So today, I felt pretty good about pretty much everything my voice practice ect ect, until I went to go see my nephew play soccer. I over heard my sister and my mom talk.

Apparently my nephew had said he wants to be a girl, now he is only four and frankly I can't remember when I was four so I can't say when I started feeling the way I did. I am not sure if four is a good indicator or not. But what concerns me is how my mom and sister reacted.

My nephew apparently wants to have a purse, be a girl teacher and when I think about it he has always said similar and played pretend in similar ways. My sister and my mom talked about how they read aboutparents some were allowing their son to dress/act ect like a girl. My sister was saying things like "no" we wont allow him to do things like that and he can have a wallet but not a purse. On the drive home my mom said it freaked her out since she had just read/watch something on the subject of young transgender children just the other day.

To make a long story short - they ended up blaming his feelings with lack of guy to guy bonding and that my brother in law spends more time paying attention to my niece who is one year old today.

So here I am a month or so since coming out to myself, literally on the verge of coming out myself and now I am concern about my nephew. I feel very sad since I would not want anyone to go through the struggle I have. The lonely days and social awkwardness that I feel up to this very day. My nephew I see allot of myself in him and my mom and dad always confuse our names so I believe they see allot of me in him also.

SO I am just sad and concerned I can't help it either, here I am someone who may understand the situation better then my family but I am to much of a wimp to come out - or to say anything. I dunno maybe I am concerning myself in something I shouldn't.

The whole thing is very odd to me, since I've been asking praying and hoping for some kind of sign to push forward...

Advice is welcomed, but I am mainly just venting my frustration at this odd turn of events...

While you are family members, you and your nephew are different people.  You shouldn't let his possible gender issues conflict with the ones that you are facing.  He'll be okay no matter what happens what you decide.

Having said that, this could be a blessing in disguise.  Perhaps this could turn into a learning experience for the whole family about gender issues and how real they are.  Your coming out may very well have a positive impact on the life of a young transgender person.  I know I'm being very positive and things are more complex than this, but I always try to see the potential positives in any given event. 

I know I should not, but I am worry for him since I can relate.

There is also the fact that if I come how, how will that effect him, how will it effect my sister and my parents. I am overly concern with "rocking the boat" per-say.

I feel like i've been betraying myself recently - the other day a rl friend of mine brought up Manning saying how he thought it was weird they changed 'him" to "her" on wiki. Instead of saying what I wanted to say - I said something else something along the lines of "What ever floats his boat" instead of saying "If it makes her happy why do you care?"

I've been trying to be more the way "I want to be" but my old self keeps getting in the way..

Argh here I am moping again. Sorry hehe just blah and err.

Sometimes the boat needs to be rocked.  What's the better outcome.  A) You say nothing and force yourself to live a life you don't want.  B) You take a stand a be who you are on the inside and live the life you desire.  Transitioning is difficult and it isn't for everyone, but if that's what you really want then you can't let fear hold you back.  Fear doesn't always lead to the best results. Judging from all of your previous posts, you will feel stagnated not taking the action you feel you need to take.  I leave up to you to decide as it is a personal journey, but please don't hold yourself back only for the sake of fear of rocking the boat. 

Hi Aina,
Our paths had never crossed up until now but, before making any attempt to react to your posts on this thread, I have just quickly gone through your previous posts. One thing you said made an awful lot of sense to me. You have only one year left in college and, since you consider yourself a bit of a late starter, getting that finished before trying to take anything else on does indeed look like it should be your top priority.

If you have gone through the posts of other people in your age group, you will have noticed that employment is a huge issue for many and without employment it is very difficult to move forward effectively with everything else.

Against that, as quite a few of us can attest, when you have marketable skills, being transgender is not nearly as big a handicap as you might think. If you have been following Joanna Dark's threads you will find a recent very good example of what I mean.

Regarding your nephew, by any standards, unless he is stating clearly that he is a girl, it is probably too early to draw any conclusions. That being said, I do agree with LtL that if the subject comes up in a conversation again, you may be able to use it to open a general discussion on the topic. A good way for you to test the ground.

BTW, based on LtL's experience, among others, if you really think your family would be strongly against your transitioning (supposing it really is something you want to do), I would strongly suggest that you have a back-up plan in place before coming out ie. that if necessary you can move out. To be frank, unless your parents are really very supportive, I'm inclined to believe that trying to transition under the same roof as your family is just inviting trouble. Emotions run too high and between fear of what others will think and feelings of guilt, there is a whole minefield of obstacles to get through.

Right now, use all the threads here, and a couple of LtL's, like this one: https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,143167.0.html ,  are particularly interesting giving the  issues you seem to be facing, to help you sort out your own thoughts.   

