So, Yesterday was an interesting day. I had lunch with Mom, and the dinner with Dad. They are separated, so best to see them seperately, though it would save me a bunch of yap yap yap.

They both are struggling with this idea of me being trans. Mom is coming at it from the angle of having to fix her thought patterns, She has two sons and a daughter, not two daughters and a son! She also struggles with wanting to protect me from the hurts that I may have to encounter in the Catholic church and elsewhere because of it. My parents watched me get bullied throughout school age, because of a variety of things, so I understand it. However, she's suggesting I leave my faith just to avoid the hurts, which would not be a very good thing if I wanted to try and improve the lives of LGBTQ* persons in the Catholic Church, which I do want to do. So, sorry Mom, not planning on doing that, makes as much sense to me as "not having enough girl hormones as a kid so I didn't 'feel' like a girl..."

Dad's struggle was a bit easier, but no less long winded on my part, to allay. He just didn't see how I could suddenly think I was a boy. We are alike my dad and I. Face value people. So, he saw a daughter, and didn't think anything else could be there. Just as I did for a long time. But I was able to help him understand. The confusion over which bathroom I use was kinda funny though. "But you use the ladies' room" "Yeah Dad, I use the ladies room because I LOOK like a woman, if I looked like a guy, that's the one I'd rather use."

So, hopefully we shall become more and more comfortable with the idea. But we are all agreed (I won't tell my parents that they agree on something, if you don't) that I shouldn't tell Oma. 87 year old, old school German widows don't need the stress of trying to understand why their grandchild is actually a man, and not a woman...

If your faith is important to you, it would make better sense to stay in it. Parents are always a little difficult to come out to. They have different views as to why this happened to their "little girl". They need to understand that you didn't 'suddenly" decide you were a guy. Let them know that you wrestled with your gender issue for a long time, and you can no longer be happy in a girl's body.

Mothers seem to suffer guilt about things they may have taken or done during pregnancy. That isn't something you can really make them get over. They have to come to terms with it just as you did. Fathers are a little different. I think a lot of them are a bit protective about their daughters, and its hard for them to think of their "daughter" as their son.

All my life before I came out to my parents, I walked around with my shoulders slumped and my head down. My dad was constantly grabbing my shoulders and pulling them back. He would tell me I was pretty, and I'd about gag.

My parents were extremely supportive once they knew the problem, but each had problems with a different part of my transition. When I had my chest done, my mom cried. When I had the phalloplasty, my dad cried. My father is one of those stoic, analytical types, but I think for him it truly meant the end of having a daughter.

Anyway you look at it, your parents are going to have to go through a grieving process. They are losing a daughter and gaining a son doesn't make up for the loss. They have to work through many of the same things they would had you died. Pictures in the house of you have to be changed, scrap books with your "female" pictures hidden away and then there is having to deal with the people they know who think they have two daughters, and being seen with you means a great deal of discomfort for them. They probably fear having to explain you to their friends and aquaintences , and its hard. For years my mother wouldn't go into a store with me for fear of meeting up with someone who knew me before and thought my parent's had two sons and a daughter, not three sons.

Give them their space when they need it, and help them when they get stuck. They are bound to make mistakes in their pronouns when talking about you. It just takes time. If you try and put yourself in their shoes, you might be able to understand a little more of what they are going through.

sam1234

I have to admit that my Mum was amazing about me.  Whenever her friends asked her, 'I don't remember you having two daughters,' Mum just plain wouldn't be drawn into making any kind of comment about me.  'It's none of their business,' is what she told me and that was that as far as Mum was concerned.
My Mum did worry that something she might've done while she was pregnant caused this to happen to me, but that seems to be a Mum thing that's just about universal.

As for leaving the faith that means so much to you, that's not going to happen.  There would be ice skating in hell first

Well its up to you what you say since you know them best...

you might look up a brochure called "doh-transgender-experiences.pdf" . Only thing I would disagree with is page 7, where they state stress, instead many experience relief.
It states that being trans has biological connections, to do with development before birth which influences the sense of self.
So its not a light hearted decision, and there are many feeling this way. Its nobodys fault, neither theirs nor that of their upbringing.
And it explains some of the feelings transgender people have.

You additionally might give an explanation of a twin... you will be essentially the same person... like your male twin... with still the same sense of humour etc...

and concerning daddys, some come around if its explained that some girly stuff is not for you... and you are more interested in some kind of manly stuff, which you might share... of course only if it interests you...


hugs

Well you might look up the genderbread person.
The few bits of writing there should be easily translated to your language.
It shows clearly that gender identity, gender expression, sex etc are different things.
Its possible to click on the picture to see it larger.

