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No, that isn't what acceptance looks like at all. She'll probably be accepting eventually, but she isn't now, even though I'm sure she insists she is.

This is a more general resource dump, but I hope it helps!

The book The Transgender Teen by Stephanie Brill 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 when they're ready. 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 Genecis clinic at Children's Medical Center Dallas, 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 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, including the ones that aren't near you. They do a lot of networking with groups and providers across North America and around the world.

Come chat in Yay for Queers too if you want. I think you'd like it there. It's mostly Trans guys and questioning people. It's not a bustling hive of constant chatter, but if you talk, people will respond and be happy to chat with you. :)

Come hang out on /r/ask_transgender, /r/mtf, /r/genderqueer, and /r/nonbinary. It'll help.

You've already got a ton of great books on that list (including some pretty dark/intense stuff!) but I'll try to suggest a few things that might fit your criteria.

My Brother's Husband is a really good manga. It's written for younger audiences and acts as a sort of intro to LGBT topics, but it's well-written, earnest, and has an interesting slice-of-life style.

It's about a (straight) single father and his young daughter in rural Japan. His estranged twin brother has recently died and his brother's American husband unexpectedly shows up for a visit. He was never fully comfortable with his brother's sexuality, and the American man doesn't know much about Japan, which leads to some awkwardness and lots of discussions about cultural differences and the virtue of open-mindedness. It's heartfelt and often hilarious. This is the most LGBT-centric thing I've read recently.

Lumberjanes is a very popular American comic. It features an almost exclusively female cast (almost no men in this comic) and has a lot of LGBT representation. The main cast features lesbians, a trans woman, and (eventually) a non-binary AMAB character. The supporting cast is also very diverse.

The comic never really focuses on LGBT issues directly, it just has a ton of LGBT characters. It's a young-adult adventure comic about an all-girls summer camp in a magical forest. The girls show up expecting a normal summer, and end up dealing with dinosaurs and Greek gods and angsty punk rock mermaids.

It's a very silly, self-aware, fun comic with a lovable ensemble cast. Great stuff, and maybe my favorite ongoing comic these days. It's still being published as a monthly comic and the back-issues are available in several trade paperback collections.

On to TV...

Steven Universe is easily the safest bet. It's an all-ages cartoon about a young kid growing up with his three magical moms. He's trying to learn how to save the world, and they're learning what it means to be human. It's a little slow to start but once it grabs you, you're hooked.

The show features a rich and diverse cast, a complex backstory full of intrigue and mystery, an interstellar war, characters who actually grow and develop over time (rare in kid's shows) and a lot of very catchy songs. Despite the cute exterior, the show deals with some very heavy themes in a nuanced and honest way. I'm constantly impressed that it's able to do all of those things while still being, at it's heart, a slice-of-life show about a kid, his family, and his friends.

This show is extremely popular, especially among LGBT people, so a lot of the young folks will probably be fans of the show already.

It's available on Hulu, Amazon, iTunes, and anywhere else Cartoon Network shows are available. Unfortunately CN is infamous for being extremely slow to release their shows on blu-ray/DVD, so streaming (or piracy) is the only way to watch most of the episodes.

For videogames, I'd stick with the classic party games. The Mario Kart titles are always a safe bet, as are Rock Band and the older Guitar Hero games if you don't mind buying lots of plastic instruments. I've been playing a lot of Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime lately, and it's a fantastic party game for 2-4 people.

Hah, I remember reading an amusing story about a bishop who asked a teenage girl if she masturbates, and she innocently asked him what "masturbates" means, and he turned all red and flustered and wouldn't answer. So she goes home and asks her dad what "masturbates" means, and tells her dad that the bishop asked. The dad got redfaced and called up the bishop and yelled at him for asking his daughter such an invasive question. Meanwhile, this girl still didn't know what the word meant or why it was creating so much commotion, and eventually she looked it up in a dictionary and figured it out herself.

The relevance being that you spent so long not even knowing what homosexuality is because they wouldn't talk about it, so you didn't even know that was what you were because information on sexuality is so limited.

Your stories sound familiar. I had a very similar experience going off to college. Once I was around people who weren't all mormon, the option of thinking for myself and considering whether I wanted to be like them became much more real. While living at home, it just wasn't an option to even think about leaving the church, too much was at stake. But out in the real world, I suddenly had the breathing room like you said, to actually consider what I want and what I believe on my own. And that's when I lost my faith and realized that the mormon church doesn't feel true to me.

