This evening my wonderfully accepting daughter, who is 22 and lives with me, got a text out of the blue from one of my old gaming buddies back in Texas, asking about me.
We haven’t seen him since we moved from Texas to Oregon in late 2015, but we do follow each other on Facebook. Or rather, he followed my male account and my daughter’s account. When we lived in Texas, he was one of a handful of close family friends who came to my home nearly every weekend for ‘games night’. Once I started going out as Ceera, he was also a close friend who did not seem to notice when I shaved off the beard that I had worn for the 20+ years he had known me. Nor did he notice when I started shaving my arms... But neither did my other gaming buddies. We had to mention the beard being gone before they registered that was what had changed about me.
Back then, I wasn’t sure if I was heading for full transition, or gender fluid, or what... So I did not tell those friends about my experimentation with being ’socially female’. Thus for a year and a half I remained in the closet where they were concerned. And once we moved, telling them became a low priority. I am relatively certain that only one friend in that group ever suspected Ceera was their male gamer friend. That other friend had tried sending Ceera a friend request, which I declined, and he never acted as if he suspected after that.
So, the friend that texted my daughter is not at all in the habit of texting her about anything. When she read his incoming text, at the dinner table, she just said, “Well then!”, and handed me her phone. His text was along the lines of, “May I ask a possibly delicate question? Is Ceera the same person as your dad? They look remarkably similar in their profiles, but I can’t tell if she is a close relative or is actually your dad. I am okay either way, just really confused.”
Well, I am fully out in my new town and I had been planning on sending him, and my other old gaming pals, an email about my transition, so they would know before the holidays that I have committed to full transition. Those friends, along with two sisters in law and a few cousins, are all that remains to be told. But that handful did not even know I had been cross dressing.
I took her phone and replied, letting him know it was Ceera responding. Told him that yes, Ceera was his old buddy, but that I had been socially female for four years now, and full time female with a goal of full transition since early August. Also told him that except for my sister’s husband out here in Oregon, who banned me from their home once he found out about my cross dressing last year, my friend was free to talk to anyone about my transition. He took it in stride, took a while to tell his young adult daughter, who also had no issues with my transitioning, and sent my Ceera page a Friend request.
I have awesome friends...