Coming out and children...

[Kirsty_D]

Has anybody here any experience with coming out and how it effect there children?

My son is 8 and Dad is his big buddy, swimming, computer games etc… I always make time for him and he looks up to me as a role model but if he say Dad mincing about in high heels and a dress I think it would have serious detrimental effects on him.

I however, don't intend to be en femme when he's around but worry about being caught out. (There is only so many times you could say that daddy is playing a joke on mommy!)

Has anybody come out where there is younger children involved? Been found out by there younger children etc...

[Kaitlyn Michele]

if you are not planning on transitioning and having him see you, then what are you going to tell him??

For what its worth, i have two girls, and we were great buddies, we went out together, computer games are our favorites...

after transition i DON NOT MINCE AROUND the house in high heels...

But we are still best buds, we still play video games together, in fact even more so...they were 11 and 14 btw...

[Kirsty_D]

Thanks Kaitlyn, transitioning is a few years away, if at all but I am heading in that direction just that I may stop short of fully transitioning.

My comment "Mincing around in a dress and high heels" was a bit over the top but Kirsty and 'him' are totally poles apart. I work on an oil rig, I'm loud, brash and can be over the top and not to mention foul mouthed. I was never always this way, the job and the environment changed me but that the man he knows. To see dad in a dress, makeup etc… would be to look at the total opposite of what dad is, I know I'm not a particularly good role model for him as a father. On the other hand dad in a dress may be worse than continuing on as now. I think by the time he's 12 or so it won't be such an issue and probably he'll handle tis very well.

As I said before I don't intend to dress when he's about but, you know kids… You put them to bed, sound asleep so you kick of your drab clothes put on something more relaxing and sit down to watch a move with your wife and before you know it the child is standing beside you… "Dad, I don't feel well…."

I'm just wondering how others have dealt with pre-teens in such situations.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Thnx Kirsty (oil rig!! wow!!.. loud and foul mouthed..sounds just like me !)

I think i said it that way to be blunt on purpose...the reason i did is because based on what you are saying, i'd urge you to think this through...
if you are focused on make-up, not being drab, dad in a dress, etc... and its not about transition, its about crossdressing (at least for now)...and there is no good way or good reason to tell him at 8 yrs old, 12 or 13 is a better age..
It's not a good reason to tell him just in case you get caught..(only in my opinion of course)...

When many of us transition, we don't wear makeup all the time(at least until we are more fully in the female role), i rarely wear a dress....see what i'm saying?? As ts parents, we don't need to dress up or wear make up...we are just women...
don't get me wrong, its hard...and the kids have to adjust, but to help them, i wore sweats, and didnt wear makeup until they totally understood what i was doing...that sucked for me, but thats what was best for the kids at the time..
when i transitioned, i did it right in front of them and was confident...after the initial shock period, it just became normal..

one crazy idea is if you really want to just relax better at night, just get some women's sweats...he won't know the difference... they are cut differently, maybe some color around the waist...breasts forms under the sweatsuit top...he won't know the difference but you will...

also i would warn you that my 11 year old was very very confused...she is a smart kid, and is 15 now and doing great, but at the time, she cried and cried and kept saying "i don't understand"... it took alot of work from both me and especially my wife to help her understand..

[Aprilrain]

I have a 13 year old step son, a 5 year old and an almost 2 year old, all boys. My 2 year old will never know the difference though he is learning that I'm "dad" from my 5 year old which irritates me to no end! My wife and step son call me April. My 5 year old seems to be the most affected, he is kinda just refusing to accept, like my wife said he has an "imaginary dad" based on the old me. I recently went to fathers day at his school. Yeah! I felt like a sheep walking into the wolfs den! Actually it wasn't bad at all, there were other woman there and everyone was busy with there own kid, I was not even on their radar. Anyway he drew a picture of "me" for fathers day. It was a pretty good likeness of me 1.5 years ago complete with tie. Only time I wore ties was if I HAD to! He likes to tell people about our family for instance my wife took the kids to Chicago to go to museums and whatnot, they took busses and trains everywhere because parking is a rip off, they were on a bus and my 5 year old was sitting next to a mom and daughter he proceeded to tell them our entire life story...... So my dads a girl now and his name is April. Ah 5 year olds! Last summer we were at a large water park, he had to use the restroom. I was wearing a bikini and sun dress, we walked into the woman's, obviously! As we were walking in and a bunch of other woman were walking out he says, loudly, DAD why are we going in the girls? Jee thanks kid! I explained, I've ignored, I've been gracious, I've cried, I've even snapped at him in a week moment "I DON'T LIKE BEING CALLED DAD!" he was mystified, but why??? Then two seconds later dad? Blah blah blah. It's hopeless. Hopefully someday out of personal embarrassment he will NOT loudly call me dad in public. He KNOWS what my name is because when he wants something he will call me April. Manipulative little.........

