Okay, something isn't working. I'm out to my family, friends and ex- and aside from a few lost friends, they're starting to accept it (it's toughest on my Mom, who's a Fundamenalist, but now she's willing to listen). The only trouble is, they're always saying, I'm not ready to see you like that, yet. Aside from work, I'm living as female now (work transition comes in November, per aggreement with my boss). This means either I see much less of everybody, or I have to change to visit, and it's feeling like too much of a double-life in which Mercy's not getting her fair share of time.

The question is, is it normal for everyone to have to take so long to be ready to meet me in girl mode? (I've already sent out photos, so they know what to expect). In the case of my ex-, she did meet me once in girl mode, and it shocked her so much that she wouldn't see me for a month and a half, before she came back around -- but still only wants to see me in boy mode.

I didn't think I was that homely.

If it takes this long for people to adjust, then when I make the transition at work in the span of a week, does it mean that I can expect a constant stream of extreme reactions from people who don't get that several-month comfort zone, or am I just being too soft on my family?

Thank you everyone, for the feedback. This is definitely an insightful & supportive site.

Wendy: I have showed the profile photo I'm using here right now to Mom and my sister (and soon to Dad). Really, the biggest visual differences will be slight clothing style (I'd probably stay with pant suits around them awhile), a bit of padding and the wig (and all through adolescence and my 20s, I tried to have my hair somewhat like this, it's only thinned out too much in the past decade). But I don't know if the photo has helped.

Karen: Yes, I've also tried integrating more by wearing a woman's jacket, pants and shoes (sort of androgynous). I was hoping that because they look so much better than my dumpy boy clothes, they might see a positive change in how I'm taking care of myself as well, but they don't seem to want to see it.

Lucy: Thank you for putting words to what I was suspecting. I was hoping it might be my imagination, but this clarifies it a little bit more in my mind. I think what I may need to do is just take a "let me know when you're ready and we'll visit / have coffee" approach where the ball is in their court and they understand that they won't see me otherwise until then. Although I will have to be a little easier on Mom. I'm also not certain about Dad, because he keeps saying, "if that's what you want to do, well, it's just up to us to accept it," but what I'm reading from him is that of all the people I'm facing this with, he's the one most genuinely not prepared.

I guess it will be touch-and-go for awhile. But thank you all very much for the help.

Wendy covered it all very eloquently, and that's exactly how I feel too about Mercy not getting her fair share of airtime. However, WRT moving, I don't know that that necessarily solves things -- there are always Fundies out there or people who will object, occasionally even more objections in the gay community than among straights. Sometimes, we have to find a place where we belong, and other times we have to make it -- everyone's choice will be different. But either way, there are always going to be times where we have to take that stand and others will have to live with it. I guess my question amounts to how sensitive we need to be about that.

If it helps, Wendy, the city where I live is quite redneck, but I've had fairly good experiences shopping, getting pizza delivered and whatever. I was escorted out of WalMart once and had a couple of Medicenter doctors refuse to treat me on seperate occasions (one just over a lousy flu!), but whatever. I don't know if there is a "place in the sun," but once I started getting out there wholesale, the place I am became much less frightening.

Take care

I started my transition in 2002, only in 2005 my sister was ready to meet me and 2006 my mother was ready.
So, it took 3 to 4 years, my ex still cannot meet me. She stayed away from our daughter´s wedding knowing I´ll be there.
Others accept the fact more quickly, my workmates accepted me in a few weeks time.

Laura

People have a hard time adjusting to changes in their belief system....and you must be a heck of a change for some of them to adjust to. Their problem. Your problem is that they have a problem. Too bad for them cause they are missing meeting a cute lady from your picture. You remind me of one of my ggfs. Maybe a picture before the "real thing". The one you use on TW would be a good one, I think. Just head and shouldgers. Desensitize them a little at a time. Next picture do a full body shot. Finally, perhaps have them over to your place while you are en femme. Being off their home ground could actually work for you in this case. It leaves their "safe zone" unchanged. It's been suggested before to invite them to a session with your gender therapist, if you have one. I recommend a "group" session or it could get expensive for you. On the other hand, maybe your therapist will pick up some work as some of them try to work out THEIR issues.

Good luck, Mercedes.

I read this lastnight & I wondered how I would handle it.
I still can't give a sure answer. To get to the point that you overcome all the fears within yourself enough to take this step, only to have others now hold you back for thier sake.
I think I'd show up with my nails done or a little lite makeup.
But I don't know you or your family realy. So I can't say if thats right or not.
Good Luck at work & I hope you get this worked out.

I had this sort of comment from a couple of people. It’s not really a comfort zone, I think it’s more a form of denial. It’s quite unlikely that anyone who says this to you is ever going to just decide one day that yes, they are ready to see you now. Maybe they have a fear of something unknown, it’s always going to be unknown to them until they see it for real. The only way these people will be “ready” to see you is when they have actually seen you.
You do of course have to be patient and understanding, but it’s a question of HOW patient. I’ve been patient with my dad, he’s still not ready to see me 1 year and 4 months after first telling him. I couldn’t wait forever, I had to go full time, I’d given him a few months and in that time met with him and tried to talk to him, but to no avail. So since I went full time he hasn’t seen me at all, still not ready…
I’m sure whatever he’s imagining is worse than the reality. I don’t look entirely feminine, I always get read, but hopefully I don’t look as bad as the picture in his head, which is all he has to go on despite having sent him a few photos by email. It’s probably got nothing to do with actually “being ready to see you dressed”. These people have issues, and probably the only way to help them is to confront them with it; show them the reality, destroy the nightmarish images in their heads created by years of prejudice and misunderstanding.
My dad’s an extreme example, he is never going to give me a call and say he’s “ready” now. He may never come round whatever I do and whatever anyone says to him, so I’m not pushing him, maybe I should, I dunno. One of my female friends the same age as me said the same thing when I told her about me, “I don’t think I’m ready to see you dressed just yet”. So I gave her a few weeks then one night when we were both going to a friend’s for dinner I dressed. She wasn’t upset, she knew she couldn’t dictate to me when it was allowable for me to actually BE the person I had told her I was, and suddenly, having seen me dressed, she was ready.
Surely that’s the whole point of coming out, we go though all this pain, all the fear of hurting people we love because we have an absolute need to be our real selves, because we can’t live with these restrictions that we think society places on us. You come out to lose those restrictions, so you can’t let people make excuses to force them back onto you.
Be patient to a degree, be gentle and understanding, but be firm and be yourself, not who they want you to be. Ultimately people will respect you for that.
xx

