiving and Christmas that I will be discussing this.

[Megumi]

Robin, thank you for the response. It was very insightful. My main issue is I have a really good relationship with my family. My mom basically calls me everyday. This is basically all based around the male persona I fake infront of them. He is confident and always joking. When I am actually frightened to death to let thme see me. It's an elaborate lie that I've perfected over my time of denial from when I was around 20 when I stopped letting my depression and other things show thru. "Always happy" is something I would say everyday to myself for 7 years to trick my brain into believing it. Most people did believe what I portrayed. I loved my family more than I loved myself at that time. I finally have had enough of the lying but it's hard to tell the truth after lying to them for so long. I am hoping as I gain courage from seeing bits and pieces of the person I am meant to be that I'll have the nerve to tell them. I have given myself the deadline of feb 1st to tell the mainly because I work better with a deadline. Thank you again for the comment I will think more on what you wrote. I have a therapy session inbetween thanksgiving and Christmas that I will be discussing this.

This almost describes my 20's to a T. The only difference is I pretty much had a breakdown and had to come out or I would have done something that I would have regretted. Having built up that lie for so long my parents didn't believe it at first. One of my mom's biggest things as to why there was JUST NO WAY I could be transgender was because I didn't prance around at 6 years old proclaiming that I was a girl when even back to that age I knew something was different about me and that I had already experienced extreme amounts of bullying over me having big ears and even though I didn't know what was different about me I knew that I had to keep this hidden from everyone. Now as I'm about to turn 30 I'm finally doing something about it and darn it this is honestly the first time in my life that I've felt happy and happy to be alive as for once I really am alive! Even my parents have come around as well, they have to come to terms with all of this as well so don't expect confetti and a parade the moment you come out. At first they were really resistant to me being trans, but the more and more I talked about all of my life experiences of trying to fake the male life and how empty and worthless I felt all the time and how I could debunk every you feel this way because you haven't done X scenario they have finally begun to see that I actually have become a happier person. My mom is even teaching me how to do makeup and has ideas on things I can try, never did I think a month and a half ago that we'd be doing something like this as I was 100% sure that they would disown me and I'd really be all alone in the world as that was the fear that kept me hidden deep in the closet for so long.

[Hayley]

This almost describes my 20's to a T. The only difference is I pretty much had a breakdown and had to come out or I would have done something that I would have regretted. Having built up that lie for so long my parents didn't believe it at first. One of my mom's biggest things as to why there was JUST NO WAY I could be transgender was because I didn't prance around at 6 years old proclaiming that I was a girl when even back to that age I knew something was different about me and that I had already experienced extreme amounts of bullying over me having big ears and even though I didn't know what was different about me I knew that I had to keep this hidden from everyone. Now as I'm about to turn 30 I'm finally doing something about it and darn it this is honestly the first time in my life that I've felt happy and happy to be alive as for once I really am alive! Even my parents have come around as well, they have to come to terms with all of this as well so don't expect confetti and a parade the moment you come out. At first they were really resistant to me being trans, but the more and more I talked about all of my life experiences of trying to fake the male life and how empty and worthless I felt all the time and how I could debunk every you feel this way because you haven't done X scenario they have finally begun to see that I actually have become a happier person. My mom is even teaching me how to do makeup and has ideas on things I can try, never did I think a month and a half ago that we'd be doing something like this as I was 100% sure that they would disown me and I'd really be all alone in the world as that was the fear that kept me hidden deep in the closet for so long.

Thank you so much! I've spent the past few days racking my brain. Your comment really helped me feel more confident in coming out and that they will at least come to accept me or even come around to supporting me. Life is moving in the right direction for me and everyone who knows about me being trans says they have noticed that I am happier and just seem "better" overall. Actually my family the last time we were all together commented on how good I looked(2 months on E). I've started working on my letter to my family yesterday. Thank you again

[KabitTarah]

You are very lucky to have a wife who understands... I was not in a position to tell my wife about this before we were married, so her reaction and my parents were pretty "normal."

They may react poorly. You could wait until after the holidays (or the end... New Year's seems fitting) if you can wait that long. My family is not having a great time with it... but none of them really do, I think. It's difficult... it tears them up inside, and it's hard for us to understand their point of view - in part because they don't let us in, and partly because we didn't actually do anything to them -- we're the one with the medical condition.