I'm anxious to hear how it goes with your family. Depending on their reaction, you might want to consider giving them a book, one of my very favorite books ever. No More Goodbyes, by Carol Lynn Pearson. Do you know about Carol Lynn Pearson? She's a famous mormon author, probably best known for My Turn On Earth, which is a play/film which they probably made you watch if your sunday school teacher ever didn't show up for class (back when you attended). She also does a lot of mormon-themed poetry. But her story is that her husband was gay, and his priesthood leaders told him that he could overcome homosexuality and become straight if he'd just marry a woman in the temple. So he married her, and they had four children, before it became obvious that he was as gay as ever and no change was coming. Their marriage ended and he went to San Francisco, but this was the 80's when the AIDS epidemic had just begun and nobody knew how to be safe, and he ultimately died of AIDS. But even though it was a very painful ordeal, Carol Lynn and her husband remained close, and remained friends, and she remained supportive of him. And she realized that the church had nothing useful to say about homosexuality, and how there was absolutely no support out there for what her family was going through, and that the only things being said were horribly wrong. So she used her position of influence as a well-respected mormon author, and she wrote a very important book called Goodbye I Love You, which is the story of what happened with her husband. It doesn't preach, it doesn't over-advocate any position, it just presents her husband as a real, human person trying to do the best he can in an impossible situation. You read that book, and you can't believe so many of the lies that the church teaches about homosexuality being selfish or the result of sin or whatever, and you also realize that homosexuality is real, inborn, and not changeable. But because she tells it as a fellow faithful mormon, other mormons are open to hearing what she says in a way which they wouldn't listen to those outside the mormon church.

The book was very popular, it was huge. And since she was the first person to say anything helpful about homosexuality in the mormon church, suddenly everyone was coming to her with their stories. All these young gay mormons were coming to her for help and counsel, all these families were coming to her about family members who are gay.

After twenty years of this, she decided to write another book, a follow-up. That's the book I linked above, No More Goodbyes. This one is a compilation of all the many stories of other people who have been coming to her over the years. It has more opinion in it than the first book did, it is a little more bold and open in advocating against homophobia and bigoted treatment of homosexuals. Ultimately though, she still does it within a mormon context, without offending mormon sensibilities, and really the grand conclusion is a call for greater love and tolerance. But when it's done by sharing so many people's stories, it puts a human face on the issue and it makes you realize that these are real, good people we are talking about, not some abstract concept. I can't imagine a mormon reading this book and still harboring hateful or bigoted feelings towards gay people. Carol Lynn Pearson is a hero of mine, she's devoted herself since then to advocating for gay rights.

Anyways I didn't mean to write a wall of text but I really believe that every mormon should read her book, but especially in your situation you might want to get ahold of a copy, read it, and then maybe consider using it as you come out to your parents. Maybe give them a copy for christmas! It's a great launching point to having a positive, productive conversation about your homosexuality where they might be able to understand and support you better.

Also, come join us at r/exmormon!! We've got a great community over there and we'd love to have you.

Depending on your age there are a bunch you might enjoy. When I was in high school I loved the Rainbow Boys series. There are three of them and all of them are great. Very coming of age, trying to figure everything out kind of story where the three main characters are in different stages of realizing and accepting their sexuality.

One I just read that I loved is called Tipping the Velvet. I had to read it for a class, but omg it's one of my favorite books now. The main characters are lesbians, though, not gay males. It's a historical novel, and set during some major social revolutions, so it's very interesting.

Okay, this last one is my guilty pleasure. One of my favorite stories to read is the macho, All-American, tough guy realizing he likes dudes, and this book is exactly that. BUT it's even better, because he's a professional baseball player, and I love baseball, so it's even more amazing. It's called The Dreyfus Affair and basically the main guy is young, married to the perfect woman, has the perfect kids, the perfect life, is the star player on his major league baseball team, has all of these publicity deals in the works, but then realizes he has some not-so-innocent thoughts about one of his team mates. I got this book for free at a giveaway at my college bookstore and omg, I'm so glad I picked it up, because it's amazing. I took me probably a day and a half to read it, just because I couldn't put it down.

