I’ve been flirting with the idea of outing myself as transy pants to my mum… and *almost* did just yesterday. We had a spare moment where we were both in the car with no one else around so I opened with this trans ice breaker:
“You know, there’s a lot of trans people at my new job and we’ve become fast friends. One of them uses flexible gender pronouns and sports a skirt and facial hair.”
Mum, who had been trying to sound really interested in everything I have to tell her up to this point (I admit, haven’t been calling that much, so this makes sense) responded with a pretty dead, “oh”. The car was uncomfortably quiet for the rest of the drive, which kept getting longer as we repeatedly got lost. I tried to bring it back up again, but stopped just shy of mentioning that they’re are FTM folks at my job when I got zero warm or slightly positive responses from her.
Its been one step forward, two steps back for most of my coming out process with her and I’m not sure how to get it on track.
In general, my mum goes out of her way to be supportive… but then she says things that make it seem like she’s not with me at all. I’m not sure how much of that is an education gap or a sign that she isn’t really as ok with my identity as I thought she was… and thats with her only knowing a small, very managed, portion of it.
Recently, we were given cause to believe that she thinks I dress butch because my wife is coercing me to in order to avoid competing with how pretty I am. Now, this info comes to us third-hand so I try not to take it too seriously… but from what information I can glean from her directly it sounds feasible.
This troubles me for many reasons. For one, I think I’m pretty! I mean, in a butch kind of way… but I’m pretty. It makes me sad to think she doesn’t think I’m pretty this way because (pausing to be a huge narcissist for a moment) I’ve never felt so pretty in my life as I do right now.
Secondly, it makes me sad because she must think quite a lot less of my wife’s intentions and our relationship. Its probably got a lot to do with body size and normative culture (I’m a skinny thing and she is a curvy love) but, damn it, she’s SO pretty… and an entirely different kind of pretty than me. Apples and oranges. One *could* compare, but its just silly.
Now, I’m used to working with haters. My new job puts me on the front line of homophobia. I stand on busy sidewalks and talk to any strangers I can stop about gay rights. Most people are really nice… but yesterday someone deliberately farted at my station to show just how they disapprove.
This kind of stuff I can more than handle, I can thrive in it.
… but the support/notsupport I’m trying to figure out with my mum is beyond me.
When its dislike out in the open, I know what to do with it. I can even handle it deftly… but this quiet confusion and fluid levels of disapproval leave me stumped. I can’t gauge what language to use because I can’t tell where she is with me. Mind you, she doesn’t know where to be with me either because I’m not that out with her yet.
From where I am, it seems I have two options. I could bite the bullet and out myself as genderqueer/transmasculine and hope for the best. This option would be simplest, but the burning bridges potential is pretty high. I could also continue as I have with delicate identity management… comfort permitting. This one is tricky since managing too much makes me feel like a rotten liar, and disclosing too much keeps upsetting our already rocky apple cart of a relationship.
But the good news is there’s a meeting for parents and partners of trans people just a few blocks from my new house.
<3
I’m hoping to glean a little knowledge from peeps who have already been through it. I know this process is not an isolated one, I just don’t have any social role models to base my challenges off of.
(hey! I just found the privilege!)
That’s the thing with coming out processes… it sure as hell is a process.
I know I’ll get there, its just going to take a while.
