called feminine, now feel like crap-FTM

I'm cis, so I'm not even going to pretend I know what you're going through. As trans people, your identities are the most contested.

You're not going to be changed. You are who you are. And you're not a girl. You're a straight man. You know that. Nobody else can take that truth away from you.

What she's doing is extremely unfortunate. She is blinded by her rigid belief, so she can't see truth. Yet she clings to falsehood and repeats it out of a misplaced sense of tough love. Well, her intentions are not magic. Even if she thinks she's doing you good, she's not. I think you might have to put some distance between you and her and surround yourself with more accepting people.

The other thing is that a lot of people who aren't outright jerks are just going to misgender you because they don't even understand who transgender people are. They don't understand that gender is something that goes on in the brain. Knowledge of trans issues is pretty rare.

Are there support groups you can go to?

It sounds to me that what you really need is just acknowledgement. (*hug*)

 

It's a different situation, but I remember that the most important thing to me as a teen was having my mom acknowledge, accept, and respect my interests. She was a huge figure in my life and without her validation I always felt left out, weird, or like I was wrong. I hate to say it, but she never came around, and my increasingly frustrated attempts to help her see just didn't work and it hurt me. Which made her mad because she wasn't the one to blame for me setting myself up. To her if I just got over it everything would be fine. It was tense for a long time.

The way I made things better for us was just to let her be herself and be myself as best I could. Eventually I was able to forgive her for her flaws and inability to see how much it meant to me, because despite it all she was a hardworking and well-meaning parent who went through a lot for me. I looked at it from her point of view and realized it was just never gonna happen.
I didn't do this right away- I had to find friends who shared what was important to me, who I could engage with in the way I'd been seeking. It was only after I left home, got to college, and found people I could be myself with that her acknowledgement ceased to matter to me at all. To this day I don't really care how she feels because I don't expect her to change who she is. And I know I don't need to change myself either. Sometimes people's ways of thinking are just incompatible, even if we're related by blood.

I don't know how long it might be until you have greater independence, but finding a community that understands and respects you is important. And with time and the ability to make distance, if the relationship is important enough to you, you can choose to be the bigger man and give her forgiveness and respect. That's your call though and if she is too negative to have in your life you don't need to save that bond. Respect yourself and hang in there.

 

I got some useful tips for you, being a trans guy myself and all :smilewave

For one, you need to acknowledge that your grand mother will NEVER get it. Might as well mourn the mere idea. You also need to accept that she loves you in the only way she Can, and that she accepts you in the only way she Can.

From then on, what do you do..?

I have a grandma that's pretty much the same as yours (I think it's a matter of how that generation has been raised).
What I do when she tries to push me into her beliefs is I turn it to a joke. As in, I play along a little bit, laughing, sometimes trying that dress for her and showing her at the same time how ridiculous I would look in it.
Example: (grandma) Oh! You should put your hair up more, sometimes... it used to be so beautiful when you did your hair!
(me) Of course I'll do it for you (wink and drive my hair up, parading ridiculously around)

...it never fails to make her laugh.

At times when she's sad or very serious about it I choose to ignore her the same way she ignores the real me, and I go on my way knowing that this is a lost cause, I can't afford to let it bother me anymore.

 

I'm so sorry she's treating you this way. I can relate tremendously. That is very much how my parents reacted when I told them I had a boy friend, and now I'm planning on coming out to my sister as trans tonight. I'm pretty damn scared.

I agree with PurpleCrab, you really should assume the worst. Chances are she's never going to accept you as a man. Its sad but its true. I really don't expect my family to ever accept me as or treat meas a girl either. I think the best thing you can do is provide her with literature and other resourcs to educate herself, and if she's not willing to look at it, then that's not a good sign that she's even in the right mind set to accept this.

Out of everything you've said, this is what scares me the most for you. You need a REAL approved therapist, not some church approved quack. If there is anything you can do to convince her, this is where you need to draw the line I feel. You need to push to have an actual therapist, or at the very least if you can't get into therapy for some reason, do NOT go see this Christian counselor. He will not help, he will just make you feel worse.

I really hope everything works out, I understand what you are going through (*hug*)