Does It Hurt Yet?

The first time I told everyone on my disclosure list that I was a transsexual …

All I knew was that I was a transsexual.

I didn’t know what I was going to do about it.

And in many ways … that made Disclosure much easier than it is for some.

Because I was able to present my disclosure in an informational way …

“You’ve always wondered what made me tick, here’s the issue, here’s what can be done about it, but today, right here and now … I’m not sure which one I’m going to do.”

In fact, with that approach, my disclosures, though nerve-wrecking and personally difficult for me in their own ways, all went really pretty well (with the exception of one).

Why?

Well, I think having great family and friends was the biggest factor … but also …

When I disclosured in that clinical, analytical manner … there’s no doubt … most people heard Option 3, figured that was the most likely choice, and disgarded Options 1, 2 and 4 as mere remote possibilities … and there’s no doubt … I did little to discourage that conclusion. I offered to answer any questions anytime they had them, I followed up a few days later with an “are you okay?” query … but that was it for their first exposure to my transsexualism. I didn’t show them pictures of me, I didn’t hand them pamphlets, I didn’t give them my copy of True Selves … I did none of that. It’s not because I didn’t have them available … I had assembled disclosure packets … it’s because as I was disclosing … I became aware that with my Disclosurees … I could benefit from minimizing the “Too Much Information” risk.

I felt that with TMI … they would overload … it would simply be too much information for them to process … too great of a shock to their system … and as such … things could be said or interpreted … that could unnecessarily cause hurt or pain.

Then … over time … as I was working through my Decision process … I would ease them to the real possibility that all Options were under consideration …

With hopes that the slow absorbtion of the information would keep things a bit calmer …

During the process.

Now, granted, I have been reminded by a few viewers that my approach was a “cop out” … that I was just “chicken” to tell them bluntly …

But I don’t think that was the case,

Honestly … I don’t.

I can deliver bad news, I can deliver news people don’t want to hear … but it’s not my nature to be harsh just because I have the opportunity to be that way … I hold no ill-will or anomosity towards anyone … (just the gods of fate, and one day, those phuckers will pay !! 🙂 ) … so I was trying to ease people into the world of TS.

It was a good approach for me.

But now that I’m doing the Announcement thang … at times I’m feeling like I reliving Disclosure all over again … and I am !! But this time … it’s harsher … because … I’m delivering news most don’t want to hear.

Though so far … I am getting the feeling that it’s at least less harsh than it would have been had I been just blunt with them from the beginning … had I waited until I had made my Decision before telling them anything. At least now they’ve had some time … some opportunity … to become exposed to it all … first.

But some things are different with Announcement than with Disclosure.

When I was first doing Disclosure … I was still embarassed about being a transsexual … my voice would lower when I said the word … I don’t think I made good eye contact …

And … I was incredibly embarassed telling people that I was a “girl”.

Those days are over … transsexual, transsexual, transsexual … I can say it with ease, I’m not the slightest embarassed by my condition, and I only lower my voice now when saying it at times to protect the privacy of a conversation …

And I’m not the slightest embarassed about being a “girl” … I suppose for a while there I had remnants of male chauvanism in my psyche that was struggling with this whole concept of wanting to be a “girl”. But now … my Attitude has caught up with me and once again I consider myself a higher being than most people I’ll encounter in any given day … and I find most boys lesser forms of intelligence … amusing, useful, scrumptious to look at, and fun to play with … but certainly, not my equal.

But though Announcement for me is much less embarassing that Disclosure was … Announcement has been much sadder.

Because … though I’m starting one life … I’m ending a life I liked in a lot of ways.

And through all of this … with my efforts to be caring and understanding in my Disclosure and Announcement … all for the concern of others …

I totally forgot about me.

And it has honestly, completely caught me off guard …

Just how sad at times I’d feel during Announcement.

Now … I’m not stupid or anything, well, at least it’s not written on my forehead … so I know that I’m just going through the stages of grief myself … as others are (but that I get the thrill over going through the stages in a different way with each and every Announcement) … so I know I’ll be fine and these sad times are just temporary …

But still …

At times …

Yes. It does hurt.