Healthy relationships

as a spouse, partner or to someone you’re dating

So you’ve just come out to someone you love as trans. Take a deep breath - it’s going to be okay!

You may have come out to your partner in any number of ways - very suddenly, gradually, or something in between. By letter, in-person, or over the phone.

The truth is, there’s no one way to come out, and there’s no one way that a partner will react to finding out such a big thing about the person they love.

Many people go through the stages of grief after finding out that a significant other is transgender. These are the same stages of grieving experiences when someone is dying, and many partners report the experience feeling similar - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

While it’s normal to go through a grieving process, and they certainly have a right to their feelings, we encourage your partner to be mindful of not allowing these feelings to negatively impact you - it’s hard for so much change to happen, but it’s hard for you too. They are likely having to re-imagine a lot of things very fast!

Relationships can change or evolve when a loved one is transitioning - some relationships get even stronger, while others end. Some become a new normal after a time, while others become strictly platonic.

However you come out, however your partner processes it, and whatever comes of your relationships, know that you are valid. You deserve to be yourself, whether others will accept it or not.

when it’s time to tell the children

Like with other relationships, there’s no one way that everyone comes out to their children. Coming out to your children is especially unique too, because the age range they can be drastically affects how they handle and adjust to it.

Older children (teens and adults) typically understand more easily, but may have more of a learning curve. Older children will be affected by how they’ve been raised around LGBT issues, the opinions of their peers, and possibly even their religious or philosophical beliefs.

Younger children may have a harder time understanding, but are often able to adjust faster. They’re more likely to start using your name and pronouns faster than older children and adults. They are also less shaped by beliefs yet, so will not likely have trouble accepting that someone is a different gender than they originally thought.

Younger or older, newer generations are more and more aware of and accepting of transgender people. There is hope for the future!

to family, friends, employers and co-workers

Coming out to family, friends, and at work is often going to take longer and much more involved.

Coming out to family and friends is often done early in the coming out process. That being said, you should come out to who you want to, when you want to, on your terms.

The way that family and friends handle learning your truth will vary for a lot of reasons. What are their religious or philosophical beliefs? What generation are they part of? How close are you with them? How do they usually handle big changes? These clues can often help you anticipate how they will respond, but not entirely. While some people may not be accepting, we have heard (and experienced) many situations where someone you thought wouldn’t be supportive is super positive about it - you never know until you try.

Relationships will often change as you do too. For example, trans women will often find that they have more and stronger female friendships, while male friends will often gradually fade out of the picture. While not always the case (and it depends on the individual), changes like this are pretty common.

Coming out at work is similar in some ways to coming out to family and friends - different people will handle it in different ways, according to many of the factors we previously mentioned.

However, there is one key difference in coming out at work: the law.

Generally speaking, it is illegal to discriminate or poorly treat an employee based on their gender. That said, the strength of legal protections (and how strongly protections are enforced) will vary based on your city or state.

While you are protected in theory, some work places will handle things better than others, as will some industries vs others. Whatever the case, discrimination or poor treatment is generally against the law. If you feel like you are being discriminated against for being transgender, you may want to seek advice from organizations like the Transgender Law Center.

There are typically two ways that people come out as transgender at work: reporting it to HR, or reporting it to a supervisor. Which one you choose to come out to first is up to you.

From there, the process varies by workplace: some organizations will leave it up to you to talk about it how you want, some will have a meeting to discuss it with your coworkers, and yet others will send out a mass email letting your coworkers know.