Family and friends of a transexual
By Stephanie Castle
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I had
discussed the strategy of dealing with those spiritual matters with the senior
psychiatrist at the dysphoria clinic I attend. As usual she was
supportive and readily agreed to meet with both my children if they
wished.
They did in fact meet her a week or so later and came away
considerably reassured, if not totally convinced. The three of us then
met for dinner about a week later, and I believe I
answered their further questions as fully as possible, but no matter
how good one is at the conversational arts there are always matters
which are overlooked or glossed over.
I then decided to write a
detailed explanatory essay on transexualism which incorporated a
capsule history of my life from a transexual point of view. It ran to
18 pages and was written with the greatest of care, with clarity and
with total honesty. I gave each of them a copy and awaited their
comments. My daughter said it was very well written and in the final
analysis she only wanted me to be happy, and if this meant happiness to
me she accepted it.
My son was less voluble, merely saying "its fine",
which is about par for the course with him. None of my
friends of course would have had the advantage, if they had
wished it, of seeing the psychiatrist, but a full verbal
explanation with a copy of the essay as a follow up seems
to have so far worked very well.
People are inevitably
mystified when suddenly confronted with a set of
circumstances which the transexual has had years to think
about and make plans to deal with, so if one is intent on
bringing them into the picture as full an explanation as
possible will always be appreciated. It is probably always
going to be a calculated risk when dealing with family and
friends as to how they will react as so much depends upon
their characteristics, quite apart from your most careful
explanation.
I travelled to England recently to put my
english relatives in the picture. My brother, who had no
inkling as to what I wanted to talk to him and his wife
about, almost fell off his chair with an exclamatory
"bloody 'ell." I thought he was about to die of shock, but
his wife's intelligent and quiet listening got him back on
track and it turned out very well with strong assurances of
support. If I had taken him into my confidence alone I suspect that
he might have forbidden me to mention it to his wife!
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