To come out to friends and/or family is a deeply personal issue and NOBODY but you can guide you as to what is the right thing for you. I am writing this to share my experience so that it might give confidence to someone who feels like I do... someone who is sick of having a'dirty little secret' and wants to share their reality with those closest to them.

I told my wife before we got married and I am lucky in that although she doesn't actively get involved in my female life, she is completely ok with me getting on with it. I HAVE confided in a couple of people over the years which on both occasions was sparked by having a drunken heart to heart and it just sort of blurted out (with positive reactions)
Well as the years have gone by, I have wanted to tell a few key people in my life for various reasons, but for example, I play in a band who tour and record at quite a high level and I have often felt a pervasive dread that someone will clock a residue of eye liner or nail varnish or something and I'd have to come up with a lame excuse on the spot. I also find it annoying that I have to think weeks in advance to STOP any body shaving for fear of awkward questions being asked in the sauna/jacuzzi. Well this week, I sent a carefully worded email to everybody and 'outed myself' and the response has been nothing short of amazing! The replies that I have received have reduced me to tears because of their incredible love and support. Spurred on by this feeling of acceptance, I also outed myself to one of my best friends and again, nothing but love and support.
I now have no need to tell anyone else or the wider World at large, but I felt like I have bent back the bars on my self-imposed prison cell and I feel a certain 'lightness' I *put a posting on my Facebook page that merely said "I have amazing friends" and one friend (who doesn't know) commented "your friends are merely a reflection of who you are as a person" and I thought how true! It should be no surprise that my friends are so loving and supportive, but it did surprise me. When my wife asked how it all went down and I told her, she jus at said "yeah - I knew it wouldn't be a problem" *

Do we T-girls sometimes think it's a bigger issue than it is? I know already that people have negative stories about coming out, but I chose people who I really wanted to know about this and I don't really care about the opinion of anybody else. *

Maybe it's just that I am a middle class Tgirl living in London with intelligent, thoughtful and sensitive friends .... Maybe that's all it is, but we DO choose who our friends are don't we! *