Mom didn't believe me (transgender)

Hey, congrats on telling her! It takes great courage to tell family about one's orientation and gender. It's good that you vent, but you need to understand that you mom may be very supportive (she sounds so, and that's awesome) but she may not understand a thing about gender or trans* people. Let alone differentiating between gender and orientation.
You need to be patient cause it may take her a while to get used to this new information and learning new things.
Of course, don't be down, you have her support and that is more than many can get when coming out
Hugs (*hug*) And hang in there!

 

I just read what you said from the point of view of my own mum. Something I'm practicing as part of an empathy experiment. I hope you don't mind, maybe it'll help!

"My son just said he's transgender. The heck does transgender mean. Uh oh I missed whatever that was. Think's he's a girl. Why would he think that!? He acts like a boy...maybe he's gay? Oh heck, is he gay? Got to be supportive! Ok, gay son, supportive! Ok support speech. "You're going through a point in your life where you are trying to figure out who you are..." That sounds convincing I think...Oh, he said something else. "Maybe you just like guys and feel that if you were a girl that would be more normal" I THINK that was supportive. I mean if he's scared of admitting he's gay why wouldn't he wish he was a girl!"

If I said that what you posted to my mum, I am fairly certain that is how her thoughts would go...actually if I'm being honest there would be quite a bit more trans-intolerance in there but since your mum seems supportive (if a little confused) I felt the need to omit it from mine!

Anyway, there are people far better qualified than me to tell you the ins-and-outs of how to explain transgender issues to your mum, I can say reasonably soundly that your mum sounds like she is trying really hard to process what must be a fairly mindblowing thing to hear as gently as possible. It sounds like what your mum has done here is heard what you said and immediately realised she can't handle it all at once and tried to down-size the issue to something she could deal with. It seems your mum could handle you being gay or I doubt she would have suggested that as an alternative...

Incidentally, and someone may disagree with me, but I personally wouldn't take her up on her offer of attending therapy with you...maybe tell her to speak to someone on her own or ask the therapist at college to help you figure out ways to communicate the issue with her better, but I can't think of many things I personally would find more difficult to do than to do a therapy session with my mum listening to every word...

 

She seems to be taking it rather well though all things considered.

Seeing others points of view is seriously hard for things you take for granted, but you pick it up! If you decide to try and talk to her about it again, you could ask her to ask you everything she doesn't understand or to tell her exactly what she thinks you've said.

(I realise it's not QUITE the same but) When I told my mum I'm bi, her immediate thought was that I had a crush on a girl and a guy at the same time, which led to her thinking that I couldn't ever have a long term relationship (she thought your tastes just changed every so often). If your mum has never spent much time thinking about it, and I'm betting like most people she hasn't, then she's going to have all KINDS of weird ideas about what transgender actually means. You picked up on one of them, she seems to think that it might be a 'next step' from homosexuality. Find out what she thinks she knows then you have something to work with when you try and explain to her what's in your head.

 

It couldn't hurt! If you give her an article it should show her that your serious enough about it to have looked something up. If she still doesn't believe you afterwards she might at least be a bit better equipped to deal with it next time it gets brought up!