When I initially came out, I was religious (Lutheran), and I actually came out with the help of my campus pastor in our Lutheran Student Community. I continued active participation in my religious community, and most of my pastors after that time were aware of my identity, so don't ever feel as if there's no place for you in religious communities. In the US, at least, mainline protestant denominations (Lutheran, Anglican/Episocopal, Presbyterian, UCC) often tend to be much more accepting than so-called "nondenominational" or Evangelical churches, but there aren't hard and fast guarantees.

(Just as full disclosure, I'm no longer religious, but it has nothing to do with my coming out, and much more to do with other philosophical changes and ideas.)

There has been a lot of good advice in this thread, so I really don't feel the need to repeat it. I do, however, want to share few resources that might be helpful:

• Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality - This book by Andrew Sullivan is probably my favorite work about homosexuality and being gay. If you have a chance to read nothing else, this would be my recommendation. It presents four arguments from four different perspectives for and against homosexuality, then addresses what Sullivan feels are their flaws and where they are misapplied. Sullivan then attempts to synthesize his own philosophy of what it is to be gay. It's something that is a bit of a cliche, but this book really did change my life. (Sullivan is a gay Catholic political conservative — the real, intellectual kind, not the reactionary kind — who is married to a man, and while I don't always agree with him, I adore his writing and value his perspective.)
  
  
• What The Bible Really Says About Homosexuality - This is a very good book covering the theological angle, looking at passages in the Bible, and analyzing the various translations and apparent meanings of the handful of passages that ever touch on homosexuality. I read this when I first came out. Eventually, when you come out to your family, this may be a helpful resource for them, as well. (As others have said, until you are financially independent, you should probably not come out to them.)
  
  
• God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships - I've not read this book by Matthew Vines, but I have heard very good things about it. It may be helpful both now and down the line.
  
  In your situation, I understand it may be hard to get these books or read them, but if you can do so privately and safely, I'd highly recommend them as avenues for exploring your identity and giving you a theological and philosophical frame to think about your identity from. I'm not sure if you're worried about disapproval or punishment from divine or human sources when you say, "I'm afraid my own religion will punish me for something that I can't control," but in either case, you may find these helpful.

It's admirable that you're both honest with yourself (and us) about this personal challenge, and actively trying to correct it. Given your career path I hope we can help.

As others have said though, a likely issue you're facing is that many (most?) trans people you would likely develop a friendship with in your age group and socio-economic bracket tend to be invisible.

But that belies the fact that, collectively, the trans people I know make up the most formidable and respectable people I've ever met. It's quite a ride, but once you've come out the other side it brings with it a certain awareness and self-honesty which is hard to match.

Still, you've constrained the problem quite well, and if personal online anecdotes aren't going to do it let me start you off with a little reading list:

• Whipping Girl, by Julia Serano;
  
• Gender Outlaws, the next generation by Bergman & Bornstein,
  
• Becoming a Visible Man, by Jamison Green,
  
• The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You, by S. Bear Bergman &
  
• Transgender History, by Susan Stryker.
  
  All are authored by trans people who I am confident you will find to be not only emotionally cogent but intellectually impressive. Also, all are very enjoyable.
  
  The best solution, of course, is to make friends with a trans person. As mentioned above though, we're even harder to find than our numbers suggest. Finishing these books off will at least dramatically reduce the chance that you'll immediately drive them away. :)

I don't know why people on this thread are telling you to wait. I mean if you're OK waiting, well then whatever, go ahead and wait. But it doesn't sound like you're OK with that. If it were me, I'd think about fighting, using reason and information as my weapons. But if you want to use those tools, you need to learn first, and that can take time. You need to educate yourself on what it means to be transgender. That means a lot of reading and information seeking. You need to listen to the stories of other people who have been in your position - and there have been people in your position. You need to learn about techniques they used to get out and find techniques that will work for you.

When I hear trans kids say things like they wish they were dead, it really worries me. I wish that I could do more to help you fight for your life, but all I can really do is point to the path. I hope you take it.

