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I came out at 15. I just emailed my mother and told her that I was Transgender, and explained what it meant, and said that I was going to start living as a boy ASAP. She was not at all supportive, but she didn't get in my way either. I was already seeing a therapist, whom I came out to, and it was a year or two later that I switched to a Trans-savvy therapist. (My old therapist was supportive but clueless, and I wasn't getting my needs met with her.) I might've already transitioned socially by then; I can't quite remember. I transitioned socially at 16, the summer before my junior year of high school. Coming out to friends and at school was scary but pretty straightforward, and turned out to be completely anticlimactic. The school community rallied around me and I had an amazing experience there. While that may not be your experience, it's pretty common for people to surprise you.

My mother has since come round completely. What changed everything for her was talking to other parents. I cannot encourage this enough. It's as important for your parents to talk to other parents, if they're willing, as it is for you to talk to other Trans people. Initially you might just let them know that that's an option; later, once it's all percolated in their brains for a bit, you might push it a bit more. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tyfa_talk/ is specifically for parents of Trans and gender-independent kids under 18, and it's outstanding. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transfamilyofcleve/ (open list) and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transkidsfamily/ (parents-only list) are good as well, if they can handle being on multiple lists.

Coming out in a letter is a very good idea. It lets you work out what you want to say and be sure you're wording it the way you want, and you don't have to be there for their (likely emotional) initial reaction. When they're a bit calmer and ready to have an actual discussion, you can discuss it further with them.

http://dignityusa.org/ is specifically for LGBT Catholics. If they have religious-based arguments against you being yourself, Dignity can probably provide some resources to help combat that.

Check out http://imatyfa.org/ and http://camparanutiq.org/ too. It would be awesome if you could go to Camp Aranu'tiq next summer. :) I think you'd love it. Don't push that first thing though; bring it up later, after you've been out to them for a little while and some conversations have happened and they're a little more ready to hear about something like camp.

Since you're new, here, have a resource dump. :)

Talk to lots of Trans people! You're already starting to do that. We're not all cookie-cutter; for many of us, the only thing we have in common is that we're Trans. We cross every demographic group and have a lot of different perspectives to offer. Get as many perspectives on things as you can so you can make well-informed decisions.

Take your time with these links; getting through them is not a race, and going through them slowly is a better idea anyway. Go through them in whatever order you want; I've just listed them by URL length so they're easier to read. I put a few in bold that I think might be especially helpful for you.

• http://trueselves.com/
  
• http://transfamily.com/
  
• http://imatyfa.org/
  
• http://reddit.com/r/trans
  
• http://reddit.com/r/transspace
  
• http://reddit.com/r/transgender
  
• http://mtf.livejournal.com/tag/
  
• http://transkidspurplerainbow.org/
  
• http://transgender.livejournal.com/tag/
  
• http://t-vox.org/ - resource/info central
  
• http://community.pflag.org/Page.aspx?pid=266
  
• http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Online_Support
  
• http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Support_groups
  
• http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Therapists_by_region
  
• http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=List_of_transfeminine_people
  
• http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Evelyn/Evelyn.html
  
• http://trans-health.org/ - go if you can! It's free and it's amazing.
  
• http://ftmichael.transboys.info/yayforqueers.html - come chat!
  
• http://www.pocketmags.com/viewmagazine.aspx?titleid=946&title=META
  
• http://youtube.com/genderqueerchat - keep checking back because new ones are added regularly
  
• http://youtube.com/trannystargalactica - keep checking back because new ones are added regularly
  
• http://youtube.com/watch?v=IxzKlPVceWg - a very recent In the Life episode about Trans kids and teens
  
  Must-reads if you can get hold of them - you may be able to find them at your local library or through inter-library loan, or get a cheaper used copy online:
  
  
• Luna by Julie Anne Peters (YA fiction)
  
• Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger (YA fiction)
  
• She's Not There by Jennifer Finney Boylan
  
• The Transgender Child by Stephanie Brill and Rachel Pepper
  
• Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, edited by S. Bear Bergman and Kate Bornstein
  
• Trans Forming Families, edited by Mary Boenke (third edition, 2008) - available from PFLAG's Transgender Network for $10 US
  
• The Our Trans Children leaflet (sixth edition) - available from PFLAG's Transgender Network for $2 US, or you can save and print it yourself for free. The booklet is their only source of revenue, so if you can pay for it, please do!
  
