My mom hates me right now.

Okay, so I came out the week after Thanksgiving earlier this year. My dad, after the initial conflict blew over, has taken it all in stride. But my mom's reaction has been mixed.

For the last couple of weeks, she has acted normally to me around other people, but when it's just the two of us, she'll almost completely ignore me. If we're both sitting in a room, she won't talk to me. She'll pass me on the stairs without saying a word. She'll barely hug or kiss me, and if she does there's hardly any feeling in it. Every once in awhile I'll catch her looking at me with such a strong look of speculative anger and hatred on her face, like: Who are you, and what have you done with my daughter?

I am acting the same as I always act towards her if we're not in the middle of an argument (that is, kindly and respectfully) but I am getting frustrated at this extreme hot-and-cold treatment, and it's really hurting my feelings. I have asked her straight-up if something is wrong, and she always denies it and says everything is fine, which it most obviously is not.

Me and her haven't talked about the trans thing much since my coming out, except for when we went Christmas shopping last week. I was going to pick up some men's shirts because I gave away all my women's clothing to the homeless and I need some dress shirts for work and the holidays; my mom asked me in the checkout line: "Are those men's shirts?"

I said yes, and she said (in front of all of the other people in line): "You're breaking my heart, but I guess you don't care." And she turned her back on me and kept loading her stuff onto the conveyor.

I was stricken, and immediately turned around and walked out of the line. I threw down the shirts on a tabletop display and went outside to smoke by myself until she was done checking out. We drove home in silence.

So I don't know, I'm just sad about it. I moved back in with my parents yesterday to save money for a year and pay off some debt, but I don't know how long I can really live here if my mother keeps acting this way towards me. I mean, it's a huge house and we can stay out of each other's way for the most part, but I hate watching my mother avoid me in her own home.

For his part, my dad acts like absolutely nothing has changed, and he goes around acting like nothing is wrong and that he doesn't recognize any conflict between my mother and me. If anything, he has been more loving and supportive than before I came out to show his solidarity. Same for my brother. My mom is the only person who has reacted negatively in the long-term. She's also the only one who has expressed deep religious concerns about my coming out, and (more telling) serious concerns about "what the neighbors will think".

Advice? It's three days to Christmas and I feel awful. Someone please tell me their mom showed her ass this way and then eventually came around...

(To make things worse, my brother and his girlfriend/potential fiancee are here from San Diego, and there's no way for me and my folks to have a come-to-Jesus sitdown meeting about this issue until after they've left, which will be weeks from now.)

 

Thanks Lotty, I have tried telling her all those things, but she's just not really receptive right now...

She thinks I'm going to hell. My mom has basically told me in no uncertain terms (the day after I came out) that she thinks homosexuality is an immoral, personal choice, and that she is concerned that the entire community is going to ostracize her and my father now.

Her biggest obvious problem is with me presenting male - that is, binding my chest and wearing men's clothing. Seeing me do that is what seems to really set her off.

The other day my father asked me not to dress in men's clothing during the holidays for my mother's sake, and I respectfully refused to make that concession (except for in front of my grandparents - Christmas Eve I agreed to dress "gender neutral" since I'm not out to them or the extended family). He wasn't happy because he is concerned with having to hear about it from my mom all during the holidays, but he didn't push the issue.

Coming out to me meant that I would no longer have to live a lie, and I think appeasing my mother in this manner sets a bad precedence for her ultimately accepting the truth, which is that I'm not female gendered and won't ever present myself that way again. I have crossed dressing in drag for other people's benefit off my list of obligations. I was hoping that if she saw me presenting as male around other people during the holidays and saw that a) other people barely notice and if they do, b) they don't care, she will not be as concerned with what other people think.

Ultimately, I think telling my parents I'll dress like a girl for Christmas will turn into the same situation for Easter, my birthday, and every occasion where they would have to be seen with me in public, and by the time it's said and done, I'd be right back to hating myself again.

 

About ten years, give or take.

This is the impression that I get, and it's so disheartening to be around her. She said goodbye to me this morning and when she saw what I was wearing (to my credit, it was just an androgynous gray men's crewneck sweater and some women's bootcut jeans - I'm staying pretty "neutral" right down to my wardrobe palette) she gave me a look of such withering disgust that I wanted to melt into a puddle of nothing.

Thanks Lex, this is what I'm going to try. I told my parents that I would give them as much time as they needed to process, but almost a month in, I find myself growing angrier and angrier at my mom's lack of acceptance, especially in the face of such calm and unruffled solidarity from my male relatives. I'm really bad about repressing my emotions, so I feel like this self-righteous fury is just smoldering in me right now during a time of the year when everyone is supposed to be feeling generous and cheerful. I hate feeling that way.

Yeah, I think that things will eventually get better, I'm just having a hard time with it right now. Christmas is already a bad time for me, depression-wise...my strongest suicidal/self-harming tendencies have always fallen around the holidays, and I'm under a huge amount of professional pressure right now.

It's just taking a lot of the wind out of my sails to know that she feels so strongly about it. I can't change the way she feels and it's not my responsibility to make her change her mind, but it doesn't make me feel any better in the meantime...