[Kirsty_D]

Kaitlyn, My skin's marly tough from 20 plus years in this job so you can be extremely blunt with me but having said that i tear up very easily at the sentimental parts in movies… A couple of weeks ago it was Kung Foo Panda 2, had to really hold that in so the wee boy wouldn't see it. Stupid I know but catches me out once in a while! Thank you for telling me about your experience, it's never easy when children are involved and you have given me something to think about. The feminine sweats is a great idea.

April, I can understand what your 5 year old is going through. I have found that boys from about age 4 to 11/12 very strongly identify with a male role model, there Dad and need that controlling influence in there lives. Your story brings back to mind my first wife and step son, I last spoke to him when he was 14 he's now in his middle 20's, he will never speak to me again. Different circumstances but still the heart break of trying to deal with children. An issue that as an adult you could come to terms with but as a child much harder. If I had to do it all over (the break up of my first marriage) I would have not lost contact with him and would have been more open about the issues and talked to him about them. Sounds like you are doing the right thing though and giving him some quality time and support.


Regarding cross dressing vs starting transitioning I plan to live as much as possible en femme. My job will be in drab so that's half my life gone there and when my son is at home I'll be much more conservative in my dress. I've spoken to a few girls here about hormones and received some great advice and that will definitely go ahead once I've reached my target weight (85kgs, down from 100kgs now), so this has given me renewed drive to push the [-]diet[/-] lifestyle food choices to keep on track.

I appreciate the honest and direct answers and feel for the first time in 30 years that I can deal with this.

[kimdl93]

Kirsty, my sons (13 and 9) learned of my CDing from their mother. She told family members, friends, and co-workers about my CDing. she was angry, and I understand that...but it was hurtful at the time. My younger son really disregarded it completely, but my older son got onto my computer and read some correspondence between me and my therapist. so, he knows a lot more than I would care for him to know.

I have two observations to make from my experience. 1) I didn't lose my sons. There were some rocky times, especially with my eldest, but a wise friend advised that I just keep trying, keep the doors open, keep extending my hands to them...and walk the walk of being a caring parent. It worked. 2) eventually, most of us learn that our parents are imperfect - have feet of clay, as the expression goes. Despite that, we love them, if they are reliably there for us.

[Kirsty_D]

Kim, from my experiences with my first marriage I know I should not have run away and locked the doors, it's not what I would do now. I'd always try to be open and prepared to talk and reconcile differences. I like most people went through a period of blaming my parents for things but as you grow older you realized they jut tried to do the best they could with what knowledge they had at the time and the resources that were available to them.

Regarding digital foot prints… I'm a bit of a tech geek so I have that side well locked down, I even use a special browser for this site so that when I close the window all history is removed from my computer, no logging.

[kimdl93]

we do learn as we get older. I'm at a good place with my kids, but it may be partly because I don't have to pretend to be perfect. They're well aware that I am not. In fact, my best advice to them is "think of whay your dad would do in a given situation, then do the opposite" Its pretty near fool-proof!

[Katesback]

To answer your question, thousands of TS women and men have come before you and many had kids. This is not so much rocket science as it is you having the inner strength to show your actions are honorable. I mean if you show that its a negative thing then they will see it as that. Conversly you sit them down and explain what you are and that your going to move forward with your plans it will be ok.

I stress like I stress so often. If you do not have an intention of difinitively transitioning then they and anyone has no business knowing what you are and you would be wise not to talk about it with them.

Katie

[gonegirl]

I don't know if I would try to explain this to my kids, but I think it's one of those things that is a personal judgement call. Then there's the risk that they will discover it by accident beforehand.

I almost died of shock a few minutes ago when my 2 year old daughter unexpectedly walked in just as I was posting a pic of me enfemme to the New Member Introductions list. She saw it before I had the chance to close the computer and said "That's (insert name of one of her little friends) mommy!" I guess you could say that I was almost outed!

