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My husband is transgendered. How do I tell my parents?

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:07:18 -0800

My husband will probably be starting hormones and this may eventually lead to gender reassignment surgery. I fully support him, however it goes. There is a lot of advice out there for how transgendered people should tell their partners or parents, but very little for how supportive partners should tell their families. Any advice? (longer story inside) Some background: both of us are in our mid-30s, we have been together for 6 years, and I've known about his identity since before we started dating. I (female) identify as gay/bi -- well, I thought I was entirely interested in women before meeting him, now I'm not sure what you'd call me, nor do I really care that much. Our relationship is extremely happy, our sex life is great, and I love him (call him Chris) dearly; he is the bravest and strongest and funniest person I know. [I am calling him "he" because that is the pronoun he usually uses nowadays, even though "she" is closer to the emotional truth.]

He has spent the last 7 years (ever since telling me) doing a combination of hoping that he could ignore it, and then eventually (as it became clear that that wasn't working) slowly doing lots of painstaking psychological work on himself. Over the past two years or so he has come to the conclusion that he really has to do something more than just internal psychological work: i.e., visiting a therapist, starting to take hormones, and include as a possible end-goal having a sex-change operation. He is quite miserable with this aspect of his life as it currently stands. I am fully supportive of whatever option he chooses to take. The money for surgery, should it come to that, won't be an issue, nor will his job situation.

I'm writing because we both really feel like I should tell my parents. He told his a year ago, and (though it threw them for a loop) they responded about as well as you could possibly expect: telling him they love him still, will support him, etc, even though they are made obviously uncomfortable by it (and I expect that once he starts showing physical changes will be more so, but they will probably be able to work through it).

My parents, though, are much less worldly and open than his ... they are impressively open-minded for their cultural background, but also have fairly rigid senses of what is proper and what isn't. When I came out to them, the result was two years worth of extremely awkward silence on the entire topic of relationships, though they did not shun me in general or anything, and it was quite clear they still loved me. Eventually, when I had been dating a woman somewhat seriously for a while, my dad gave me a little speech about how whoever I fell in love with was fine with them, and things got somewhat better; but we still didn't talk about it much and they were still enormously, transparently relieved when Chris and I started dating. I obviously didn't give them any of the transgender backstory at the time; I publicly identify as bi to them, but we really don't talk about it. They really, really like Chris, and not just because he seems like a guy to them.

I am fairly close to them (even though we don't talk about some things), and I truly like and admire them. I also live quite far away, so really only see them a few weeks out of every year. I want to tell them about Chris because it's starting to feel like a huge secret to keep, and it's going to come out (no pun intended!) at some point soon anyway once he does start with the hormones, and especially if surgery and living full-time as a woman becomes a realistic option. The sooner we tell my parents, the more time they have to get their heads around it.

An additional complication is that they live in the town I grew up in, which is very small and fairly conservative. My parents are very well known and many people know and still ask about me. So even if they were okay with things, Chris getting a sex change would put them in many difficult social situations; in fact, I think they would probably have more social fallout than we would (we live in a fairly open-minded metropolis, and many of our friends either know already or will probably be okay with it when we tell them). I feel bad about this, but don't see any way to stop it.

Anyway, a few questions.

1. If you were my parent, how would you want to be told? What things should I emphasize or downplay? I plan on saying that I still love and support him, and that it wasn't something he did "to" me, and that our situation is stable, with friends, etc. Other thoughts?

2. How should I play this, long-term? I was thinking of telling them, and then backing off entirely and giving them several months to process it before saying anything more on the topic. Then I would slowly raise it casually in conversation (e.g. "Chris saw the therapist for the first time today") and gradually require more out of them in terms of talking about it, etc. But I don't really know. We just visited and probably won't see them in person again for many months.

3. How explicit should I be of our expectations for them? What I really hope is that they do their best to inform themselves about what it all means, and (even if they don't understand) try to accept Chris as he (or maybe eventually she) is. And make it so that I can bring Chris when I visit without horrible awkwardness. But should I give a timeline? Is that too dictator-like? Will that alienate them even more?

4. Why am I so nervous about this? It's almost worse than when I came out myself, even though it's not me facing a personal rejection this time.

