Saturday June 25, 2016 - My lunch with my young trans cousin

Yesterday I had lunch will my cousin and it went very well. I spent the day as Susan, which included meeting with my cousin. I will call him John.

I got dressed around 11 am. I decided to wear my brown dress and low wedge open toe heel. I really need to find a better set of brown heels. My selection of brown flats is good but my two brown heels are both open toe wedges. The one with the higher heel, hurt my feet when I was in Orlando and the lower heel, that I wore today is OK but casual. I need at least a higher heel that is more formal or for a professional look.

I had to go to the bank first and cash a check. The cashier used female pronouns even after looking at my male ID. That was nice. Normally, I get no pronouns after they look at my ID.

I drove over to John's house. There were about five cars in the driveway, so I called him to come out as I was going to take in to lunch. He had no idea I was dressed. When he got in the car, he just looked at me. I decided to just come out with it. I told him I was transgendered and I am here to help. I felt a rush of emotion but just caught the tears.

He said wow, I never knew. For the next 90 minutes, we just drove around and talked. I started by discussing my history which started at 8 years old.

Then I listened to him. His main issue, is that his mother and father are police officers and anti-lgbt. He said his Dad and his friends talk bad and laugh about the lgbt community all the time. He is 23 years old, not working, living at home, chain smokes cigarettes, and take drugs. I told him a lot of transpeople try to commit suicide and I think he is trying to do it slowly.

He admitted he is depressed and can only dress when no one is in the house. He is afraid to go out because of what people might think. I told him that I had the same issue. Our biggest problem is in our head. One of the first things is to realize that today most people do not care and have their own issues. Also with the internet and TV/movies, every has been exposed to us and its no big deal anymore. But breaking our own mental chains, is a major hurtle.

At this point he wants to be able to dress as a women or a man, when ever he wants. He wants to find a woman who would accept that. I told him, there are many woman out there who would.

He mentioned that when he shops for women clothes, he is surprised how many clerks tell him that there are many guys who shop for women clothes for themselves. He also talked with some who had boyfriends who dressed.

We went to Subway to eat and the lady behind the counter used female pronouns. Later, John told me that he felt much better after seeing me interact with people and how the interacted with me. I told him that if you act like a lady, you will be treated like one.

I then gave him examples of people who look at me. I told him, as a women, women look at you to check out your outfit and men look at you because its in their nature. Those looks could be one of admiration not disgust. How do you know? Well why care because you do not know what is in their mind. Do not let one person out of a thousand mess up your day.

We talked about a plan.

1. Limit alcohol, reduce smoking a quit drugs - I will help by being someone you can call, text or visit anytime. We can go shopping, have a makeup day or get together anytime he wants. If he needs help getting off this stuff, I will work with him and his parents to find a place.
2. Get a job, even part time to earn enough money to get out of the house. Even if its just a room in a boarding house. He lives in a toxic environment that is causes this suicidal behavior.
3. Consider me your Aunt Susan.
4. Go back to school and get a marketable skill.This will allow you to increase your income and standard of living.

Those steps are not easy but I told him that he should use his motivation to express is femininity as a motivation to follow these steps.

He has told a few of his friends and most have been accepting. A few were not and they are no longer friends. I told him that will happen and that I am afraid of the same thing. But true friends will stick by you.

Overall, it was a great meeting and I hope I can help him. But he has to want to help himself.