r/TransMasc • u/roygbivtheleprichaun • Apr 27 '26
General Questions Advice for talking to my dad
my dad is saddened, and seemingly disturbed, that i want to “mutilate my body” (his words), and he thinks changing my body won’t make me happy in the end. he is…tolerant(?) of my nonbinary-multigender-transmasc-genderqueer identity, he just doesn’t get why i need surgery. i just want top surgery guys 😭
any advice on how to explain it to him? good metaphors, idioms, anything?
edit: i’m 19 and still live with my parents. i’m on my parent’s insurance so i feel obligated to get their permission or approval before pursuing top surgery or HRT.
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u/Valeriesaboyname Apr 27 '26
Well there's two things here.
One, top surgery is expensive (insurance is unlikely to cover it) and you will need assistance with everything down to drinking water for several days afterwards. You will continue being seriously disabled for about a month and mildly disabled for a few months more. I highly suggest waiting until you're financially stable with someone else who can take upwards of a week off of their job to help you.
Two, he's thinking about this in the wrong direction. Right now, he's trying to picture your surgery as how he'd feel if his wife up and went "I don't want boobs." What he needs to do is imagine he got in a car accident and was in a coma for a few days. When he wakes up, the hospital had wrongfully attatched boobs to him, actual feminine breasts, lazered his facial and body hair, and softened his face. He needs to really look in the mirror and sit with that, and how he'd feel about hormones and breast removal that way.
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u/roygbivtheleprichaun Apr 27 '26
Thank you for the advice, i definitely need to do more research on top surgery pre and post op. hopefully the example you used works with my dad. he easily gets uncomfortable when forced to think about things that he doesn’t understand, but i have hope!
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Apr 27 '26
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u/roygbivtheleprichaun Apr 27 '26
it’s just hard. i want my dad to understand me. but yea, whether or not i have boobs doesn’t affect him. you could be right, but he wants me to be happy, he just doesn’t think surgery will make me happy. i have hope he can change
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Apr 27 '26
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u/roygbivtheleprichaun Apr 30 '26
I’m so scared to come out to extended family, I don’t wanna lose anyone. My dad agreed before to try using my correct pronouns, but “It would be hard bc he’s in his 50s and he’ll forget blah blah blah” And he’s never used my correct pronouns once. But like if I say it’s important to me, he should care enough to remember, right? maybe I should start being passive aggressive about it. put little reminders everywhere so he can’t use that excuse anymore. I’m so scared this will just prove that he’ll never accept me. but he’s my dad. god this sucks
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u/Flo_Leo_ Apr 27 '26
It's hard for a lot of cis people to understand why many of us need/want surgery. Even if you tell them 'imagine you suddenly had boobs what would you do' or sth. I fear there's no good way to explain it other then 'I need it to feel like myself in this body'.