May 31, 2024

This has been a pretty rough few days. It rained pretty hard and my tent had standing water inside of it when I got home from work on Friday last week. I knocked on my grandma's door and asked her if I could possibly spend one night in the house. She just sighed deeply at me and said “I’ve told you a thousand times. I love you honey, but I cannot willingly let evil into my home.” When I tried to protest because my tent was flooded, she gave me a towel. What I ended up having to do that night was take everything out, pick my tent up and tip all of the water out, and then I slept on the towel for the rest of the night. 

Sometimes I think back to my church days. I wonder, if God is real, why did he make me the way he made me? Or did God make me “perfectly” and dysphoria comes from Satan? I know I didn’t choose to feel this way. There are so many people in my life who make me happy to be who I am. And then when I try to return and connect to my family, I feel unwanted and disconnected. For example, my family has a Thanksgiving meal at my parents house every year. Usually I either stay in my tent all day, or ask to work that shift at work to get out of it, but last year I decided to go. The meal was unexpectedly pleasant. My dad and uncle talked about football, my mom chatted with my aunt and grandma, and my little brother stuck around my younger cousins. I was left relatively alone, able to eat in peace. After the meal we were all sitting in front of the TV in their living room watching whatever teams were playing football when my little cousin Tanner ran up to me and said very loudly, “Why are you wearing makeup?” 

I didn’t quite know how to respond at the moment and I just kind of stuttered a bit when my dad interrupted and said, “He’s just confused.” 

I once again attempted to defend myself, only for my little brother to chime in and say “Yeah Tanner, he’s just gay”

I sat in that moment for too long. Unsure what to say with all eyes in the room on me. The only thing I could seem to squeak out was a quiet “I’m not gay. I’m-” 

My uncle, who has always been way more vocal about not liking me than my parents, shot up in his chair and interrupted me with a snarky “Well what are you then?” 

I found a little confidence in the moment, a spark of some kind from within me. I sat up straight in my chair and said, “I’m a woman.” The men in the room burst into raucous laughter. I looked over at my mother to see her covering her mouth in a poor attempt to hide her own laughter. She saw me look at her, my mouth agape and she said, “Sweetie, we love you but that’s just not true.” 

I didn’t quite know how to proceed from that point. When you’re in a room full of people laughing at you for stating what you know to be undeniably true, how do you fight it? That was the moment where I realized my reality is not also their reality. My facts of life are not their facts of life. There have been several moments throughout the last few years that I’ve tried to change my family's perception of me. I’ve used facts about gender dysphoria being in the DSM and how the only known way to treat gender dysphoria is through gender affirming care, but my parents have never been people who believed in science. I tried to appeal to their empathetic side by bringing up the harm that some of their beliefs might cause other trans individuals. I told them about the 42% of trans adults that have attempted suicide and that 81% of them have reported thinking about it. To them, suicide is a sin just like being transgender is a sin. 

Their view is through the lens of cherry picked religion and holier than thou self righteousness. A view that causes folks to turn their nose up at those whom their own book calls for them to love. And I don’t know how to combat that. I don’t know how to get them to accept me. 

I got pretty worked up today. Sorry for venting like that, like I said it’s been a rough month. Thank you for listening to me. I really needed this. 

-Hope