Fulltime?

[TX16]

My thoughts are a bit of a jumbled mess right now, so forgive me if this gets a bit rambly or is confusing at any points. I have real questions that need answers, and some advice would be nice too... assuming anyone could get through my ramblings.

Okay, so... tomorrow is my next therapy session. I am going to be asking about what I need to do to get started on T. This is like a really huge step for me, but I am ready. After my session tomorrow, I plan to officially come out to everyone. I have come out to some people already. An on-line community I have been part of for a while, my mother, sister, husband, best friend, sister in law, my dad. No one else. That really only leaves Facebook. My FB is filled with extended family on my mother's side, and my two half sisters on my dad's side. I have no idea if he has told them or not, so it might be their first time hearing about it. Along with family, I have two friends that I have been friends with for fourteen years, but we drifted apart and hardly ever talk about the first four years. One is a very conservative Christian. I don't know what her views are, but I am afraid they won't involve me once I come out.

The other big problem is my grandmother. She is even more conservative than the above mentioned friend. My mother is a lesbian, and she nearly disowned her own daughter over that. Now she pretty much just overlooks it, but does occasionally give my mother crap over it, even after all these years. She hasn't even told her new husband about my mother, nor has she told most of the rest of her family. It is really easy for her to keep my mother's sexuality a secret, and ignore it, but it won't be so easy with me.

My mother is afraid that my grandmother is going to disown me, and blame her instead of me. She says that my grandmother is going to give her all kinds of crap, but never say a thing to me. Which is probably true, and I hate it for her, but I can't just keep all of this in forever.

So my question for this part is... how do I come out on Facebook? How do I just get past that fear? Should I make some big grand post about it, or just change my name and pronouns and not say anything to anyone unless they ask?

Secondly, starting tomorrow, I hope to have people start using my proper name and pronouns for me. Again though, I am scared. I want this to happen, but I don't know how to have it happen. Especially in public. I don't pass at all. Even with my short and male styled hair, and male clothing, my binder doesn't do much, and I have a very feminine face and body. My voice doesn't help either. I don't have a very high pitch voice, but it also isn't very low. I have never been called a sir, always ma'am. I live in the south, and I am scared to death of people realizing I am trans and causing an issue.

I don't know how I should introduce myself to new people. I have social anxiety on top of everything, so it doubles my fear.

Third, I feel like an imposter. Having people call me male names and pronouns, when I look so feminine, just makes me sad. I want to be called all of that, but then I feel like everyone is just going to be humoring me because of the way I look. My mother tried to tell me that I am not a man yet because I haven't had surgery and am not on T. I know that isn't true, but it made me realize what her mindset is, and what everyone's else's mind is probably going to think/see.

Has anyone else dealt with this? How did you get past that feeling within yourself? Any advice?

[Dena]

I was called by my feminine name in therapy for months before I started presenting female. It's important for you to get used to your new name and the best way to do that is using it as soon as possible. It will feel a bit strange at first but after a while when my mother used my former name, it would hit a nerve. The good part about it was it showed me how well I had adjusted to my new name.

[KathyLauren]

Like Dena, I had people using my preferred name in my support group before I was presenting as female. I am not yet out in my community, though, and I prefer that people call me by my male name if I am dressed male.

My wife and neighbour call me Kathy when I am fully dressed (i.e. wig and makeup) for going out on the town, but use my male name at home when I wear women's clothing but no makeup or wig.  The latter is a deliberate choice by my wife and me, so that she does not get in the habit of calling me Kathy and slip up in public.

I plan to go full time sometime after I start on HRT.  When I do, then I will be asking everyone to call me Kathy.

On Facebook, I currently have two accounts: one for my male name and one for Kathy.  I make sure that I have no friends in common between the two accounts, in order to avoid having it suggest Kathy's friends to <male name>'s friends.  When I go full time, I will ask my FB friends on one of the accounts to move over to the other.  I haven't decided yet which one I will keep.  If I end up keeping the <male name> account, I will rename and re-gender it, and I will post a notice on it, basically asking people to either be nice or go away.  (Don't worry, I'll phrase it diplomatically!)

[Sophia Sage]

I like Kathy's suggestion, of getting a second Facebook account.

Me, I didn't come out all at once, and it was a long time before I went full time.  Being gendered correctly is so important, and once I started getting it in some quarters, it made the other areas of my life less tolerable... but at least I knew where those places and social situations were, and could mentally prepare for them.  I dunno, I think it's worse to ask for it and not get it, than to expect never getting it until you're ready to ask with some degree of confidence in getting that proper gendering.

Coming out is actually a lot easier when you've already gotten deep into transition -- after hormones and various surgeries have been performed, all of which makes it so much easier for other people to gender you correctly, without even having to think about it. 

You don't have to do it all at once, that's my advice. Start out leaning on the people closest to you, and the most sympathetic (like in support groups). Hold off on everyone else.

[TX16]

Thanks everyone.

I am going to take that advice and hold off on coming out on FB. I already do have two accounts, but I haven't been using my other male one all that much. I think I will just have those I have already come out to, start using pronouns and names in private to make it easier on me. I have a support group meeting, my first, coming up on the 6th of next month.

[FTMax]

For Facebook, I just changed my name and pronouns. Funny enough, it was actually 2 years ago today that I swapped it all over. Prior to coming out, I deleted a lot of folks that I was no longer in touch with, or who by and large would not be missed from my friends list (high school classmates mostly). I deleted a lot of old pictures, made certain sections of my profile more private than others, upped the privacy settings in general so that I could not be found or added, and then I swapped everything over. I didn't make any kind of big post or anything like that. Personally, I would advocate for not making a big deal out of it for a couple of reasons:

One - Once it's out there, it's never something you can hide. If you were ever to need to be stealth, there's no telling that someone wouldn't be able to find that old post you made. Especially if you're intending to have a more active social life (which you will if you still intend to go to school and get a job), I think it's best to just make the change and then let folks who are confused come to you directly with their confusion.

Two - A lot of cisgender folks see trans people and our transitions as inherently attention seeking, or a by-product of mental illness. I think by keeping the change as low profile as possible, you can largely avoid those labels.

As unfortunate as the situation with your grandmother is - it is what it is. Older folks are somewhat set in their ways. If you're not particularly close with her anyway, I wouldn't sweat it. I'd maybe go out of your way to make your mom's life a little easier since she'll be bearing the brunt of it.

New name and pronouns is tough. I was lucky enough to have a few core people in my life who latched onto it right away and have never screwed up ever. I think having people around you who are making that effort in front of others is incredibly helpful. It sounds like that could be your immediate family for you. My advice would be to have a serious talk with them about it and how important it is to you and your safety. Especially emphasize that their ability to correctly name and gender you in public is directly related to your safety. I think that's something that a lot of folks would otherwise overlook, but is very understandable.

With new people, I would just introduce myself with my name. They don't know any better. On very rare occasions, I've had folks remark about some physical attributes of mine that are less stereotypically masculine (hand size, height). I just have a pile of excuses or deflections. Hand size - oh, carnival hands. Height - I had low testosterone as a kid and my parents stunted my growth by giving me hormones as a pre-teen. Once you get a better feel for what people are seeing, you'll come up with your own responses. I had fairly bad social anxiety pre-T too, but this whole process actually made it a lot better.

One piece of advice that gets passed around here too infrequently - stop worrying about what other people see, think, or feel about you. At the end of the day, your life is about you.

[TX16]

Thanks FTMax, as usual you give fantastic advice. Once I am fully read to come out on my FB, I will do so quietly. I would prefer not to make a big fuss anyway. There will be some people I know will have an issue, so I might preemptively remove them.