guernicavery:

as i am rewriting the coming out letter to my mother, my dad tells me she’s on her way to the hospital with chest pain.

i don’t know what to do.

First of all, I’m sorry and I hope yr mother is perfectly fine and healthy.

Second, when I realized I was trans, my mom was recovering from an intense double mastectomy to remove breast cancer. She was in remission but was preparing for a second long and major reconstructive surgery. She had also hurt her ankle pretty badly and was in a lot of pain.

When I first told them, not expecting it to be a big deal, they reacted negatively. My mom told me that the stress of this was not good for her particularly with her body and health in the state it was in.

Boy was that hard. I was at school and living as a man so I did not feel the pressure to immediately resolve things with them, so I told them I wouldn’t talk about my gender until after my mom had recovered from her second surgery. I think it was ultimately the right decision. It may not be fair that something that is so right for us can affect other people so badly, but we do need to be honest about that. It is NOT our faults, but if there is any way for us to alleviate their tension or struggle, I think we should try. I could wait because I wasn’t being misgendered constantly since I wasn’t living with them. 

There is also the issue that no time is ever going to be perfect. And if you found out something else that would stress them out like you having cancer and needing treatment, you wouldn’t wait for the best time. My friend’s grandfather died when he was going to tell his parents. So he didn’t. He waited. And then a second tragedy struck (I can’t remember what it was). He had been living as a man for at least a year and didn’t know if he could remain sane much longer with his parents misgendering him. His therapist told him He couldn’t wait for the right time, because there never is a right time for this kind of stuff. It’s hard, but it’s real, and it’s pressing. So he told them.

I think we both made the decisions that were right for us. I think it is important to not let anyone convince you that you are being selfish by coming out, even if it is an inopportune time. Do what you can to make the news and its effects easier for the people you love, but be true to yrself and yr needs, too.

Again, hope all is well with yr mum. Let me know if you do not want me to reblog yr part of this, by the way. I do not need to leave this up if you don’t want to broadcast this info.

Much love,

Sebastian

blog comments powered by Disqus