Is it only me who was accepted by their parents as a transgender???
Oh I could ask a million question but wouldn't know where to start.
I have talked to my wife many a time about it and she knew when we got married and always tells me "that the way it is". I am a girl on the inside and a male on the outside. I must say I prefer my inside and she still loves me from head to toe.
I will be outside the norm on this I guess! My sisters here made me go back in my life and review some to the things that I had repressed. Now I did not really know my father, as my parents divorced long before I came onto this "veil of tears." My mother found solace inside "the bottle" until it killed her. As Rod McKuen and I have that in common that we were both born as, what a lot of people strive there lifetimes to be.
Moving right along. I have developed somewhat of a belief system in the quantum physics/quantum mechanics realm of probabilities. One of those theories deals with "the string" theory, which basically says that all things are connected by means of quantum strings if you will. I have visited my mother's and grandmother's "resting place." They are side by side and as my namesake is.... Virginia Irene, I sense they approve of their "daughter/granddaughter" and actually enjoy and appreciate my visits.
As for my father, he was such a macho, dirt farmer, construction worker, I am sure he rotates in his grave over me! Sorry Dad, can't be helped, deal with it!!!!!
Both of my parents are dead. Dad died 11 years ago and mother died a few years ago. That ws back when even my wife did not know. I am sure Mother would have been OK with it, but I am also sure Dad would not have been OK with it. Dad was retired Air Force (Ltc) and still very much militart even in retirement.
My wife knows of my desires and she is becomeing more comfortable with t, as for the boys, I believe they would be ok withit if they knew but, they will not be told, wifes wishes. The rest of the REDneck family, for-get-it----Lori
I am estranged from my mother, but I told her I am transsexual a few years ago when I tried to bury the hatchet with her. Her response was "Well I don't know about you being transsexual?". So I would not say she was accepting.
My father is dead and I had been estranged from him for a long time before his death. I don't believe my dad would have been accepting. He would have pretended it was ok, but talked behind my back.
In the end, it really doesn't matter whether or not someone is accepting. What matters is whether or not we accept ourselves. Once we accept ourselves, it matters very little what others accept or do not accept.
This was the year I came out to much of my family and close friends, and almost all of them have all been very accepting. For most it's just not a big deal, for others it actually seemed to bring us closer. In my father's case, though, the going is still pretty rocky.
He's clearly worried about my happiness but right now his worries are fairly entangled with a relatively pessimistic world view about how receptive people are to change and the unfamiliar. It's much, much to early to say how our relationship will evolve as a result.
~ Kimberly
“To escape criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." - Elbert Hubbard
Both my mother and my dad are dead -- my father many years back, my mother a few years ago. So far as I am aware they never knew about my gender issues, though I was having them right under their roof.
Matter of fact, though I dressed in my mother's lingerie, I never really put it to myself in so many words in those days what I was, and what I was doing. Really hadn't the words or the concepts for it.
My instinct is that Dad would have been incredulous but he would have understood on a deep level -- even though he might have rejected and punished me for it with all sorts of cruel behavior. Certain evidences have led me to suspect that, under the alcoholism and the driven businessman persona, he led a double life that could have included crossdressing or some similar escape from himself. There was that mysterious rack of dresses in the attic that I never saw Mother wear ...
Mother would have been offended, would have hated it, could not have kept herself from carping about it. But if pressed, she might ultimately have been supportive as, in her tense, reluctant way she often was.
Withholding love was my family's Number One way of showing disapproval, and I'm sure I'd have gotten a bushel of that. I imagine myself sitting around the living room in a dress with them pretending I'm not there. A sort of Purgatory.
My parents and younger sister all know about me.They dont know anything about Jennifer and it seems to me that they dont really care to.It has been 4 years since I told them and (literally) not one word has been spoken about it.I have tried to convey the pain their lack of support causes,but my attempts have all failed.I dont try anymore as I dont feel it is right to push someone into caring about someone else.Thanks to everyone here I will survive and someday flourish.
I've posted this elsewhere, but I'm repeating it because of something in Robyn Katie's post. My father caught me dressed when I was 14, kept calm, reasoned with me, and then assured me it would all be forgotten if I promised never to do it again. So, I promised. A few months later, I got caught again when I accidently put my mother's black strapless bra in the laundry instead of back in her dresser drawer. She told my father, and he proceeded to blow up at me in the most humiliating encounter of my life.
At the same time, my father was an alcoholic (it killed him less than a year after the big blow-up) who had very rigid ideas about gender roles and what a "real man" did or did not do. I can remember, when I was just 5, him giving me a talk about how I was now too old to kiss men (he was referring to my grandfather, who always kissed me when he saw me), that I should shake hands, instead (even though I was so young, I still remember the look on my grandfather's face when he saw me next and I extended my hand instead of my cheek) and how I should call him "Dad" instead of "Daddy".
My mother clearly took her lead from my father in dealing (or not) with my gender issues, but I often wonder how differently she would have reacted had he not been around. When I was two and wanted a baby carriage to play with, she said yes and then he said no. I can remember when I was very little - around 4 - her holding me up to a mirror with a towel draped over my head like a shawl and saying, "what would you look like as a girl?" And it was she who told me once (because I asked) that, had I been born a girl, I would have been named Sharon.
Anyway, Robyn Katie mentioned an alcoholic father, and I wonder how common a thread that is for us sisters. I also wonder how much our fathers' negative reactions to our unmasculine characteristics might have actually reinforced our identification with things feminine.
I came out to my mother last night. She was expecting me to tell her that I was gay. After all, I did come home sporting painted toenails and shaved legs, telling her I wanted to go to the mall to buy some purple underwear. After explaining the difference between gender and sexuality, she seemed to wise up to what I was telling her. We laughed, we cried, and we reached an understanding about the whole thing. I asked her what it was like to know her eldest son was a lesbian. She asked me if I wanted to get a boob job. This is the essence of our relationship.
My dad is next up on the chopping block. I'm not expecting much resistance on his end either. My parents have been divorced since I was 6 or 7 and I was essentially raised by my father. I personally never made much distinction between what boys and girls were supposed to do in their youth, and I was never forced or even nudged to do anything or act a certain way. To this day, in fact, I still hug all my male relatives and no one bats an eye. My teen years were spent around my many female cousins who made me up all the time and I enjoyed it. As long as it didn't interfere with Little League, that is.
As far as the whole alcoholism thing goes, my father didn't start drinking regularly until both me and my brother were grown up and out of the house. I'd categorize him as a social drinker, and not a full blown alcoholic. He hits the bar maybe twice a week. As a matter of fact, he himself relies on the old adage: "People say I have a drinking problem. I tell them I'm actually pretty damn good at it."
In all, I count myself as lucky considering that I have an extremely supportive and sympathetic family (out of 30 cousins, 4 are gay and then there's me). Also, ever since high school all of my really close friends have been female. The few who know about my "deep dark secret" are also accepting.
"I wish I was back on the bayou
Looking like some Cajun Queen."
My Mother was very supportive right from when I was a child. Unfortunately my Father couldn't deal with it so he simply blocked it out. He refused any sort of discussion and wouldn't aknowlege my presence (even if we were in the same room) if I was dressed as a woman.
Sorry Dad, can't be helped, deal with it!!!!!
