I'm  mainly wondering about people who cut off their families without coming out to them...and then looked them up later, preferably AFTER transitioning.

I cut off my parents years ago. I know that trans issues are part of the reason I stopped corresponding, but I had other reasons. Now I'm thinking of getting back in touch with my parents, but I've transitioned since then. I'm not looking for advice about how to come out to them; I think I mostly have that covered. But I would like to know why you dumped them, how much of your resentment had to do with latent trans issues, why you wanted to get in touch with them again, and how you worked through your negative feelings, stuff like that.

I don't expect it will help, but so many of us are cut off by our families, and that just wasn't my experience--it's not the typical trans narrative. So I am hoping to hear from people who are in a position similar to mine.

i have e to some. they were just asking way to much.

I didn't cut my mom off but once I was out of the house I did stop talking to my dad. It was a mixture of his transphobia and the years of crap I took off of him that severed that relationship. Which I now regret that he is gone. He died when I was 22 and I will always wonder what relationship we could have had if things were different.

I have no extended family except for my grandpa. My sister and many others know about me (my mom has a big mouth) but they haven't seen me, and I can't go around them. I know I'll have a panic attack because most of them would misgender me on purpose. I tried a few times to go to get togethers with them (this is before I passed very well) and nobody was rude but barely anyone would talk to me either. I felt like a leper. I miss a very select few that I have thought about contacting but then I wonder if they would be accepting.

I am stuck wanting to contact them but I wonder if it is just better to keep the good memories I have. I don't know if I could deal with a mass rejection from people who have known me since birth.

I dont know if I should response here or not to be honest, as im still living with both my parents (seperate) so its not like I can cut them off fully.
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but even when I do live with them I have cut off my mom alot for a long time socially, not so much now but in general.
the reason is due to being trans why is why is why im unsure if I should really respone here or not?

I came out to her when I where very young so its really no surprise, and im not new in transition, but somethimes it seams like she ignore it and I started to doubt her acceptence while I dont feel like fighting so I just give up and try ignoring the problem, by ignoring her as well..
its a strugle cause somethimes I get very happy and I feel she accepts me and everything is good, but then other times I feel like I been fooled and she never accepted me for real. ex she do call me my name insteed of my birth name which is good, But she dont like me suporting other trans people, she have told me that "its not good to go around and expose your sexualety to strangers*" in general she had a hard time to accept me being trans, it dosent seam so much as the issue anymore but its more like she dont want anyone ells to know so if she is out she might call me he" for a moment, but then we come home she continue to call me she, and if I go outside to some trans protject she might get angry on me.

So somethimes I dont really feel like trying to play the game, and then its just more easy to asume she isnt going to be suportive cause then I wont be disapointed. if you know what I mean.

im in the process of doing that right now. though not my parents since they passed away more than 10 years ago but my sister and my aunt who raised us. they are extremley reigious and i am not so its a combination of being both trans and not wanting to hear that god disapproves or have them pray for or what have you. they are also african and while stereotypical they wouldnt get it or even accept me so i decided to just be.
i am not sure how this will work out, but i think them being across the pond will certainly make it easier. I dont think i want to tell them ever, but if i have to or needed to, i would just show up and go from there. although i am getting anxiety just thinking about it, it will definitely not be easy.

all the best, hope its not a traumatic experience.

I stopped talking to a couple of my family members before coming out. They were not good people and I don't miss them. I miss my dad though and would like to talk to him, but his most recent wife dislikes me and has always made it clear that I am not welcome in their lives.

I don't know. It's really hard for me to talk about my blood family. There was a lot of bad stuff. I will say they are mostly pretty hardcore southern conservatives and that will always be a barrier.

I'd like to go back to Alabama at some point and visit friends, but I'm not sure how that would go or who all even knows I transitioned.

I dropped off the radar with my parents and sister during the first year of living in role due to my parent's transphobia and my super religious ex brother in law.I was never close to my cousin as she always thought herself a step up from my side of the family.