[Sally24]

.........I stress so often. If you do not have an intention of difinitively transitioning then they and anyone has no business knowing what you are and you would be wise not to talk about it with them.

The problem with that is that it is pretty common for the kids to find out or figure out on their own, they're pretty smart. If it's a choice between an accidental exposure or a planned discussion I'll take the discussion every time!

[arbon]

There have definitely been a lot of issues to work through with my daughter. First talked with her about 1 1/2 years ago, she was 10, now almost 12 and in middle school - which is already kind of a rough time for kids, having a trans parent adding to that social pressure cooker , yeah. lots of fun sometimes!

I tried to give her a lot of room to work it out, ask questions when she was ready to, talk about it as much or as little as she wanted. Tried to be respectful that in some situations its very hard for her to be seen with me - especially around school. Have had to let her adjust. She can be embarrassed about me still sometimes, she does get a little bit of teasing at school because of me. She has also had a lot of fear about how people will treat me. We have had a lot of interesting conversations that I doubt very many father / daughters ever will.

But for the most part she has handled it rather gracefully. Better then I could have imagined. We do have a good relationship.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/59059684@N03/5850382491/

[RachelOKC]

I'm very open with my three year old about who I am. I refuse to be ashamed of myself any longer and I refuse to hide who I am from my own family. The GLBT community in the Bay Area has a lot of resources and support for non-traditional families, so we're more than happy to take part and my son gets the benefit of being with other kids from families like his.

As I've said before on similar threads, my son is still too young to really understand but he is starting to get that things are different in his family. Mostly right now he just accepts things as they are, but he's at that age where he's starting to ask a lot of questions. I just try to answer as honestly as I can in a way that he will understand. Tonight's questions were, "Daddy sits to go pee? Daddy has a penis? Is Daddy a boy or is Daddy a girl?" One of the more amusing ones a few weeks ago was "Daddy wears a bra?

As for "Daddy" I'm not going to screw with that. It's a bit embarassing when I'm with him on the BART train and it's "DADDY, DADDY, DADDY" but whatever...kids embarass parents far worse than that doing other things and I don't even try to pretend I'm not trans. If we work out something else name-wise in the future I probably won't be unhappy about it, but right now I'm just trying to keep some things simple for him. Transition is of course anything but simple, so I'm not going to try to sweat the small stuff.

[Lorileah]

I don't have children but I have to wonder what kind of role model hides and keeps secrets? Isn't a good role model one who helps their child learn that there are variations in life and the gender roles are outdated? That acceptance is a good value? That you don't HAVE to fit a certain stereotype? That you can be both macho and compassionate?

[Misskelly]

Well , Let me chime in from a child Perspective I grew up With a father who Crossed dressed at home , It never had any ill effects on me other then I hated I could never invite my friends over because Aunt Sally was around ( that what I called him ) . If anything it helped me to be a better person as a adult I am more excepting of the world and the people in and all walks of life due to a alternative lifestyle my father was the caregiver and we were extremely close till my teenager years and well then I hated everyone . Personally I think it better to be honest then let him Discover it that would hurt more .Don't we teach kids to be honest and not lie but then we lie to them what example does this set for them . It will be hard if you come out to them next year the year after or the year after just be prepared for a lot of question .

[Kirsty_D]

Thank you for all sharing your experiences with this.

It's a tricky situation but I think I'll manage it, and honesty and openness is by far the best policy.

[Kelsy]

.

I stress like I stress so often. If you do not have an intention of difinitively transitioning then they and anyone has no business knowing what you are and you would be wise not to talk about it with them.

Katie

Best advice Katie offers!!

My experience tells me the younger the children the better the chances that they will assimilate the change with no
adverse reaction. My children are in their twenties and my oldest is thirty I have been disowned by the younger two! If you don't have to come out then don't!

Kelsy

[Stephenie S]

Dear Kirsty,

Here's an idea.

Don't mince about in high heels and a dress.

Being a woman has NOTHING to do with clothes. If that's all you want my advice would be to stay in the closet and keep hiding your CDing hobby.

S

[Kirsty_D]

Dear Stephenie,

Thank you for your opinion, but my comment was meant in a joking self depreciating manner and not to be taken seriously. I'm grateful for people opinions and experiences with this issue but my wife has come up with the perfect answer which will work well until our son is older. :D

[STACY B]

Kidds dont care about what you wear an dont judge you thats for adults ,,, They just want to get along that your job to teach em rite from wrong . Adults do it to make them selves feel better for lack of something on there part . The kidds just roll with it ,, Dont make it an issue , Just make it normal ,, If you make a big deal out of it or your SO does then thay think its a big deal ,,, If you minmize it they will to ,, Your the example ,, Be one a good one an they will be too , An they can take your pic an not say are ya done yet an most of the time there smarter on the computer than us ol folks ,,, Useful real useful !!