I've been thinking about this and had come to a conclusion. I was ready to post about it. Then I read Lucy's post and her ability to see things clearly is as sharp as ever. It merely confirmed what I had decided.

Being able to live transgendered has to become more important than anything else. If you get to where living YOUR life is more important than losing everyone who matters...perhaps even losing everyone else in the world...then you are ready to deal with coming out. I don't want to live without those people, but I can't live without Wendy. I did that most of my life and it wasn't MY life. If I am to live MY life I have to be willing to pay any price. If others are not willing to deal with it, they don't love you enough. We have to accept that this will happen. If we deny ourselves to protect ourselves, is it fair to criticize others for doing the same to protect themselves?

I sometimes feel resentment build in me but I recognize it for what it is. I'm not living the way I want to live. I haven't even given them the chance to decide whether or not to accept me as I truly am. Some even "know"...they have told me they like the fact that I can be strong and gentle. Herin lies the answer to my question. Why am I willing to move to West Hollywood, further from my friends, and live in a TG ghetto in order to live the way I want to...need to? The guestion is it's own answer. Because they are not, with two exceptions, Wendy's friends...not yet. Because there I can be myself and make friends who will be Wendy's friends. But ultimately, so that I can live MY life because it's more important than anything else....than anything I may lose. It seems a small thing to be able to answer the front door without worrying whether I've got my gold studs in or am wearing dangling earrings or if I have nail polish on or not....but it is very important. I want to be get pizza or chinese food delivered without having to change into drab or having to worry about the fundamentalist idiots down the block burning a cross on my lawn. It's a vicious jerk on my life...on being me. I like Wendy. I like being myself and not having to play act that I'm someone else. It's too crazy-making to play Him now that I know I'm not. I don't want to have to wear drab to go to dinner, to go out for the mail or the paper or to answer the door. I've already lost too much. It's not about what I will lose but what I will gain. The others are welcome to come with me but I will no longer give up my life to keep them or for them. Perhaps when Wendy was a silent child hidden in the loft. Not now. Now the value of Wendy living her life has become far too dear. The price of "gold" has skyrocketed in the gender market since I've started wearing it in my ear lobes and on my nails. We talk about dressing as being like an addiction. It's LIFE that is addictive.

Of course, Lucy has said as much, in her own way, many times. Sometimes we just need time to see it clearly ourselves.

Mercy,

First, let me say that I have NO intention of staying in this area any longer than it takes me to get a job. That preceeds my becoming TG-aware by many years. In fact, when I last had control over where I lived it was in Silver Lake, which is a community with a heavy population of "out" GLBT persons, thought I did not notice a remarkable TG population....but then I was fairly TG-unaware at the time....nearly 10 yrs ago. I only intend to stay in L.A. as long as I need to to pursue my career goals. Living in WeHo would put me close to some of the TG/TS support organizations and therapists. If I take my BSN/MSN online I do not need to stay in the SFV...which I've never been thrilled with. WeHo is close to TG venues and I hate to commute. I hope to work in that area and I hate to commute. I am not fleeing SFV because I'm TG. I'm just fleeing the SFV, lol. Eventually, I want to live in Montana, for at least 3 yrs., to continue my education.

The real reason for WeHo is, as I have realized, because it will enable me to spend much more of my time NOT maintaining masculine roles. It will speed development of my real Self and help me get past the entrenched shame connected with my TG nature. I have rejected this intellectually, but emotionally will take time and habit. I think I can speed that in WeHo. Add the opportunity to live where I want to work, near places I want to visit often and where there is a non-academic school I want to attend and it really has little to do with my neighbors attitudes toward GLBT persons and much more to do with their noisy dogs and self-centered and boring lifestyles. I found my neighbors in Silver Lake to be far more interesting people. Lucy Lawless used to visit one of my neighbors. Dr. Zarkov's laboratory (The Observatory) sat on top of the hill. There were numerous brick and stone steps leading up and down hills in the neighborhood. There was culture outside the back of the refrigerator shelf. I miss having neighbors who make stained glass windows or work for phone sex lines. The Valley is boring and almost devoid of real culture. Public transit is far better around Hollywood. Itls the one place in Los Angeles you do NOT need a car. No, Mercy, it's about wanting to live in EVERY way, not just in gender-ways. The ONLY thing keeping me in the SFV is the University where I have already been admitted as a student.....and it's 30 miles closer to Sundance. But even one day a week driving to SFV for college and twice a month up the Grapevine to see Sundance are nothing compared to commuting multiple times each week from SFV to WeHo-Hollywood area to work and train and socialize with other TGs at clubs.

Being able to live in a far more accepting neighborhood is a bonus. The neighborhood has a heavy Hassidic population as well, their own "ghetto". They don't have to live there but it is more comfortable for them than having to explain themselves every moment of every day of their lives. Being an ambassador is fine...to a point...but one needs to live and I have used far to much of my time up already.

I think I've made up my mind, don't you?