Conflict with Coming Out and with my Mother

[bagel_lover]

Hi! I’m a trans guy. I knew this for certain for a month and a half, and I had been questioning for about half a year before then. About three months ago I came out to my family as non-binary. My father was really supportive, and I am really grateful to have him as my dad. However, my mom’s reaction wasn’t as good. A time before that, I had openly started questioning, and I told my mom “I think I might be a guy” and she told me I was “too feminine to be trans”. That really surprised me, since my mom is nonbinary (she uses she/her pronouns; I’m not misgendering her) and bisexual. I really expected her to be supportive, and I still hoped she would be when I actually came out as non-binary, and she was respectful of my pronouns, but later she kept telling me that “hormones make you feel weird ways”. About a week later I brought up that I wished I could have top surgery (not that I wanted top surgery right now!) and she gave me a lecture about how permanent top surgery was. At one point I did feel uncomfortable with being non-binary, and I told her, but I later realized it was because it was new and because she was making such a big deal out of it. Later my mom said that she thought that queer people existed because of overpopulation (which is blatantly wrong, Ive learned that queer people have existed for ages through articles and school) and that the water in my neighborhood (the water here is bad quality) was turning people trans (she named two trans people around here) and said that “when we move, you might not feel the same way”. About a month later, I told mom that I would use any pronouns. (Because I wanted to be called he/him but didn’t quite realize I was a dude) and my mom thenceforth called me a girl again. Later she heard my dad using they/them to refer to me and kept asking me what pronouns I wanted. She promised she would be respectful. So I eventually told my mom I used they/them, and then she started telling me all the reasons I was just confused girl again. She literally came into my room at 10:30 at night, after saying we needed to get to bed early, to tell me that I “stated to feel this way when I was sexually harassed”. (A boy tried to flirt with me once, and put stuff in my hair. He was also transphobic. I don’t think it was sexual harassment, but it was irritating.) she also went on to say that “hormones are weird” (again). Later I told her that I was genderfluid, and after she told me what bothered her about “this gender stuff” was that I was trying to figure it out too fast and put such a tight label on it. About 2 weeks ago she was talking to me in the car, and said “you know how you said you have gender dysmorphia? Getting sexually harassed can cause you to want to cover up your boobs”.And that’s about it so far. Sorry for rambling on, but I wanted to ask: How do I come out as a trans man to my mom? I’m really nervous to, but I think if everyone but my dad keeps misgendering me I’m going to pop. I’m so sorry for taking so long to get to the point. I really love this site, Scarleteen, and it’s helped me with a lot of things. Thank you so much, Scarleteen, and thank you so, so much for taking the time to read this. I hope you have a fabulous day.

[Jacob]

Yikes! I am so familiar with the "parent walks into your room completely unexpectedly and starts offloading" and the "parent nonchalantly initiates a conversation while driving, knowing you can't leave" situations.

I feel like you 99% have told your mom you're trans in all but using the words "I'm trans". All the feelings you've shared with her are really common among trans people, and she's unfortunately taken the approach of ruminating on those generous and trusting mini-coming-outs and then offloading her conclusions to you, which all attempt to explain-away your feelings. I'm so F'-ing sorry for that!

Her behaviour so far says she probably won't be super supportive in the short term (unless she surprises is all), but I don't think that'd be due to how you come out, it sounds like it'd be very much a 'her' problem!

With that, I think it's good to remember that coming out is still a generous act of giving someone the opportunity to accept you, but probably also good to remind yourself of what you think you might get from it if not acceptance. That might include the feeling that you don't have anything to hide, the feeling that long term it might be good for your family as a whole.

How were you thinking of coming out? Is there anything you can factor in support from a friend, or even from us if it doesn't go as well as we hope? Would timing be a factor in any other ways? Your dad also sounds like he's been pretty chill, could he help?

[bagel_lover]

Thank you so much for being supportive and helping me with this! I was thinking about having my dad around when I told my mom, since she’s probably less likely to say anything if he’s around. Also it’d be nice to have him around if it doesn’t go well. I need to talk to him about doing that.

[Andy]

Hi! I'm so glad Jacob's answer and talking here was helpful!
I think it's a great idea to talk about it with your dad.
Is there something about the conversation with him or anything else we can help you with?
(Also, I've had my own share of troubles with unsupportive family, so if that's something you'd like to talk about more with me, I'm happy to do that.)

[bagel_lover]

I think I’m good, but thank you so much for listening and understanding!!! I hope you have a wonderful day!!! : )

[Jacob]

No worries! I'm glad we could help make this hopefully a bit more doable!