Still... it is hard for them and we should take their pain into our thoughts. There's no "easing in" with coming out transgender, but there are also good times and bad times to come out about it. It's like the sitcom trope of "breaking up with your girlfriend on her birthday." I can't say there's a good time to do it... for them, there's never a good time for "bad" news (which is what they'll consider it)... but shortly after a happy time is usually much better than before or during one!

You also don't want to come out to everyone at once... do it in groups of one or two. It's more difficult and drawn out, but it's better for their reactions - there is no group thought and they can form their individual opinions rather than coming to a single negative opinion, together.

[Hayley]

You are very lucky to have a wife who understands... I was not in a position to tell my wife about this before we were married, so her reaction and my parents were pretty "normal."...

...You also don't want to come out to everyone at once... do it in groups of one or two. It's more difficult and drawn out, but it's better for their reactions - there is no group thought and they can form their individual opinions rather than coming to a single negative opinion, together.

Ah well I was young and dumb when I told her the first time. She had a friend who claimed to be trans* (he wasn't, long story about a guy who faked medical conditions for sympthay) and she was very accepting of that news so I felt like I could tell her. I believe if my memory serves me correctly that we were around 2 months into dating.

The issue with telling a small group of family is once one person knows in my family knows they all know. My mom will tell everyone and if I don't tell her first and she hears it from someone else she will not be to happy with me. Not that she will be happy anyway but if I tell her at least I can explain it to the best of my ability.

[KabitTarah]

Ah well I was young and dumb when I told her the first time. She had a friend who claimed to be trans* (he wasn't, long story about a guy who faked medical conditions for sympthay) and she was very accepting of that news so I felt like I could tell her. I believe if my memory serves me correctly that we were around 2 months into dating.

The issue with telling a small group of family is once one person knows in my family knows they all know. My mom will tell everyone and if I don't tell her first and she hears it from someone else she will not be to happy with me. Not that she will be happy anyway but if I tell her at least I can explain it to the best of my ability.

I told nearly the entire family on the same evening. The only ones I told earlier I knew I could trust in part because it would hurt my wife for others to be told, but mainly the people I hoped would take it well or already "knew" about it (my parents) because I came out at 15.

[Megumi]

Thank you so much! I've spent the past few days racking my brain. Your comment really helped me feel more confident in coming out and that they will at least come to accept me or even come around to supporting me. Life is moving in the right direction for me and everyone who knows about me being trans says they have noticed that I am happier and just seem "better" overall. Actually my family the last time we were all together commented on how good I looked(2 months on E). I've started working on my letter to my family yesterday. Thank you again

Your welcome hun
Just like Kabit said, it takes time for them to come to terms with everything too. It has been no different with my parents, it took a lot of talking to convince them that I knew what I am doing and that this is what I need to do to be happy in my life. Keep moving forward at the pace that is comfortable to you as that's the best thing you can do for yourself.

Tomorrow will be a real test for my parents. I'm going over to their house in the morning as the real ME to help my mom cook thanksgiving dinner then work on my makeup skills. I'm scared, terrified & excited all at once as I hope they will see what I've know for so long.

[Hayley]

Your welcome hun
Just like Kabit said, it takes time for them to come to terms with everything too. It has been no different with my parents, it took a lot of talking to convince them that I knew what I am doing and that this is what I need to do to be happy in my life. Keep moving forward at the pace that is comfortable to you as that's the best thing you can do for yourself.

Tomorrow will be a real test for my parents. I'm going over to their house in the morning as the real ME to help my mom cook thanksgiving dinner then work on my makeup skills. I'm scared, terrified & excited all at once as I hope they will see what I've know for so long.

Good luck and I hope everything goes well tomorrow. Thank you again for taking your time to reply.

[Jennygirl]

I would definitely tread carefully over the holidays. Just make sure the way you word it is polite yet succinct and you should be fine. Lofty explanations can lead them to think that they may still be able to change your mind, and arguing over such things with heightened emotions (from holiday stressors) is a recipe for unnecessarily strong reactions.

I came out to my parents last December and my mom took it really well right off the bat. My step dad needed some time, but he did come around. We didn't tell any of the rest of the family at that time because my mom was worried that my relatives would react negatively (my family besides my parents is slightly "conservative" and very Christian). We took it slow and I didn't let them know until 4-5 months later in spring after I had made some more progress. In the end, it worked and my whole family supports me. I saw them in July and there was not an ounce of weirdness.

It's a balancing act between being courteous to their grievances / anxiety and firmly/confidently standing your ground. Give them no option to talk you out of it, but also remain sympathetic.