[Traci Elizabeth]

My daughter is an adult when she found out about me and she nearly had a heart attack and was in total disbelief until my wife talked to her several times. Then I wrote her a 32 typed page letter explaining my past back to my childhood and explained all the abuse (sexual, physical, and mental) I suffered because I was a woman trapped in a man's body. For the first time I told her in "detail" about when I was kidnapped and driven to the woods, beaten mercifully, violently raped, then beaten until he thought I was dead. He left me there in the woods to rot. I also told her how I overcame that horror and how I stayed steadfast and gathered the strength to continue my transition. She text me, "Dad, I wish I could be with you now so I could tell you how proud I am of you. Dad you are my hero!" A few days later she called me and we both cried for hours. Ever since that day my daughter and I have been closer than we ever have. And we had a very close relationship prior to telling her my news, and to my delight, she has accepted me totally. My daughter's daughter, my granddaughter is a teenager and we were very close as well and she totally accepted me. My daughter's son, my grandson (4) has only known me as Traci and I am his best friend and he always wants to talk to me on the phone. Some day when he is old enough we as a family will have to explain how it is that he has two grandmothers living together without a grandfather. My daughter lives far away but we both visit each other often. Talk several times a week on the phone and text daily.

My experience is that the "Truth Shall Set You Free!". And that if you already have a deeply loving strong family, you will afterwords as well.

[Kelsy]

My experience is that the "Truth Shall Set You Free!". And that if you already have a deeply loving strong family, you will afterwords as well.

I'm sorry Traci but experience tells me that this comment is not necessarily true and is painted with too broad a brush. How often do close families break up because of this issue? Are families less loving or close because some members refuse to accept the news that you're transsexual?

My family was super close and very loving and I think many come from the same and might find the insinuation that somehow they were lacking painful even if that was not your intent. It causes me much anguish trying to understand the losses I’ve experienced just trying to be true to myself precisely because I came from that close family. I don’t think the warning that “you could lose everything” if you are honest about yourself applies only to families that are less than loving!

I am truly happy that you were able to overcome your difficulties with your daughter, really I am and it gives me hope that someday I will be able to salvage my relationship to mine.

Kelsy

[Traci Elizabeth]

I'm sorry Traci but experience tells me that this comment is not necessarily true and is painted with too broad a brush. How often do close families break up because of this issue? Are families less loving or close because some members refuse to accept the news that you're transsexual?

My family was super close and very loving and I think many come from the same and might find the insinuation that somehow they were lacking painful even if that was not your intent. It causes me much anguish trying to understand the losses I’ve experienced just trying to be true to myself precisely because I came from that close family. I don’t think the warning that “you could lose everything” if you are honest about yourself applies only to families that are less than loving!

I am truly happy that you were able to overcome your difficulties with your daughter, really I am and it gives me hope that someday I will be able to salvage my relationship to mine.

Kelsy



You are correct that I meant no malice in my response in my last sentence that you quoted. My point was simply that "Time heels all wounds." And I believe that from the deepest part of my heart. It may take weeks, months, years, or even decades but at some point love will be triumphant. And if you read my entire original response, I was ONLY referring to family. Spouses, friends, associates, co-workers were not part of my response. If you find this not to be true, then not enough time has passed for love to triumphant in your situation.

We can debate this until the cows come in but this is my strong belief that will never be shaken that love is everything and conquers all in the end .

[Kelsy]

Traci,

I wanted to be sure you understood that I recognized that you meant no harm in your statement.
I hope that you're right about what the future will hold because I long for that tearful reunion!
If It doesn't happen well I was prepared going in but it makes it no less painful!
Thanks for the encouragement!

Kelsy

[Danni Bear]

kristi,

my hubby and I have 7 kids and they have known all their lives about me. there never was any issues about me being dad before we transitioned and i became mom instead. life went on and now the grandkids call me memaw.

just take it a day at a time and life has a tendency to sort itself out. your son will know that you love him no matter how you dress or present. there is no hurry, let it happen on it's own.

Danni