Small Towns

When we transition in the suburbs or in the city there is a certain amount of anonymity but when you transition in a small rural town everyone knows.

What happened in my small town when my transgender daughter transitioned
ABC
By Luchina Fisher
Feb 22, 2018

The note was draped casually on my husband’s pillow but I was the first to see it.

In my 11-year-old’s careful handwriting, it read: "Dear Mother and Father, can we move to a different country because I think I don’t want to be a boy lots of times ... We’ll discuss later."

There were many things that struck me all at once: the formal salutation, the question of moving to another country and, in my line of work, burying the lede -- that part about not wanting to be a boy lots of times.
[…]
Yet, G was terrified of coming out. The biggest fear: being rejected. In our small New England town, G had been in school with most of these kids since first grade. Everyone knew G, but none knew the secret G had been hiding. Zoe, the one friend in town who did know, had moved to the U.K. the year before -- hence G’s desire to move to another country.

This is something that we all are scared about, walking outside for the first time, what will the neighbors say and if you live in a small town the whole town is your neighborhood.

When we had our cottage up in New Hampshire the year round population was under a thousand and I am sure that half of the town knew about me. A couple I drove around while we had a trade person working on something in the cottage, I wasn’t scared but rather worried about discrimination such as jacking up the bill or refusing to work on the cottage.

But sometimes the results are surprising,

Emails and text messages poured in from parents we knew from class parties, soccer games and the local Starbucks. "Congrats," a mom of two boys wrote. "You now have a girl in the family:)"

"Good morning," wrote a mom whose daughter had known G since first grade. "I just read your letter and wanted to send you all a big hug and especially Gia. So proud of her!" Then, she wrote, "This may be a silly question, but what size does she wear and does she need or want any hand-me-downs." I quickly texted back, "Yes!"

Gia’s phone lit up with text messages of love and support from friends, and new requests from kids wanting to follow her on Instagram. Sitting on the kitchen floor, her phone buzzing, she shrieked that her social life was getting bigger, not smaller.

The next day, 10 girls showed up at the school for lunch with Gia -- the first time anyone from town would be seeing her. The girls embraced her in a group hug even before Gia made it to the front door. Together, they spent the next two hours talking nonstop over pizza and soda in the school library.

It is always a crap shot when you come out; there are a lot of variables such as where you live. How do you think it would have gone if it was south of the Mason–Dixon Line? But even then there are pockets of liberals and New England we have pockets of bigots, there are hate groups here in Connecticut.

When they shut down the factory where I worked for 28 one of my technicians found out I was trans and blabbed the news all over the company thinking that there would be universal condemnation but instead there was universal affirmation.