5. Any other general advice? We both don't really have a lot of perspective on this at this point.

Thanks, and sorry this was so long, it just felt like all these details were important.

My throwaway email is: tellingparentsabouttghusband@yahoo.com.

Coming out to only one parent

Elfasi — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:54:36 -0800

Tell me your experiences of coming out as gay to just one of your two living parents alone. I'm not interested in opinions from everyone, just opinions and accounts of people who have been through this either first or second hand. If you later came out to your other parent too, I'd love to hear about it too. So I'm in my 30s, both my parents are, or at least appear to be pretty anti-gay, though their hardline attitude seems to be gradually softening over the years and giving me some hope. I've spent most of my adult life convinced I could never tell them, but my Dad recently went through life threatening surgery and has been giving little hints the past few years about accepting who I am and such like. It made me realise just how much I'd regret it if he died never knowing, if he never knew the true me, and I hate how much the lies keep putting more and more distance between us.

Out of my two parents my Dad is the most level headed, rational, and I think the most capable of taking the news. My Mum I really wish I knew, sometimes I get glimmers of hope, sometimes I imagine the news would permanently break her, and our relationship. Ideally I want to tell them both, but as of right now I have decided to tell my Dad first, alone, and take it from there. A little more background, I've lived with a male partner, now ex, for over 5 years now, people think surely they've totally guessed but I'm pretty certain they havn't, they take denial to an artform.

So I'm wondering if there's anyone else out there who's made the same decision, told just one of their parents, at least initially. I'd love to hear your experiences of how it went, how they handled being the only half to know, if it ended up being a burden on them. If you eventually told your other parent, or they eventually found out or were told, how did that go? Was there anger/guilt at being kept in the dark for so long? What kind of ramifications do you set yourself up for in this situation? Does your other parent still not know? How's that been?

If you think this whole plan is a bad idea, please feel free to comment too, but only if you've personally had it go wrong or known someone who did.

Where should I look for a boyfriend.

Basalisk — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:34:02 -0800

I've recently come out of denial/uncertainty and realize I'm gay, I live in Adelaide, I don't really dig the club scene that much, but I want to meet other gay men. How do I find them? Really, I want to meet gay friends and if something more happens, that's a bonus. I specifically don't just want to know where to hook up.

The queer organisation on campus here consists of a handful of gay "activists". While the whole injustice of the universe and the oppression inherent in the hetronormitive system exists, constantly whining about it bores me senseless.

I think my gaydar is broken (both receive and transmit), as I had the gay transponder bullied out of me in high school. I'm thus a bit shy when it comes to determining whether someone I like might like me back. I also don't come across as gay, people I have come out to have said that it's a surprise because I don't "act gay."

Because of my denial, I've only ever had one relationship in my life, and that started and ended because she was crazier than I was. I don't know the first thing about relationships, doubly so the non-traditional kind.

Keeping secrets is keeping me up nights.

Jazz Hands — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 22:43:50 -0800

How do you make everything good again after someone finds out you've kept a secret from them? Thing is, it's not your own secret you are keeping. My nephew came out to us several years ago and is keeping this from his grandpa(my dad). Some day it will come out that we, the entire rest of the family knows, and has known for years. I feel that will be the bigger issue, I think my dad is cool enough to handle a gay grandson, but the betrayal(?) if that's the right word, of the rest of us is going to crush him.

I was a huge proponent of letting dad know, and my nephew was at first too. My sister/his mom was having a big shocked reaction and didn't want to handle the possible reaction of our dad on top of her own drama and asked him to not tell yet. She accepted it pretty quickly, but I think the status quo took over and everyone is just comfortable now.

I've not had to lie so far, the most I've actively had to do is say that "He's probably not ready to settle down yet" when I'm asked if Nephew is "dating someone special". But I think if it finally comes down to being asked directly, I would have to answer truthfully, and I don't know if that's the right thing to do. So how do I handle a direct question and how do I handle it when the cat's finally out?

'Tis the season for coming out?

