Today my husband (pre-HRT MtF still identifying as masculine) came out to his mother, NOT in the way we had planned, but he found what felt like the right moment while they were sitting in the car waiting for a doctor appointment. She's a rather rabid Mormon, but she's also somewhat accepting and liberal in certain ways, and at one time was a licensed therapist. So we had no idea how she might react. She just moved in with us for medical and financial reasons, and we weren't certain if she was ready for what she was walking into, with both of us planning surgeries and HRT in the nearish future. She also has a history of depression, including hospitalization, so we were quite concerned. She was surprised, maybe a bit shocked, but actually handled it rather well. She's a somewhat masculine woman, prefers men's clothes when they fit, mostly because they fit her body different. I don't think she really understands the difference between not caring about what sex body the clothes were intended for, and transgender. She already equated her preference for plain/masculine options with our gender issues. However, he didn't tell her about me. I wish he had. So I had my own talk with her. It was hitting her with a lot, she probably thought the shock was over, and I hit her with another round. Either she took it very well, almost in stride, or she's hiding a deeper reaction. We'll see once she absorbs the double shock. We had been planning on telling our (adult) kids this weekend, and telling her later. I thought the kids deserved to know first. I'm a bit pissed that he did this without me, and didn't tell her about me at the same time. It's a talk we'll have later when we have some privacy. So, tonight we tell the offspring, two of them at least. Our daughter lives in another state. We'll have to do that by phone.
Since MIL now knows, we decided to tell our sons (who live in a second unit on our property), and their reactions were pretty much what we expected. With one exception. Younger son (24) was surprised that his dad was trans, but took it in stride. But when it came to my non-binary disclosure, he said "No duh. I think everyone knew but you." Grrrr. LOL. Then he started using terms that even my husband and I don't know. He knows trans better than we do, because he has a lot of online trans and non-binary friends. Which didn't surprise me, but I was a bit miffed to have less information than he did. Older son (26) who is on the mild end of the autism spectrum, was taken aback at first, his whole world upended, but pretty quickly (within ten minutes) had adjusted, and by the end of our half-hour family meeting we were all making bad trans puns and jokes. Now for our out of state daughter. After that, eventually other out of state family, as needed. I eventually want to come out at least on my public Facebook page, which will out me to my entire extended family, including the Christian Fundamentalist wing of the family. Ugh. I'm sure they'll "pray for me." They're already doing that for my atheism, a phase they're still waiting for me to grow out of. :rolle:
