I was faced with an explosion of responses all through yesterday to my coming out letter. In fact I spent the majority of the day fielding responses from friends and family members. I am happy to say that most of the reactions were positive and supportive. A few people still haven't gotten back to me, some of them are very important people to me and the lack of response from them is nerve wracking. I know I need to give people time and that I can't rush people into acceptance. However, knowing they are online and not seeing any kind of response from them makes me nervous.

My brother was one responder that was not so positive. He and I are very close and his main upset seemed to come from the fact that he did not know sooner. I told him I wish I had known sooner too. I didn't see any use in explaining to him that I did know sooner and just didn't even want to admit it to myself, let alone anyone else. He asked me how I knew and I didn't feel like I had an appropriate answer for him. How do you tell your younger brother that you began to suspect your gender variance one day while imagining what it would be like to take a kitchen knife and slice off your own breasts? You just don't.

All in all, so far, my friends and family have been great. However, I don't have to deal with many of them in person very often as I live so far away from them. I am worried about the g/f's family that we see regularly. I have left it up to her to tell them as she sees fit but seeing as she has already started using my new name and right pronouns, I think they are going to notice when we go on the big family camping trip we have planned for this weekend.

One super positive thing that happened last night is that our good friends, who are both trans, came over last night for dinner and movies. They have both been amazing. I was happy that g/f decided to not consult me about whether or not I felt like having company because I would have defaulted to "not" and then I would have missed out on a lot of hugs and support. One of the friends showed me his top surgery results, which he had a few years ago. It was amazing. It was all I could do not to try and touch his chest and stare for a long time. I was in awe and jealous. I am so thankful for them both in my life right now.