Advice on coming out to my mom

[SaoirseB]

I’ve yet to tell anyone about my gender dysphoria and am thinking of talking to my mom in confidence. She’s always been supportive of me to the extent that I open up to her at all, and has kind of become my defacto person to lean on when it comes to these kinds of things. I’m pretty sure she would be understanding and supportive of me, as most of my close family are relatively understanding of LGBTQ+ topics. In fact I feel kind of bad that I haven’t come out at all yet, considering many other trans persons don’t have the assurance that they’d immediately be accepted and so by my not being honest I feel almost like I’m doing a disservice to them. 

 

The thing is, I keep thinking about how if I tell her I’ll be crossing into a world where these questions exsist in the real world rather than the security of my admittedly miserable little head. I’ve also been having trouble getting insured so that I can actually start talking with therapists about this as well, so I wonder whether or not I should just wait until I might get access to that instead. Furthermore, I currently live in kind of a small town, where the LGBTQ+ community is pretty much nonexistent so I almost wonder whether or not I shouldn’t just wait until I move out somewhere a little more welcoming to start this process.

 

Currently, I’m thinking of maybe just starting a dialogue with her alone, just so I might get it off my chest. She’s been pretty perspective about some things, so I almost wonder whether or not she already has some kind of idea. Still, I’m not even sure where I would start. Could I get some advice on how to approach bringing this up with someone and how best to make them understand where I’m coming from? Should I wait till I might find myself in a more inclusive enviroment to go further, or should I just be thinking about looking into this now? Thanks in advance.

[VickySGV]

Let me recommend a book that I know several of us here have bought, and given to people we wanted to come out to.  The book is entitled True Selves by Mildred Brown PHD and it does a great job of explaining Trans people to their family members and friends in a way that generally makes them want to help us since it explains what Dr. Brown found with her patients over many years.  Give it to your mother (after you have read it) with a note that merely says., "Mom, there is something about me that I need you to know, this book explains what had been going on with me for years.  Please read this book and we can talk about it as you want to."  That simple but that hard.  Otherwise, we do have a Coming Out  Forum that has other great ideas that have been used and have been effective.