I visited my parents a few weeks ago when I took a short break from work. A few days before that, I went through some psychiatric tests recommended by my therapist (see
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,186020.msg1683728.html#msg1683728).
I had been thinking that I'd come out to my parents only when I have everything figured out and am just about to start HRT, but when I got the MMPI report which said the elevated M-F score indicated GID, it just seemed like an external validation that I could rely on to explain to them, so I decided I'll come out to them on this trip itself.
I initially waited to catch both of them together, but then figured I didn't want to waste time, so I just sat down with my mother and told her. My father was not around then, but when he came home, I told him too. We had a couple more conversations about this before I left two days later.
Before even my first talk with my mother, both of them had already noticed I had this weird remnant of a beard shadow left after the first laser session, but they couldn't understand where it came from. Initially I just made up excuses and said there was nothing unusual. My mother also noticed that I was wearing women's leggings when I reached home the first day, even though I simply claimed they were men's. And of course, my hair which is now longer than it has ever been. But she didn't quite put all these things together until I told her.
I told her that I had been facing confusion and questions about gender for some time now... for a few years off and on but very seriously and constantly for the last few months. I tried searching for info online and after ruling out a lot of other possibilities, I had come to this conclusion about GID. I explained how it was different from sexuality and especially for someone who was 'straight' in their assigned gender, it could be even harder and take longer to figure out, so it was not as if I hid anything from them or from my wife. In fact, I had hid it from myself all along. I also told how I had gone through a really tough time a few months ago when I first figured it out, and that I couldn't eat or sleep properly for a few days then, and that depression, anxiety and suicide attempts were common among others who went through it. In my case, suicide wasn't something I had immediately considered, but I had this general devil-may-care attitude about life and my health all along which I was now beginning to address, that all these years even as I tried being an ideal son to them, an ideal husband to my wife, and had done well enough in my career etc, I still couldn't care much about my own life.
Finally, as I began to understand and address it, I had started seeing a therapist and he had recommended some tests, one of which had indicated GID.
She heard me out, came over and sat next to me when she saw I was distressed, and started by saying that I should never ever talk again about suicide, and that she would always support me no matter what. However, she found it hard to understand how I could be going through this, as I had never been too feminine as a child. She was also very concerned about my wife, my marriage, career etc and said I would have to consider all of that. We then decided to wait until my father came home to talk more.
********* trigger warning **************
With my father, it was completely different. I showed him the psychiatric report but he almost dismissed it, saying not just that I had never been really feminine, but also that I had no physical abnormalities, so what I said didn't mean anything. Basically he was conflating being transgender with being intersex. I told him that was not true, and told him everything that I had told my mother, but he didn't seem to be convinced. He simply said that if there is some 'problem' and someone is not fully male or female, then it could be 'corrected', but otherwise, there was no way for someone completely male to become completely female and vice versa.
For some reason, that day's and the previous day's newspaper had articles on transgender celebrities etc, so I showed them those and told them that the women whose pictures were shown in those articles had all been in the same situation. No intersex conditions but just that they were transgender.
I had thought that he might make some snide remark about those celebrities, or compare with some Indian celebrity that we tended to look down upon, but he then came up with the most bizarre thing I could have expected. He turned to my mother and said, 'you remember that police officer who started dressing up as Radha and dancing etc?' By this time, I was totally put off so didn't bother talking much, and we left it there.
Later, I searched online for this Radha story (she was the mythological lover of the Hindu god Krishna) and came across this
http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/article31599.ece. Next day, I asked my mother and she confirmed this was what he was talking about - they had seen this story in the news a few years ago but I seem to have missed it.
I was really angry at this point. Now let me make it clear, I do not want to judge that police officer on being transgender or going through something else, but this was someone not just claiming to be of a particular gender, but also claiming to be a reincarnation of a goddess. Typical stuff that hundreds of godmen and godwomen do in India all the time. And then he dismissed his wife's claims of alimony saying he didn't own anything!
I had thought that my father, a man of science and against all superstitions etc as I had always known him, would be able to understand, but all he could come up with was this? No he didn't believe in those claims of someone being Radha, he probably dismissed it and laughed at it, but to conflate my situation with that was really insulting. It would have been OK if he had connected it to some effeminate celebrities who get laughed at, or even those on the streets who have to beg or get into sex work to get by, but no, he had to connect it to someone who frankly seems like a fraud.
Anyway, this time my father wasn't home again so I explained to my mother in more detail about GID and also showed her some videos on it. One of them was the story of an Indian trans girl who had completed her transition with her family's support and who 'passed' very well. It had been broadcast a few months ago and she said she had seen it, but now saw it again in a new light as she connected my situation to it.
Later that day, my father brought it up again and this time he spoke about chromosomal abnormalities, but this time I explained to him clearly what I knew and that a lot of these things had been discovered in the last few decades and that his knowledge was outdated.
Btw, while I was with them, I went through some old books that they still have that I used to read as a child in the 1990s. They were my window to the world then in many ways, but this time, I searched through them for trans related stuff and all I could find was a brief article by John Money. Not surprising since these books were written in the 'dark ages' for trans related stuff. Even on LGB rights, there was nothing, no Harvey Milk, nor anything else except a brief article on homosexuality as a psychiatric condition. And this was all that I had, what I relied on and grew up with. No wonder that I had no words to express what I felt, and that I just hid it deep inside. And when I figured I liked girls, I thought I was 'normal', even though that attraction was more complicated than what I knew cis-hetero guys had.
So I left it there, at an awkward sort of disagreement with my father and a lot of concern from my mother. When I was leaving, she hugged me and seemed like she would cry but I held her and told her everything will be OK.
We have been talking on the phone daily since then, like we always have, but the topic has not come up again with my father. My mother, though, has brought it up a few times and asked if I was OK, and I've been saying yes, even at times when I was feeling down.
I do not depend on my parents, nor do they on me in any way, so my only connection to them is emotional, not material. And it's a strong connection, as they have been good parents, and I've been a good kid, for all these years. My wife wasn't around on this trip, but for my mother, it is all about how my wife and I will work it out. If we can, then she'll stand by us no matter what. My father on the other hand, even if he can get out of that pseudo-scientific denial, will still worry about what our relatives, family friends etc might say, so I don't know what to expect from him.
This reminds me of something I asked my mother when I was showing her those videos. I said that my situation was different because I was married and was attracted to girls, so even if I fully transitioned like the girl in that video, I couldn't just pretend to live a 'normal' life after that in our homophobic society. Even wishing that I had been born a cis girl wasn't enough, as with everything else being the same, I would have been lesbian. What would she have done then, if her daughter had told her she was attracted to girls, that she didn't want to marry, that probably she would have tried to emigrate away to somewhere she could live her life the way she wanted?
My mother calmly said, 'I would have probably accepted it but your father wouldn't'.
That summed it up for me.
