Well, this is a long one so if you're not in the reading mood, you might want to turn around and walk away.

Have you ever said "screw it" and told all of your friends about what's going on? I did and it feels good. I was going to wait a while before coming "out" but I've been thinking about an E-Mail exchange I had with my grandpa the other day. My uncle, with his big mouth, told my grandpa that I'm trans. My grandpa, being the type of Mormon that he is, decided to send me a three-page essay-thingy written by some religious dude, who also happens to be gay. The guy explains his homosexual life as "wrong", "disgusting" and caused by being "misprogrammed".

I read it and I had a few laughs. Afterward, I sent a cordial reply stating that I'm not "misprogrammed" and that this isn't some sort of mental disorder. I said "it's not like I woke up one day and said to myself 'I think I'm going to become a girl'". To throw it back in his face even harder, I informed him that homosexuality and transsexualism are two completely different things. I mentioned to him that I'm not gay but to mess with his head a bit, at the end of the E-Mail, I did write: "Well, I suppose when you think about it, when I fully identify as a female (which will happen, nobody will be able to stop me), chances are, I will still be attracted to females, which will make me a lesbian.".

I don't think he took my response well ("I wish you the best; I know you're busy so no need to reply; blah blah") and yes, it does bug me a little bit. It's not the fact that he personally won't accept it, it's the fact that he tried shoving this religious bullshit (no offense if you're religious) down my ****ing throat. Anyway, after thinking about this for a couple days, I removed close to 40 friends from my lolFacebook Friends List (people I know who'd give me shit and/or resent me) and posted the following:

//START
"O.K. so after removing 40-something people from my Friends List, I have decided to make an announcement: I am in the process of deleting Steve *lastname*. No, I do not mean from Facebook but rather my identity as Steve *lastname*. I was going to wait a while before making this announcement but screw it, I can't hold it in anymore.

That being said, if you're a closed-minded person, I don't want you in my life. If you're against the LGBT community, I don't want you in my life (to answer your immediate question, no, I am not attracted to men). After spending some time thinking about a conversation with a family member a couple of days ago, I have realized that I need to find out who my real friends are and who will be supportive of the transition I am making. This is not a "misprogramming" or a "curable mental illness". This is something that I dealt with over a course of a few years until it progressed to a state to where it was unbearable. I made my final decision to move forward after a very bad emotional breakdown at the end of last year.

I know that I'm not revealing what I'm talking about in this post and if you give a shit, message me. I'm sure that there will be a lot of questions and I don't want to flood this update with them. I will openly answer your questions as long as they're serious questions. Any intentional scrutiny and/or negativity will promptly result in you getting cut out from my life."
//END

Even though it's going to be a while before I fully transition (work is one of the last steps), I don't regret announcing this. Even though I'm only a month into HRT, a month is long enough for me to know that I am on the right path. I was going to wait until I was ready to live my life as Erin, even if only outside of work until I reached out to one of our LGBT focals. People say that you should never come out too soon but I honestly think that I waited long enough; it's time to let the bad seeds weed themselves out.