Spinning the Truth (A Fairy Tale)
Some of you may know that I've been out for a while now to friends and the entire firm where I work, but not really to family (aside from two cousins and my son), and especially not to my mother. Lord knows I hate being secretive about this, especially to my own mother, but there are several reasons why I couldn't tell her:
~ she's elderly and ill,
~ she's got the beginnings of dementia and can't quite grasp even simple things anymore,
~ she's also become quite difficult to deal with (like a ranting, tantrum-throwing toddler),
~ she'd probably tell the rest of our hateful, judgmental family.
Anyway, National Coming Out Day last week got me thinking that I have to find a way to tell her something, somehow. So, I decided to put a spin on the truth - sort of like how we tend to simplify things to children when we know they're still too young to understand certain grown-up things. Like they say in Hollywood, "based on actual events" (though it's not exactly the true story).
Another motivator in my trying to find a way to come out to her is that I found out a crazy, gossipy aunt learned the truth from somewhere and has been calling other relatives to tell them. At first I was livid, but then I realized that it really doesn't matter if they ostracize me since they pretty much already do. So screw them if they have a problem with it. I just didn't want some (probably now-distorted) version of the story to get back to Mom through the grapevine. If she's going to hear anything, she should hear it from me. And, as my son reminded me, I have absolutely no control over what other people will say about me, so I should just let it go (he's so smart - I wonder where he gets that?).
So I began by telling her that I have both male and female hormones. I must have caught her on one of her good days because she quickly came back at me with "everybody has both hormones". I told her that, while that's true, I now have more male than female hormones and that it's a more natural condition for me than for other females and that I refuse to ever take female hormones again to try to balance it out. It took her a couple of minutes to absorb that and she agreed that taking female hormones could screw things up, as she has heard it happen to other (bio) women. Finally, I continued and told her that this will cause physical changes in me that will become more apparent as time goes on. She thought about it for a while and then said, "okay".
I also explained to her that her sister has been spreading rumors about me to the rest of the family, although I doubt anyone has the guts to tell her or me about it - they'd rather gossip than ask and try to find out the truth. That really upset her, but she said she's glad she now knows why the rumors are out there and she knows what to tell people should they ask her.
Okay, so it's not really the whole story, but it's not exactly a lie and it seemed to put her at peace. I think it's better than not telling her anything at all - which was really eating me up inside. If she can't handle the truth, then at least she has her own version of it - one that she seems to have taken well. And if she has real questions sometime in the future, I can give her more details as necessary.
Any thoughts?
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I won't tell her anyways. 
I think you did the right thing by telling her in a way she would understand, but also in a way that would keep your relationship with her on what seems to be a good level. As for relatives, well you know what they say about that 'you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family'... sometimes, family can be the most cruel and spiteful people, but at least you have many friends here who understand and love you for who you are, well I do anyway 
Great Job, Capt.
