Xenia's Transphobia Trauma

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   Okay. Alright. This is gonna be a rough one to write y’all. So like, we don’t HAVE to write this one, some might say we shouldn’t. But we want to have an oral record of our traumas. A vague history they happened at all. Justification for the donation drive donations we receive. Ability to call this back if we wish to for memory.

Or a police report.

Transphobia, bigotry. Upsetting and shocking recollections of bigotry.

   So, we found out we were trans around age 28. We sat on it for a year and did literally nothing other than change our pronouns online and among our friends. Make sure we wanted to do things, make sure we weren’t going to change our mind, scared to do anything for obvious reasons. We did not change our mind. We were going to transition, and fight whatever battles we had to for our identity and appearance.

   We went to a clinic at age 29 and started hormones. Informed consent is awesome. Somewhere shortly before or after, we told our mother. Our family is rather conservative. Soft to hard right conservatives and republicans. We knew most of them would not respect us, like the decision, laugh at us. However, our mother had always been kind to us and fought for us over the years. She understood our autism and social anxiety needs the best. She helped us with appointments, she kept us generally away from harm by the family. If not for her presence, we would be homeless. The men of our family would have cast us out soon after we turned 16/18 and did not work. We did not work for over a decade. She always defended us from the worst of things.

   We would of course tell her first. And we did tell her, that we were trans. She was taken aback. Mouth agape. Just kind of horrified. She didn’t really have an answer for us right then, she told us give her a night to sleep on it and come to her own conclusions. We allowed that.

   She did not support our transition. She did not like it one bit. However, she viewed our bodily autonomy as paramount as an adult. She would not block our medicine or make us stop the medication. She was not going to help us with any bit of it. She would do all kinds of things to help us with medical issues and resources. Drive us to appointments (We have a crippling fear of driving), be there in the room with us explaining various things of our conditions to doctors, buy our prescriptions when needed. She would not do any of that for our transition related items. No drives, no buying prescriptions, not being there for us. We arranged rides with our little sister instead, who was vaguely supportive. We were determined to do this.

   We wanted to try and touch base with our mother. We offered to talk to her about our identity, why we do the things we do, how our medication works. She was uninterested in hearing so, and cast us out of her room when asked. She was resolute in not letting us talk much about our transition. She actually seemed to prefer listening to detransitioners, based on some things she said to us. She got her info from the anti-trans sources, not from us, not from positive trans sources, not from doctors.

   Over the coming months, our mother would get meaner and nastier with trans related things. Questioning us. Digging at us with insults. Generally being unhelpful.

“Why do you want to transition now, you didn’t want to wear dresses as a kid?” “Why do you want to grow breasts? I hate my breasts.” “How are you going to afford The Surgery? That’s really expensive.” “Trump said there were only two genders in an order today.” “Trump is probably going to take away your pills, you know that right?”

   An uneasy peace settled for a couple years. We told no one else but our little sister and mother. And they told almost no one else in the family (we’ll get to that). Our hormones did their slow job. They might work just a tick slower because we are older than you should be, ideally, to start hormones. Even past second male puberty, which we were horrified to learn was a thing. We did not buy girly clothes or makeup for a very long time.

   We were always tempted but also not tempted to tell more of the family. Our mother heard this, and she forbade that we tell our grand parents. “They are going to die soon, you’ll give them a heart attack.”

…

   She meant this literally by the way. She strongly felt we would give our grand parents a heart attack if we told them we were trans. We despised this arrangement, but for various reasons we could not fight it, or felt we couldn’t, being smart anyway. We were jobless, penniless. If the family wanted us gone, we would be on the streets with no one and nowhere to go to. Our own wants or thoughts on the matter did not matter at all. We have the wish to tell our grand parents our real name and identity before they die. We think that’s a very natural want, tell these people our important info and things important to us before they go to the next life. The rest of our family disagrees. It is not important that we do that, strictly unwanted. Fuck you.

   2 years into our transition. We’ve decided to go for a goth girl vibe in some clothes buying. We buy on depop, used and extremely cheap mostly. Getting our first skirt, and it’s a truly wonderful experience. Got our ears pierced. Found out we have a ton of gender euphoria from putting on nylon and fishnet arm sleeves? Interesting. Bought a few dresses, but sadly they don’t fit our frame even though we buy in XL. We’re enjoying shaving and body shaving, the effects of it at least, having to shave far too often to try and stave off gender dysphoria.

   Our stepdad is a Trumper and qanon conspiracy theorist. He is highly bigoted and we hate so many of his views. We stay silent and do not argue and do not engage. There is no point. He is unsavable. Most of this family is unsavable from bigotry and hate and racism. He plays political commentary out loud in the TV room, and near the kitchen, and in the kitchen often, off his phone. Listening to Peterson and Shapiro and the like. Fox News. Drives us mad, we get isolating headphones and noise canceling earbuds to at least be able to make food in mild peace.

   Our biological dad we have not spoken to in a long time. When getting his number from our mother, once more she knew and suspected we wanted to talk our transness. “He probably will not support that you know.”

One time, before we transitioned, our mother found out non-binary people exist. In the conversation, she turns to us “Don’t do that to me, please. Anything but that.”

She was mostly okay with us being bi/gay.

She was less okay with the idea of us being non-binary. (We never told her that one moment when we were using she/they/he pronouns, hehe)

She was furious and upset at our transness.

   We wear glasses. We’d had the same ones for a few years now. Our mother had once remarked she wanted to replace our prescription every year for us, for the prescription changing with eye age. In the middle of a supermarket, we asked her if we could get new glasses. She was immediately suspicious and frowning “I’m not going to buy your girly shit for you.”

“When [your stepdad] comes home, you need to stop wearing your pink socks and your hair clip stuff.” “He will not support this, he will kick us out on the street” “Even your sister knows that.”

Me: “Fuck you, fuck everything you’re saying right now. SHARON was disappointed in you. No one would support you in what you’re saying right now. Not my doctors, not random people. Your bigotry, your transphobia is fucked up. For that matter I’M disappointed in you.

You’re a terrible fucking mother.“

And then, our brother.

Our brother has already been violent with us a few times in the past. He deals with anger issues and he has… loose morals.

   So. We send a few texts to our mom, after arguing for some months, and in the recent week things elevating more and more. We just want her to understand us and see us as an equal and let us explain transness and be out to her and the rest of the family. We want our name and pronouns to be used. Simple stuff. So.

We also send a few texts coming out to our brother’s girlfriend, talking to her about transness a bit. Some oddity, but she seems mostly supportive.

The next morning…

…

…

We can’t fully recount this one. Not again at least. We are going to just give you pictures from shortly after the event, when we first recounted it.

   Our brother assaulted us. On hearing the stories from our mother and his girlfriend of our attempts to get our identity recognized, our name and pronouns used. He enjoyed assaulting us. He took cruel pleasure in assaulting us. He further threatened us if we were to continue asking for our name and pronouns to be used, and revealing our identity to the rest of the family.

We no longer feel safe here. We are no longer going to try and bargain or plead with these people. We choose to leave. As soon as possible. As fast as possible.

If you wish to help,

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