There is something i havent talked about

[Christy Lee]

Hey so OK this is hard to talk about

im pretty sure i havent talked about this before i sort of have, and sort of havent, but having had this feelings since i was a kid/teen not understanding them until i was a teen i actually had a conversation with my dad about them, because he was giving me the man talk  and i told him then i dont want to be a man and i actually remember it was about 7 or 8 purely innocent and hearing what was to be a man at the time i dont remember his exact words but i had this complete horrified look on my face and said to him i dont want that, i dont want to be a man, and i dont know if he was aware that they were gender thoughts and at the time i dont think i was even i didnt know that i wanted to be female i sorta did i sorta didnt, those feelings didnt show themselves fully until i was like 15 or so but anyway after this he like kept sort of encouraging me to be a man until i fell into the role when he passed away and he passed away when i was 19 intentionally or not i feel like he should have been more supportive but i think he was Transphobic and he had those feelings thats how it felt anyway he was also somewhat Narcissistic and was pushing those feelings onto me as well

I think perhaps he kept hearing the words Transexual and escorts and whore and whatever thinking maybe i would end up down that path, maybe he thought he was protecting me from that? idk but it was the 90's and there wasnt alot of resources to help me not like now

I get really angry now that he didnt support my feelings more in this matter at the time, maybe he could of asked if i was Transgender? i wouldnt have known what that was at 7 or 8 but if he explained it to me (maybe he didnt know?) i might have been more understanding of my feelings and not tried to hide from them/run from them my whole life and i wouldnt be scared of them maybe and constantly find excuses not to transition and having had to fall into that "man" role like i did

I also think if he made more of an effort to be supportive, i would have talked with mum about it back then too and maybe gone in Puberty Blockers before becoming a teen.... instead now i feel like i cant talk with her about it,

cus her family lived with us after he passed and they werent supportive at all, i always knew they wouldnt support me one bit in this, idk know if that came from how my father treated me or what but i just knew it would have been such a difficult journey but things are kinda easier now for better or for worse, and i am taking back control of my universe

[Dani]

When a young child is rejected by their parents, it can be devastating.

My paternal entity, who I refuse to call a father, decided that I needed to be toughened up a bit, so he took to slapping me around for trivial offences. My siblings knew of the physical abuse and they were no help to me.  Many times I contemplated self destruction as a way to get away from him.

Being ignored is bad enough, but many of us are beaten and thrown out of the house with nowhere to go.

[Christy Lee]

I am sorry that you went through that *hugs*

It was never like that for me, he just had this narcissistic sort of way about him to make me feel i couldnt do what i really felt i wanted to do inside, and i had blocked that out actually i think even tho i wasnt physically abused or anything but i think it was just enough to block those memories out, ive been thinking about this stuff hard lately because i am finally able to talk about it with a psychologist and not recoil in fear of those feelings and it sort of forced me to remember those conversations and how he sort of made me feel like i was wrong in feeling like that

I was also fearful that other narcissistic members of my family would team up and kick me out for a long time if they knew

[Maria77]

Christy-To be fair, back in the 1990s Transgender people were still pretty much unknown.   There had been Christine Jorgunson in the 1950s, Renee Richards and Wendy Carlos in The 70s and that was pretty much it.  Most people thought being Trans was "just" being gay or homosexual.  The GRS surgery-there wasn't much info because that was really before the internet.  When I snuck in some research I had thought it was hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Given the historical context, homosexuality had only recently been decriminalized.   So for the era, your father's reaction was fairly mild.  That said, I have similar issues about my father.  As a child I knew he thought I was lacking.  He threw a fit when me and a good friend wanted to take art lessons as teens.   My Mom later said "he is afraid that you will end up like" a widely known gay boy in our town.  In some ways, my Dad was more like Dani's although he only beat me for actual transgressions.  His solution to my feminine nature was insisting upon the army, but he died before I had to do that.

Our parents really didn't know much about lgbt and most religions taught that we were evil.  This is not to say our parents couldn't have been more accepting and empathetic.   But in this area, perhaps it's all they knew.