Okay, first the exciting part: I do believe I found a counselor in my city who has experience working with transgender patients! She also happens to take my dad's insurance (which I am still covered under)!

Now the slightly nerve-wracking part: I'm... not out to my dad.

He knows my clothing style is androgynous, and is more than happy to support me in that, but he has this habit of not being as open-minded about things once they are given a label. See, my dad is technically a very open-minded person, when he's following his own opinions... but he's a pastor in a very conservative, rural town in a very conservative, rural state, and he doesn't quite seem to have the guts to be himself, so he tends to freak out about things that his church might not agree with, even if he is technically okay with it on a fundamental level. He cares about his reputation above all else.

However, my insurance is through him, and I kind of need some kind of support on his part to get counselling. I don't necessarily need to tell him right away that this counselling is about gender issues, but somewhere down the lines, I'm hoping for this counselling to result in some kind of actual transition... at which point I kind of need to come out to him, anyways, because he's not so oblivious that he won't notice if I take testosterone (seeing as both his insurance and my body will be kind of tell-tale about it).

Does anyone have suggestions for how I can gently and subtly break it to him? Persently, he know's I'm "gay," which he's pretty okay with (as long as I don't flaunt it to people he's trying to impress) and is aware and pretty supportive of my androgynous hair and clothing styles. What's the best way to let him know that there's something more to it than what he knows without dumping the whole thing on his head and scaring him off entirely? I need a way to console him that he's not losing me in any way and that he didn't do anything wrong... and that I won't go around horrifying his church congragation.


...along the same lines, though not quite as urgent of a concern: My mom knows I'm genderqueer, but she doesn't know I have any intentions of physically transitioning. I'm going to need to communicate this to her eventually. She won't do anything to stop me, but the more I tell her, the more she seems to make my life miserable via snide comments about how unstable and messed up I am (which seems minor enough, except that I'm extremely close to my mom and don't wat to lose her).

Would it help if you asked your mum to be in the same room to back up everything you're saying to your dad? It all depends on the type of person he is really. When I tell my parents I reckon I'm going to need to rely on my mum to keep my dad in line about things. At any rate, perhaps if you went to your mum and spoke to her about this, and asked for her support in telling your dad first, she might be able to be there to smooth things over a little. If you two are really close you coming to her in that way might (hopefully!) pull on her heartstrings enough to get her to support you in front of him.
I reckon also it might be a bad plan to mention the physical transition stages you wish to take straight away (unless you reckon he would value honesty above all else). You don't want to panic either of them, maybe just say for now that you want to talk things over with a counsellor to be able to deal with it better.
Good luck, anyway! 

Oh, I guess I should provide this necessary piece of backstory: My parents are divorced. (I live with my mom, though I see my dad once a week.)

My mom also happens to be really really against me getting any kind of counseling for any reason, so I'm reluctant to let her know I want to get counseling at all. However, I don't know if keeping it a secret from her would do much good at this point.

She's... really not okay with this gender thing. At all. But she's too nice to just outright say it, even though it's pretty glaringly obvious that she's never disagreed with me more in her life. So I don't really know how to get around that AND the fact that (after a failed conseling situation back in 9th grade) she declared she never wants me to get involved with the mental health system again.

I don't know. It's such a bizzare situation, because they're both a bit passive-agressive when they don't agree with things.

I think IF I don't drop any loaded terminology on my dad, he'll probably do better about it than my mom has been. The trick is figuring out which terminology is likely to set him off and what's safe. I think "I would like to see a counselor who I can talk to about gender," would probably be safe, but that could still be risky. If he asks, I can always explain it as, "Well, I've just been feeling like I'm more androgynous than an ordinary 'girl', and would like to sort through that with more than just my own brain and internet searches." No dropping scary transgender terminology. No implying a physical transition, just yet. Just enough to let him know something is up and explain why I'm getting counseling through his insurance.

Follow Kates method. I'm just searching, I'm just testing this out, I'm only doing this far, I'm going all the way.

Tell them a step at a time to let him get used to the idea and by time it interferes with the insurance, maybe you will have some of your own.

Since I live in the UK I don't have much experience of this sort of thing.

But do you need to tell your dad the full reasons why you are seeing this therapist?

I would have thought the matter was confidential anyway.

Could you not simply say you need to see this therapist because of private issues or something along those lines?

I could in theory. But because of some things that went on back in 9th grade, the immediate assumption would be that I'm depressed and hurting myself again, which would result in all-out chaos. I would rather explain the gender thing than have either of my parents make assumptions-- I don't really think I could handle my parents panicking about something that isn't even happening, right now. Essentially, the inevitable assumptions are as bad as just telling the truth, and worse, if you factor in that they'll find out the truth eventually anyways.

And Kat, that's a good point. The gradual thing sounds like a good way to do it... especially with my dad. I don't imagine he'll flip out too badly if I simply want to talk to someone about gender.