There are parts of the brain different in sizes in women and men. It was found in autopsies that in transsexual people, those parts correspond to the gender they identify with, regardless if they underwent hrt.

Furthermore active parts of the brain in transgender people correspond in brain scans with those of the gender they identify with.

If you need an example from nature, there are animals who can change their sex.

Xy is not the only decisive factor. There are people who have androgen insensibilites and therefore look completely like cis women.

Its not black and white like it was taught in school. This is simply not reality. Life is analogue and not digital with only two possibilities.

I'd take the emotions out in talking.
I'd simply state my point, facts and needs, without getting upset or angry. People feel if someone wants to convince them, and it becomes a tug of war. If you stay calm and state facts and maintain your viewpoint, there is a change of pattern.


hugs

Quoteand her favorite obnoxious phrase, of course is "God doesn't make mistakes"

Of course though bibilinda the statement that, 'God doesn't make mistakes', cuts both ways as God had to have made us the way we are in the first place according to His own unknowable plan for us.

Blessings always,

Anne

My dad and stepmom are the most religious people I know, and they were both surprisingly accepting with very few questions asked (until I told them it was okay to ask impolite questions - then they wanted to know everything). They both agreed that God would not have made me transgender without a good reason for it, and felt like that reason would become clear as I started to medically transition.

It was the coming out I was most stressed about that ended up being a non-issue. 

Mom will come around. Once you start testosterone, she'll realize how silly it is to keep insisting that someone is female when they clearly aren't and haven't ever been.

Quote from: bibilinda on April 12, 2015, 05:05:43 PM
GREAT topic LoriLorenz. thanks!

And Sam, thanks for SUCH A GREAT POST!

I have underlined in bold type the parts of your message that resonate best with my current situation.

I have been on HRT for almost six years now. I had my male genitals and Adam's Apple removed almost five years ago, in October. My parents KNOW FOR SURE that I'm not male any more physically. They just don't want to accept that I NEVER WAS a male mentally.

My father laughs at it, as a typical macho-minded conservative misogynist guy, telling me hurtful things, not taking me seriously.

My mom is a Catholic zealot with a distorted version of what is right and wrong. To her, anything that deviates from "normal", like a man being manly because he has born with such genitals,  and a woman being feminine for the same reason, and heterosexual relationships between cis people being the only "acceptable" kind of relationships, is not acceptable period and her favorite obnoxious phrase, of course is "God doesn't make mistakes", regarding my supposed "given by birth gender". She doesn't even want to simply stop calling me by male pronouns and my birth name, and just call me in a neutral, gender-less manner.

My parents know about my being transgender since early July 2011, I mean since around my 2nd HRT anniversary, which means this year in July it will be the 4th year since they know, and they still 100% dismiss it.

My mother and I are killing each other slowly every day (I live with them, my folks, for complex reasons I'd rather not discuss, a great part of it is my GID itself).  It is like an endless tug of war in which it seems the one who dies first of a heart attack or anything related to extreme stress wins/loses (at this point the two of us don't really know if dying is better or worse than keeping on with this). I am embarrassed and wary of her calling me the male name in public and she is embarrassed of people asking her who that woman is when the neighbors see me, and we both avoid each other like the plague when it comes to having to go out together.

I have desperately tried for my mother to document herself on GID, realize that this is not a phase, it is not a fad, it is not that suddenly I was brainwashed by the internet or some crazy people, it is something I have always had since I was a child, but fear of both physical and emotional aggression (both of which I actually suffered from) led me to become a hugely-sized bodybuilder all my senior high and college years. And they got stuck with this image of mine as a huge manly bodybuilding guy. Curious thing is that when I was at it, they criticized me as well, telling me I was obsessed with exercise, with my own image in the mirror, that "it was not normal", and now they seem to miss THAT of me???

But it seems impossible for me to try and convince her (mother), that I am not a man, I've tried through my siblings (who don't accept me either as a woman, but at least respect me good enough as to not addressing me as a male any more), but she just doesn't  care.

And to make matters worse, my mother speaks very little English, and there's not as much information around and as easy to access in her primary language (Spanish) about transgender MTF, gender dysphoria, etc as there is in English, so it is very difficult for me to point her to some good resources to try and get informed.

Anyways this was a very long rant, I feel so frustrated with the attitude of my parents, every time they call me by that embarrassing male name they gave me at birth without my consent, I feel a shudder throughout my whole body. I feel like I want to die.

I wish I could find a way to convince my mother to stop treating me as a male, and then it would be easier to try and do it with my father as well.

Went through that "maybe if I try to overcompensate my GID with bodybuilding by stacking on muscle, it'll all go away" phase. Didn't work for me either lol