Resources for my parents

[erinrising.livejournal.com]

Hello, everyone. I'm Erin, a twenty-three-year-old transwoman in the process of coming out to her family and friends. Over the last ten months I've been very slowly telling my friends and building a network of support while meanwhile working up my courage and informing myself and sorting out my thoughts and life. So far a few more than a dozen people know I'm trans, including my sister. Since I'm not yet out to most of the people in my life, I've obviously not done much to pursue transition, though I suspect I'll be looking into transitioning soon. If you're wondering, my current plan is to pursue therapy and hormones and live full-time as a woman. I probably won't undergo SRS, at least any time soon.

After my months of preparation, I'm finally on the verge of coming out to everyone. I'm planning to tell my parents this week, and I'm planning to come out in my primary journal a few days after that (erinrising is my secondary journal, just to talk about transsexualism and everything that's managed to get tangled up in it). I know basically how I'm going to approach telling them, so I'm not really asking for advice on that (though, of course, I'll gladly take any you have for me). My question is... can you suggest any resources for me to give to them? I can inform them about a lot, but I think it's best to give them some other resources, too, for everything I don't know and everything they're afraid to ask and everything that would be best backed up by someone else.

Relevant information: Politically speaking, my parents are fairly moderate. I don't suspect they know much about transsexualism, but they're fairly accepting people; I talked about a trans friend a while ago to feel out their thoughts on transsexualism, and, while they seemed a bit akward with the idea, they didn't say or do anything to make me think they would react poorly to trans people in general. (When it's their own child, though, who knows?) We're a Catholic family, but I don't think that will be much of a problem; none of us are very strict, and we're definitely not fundamentalists. It's definitely worth pointing out that, due to my rather dire financial status, I moved back in with them after graduating from college, and while I have several people who would be more than willing to take me in, I would rather not get kicked out of the house. Heh. It's probably also worth mentioning that we live in Indiana (around Indianapolis and Bloomington), though we spent a few years living in Las Vegas and California. Also important to mention that we're all rather strapped for cash right now, so therapy might not be an immediate option. And, finally... while I'm interested in any resources to which you can point me, especially general-purpose resources, I've done some thinking about what resources might be especially helpful for each of my parents specifically. My mom will probably be intested in the psychological and medical side of things, and I suspect this might be a useful way to sway her. My dad, meanwhile, might be particularly interested in the social side of things... he's especially going to want to know that I can get a job as a woman. Also, when I mentioned my trans friend to him, he stumbled a lot over pronouns, so he might be interested in a rundown of trans ettiquette.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.