Transitioning is hard especially when
you have to do it in front of the people you
care for or have grown up with. Also we're not
all built to be activists and out there just coz
we're born with this condition.
I've been there and although there were times
that were pretty stressful, I managed. Looking
back, I would try not to stress too much. If you
can keep your sense of humour and not be too
uptight about it - it can be quite amusing
sometimes as well to see people's reactions.
You will be the only person who will know
when the time is right for you to tell people or
not to tell people. As a rule of thumb if you
are being confronted by it, I'd say being
upfront about it is probably the best policy
even more so if the people are important to
you.
A funny story - I was born in India but did
most of my transitioning in NZ in front of
friends and people who knew my family, and me as
a girl, who were quite supportive and helpful to
me during this period of my life. When I
returned to India I told my grandmom about me
when she was around 92 years old. My parents
hadn't told a lot of people in India about me
till then - You know what she said to me?
"You naughty girl you have become a boy"
and we both had a good laugh.
And that was it, we have never looked back
since then. In fact my grandmom and I have had a
much better relationship after that, and thanks
to her support now so do my parents have a very
good relationship with me. In fact it turned out
that my grandmom's sister might have been quite
similar to us, as both her sister, son and she
would later tell me how much she would have
liked to be a boy as well if the chance had been
there at that time.
Funnily enough a lot of people took a while
to address me by the right pronouns. But it was
my grandma who was 92 years old who took only an
hour to transition. So give people a chance you
never know who might surprise you.
Once I was comfortable with it I also spent a
lot of time visiting my parents' friends and
family, and my friends, to talk about myself and
educate them on transgendered people, which
helped me greatly and my parents too. In fact I
have to say that I have much stronger bonds with
people I have told. They all commented on how
much happier I seemed and how happy they were
for me that I could have done this for
myself.
I have to say I have only had one sort of bad
apple or experience (luckily) and it was with my
sister-in-law, and believe me she has a lot of
issues not just with me but with even her own
friends and her own family. So I can't honestly
say it surprised me or anyone else who knows
her.
For me although it was daunting at first, it
really helped to tell a few good friends about
the changes that were occurring and to have them
in my ball court and assist me with the
transition. They also did most of the PR work
for me talking with other friends and people in
my community about me etc which did help quite a
bit.
I had heaps of people in my community who I
had not been very close to even come up to me
and say they heard about me from so & so,
and was there anything they could do to assist
me etc, which besides being nice also saved me a
lot of trouble explaining myself to every Tom
Dick & Harry.
