To put things into perspective, I live on the West Coast, mother (93 years old) and my daughter (29 years old) live on the East Coast. So when I started my real life experience I did not tell them. I contemplated on telling my daughter but she is the type to not keep a secret.
So two days after surgery my mother called me, said I heard you were in the hospital in California, what's wrong, hope it's not serious. I told her it's nothing to be concerned with. We chatted for a while then said goodbye. She called the following day, depended I tell her what was going on and I repeated myself, nothing to be concerned with.
So she calls the third day and says I am fairly certain what's going on. I said tell me and she replied, did you have a gender reassignment surgery? I was dumbfounded that she, at her age would guess this. To be truthful I don't remember the conversation but do remember her asking if I changed my name. I said yes, Kevin would not be a decent female name. And I changed my last name to, told her and there was momentary silence. She came back and said, so I lost a son and gained a daughter. We talked some more, for about an hour and ended on a good note.
Fast forward, we talk several times a month and one thing I have notice is she talks to me like I was a cisgender female, it's a wonderful feeling.
About three months after surgery she asked for pictures of me. I went to a local photographer and had wall size photos done. I had to laugh when she confided to me that when she told her hair dresser the hair dresser asked to see my pictures. My 93 year old mother dragged the picture frame (it's not small) to the hair dressers next time she went.
Last month she asked me, do you think your father (deceased) would have accepted you? I said my belief is no. She came back and agreed which is sad because I had a very good relationship with my father.
I told my daughter shortly after my mother, she said she suspected something along the line of transgender and has been nothing but supportive to me since surgery.
I also have a son, which did not find out until six month later, he is in California and speak less than my daughter, it's a guy thing. So this was over the phone and we talked for nearly an hour, in the end he was accepting of my transition and wants me to come down to California to visit which I said this coming summer I would visit as I have other people to visit too.
With friends, two religious friends had a hard time with me transitioning when I emailed them. I said, let's meet for coffee and talk in person which we did and that cleared things up. One of them wrote on my FB page with "She saved my life once and was a good mentor with me learning to be a defensive tactics instructor and I accept her".
At work, out of say 50 people (my team is around 20) two have yet talked to me since transitioning. I can see it in their eye's, I am a messed up person.
My best friend who travelled to California for my surgery, her 16 year old daughter walked up to me and said "God doesn't make mistakes" and outright disapproved of my transition. Over the coming months she did research (I was impressed) and has come full circle from not accepting me to now sits down with me, talks to me no different than another female, complements me on my fashion style and even ask for my advice.
I really had a good chuckle when FB had a post about my wedding anniversary (not married anymore) that showed me and my ex-wife together. My daughter told me as it was not on my page but my ex's page. My daughter as her mother how do you feel about this? The ex-responded with "It's part of my life, be if good or bad it is part of what has defined me."
I have truly been fortunate as I read horror stories all the time of bad reactions when coming out.
