Dear all,

Thank you for your toughtfull comments. I can see in each and every comment that you all respond with the deepest concerns for my fathers wellbeing in mind, and that really warms my heart. Thank you for that. I am very greatfull to read and learn from the different insiders perspectives. I also read some prim statements on my motivation to consider sharing with my dad or the way my mother handeled the situation after the documentary. I must say that I understand these comments very well; see my 2nd sentence. By stating these statements, you gave me the gift of reflecting more on my own motivations and my mothers role in the situation. But, because I was also taken back a bit at first, I would like to return the gift of reflection by inviting you to ask yourself the following: how come that you feel the need to judge instead of ask and guide, coming from a community where I assume a lot of people struggle with judgement and strive for a world where we don't judge each other upfront? I myself have some thoughts on this: you can identify many storylines as the main objective of my post. One story is that of a CD being outed whithout the knowledge of the CD'er. I can imagine that if you see this as the main objective of the story; you are reading something that resonates with a great fear for some, or maybe most, CD'ers. And from fear, harsh comments and judgements can be made. You really, really want to let me know how you feel about this; becaue you have strong feelings about this and it might hit close to home. So thats why you want to let me know that there is no doubt that my interest or my mothers way of handling this is wrong. - This is all assumption, ofcourse, I am not in your shoes. If anybody would be willing to share their thoughts on this, I would love to read that. It learns me more about all the facets of CD'ing and maybe the emotions and even fears that some experiencing coming with CD'ing.

That being said, for me the main objective, and the reason why I am looking for insiders perspectives, is the fact that my mother told me explicitly that my dad doesnt want to tell his kids because of fear of our response, and not out of autonomy. He doesnt see it as something that he does in secret because he likes the secretness of it, he does it in secret because of 'the others'. And to me, that is heartbreaking, I wish that we could all live in a world where we feel safe to express ourselves like we want. I would love for him to be free in exterior choices whem I am around. This is also because my mom told me that he wears the clothes with the friends who know; my Aunt gives him the most lovely designer clothes on his birthday which fit his taste. And also, my mom told me that he would hate it to take it in the grave with him. And what also really triggers me is the fact that my mom told me that he is so loving and kind in the clothes he likes; somewhere deep down I really have the urge to meet that side of him, because I think it can deepen our bond even further. Because yeah, my relationship with my dad is great, but he can also be out of touch with emotional subjects and I miss that I can discuss my deepest thoughts with him about topics I do share with my mum. Maybe I should have stated all this as well in my post; but yeah, there are always so many sides to a story, it would be a very long post if I posted all these details (and now this post is getting very long, ay).

As for the lessons your comments learned me so far, is the most valuable one that I will not share this myself with my dad at this point. I do must say that trough your comments, I have realised that there are a lot of openings to start the conversation. My dad never dressed specificaly cis, he is a hobbyist goldsmith and he makes the most beautiful earrings/earpieces/rings that he wears daily, and for as long as I can remember he dies the two nails of his pinkies red, also on workdays, sometimes other colours. As a kid, I gave my dad nailpolish for fathers day, and I remember my friends stating that that was weird, but I saw no weirdness in that. He also goes to the nailsalon for a couple of years now to get acrylic nails, not too long but slighty longer than how most men wear their nails. He also wears in our presence the most awesome silver platform boots, for example. So all of these things could be an opening to further exploration, but then agian, he already knows that I think that's awesome so nothing new there.

So, therefore I will not bring up the conversation myself, and also because I am very scared that he can see in my eyes that I know when I try to make significant smalltalk. For now, I would love to hear more on the topic from you if anybody feels like sharing more, and I think it will be wise to ask my mom to bring up with my dad that he, if he wants to, could share it with me because she thinks I can hande it or so.