GardnerDB — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:57:14 -0800

Is there a time of year that's "best" for coming out of the closet? In your experience, what did you do right and what do you wish you would have done differently when you told your parents that you're gay? Someone told me to do it right after Christmas because everyone will be in a good mood, esp. since they have the time off of work and the Christmas shopping and stress is over. But I don't want the family to always associate the holiday season with the their son's bombshell. So I'm not convinced that the holiday season is ideal for this.

(If it matters, my parents are divorced and remarried. Both are very conservative Christians and my father is a Baptist minister. Oh yeah, and my older sister came out of the closet two years ago and they always tell me how hard it is for them and how depressed they are and how they feel like they failed as parents.)

A sad coming-out story

grrarrgh00 — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:22:38 -0800

I'm dealing with the fallout from coming out to my deeply religious immediate family. For years, I had prepared for their tears, their anger, their remonstrances, their appeals to the Bible, and all of those have come. What I hadn't prepared for was how disappointed I would be, and how fundamental and lonely that disappointment would be. Help? All my life, the person I've considered myself closest to was my older sister. I love her dearly, and I've always held her up on a pedestal as a rational, incredibly decent, and most deeply generous person. A little under a decade ago, when I first realized I was gay, and that it wasn't a phase, I knew my sister would be the family member I'd come out to first, because even though I knew she'd have some trouble with it, I also knew she'd understand and assuage my fears in a way no one else would or could. If I could depend on no one else in life, I could depend on my sister.

I've been living on my own for almost a decade, in a different state than any of my family members. I've been out at work and to friends for 6 years. After years of prelude, I formally came out to my sister at the beginning of this year, as best as I knew how. Our first conversation about it made me grimace and chuckle a little bit -- she said everything the textbooks tell you not to say when someone comes out to you -- "Were you abused as a child?" "And you're sure it's not a phase?" But she assured me she loved me, and was, on some level, OK with it, and understood I couldn't be the person I was if I wasn't the person I am.

In the ensuing months, though, our conversations became a touch more difficult. She started telling me in every phone call that she was praying for me, asking me to open my heart to God, pointing out the standard passages in Leviticus and so forth. I was taken aback, because although my sister has always been religious, she's never been a fundamentalist. But I assured her of my own time spent studying the Bible, reconciling my sexuality with my faith, and walked her through the numerous doctrinal interpretations challenging the fundamentalist position on homosexuality. (I attended Christian schools all my life; I've read the Bible basically cover to cover, and I've done a lot of intense Bible study to help inform my own faith.) I was trying to engage her at her level, although I was astounded that she'd brought it there. Leviticus, really? My sister?

Tonight was the last straw. My year of finally coming out to my family climaxed in what was more-or-less a coming-out conversation with my uber-religious mother. (A wonderful person, who commands much of my love and admiration and respect, but whom I will probably never describe as thoroughly rational.) It was tough, but I've been steeling myself for that for years. My mom is probably still wailing and screaming and asking what she did to deserve this. I don't know how long it will be before we speak again, but again, that I was prepared for.

But the giant blow was the conversation with my sister that followed, which included every distorted Biblical canard a fundie ever threw at a fag. (OK, she left out the Adam-n-Eve-not-Adam-n-Steve quip.) We each remained as civil as we could, but "civility" is a term I'd hate to ever use to describe an interaction with my dear, dear sister.

What I'm left with is my disbelief and disappointment that this was my sister. My decent, rational, generous, cherished sister, clinging to such uncharitable, irrational, bileful dogma in the face of all reason and loyalty and love. Something fundamental has soured in our relationship, even if things get better between us. It feels as though the person whose love and support I have always counted on in life is a different person entirely, and the loneliness and disappointment in that is just wrenching.

Give me some perspective. Point me to an essay, or a speech, or a book, or a song, or something. Lay down your words of wisdom. This was long, but I had to get it off my chest.

Should I just crawl into bed with him?

rocket_johnny — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:59:42 -0800

I've lived with my best friend and another good friend for 3 years. I've known them for 7--since we were freshmen in college. I've come to the conclusion that I'm bisexual, and that I have a bit of a crush on my best friend. I'm having trouble telling him that I'm not straight. I've read everyone's advice not to tell him I'm crushing on him, because there is a good chance that would be messy. What is a good way to tell him that I'm bi though? Here is the thing. I own a very expensive rally race car with him. He's my best friend and very important to me (maybe I'm crazy). Not to mention that we're in a long term racing team together.

