Family Healing

I’ll be honest, I haven’t been the type that spends a lot of time educating and babying my family. Through my first few big “coming outs” I came to a place where I believed in the ideas of needing to come out and explain my desires, my body, my emotional process, etc. to people that I had a rather simple relationship with - Really didn’t work for me.

My family and I…
We love each other.
We want each other to be happy.
AND we pretty much disagree on every social issue that has ever come up.

So in my experience, looking to get a stamp of approval or be patient through my family’s inadvertent gender shaming and recitations on why I couldn’t possibly deserve agency over my decisions - wasn’t for me.

I pretty much came out, bags packed, and moved my happy ass a thousand miles away from anyone who would tell me what I could and couldn’t do with my body.

My family wasn’t very pleased.
But I knew I was doing something I needed to stay alive.

I tried to tune out the judgements and just did my adult thang.

That was about 4 years ago now and things are not always easy.

But today I talked on the phone with my sister. We have had big BIG challenges. And today something happened.

She told me she understood. Not all the way, and not even about anything surrounding my gender.

But she understood why I had to go, why I don’t call my father any more, why I decided to let my parents do the trying.

(Sometimes the bridges we build are built in the dark - Photo by me)

I have sought out a lot of advice around being in relationship with biological family as a trans person and I have taken almost none of it.

My transition is about honoring my path. None of the advice I found about going slow with my parents resonated with me, so I just didn’t. Because I knew every journey is different and this one was about me. About not letting anyone’s expectations get in the way of my happiness.

So right now, as my father and I are estranged, my mother is drinking too much and my sister and I are basking in gratitude of familial understanding - it’s not perfect.

But I am pretty damn happy for ALL that it is.