I started this stub some months ago after reading a question on Reddit by a trans individual living in a conservative area and feeling like they couldn't come out. With Trump being elected, I know this is on a lot of minds, so I am brushing it off in spite of not really wanting to write it because I'm so tired of people being ugly to me for helping them.
Long experience tells me no amount of diplomacy will ever be enough to satisfy some people. Trying to tell people what they can do for themselves to cope with life more effectively routinely gets me accused of victim blaming rather than appreciated for empowering them.
If you want to go through life miserable and looking for someone else to BLAME, please get off my blogs.
I have an incurable, deadly genetic disorder. I'm a victim of incest twice over. I'm 99 percent attracted to men but had enough gal pals in adolescence that I feel obligated to warn potential lovers that I'm not straight because I don't want some nutcase to learn that AFTER we lock lips and put me in the ER over it.
And rest assured NO MAN was EVER "good enough" for their two daughters for either of my parents.
My sister briefly dated a guy that my parents thought was a perfect angel they adored and having dinner with the guy a few times caused him to fall from grace. Dating their daughters was a CRIME.
And you can go on Reddit or other forums and see straight people complain endlessly about their parents not approving of their bf/gf. The world butting into your love life and never approving of anyone you date is NOT unique to the LGBTQ crowd.
So whatever your sexual orientation etc, your life has NOT been harder than mine and probably most people on planet Earth face most of the same problems you face regarding parents and others who feel entitled to butt into your love life and refuse to approve of anyone you date for some reason and it's not possible to actually get approval.
You can please some of the people some of the time. You cannot please all of the people all of the time.
That's got NOTHING to do with you being LGBTQ. It's a universal truth.
I married a guy whose only career goal was to be a soldier and I knew my parents would approve of his military career while not approving of him AND if you wanted to be enough of an ass about it, he could put you in the ER and everyone knew it so they trod lightly. I intentionally married the epitome of "Speak softly and carry a big stick" only my variation had a knife thrower's nervous habit of flipping a knife while bored.
(And my first Xmas gift to him as his gf was an expensive set of sharpening stones "because I'm so supportive of your weird hobbies because I love you" and not to better arm my bodyguard, no!)
Something I tried to discuss with Genevieve that she did not want to hear: I tried to encourage her to transition more gradually. She was hot to trot to get a bra and I tried to tell her to get a snug tank top to help support her budding breasts and be more unisex and less in your face about the transition. That was a hard NO from her and how dare I suggest it.
I believe LGBTQ people have friction with conservatives because they wear a lot of "private" stuff on their sleeve and they do so in a way that makes it everyone else's fucking problem.
Conservatives mostly don't CARE what you do behind closed doors. They just don't want to HEAR it. Keep it BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.
Genevieve had big feels about being suffocated because her abusive parents couldn't accept her as a girl AND she wore that on her sleeve, dumped on everyone she met AND acted like she was the only person who had REAL problems.
I have a deadly genetic disorder and serious financial problems because of it but I'm just a whiny bitch if I want help. Everyone who knew Genevieve was supposed to ONLY ever talk about how they were going to help HER with HER problems and no one was supposed to bother her with mentioning their problems.
I was deathly ill and spent three hours one night making a list of seventeen rentals for her to check out the next day because she was technically homeless for a few DAYS while fleeing her abusive parents with my help and the help of other people. She rented the very first one I found that met her criteria exactly before I looked for other options so she had options AND she was verbally abusive to me about how I should have stayed up later and made a longer list and how dare I mention to her how sick I was and that I needed to get some sleep before going to work the next day etc etc.
Then I let her know "You can't treat me this way" so she kicked me to the curb and burned me by telling a pack of lies about me to other people AND continued stalking me online and reading my blogs. So when I ended up homeless a few months later and mentioned it in a blog post, instead of being supportive and helpful to me like I had been to her, she emailed me to lecture me and I told her to get lost.
Yes, her parents were extremely abusive. After she came out as trans, they blamed their abusive shit on her coming out as trans. Reality: they had ALWAYS been abusive.
