This morning, at the ripe old time of 8am, I came out to my immediate family.
My mother, initially shocked and doubtful (“You need to talk to someone about this first”) quickly seemed to accept as such, and had—with a little bit of pushing—already started using the new name and pronouns before the conversation had even ended.
My step-father was comparatively quiet, and mostly listened in silence; but he too used correct names and pronouns when speaking.
My brother, however, took the news the most cooly. Having slept in dramatically, and only joining the conversation several hours after it began, he came to us in a particularly woozy state. Our exchange went something like this:
Me: Hey Kieran, I’m a girl now. My name is Kim.
Kieran: *shrugs* Cool.
He started using, without a lick of prompting, the name and pronouns in the very next sentence.
My family overall took it quite well, and honestly I expected them to. I’ve been involved with a lot of weird stuff over the years, so hearing these things is almost common practice. Admittedly, even I wasn’t expecting my brother to take it so cooly; though he would also be the person most exposed to my already long-term presentation as female online—which may have tipped him off.
The real challenge now is how to reveal as such to my extended family. I do not anticipate my biological father will take it well at all, and have doubts too of his side of the family. My mother’s side—almost all religious—I am also hesitant about, although many of them are also intellectually inclined. My step-father’s family is a mystery to me, as I can’t claim to know them as well.
As well as it all went, my family did present a few criticisms.
- They absolutely do not like my current surname. At all. Seems like I’ll have to change that.
- Apparently my fashion sense is terrible.
Well, live and learn I guess.