Update on brother and physical changes

We went to the nephew's 11th birthday party yesterday (David and Susan's son), Max reported beforehand that he was a little nervous about going. He was worried about being introduced as Jennifer and as David's sister. We have not actually seen David since we told them (Max did see Susan last week and that went well). The party was at on of those laser gun tag things (and we had a great time shooting kids!). Since the party was at this kind of place there were no parents, so no introduction occurred which was great. However the best thing was that David and Susan were just normal. Nothing was mentioned and no one acted weird. We are happy with this outcome. We know that when the changes are more obvious things might change a bit, but the more David and Susan act normal the better we think things will go.

So an update on the changes, I think I should mention. It has been 6 weeks since Max started T. The main changes include muscle growth and fat redistribution (we have been taking fortnightly measurements), acne (Max has to use Proactive twice a day to keep on top of it, and he says his face still hurts), facial hair (minor but noticeable to touch around the side burn area), voice (a bit up and down, but not too noticeable yet), moodiness. The moodiness has been quite hard to deal with at times. Last weekend was the worst that we had gone through, but we did get though it fine. We just have to keep communicating to each other and allow the moods to come and go, because you cannot control them. Overall, Max is really enjoying the changes.

He told his brother

On Sunday we went over to David and Susan's house (brother and sister in law), all with the intent of telling them. We were very nervous as we were unsure as to what the reaction would be and we do not want to cause family issues. We enjoy their company and seeing their two children (ages 7 and 10 years). Max did not get off to a flying start, and it all come out a bit muddled (due to nerves). With permission I jumped in to finish the story and explain the situation. David started physically shaking straight away and we could see the reaction of coming out was having on him. He started saying some pretty inappropriate things such as "If you see a heart doctor then you have a heart problem, if you see a gender specialist then you have a gender problem". Susan on the other hand was much better. She acknowledged that Max has always been very butch. We talked for about an hour and there were some full on moments, but it ended okay with some hugs. The conversation did flip around from total lack of understanding "you will always be Jennifer" to "you have our support." We (Max and I) are still unsure as to how it will all play out. Much of the difficult part of the conversation was about telling the parents. They did make comments about that we could not tell the parents at all, to telling the parents for us. We are worried that whatever the reaction from the parents will be, this will impact of how well David and Susan cope with it. We do assume that the parental reaction will be negative and that this will influence David (we do acknowledge that he will be in the middle of this, and that we understand it is a horrible position) and turn a mediocre reaction into a negative one too.)

We have had such positive experiences with coming out to our friends and my family that I think we forgot that negative reaction can occur. Youtube shows us that coming out to parents is generally a negative reaction.

The fallout to this conversation his Max on Monday. He looked miserable and I asked him (just before leaving to go to work) if he was okay. He replied that may be he should stop [this treatment]. I was totally shocked by this comment, and due to having to go to work we could not talk about it. I became very upset as I felt that I just did not know what has going on and how miserable he looked. We spoke on the phone a couple of times and knew that we both needed to see the psychologist. We called Vikki and arranged a time to see her, and we ended up seeing her yesterday. By this time we had some distance from the conversation with David and Susan and felt a bit better. Max totally knows that transition is the thing he really needs to do for his life (and sanity) and that he can no longer live the way otehr people prefer. We also know telling the parents is going to be hard and that this will probably go on for years, if they don't cut us out completely.