Anyone who has had to come out to his or her family probably envisioned it as a nerve-wracking experience.
Tina Healy, an Australian transgender woman, has had to do it every few weeks for her mother with dementia. She retells with joy the "same, beautiful response" she has been receiving since she first opened up to her mother about her identity.
According to the 54-year-old transgender woman, she came out to her mother, whose memory has begun deteriorating, for the first time two years ago when her mother started developing dementia.
Healy and her family were initially concerned about her coming out as a woman since they believed it would have been too stressful for their mother to handle. The old woman's reaction, however, couldn't have been more surprising.
"[S]he just looked at me and said, 'Oh, what do you know? I’ve got a beautiful new daughter!'" Healy said, recounting how she began to cry. Her mother pulled her closer and said, "Cry it out, dear. Cry it out."
Healy’s mother was formerly a seamstress — someone whom Healy had loved seeing sew up gowns and other garments as she grew up.
After the first day Healy came out, she appeared dressed as Tina and not as Chris, her former self, and received an even more heartening surprise from her mother. The elderly put her hand to her daughter's face and said, "You’re beautiful!"
The two even shared some tea time, and the doting mother asked why her daughter hadn't revealed herself sooner as it never would have bothered her.
Healy, recalling how she had identified with being a woman since she was 4 years old but waited nearly half a century to fully come out, called her coming out the "happiest time" of her life. Since then, she has had to come out to her mother during every visit and has received the same response of acceptance and love every time.
The transgender woman's message for the LGBT community is to "come out when [they] feel ready and safe," and that it may not change for the worse as typically assumed.
For parents with children coming out to them, Healy advised showing love and acceptance, which she described isn't so hard to do, and which was what she learned from her own mother.
Dementia is a condition comprising various cognitive decline symptoms, including forgetfulness and problems with memory, language and thinking. Under its umbrella, Alzheimer’s disease is the most common, best-known disorder afflicting people worldwide today.
There are about 47.5 million dementia sufferers around the globe, and the numbers are expected to increase to 75.6 million by 2030 and 135.5 million by 2050. Every four seconds, one new dementia case is diagnosed.
While not a normal feature of aging, dementia usually occurs in older individuals. There is currently no known treatment for the condition or for halting its progression.
