This and the following two posts will give insight into how others perceived my ‘coming out’ as either transgender or psychopathic.  The first deals with transgender revelations, the second with psychopathy, and the final post with a look at the bigger picture.

There are three distinct possible outcomes whenever one reveals anything about themselves.  There could be approval, indifference, or disdain.  The degrees and mixtures of the possibilities may vary but, in general, those are what one is up against.  I’ve never heard genuine praise over my psychopathy, but I have received indifference toward such a revelation.  The responses  in regard to my gender transition have been more varied.  Gender transition is far more difficult a topic as it is cannot be ignored by weak-willed individuals.  The person with soft skin and a high-pitched voice does not become rugged and hairy without some catalyst, obviously, and it would be impossible to ignore the fact that the person you once knew became radically different in form and presentation.  This post focuses on the required revelation of my gender transition at the time of my transition.  That is, these were forced revelations.

I had to reveal because my body and appearance were changing rapidly.  Being forced to reveal anything in one’s life is not a good position to be in, but sometimes it is necessary.  Some, like the friend we will hear about later in this post, were very accepting and almost, bizarrely, elated to hear such news.  Others, like my immediate family were much more full of vitriol and disdain.  Ultimately, I had to disclose because I had no other choice.

My mother and father were less than understanding.  I was coming out to them shortly into my transition.  The hormones were still in the stages of changing my appearance and other characteristics and I found that I could still pass as the gender congruent to my sex if I really tried.  However, that window was quickly closing, and I had no choice but to let them in on the secret.  I knew that coming out to them at the same time would be an unmitigated disaster as they outnumbered me.  So I chose to come out to my mother first, when she was alone.  She did not take it well.  She is a conservative woman hellbent on having grandchildren and my revelation shook her beliefs and shattered her dreams.  She wished that she had aborted me.  She wished that I had died in a car accident.  She wished that I did not exist.  And, she told me all of this to my face.  She was smart and realized that I had cornered her and called me out on that as well.  I did not care however; if I was going to be subject to such masochistic pain against my will, I was at least going to do it on my terms.

I came out to my father via the telephone.  I dared not disclose to him in person as he is a violent person and most likely also a psychopath, although a much less restrained one.  He was enraged, demanded compensation for the expenses he had in my upbringing and generally was a vengeful, incoherent mess.  We have not talked since.  He was a terrible parent and had done enough damage to me, so to say that I would not let him do the same then, when I was an adult, was an understatement.

They had felt deceived.  And, it is true to an extent.  I purposefully hit them with the news while they were most vulnerable and I was careful to never drop any hints prior to revealing my hand.  They had no meaning to me and I saw it as an opportunity to cut them out of my life.  Maybe others would be more troubled at the thought of losing their family to matters other than death, but I did not.  I’ve often written about being transgender and psychopathic as having to wear two masks.  I believe, as a psychopath, I was able to control the disclosure with them and mitigate the damage much better than most.

However, not all disclosure during this time led to such strife.  Sure, I lost most of my friends to it and my invitations to weddings and parties were rescinded by others.  However, there were many friends that I kept, even if, like my mother and father, they never saw it coming.   A very good friend of mine, whose life mirrors mine in many ways except that she is not a psychopath nor transgender, was thrilled to hear such news.  She was ecstatic to know that I trusted her (more accurately, respected her) enough to reveal such a close ‘secret’ to her.  We became much closer after that and are still very good friends to this day.  Others were indifferent, stating that they valued my person, or at least the person I projected, rather than my gender and that it did not change their impressions of me in the least.

I’ve found that even with voluntary disclosure of my gender status, as in after I had “transformed”, that people would still have the same reactions.  Some would be repulsed, some confused or indifferent, and others completely accepting.  Ultimately, I am who I am and I could care less what these people think, good or bad.  I do find it interesting, that some claimed I was deceiving them long before they knew just how good I was at such…