When I first figured out that I was trans it sent my world
spinning. For those reading this that
have gone through the same thing I think you’ll know exactly what I’m talking
about, the realisation that this was going on was almost too much to bear. To help make sense of it I had to tell
someone, I needed to vocalise what was going through my mind, to have someone
question it just so that I could try to understand it myself.
The first person I told was a close friend of mine that I
knew was a very understanding and open minded person, I guess it was my
‘safest’ choice of people to tell as I knew that he wouldn’t immediately freak
out about it. Thankfully my instincts
were correct and he sat down with me, listened to what I had to say and asked
questions, comforted me when I cried and just treated me like a normal person.
After that came one of the hardest tasks I had, I needed to
try and tell my family. I spent the next
weeks trying to psych myself up to telling them. I ran through dozens of different scenarios
in my head, different way that I could tell them, how they might react. Every time I saw them I would try and bring
myself to telling them, and each and every time I couldn’t go through with
it.
I felt so much fear and apprehension about what the outcome
might be that I just couldn’t find the strength I needed. I don’t think that it recall helped me that
I’d been reading about other people’s coming out experiences, and whilst some
of them were good, a large portion of them can best be described as ‘troubled’.
Luckily for me the choice of telling my family was taken out
of my hand when my mother confronted me one Sunday afternoon. She knew that there was something wrong with
me, something that I wanted to tell them and I guess that she’d had enough of
me getting so close to telling them and then backing out.
It wasn’t the way that I wanted to tell her, outside my
house in a parked car wasn’t the bet location, but at least I’d told her. Now it was time for the reaction. She kept herself calm and collected, she
asked me to go and see my doctor, to make sure that I was one hundred percent
sure before I did anything or told anyone else.
I did as my mother asked, I kept it to my self, I went to my
doctor and I explored every option before I did anything else. Eventually, after a few months counselling, y
initial self diagnosis was confirmed, I was transsexual. With this confirmation came another hurdle
that I would have to cross, telling the other members of my family.
Initially I wanted to hold off on telling them; after all
I’m still waiting to start hormones so why tell them so early on? However, yet again the option to wait felt
like it was taken out of my hands.
Months before I had told the management team at work about my situation
in order to get time off for appointments and to explain why some days I was
massively depressed whilst at work.
Unfortunately it turns out that one of the members of the management
team wasn’t to have been trusted, and proceeded to gossip about me behind my back
and even told another of the employees that I was trans.
With the information seemingly spreading on its own out of
my control I found that I had to tell the rest of my family now. I didn’t know exactly who knew now, who had
gone and told others, the one thing I did know for sure is that I didn’t want
my family to find out through anyone but me.
So now I was faced with a situation where I would have to tell them.
A few weeks ago, on one of my regular visits to see my
family, I was presented with the opportunity to tell them. I was in the kitchen with my mum and dad and
my dad asked me how things were going, which kicked started my conversation
with him. However, even though I knew I
had to tell him there and then I just couldn’t find the words. Trying to vocalise what needed to be said was
so hard for me.
Never being one to miss an opportunity to talk my dad jumped
straight in during this pause and bombarded me with a myriad of questions,
‘you’re moving back in with us?’ ‘You’ve
got someone pregnant?’ ‘You’ve got a new
job?’ ‘You’re gay?’
Finally managing to get him to stop talking I told him in as
easy a way as I could manage. ‘I’m
transgendered.’ After a moment of
confusion my mother jumped in and explained it to him by referencing a documentary
they had seen the previous week (thank you channel 4) and my dad understood
what that now meant. Then came is
reaction. I was prepared for the worse,
for him to shout and scream, to tell me that he hated me or didn’t want me in
the family anymore. However, his actual
reaction was one that I hadn’t imagined hearing. ‘Oh, okay then.’
That was it. After
months and months of building this moment up in my head and going through every
conceivable reaction I never imagined he would just say ‘Oh, okay then.’ If
anything it felt like something of an anti climax!
So from there he proceeded to ask me a few questions, which
I answered the best I could, and he was still okay with it. He told me that no matter what I did, no
matter who I was on the inside or the outside, I was still a part of the
family, and nothing would ever change that.
Luckily during all of this my sister was listening in on our
conversation, and as such I no longer needed to tell her and had got out of
another gruelling coming out. So that
was it, I was done. My immediate family
now knew and they accepted me despite it all.
I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders,
despite the fact that there are still some people in my life I need to tell the
three most important know, and they still love me. It might sound like I’m bragging by
continually stating that my family are okay with me, as I know not everyone is
as lucky, but I can’t help it. I love my
family so much, and to know that I can put them through something like this and
they’ll stand by me no matter what is amazing.
I hope that anyone else who reads this and is going through
the same situation is as lucky as I am.
Good luck to you all.
Amy.
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