new ftm needing adivce on several matters

Alright, just want to say, thank you for coming to EC. I'm a closeted transman myself, so while I'm afraid I can only offer advice from the confines of my little metaphorical wardrobe (gee, Narnia's quite lovely this time of year, I will admit...), I'm here if you have any questions.

So you'll be starting therapy and you're out to family- which is definitely a bigger step than I've ever had the courage to take.

Now as far as coming out goes, you are out to your immediate family, so you have back up when it comes to informing the more conservative members. Do you know if these more conservative members are transphobic? I'd advise caution- make sure you've got family on your side before you say anything to them.

Names? Well, as far as cowboy names, I've got Garth, Hank, Keith. I'm a writer with a country music obsessed mother- I'll pull up something if you'd like.

Well, you never know. I'd go for making the GSA. Even if you're the only transguy there, you're bound to make an impact for the general LGBT community. And who knows? With support, you might just encourage someone to come out as trans* at your school but you never know if you don't put yourself out there.

Best of luck, my man and let me know if you need any more advice and whatnot. I'll do my best to help out.

 

As far as coming out goes- I'm afraid I've got little in way of hands on experience. I come from a fairly liberal family and am still chicken (parents are mildly transphobic), so the only people I'm out to are close friends and a few of my LGBT supportive groups.

Think the best thing you can do is to play it safe. Come out, but be prepared for negative reception. Expect the worst, hope for the best. Since you're out to your parents, you'll have them to help support you. If they reject you- you don't need them anyway.

As far as names go, just play around and see what works. In all honesty, my name was the first thing that came to me when I was trying to figure out my guy name. I kept a running list of guy names as a kid, should I ever "be a boy". Top two contenders were Byron or Brian and Byron just fit me. Honestly like the name Owen, to be honest.

Most big universities are fairly liberal so I think, for the most part, you'll be alright. But do ask around when you go shopping around and see what the general LGBT population is like at a given school. I myself am going to a community college for the first couple years and I've been told that there's a pretty good outlook there for trans* students. Go to human resources and let them know that you're trans* and hopefully they'll be able to inform professors and such about your preferred name, pronouns. And if not, you can always email the professors themselves and explain the situation.

So just let me know if you have any other questions. Cheers, mate.