Wishing you all the best.
Donna

Aina,

I would like to clarify something in the event things are taken the wrong way. I want to give you the most genuine and honest feedback I have. Coming out is very very hard.  The reason why I have given some much feedback to you is because I can relate with the fear you shared with us all.  When you first posted, I sensed the same fears I had about my family.  Coming out was difficult and has made life hell at points.  There have been times where I have wanted to throw myself off a building because of the stress and at times I felt it would have been better to have never said something.  I nearly got thrown out of my house and have been called names that I couldn't believe.  It isn't easy.  But despite all of my family issues, I have NO regrets about coming out at this moment.  Yes, my family has been hard to deal with.  In fact, I can't even imagine how evil my mom became at times; however, I have worked really hard to get her on my side and win her over.  Sometimes she still explodes, but now things are much better.  I can now be with my mom and hug her without feeling like I'm hiding something.  I can socialize with my sisters as their sister and not feel like a fraud.  It takes time and we're all still getting there and I have much to experience and learn through my transition; yet, I am glad I've gone through hell to get to this point.  Nothing is perfect, but allowing fear to hold us back, isn't always the best thing, in my opinion.  I can't guarantee you it will be easy or you family won't react well.  I'd be lying to say otherwise.  What I can tell you is that coming out and transitioning is an amazing thing if it is in fact the right thing.  Going through hell can take us to heaven.   Sure, make plans to ensure your life is stable when you do so, but don't let fear be the only thing keeping you back.  Despite the fact that I'm only on 3 months of hormones, have a lot to learn, and have struggled to get to where I am at this point,  I can tell you it is good to make the move if transitioning is the right choice.  The blog that I have posted (which was linked here) outlines the fears and emotions that exist when coming out; however, there are many good times to experience as well.  I can't tell you how it will go for you, but I have been in this situation before and my initial post is my honest belief. 

In any event, I wanted to clarify. Nothing is easy and my rock the boat comment isn't meant to be an illustration of how easy life can be. Someone took issue with my initial post on the grounds that I have nothing to add in this situation.  Quite the contrary, as your experience resonated with me and I desired to help you as I have gone through the fear and pain of coming out to my mother and sisters.  I wanted to provide further information to make sure my former post better understood.  As I said, life isn't easy and there are plenty of struggles to deal with when coming out.  But you shouldn't feel the need to keep it in if it is killing you.  It's liberating and the difficulties are worth overcoming for many of us.  Yes, I'm still overcoming the difficulties and face depression to this day (you may struggle as well), but that isn't to say that it isn't worth it. I can't say if it will be the same for you, but I wanted to share what I have gone through.  This is as honest as I can be.  Again, I hope this helps and wanted to share because I related with your posts.

Thanks guys I know most of my post seem to be me complaining but I really appreciate the feedback, it just this last month really has thrown what I thought my life was into a tail spin.

To make this day even weirder, we went out to dinner since it was my niece's first birthday and we had lot of guest ect. My sister tells me that she put a eharmony profile of me out on the internet with out even telling me.

I am upset, but not horribly because I know she is just concern for me if anything I think it will eventually force me to confess my feelings.

Donna, school is a pretty top priority for me so is my part-time graphic design job, regardless what happen I am going to finish - from what I've gathered my feelings and worries have not effect my school life. Work and School + playing games is the only time my mind is mostly clear and unhindered.

Aina, perhaps you could provide some information to your Mom and sister about transgender in general. They like most are ignorant of the topic. You have a unique opportunity. You can provide information that will educate your family from a safe and cis stand point.

I was just dealing in therapy with what happened to me at 5, 46 years ago. I am learning to forgive people who are long gone and help move a 5 year old stuck in the past, me.

if you want to speak some words that might make life easier for both your sister and nephew... take my cute little brother as an example. my mom is somewhat transphobic (accepts all trans people but doesn't want any of her own children to be trans or gay), but not enough to believe that opposite gender clothing will make someone the opposite gender. my brother has always liked dressing up and playing girl games with our sister, in grade school he at some point ended up growing his hair long enough to look like a girl just because he was so cute. now that he's in high school, he still uses girl clothes at times, he even once robbed our sister's wardrobe. but he's still a guy.

forcing your kids to do things they don't want to will often make them more intent on doing what they want. never giving your kids what they want will not help them lose interest. if a boy gets to wear dresses when he wants to, he'll simply lose interest after a while. tell him he can't, and he'll only get hurt by unnecessary enforcing of gender roles.

my daughter also likes to pretend she's a boy some times. as soon as i start treating her like one, she quits. being called the name i chose just in case she were a boy wasn't fun. me not playing a game but doing it for real, wasn't fun either. i'll admit i'm slightly disappointed, raising a girl is hard since i can't understand her girly interests, having a boy once in a while would be nice. in the end, i just let my sister give her the female attention she needs. i can be a woman if i have to, but discussing makeup and playing with dolls is just...

Well they don't always say no to things, for example they let him watch Sofia the First today when he was over. My niece got a Disney Princess castle and my sister let him play with it, and he used the Disney Princess in a mega blocks castle I built with him, we even build a cannon to protect the princess in.

Today I feel he will be ok, I think yesterday's conversation my sister and mom had just jolted something inside of me, and again this last month has really been a time of reflection for me so maybe I am just overly sensitive to the subject.

I know of frequent occasions where I've overheard some member of my family mention something transphobic not knowing that there is someone in the room that finds that hurtful.  Society does a lot to objectify and dehumanize transfolk which places us in a position of many uphill battles when dealing with others, especially close family.  In general, I think this obstacle isn't insurmountable, it just takes work and love.  It sounds like your family doesn't have any deep seeded hatred for transgender people, just a lack of understanding, and they probably just would prefer your nephew to take a path that is less likely to invite ridicule and scorn from society.  When you are ready, talk to them and use this as an educational moment.

Your nephew has a good few years before he would even be allowed HRT and then has to be 16 for E etc. So I say deal with yourself for now then see how to help your nephew. Remember they are really young they have time lots of it before they can in general be treated.

So focus on yourself for get your life in order become happy, then help your nephew.