• TransGeneration (Ignore what Lucas says in the first episode about hormones being "very dangerous" - they're not, not if you get them through a competent doctor and have regular - which usually means annual - bloodwork.)
  
  The Transgender Child, Trans Forming Families, and Our Trans Children would be ideal to pass on to your parents too. Never give or recommend anything that you haven't first read yourself, though!
  
  (The books, aside from Trans Forming Families, can be ordered on Amazon or you can get the ISBNs from Amazon and bring them to any bookshop to order them. The DVD can be ordered on Amazon also, as you see from the link.)

Hey OP! Just wanted to touch on a couple of things that I don't think other people have mentioned.

First off, on the subject of therapists... Here's a bunch of lists of them in various US states, compiled by other trans folks: [New England](http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Therapists_in_New_England "CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT"), [Mid-Atlantic](http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Therapists_in_the_Mid-Atlantic_States "NJ, NY, PA"), [East North Central](http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Therapists_in_the_East_North_Central_States "IL, IN, MI, OH, WI"), [West North Central](http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Therapists_in_the_West_North_Central_States "IA, KS, MO, MN, ND, NE, SD"), [South Atlantic](http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Therapists_in_the_South_Atlantic_States "DC, DE, FL, GA, MD, NC, SC, VA, WV"), [East South Central](http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Therapists_in_the_East_South_Central_States "AL, KY, MS, TN"), [West South Central](http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Therapists_in_the_West_South_Central_States "AR, LA, OK, TX"), [Mountain](http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Therapists_in_the_Mountain_States "AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, UT, WY"), [Pacific](http://t-vox.org/index.php?title=Therapists_in_the_Pacific_States "AK, CA, HI, OR, WA")

Some therapists bill insurance, some work on a fee-for-service model, and some operate on a sliding scale based on your ability to pay. There are also some therapists that work online, like this one and this one - for some discussion of this, you can do a Google search for "gender therapist online", which for example brought up this thread.

As far as processing things goes, I have a standard list of thought experiments that I like to offer people, that I think can help to think about this stuff. Take these questions with a grain of salt, and consider them a tool, not anything ironclad or anything that needs to determine your fate (and remember that at the end of the day, what's most important is what you want or need to do). You can respond here if you feel like it, but you don't have to - just some things to think about. :)

• If I had a magic button that you could press that would make you wake up tomorrow as a woman, with everyone else understanding you and relating to you as a woman, irrevocably but painlessly, would you press it? ("Yes", "no", "I don't know", "I'd want to but I'd be scared" - all valid answers.)
  
  
• Alternatively, if I had a magic button that you could press that would make you wake up tomorrow still as a man, but without any of the gender issues you've been having, not questioning your gender, and able to live happily as a man with zero dysphoria, would you press it?
  
  
• If I had both of those buttons, which one would you rather press, all other things being equal?
  
  
• If I had a test that could tell you if you were a man or a woman, which answer would you be hoping for as you took it? Which way would you try to skew your answers, if you did (consciously or not) try to skew them in either direction?
  
  
• If you washed up on a desert island, by yourself, but with any amount of both male and female clothing, with no hope of rescue but otherwise everything that you needed for a relatively healthy and happy life, would you choose to present as male? female? neither? a mix of the two? one way some of the time, the other way the rest? If for some bizarre reason a lifetime supply of hormones washed up with you as well, do you think you'd take them? What if you washed up with the button from the first thought experiment - in a situation where you were by yourself, would you press it?
  