• Pausing puberty aged 12 saved my life: Transgender beauty queen praises her amazing family ahead of BBC documentary on her mission to become Miss England
  
  
• Transsexual Teen, Beauty Queen
  
  
• How Norman Spack transformed the way we treat transgender children
  
  
• WPATH Standards of Care v.7 (2011)
  
  
• Gender Orientation: Intersex Conditions Within The Transsexual Brain
  
  
• The Gender Variant Phenomenon--A Developmental Review
  By Anne Vitale Ph.D. 2003
  
  
• Biased-Interaction Theory of Psychosexual Development: “How Does One Know if One is Male or Female?” (Diamond 2006)
  
  
• Surviving a Gender Variant Childhood: The views of transgender adults on the needs of gender variant children and their parents. Riley 2012
  
  
• The Needs of Gender-Variant Children and Their Parents According to Health Professionals. Riley 2012
  
  
• Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, Serano 2007

Carol Lynn Pearson, a Mormon woman who was married to a gay man, has written a few books you might be interested in reading.

Goodbye, I Love You is the story of her and Gerald, and how they dealt with it.

No More Goodbyes is a compilation of various other stories of gay people. The section "star-crossed lovers" details situations like yours, where a gay person has married a straight person.

Mormons believe gay relationships are immoral, so they have what I consider to be an artificial reason to stay in their split-orientation marriages, but nonetheless, you may also be interested in Josh and Lolly's story (youtube vids):

http://mormonstories.org/josh-and-lolly-weed-on-their-love-story-mixed-orientation-marriages-and-ldslgbt-issues/

> I still want to be her best friend and I still want to be there all the time to raise my daughter.

This is entirely possible, as I hope Carol Lynn & Gerald's touching story can show you. You don't have to divorce, but do remember: divorce does not mean that you become enemies and never see your daughter. It may or may not be the right option for you. Honesty is the best policy here.

Have an upvote for continuing the conversation with me. People calling you satanic are wrong. Even if they have "official" positions, they don't speak for all of Christianity.

The Rev. John T. Graves, a Christian minister, was the president of the Society for Human Rights, the first US gay rights organisation, organised in Chicago in 1924. Perhaps you don't know of the powerful work of Bayard Rustin.

You should know about the Heartland Proclamation, signed by hundreds of Christian pastors and ministers in the US Midwest.

You should know that a former moderator (president) of the Presbyterian church, Dr. Jack Rogers, a trained conservative theologian, studied what the Bible has to say about homosexuals, and wrote this book.

>They also don't claim to be the purveyors of ultimate, unquestionable, truth.

Truth that can't be questioned can't be very robust now, can it? You and I are on the same side on this one.

>If there are contradictions in the Bible, then it's impossible to say what parts of it represent truth; in that case, the whole thing must be discarded since there's no way to distinguish truth from lies/mistranslations/misinterpretations/etc.

One could just as well say the same thing about science. The whole reason for the fifth Solvay conference in 1927 was because of the contradictions of quantum mechanics, and the impossibility of resolving them through experimental means. There is still no way to test most of the interpretations, and yet, most of us are not throwing out science because of it.


>Show me literally anywhere in the Bible that says this. Jesus was very clear that he was not sent to erase the OT laws;

Jesus was completely clear about what he meant in upholding the OT:

>Matthew 22:36-40

>36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

>37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

This is not vague, and I submit that love is an excellent measure for morality.

My purpose here is not to convince you that you should somehow forgive the hate that has been shoved at you in the name of Christianity or that you should somehow "trust" it. But you should still know that there are many Christians, Muslims*, and other religious people who fully support you to be who you are.

• People reading this should know that Naheed Nenshi, the Muslim mayor of Calgary, Canada, led the Pride parade there last year.
  

There is a really good book, Whipping Girl by Julia Serano, that would answer your questions. You could probably just read the first couple of chapters.

It's a bit of an oversimplification to say that gender is a social construct. We tend to use gender to mean anything that is not physical, anatomical sex, but to get to the root of what it means to be or feel like a man or a woman, we need more specificity than that.

Gender roles are societal expectations for how people of a certain gender should look, act, and live. These are relative to the culture and can be man/woman, or three genders, or six, depending on the society.

Gender expression is the personal choices people make to signal to themselves and to other people what gender they are. The specifics of gender expression also vary depending on the culture. So, one culture might see pink as a "girl" color, one might see it as a "boy" color, or the same culture might even change its mind. It's all relative.

Gender identity is a person's sense of which gender category in their society is right for them based on their own relationship to their body, and to other people. The ways in which people talk about gender identity vary from culture to culture (for example, Native Americans refer to gender fluidity or being dual gender as being Two Spirited).

