Hi I’m Buck Angel, and welcome to another edition of Bucking the System. First, I want to thank everyone for the overwhelming response I’ve gotten for the show. It’s been incredible more than I could ever even imagine. Amazing e-mails from everybody and it’s just making me feel really good about doing the program because people seem very into it and I am really into it and I’m really happy to see everybody else is into it as well.
So this week, what I want to talk about is disclosure. I got an email from Alex in Colorado. And thanks, Alex. I appreciate the e-mail. And Alex says, “Hi Buck. I must say that you’re a bit of an idol to me because as a trans guy, I can point to you and say ‘Look, I’m like him!’ You don’t want to complain how unfair life is to trans people. You are proud of who you are. I have not told my family yet that I’m trans and I’m afraid to tell my mom. I live with my mother and it’s not that she is religious fanatic or anything but, I just don’t know how to tell her. What should I do?”
Well Alex, that’s a very, very good question because I really think that it’s a personal decision on how you go about disclosing your status whether be gay, whether be transsexual, whether be your HIV status. And I think that you have to take into consideration many points such as how are your parents when you confront them on other kinds of issues. Are they really cool about stuff or are they really very horrible and they don’t want to listen to what you have to say and they are very demeaning. So I think that’s something that you really need to take into account.
For me, when I told my parents and it was pretty much when I was in my late 20s that I felt like a man, they just were like “Please, we already knew that.” It wasn’t even an issue, so when I really did my change, my parents were super supportive and really cool about it because they saw that it made me happy with who I really was and so that was really important to me that my parents were super supportive.
So, if you feel like your parents are going to be super supportive or your mom’s going to be super supportive, I would say go for it, but if you feel like she might be a little bit weird about the situation, find yourself someone in the community or a community group that you can hang out with and discuss how you feel because I think you need people to talk to about this situation. It’s super, super important because when you feel trapped and you don’t feel like you can’t talk to people about the situation other things can arise from that and you feel you know you just don’t look good about yourself. I remember not feeling good about myself for many years. It’s so freeing when you finally feel good about yourself and you can just be who you are.
So, I hope that answers the question and again, this is my opinion and I am not a doctor and I can’t say how to do things. It’s just my opinion on what I think and how I think you should go about doing these kinds of things. The one other thing I kind of want to talk about here real quick before we finish the program is I really want to do a shout out to Castor Semenya, the Olympic gold medalist from South Africa. I really feel for you. I think it’s unbelievable. You are an unbelievable athlete and what has been happening to you is not cool and it’s sort of like on the same lines as disclosing, but you can disclose without you being okay about it and I don’t think that is cool. so I’m just reaching out to you to tell that you’re cool and if you need to talk to me about anything, I would love to talk to you and make you feel good about yourself and to show to you that the world is okay if you’re okay with yourself. And I really feel for what you’re going through. So a shout out to you, you’re awesome and you’re an amazing athlete and don’t let anybody put you down.
So, I hope you enjoyed the show this week. Thanks again for all the great response.
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