Susan's Place Transgender Resources

i'm planning on coming out sometime before april, but one of the factors that is distressing me is how my friends/acquaintances will take the news. i'm worried about initial reactions (even though i know people usually change their minds) and acceptance... and all the questions. i know that it doesn't really matter what they think, but i'm still majorly anxious, especially since lgbtqia+ jokes are so common among them.

so i'm just wondering, if you've come out yet, what were your peer's general reactions (include initial responses)?

thanks,
jackson

I got a big dose of "what took you so long"?

My first friend (a lesbian who actually lives in my state)- She said "no, I don't think your transgender."

My best friend who identifies as bisexual and lives in NY: "Well that explains a lot."

My other two online friends were cool with it. One of them even encouraged me to move to where they are at because it is more trans-friendly than my place.  However, that particular friend and the second one does not like my chosen name, lol.

My friends went bonkers. They were all so excited by it, it was almost a little creepy.

I thought I'd get some rejections, turns out everyone loved it and once they saw how happy I am they just wanted to know why I did not do it sooner.

All of my peers were fine. They all said: what's the big deal we know he's a boy!
People werent surprised as i'd been dressing amd acting like a boy since 3rd grade

I just came out to most of my friends a few days ago. At first, most of them were a little confused due to how... sudden it was. I'd never really dressed feminine, or anything like that. I guess they attributed the way I acted to my watching so much anime and being an introvert. But, after a little while, and after me explaining it to them a little, they seemed pretty cool with it. All of them accepted whatever made me happy, and that's saying a lot -- considering me and most of my friends are in the 12-13 age range.

The one thing that /has/ been rather demoralising is, due to my age, every doctor I've seen so far has essentially said "It's prolly a phase, bye." -- however with that said, the doctors I've seen so far haven't known much about these kinds of things, so we'll just see.

Good luck~

thanks for the helpful replies everyone. :)

Quote from: King Malachite on February 11, 2015, 09:09:04 PM
My first friend (a lesbian who actually lives in my state)- She said "no, I don't think your transgender."

What? LOL
Oh yeah of course, because you know she'll know better than you. Lordie the nerve of some people.  ::)


Anyways, my friends ranged from slightly confused as to what it entailed but still trying to be supportive, to highly supportive. So I was very lucky.
My suggestion is to be ready to answer some questions about what it is, and explain what your plans are in general. Because many of them will be curious about things, especially preferred names, etc.
And some will have their own strong opinions on things like OH WELL YOUR NAME ISNT GOOD. But remember it's probably just because they're strongly opinionated in general, and try to ignore it. Haha

All of my friendships with real people, are over the internet.

Coming out for me, in regards to my friends that I've known for a few years, was largely a slow process. They've known I've acted, and have had tendencies of the opposite gender that I was physically given. They've probably, for quite awhile, already figured I was preferably keeping my gender somewhere in the ambiguity line. When I did finally decide to say I had gender dysphoria,they where hardly surprised at all.

In interactions with people after this event, I often have my physical gender and mental gender stated on my profile, and i get about a 50/50 positive/negative reaction.

I first came out to my best friend E, when we were 12. He accepted it because he had similar feelings and we helped eachother understand the gender difficulties.
After a few years of all the adults in my life ignoring me I was finally allowed to start presenting as myself. So I came out to the rest my friends gradually. Most of them were supportive and just wanted to know more. But the thing to remember is if they don't get your pronouns and name right all the time at first, they aren't (normally)trying to hurt you. It is really difficult to change straight away, if you've known someone as one thing it is really difficult to change your way of thinking. So don't get disheartened, they will get it eventually.

When I came out to friends they were a little shocked at first but they quickly got into the swing of things and I also helped another friend gain the courage to come out as well.

Everyone around me in my family took it bad, and they think I'm satanic, the only person who took it well I hope, but not that good is a friend but he is gay so I guess he should be more open but our friendship is online, so it's not much of a help about social relationships. But I think everyone can have more luck thank me, so don't get discouraged!

My friends were utterly and astonishingly supportive.  One friend on the periperhery of my circle had some trouble, then came to me to personally apologise.

With me most of my friends kind of already knew. I was never really masculine but mostly androgynous. So coming out as trans just confirmed what they suspected all along. My father still doesn't accept it and still calls me by my boy name. [emoji35]