Nevertheless, every culture has had to answer the question "what does it mean that there are males and females?" The specifics of that question and its answers may vary, but the question itself is based in humanity confronting its own biology.

The vast majority of people never really feel a disconnect between the sex their society designates them to be and the gender they see themselves to be, as you probably know. Some people don't have a problem with their biological sex, but they do have a problem with the gender roles that are expected of them. Other people have no issue with either, but they like to have an atypical gender expression because it feels authentic to their sense of self. So, there's a vast number of ways people can relate to gender without it coming into direct conflict with their sex assigned at birth.

Regarding people who are transgender, genderfluid, etc, this often refers to a specific relationship between physical sex and gender identity that goes beyond roles and expectations that society has of different genders. Usually there is a feeling of disconnect or dissonance with the gender identity assigned to you based on your sex. It just "feels wrong," so people who are transgender do a lot of exploration to figure out what feels right, and that has lead to a proliferation of terms for different gender identities because our own society hasn't been very accepting of gender diverse people and our language hasn't caught up yet. So people are trying out a lot of terminology trying to figure out what this all means.

I can't speak for agender or genderfluid people since I am not one.

I can only speak for myself as a transgender man who is also somewhat gender non-conforming. My sense of "being a man" or "being male" is the best language I have to describe the feeling that my body is supposed to be physically male and I am like other people who are male. It's like my brain expects a male body to be there and sometimes perceives it anyway despite what my biology is like. But my sense of what it means to be a man is definitely shaped by the culture I grew up in. I look at other men and women and locate myself within the spectrum of gender laid out for me in my social world. I compare myself to others and through self-exploration realize that it feels more authentic for me to align myself with other men than with women or non-binary people. This doesn't mean that I imitate them, just that it feels more natural for me to move through the world with others perceiving me as a man. So, the socially constructed parts of gender are ways I can live my gender with other people as opposed to just feeling it as this private thing.

[Edit: going back to the whole identity vs. expression vs. roles thing: One of the first things I did when I transitioned was go out and buy a pink men's shirt. I could never wear the color pink before because people saw me as a girl wearing pink. I did not want to be a girl wearing pink. I am a guy who likes the color pink. I found it uncomfortable to express myself through signals of femininity because people saw my role as female/woman and my identity was male. But once I had a male social role, I found it much easier to express my gender with things traditionally associated with femininity. I wanted the feminine expression to be seen in relation to my maleness, not to my perceived femaleness. I know that's convoluted! In practice it just means I stress out a lot less over the color of my clothing than before.]

For you, I would suggest you probably feel more male than you realize, it's just not at the forefront of your consciousness because it is not in conflict with anything. An analogy...When you are lonely, you become acutely aware of your individuality, your longing, your desires, and the various obstacles to ridding yourself of loneliness. When you are with loved ones, that individuality does not disappear, but you no longer feel lonely. Feeling yourself to fall outside of society's gender constructs of man vs. woman is like a type of gender loneliness. If you've always been in the company of people who validate your gender and are in agreement with you about your sex, you're probably not going to dwell on it much.

Please read this whole comment; I write it with compassion. You asked for advice! Here's a bunch of inconsiderate words.

You will not have a "normal family" as one half of a straight couple, two biological kids and a dog. You will not have a normal heterosexual relationship. You already know this, you just don't want to deal with it. Either you'll be lying to yourself and your girlfriend (that's not normal!) or you'll be honest with her about your sexuality (which is not 100% straight).

The more quickly you let go of "normal" the less painful it will be. There is in reality NO NORMAL. There are majorities and minorities; that doesn't mean that those in the minority are abnormal. (When compared to people who are 99% straight, you are actually in the minority in this situation.)

Try small steps first. You should tell your friend (with whom you are very close!) that you think you might be gay, or bisexual. See what she thinks about that. You would want her to know this, right?

You don't need to find a Life Partner right now. You're 22. For God's sake, pull your head out of your ass, go out to a (gay) bar and dance your butt off. Try finding a date first, before you start planning your wedding. Slow the fuck down! :)

You can raise children with another man, if you want. You can even fuck a woman and get her pregnant, and then raise the child as your own. You can adopt or foster. Go read The Kid by Dan Savage.

Don't agree to do something you don't want to do, trying to avoid hurting your friend's feelings. It won't help in the long run. Try dating her first? It might work, it might not, you need to find that out first.

