Yesterday I called my mom and sister and came out to them, and then posted a comic detailing my name change and gender identity on my Facebook page. I was already out to my husband, dad, brother, and most of my friends I see regularly in person, so this was the biggest hurdle in terms of living "out". Work is the only barrier left.
My mom was remarkably unsurprised. She's very conservative and religious, but sometimes she surprises me with oddly liberal or nonbiblically-based views on certain things, and this is apparently one of those things. I opened the phone call with an attempt at backstory and she cut me off and said "just tell me what's wrong." So I said "...you know how my friend Theo is genderqueer? Well, I..." She replied with "Oh. Yeah, I thought that might be what you were going to tell me." She said she'll probably have a really hard time using my new name ("I gave you your name, I don't know if I can call you Jack, you were my baby") but after reading my explanation comic strip she was a lot more receptive to the idea and says she has to work through her own issues. She also kept saying how sorry she was that I had to deal with all of this, and apologizing for being less receptive to what I was hinting when I was younger (not her fault, neither one of us had the vocabulary to discuss the issue at the time). So that went well.
My sister was, completely unsurprisingly, awesome about it and super supportive and happy for me.
So far my coming out comic on Facebook has gotten 52 likes and 26 comments, and every single one has been loving and supportive. I'm very, very lucky to have such an amazing group of people as a support system. I've also gotten three messages asking about my preferred pronouns, which is super sweet. I put in the comic that it's not necessary to use different pronouns for me, but when people <i>ask</i> I've been telling them that I prefer the singular "they" pronouns. Since they're obviously open to the idea anyway.
If you want to read the comic, it's here on my tumblr:
http://ashesandghostff.tumblr.com/post/76953690719/ashesandghostff-coming-out-part-1-posting-it.
(incidentally, I also sort of accidentally came out as pansexual and formerly poly to my mother during the same phone call, which was... not something I EVER expected to do, but she was like "yeah, and?" about it. which was completely and utterly jaw-droppingly SHOCKING, but okay)
