How do you come out?

After a grueling two-hour session with my new psychiatrist, we discovered that my "confusion" about my gender is the source of my depression. I was born female and it's confused me, annoyed me, and depressed me since I was twelve...

The thing is, I've tried telling my dad but he never takes me seriously. I even asked for a mastectomy and he said I didn't have a good enough reason to want one. I think I'm old enough to know what I want...

I have a friend who used to allude to some transsexual thoughts of her own, but I can't even talk to her about it. It's like this issue is totally closed off from the world, and I hate keeping things to myself...

The only comfort I have is pretending to be male on the internet, but when I slip back to real life I just get more and more depressed. It kills me inside every time somebody refers to me as "she" or uses my "real name". It just seems awkward to tell somebody I feel like a Jake.

I know telling people would feel so good, but I just can't... How do you do it?

Hey Jake. Sorry no one has responded until now! It's frustrating when the person who's supposed to listen doesn't take what you say seriously, especially when it's something like this. I hope your dad takes things more seriously in the future. It's hard telling someone, especially the first few times. I've heard that some people like to write a letter to tell someone or several people. That way the person can process things in their own way and have time to think about it and you have something that's been carefully put together to give them. I was going to make a video to do that but I ended up just simply telling a couple people. Having some knowledge behind you is helpful. Supportive websites to give them so they can understand more in a meaningful way could be helpful. Otherwise they might just google search it and find who knows what. But when it comes down to it, there's no right or wrong way to tell someone. You just do. And it can be difficult. I hope this helps a little. I wish you all the best.

I hate one side being at odds with the other side. To my loved ones, it is important to identify as my physical gender (male). It's because that is what they expect me to be. But under it there has been my female side that was suppressed throughout most of my life. I was trying to come to terms as to why would I want to suppress something that is part of me? It's a tug-of-war. What I'm trying to work out is how I can balance between both by having some female elements as a part of my overall person. So, in effect, I partly live as a girl by keeping my bits always tucked away, sitting as a girl, wearing panties and some other girl's items, growing my hair longer into a bob, and routine shaving of my legs, arms, etc. I also took on the female version of my name when I got a new job. My coworkers don't have any issues, but on the home front it has to be my birth name. I still look like a guy despite some of the mentioned changes. If I took hormones or other medications, it would spell disaster.

That sounds like it could work. Someone in one of my classes said she stayed up all night trying to figure out how to tell her parents, and she ended up just putting a sign on her door that said "I'm a lesbian. Don't wake me up in the morning." That sounded pretty cool. But thanks for the support, I guess this is going to take a lot of thought.

Hey Jake. I'm sorry that you have to deal with ignorance... and you're not pretending! You are who you are, man.

I came out to my parents when I was 18. I am lucky in the sense that my mom and dad and sister (and at the time) brother were just really supportive and "well if you're not sick then it's fine, just do the dishes now". I told my mom first "I don't feel like a boy or a girl. I feel like I am neither or both." "so what does that mean?" "I'm not a girl or a boy" "Oh god I thought you were going to tell me you had cancer". After that I kind of made the rounds, my mom didn't out me to anyone, and soon people were using my pronouns" (they, them, their's) and no one really thought of it again.

My extended family, how ever, abused me and ridiculed me for it. They still use gendered pronouns and refuse to accept that this is who I am. It hurt, but in the end, it showed me who mattered and who didn't.

Just take your time. Find out what's comfortable for you. Take care!

Hello CaptainKirk: The short answer here is: I don't tell anyone. I'm biologically male, but have, as we say, felt female inside, all of my life. I'm now past 60. My earliest memories relate to this. Of course, way back then, the word "transsexual" hadn't even been invented! Somehow, I don't know how, I learned very early on, that this was something I must never talk about. And so I kept the secret for 60 years until my last major suicide attempt about 2 years ago. (I have some other posts in this forum you can read if you're interested.)

At the time of this last suicide attempt, I basically outed myself because I left a suicide note with the url to a transsexual video I was fond of. So now my wife knows as does my psychiatrist. (I don't have a therapist.) I don't have any other family. And, although I have acquaintances, I don't have any friends. My wife really doesn't want to know anything about it & my pdoc doesn't care. I wish I had never outed myself. Now I just feel exposed and foolish.

Hi Jake,
When I first started coming out to people I was fortunate enough to find community supports. The school I went to had a centre for LGBTQ students, and I went there first and that was the first place I got to introduce myself as (interestingly enough, at first I chose Jake too) and I got to see what it felt like to be called "he".

From there, I found a trans support group in my city and met so many people at every stage in their transition.

Before I transitioned, I really had no friends, and hardly talked to my family because we lived in separate cities. But when I started transitioning, I made new friends and they accepted that I was transitioning a lot easier because they hadn't known me from birth as someone else.

In my family, I told my dad first. He came to visit me at school and I said I had something important to talk about. I told him I was transgender, and he seemed extremely accepting. He said he'd do anything he could to help, and to tell him whenever I wanted him to start using my male name.

It hurts to type that, because my dad didn't take me seriously, that's why he reacted so positively. 6 months later when I was about to start testosterone, he did a complete 180 and now says that he doesn't believe I'm "truly transgender" and in the 3 years I've been on T, he has called me "he" once, and doesn't call me by name any more because he won't use my chosen male name.

My mom went the opposite way, however. At first she was confused and was really hung up on the fact that I'd never said anything about being trans as a kid. Over time, she really opened up to it and is now the most accepting person in my family. She calls me by my male name with no hesitation, apologizes profusely when she forgets and uses my female name. I asked her if she wanted me to correct her when she made a mistake, and she said no. That's fine with me, I can tell she's trying and I appreciate it. We really hit a milestone last Christmas - all of the kids have a huge stocking my mom made when we were little, with the first letter of our name on it. This year, my mom started sewing a new letter for my stocking to reflect my name change.

My brother and sister are generally accepting, but my other sister has religious objections to it.

As for the actual how, I just tried to find a place where I could get the family member alone. I can't remember what I actually said. I didn't really plan it. I just tried to say what was in my heart.

It was really that exploration in LGBT groups that helped me really feel secure enough in my male self to make the step of coming out. Are there any groups near you?