Coming out - Part 2

It was New Years Eve 2011 and I was heading over to my Dad's house to begin the celebrations and was very excited about an evening out in town with my step brothers. It was also going to be one of the biggest nights of my life, my Mum was going to find out about my transition. I also decided I was going to tell 2 of my step brothers that night.

Me and one of my brothers before we went into town NYE 2011

So let's fast forward to the evening when we're getting ready to go out. I decided it would be easier to tell them separately. For context, they're twins and are 3 years older than me. I was really close with both of them, but had always spoken more to one. We were in his room and I can't remember how I really brought it up, but I just said something along the lines of, basically I feel like I should have been born male, and I was going to medically transition to become physically male. I explained that I was going to be his brother instead of his sister, that I would now being going by the name “Adam” and that I would prefer male pronouns. His response? “oh okay, that makes sense, cool”. He wasn't at all phased, or shocked. Apparently it “explained a lot”. So that was another family member down, and with a great result. Now for the other brother.
I asked if I could speak to him privately so we went into the living room, and I explained in the same way I did to the other brother. He responded by saying that would always support me with whatever, he also wasn't shocked or phased. I was so relieved, it went so well with both of them. I could go out with them that night, and have an awesome time, knowing that they're completely fine with it and that it made no difference to our relationship. Dad and my step mum didn't know yet, but I wasn't ready to approach that situation just yet. I had to see how things went with Mum first.

New Years Eve 2011 

So my brothers and I are about to head into town to celebrate NYE, and I get a text from my Mum. I was terrified to open it and see how she felt about my letter. The text said something like “I have read your letter, don't worry, we'll get through this together. Love from Mummy”. Wow, I thought, did that really just happen? Was she really okay with it, and was going to support me through my transition? I was so happy thinking this is how she felt. It made me feel great about the evening and I had a brilliant time. However, when I returned home to Mum the next day, I discovered that “we'll get through this together”  didn't mean she was supportive of me transitioning, it really meant, we will try and fix you. A lot went on in mine and Mum's relationship over the next few years, but i'll talk about all that later.

Next on the list was my dad and step mum. I went with the plan of telling the step parent again, as my step mum was also a really laid back person, and I didn't expect a bad response from her. I text her to say I wanted to meet up and chat away from dad so we agreed to meet at Costa Coffee in town. I took my letter with me again, and handed it to her, I sat and drank my hot chocolate while she read it. I tried not to look at her and add anymore awkwardness to the situation. I recall the first thing she asked was whether I was still harming myself, to which I replied no (this was a lie, but it was less than before and I didn't want to upset her). I can't really remember what else she said (I really should have written things back then instead of trying to remember it all now) but I know it wasn't anything bad. She said it'll take a while for her to get to grips with calling me Adam, since she had a hard enough time getting the right name for her 4 sons, which was always rather amusing. I said I understood and obviously didn't expect anything to happen overnight.

March 2012 vs today (Nov 2016)

We spoke about telling my Dad, and she said she thought it'd be better if she told him, which I agreed with. I don't know much about how she told him, but she said he didn't take it all that well. Mostly it was due to the fact that he was worried about what his friends would think. But after a while he was okay, the main thing he told me he was upset about was that he wouldn't be able to walk his daughter down the isle like he'd always hoped, so I get that.
Right, well that's an overview of how the immediate family telling situation went, next was the rest of the family and work...