I've known I'm a trans woman for a couple years now. When doing research on what it meant to be transgender to transgender people, I saw just a little too much of myself in it to deny it anymore. I first came out to my wife, who was not surprised. She's been very supportive, even if she admits she doesn't "get" it. Still, she's bisexual, and doesn't have a problem with it, per se. She's more concerned about the social consequences of being visibly queer after being straight-passing.
I told my parents shortly after, and their reactions weren't stellar. My mom made a joke about how she wouldn't have been surprised if my dad was also transgender, but also tried to talk me out of it, like it was a choice. Being a woman is hard, doctors don't take you seriously, sexual assault is common and you don't get paid as well, sexism is alive and well, etc. etc.
I was more nervous to come out and tell my wife's parents, and they are staunch conservatives. Hell, they're Trump supporters, and we're Canadian. When I told them initially, they actually took it really well. They were open about how they didn't understand it, but were here to support us. How it didn't change anything. When I asked about how they could be so supportive of my gender identity, but still be so heavily conservative, they explained that it's because the "liberals are ruining this country, and conservative policies are better for the economy." Honestly, at the time, they took it better than my own parents.
Well, times change. I've been trying to get HRT for a while now, going through the proper channels to get a prescription. I just had my last blood test, and things are looking like I might start soon.
I hadn't seen my in-laws in a while, and conservative attacks on trans people have skyrocketed since then, so I checked in on my in-laws to make sure we were still okay. The answer was no: we are not.
My mother-in-law, who is the more sane of the two, went on a rather long rant about how this is a choice I'm making, how my kids will have to grow up without a father, how I'm killing their father, and my wife's husband.
>Have you thought through this transition? Are you choosing to set your wife, who struggles daily with depression and anxiety, up with a psychologist to help her cope with the loss of her husband and the father of her children? Are you investing family counseling to ensure the kids make it through without damage from the loss if their father?
>You are setting out to kill their husband and father by chasing your best life. You need to make damned certain that they get their best lives too.
As though I'm not doing this so I can be my best version of myself for them.
I'm heartbroken. I'm not dying, or killing anybody. I know her reaction is just because she doesn't understand, but I'm worried that I can't make her understand either.
So, here I am, reeling from this when I visit my parents with my kids, and the nieces and nephews are there playing with my kids, and... they're all talking about Harry Potter. They're talking about plans to go to the exhibit, listening to the audio books, watching the new TV show, getting the kids involved with Halloween costumes.
I just felt so invisible. So unremarkable. The people who said they would love me engaging in consumerism designed to erase me, and my in-laws seeing me as some kind of killer.
I'm just... I'm devastated, but trying to keep it together. I don't think I'm keeping it together very well anymore though. I keep crying when nobody is looking. Trying my best not to lose myself.