Well, let me get the obvious out of the way first. Our vacation plans kind of fell through. It's a combination of things, but I had a minor medical emergency, and am on extremely powerful antibiotics right now. :-)

But some incredible, incredible good has come out of it. Like the title says, Hell's officially frozen over. I had a talk with my mother about my gender status.

I don't want to say she 'understands' per se because, honestly, this is a LOT for anyone to take in even if it's been leading up to this point for years. But she understands the negative effect that suppressing it has had on my health all these years.

In essence, we had a really long talk on the way home from Ft. Smith this afternoon. We talked about trying to finally get my life back on track (We have contacts to help me get into college - and I really mean it this time!), but that led us into discussing how I'll never really feel comfortable in this town. I finally told her that, frankly, I'm afraid of what people would think if I transitioned living here, or if I came back post-transition, that sort of thing.

At the time I didn't use those exact words, but I made it clear what I really meant. We talked for awhile more about religious implications (without arguing :-)), and I have been able to make her understand that being TG doesn't have anything to do with sexual orientation, or that we're some kind of sexual deviants. I explained that the vast majority of us, save for the fringe extreme cases, just want to be left alone to lead our lives in peace.

Of course, this also meant admitting in a way that I'm lesbian because I had to explain that I'm not attracted to men at all, and that there are certain women who, while attracted to other women, see past the physical to what lies beneath.

We also talked about my health and how it's been declining for years due to stress. She does understand that the stress of keeping this to myself has had really nasty effects on my health and physical well-being. I think seeing my blood pressure so high (160 over 90 when I went to the doctor with this infection I'm being treated for) hit it all home for both of us.

I finally got her to tell me what I suspected for a long time, as well, about why she blames herself for my being TG. She wanted a daughter, as did pretty much every member of my family. I have dozens of male cousins - too many to count. I can count on one hand the number of female cousins born in the last two generations.

I told her though, about the "sissy experiment" where they tried to use negative reinforcement to basically 'beat the sissy out of him'.

I wish I had thought about the left-handed analogy earlier. She's gone right now, giving my Dad a lift because his truck's broken down, but being left-handed myself, I had to suffer through more than one teacher trying to force me to write with my right hand, and she had to actively fight to get them to let me use my left hand, so I think that will help a lot.

I don't know if showing her "Shoes" will help or not, but I've thought about that as well.

For now, we're letting things sit while we focus on what I can change - i.e. getting back into college, personal independence. Ideally I'd like to move to Little Rock because there's a therapist there that I trust, and there's also the University of Arkansas Little Rock for finishing my associate's degree, and going into a Bachelor's. I'm thinking of double-majoring in Business and whatever degree program I need to take to become a therapist. :-) But we're taking it one step at a time.

I finally got through to her. I didn't think this day would ever come. There's still a lot we need to talk about. I need to show her how deeply this runs, but she's beginning to understand at least a little.

She said that this all started, my depression and my beginning to drift, to shut people out, around my seventh grade year or so. Basically, when I hit puberty, things changed. My senior year I snapped out of it for awhile because I had friends I could turn to, who saw me for me, but also because I had begun to accept myself as female-minded. It didn't last (because I got into an abusive relationship for over a year, and just kind of lost my self-confidence after that), but I'm getting to a point now where I'm ready to let go and get on with my life.

I'm not ready to show her Becoming Robin or Boys Don't Cry just yet, but for once, it doesn't feel like I have to choose between finding myself and losing my family, or losing myself to keep my family.

PS: Apologies to Zoulless! I wasn't paying attention when I posted, and clicked your name by mistake. I've fixed it now :-D