Familial (un)Acceptance

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I'm going to try to trim a year's worth of stress and interaction with my parents (and my childhood before that) into a readable post. I apologize if that doesn't happen. I'm a 27 year old gq trans man.

When I started hormones in January of 2013, I had a strained relationship with my parents. I'd been closeted about my sexuality for more than a decade and about my gender for nearly as long. We had developed different value systems, to the point where having a conversation about some topics could be like we were speaking different languages. I was pretty angry kid - a religious kid in a religious community struggling with disabilities, gender, and sexuality and I didn't have a lot of appropriate outlets. As an adult I've found some great ways to express myself - notably through activism and certains philosophies - ones that value people like me - resonate with me strongly and I work within those structures. Outside of transitioning and sexuality, my parents, who are both deeply religious and Bill O'Reilly-flavored Conservative, take issue with my openly-queer friends and their political affiliations, viewing them as dragging me down with them.

As an adult, I moved about 300 miles away from them and started transitioning, once I managed the whole health coverage of my own/stable job/stable housing thing. I made sure to have a support network that's intense and wonderful. And I was lucky I did that, because the backlash on transitioning has been explosive. I've spoken to my mother once since they realized what was going on last Easter. I've spoken to my father a handful of times, mostly about topics that are "safe" (the weather, our shared career field). My father apparently complained to my brother that I did not spend the holidays with them and I dared to hope that reconciliation was on the horizon.

Today, I went to the post office to pick up some Certified Mail (hoping it was the state finally sending in my certification from my job) and it was from my mother. It's a three page letter listing all of the proofs of my parents' (but mostly her) love: going prom dress shopping, sending me to private school, my high school activities, taking me for medical testing when I got sick in college. And then goes on to tell me that I have anger issues and some accusations about lying with ease to everyone (I think, this is a reference to trans people being "liars" because my father had some similar accusations last spring when I mentioned that no one at church/work/activism had a problem with my transition). And then there's some bits about how I'm on a self destructive path, T must be giving me more anger, and my support network are really actually bad people and bad for me.

It is a bit of a cutting blow because I had hoped that reconciliation could be had sometime soon. Obviously not. The letter is right in her worldview - transitioning would be self-hatred and sinful - and it also absolves her of any wrong doing or guilt. It's really upsetting. I could ignore it, but a friend had a suggestion that I write back something along the lines of, "I love you, however, I cannot have you in my life until you learn to accept me as I am rather than living in denial," and some links to resources for families of trans folks. I like this idea a lot, but I'm not sure of trans* resources in their area (Worcester, MA, USA) so I thought tacking the letter onto an Amazon-sent book might work as well, but I'm not sure what's a good, reasonable book that isn't focused on trans women.


Any ideas for good books/workbooks/New England trans family resources, especially ones accessible by a couple of rich, angry Conservative Christians?

x-posted to ftm