Came out to my mom

[Guest Skye24]

So last night, after a week and a half of procrastination, I came out to my mom. It went about as I expected, I guess, no better or worse. I told her at the same time about my suicidal thoughts in high school and that I’m agnostic.

I guess I sort of tried not to over-represent my feelings because I’m not too sure of them myself and I didn’t want to put myself out there too much. It sounds like she thinks I’m probably just in a phase and that I’m just towards the edges of the spectrum a man can be on. And I’m not sure I disagree with her. She sounds really skeptical about transsexualism’s legitimacy and related it to how when she was in college any research that would have been harmful to the homosexual agenda was suppressed. I can’t say that I agree with her on that, though I haven’t really studied the scientific literature on either subject in depth.

She said I might just look back on this and say, “What a weird phase I was going through then,” and that I wouldn’t want pictures and such of my experimentation to cause a scandal for me later if I became a public figure or something. If I still felt the same way in a few years that would be a different case, she said, but she didn’t say any more about that. I guess she expects it to pass.

It seems like I’ll just have to pester her if I really want to see a GT. But I’m not sure. I mean, I kind of came to this site rather than somewhere else because I expected y’all would be supportive and basically tell me what I want to hear (to see a GT, who would then, I hoped, tell me what I want to hear in turn- that I've been a woman all along). But I don’t especially feel like I’m a woman inside. And I’d think that what I want is a better way to define myself than the kind of vague, open-ended “Who am I,” but I have to question why I want what I want. Am I just doing this because I think it’ll be an adventure? That seems a really poor reason. There have been a lot of times where I’ve thought that I should now be convinced rationally that there’s nothing really transgender about me, but I can’t bring myself to stop thinking about it. Maybe I’m just clinging to the hope that I could be someone else because I don’t want to face that I’ll have to live the rest of my life with this body and mind.

[Guest Starlight53a]

My mum reacted pretty much the same way when I told her. It might just take her a while to get used to it? She might just be confused or something right now, and maybe in like a month she'll be better?

I feel sorta the same way as you; I'm like really confused as to what exactly I think and feel, and if I'm actually trans or just lying to myself without knowing it.

I think the solution is to see a gender therapist, 'cause apparently what they're for is to sort out thoughts and feelings and stuff. And if pestering your mum is the only way to get a GT, so be it.

My only way of getting a GT is to wait. Pestering sounds more fun. xP

[Guest CariadsCarrot]

I think trying to get a gender therapist is the most sensible way to sort out your feelings and maybe if you explain that, your mum will support you in going to see one. I'm sorry her support has been so doubtful so far.

Gabe

[Guest Skye24]

And now things start to go wrong. Two days later and I hadn’t really talked to her about it again. I was making breakfast when she basically asked me if I’d thought about what she’d said and changed my mind. I said no, my thoughts were the same. We might have said a few more words to each other, I don’t remember, but then I left the room to check my favorite websites while breakfast cooked.

I’m in my room for a minute and my mom storms in, yelling about how I always hide away from her in my room on my computer and don’t talk to her, how I won’t let her know how I’m feeling. She says I’m on the computer too much and I’m getting sick ideas from it. She lightly punches/slaps me on the shoulder a few times, no big deal, and makes me shut down the computer. She says she thinks she’ll have to tell my father what I said and I might get forced to move out, because he might not tolerate me being transgendered.

Anyway, we go back to the kitchen and she tries to get me to talk about it. I say I shouldn’t have told her, I was lying and I don’t really feel like I have gender issues, like I could live comfortably as a guy. I’m saying that because I don’t want to get kicked out, not because I’m really sure about my feelings. She says I should stop dwelling on it because I couldn’t be happy as a transsexual. She mentions how Chaz Bono doesn’t get proper respect (she used the wrong pronouns, too). She lectures me on how everyone flirts with ‘deviant’ feelings and tendencies (using suicidal thoughts and attraction to minors as examples), but smart and capable people suppress them and have self-control. She says I need to work on being more outgoing so I’d see that people appreciate me as I am. She says she wants me to be dating so I’d know that someone can feel that way about me. She says she won’t tell my father at this point.

Well, that was discouraging. I’m not really feeling depressed or anything now, just irritated that our society is so intolerant.