Also, he's gone off on gay people a few times. Example [I'm out to dinner with him and his mom]: "I think gay people are mentally ill. Homosexuality is a mental illness. Why else would people not be attracted to someone who would allow them to breed. Now I don't have a PROBLEM with gay people, I just have no respect for them and thing they're mentally ill."

He is constantly saying things like, "God, I hope people don't think we're fags" when we're out together.

But then he tells me that he hopes he can get a blow job if we go out, "preferably" from a woman.

My gay friend says that I should just go crawl into bed with him and give him a b/j. I started to broach the subject via email, and he just responded that he wouldn't be sucked into my "drama queen" thing.

Any ideas on how to get the courage up, but also to do it in a way where he won't just feel like I have him cornered? I think I have to do it.

Is it time to come out?

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 16:48:26 -0800

Next week apparently marks National Coming Out Week. Is now the time I've looked forward to for so long? In the many years that have gone by since it finally occurred to me that I was gay, I have confided in a whopping three people: all of them who I already knew to be gay. Frankly, I'd really like to just be myself.

I'm a senior in college. My college is celebrating National Coming Out Week.

Almost all of my friends are great, open-minded people. But there a few things holding me back:

- Current college roommates. While I have no interest in them, I worry that this will create a really awkward situation for them. (I count them as some of my closest friends.)

- I think that, while people will accept me, they won't think of me the same way.

- I'm not ready to come out to my family. I want to make sure that the information doesn't leak out. Is this is a real problem? Does Facebook make it harder to contain?

Do you think my situation warrants staying in the closet? (Especially with roommates?) I'm dying to come out, but I'd rather stay in than create really awkward situations all around.

Should I tell my girlfriend I've had gay sex before?

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 15:57:57 -0800

Should I tell my long-term girlfriend (I'm male) that I have had sex with men in the past? I've tried to include all the details here, so this is a long one!

I am 22 year-old man. I've been with my current girlfriend for nearly 3 years now, and this is my first long-term relationship of any kind. We have a great relationship, in which we are both very supportive of each other. While I'm trying to write this dispassionately, I will say that I have grown a lot since we met 4 years ago and I really believe that she's the woman I'll marry. We talk often and communicate very well and openly. Except for one thing.

I have had 2 homosexual relationships before, and I haven't told her this. While keeping this from her is an issue for me, the questions it might raise about my sexuality aren't a problem. I'm quite confident in my sexuality, however it might be labelled (bisexual?). Most of my attractions are heterosexual. I've been physically attracted to men, but never emotionally. While my homosexual experiences were with guys I consider friends and get along great with, they were purely physical. I really doubt I'm going to wake up one day and think, "Oh shit, I was gay all along" -- I think I'm pretty much bisexual. I certainly don't feel like I'm repressing anything or missing out, any more than I'm repressing heterosexual urges. That is, I'm not going to cheat on her (or want to) with a man, for all the same reasons that I'm not going to cheat on her with a woman (although with that added reason that I'm less frequently attracted to men anyway).

I haven't told anyone else, simply because of all the bullshit I might have to go through for something that really isn't that important to me. I truly wish for others' sakes that not being 100% straight didn't carry a stigma in some peoples' eyes, but it does and for me personally, not coming out to the world doesn't bother me at all, so I've chosen not to risk suffering that stigma.

However I love my girlfriend, and while I'm fine with keeping this from everyone else I'm conflicted about keeping this from her. There's no doubt that apart from fearing her possible reaction, telling her would make me feel better. On the other hand, I don't want my telling the truth to make her worried that I might secretly be a gay man who's one day going to leave her for a guy. Her father left her family quite unexpectedly when she was young (he wasn't gay, fwiw) and she's told me before that this has made it hard for her to trust in relationships. Also I think she'd have a hard time dealing with this as she's pretty traditional in many respects. She's never expressed anything even remotely anti-gay, but I think it'd be huge bombshell nonetheless.

So my question is: What are reasons why I should tell her, and reasons why I should not tell her? Have you ever been in this situation -- on either side -- and what happened and how did it work out?

