Susan's Place Transgender Resources

My transition process is going well so far but that's because I've been doing the "easy" stuff... coming to terms (again) with the fact I am trans*, convincing my shrink, getting on HRT, telling my boss and colleague, buying clothes, starting hair removal, etc, etc. Tick, tick, tick. All ticked off. Sure there was some angst and tears in the process but compared to the thing I dread the most they are all a walk in the park. I know I might come across as cool as a cucumber. Calm, methodical and understanding... and I am, as long as I feel in control of the situation. Telling my family I'm trans* is something I don't feel in control of.

I did tell my mother back in 1991, the first time. She didn't take it well, worried what everyone else would think, couldn't understand it, really freaked out. At that point I decided not to tell anyone else until I was just about to go full time. Thing is, the closer I got to being full time the more strained my relationship with my mother became, the stress was killing her (probably quite literally as she has high blood pressure) and I just couldn't - could not - tell my family. Some people have enquired as to why I never fully transitioned the first time, how I managed to keep the denial clamped down for so long... well it was in large part because of my inability to tell my family (amongst other things of course).

Fear of rejection is what it boils down to. I am the eldest child and I have managed to dodge many expectations placed on first born "sons" and oldest "brothers" (and eldest "grandsons" and "uncles"). Not a black sheep though - I get along with them all and am loved and respected. Just today my sister, who is going through a messy break up with her partner of 20+ years, and whose 8 year old daughter (my niece) is seeing a counsellor about all that, asked if I would be able to come along too since I'm a positive "male role model" for her. Darn.

This last year has been been bumpy for my family, my sister's bust up started mid year and my mother has been struggling with her health since Easter. I decided I definitely wasn't going to tell anyone this year, let all that other drama settle down before I upset the apple cart with my own issues. It's making it excuses I know. I'm planning on going full time in June 2014 (give or take a month), and I won't go full time until I tell them all - parents, siblings, nieces/nephews... at the moment June feels a long way away, but it's not at all. The closer it gets the more stressed I'm going to feel - even thinking about it now is no fun.

In her Christmas card to me this year my mother said she hoped I achieved in 2014 all I was hoping for and more, and I thought to myself that if she knew what I was hoping for she might want to retract that.

Anyway, I feel OK now. I'll be talking about it with my shrink and my gender therapist in the months leading up to June, my supervisor said work would be able to give me special dispensation in recognition of my emotional needs around that time. Being a much older and wiser person these days I should be able to guide the process to a suitable outcome but I don't want to get ahead of myself. I say to there it's one step at a time, don't let who you are be guided by other people's perceptions and I should apply that to myself. Easy to be cool when it's personally removed... anyway, I'll keep you posted. :)

  I decided that I would jump out of a plane first so that coming out wouldn't feel like such a death-defying feat!  It helped.

Quote from: Ms Grace on December 26, 2013, 10:33:16 PM
In her Christmas card to me this year my mother said she hoped I achieved in 2014 all I was hoping for and more

I am crying due to snorting Dr. Pepper out my nose. I am not trying to make light out of a serious post, it is just I was thinking "Wish Granted".  Please don't be offended as I would never do that to be mean to you. It just hit me really ironically!

I feel where you are with this one. This is going to be the next thing that I have to do, and it's not something I'm looking forward to at all.

It's not much to offer you in this, but I hope everything works out well for you :)

It was extremely difficult. But I'm not leaving my seat on this MD-88, thank you. You really don't want to jump out of this thing. Coming out seems hard,  but it is easy; is dealing with all the potential aftermaths that's difficult, and unique for all of us.

Violet, really??! Wow maybe I should then!
Jessica, pretty much my thought too...
Joan, thank you. And all the best to you with yours.
Willow, a very good point. You're right, the outing is easy enough... it's the fallout that is unpredictable.

Quote from: Ms Grace on December 27, 2013, 11:35:24 AMWillow, a very good point. You're right, the outing is easy enough... it's the fallout that is unpredictable.

Indeed, drafting an email to my parents took 15 or 20 minutes, but it sat in my drafts folder for a month, while I contemplated the effects of sending it.

Those effects you either have to try and predict the outcome, or take it as it goes. It's not easy. You just kinda have to do it.

Grace as you know I failed my first transition attempt back in the early 90's and stuffed it away so deep under a pile of denial that I could hardly breathe.  The more I did to deny myself the louder my shadow girl knocked on my subconscious door.  Now my parents are gone and while I assumed the worst I never gave them the chance to really know me.  My progress this last year is partly because I did damn the torpedoes and can still feel unsinkable.  Experience has taught me how very caring and supportive people can be if we give them the opportunity. 

Giving someone that chance means we make ourselves vulnerable and also gives us the strength of being authentic and genuinely our real selves.

Yes, we just have to "kinda do it" and own our life.  Others will surely continue on with theirs with or without our coming out story.  We are the ones holding our breath?

Here's to a bright fluffy parachute for you.  Better yet I imagine a paraglidder which is the more steerable version I flew years ago.

Happy landings!

Thank you Tessa  :D You make some beautiful points.

Quote from: Tessa James on December 27, 2013, 12:39:05 PM
Now my parents are gone and while I assumed the worst I never gave them the chance to really know me...

Giving someone that chance means we make ourselves vulnerable and also gives us the strength of being authentic and genuinely our real selves.

This especially really gets to the heart of the matter doesn't it... by holding back I've denied them the opportunity to know their daughter, sister, aunt...

Like Tessa, I waited til my parents were both gone.  And like Tessa, they never got to know their daughter.

Forgive me, but personally I think you are just using excuses to not go full time.  Therefore ...

