I was rejected when I told her I was trans on Christmas of 2020. She insulted me in every way, insulted my choice of name despite it being her own choice for me were I born a girl, said I killed her son, insisted that I must just be gay, as though she hasn’t also denied my bisexuality, said I would ruin my body, that it’s just the evil of my long hair possessing me, that I was never showing any signs, everything you can think of, she’s told me. She, for the first time in my life, though I would later learn not my siblings’, threatened to commit suicide if I did it. After about an hour or two of this, she basically was just stuck on the sofa, sobbing. At the time we were the only two people of my family living together, everyone else was elsewhere, so I felt obligated to keep her company and comfort through the whole thing. She continued to cry that whole night, and would cry often for the next three days. And often I’d be there for her as she’d hold onto me. The few times I was away I had to put on the loudest music I could to drown out my thoughts, the self-hatred, the guilt, the shame. She’d immediately outed me to the rest of my family by calling tehem. My siblings said they were fine with it. My sister chatted with me that night about it, was happy to hear I picked out my name. And my brother was telling our mother to stop bullying me and use my name, though she obviously didn’t. My father, meanwhile, said that he’d support me regardless, but a week later he said that he wouldn’t use my name and would use an old nickname instead, likely to avoid conflicts with my mother. The two of them promised me that we’d go through a psych to get my dysphoria evaluated.

Eventually father came to live with us again, no longer kept away by work. He didn’t use the nickname or my name. Neither of them ever mentioned the psych, and I was afraid to bring it up. Eventually that summer my sister visited, and I tried to get her to help me bring it up to him, but she just insisted he wouldn’t have an issue with it and I should do it myself. I couldn’t. Eventually she even stopped using my name in private conversations. My brother was the only one who stayed supportive, but I told him clearly not to use my name around our parents since I didn’t want to spark conflict again. By this point I changed my plans from pursuing HRT through my parents to doing it alone. But I lacked any money to do it, I couldn’t find an available psychiatrist nearby who knew anything about trans issues, and the one clinic near me that offered informed consent has shut down a year prior. So I laid in that purgatory for a year, unable to make any real progress besides learning to style my already-long hair and voice training poorly and inconsistently. Eventually, I got a job in the summer of 2022. But even with money saved up, I still couldn’t find a psych. I insisted that I needed to get my prescription process at least started before I was 20, or I’d have to find a way to DIY or else commit suicide. I only barely managed to find a psych 2 months before my 20th birthday, a full 2 years after I realised I was trans. A few months went by and the appointment came, I got the letter I needed, and a doctor’s appointment. I had to push it forward by a few months to make sure I could make it, and in the meanwhile I was the most dysphoric I had ever been. My facial hair had gotten to a point where it would become every morning, which tore at me for the months I waited and waited. Eventually, I went to the appointment, my first ever post on the trans mega was even about it. And then I just needed bloodwork and a follow-up and I’d finally have HRT.

But things didn’t turn out so simple. The hospital I had to go to for bloodwork sent a physical letter. My mother found it and demanded to know what it was for. I saw no point in lying, so I simply said it. She exploded. My father, brought into it, asked me what had happened to us going to a psych. I explained that I did it on my own, which only made my mother angrier. “One conversation and they think they know my child better than me.” She again insulted everything about my transition, only this time joined by father. He wasn’t as bad, but he mocked how I would look with breasts, he didn’t understand why I would want to transition, and he simply said to my face that I would never be a pretty woman, as if that was my main goal. I went to school that day feeling entirely numb. The friend I’d normally talk to wasn’t there, so I was alone, in class trying to avoid thinking about anything, trying to avoid crying in the middle of class. Eventually I came home, and while my friend had learned what happened and offered support with a phone call that night to talk through it a little, my parents were still fuming.

We had a cousin over in the following weeks, so my mother hid her anger as well as she could, that is to say she was passive aggressive to me instead of simply aggressive. But eventually she cracked on a day when my brother came to visit and, while we were around my (hugely bigoted btw) cousin, she asked my brother if he supported me. Initially confused, my brother asked for clarification before her vague answer made it clear and he replied that, yes, he does. They argued, and argued, while my mother constantly belittled me, calling me spoiled, selfish, mocked my depression, mocked everything, all while I was just trying, and failing, to not cry. My cousin, cowardly bigot that he is, insisted that he doesn’t judge but “it’s just not a thing where I’m from” (Australia btw) and that I had nothing to be depressed about so I should just feel better. Eventually the argument stopped, my father apologised to our cousin for it happening, and I went to my room to cry alone. My brother came in later, comforted me briefly, then left the house while we were all asleep. I spent the entire week afterwards sleeping not in my actual bedroom, but the guest room which had used to be mine when I was a child instead.

Eventually my cousin left, and almost the very next day I was told, point blank, that I had to leave the house. My father justified it by saying that he was technically paying for my HRT through my school insurance since he paid most of my tuition, and that it broke an earlier agreement we had about him not paying for any of my transition. So I had the choice, stop HRT, or leave. (at this point I still didn’t have my HRT) He was crying that night after telling me, and my mother insisted I head down. He said it was because he told me to leave. That he was crying from the pain of telling me that. I still had to do it though. Over the next days I was scrambling to find an apartment to rent or a sofa to crash on, and part time jobs to work so I could afford to live. My mother would often go out on these days fuming so much that I was genuinely worried she’d keep her threat of suicide. Whenever it happened I, genuinely, had to repeat a mantra of ‘don’t think about it’ to avoid breaking down about the possibility. She never did, of course, but the fear was, and frankly still is, there. Once I found an apartment to view, not even rent, but simply view, I was told by my father that that viewing was the day I’d be kicked. It was barely a week from the day. I had to pack everything in a rush, get the friend I was going to crash at as a backup okayed, and then he drove me, and I was away from family.

For reference, these last three paragraphs all happened in the span of less than a month, it was incredibly hectic. Things slowed down at this point, I couldn’t really bring myself to tell my siblings, they were too far away and too much was going on in my life, I was too tired to do it. The only person in my family I spoke to regularly was my father, who I still call weekly. Even now my siblings are mostly people I speak to occasionally every few months. We’ve always been quite distant, though. My mother, meanwhile, would constantly send me voice mails of insults on my phone. It took a lot to not listen to some of them. The next year continued to be hectic, but I had HRT, so things were looking better.

They got pretty good, but then began to dip back down after I burned several of the friendships I cared the most for in the span of a single month. Each wasn’t intentional, but I’m a selfish asshole, it always happens eventually. And each of them were friendships I genuinely really cared for. I obviously didn’t deserve to, though. I temporarily isolated myself almost entirely after that point to avoid doing it again in the short term. But in so doing I made myself feel lonelier, and lonelier. I miss all of them, all the friends I lost through mockeries I didn’t consider serious, my siblings too far to see more than once a year, my parents, who much as I would find it easier, I can never seem to hate. Every single time it’s been my fault. But I’m never going to be able to change those relationships, so I just have to keep learning and trying to be better, so that eventually I can be better for the future ones.