It took two years of completely freaking out and at least a dozen false starts, but I finally came out to my closest male friend. He took it way better than I ever expected him to. He said he wanted me to be doing things safely, be 100% sure this is what I want and that doing this lets me be happy. When I told him how long I've been seeing my therapist, the endo, and going to the support group he said he was just happy for me and wished I told him sooner. Wow! Considering I half expected for him to tell me I'm crazy and then just pretend I said nothing - instead he summed it up pretty well: "it's really not that big of a deal, it's not like you're a totally different person and we're still friends". I would have hugged him, but I didn't want to risk totally overloading him :laugh:
I have had false starts and told some people over the years, but it has all added up and helped push me forward. I look at it the way that I quit smoking. not failed stops, but more like brakes until I was ready fully stop. haven't smoke in 5 years. a lot of things are habits female or male. braking old ones starting new ones.
Congrats!
Did he not even notice how you have been changing? Had he ever commented on your appearance?
Jay
Thats awesome. It was almost the same for me. I had been trying to tell my best friend for a long time but i was basically only dropping hints by saying things half jokingly to see how she would take it. When i finally straight up told her she just said that she wants me to be absolutely sure before I transition and it wouldn't change anything between us...I'd just be like the brother she never had. It felt awesome :)
Quote from: sneakersjay on June 21, 2010, 11:55:17 PM
Congrats!
Did he not even notice how you have been changing? Had he ever commented on your appearance?
Jay
Thanks!
Basically the biggest comment I ever got from him was when I started wearing my hair in a ponytail, and his comment came more than a month after I started wearing my hair like that. Even though I've known he's mostly oblivious for the 15+ years I've known him, I was amazed how little he actually seemed to pick up on. He had come to the conclusion that I was gay and told me that's what he thought I wanted to tell him, but if transgender was in his vocabulary maybe it would have clicked. I think he was surprised but decided it makes sense in hindsight.
I was getting annoyed with him because I've tried to start the conversation a few different times in the last couple months and it went nowhere, but I didn't want to just blurt it out. I would ask him if we could talk about something important going on with me and he'd either change the subject or say he was too stressed/whatever to talk about anything serious. Sunday night I decided to stop asking him if we could talk and pretty bluntly told him we needed to talk and set a time. That worked much better than asking to talk "sometime" about "something". (duh)