>I just wouldn't feel comfortable with that lifestyle. I know my friends and family would accept that I am gay, but I just don't want that.

There is no "lifestyle." You are living a "queer lifestyle" right now because you are queer and your heart is beating. You don't have a choice.

I think that if your friends and family will accept that you're queer, you should also accept that you're queer. Everything will become easier and more honest when you accept it. You won't have to worry about these things. That I can definitely promise!

I find this need to detach sexual orientation from gendered expression to be so completely unnecessary. It's also an attempt to erase feminine gay guys from our community. "We are all colours of the rainbow, without orange it wouldn't be much of a rainbow."

The reality is that there is a connection. The area of the human brain that governs attraction to gender is closely connected to the area of the brain that governs gendered expression. The human brain doesn't work in isolation. It's absurd to think that homosexual males are attracted to other males without any other form of side-effect.

However, the human brain is also not black and white.

So gendered behaviour among everyone is on gradients. With statistical biases in certain directions based on sexual orientation. There can be feminine straight guys and masculine gay guys... but gay guys will probably trend towards feminine more often than straight guys.

This is why things like "gaydar" works some of the time.

So while the statement in OPs post is a useful political one because it informs the broader community that we should be treated as individuals but it's not very accurate one and I don't think that members within the community should convince themselves of it. Gender expression and sexual orientation is far more nuanced to separate the two.

edit: I know this is a controversial statement because people like to think that sexual orientation has nothing to do with gender expression but I would invite you to read "Gay, Straight and the Reason Why?". It explores all the science of what we know about sexual orientation. It also includes gender expression because the subjects are intertwined.

As a biologist, I'm offended that he even thinks behavior and genetics are mutually exclusive.

FWIW, smart money's on prenatal environment rather than genetics. For females, prenatal androgens seem to have a clear link, but males are more complicated; there's an extremely strong and surprising statistical trend, but the only plausible biological explanation is pretty wild and not well substantiated.

Simon LeVay's latest book has a great survey of the science here.

Jeffery Marsh has a fabulous book about How To Be You, in which they talk about their life early on, but also providing more insight in how to be yourself. One of the best Self Helps ive read in years, and helped me better understand my NonBinary nature.

ISBN: 9780143110125

https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-You-Trying-Someone/dp/0143110128/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=9780143110125&qid=1574105052&sr=8-1

I recommend reading this book as a good brush-up on LGBT history, and educate yourself about the world your child and her friend are living in. My best recommendation is just to read, read and educate yourself about pride, LGBT history, persecution, and laws, and stand up for trans rights where it's necessary. As an adult you have the ability to vote and speak out for him in ways he cannot do for himself as a child.

>I'm not homophobic but you have to be normal.

Nope, nope, nope. I'm so sorry that she reacted that way, and I hope she comes to terms with this in time.

Do you think it would help to give her some literature from PFLAG or a book like Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why?

It's not about Stonewall, but Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 explores a lot of interesting stuff most people don't know about. I took Chauncey's queer history class at Yale. It was amazing.

As for trans* stuff, I'd recommend a lot of theory. Judith Butler mainly. I'd also recommend Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity.

That sucks. I can understand why you feel angry and sad. Anytime someone who is important in our lives isn't able to see who we really are, it hurts and drives a wedge in the relationship. For your dad to not get what your experience is, what it's like to be in your skin, and it sounds like not to understand something that's been your focus (probably for a long time) is totally invalidating. I'm glad you're continuing with working on your transition!

See if you can get your hands on The Transgender Child by Rachel Pepper and Stephanie Brill. http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/1573443182/ref=redir_mdp_mobile
It has chapters addressing what your dad is going through, which sucks but can be normal and he may get over it (especially with help). Also a family counsellor may help too. Your dad needs to get used to having a son, but you don't have to be the only one who gets him there. Good luck.

I don't know any but I am currently reading "The Kid" by Dan Savage where he talks about adopting a child with his boyfriend. Pretty entertaining so far.

I know you're already cross posting this but did the people over at r/sex tell you about r/polyamory? They deal with open relationships and will be able to help with these questions.