I have cut off a very large chunk of my family. They're just....not nice people...and I decided the drama was too much effort. There are definitely some who haven't heard through the grapevine that I'm a man now. I notice on other peoples facebook feeds every year on the anniversary of my mothers death that they post something to the effect of "thinking of <my siblings names and my birth name> today" and I'm like....I should probably let them know who I am now....but it seems so awkward, what would I even say

The only one I have seriously considered getting back in touch with is my brother. I haven't spoken to him in years. My brother, his girlfriend and I all used to live together. I was a perfectly good room mate, tidy, paid my share (and often some of their share because they were always broke) ... Then one day his girlfriend picked a huge fight with me and kicked me out on the streets...well...I wasn't even at the house at the time, I was away for two weeks visiting friends. My brother picked me up at the train station and had my stuff in the car and was like "yeah you don't live with us anymore because <girlfriend> feels that X, Y Z, you're a mooch and making her miserable blah blah"

It was just like, what the hell, you serious bro? You're gonna allow her bullcrap to make me homeless....wow thanks

I have very fond memories of my brother he was my hero growing up. I really wish we could forget all of this and be in each others lives...but he's still with her and she basically rules his life. His personality just hasn't been the same since she came along. I was out to him but he has no idea that I'm actually properly transitioning now, he hasn't even met my daughter. The last time I spoke to him was when I just found out I was pregnant, I hoped that the prospect of becoming an uncle would sort of jolt him in to thinking that maybe he should speak to me once in a while all I could hear on the phone in the background was his girlfriend dictating what he should say to avoid coming to visit me, which he then repeated. It was always obviously her when I tried to speak to him on facebook chat too. I haven't bothered since then, what's the point if I'm not actually talking to him, he just seems to be a puppet.

Some interesting comments.

I loved my parents, past tense since they are dead. But they could not cope/accept me. At the time and for many years after I was in a position of very rarely contacting them. I had even emigrated to Australia from my birth country of the UK, where they and my extended family live. I knew they still loved me and I them, but there was a barrier that we (I?) could not cross. I was very happy to create and maintain that barrier, and for my extended family I think I'm happy for it to continue.

Recently, I have had the same sort of feelings that maybe Arch is alluding to, would I should I contact them and see if I can be family and they can be my Mum and Dad.

I can't. They are dead.

But I only started to think about and accept these thoughts as I have accepted me. I now feel very comfortable as me and I'm just starting to think about and realise my social boundaries.

I feel quite excited at the prospect of re-establishing contacts. (OK I realise for my Mum and Dad that isn't possible, but for the rest of the family it may be).

But I think I'm contemplating it only because I am now happy, content and confident.

But it also raises another thought, that I'm only allowing relationships and repairs in relationships when I feel like. And that worries intrigues me; is this acceptance or is this allowance. Does it matter?

Sorry Arch if I have wandered around. But a nice thread, thought provoking. Thank you

Cindy

I wasn't going to post to this thread because I'm desperately trying not to lose my family at the moment, but since Cindy spoke about her parents, I thought I'd add my 2p worth about mine.

I deliberately never came out to my mother because she'd been very cruel to me throughout my childhood. She had three failed marriages behind her that left her pretty messed up and I was her favourite target whenever she wanted to let off steam.

I figured out that I'm trans four years before she died but I couldn't possibly tell her because it would've been fantastic ammo for her to use to hurt me. If she hadn't died, I would probably have written her out of my life either before transitioning, or because of it.

There's a very good chance I'm going to have to break emotional ties with my hubby and I really hope my kids come round so I don't have to do the same with them. But my mother? She would've done her damndest to poison my feelings around my transition and I just don't need people like that in my life. I don't regret my decision to keep this from her for a second.

I wouldn't say I cut them off, but I did move more than halfway across the country to distance myself from a culture that was pretty toxic to me even before I had truly "come out" to anyone as specifically trans, and that means that I very rarely see most members of my family, even the immediate family, I see no more than once a year, sometimes for as long as a week... we will schedule vacation trips together for a few weeks so my parents can see their grandkids, at least that was the pattern back when I had sufficient income to afford it, it's been a couple of years now since I've felt such a trip was something I could fit into my budget.

I've recently started making some contacts specifically with transfolk who come from (and many who are still active in and live in the areas where I grew up).  Looking at the struggles they constantly go through to negotiate even some minimal acceptance, I can't say I regret my own choices, though I do wish it were different... I value those people... I just can't afford to deal with that level of pain and stress on a day-to-day basis.  I feel very fortunate that most of my immediate family have left that church for their own reasons, quite long ago, so, aside from stuff that's ingrained by conditioning, I don't have nearly as much crap to deal with as some might have, had they grown up in the same place and the same religion.