If you're not comfortable replying in the thread, please email mefi.anonymous@gmail.com. Also, I'll reply in the thread via the admins if necessary. Thanks!

By the way, I was properly tested for STDs before we started going out, and practised safe sex in all of my past sexual encounters. Despite this secret, I would never and have never put my girlfriend's health at risk.

Um, coming out... again.

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 18:34:11 -0800

For the last 5 years (age 18-23), I've identified myself as a gay man. Came out to my friends and family and was living okay. Now, for the last year, I've basically come to realize I'm not gay. I've lost all attraction to men and I kinda fell for a woman. I haven't talked to anyone about it (including "her"), and am now realizing I need to come out (er, again). Any ideas how to handle it with my friends, family, and "her"? I'd obviously like to minimize the humiliation, anger, hurt, etc.

Go home or come out?

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 11:42:55 -0800

Gay athlete needs life advice--should I keep training at the elite level or move on and get a "real life"? I'm at a crossroads. I'm an American but have been studying abroad and finally finish school this summer. I can either go back to the US and devote another two years to my sport and try to make the Olympic team, or "grow up", stay abroad and enter the working world. It seems like it should be an obvious choice to keep training, but there's a lot to consider and I'd love some advice.

I'm gay and have finally started to come out to my current teammates after our competition season ended. Most have been really supportive. One doesn't really 'get' it having known me so long acting straight, and there are others who now know I'm gay, but we haven't talked about it so it's slightly awkward--I want to tell them in a private moment but haven't had the chance and don't want to make a big deal of it.

On the teams I've been on, I've never wanted being gay to be the first thing people know about me. I want to be judged on my work ethic and ability, and just be one of the guys. We had a guy on the team this year who was out but didn't make it through the season (because of injury), and he was treated differently--not badly, but differently--and I didn't want that.

I've been doing my sport for a long time, and have competed at a high, international level. If I go back to the US and move to the national team training center, I'll have a chance at making the Olympic team. But I don't know if it will be a great chance. I've been able to do well in the past because I have a good aerobic capacity and work ethic, but I've always been much shorter than everyone else, and this makes me struggle with some aspects of the sport. For the past two years I've felt like I've plateaued; I've been trying extremely hard to improve and haven't gotten much better.

If I go back to the States and train with the squad, I'd like to continue gradually coming out to people, start bringing boys to social events, that sort of thing. The athletes, many of whom I already know, I don't think would care at all. But the coach might be another story. He's probably professional enough to not let it be an issue, but I can't be sure (he has been known to bring up peoples' personal lives during training sessions to rile them up), and I don't know of any guys who have been out during his tenure. And that might be enough to keep me in the closet.

The dream has always been to keep training and see how far I can get with it. But now I really like my life abroad and don't want to leave my friends here. Assuming I can get a decent job and the visa issues work out, part of me really wants to stay, become a grown up and have more serious relationships with boys. But then I flip-flop--while I don't love my sport the way I used to, I do still feel something for it.

I anticipate some of the responses could be "go for it, you're only young once, you have the rest of your life to work, you don't want to regret it in the future..."--that's what people I'm not out to say. But right now I don't think I will regret it. I obviously don't want to sell myself short, and I have done well in the past, but I've been struggling for a while and don't know if I have what it takes. I'm finally admitting to myself that I've been doing the sport for so long not just because I love to compete--I also like being in close proximity with a lot of fit, good looking guys.

So what should I do, keep training or move on?

how to casually come out as poly?

Anonymous — Sun, 21 May 2006 19:54:38 -0800

What are some casual ways to come out as polyamorous or as being in an open relationship? I'm a female in a long-term relationship with a female. It's easy for me to come out as a lesbian in everday conversation ("so, this weekend me and my girlfriend..."). But this also makes people think I am off-limits. I am starting to hang out around other lesbians, but now they all think I'm taken, which is not strictly true. Are there ways to drop that I'm in an open relationship that are as casual as the above?

I'm not involved in any way with anyone but my long-term girlfriend now, so casually mentioning exploits with other women isn't an option. My girlfriend IS, but I have yet to have reason to say "so, my girlfriend's girlfriend...," not to mention that's quite a mouthful.