So my family has been a rather interesting experience since I've come out. I'm getting to a point where I'm not sure what to say or how to deal with them because it just seems to get a little better then it get's worse, then better, and then much worse. It seems like they care, but then they turn around and don't care, they understand and then understand nothing. It's just a back and forth and it's so draining. I'll put a list of how each of them has been handling it so far.
Father: He ignores it 99% of the time. He doesn't care about any of the changes and doesn't want to listen when I try to talk to him about it. He has consistently looked up all the negatives of transitioning, and focuses on that aspect of it, which in turn gives a very unsupportive view from him. In the beginning he wasn't okay with this, but said I have his emotional support, but he hasn't really shown any support, and only really care about when I'm sterile or not (which technically at this point I am because no sperm or only a few tiny drops when I do stuff like that). He refuses to call me and feminine pronoun until I look that way in his eyes, despite how anyone outside the family will tell him otherwise, or even some family members who have stood up for me he chooses to ignore. He has also gone behind my back and told family members I had not come out to yet, which in turn cause some lash back I wasn't quite ready for at the time.
Mother: She is very back and forth. Again in the beginning, she said I have her emotional support. Since then she has basically tried to have as much control over this as she could, but I haven't really let her. She again focuses on the negative aspects and only the negative. She refuses to call me any female pronouns or the name I am comfortable with because I don't look female enough in her eyes. She has stated she doesn't know what it means to look female, or why gender matters and that I will never be able to help her understand. She has stated now that she is starting to see me as who I am, she is offended by everything I am because it goes against everything she believes in. She has, at every turn tried to invalidate what I have said, and won't even listen to anything and tries to discredit any sort of evidence. She constantly brings up the past and tries to say I never showed any signs to her (which to anyone else outside the family would disagree with her), and any evidence I provide that shows that there were signs, and she was there for them, she ignores and says I'm just making them up. Her and my father both, 3 days after I started HRT, had decided to start charging me $100 a month, and their reasoning was because I started transitioning and it's only fair. On the flip side though she has brought me a couple of female shirts, but on the down side she dangles that over my head trying to say she is fully supportive.
Siblings: My three siblings are all okay and accepting with it. My youngest sister was on board day one and has been full supportive, my other sister has been okay with it but isn't supporting, she's basically indifferent, and my brother started unsupportive, but has actively tried to call me by my preferred name and female pronouns.
Grandma Miller: My fathers step-mom...all I will say is that she told me to go to hell when she confronted me. MY father told her about me before I had a chance.
Grandma Ruth: She again is not supportive. every talk with her has basically been my fathers logic, but more vocal and trying to convince me I'm wrong. It's like the middle point between grandma miller and my father.
Aunt Kate: She has been the most supportive family member. She has 1 trans kid and 2 gay kids. She understands what I am going though, and has even stated she saw the signs as I was growing up. She is the only family member who has stated this and even went into detail about the signs she saw. She said I have the entire support of her family.
Cousin Ben: He has given me full support. All I have really heard from him so far.
And well that's about it so far with my family. It's very tiring dealing with them every week, sometimes daily, and I wish I knew how I could handle them better. I have cried at least once each week because of one of my family members who are unsupportive. All of my friends though have been incredibly supportive in my transition so far, and a lot of them when I first told them, said they weren't surprised and saw it coming. Others already knew before hand and just point blank asked me at some point when we became friends. So aside from the obvious move out option at this point, what can I do to help them have a better understanding, help my family in general, so they stop being so negative, and almost to the point some of my friends say is transphobic?
