When I Came Out...

[Guest harvester52]

Coming out for me was... kind of weird.

Back when I was in seventh grade (I'm a senior in high school now), I told my mom I was androgynous. I explained to her that I didn't want to be called either gender. I thought that was somehow better or less worse than wanting to be a boy. All my life, whenever my siblings and I played pretend, I was always a boy. I was the dad when we played house. I was the hero that saved the damsel in distress when we played things about princesses and knights. My mom knew of these things as I never hid them throughout my young childhood. As I got older, I bottled it up, and began to hide it because I just wanted to fit into my family. I have two sisters who are one year older than me, and one year younger than me. My brother is five years younger than me, so we never really got along. Five years is a big difference when you're six. I wanted to be one of my sisters. The night I told my mom I was androgyne, she said, "I've never thought of you as one of 'the girls' and I never really thought of you as my 'son'... so I don't mind." She continued to call me female, and what-not as if I had never told her anything.

I never had any real good friends in elementary school until I reached the fifth grade when I finally got up the courage to ask the principal if I could help run the sound system. I needed something to keep me going because at that rate, I was starting to get really depressed, and electronics had always fascinated me. The principal said yes, and that sound system became my best friend. It was unbiased, didn't laugh at me, let me cry on it, and was the biggest comfort I could have as a trans preteen. Then something awful had to happen. I had to move onto middle school. My heart was broke in two. I had to leave my best friend behind, and from that day on, every sound system I worked with became my partner of sorts. That led me to believe that I was technosexual, meaning that I preferred electronics over human beings. This was something else I told my mom that night when I told her I was androgyne. She said she knew that from a very young age because I was always loving up to my electronics. That statement is still true. I find electronic equipment, sound equipment especially, to be asthetically pleasing, and for those familiar with energy work, its energy really calms and relaxes me. I to this day sleep with two soundboards in my bed with me every night.

That coming-out was right before I moved in with my dad. Now, moving in with my dad was both the best thing I ever did, and the worst thing I ever did for myself. I was picked on so much in my mom's neighborhood that I couldn't stand it anymore. I have an IQ of 130, and I was getting straight F's in school. I had to do something. It was getting so bad at that middle school that I had to stay in the same classroom everyday and teachers had to get my lunch for me because if I went into that cafeteria, I was going to get hurt. I had to arrive ten minutes late, and leave ten minutes early to miss the crowds so I wouldn't be beaten up on my way to class. I had to ride the city bus to school everyday because kids liked to shoot what we called "flickers" and "stingers" at me. Flickers were torture devices made from broken bread sack fasteners. The hooked edge of the fastener would go on your finger, and with a strong flick, it would spin through the air, and the broken edge would slice your skin where it hit. Stingers were little strips of paper rolled into hard sticks, shot at you with a rubber band. I went home everyday with welts on my face from such things. I couldn't take this stuff anymore, so I moved.

Now, as soon as I moved, I came out as a lesbian at school. It felt right at the time. I found myself attracted to females as well as sound equipment. I got a little involved in the gay community, and it was nice. It went on like that for a long time. When I was a junior in high school, I joined the diversity club. We were going to go a transgender summit put on by WA state's GLSEN network. There were two FTM's there that shared their stories, and they were already physically transitioning. Their stories spoke to me in a way I cannot describe. They gave me the confidence to proclaim to the world that I was a man and there was nothing anybody could do to tell me otherwise. Unfortunately, that confidence only lasted until I got home that night. My dad lectured me yet again that my spiritual beliefs were BS and that I needed to hide who I was more. Shot down, I cried myself to sleep.

A year later, the pot started to boil over. I couldn't keep it in anymore. Finally, while I was at my mom's, we went out to dinner. She mentioned she was going to have to save surgery on her bladder for some reason, and how much she hated the idea. I said, "I really wouldn't mind having surgery. I plan on having a mastectomy anyway." She gasped, and said, "What?! Do you know what's involved in that? Why would you want to take those risks?" Blah blah blah. We sat down to dinner, and I further explained that I was transsexual, and that for the sake of my well-being, needed to transition into the male that I always knew I should've been. The androgynous facade I put up was only for the family's benefit. She then asked me what name I wanted to go by, and she was so happy to hear that I would one day be able to have a family, and even said that I'd be a great dad. I felt so good, I wanted to cry right there in the middle of the restaurant. Later that evening, I told all of my siblings, and called all the relatives on my mom's side. They are all accepting, and supportive. My mom even said she'd help with paying for HRT and my surgeries.

But the next day, I had to return to my dad's house. My bliss was soon to end. I walked in the front door, gulped, and slowly made my way upstairs. He didn't say anything to me that would've led me to feel that he maybe had somehow found out, so I figured I was O.K. I even got a really short, conservative men's haircut that day, and he didn't say much about it, he even told me it looked better on me than the huge mop of hair that I had before. As soon as my sister pulled out of the driveway, he cornered me. He said, "The school called, and said that you've been telling your teachers to call you BC. That's not O.K. You're completely disrespecting your parents, and you need to tell all those people to call you by the name we gave you." I was crushed. I broke down, and I finally told him. "Dad, the reason that I need to go by another name is because I... well... I'm transgender." He asked, "What does that mean?" I said, "It means that... uhm... I'm physically female, but on the inside, I'm male. I need to have a masculine name." We discussed it for awhile, and I told him to look it up online, and do some research. He did, and it seems that all is relatively well. We don't talk about it. He knows I am going to legally change my name, and go through a sex change. His only request was that I wait until I graduate high school. I'm waiting until then to go legal. However, everywhere I go, I'm read as male. I live full time except at home. My dad refuses to call me his son, and continues to use that hideous legal name. Everybody at work and school calls me Bruce or BC and uses male pronouns. They all know, and are all accepting.

All in all, my coming out went relatively well. The only people who I know will not be happy about it are my grandparents on my dad's side. They do not know yet, and are hardcore Christians, so strict you can't put your elbows on the table at dinner time. I have plenty of horror stories about them, but those are for another thread. This is simply (and long-windedly) my coming out story... from my first false coming out to my current, accurate, and 100% truthful coming out that happened just last December.

[Guest GoldenKirbichu]

Wow, that's a pretty cool story... Mine wasn't nearly as interesting. I just said "Kay, I just figured out the name for what's been making me feel like crud for the past fifteen years; there it is, if you don't like it you can bite me".

But hey, you sound like a pretty cool guy.

[Guest Snow Angel]

Your story was very inspirational to read. I'm glad things are on the right path after all that torture.

[Guest SilverArrow]

Wow, I'm surprised your dad actually accepted the idea in the end, it seemed almost as though he'd be the type to kick you back to your mom's.

Don't worry about the getting picked on though, it happens to a lot of people. I was the one in grade school that always got the short end of the stick in that regard, although I finally had enough and decided to fight back. I lost a lot of fights back then... So as you can see, there's always someone that gets hurt, but at least we're understanding because of it. We know what it's like, and are all the better for it because we can work towards a better future. I hope everything works out for you, you're mom's side sound really supportive. Keep close to them.

[Guest harvester52]

He probably would have kicked me back to my mom's if I weren't two months from graduating high school. He and I just don't talk about it. I've told all my coworkers at the TV station that they aren't allowed to call my home phone so the subject won't come up when my boss calls me "BC" and "he" on the phone if my dad accidently answers.

It makes work hard because they can't call me in for meetings, or what-not... but it will only be temporary until I start getting regular paychecks and can get my own cell phone, or move to my mom's after graduation... whichever happens first.

-Bruce