This is a story of coming out, probably familiar to many of you. But maybe there’s something for someone
else here that will give some perspective to the event. There’s a bit of humor to the situation too. Before I get to the punch line, though, I probably should give some
details on the people involved.
Me? I’ve known since the age of ten that I was transgendered, though I can’t say that I had
the words for it. Even at this age I knew that letting friends and family know about my odd desire to wear girls’ clothing would not be in my best interests, a concept that
was only reinforced the older I got. As long as all I could do was to cross dress there was little need share my needs with anyone. Add to this
the fact that as a kid I was quite shy, generally feeling alienated from others my age, not because of the dressing, but because I was overweight as far back as I could remember.
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My sister, though sharing my family’s tendency towards being overweight, always seemed to make friends and was quite sociable. Unlike
myself, my sister did develop a fairly religious view of life, more, I suspect, from her association with one of her college friends that the Catholic upbringing we both
shared.
Although no longer around to affect my decisions regarding my lifestyle, I should mention my parents and my
other sibling. My father was a docile person, my mother a bit more dominating and self-interested, though not to say domineering. Someone with a psychological bent might say
that my transgendered nature may have been born of my admiration of my mother’s apparent strength, that Dad wasn’t a proper father figure. I don’t feel so.
I probably felt closer to my father than my mother and I somewhat resented her seeming strictness.
My brother, like my parents, was slim through adolescence and therefore grew up a lot more self-assured than I
did. After leaving the army he too gained weight but didn’t lose any of the confidence or macho manner he had developed earlier. In particular I took exception to his
attitude regarding women, very likely due to the fact that I identified with them more than I did with males.
As I said before, I had no desire to share my cross dressing with my family. I didn’t want to tell
my mother and sister out of love, my father and brother out of a small degree of fear, not of them, but rather the potential outcome. However, things change. Perhaps
it’s the timing, perhaps the circumstances. In my case it was a confluence of things in the last three years that brought me to the point of needing to realize the dream of
becoming a woman, something that I hadn’t denied but instead had suppressed out of a sense of practicality. But by the time all of this came to be, the only family member I
had left was my sister.
For a year and a half I’d been urged by one person or another to tell her, that I wasn’t sharing
the part of me that I valued the most. But the threat of losing my only remaining blood relative scared me to death. I admit that much of this was based on her religious
views. But scared or not, it eventually became evident that I was going to have to tell her. After all, I was planning on finding a spot in my life when I would switch to
female full time. Two things could happen, either she would accept, if not understand, my decision, or she would reject me completely. Should the first happen, then I could
feel more confident about going ahead with my plans. If the latter? Then I’d have to learn to get on with my life without her.
In retrospect I have to ask myself how different my life would have been if I had known that anyone in the family
was aware of my transgendered nature. So, earlier this month I addressed the matter with her. Without going into details I’ll just say that I approached it in such a way as to
let her know that I had something to discuss with her that was more serious than anything else we’d ever spoken about. I let her know that I was under professional care so as
to let her know that I wasn’t tackling this on my own. I had rehearsed all of this in my mind and on paper prior to doing it face-to-face. Surprisingly, I had less
trouble with the real thing when I finally dropped the T-bomb. “I’m being treated for transsexuality.” I said. There was a pause of maybe two seconds.
“Really?” was her reply. A look of, maybe, puzzlement crossed her face, but not shock. She looked more like she was reevaluating something, which turned out to be
the case. It was my turn to be surprised when she said, “I should probably tell you that I’ve known about your cross dressing for some time.”
I acknowledged that I understood, but took a while to get back to how she had known that I had
crossdressed. I had assumed that I had slipped somewhere along the way, that she had seen some direct evidence. I was in for one more surprise. “Mom told
me.” I still don’t know how Mom knew, but apparently this was something that at least the two of them had shared for close to thirty years. In retrospect I have
to ask myself how different my life would have been if I had known that anyone in the family was aware of my transgendered nature. In particular, would I have had the courage to
tell them that my desires went beyond crossdressing? Might that have led to having transitioned at an earlier age, when I would have gotten the additional joy out of life for a
longer time?
I know that there’s a lesson here. Maybe more than one. “She who
hesitates is lost.” Heh! I do know that at the very least I had worried for nothing. Maybe I didn’t know my sister was well as I thought I did.
I know of others who have come out to family. The results vary. Some are totally rejected. Others are instantly accepted. I know of some who are initially
rejected but who eventually are accepted as their family comes to realize that there are some things that transcend their beliefs. Ultimately it comes down to you.
What’s best for your happiness? Just as you’ve survived all these years with the situation, someone else may have to live with your reality, regardless of the way it
affects them.