No, sorry, I'm not going to put up with an abusive relationship because YOU, poor baby, have a SOB STORY and use it to justify your extremely one-sided expectations for the relationship.
In my view, a LOT of LGBTQ problems boil down to LGBTQ people having negative experiences because family can't accept them and then pissing on everyone they meet and expecting everyone they meet to put up with their shit and shower them with COMPASSION while they have NONE for anyone else.
Sorry, I was molested and raped by TWO male relatives close enough to qualify for the ugly label of INCEST and I got better because I didn't expect that from anyone. People helped me get over my shit because I was good to them and they wanted to keep me around and wanted this shit to go away and not be part of the deal and I also wanted it to go away.
Your family being all hostile to you being LGBTQ is not magically WORSE than anything I had to cope with as a nominally cis het woman. And you do not have some God given RIGHT to piss on everyone you meet because your FAMILY is homophobic, transphobic, whatever the fuck.
So when you want to go from dressing as one gender one day to dressing as the opposite gender the next and then bitch about people not wanting to use your preferred pronouns or whatever, you are making other people incredibly uncomfortable and forcing them to play free therapist and then accusing them of being transphobic, homophobic or whatever when they don't feel that should be their job.
Sort your shit PRIVATELY with people who are sympathetic and have reason to care. Stop asking everyone you meet to carry the load you can't be arsed to deal with and then bitching about what evil asshats they are for feeling like "I just wanted to buy a cup of coffee, not volunteer to hear all your sexual trauma that you choose to wear on your sleeve." and then act like them wanting you fired is "transphobia" and not "I would like your employees to be people who serve me coffee and take my cash and make correct change and NOT deeply fucked up narcissists who feel that every single person they meet is obligated to lovingly listen to their mountains of personal trauma and offer to rescue them for free."
I will suggest you read A LOT. Educating yourself can be done without opening your mouth to ANYONE and fear is frequently about not knowing how to safely navigate things.
Knowledge is power and the very best antidote to fear in my experience.
I will suggest you take small steps that won't get big reactions. It's easier to course correct and people are less likely to be weird about it.
People tend to hold it in until they feel like bursting and then want to come out DRAMATICALLY and then are all surprised when social contacts feel shocked. If you don't want a lot of negative reactions from people, don't make it a negative experience for THEM to deal with you.
Some movie showed Nazis talking about "We all have a favorite Jew." People who are openly transphobic will sometimes make exceptions for a trans person they like for some damn reason and most people can't even tell you WHY that particular trans person is ok in their book when they are a member of a demographic the individual despises on the whole.
Trans individuals make other people uncomfortable and then openly antagonize people and demand accommodation and have a hissy about them using the wrong pronouns etc.
I generally don't correct people on Hacker News who call me he/him and I appear to be the only woman to have ever made the leaderboard there, so I appear to be far more socially acceptable to them than most women.
I think the trans community is making a mistake to make their preferred pronouns a hill to die on and I've written about that a couple of times on this same blog:
If you want people to be gracious and accommodating of your special needs, it helps to be gracious yourself and not act like a bull in a china shop.
That's not just about how you talk to people. Radically changing your look and then being a bitch to everyone who reacts to it will not win you friends.
Start small. Don't shock people. Don't make other people wonder "What the hell?" And ALSO wonder "If I ask, will they hand me my head???"
And then afterwards act like they are behaving badly and you are just exercising your (narcissistic) "RIGHTS."
If you are gay or wondering if you are gay, stop whining and crying to people you already know are homophobic or whatever. Get thee to a gay bar and talk to people about "I think I'm gay and I have no idea how to get gay laid and I'm hoping for some pointers!" and knock back one or two drinks to lower your inhibitions.
You will probably soon be losing your gay virginity and none of your homophobic asshole relatives will be there to say one damn word about it.
And guess what? That's how HETEROSEXUAL people get laid too: in PRIVATE, without asking mom's permission.
Duh!
And then figure out how you FEEL blah blah blah without over sharing to every random person you meet who probably doesn't want to hear anything about your sex life having NOTHING to do with being homophobic.