Hey everyone,
I'm fairly new here. Today I came out to my best friend, well, kind of. I told her that I felt like I wanted to be a boy and that's what felt right to me. She took it much better than I thought and was very understanding. Problem is, now I'm not sure where to go from here. She said about if I wanted to tell my parents and I said no as I didn't want to hurt them. So now my best friend knows which is great, but I still feel in exactly the same place as before if you know what I mean. I'm still hiding from everyone else, I still can't be myself. I was thinking about telling my therapist (i have depression) but I'm scared she'll tell my parents as I'm under 18. I feel really stuck.
Joey

Hey whats up i know exactly what you are saying im in the same position basically. My girl friend knows thats it , im 25 now but hate being female . I want to tell parents but dont know how,especially my dad i know wont take it well. I want to start T , asap. Like its hard but if doing this makes me feel better than thats whats matters if your family love you they will eccept it one day . Hang in there , you are not alone dude...

Cheers for the message buddy. It's good to know I'm not alone. Have you ever thought about writing a letter to your parents? I've thought about it but I'm too scared. It sucks. Here if you wanna chat.
Joey

Hey Joey4

Congrats on taking a very difficult step - it's just the first of many.

I see from your profile that you're in my neck of the woods - which means your therapist is bound by UK confidentiality laws. I presume your therapist is a member of BACP, which means she must keep everything confidential unless she believes you to be at risk of harming yourself or someone else.

Talking to your therapist is a good start - and you can always start the conversation by saying that you want to discuss a private matter that doesn't involve harming anyone, that must be kept confidential from your parents. (If she refuses to keep it confidential, you can simply not tell her). She will then have to keep it confidential unless you say something that indicates you're going to hurt yourself or someone else because of it. Anyway, talking to your therapist can help you sort out the way forward, including what, how and when to tell your parents. But I feel I ought to tell you that most therapists don't know anything at all about Gender Dysphoria as it is a specialist subject and very few of them ever come across it.

I don't know how far under 18 you are, but if you ever decide that you want medical assistance with your dysphoria, the first step is to speak to your GP (if you can do so confidentially), who will then refer you to your local Community Mental Health Team for a general assessment. If they are happy that you're mentally sound and that you appear to have Gender Dysphoria, they'll refer you to a Gender Clinic for further assessment and treatment. There's a Gender Clinic in Exeter, or in London if you prefer.

And by the way... many, many people with Gender Dysphoria suffer from depression too - for very obvious reasons - so don't let that worry you.

Good luck!

Thank you for the informed reply! I'm not sure if she's a member of the BACP as I got referred to her through the NHS. I know she's gotta tell someone if I'm going to hurt myself or others but I'm not going to with this situation. I'm on antidepressants so we've got past that stage of confidentiality. I told a youth leader at my LGBT youth group that I think I'm trans and he's going to talk to me again this week.

I'm 18 next year if that helps. I'm scared that if I talk to my GP, they'll also tell my parents or my parents would find out somehow anyway. I'm really scared that if I have an assessment and they say that I don't have gender dysphoria, I'm going to be stuck like this forever. I've kept it quiet all my life and I'm not one of those people who as a child told my parents I wanted to be a boy from an early age :/ I bottle things up until I explode.

Joey

Joey, if you TRULY think you're transgender , first persue all the medical ramifications that you can , either here or Google searches . There is more than ONE way to identify as Transgender too. I've known "Gender Benders , Fetishishists , and Cross Dressers . Now they all can come under the "Transgender Umbrella ". The point I'm trying to make is this , determine where you think you fall, even if it's between a bracket . ALLOW YOU'RE SELF TIME TO Practice being the gender you wish to present you're self as for awhile . ASK QUESTIONS, LOTS OF THEM ! ellen

Would I be able to start T if I came across as both genders? I hate this. It's so hard and confusing.
Joey

Quote from: Joey4 on November 20, 2012, 10:32:42 AM
Would I be able to start T if I came across as both genders? I hate this. It's so hard and confusing.
Joey

That comment is the final confirmation that you're one of us. 

Welcome to the circus. Big Hugggs

I take it that's a good comment? Haha. Thanks
Joey

You're welcome.

If you're 18 next year, that will make you legally an adult and your parents will no longer be responsible for your medical treatment etc. and they'll have no right to access your records, be informed of anything without your consent, or give (or withhold) permission for you to obtain any medical treatment.

You can ask your therapist if she's a BACP member, but every NHS therapist I've seen has been a member. Even if she isn't, she'll be bound to a code of conduct & confidentiality - you can simply ask her in advance to keep it confidential.

Your GP is the gateway to every service offered to transgender/gender variant people within the NHS so you have to start there. You can ask whether your GP can keep it confidential, but if you're really that worried could you wait until you're 18? Let's face it: if you do have GD your parents will find out about it eventually anyway. Have a look at this site, which has a wealth of information including NHS publications that describe the options that are available and the ways to access them: http://www.gires.org.uk/transpeople.php

It is hard, and it is confusing. But a good Gender Therapist will help you sort all of that out so you can make the right decisions for yourself. To get there, you have to see your GP, then your Community Mental Health team, then you have to wait for the Gender Clinic to get funding from your PCT (this can take several months) before you see a specialist at the clinic. You may well be 18 by the time you get referred to the clinic anyway, which is just as well as there's only one clinic in the UK that deals with under-18s (the Tavistock Clinic in London). Their therapists will help you decide what's right for you. You don't have to do this alone - we're here, and so are the medical specialists. And it's not a quick process so there's plenty of time (and plenty of support) to make sure you're doing the right thing.

Don't worry about whether your assessment might say you don't have dysphoria. A good therapist will correctly assess you and if it turns out to be something else, they'll help you with that instead - so you won't be stuck.

Aaaand finally... a wise person once said: if you think you have Gender Dysphoria, you probably do have Gender Dysphoria.

Hang in there.

Your post has just given me so much hope, I can't thank you enough. I have decided that I'm going to tell my therapist Monday. She may refer me back to my GP and then I'll take it from there. One step at a time. Thank you again for such a detailed response.
Joey

Just a question to anyone who has read or commented, do I look like a boy in my avatar or still very much like a girl? Anything I can do to look more boyish? Thanks.
Joey

The whole 'coming out' thing, when it came down from the gay community was not a beginning, but more of an end.  It was to announce to everyone who didn't know (basically family) that you were gay.  Up to that point you had been gay, pretty much living a gay life, it was only these few people who didn't know and it was just about truing the ship to a steady course.  So really you had the life before you told everyone, it wasn't "well now that I've had my say, now how heck do I do gay."

So what you need to do is find out how much this really is you, and how far you're willing to go to accomplish it.

I'm assuming that because you've got depression and are seeing an NHS shrink that you're seeing someone from CAMHS?  As far as I'm aware -- I personally haven't seen anyone from CAMHS about being trans because the only one who will see me is a sadistic freak and there's no way I'm going back to see him -- if you spoke to your GP about being trans then they'll refer you to CAMHS anyway, who will check for any other mental health issues that could lead to you believing that you're trans, and then once you get the all clear from them they refer you to a Gender Identity Clinic (GIC).  There's a couple of those around the country, about half will see people your age I think, although they do prefer it if you have parental consent under the age of 18.  You won't get put on T until you're 18 as far as I'm aware, but it will get the ball rolling and you can get a start on doing real life experience when you're ready so things might get sped up when you do reach 18.  That would be my plan, but as I said, there's no way I'm putting my self at the mercy of my CAMHS doctor again.

They have to keep things confidential, especially if you explicitly ask them to.  Obviously if there's a risk to harming you or someone else that's different, but there should be none of that in this case, (unless you're planning to do your own top surgery ).

As for coming out to your parents, I did it through my parents closeted lesbian friend.  She told them that I wasn't happy being a girl, and they took me to my GP about it a couple of times -- which just dissolved into ranting about my shrink and begging to make him close my file because seeing him was making everything worse -- but they've not spoken to me about it since.  That was probably over a year and a half ago, so I think they're just hoping it does away.  It's not going away.  It wasn't easy, but their reactions are either going to go one of three ways, accepting, ignoring, or hating.  If they you that you're "gay" that might help you gauge which of those their potential reactions might be.

What I found helps with no one in real life knowing is being myself online.  One of my friends knew, but she never really understood it.  I told another person that I was my ex's boyfriend, and told her that they called me "Alex" but I don't think she ever put two and two together.  It's tough no one knowing who you really are, but sometimes it can still feel great, just today my friends at college agreed that I'm "practically a man" and they weren't just talking about my style.  It's good to know that other people can see me through this stupid body.

Quote from: tekla on November 20, 2012, 05:25:50 PM
The whole 'coming out' thing, when it came down from the gay community was not a beginning, but more of an end.  It was to announce to everyone who didn't know (basically family) that you were gay. 

Coming out as transgender may not be the end.

It may not even be the beginning of the end.

But it is the end of the beginning.

And it feels soooooooo gooooood!

Quote from: Joey4 on November 20, 2012, 04:04:26 PM
Your post has just given me so much hope, I can't thank you enough. I have decided that I'm going to tell my therapist Monday. She may refer me back to my GP and then I'll take it from there. One step at a time. Thank you again for such a detailed response.
Joey

This, in a nutshell, is why I do this.

Growing up was a nightmare for me and I had absolutely nobody to talk to about this when I was your age. I've known since I was 5 that I should've been a boy but I'd never even heard of Gender Dysphoria until I was 19.

But every time I get a response like yours, it's like I've put my arms around my own hurt, confused, inner teenage self and said: "there, there... you'll figure it out and it will get better".

So... thank you.

Hey Alex
Yeah I'm seeing someone from CAMHS and thankfully I get on with her really well which makes me more comfortable with telling her. So far the only mental health problems I have been diagnosed with are depression and anxiety, not sure what that means in relation to being trans as there have been several other major issues in my life. Sorry that you didn't get on with your CAMHS guy. Can't you ask to see someone else? My worker openly said that if I didn't like her I could change. Could you do that? Keep going to your GP and something will have to be done; like you said, it's not going to go away.
I think my dad will be accepting but I think my mum will completely hate me. I'm just scared. I told my best mate who was completely fine with it and she said it will be bad for me to supress the feelings so I may tell my parents.
I know exactly what you mean about the online thing. I love being able to sign things as 'Joey' and it feeling completely normal. I can be myself here and nobody knows me.

Quote from: FTMDiaries on November 21, 2012, 05:37:16 AM
This, in a nutshell, is why I do this.

Growing up was a nightmare for me and I had absolutely nobody to talk to about this when I was your age. I've known since I was 5 that I should've been a boy but I'd never even heard of Gender Dysphoria until I was 19.

But every time I get a response like yours, it's like I've put my arms around my own hurt, confused, inner teenage self and said: "there, there... you'll figure it out and it will get better".

So... thank you.

I'm glad that you helping me has helped you. Keep on helping people, you do an amazing job and it seems to help you too. All the best buddy.

Joey