  
• Let's say I had a test that asked about all of the things, very thorough, and at the end it would tell you, with 100% accuracy, whether or not you were trans. So you take it, and it tells you, "Well, you've got some mild gender confusion, but you're definitely not trans, and you shouldn't transition." How would that make you feel? "Sad", "disappointed", or "relieved" are all reactions that suggest that seeing the aforementioned therapist might be a good idea.
  
  
• On the other hand, what if the test told you "Yup, you're definitely trans all right, and you should probably start planning your transition." - how would you feel about that?
  
  
• When posting threads like this, I think a lot of people are hoping that others will be able to tell them whether or not they're trans (speaking personally, at least, I sure did). I suspect that you might have expected people would draw conclusions or at least make guesses one way or the other. If so, which possibility were you hoping people's responses would suggest or support (and, I suppose, why)?
  
  Penultimate point: if you want some further reading, I hiiiiiiiighly recommend Julia Serano's book Whipping Girl.
  
  Last point, relevant to that book and also any other lurking, talking, asking questions about other people's experiences, and whatever - I want to caution you that as easy as it is to get caught up in comparing yourself to other people, and to the Standard Trans Narrative ("I've always known, I've wanted to transition since I knew what that was, I hate hate hate everything about my body, I want SRS as soon as possible", etc. etc...) - you should know that there as many trans narratives as there are trans people, and to the extent that your story differs from the stories of others (and it will, since everyone else's differ too!), that does not invalidate anything about you or your needs or desires.
  
  Oh! I lied. ONE MORE THING
  
  As far as your relationship with your fiancée, my girlfriend sort of already told her this, but I want to emphasize it because I think it bears repeating: communicate. We went through a really, really rough period after I came out to her, in part because she reacted kind of negatively and so I pulled away, hiding everything from her and just not talking about stuff... finally one day in the midst of a fight of sorts she told me that a big part of the problem was that she didn't know what was going on in my head, didn't have any idea what I was thinking - and when I let her read the journal I'd been keeping, everything made a lot more sense to her and she felt a lot more comfortable about things. It sounds like your level of communication is way better than ours was, but I just want to reiterate that it's important to keep that up.
  
  Anyway, good luck to you - I hope things continue to sort themselves out in your head, that your relationship stays on a pretty even keel, and that things go well for you overall. :)

Here's a bunch of stuff someone gave me. Enjoy!

The book The Transgender Teen by Stephanie Brill and Lisa Kenney is your new bible, seriously. Read it, then give it to your parents. There's also a new book out for Trans teens and their families, called Where's MY Book? by Linda Gromko, MD. I haven't read it yet, but it looks well worth a look.

Check out http://t-vox.org/ and http://camparanutiq.org/ . You'd love Camp Aranu'tiq.

Watch this great video too. It's about Trans kids and it's really good. (Ignore the line from one mom about how blockers are "brand new". They aren't. They've been used for decades. The books I mentioned above explain a lot more about all that.)

Your parents should run, not walk, to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tyfa_talk/ and join it. It's a wonderful parents-only group specifically for parents of Trans and gender-questioning kids who are 18 and under. There's a lot more to it than "you should support your kid". There's lots for them there, even if they think they're already supportive. On Facebook, they can join these great groups for parents of Trans and gender-expansive kids: here and here. And here on Reddit, they can check out /r/cisparenttranskid.

Trans Youth Family Allies, Gender Spectrum (and their fantastic conference), and the Trans Health conference, among other resources, will help your whole family a lot.

To find a therapist who gets Trans issues (most don't, and are unhelpful at best and actively harmful at worst), see http://t-vox.org/medical and http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/ . For the second link, enter your location and then select Transgender from the Issues list on the left.

The nice folks at the Gender Development clinic at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, the Gender Management Services (GeMS) clinic at Boston Children's Hospital, The Center for Trans Youth Health and Development at Los Angeles Children's Hospital, the Genecis clinic at Children's Medical Center Dallas, the gender clinic at Seattle Children's Hospital, BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver, and/or the Trans youth clinic at SickKids in Toronto can help your family connect with more providers and support networks in your area for Trans children and their families, even if you're not near any of those clinics. They do a lot of networking with groups and providers across North America and around the world.