Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Hey everyone,

I'm going to come out soon to my friends and family (I'm only out to a few family members right now), and I'm very nervous about it. I have a feeling a lot of people in my family might react badly, namely my aunts and uncles. If it was just them it would be bearable, but I'm worried they will keep my cousins away, and I don't want to lose them (they aren't old enough to visit on their own and live relatively far away). I also don't know how I should do it. I'd like it to be over the phone, but I'm not sure if I should do it that way. I'm also nervous about coming out to my friends, and I'm considering doing it via facebook message, because I'm not sure if I'll be able to to it in person due to my being very nervous and generally bad at talking about things like this. Do you think a facebook message would be appropriate? I know if they don't accept me then they were never really my friend in the first place, but that doesn't make it any less nerve wracking and frightening. I've just been worrying about this all for a while and I needed to get it out there. Any advice would be appreciated, as I'm sure many of you understand what I'm feeling right now.

Thanks for reading

-Frank

Just remember that if you post it to facebook, it is there forever.  And the entire world will know.  Maybe a private email would be better.

I personally wouldn't do it on Facebook. For one thing in my experience it's considered bad practice to use social media or texting to tell people life changing news. And the second you put it on Facebook, it's in the public domain. You have no idea how many people will see it after that. It could turn out that your boss is the friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. That data is also tied to you in scary ways since Facebook is afterall just a data mining application. Now if that's okay, more power to you. I just wouldn't feel comfortable telling the entire world.

Well, I wasn't going to do it as a public status update, but rather a private message. I probably should have made that more clear. But yeah, I know some people might consider it as being rude or what-have-you, but to me it seems like the best way since I can just write it all out and send it instead of trying to do it in person and potentially freaking out.

Which ever makes you more comfortable.  And it will also keep the arguments down to a minimum.