Author: Mhix

Well tonight was a busy night, finishing work, and getting my gear together to go diving tomorrow, not to mention popping my head in to say bye to my Boss James at his leaving party. Well I couldn’t resist could I? Michelle had to meet James in All Bar Nun it was pretty uneventful and very short lived as had to drive 2 hours to Batemans Bay and I really didn’t feel like doing it tired. I felt a little odd though, something was not quite right, and I realised when I got to the Bay and looked in a mirror. You could just see the 5 o’clock shadow that I failed to hide, no wonder people were looking at me!

Today was the day I made the dreaded call, to tell Mum.  Earlier my sister phoned to say mum was there, and would I talk to her (we had arranged this a few days ago), so I talked to mum about general things for a few minutes, then dropped the bombshell.

Both my sister and I were worried that mum might get upset and just pass the phone away and not speak to me, but she did not.  She spoke to me, and in so ways she understood, in others she didn’t.  Not surprisingly she, like others, commented that out of all the people, I was probably last on her list.  We talked for a while and I reminded her of how dad was, and that there was no way I would have given any clues about myself whilst he was still alive.  She agreed by saying, “Your Dad was very black and white, he would not have understood”.

Well tonight was the night to tell my lil sis, I had to be a little more delicate as I knew she wouldn’t appreciate getting the details the hard way.  It was interesting, as I hadn’t got a clue on what to say, I’ve told hundreds of friends in various different ways, but didn’t have a clue how to talk to my own sister!   The conversation was similar to that with my brother, but we set a date to tell mum.  I’m dreading it already, but Thursday is the day.

Well today was work as usual, well not as usual, but it was work. Seems that the project manager who doesn’t want to manage is still not managing. After leaving me a calendar invite with no information about the customer except that I am meeting them at 10am Monday, last thing on Friday afternoon (which was something that I already knew about Friday morning), I rejected the invite with a message saying, “it would be helpful to know where I am meeting the customer, rather than that there is a meeting which I already know”.

The response was to come to me in person, and drag our manager along and ask the status of the job as if I hadn’t completed it. Really rather ridiculous as if I have a problem I tell the project manager (eg if a change request needs prioritizing, or if I don’t have the right hardware). Of course sometimes, where appropriate, I resolve the issues myself by talking to the people concerned directly, these tend to be where there is a technical part of the problem because the project manager rarely understands enough to pass the detail on directly.

Anyhow enough rambling, the pettiness is continuing and really has been there since the whole company got to know about my transformation, so I have to ask the question, “Discrimination, prejudice, coincidence or just stupidity?”

Tonight was an interesting night, completely unplanned, and the result was a phone call and confession to Michael my brother. In some ways it was quite funny, I said, “do you want to know the hard way or the easy way?” He said, “the hard way”, so I gave him the the location of my favorite photo and he was surprised and said, “temporary or permanent thing?” I responded with, “permanent”, he said nothing and continued to talk.

A little further into the conversion and it became obvious he thought it was me joking around, and I stopped him and said, “you realise I’m not joking, the doctor has diagnosed me as gender dysphoric and I’ve been on HRT for the last three months”. He was stunned for a short moment and continued as if his brother tells him life changing facts every day…!

The conversation was long and covered a lot of the same ground multiple times, but it was good to talk. We also agreed that I should tell Mum before she gets here, rather than when she’s here. I’m still in two minds about it, because I want to be with her when I tell her because she’ll probably worry otherwise, but the other thought that people have is that if I wait until she gets here, she might feel trapped where she doesn’t want to be.

It is worrying me how quick and accepting he is of the whole thing, but comments like, “what ever happens, you’re still blood and we love you”, are comforting.

I think telling Mum sooner rather than later is going to be for the best in the long run.  I’ve just got to work out how, and what to say… not an easy task.