For some basic, starter advice - read this. It'll help.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Gay-Christian-Matthew-Vines/dp/160142518X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1LMEMKFQX4BKV&keywords=god+and+the+gay+christian&qid=1564563581&s=gateway&sprefix=god+an%2Caps%2C235&sr=8-1 is a good book that may sway your dad to accept gay people, depending on if he is a misguided christian or a i hate gays because i am a 'christian' 'christian' do/call yourself what you feel most comfortable with and do what makes you happy, if that is coming out then come out if you want to wait wait, if you never feel like coming out don't and because your parents are seperated at least if you tell him the consequences are minimal, if you are in danger mental or physical don't come out. wish you luck

The fan translator for this didn't finish the series, so if anyone wants to see how it ends (it's lovely, and there are only about ten more chapters), there are official English translations released as two hardback volumes or as Kindle downloads (1, 2)... as well as a live action series...

What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality is a great book, but it may put her on the defensive too quickly to really read it. It can be a good second book if you are doing a continuous swap, however.

Greetings, just wanted to update that I went live with the bracelets and you can get them here! - Thanks!

http://www.amazon.com/Whipping-Girl-Transsexual-Scapegoating-Femininity/dp/1580051545/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319412332&sr=8-1

Not 100% on the topic of your question, but it's quite good, and potentially very helpful if having a difficulty understanding transgender folks is something you'd like to correct. Also available slightly cheaper in Kindle form (which is how I read it, to avoid potential awkward questions from coworkers...).

This is literally what Americans thought around 1900. See Chauncey's Gay New York when men who "topped" were considered "wolves." Cultural figures of the dandy were around, too, but this was before The Well of Loneliness came out and the idea of "sexual inversion" took hold to explain gay behavior. Sex was all about verbs, not nouns. The gerund-ification of sexuality is one of the most significant changes in 20th century culture.

You might want to get this book! A lot of parents of transgender teens have found it really helpful. https://www.amazon.com/Transgender-Teen-Professionals-Supporting-Non-Binary/dp/1627781749

Dan Savage wrote a whole book about him and his HICBIA (husband in Canada/boyfriend in America) Terry adopting a kid, it is called The Kid.

THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

So both the Passages in Leviticus are about what's called the Holiness Code. This is the standard for ritual purity associated with entering the Holy of Holies (where G_d's Presence resided). The book of Leviticus contains lots of rules which are to be observed to keep people in condition to allow them to physically commune with G_d. There's a prevalent belief in the OT that uncleanliness is transmittable, in fact that belief persisted to a sect of Jews alive in Jesus' time called the Pharases (of which Paul was one - hence the good samaratin parable refuting this belief). So this passage is about maintaining ritual purity in the population. Yes, it's absolutely horrible, Yes, it undoubtedly resulted in the death of gay people. But one of the points about in incarnation of G_d as Jesus was the removal of the temple system (hence the curtain of the Holy of Holies tearing as Jesus Dies). So Jesus' death negated the need for the holiness code, as now everyone was holy enough to commune with God as a result of Jesus' death.

So yes, this passage is horrible, but it's not that black and white, and through Christ incarnation death and resurrection the need for ritual purity has been abolished.

HISTORICAL THOUGHTS

I, like many Christians believe that the Bible is not without the bias of it's authors. So what you see worked into the Holiness code are a significant number of issues that we're associated with the taboos of the culture at the time. Within the Jewish tradition for instance anything non-penetrative wasn't sex, hence no condemnation of lesbianism in the OT. There's also a strong belief that things that are outside of the "normal" or cross the boundaries of their "type" are unclean. So Shellfish don't have scales like all "fish" should, they are unclean. Pigs have split hooves unlike other domesticated animals, unclean. Mixed Fiber clothing is neither cotton nor wool, so unclean. And so it was with the genders, men who do not take the sexually dominate, that is penetrative position and instead take the submissive, receptive position (women's position) are "mixing" the genders. So unclean.

So basically, this text is included because of a lot of issues, theological, cultural, and historical, that affected the authors of this text and no longer affect Christians today.

Note about the NT texts: they are not condemnations of modern, monogamous homosexuality, but about idolatrous worship. There's lots of books of the topic if you want, I recommend "What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality" generally for the textual issues. For a more theological look at the issue, check out Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality.

For the Bible Tells Me So - a documentary introducing how the Bible has been completely misunderstood and misused to condemn LGBT people.

What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality

Hate Thy Neighbor: How the Bible is Misused to Condemn Homosexuality

Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality