Hi all, incase you don't feel like reading about my personal woes (and I don't blame you ) I'll get straight to the subject , I'm sure this wasn't easy on any of us, but for those of you out  there who have done it, how on earth did you gather the courage to come out with your gender dysmorphia (I do hope that's the right term, I still feel painfully ignorant of the right terminology around here ).

Ok if you're still reading I'll expand on the reason I asked, after years of feeling this and dismissing it and myself as crazy, I finally got sick enough of the whole charade to post some pics of myself on the could I pass board a couple of days ago. The reply's I received, overwhelmingly positive, honestly lifted me up so much! I could do it! There is hope!

So I set out tonight to let a friend of mine know, just one friend that's all. I still don't imagine how i could ever possibly tell everyone, but I couldn't even do that.  I just hovered near the topic then let it drop I feel like crying right now. I can't even fathom building up the courage to come out to even my most accepting friends let alone my family at large and everyone else, I think I'm stuck like this...

edit: Just read this back to myself, feels a little melodramatic, all that's really happened is I've kept my mouth shut one more day, but I 'll leave it up now I've posted

You were not only telling your friend, you were telling yourself. For how many years you wanted to scream to the world...I AM NOT A MALE!!!!

So, when you start telling others, all the pain and emotion comes out.

So, now, how will you feel when you see your friend again? I will tell you: "happy and relive," and so it will be with the others.

In my experience a small people, usually those close to you -you know the ones who really love you- will accept you and cherish you, another small group of people will be hostile, and the majority of people would not care one way or another

Courage,

I actually got lucky.  I decide I was going to start adding small things to my wardrobe, one of which was wearing very small earrings.  The very first day one of my friends at work, ask why I was wearing earrings.  I looked at him and said "I am Transsexual".  And that was that.  The store knew shortly there after.

Hello, Hazel. I don't believe we've met before. I'm Reinhaven. Let's be friends and work through this together.

The first point Peky made was quite crucial to how you're feeling; not only were you telling your friend how you feel, but also saying it verbally to yourself. Telling yourself "yes; I <i>am</i> female."

When I first told my mom about who I was, I cried. A lot. I think it was mostly because I was talking to a person who had seen me as female for all of my life and I was scared she wouldn't love me anymore. She doesn't embrace my ->-bleeped-<-, and is even attempting to tell me otherwise--but just letting it out to someone who would listen was a first step.

I think you should tell someone who's tolerant. If you don't have a friend like that, there's no rush, but try to meet up with someone who seems flexible. This is key. One thing I feared my mom would do was act all shocked and dismayed, but she sat relaxed through our conversation. She heard me. Someone had heard me.

Maybe you should make a close female friend. I'm not saying that males aren't tolerant. What I'm getting at is that, once you tell her about your true self, she might be able to give you tips to feminize your appearance and actions. I mean, let's face it; after posing as one gender for so long, even if it wasn't your true one, you're going to be stuck in that gender's ways. You'll probably need some advice, but you can get advice here, too.

I know the pressure gender disphoria can have on you, so it's important to tell someone close to you. Make sure to tell them when you're ready. I hope for the best for you!

My friends and I were in a pizzeria, and I just flat out told them. Ripped the proverbial bandage right off. 

How I got the courage to do so? Well, I'm able to blank out and talk. So I just said it while in a trance, or should I say in a trans. Badum tsh!

Anyway, you can always try telling them, "I have something to tell you." By doing so, you basically have to give them something.

I got drunk and blurted out.

And yes, I think you'll make a very cute girl. 

Quote from: Fat Admin on January 05, 2013, 01:46:27 AM
I got drunk and blurted out.

Liquid courage! 

for me..it was interesting

After I had my eureka moment, I spent 3 months intensely researching the subject just to make sure I wasn't imaging things.

By the fourth month I did phone consultations with a therapist (none in my area)..still very much in the closet

I moved to Seminary in the summer of 2010. My Therapist told me it was now or never....going to school was the perfect time...a Seminary tho? o_0

For the next two months I was a girl inside my apartment and slowly wore like girl's blouses...by very andron.

In August, I tried to go to an MCC Church (LGBT heavy centered church) in andro clothing and makeup...I drove there...wigged out and drove home).

First week of September was our orientation class for graduate freshmen. Still very andro...makeup...said my name was Annah.

Second week of class I wore my first skirt, hose, and blouse. First class...sat there...15 minutes later I ran into the bathroom and threw up.

I was as right as rain ever since LOL

You do get used to it. Just like stepping into the ocean. It's cold at first but then you get used to it.

this is my transition video

When you first see me dressing up as a girl...that was only two months starting with makeup clothes, etc. By the time you see me with glasses, that was my second week of classes



oh...I came out to my family a couple weeks after that in October 2010

I was in the navy at the time.  While home on rec leave I told a close aunty of mine, over dinner at a restaurant one night, in tears.  That was after months of deliberation.  We talked for hours after that, and a few days later I had to go back.  Then a few weeks later got a call from my sister on the base.  My Aunty had told my cousin, who told my sister. 

Then about 6 months later I flew home especially to tell my parents.  My Dad burst into tears.  He's that kind of guy.  But they were great.
Then a few days later I flew back to base, and had another 6 months to go until I got out and started HRT properly. 

How I did it really depended on the person. But most I told in person.. Then there were the few old friends in far places I told on the phone. And then there was the long post on Facebook for the rest of the world..

Each time I told someone it got easier. But, by far, the hardest person to ever tell was myself.

Well my father called on his break at work and he could tell that I was sad over the phone so he asked what was wrong.  I told him that he wouldn't understand and he said "try me" so I told him. 

My sister was on the phone with me discussing all of the trouble that was going on in Israel.  She was saying how she was keeping Isarael in her prayers so at that time I came out to her.  It was like a "oh, okay, hey guess what?  I'm transgender."

I told one of my friends on the phone.  I pretty much said I know why I feel this way and it's becasue I'm transgender.

Quote from: hazel on January 04, 2013, 07:32:01 PM
So I set out tonight to let a friend of mine know, just one friend that's all. I still don't imagine how i could ever possibly tell everyone, but I couldn't even do that.  I just hovered near the topic then let it drop I feel like crying right now. I can't even fathom building up the courage to come out to even my most accepting friends let alone my family at large and everyone else, I think I'm stuck like this...

It sounds to me like you are not quite ready to come out. You are very close, but not quite there. Once you are ready no force on Earth will stop you from telling people and the first time is always the hardest.

One simple option is to have a piece of paper with the words "I am transsexual but I find it hard to talk about it" and then pass that to whoever you want to talk to and then let them ask questions. It is always easier to answer question.

My preferred method was to write down an explanation on an A4 page together with supporting notes on a few other pages which I then mailed to the people involved. This allowed them to have everything written down so they could re-read it and take it in and decide what they wanted to know. I found that it worked very well.

Once you have told one person, it gets a lot easier. Once you have told 3 or 4 it starts to get tedious. By the time you have done a dozen it is "Oh yeah - I am a male to female transsexual, don't worry about it, it is no big deal"

:-)

An excellent piece posted by a woman in my group

Quote from: hazel on January 04, 2013, 07:32:01 PM

So I set out tonight to let a friend of mine know, just one friend that's all. I still don't imagine how i could ever possibly tell everyone, but I couldn't even do that.  I just hovered near the topic then let it drop I feel like crying right now. I can't even fathom building up the courage to come out to even my most accepting friends let alone my family at large and everyone else, I think I'm stuck like this...

Here is a bit of my early days and my own transition:

My transition stated with a lot of crying. A girl I was seeing at the time commented to me one night when we were talking "You know, it's like your a girl or something.". I guess she could tell something wasn't quite right with me. One day she caught me wearing her make up and was like WTF?? Then it all starting coming out of me. I cried for a long time and finally after exhausting all of my tears it came out. I remember a few days later buying a book off of Amazon.com called "True Selves" and that made me cry even more because now I knew what I had to do.

Sometimes I feel like my life was that of a thoroughbred horse. I was born and bred to do this one thing and ahead of me lied my own Kentucky Derby. Once I started doing electrolysis for a few months is when the fog started to lift and I knew I could do it. I had started to figure out the puzzle. I read the hundreds of pages of informaton on tsroadmap.com over and over and over. I printed off pages so I wouldn't forget. I worked on making my own time table, started figuring out how much it would all cost and how I could get there. Then it was just a matter of getting myelf in for therapy and hormones and the rest. I showed up for my first apointment at my primary therapists office looking like a typical office guy look. After that first session is when I decided to throw out my clothes, keeping only a few things I needed for work and began living a dual life, which I knew I would have to do while I figured out when I could get to full time day 1.

I joined the yahoo FFS group and read through posts and studied of all of the facial surgery techniques and read and read and read. Then I knew I was ready to talk to surgeons about what was right for me.

In 2000, I registered for an IFGE convention so that I could learn about surgeries directly from the surgeons and I ended up walking away with a great feeling of confidence because I met other successfully transitioned women and it gave me the opportunity to ask them questions and whether they thought my plans were any good. Of course whenever the topic turns to, is surgeon X better than surgeon Y is when the debate starts, so I learned quickly that my choice would be my own and for my own reasons.

At that convention I had a chance to talk and ask questions about my plans, in private, to Marci Bowers (she wasn't an SRS surgeon then and Dr Biber was still around). One person who really really helped me, although she probably doesn't know it was Donna Rose. One day we sat in the Hotel Lobby for what seemed like hours, drinking coffee and just talking about everything how she came out at work, how life was like on the full time side, recovering from facial surgery, etc etc. A few weeks after that I had my first round o facial surgery booked and I knew full time living was on the horizon and I could see it.

I went to my boss at work and finally told him, and the next day  was fired from my job and walked out of the bulding (job elimination they called it, so I could collect unemployment, funny how it was only my job elminated though). The very next day I filed my name change in court and then called the Dr's office and asked if I could do the surgery any earlier. Suprise, there was an opening in 3 weeks, and I even had the cash to pay for it as well I remember at the time I drove a pickup truck and my passport was still male, but I did have papers from my therapist. I wanted to make sure I made it over the border so I dressed like a guy and wore a john deere tractor hat I bought at Kmart so I could tuck all  my hair underneath.

Once I was back from Canada and the shock and awe of the surgery results started to kick in and my approved name change came back from the court, I knew I was there. I didn't have a job but I was full time, my nasty facial hairs were gone, and I was officially on hormones. I literally went bonkers. Years of pent up feminity came gushing out. I wanted my fingers and toes done, I needed to get my ears pierced and I wanted to buy jewelry and more clothes. I started off at goodwill. I did manage to find some things that I could wear for cheap since I was on unemployment and 2 nice womens suits.

I was out of work and then I learned when I tried to re-enter the work place how difficult it is for us, but I kept at it. I don't give up so easily. An old boss I knew had called me one day and say call this place they have a job opening you will be ineterested in. I guess it helped being an exemplary employee at that company that he felt comfortable giving a recommendation for me. Two weeks later I had a freaking job. I took a huge pay cut, but hey I had a job and my transition didn't come crashing down to the ground. I knew between electrolysis and saving for surgery it was going to be tight, plus I had to finish off my 1 year of full time with my therapist to get my letters so I had to keep that going as well. Once therapy was done and electrolysis was waning down, the surgery pot grew fast. One thing I learned about the surgeons is that money talks. The waiting list stuff is a work of fiction. When I called and said I had my letters and more importantly the cash, when I can get it done, I had 3 dates within 5 mnutes I ended up having to move the date out a bit to the begining of March 2003 not because I had to, but because that would be the best for work and to make sure I would be coming back  to work and being able to resume my duties.

The rest is history. The trip to Thailand for my breast augmentation was a reward for a transition well done. I had won the derby. I did that trip between jobs so I had all the time I needed to enjoy myself thoroughly. My career took off, my confidence was soaring, and I loved every breath of air that filled my lungs. I had enough confidence and happiness for 10 people. Then I needed to disappear and figure out exactly what kind of woman I was. Who was I? I had gone through all of this whirlwind and now I had to figure out the hard part. So I disappeared for many years while I was making new friends, finding new activities, learning new things about myself that I always longed for. After a few years I started to wonder. I can't be the only one who made it out the other side, happy, well adjusted and loving life, can I? It can't be just me? So that's why I'm here Hopefully to be a positive affirming model for someone else, like the way Donna Rose and Marci Bowers was with me.

Quote from: hazel on January 04, 2013, 07:32:01 PM
edit: Just read this back to myself, feels a little melodramatic

In my experience drama is not atypical.  But this is big deal stuff with a lotta big moments that can be overwhelming so perhaps it's to be expected, and definitely always forgiven.

Quote from: peky on January 04, 2013, 08:09:37 PM
You were not only telling your friend, you were telling yourself.

And as others noted, I like this too.

All the times I came out, I came out when I was ready as I believe you will.  Odds are it will get easier as you get more confident in yourself and do it a few times. 

Quote from: bev2 on January 05, 2013, 06:43:29 AM
By the time you have done a dozen it is "Oh yeah - I am a male to female transsexual, don't worry about it, it is no big deal"

And life starts to get really cool when you arrive here!

The first time I did it, I sent a very lengthy email that went through the parts of my life that they didn't know about. Then followed up with an in person visit a couple weeks later. I wish I had done that the other way around now though. That was to my mother and she spent two weeks thinking she did something wrong.

I have plans to tell a friend, unfortunately our plans fell through and I have to wait a bit. For that one I have a few generic thoughts put together on paper that I'll read from in person. Basically it just says I'm transgendered and answers questions I expect to immediately pop out of her mouth, like whether or not I'm gay (my mother asked me that). It also lists out some things that she thinks I like that I actually despise and vice versa.

My therapist also told me that the second she hears transgendered, there's a good chance that she won't hear anything else, so I should write another paper up to leave with her for afterwards. So that one is about 5 pages long that literally answers every question I could think of anybody asking.

EDIT: Oh and I also linked this site at the bottom of the longer letter in case I forgot anything.

I was lucky. most of my friends just figured it out in junior high school and from that point on. my parents caught me dressing like a girl at school so that caused problems until they had a family meeting. that was like waiting for AIDS test results. but we talked, cried and yelled and then cried some more and then all was well.

I could write a book of coming out stories, in part because I did it in such strange stages. I don't recall the last time I wore anything from the men's department, but for a long time I had been presenting in a very androgynous, but for me still a very compromised way.

Never dresses, never anything super girly. Part of that is my age and personal style, but there are so many outfits I've been tempted to wear in public that I haven't worn until recently. I've had pierced ears for at least the last 10 years, but almost never wore anything but posts, and often very subtle ones, in public, when I really wanted to wear more dangly, unmistakeably femme styles, which I've collected quite a few of over the years.

One "cheat" in my most recent coming out to over 100 people, some who've known me for decades, but many who've barely known me at all, in part because I've so long been living in a kind of "hide in plain sight mode" was that my son was coming out to the same group as a transman. He hasn't started HRT or other procedure, and he really wants top surgery to happen ASAP.

But it seemed to me that I couldn't really support his coming out without doing a bit of my own. The week started with me presenting at the most femme I have in a public setting, but after a day of that, and several verbal comings out to people who knew me well, I was still concerned I was being too ambiguous. We were doing a kind of roleplay game, and I'd discussed with (and my son was helping run that part of the event and also talked to the leaders) and we agreed I would present full femme, including breastforms, dress and unmistakably female presentation. I stayed that way for the rest of the event.

It was nervewracking to walk out the door the first time, and each time I changed outfits there were a few moments of thinking "Is this too much?" followed by, "But you're already out!"

The conversations that followed were some of the most open and honest I've had with those people or anyone I know. I'd already been out with my ex  for many decades, and had been having ongoing conversations with my kids making my status much more clear to them in the past few months, so this wasn't a shock for them. And it wasn't much of a shock for those who already knew me well... but then I had tried over the years to never actually lie about my gender identity, I just hadn't made it totally clear, or dwelled on it as an issue.

For me it was a great weight being lifted, and opened up a lot of conversations I only wish I'd managed to have many years earlier than this.

To some extent it was also a survival necessity... feeling contstrained in the ways I'd imposed on myself was only contributing to more depressive waves of feeling that often bordered on a passive suicide wish. Whenever I started to feel a little awkward about the situation (since I'm not yet on HRT, and my facial features don't exactly make me totally passable (and I also went there without a wig and had to tease my hair into the best approximation of a femme hairstyle I could manage) -- I reminded myself of some things my son had said when he was spending a few weeks in an outpatient program, dealing with anxiety issues during his senior year of high school.

He said in a number of family sessions how he wished that I could be more hopeful, and so much of my lack of hope and optimism at that time was coming from my feelings of entrapment, and so much of that came from not feeling enabled to just be myself, and let people's reactions be whatever they would be.

I lost track during the week of how many of my friends (who I can now call friends without thinking I'm using some special definition of that word) said something similar to "It's great seeing you this happy. I've never seen you so at ease with yourself."

Quote from: Elspeth on January 05, 2013, 11:53:17 AM
I lost track during the week of how many of my friends (who I can now call friends without thinking I'm using some special definition of that word) said something similar to "It's great seeing you this happy. I've never seen you so at ease with yourself."

I have also had that sort of comment from both friends and relatives. One friend even went so far as to say that she really preferred me as I am now as opposed to my old male persona. I am frequently amazed by how supportive people have been.