Transgender Community

Hi all,
I’ve been putting this off for quite some time, and I’m no good at this sort of thing so I hope the random mess will be understandable. ^^;;

I’m Amy, and I was born with the wrong body T_T (mtf). It has been making me depressed for quite some time…

Relatively few people know about this. Only my friends (all overseas), a few people in the local uni anime club (ANUAGS) and most of the other people who run Manifest (largest anime con in Australia) – although many of them still insist on using the wrong name and pronouns.

I have been dropping hints to my family for almost 20 years. They have seemingly failed to pick up on them and they don’t appear to listen any time I tell them anything else important.
Every time my brother sees me, he calls me “brother”, and every time he does, I tell him not to (have been getting rather vocal and upset about it the last several times). He persists.
My sister was “disturbed” (and that’s putting it mildly) when she saw my Necomimi ears and saying that they “shattered her image of me”. She has reacted as though disgusted both times she has seen me with them. I can only imagine what she’d say if she learnt about the whole transgender thing. :/

I’ve been using my preferred name socially for close to 8 years, but my documents list the ‘bad’ name.
Most of my mail (from friends and mail order packages) is addressed to my preferred name. My parents comment on it each time they see it. “Official” mail (from banks, government departments, etc) still lists the other name. At the moment, their reaction to the name on my mail appears to be one of confusion, but with the way they react to other things, they are likely to respond negatively if/when I start getting official mail in that name.

My family already thinks I’m nuts because I like anime and don’t have any interest in sport. Things are sure to explode if they found out about my having the wrong body. I have no idea how to approach them about it directly anyway.

As for work… While there are official policies there against harassment etc (at least on paper – transgender is expressly mentioned alongside race, religion etc), with the people at work, I’m not sure they would actually pay attention to those policies.
There is someone at work whose father is now his “second mother” (ie, mtf) and whenever the topic comes up he, and others, find the entire idea something to laugh about.
A previous store manager appeared likely to work it out even without me saying it directly, but he was only there for 5 months and I was on holiday for a good part of that time.

I haven’t seen anyone about this medically. The family doctor is quite close to my family, having gone to high school with my father and being my sisters god-father. I’m not sure I want to discuss this with someone with that history and preconceived notions about who I am. I haven’t been able to find anyone else that work hours and/or transport issues don’t rule out.


I have been intending to get my name “legally” changed and have been waiting until my passport and other ID started expiring. My passport is valid to Fed 2015, so would have to look at getting a new one around mid next year (many places want min 6 months validity on passports), but the first ID expires in a few months. I have the necessary forms required for both name change and gender adjustment. Currently the only idea I have to approach the matter with my family is to print out the forms and then leave them sitting on the printer, which is networked and attached to my mothers PC… :/