I told my dad I'm trans. He asked for 30 minutes and came back with a sheet of paper
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/i-told-my-dad-i-m-trans-he-asked-for-30-minutes-and-came-back-with-a-sheet-of-paper/ar-BB1jfvp1?ocid=windirect&cvid=21c6b4b061a1423fb85e05303a067374&ei=20
Story by Gabe Gabriel (2 March 2024)
When I came out to my father, he immediately went quiet.
I had just opened up to him about the fact I'd decided to start taking testosterone and that I'd like him to refer to me as a different name to the one he and my mother had chosen for me.
That's when he asked me to give him half an hour to think about it and disappeared to his desk.
Unnerved, I was bracing for the worst. He didn't know a lot about trans folks at the time and had had a difficult time accepting my being outed as a lesbian when I was a teenager (another story for another time!).
Sure enough, around 30 minutes later, he came back to me and had a piece of paper in his hand. I noticed it had up to 20 adjectives on it.
He said he'd written down all the words he felt best described me – his child – and in doing so, had realised that none of them were gendered. I remember a few: 'kind', 'thoughtful', 'compassionate', 'ambitious'...
So if what I was telling him was really that I was going to make some changes to my body but still be the same person he'd brought up and loved, then he was fine with it...