Grrrrrr so I have been going out in public recently MTf. Today was confronted by my babysitter my mother in law who is totally not ok with me being authentic. About it saying my kids were upset about it and that I should put it on the back burner until mye wife gets home from the hospital and deal with it then.plus people were approaching her about it and I should stop spending money on it. Fyi haven't bought anything in a month. So after she left I talked to my kids one was okay with me dressing up just not comfortable with me in public the other was not comfortable period with me dressing like a woman.so now I'm not sure what to do.any ideas on how to get my kids comfortable with my changes.?
Have you asked why they aren't comfortable with it? Knowing that would be helpful to figure out how to get them to come around. Make sure that they understand what being transgender means and that you're still you, you're just trying to live in a way that is more true to yourself. There's a halloween costume analogy someone came up with that I've heard is a good way to explain things to kids, especially younger kids.
My kids are 13and 12 girls and yes I explained to them what's going on I'm simply looking for ways to eliviat there anxiety.
This is definitely a challenge, and it's got to be really painful to have people like your mother-in-law directly devaluing something that is so core and important to you. Your kids are in a little different sitaution. At 12 and 13, they are at the stage where confirmity and "normalcy" is hyper-important to them; it is in that middle-school and early high school era that kids tend to be most concerned about what their friends think, and when kids most tend to judge each other for anything being different. There's also still a pretty strong sense of self-centeredness at that age. So it may be challenging for them to fully accept you, both because they don't want to have to deal with their friends' reactions, and because they, themselves, often have challenges with change of any kind. What you may want to do is simply sit with them and tell them you can understand it might be confusing or scary or uncomfortable for them to see their dad changing in this way, and ask them what their concerns and fears are. If you can prompt them to share what's really bothering them, then you can begin to have a conversation about it. Another point that's probably relevant right now is thinking about this in terms of stages of loss: They may not yet be comfortable with accepting the "loss" of perception of you as male, and so they are probably both going through the stages of loss (denial-anger-bargaining-grief-acceptance), and they are not necessarily at the same place. So it may simply take time. You might even talk to them about this aspect, if it seems like they would be open to understanding that. I hope this helps!
