Well that escalated quickly

[Emileeeee]

The wrong person found out about me and decided to tell Facebook. Since he went to the same school as me and lives in my home town, which is a rather small town, that means about 50% of his friends are either my friends, my family, or friends of my family/friends. I just told my entire family so they'd hear it from me first. I was in no way prepared for this. Prior to this, all of my friends knew and a select few family members. I was planning on waiting about 6 months to tell everyone.

As it turns out, about 80% responded and all those that responded are supportive. The rest have seen the message, but have not responded. My father that I've been so terrified of isn't necessarily supportive, but he's showing promise that he may one day come around. It's not over with him yet though. There's still a followup discussion planned after he has some time to process it all. I decided to post this because he surprised the heck out of me and I thought maybe it would help someone else work up the courage to be able to tell their own homophobic/transphobic parent(s).

[katrinaw]

Hi Emileeee
Its a harsh thing is FB 

But on the other hand, things get sorted pretty quick...

So happy that a majority are supportive 

I am sure your father will come around, give him a breather then go break the ice... probably still worth catching up with those that are supportive anyways and more so if they are people you can call your besties.

Thanks for sharing

Katy xx

[Ms Grace]

Sorry to hear that has happened to you. Unfortunately it is hard to keep things like this underwraps - the fewer people you tell the better, notably the really trustworthy ones, the better. All it takes is for one idiot to find out and they'll have no problem spreading that news far and wide. You might find it good to get ahead of the curve - let people know and call that person out for not only being a fat mouth but for being a jerk who may have put your personal safety at risk.

[Rikosa]

It's times like this that I'm glad I don't have Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/etc.  That seems like a common place for people trying to out someone else against their will.  Granted that wouldn't help me if someone else who uses it found out and decided to use social media as a portal to spread it without my knowledge.

I'm glad people were supportive in your case.  Currently only a handful of people know about me and I'm planning on keeping it that way for a bit.  Not sure how to break it to the family yet or if I want to start the process of coming out at work.  The fact that your dad didn't just cut off communication or something drastic like that is a good sign that after processing, he could be supportive.  Even if parents are supportive of things like gay/trans rights, I'd imagine something like this would be a shock from their own family members.  I don't have kids, but I know when my best friend casually mentioned he was gay to me, I kind of had a deer-in-headlights moment.

[suzifrommd]

Hugs, emileeeee. Being outed is nasty, and the person who did it is a class A lout.

I'm glad people were supportive, though. Being trans is nothing to be ashamed of. It's tough to be trans but we soldier on. Trans people are some of the strongest people I know.

Hold your head high. You can be proud of who you are.

[Mariah]

So sorry it went down that way. I'm glad you had the courage to tell your family at that point so as to be able to control the narrative though. I can only hope your father comes around eventually. Our being trans is a lot for them to wrap there head around. As others have said, you tend to be have careful who you tell originally because some will spread the news like wildfire and not necessary in a positive light. My brother told others who I didn't want knowing at that point. In one case an Aunt of mine made a trip to another relative because this was hard for her to handle. This other relative happened to transition before me. I hadn't realized she had went over there and told them what she heard until I was straight away asked about it. I came clean. My Aunt who was told by my brother seems to be one of those that says one thing and does another as such I keep my distance. Point is that when others do it force us it robs us of that chance to set things straight and handle the issue in away that will hopefully allow for them to more likely be supportive. Facebook can be positive and negative sometimes and well you clearly experience the more negative side of it. It's why I removed people from my original account before coming out so as to limit the exposure of the news. I hope everything turns out well for you. Thank you for sharing and good luck. Hugs
Mariah

[Emileeeee]

This person wasn't someone on my own FB page. It was my fiance's ex. When we told the kids, they told their father. Whether I had a FB account myself would have no bearing on whether this would happen or not.

People are asking questions now, but there's still a lot of confusion. I used to think it was cool how big my family was. Now I realize the error of my ways, but I still had a pretty decent support rate. Out of about 150, there's only been 1 so far that says they're supportive explicitly, but isn't supportive in what they say. With a family this size, there's no way to come out without telling the whole town. If I can't deal with the attention, I would consider leaving the area, but I'm not making any drastic decisions about that just yet.

For the actual FB account, what I did was to create a second page and friend everybody I told. Then I removed them from the old page so I know who's left to tell. My FB is limited to only family and friends. Nobody on there is anybody I don't know or trust.

Luckily this happened now when I'm mentally prepared to transition instead of last year when I probably would have crawled into a hole instead. The only thing stopping me right now is I don't know which comes first, the RLE or the name change. I'm otherwise ready to hit the ground running.

[CrysC]

I'm really glad it sounds like it worked out Emilie.  That had to have been scary. 
Even if it seems to have gone okay, your fiance's ex is still a roach. 
While I would never ever encourage violence, if a young lady was perhaps practicing her karate kicks as he walked around the corner and accidentally put his balls where his tonsils are then well...  I'd just have to laugh and start believing in some divine authority.