I'm alone in a very quiet house today while my parents and siblings have all gone out to celebrate my grandmother's birthday. She is over 100 years old so every birthday now is treated as a big deal and gets a lot of people together. Last year I went but it may have been the last time I ever get to go.
Everything in my transition has gone about as well as it could. I've been treated fairly and nicely by just about everyone everywhere I go. There were bound to be some 'hiccups' along the way though and now I've run into a big one. My relatives have so far not been made aware of my transition even though I'm now out full-time. I'm not very concerned about how that plays out when the time comes to fill them in, except for one special case - my grandma. I'd really like her to know and want her to be good with it. There have been hints however that she has no reference point for understanding something like trans (most of her life she was completely unaware of the mere existence of gays) and is strongly religious. She's also been cautiously introduced to the news of Bruce Jenner transitioning and I'm told reacted with confusion and then negativity.
I was personally willing to take the risk of coming out to my grandma, no matter the outcome, because I felt it was more important for her to know than not. Perhaps she might even be more likely to support me and learn from the experience because she always respected me in the past. I thought that she might appreciate the fact that her courage revealed through her physical and emotional struggles with her health and the inevitable permanent move to a nursing home inspired great courage in me this year as I faced FFS and coming out full-time at work at the same time. Now I'm not so sure, but the decision has been taken out of my hands by my mother.
Mom actually asked me not to attend the birthday this year because she was so concerned what might happen. She is having a very hard time dealing with what could be the final days of her mother's life as it is and doesn't want to throw another wrench in the works. I'm really not certain who she's actually trying to protect though - her, her mother, or their relationship, but certainly not me. My mother has had a very difficult time dealing with the fundamental reality of my new identity but she has committed to support me as best she can more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. She's even become rather well adjusted to it lately, helping me with clothes and make-up and not behaving awkwardly. She's been so good about it that I don't want to selfishly ruin anything for her and I'm inclined to stay out of the way of my grandmother out of respect for both of them.
Here's why I feel so strongly conflicted about it though. Just as I've made the final brave moves to be out full-time and fully embracing my identity I'm now having to hold back. And for how long? Until my grandma passes away? How many years might that be? I almost feel like I don't get to be a 'real, legitimate' person until she dies. It's a very weird feeling. Does it mean that I also have to stay out of contact with all of my relatives lest they blow the cover? Will everyone miss out on the few precious years where I still have my youth and look my best? It's possible I could be in my 50's before I get to say anything and there's at least two uncles in poor health who might also be gone by then.
What would you do? Do you leave it alone? Do you push ahead and tell grandma at risk of offending a lot of people? Do you at least firmly express your discomfort with how your identity is on-hold pending her death? Is this a no-win situation? At least today, in the quiet of an empty house, I'm less stressed than I would be on this hot day in a group of mostly elderly religious folks having my story play out for them for the first time. Perhaps these questions are rhetorical. I can live with the situation as it stands but it still bothers me right to the core.
