Ok so briefly because I need to go practice soon.
I came out to my dad today. He called this morning and said he was gonna be in Manhattan so we met for lunch. I've been waiting for him to ask me why I'm talking in masculine form (it's impossible to speak gender-neutrally in Hebrew) and he finally finally asked me that, which saved me from bringing it up. Whew. There was also a nice lead-in where he asked about Sarah and I told him she's volunteering, and told him where she volunteers so we were talking about The LGBT People with everybody in the kosher lunch place looking at us because of course of all places to talk we're gonna go somewhere where everybody speaks Hebrew.
So I told him well, I identify as a man. Everybody in my life refers to me in male pronouns including at work. He asked how that works out and I'm like well, it's the most stressful thing in the world to have to constantly correct people on that but this is the way I feel and that's what I need to do. He asked if I'm taking any more steps and I said I'm getting my license changed to male. (I didn't tell him I already have it because I'm not ready to tell him that I chose a Hebrew middle name without him and I didn't want him to get curious about seeing my license)
He asks about surgery, I ask him to clarify, he says he doesn't know what he's talking about. I told him a little about how physical transitions work. He asks if I'm on hormones, I lied and said I'm thinking about it. I lied because I want him to first digest and understand what it means that I identify as transgender, and not put all the focus into my physical transition. The kosher restaurant clientele is still looking at us funny.
We talked about the concept of gender-related decisions being "choices". I said that if it were all a choice, we'd all be the same. We don't do things to make life easier. We do what's right for us, and that's not necessarily the easier thing. He seemed to understand, and said yeah, not everything is black and white.
I concluded by saying that I would need for him to eventually refer to me in masculine form, as his son, etc. because it actually bothers me to be referred to femininely, and I acknowledged that I know it's difficult for him. He said yeah, it's difficult because he just sees me as his daughter. I asked if it would be helpful if I sent him online links or something for info and he's like sure, yeah send the links. He joked around about if he could send me links from "the other perspective," which is cool because now I know he knows that that doesn't work and that it's funny that my mom tries to do that. I also told him that my mom is not ready to take in this kind of information and to not talk about it with her and he's like well yeah, of course.
So success. Win.
And THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to the person from the previous blog entry who was asking me the medical questions because if it weren't for that conversation I would not have been so prepared for this conversation with my dad. Everything happens for a reason right?
