Telling my Parents

2019

Well, there came the day when my wife and I discussed with my parents, who were at the time in their 70s, about me being transgender. We had resisted telling them to this point because we didn't honestly think it would end well. My mom is very religious acting, which is entirely different from being very religious. and we expected some issues.

Knowing that there would likely be problems, we held off saying something. For several years. Part of this was the lack of desire for confrontation. Part of this was the knowledge that they are older, there are some medical issues, and if things went south and they decided they didn't want t talk with us any more, there'd really not be someone to help them when they were even more infirm, and in need of help with the kinds of things elderly people often need help with. But, there were some factors arising that made it obvious that the time had come. Among those factors were the changes in my body, brought on by hormone therapy. 

Foremost, there were physical changes were progressing to the point that things were, shall we say, becoming much more noticeable. As my body changed, we began to marvel that they had not noticed. Eventually, those physical changes had progressed to the point that there was no way they weren't going to notice something. My hair had changed. My fingernails had grown and were well kept. I had breasts that were growing nicely. The overall shape of my butt had begun to change. My facial features had begun to soften.  These things alone meant it was time. The changes were just too noticeable. 

Adding to that, my wardrobe had changed. Gone was every single garment of men's clothing. Like my body changing, this didn't happen overnight, but was done in careful phases. This was partly due to the enormous cost involved, and partly due to not wanting to make a sudden, obvious change. 

Adding to that was that my name had been legally changed by this point. My pronouns had also changed. So, my wife was already used to calling me by my name, and calling me "she".  There would soon be times where she slipped in front of my parents. That would have been very obvious.

It was clearly time.

So, we sat them down, and told them. Overall, it seemed to go decently well. There was no unexpected drama. I don't mean she was accepting - far from it. There were a few things she was mad about. This isn't counting the firmly expected "But now you're a SINNER!!!" viewpoint. We knew that was going to show up. It did, o course. 

Our kids, both adults, were there too, when we told my parents. When my mom got upset, the kids were pretty awesome, in their attempts to get her to see how her reasoning didn't make sense. I explained a bit about what I had been experiencing. She didn't care about a word of any of it. 

First, she was very mad that I had changed my name. This I understand to a point. Honestly, though, it was an odd thing for them to be mad about. My older brother changed his name many years ago, and they were fully supportive of that, and even helped him do it. Thus, while I understand this complaint to a point, it doesn't really seem to hold water, in the overall scheme of things. Overall, mom was less mad about me changing my name than one of the other things. 

The second thing was that I have been wearing women's clothes. My wardrobe that day wasn't remotely "in-your-face". Jeans, a long sleeve t-shirt, and canvas shoes. But, she bluntly told me that if I showed up "dressed like a girl" I wouldn't be allowed inside. That was kind of funny, considering I was inside at that time, and dressed in women's clothing from head to toe. 

The third thing, and this one really had her mad, was that she thought this meant she would have to pay money to redo their will because my name had changed. She was very upset about this. She actually got up and dug out their will and power of attorney, and demanded to know why I had made it, in her words, so that these documents were no longer valid. That isn't the case, of course. Legal documents are still valid after a name change. I explained to her that if in fact there were any legal fees incurred for them, my wife and I would of course pay for that. She seemed to calm down soon after. 

She was still clearly mad, though. But, she didn't have anything else to say. My dad hadn't said a word the entire time. 

So that was me coming out to my parents. Well, almost the whole story. 

As we were leaving, my Dad, always a nice guy but never one to display emotion, gave me a hug and told me he is proud of me. I almost burst out crying.