Strangely enough it turns out that most parents, even religious ones, Love their children and just want their children to be happy.
There are a few horror stories about coming out but many, perhaps even most, have a happy ending.
Personally I am of the opinion that there is no such thing as too early to come out.
I first came out aged five, in a shoe shop in kensington high street of all places, when I insisted on my mother buying me a gorgeous pair of red shoes - she didn't want to because they were girls shoes. At which point I told her that I was a girl and tore the stuck on price label off the shoes - at which point to avoid a scene she bought them!
Next I dug may heels in and wouldn't allow her to take me for a haircut. I just screamed and made such a comotion and insisted that I wanted it long like my friend Lucinda that in the end she gave up and l won round two.
My final move was to insist that I wouldn't go to my best friends birthday unless I could have a party dress. My mother patiently tried to explain that if I wore a dress people would laugh. I said I don't care and eventually I got my dress.
From there on in it was a downhill slide to being allowed to wear a kilt instead of trousers at school and generally driving a coach an horses through any notion of gender conformity.
Looking back on it all now, and bearing in mind this was the 1960's it was pretty amazing, no strike that, actually more like almost unbelievable that I got away with it, but I did.
I think it certainly helped that my mother was a producer of medical radio programmes and therefore knew about the early gender pioneers like Christine Jorgensson etc but ultimately it was mostly that as an only child my parents loved me and wanted me to be happy at whatever the cost.
My advice, for what it is worth, is don't be affraid of coming out. as long as you have a good loving relationship with your parents Tthe sooner you can reasonably get things in the open the sooner you can all come to terms with the truth and start to make progress.