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F24.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_lrgvmpd1rL1qhh01oo1_500.gif&hash=597fb7d083565efcf70a5e81e8561d189251c2e1)

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.skydive-maryland.com%2Fcheck-dive-out-the-door-vertical.jpg&hash=f468cc6c85baef9db9b9afb3ecc6994b3657f342)

Quote from: Ms. OBrien CVT on December 27, 2013, 02:34:05 PM
Forgive me, but personally I think you are just using excuses to not go full time.

That was absolutely the case first time around. 100%. Even after two years on HRT I wasn't full time. Didn't believe I was ready/passable..even though I was gender confusing people dressed in male clothes. This time (so I'm telling myself) I'm working to a much more strident timeline. The hair in my avatar is, unfortunately, a wig...I'm working on growing it back with promising signs but I don't want it to be an excuse for me...in six months I go, ready or not. :)

Quote from: Ms. OBrien CVT on December 27, 2013, 02:34:05 PM(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F24.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_lrgvmpd1rL1qhh01oo1_500.gif&hash=597fb7d083565efcf70a5e81e8561d189251c2e1)

Love this!

We need to be ready when we come out and be sure we are totally safe and that we pass 100%. We also need to make sure no one else will be affected. After all if the grocery shop staff don't like us life could be Hell.

OK, I'm being silly but I spent most of my life procrastinating. I now realise that living my life is up to me, be it family, close friends, work colleagues whoever, I am not responsible for their issues or their acceptance. That is their journey and their cross to carry.

Like the others, my parents never met their daughter, OK they had problems with the teen version, but they never met the adult. I regret that.

There are many steps we take, stepping out of the plane is just a single step. Even if it is a doozy!

heh... a doozy indeed! :D

Thank you, ladies - thank you all for your comfort and support. It means a lot to me, it really does. :)

The thread title makes coming out to the family seem not too difficult. Jumping out of airplanes is easy, great fun actually!

I still dread telling my family though.

Quote from: Ms Grace on December 27, 2013, 11:35:24 AM
Violet, really??! Wow maybe I should then!

  During the summer of 2012 after I'd come out to myself in the spring I arranged to do a few special things with my Father.  He's getting on in years and I wanted to make sure that he would be able to knock a few things off his lifetime wish list but also that we'd be able to do them together before I ran out of time with him.  In quick succession we did tandem skydives and hang-gliding as well as introductory flight training on small aircraft.  All these things took some nerve to accomplish but I should clarify how it was for me:

  Before I came out to myself I had been rock-bottom depressed, literally dead or zombie-like, and I'd reached a point where I didn't care if I'd wake up alive each new day.  I was chronically fatigued with severely over-driven nerves and felt completely hopeless about my condition because I didn't know what to do about it.  Once I came out to myself I felt a lot better but moved on to a place in my mind where potentially fatal activities like skydiving didn't really phase me that much.  Because I had made peace with myself I felt that if my life were to end in that moment that I would finally feel free and calm for the first time I could ever remember.  It was a significant part of the mental healing process because I had sort of stared death in the face and laughed.

  Many more months passed before I worked up the courage to come out to my mother (the first in my family to know) after first meeting the challenge of group therapy.  I truly believe that everything I did prior put me in a dramatically better state of mind by then.  If you can say "I don't care if my life ends today because I'm good with myself" and then make it through that moment and move onward and upward, most other challenges in life seem trivial by comparison.  I also realized that I would have to change solely for my own sake, risk of losing everyone be damned.  Had I not been able to commit to that whole-heartedly I don't know if I would still be here today.

  I respect the feelings of my family members and have still not come out to all of them.  That said I now have the experience and proof that HRT was critically chemically important for me mentally and physically so I can approach them with the basic fact that this is an irreversible quality of life issue.  I consider full-time female presentation an inevitability and have no intention of holding back no matter what they may think about that angle to the situation.  Simply put I don't just want to survive, I want to be all I can be and make up for a lot of lost time in my own life.  I don't believe any of my family members would be willing to deny me that.  Astonishingly, in less than two years I've almost completely forgotten how it felt to suffer daily as the old me.  Obviously there was a time when I could never even imagine that.  To already be completely healed without yet going full-time or coming out to everyone is a precious and wonderful sensation.

  In retrospect, leaping out of a plane isn't so bad either.  It's all just the anxiety of anticipation.  Lessons learned, experiences had, life improving.  I hope this makes a great deal of sense to you and helps.  I don't know if you need to jump out of a plane to re-condition your mind though - perhaps just seeing it through my eyes is enough.  Sure was fun though... ;)

I feel telling parents would have to be one of the hardest things to deal with.  With immediate family members most of all, you do have a store of love to draw from. But with that comes an element of judgement that family members often feel is their right to deal out.  That judgement is hard to take when you (at least I have and I believe most others in this position) have worked through the therapy/psych process and you have got to the point where you know this is best for you.  As we get further through life, we seem to actually know our close family members less and less while we all believe we still have the relationships we did growing up.  So, yep, families can be a problem, sometimes just a perceived one but as can be seen with some of the narratives on these boards, sometimes a real one.

Me? I told my children yesterday - no drama and they are cool with it.  They are 18 and 17 and seem to know their own minds.  Dad died in 1989 and Mum earlier this year so they aren't around to tell.  To be honest, I am not sure I could have dealt with telling either of them. Brothers and sisters (we are all in our 50s) do not live in Australia and I am leaving that for another time. My wife has known for a while.

I think judging a parents reaction when coming out is almost impossible to predict unless you do it. You said it bothered your mom years ago. Nowadays with your moms failing health, she may have a different mindset of life with all of her life experiences. People do change. She may use your failure as a ways of saying it may not work this time. Something tells me she wont cut contact from you.