 

I will definitely try this Straal, I think it will do some good to vent on paper. Thanks. (*hug*)

Yeah, I know, and I'm trying really hard to be patient with her (she is patience-trying on a regular basis anyway, our personalities are completely opposite from one another). I recognize how difficult this must be for her and I'm trying to give her time to sort things out and get used to the idea, but it is hard when just being around her makes me feel bad about myself.

Unfortunately, the Bible is full of parents who turn their backs on their kids. :dry: Stone thy disobedient sons, anyone? I think her biggest issue religiously is the fact that homosexuality and transsexuality are written against specifically in the Bible. And to her credit, she hasn't exactly turned her back on me. She actually acted a lot better last night than she has in awhile. I sort of have the feeling my brother talked with her and my father while I took his girlfriend out Christmas shopping yesterday.

Check my location mate. We might as well be living in the dark ages here. I have been flat-out refused service in an auto shop for being a "transvestite". And it's not illegal here - we are a right to serve state, so a business can refuse to serve you for any reason that isn't already protected by discrimination law (which sexuality and gender identity are not). So if you're black, they might not want to serve you, but they'll have to make up a good reason why. But if you're a tranny, guess what? They can kick your ass to the curb and don't even have to explain themselves. Same way with my job. We are a "right to work" state. If my employer decided he didn't like the fact that I'm transgendered, he could fire me on the spot with no explanation. I doubt that would happen because I'm vital to my workplace, but still...

Yeah, thanks Mal, I plan on it. (*hug*) Worst case scenario, I'm planning to rent out a small art studio at the collective downtown in the spring, so if things get tense between my mother and me, I can always start spending the bulk of my free time there (which I'll have to anyway, they require 20 working hours a week to rent there). It's open at all hours to the artists, so I could sleep there if I had to. Also, it's an anarchist hub and extremely GLBTQ-friendly, so if I ever got disowned or kicked out, that's the first place I'd go for solidarity and support.

Thanks Nick, I have a feeling things will get better, but I'm just stuck waiting for her to catch up right now. And to be honest, it might suck to have my mom treat me this way, but it is awesome how supportive my father, brother, and my brother's girlfriend are. So I don't regret coming out for a second - it's the best thing I've ever done for myself in my whole life.

Thanks for all the responses guys, I really appreciate your advice and support.

 

I see your point, and it makes sense. People (especially around here) just don't really know that much about it, so to them, it just gets lumped in with homosexuality. In any case, most of the churches here consider it to be sexual deviancy. This is the position of the Southern Baptist Church:

- Homosexuality is a chosen behavior not a discovered sexual orientation.

- A child is set up as a result of poor parenting to make them more likely to choose to become homosexual.

- A homosexual orientation is intrinsically disordered.

- Homosexual activity is immoral irrespective of the nature of the relationship or the sexual orientation of the participants.

- Homosexuals can change. Although they usually do not define how change is achieved, in practice it generally involves choosing celibacy.

- Homosexuals can convert to heterosexuality through prayer, becoming saved, and by undergoing reparative therapy.

- Same-sex marriage represents a major threat to the stability of opposite-sex marriage.

But I'm Buddhist, so I don't really care and think the Baptist perspective on the queer community is ridiculous. Buddhism just cautions against sexual misconduct, which I've always interpreted as going out of your way to wound people emotionally/romantically, or to molest someone against their will.

 

Yeah, well...no offense to any Southern Baptists in the hizzy, but the church's uneducated take on the matter is very much like straight camp in Family Guy: "Jesus hates many people, but none more than homosexuals."

The saddest thing is, there are a lot of people out there who jump on a chance to hate someone else arbitrarily because it makes them feel like a better person.

Thanks Lost, I do feel like she's getting marginally better with regards to her manner towards me, but at the same time she is still really pressuring me to wear women's clothing. She got upset with me because I balked at wearing a woman's blouse to my grandmother's house for Christmas Eve (she tried to get me to wear several of hers) when all I wanted to do was wear a neutral sweater or something. Then she got upset with me when I refused to wear makeup. I ended up wearing one of her blouses, but I also wore a unisex brown peacoat over it and never took it off, so even though I bowed to my mother's wishes that I not dress like a boy for Christmas, I still wouldn't present as a girl, either.

She's always been very controlling towards my wardrobe and critical of my clothing choices. As I get older I more and more frequently dismiss her opinion about the subject (and I wear whatever I want anyway), but it still hurts to have her pick at my outfits all the time, especially when she makes remarks about me looking like a dyke.

Not only that, but she never tells my brother what to wear. But for some reason, because I'm her daughter, she feels like she has the privilege of assessing my wardrobe and offering her critique.

She doesn't eat shellfish. :dry:

Aww, thanks. I do feel like I pass pretty well for the most part because I have a masculine facial structure, so even though it was something I was teased about as a kid, it's also one of the things that's really helped my self esteem as I've come out. I feel much better about my self image as a boy than I ever did as a girl. Before I came out, I just felt like a man being forced into drag.

I'm already out of college and in an office job, but my plan for 2011 is to pay off all of my debt living at home with my folks, save up about ten grand, and relocate to California (where my brother and his girlfriend live - for me, it's Mecca). In the meantime, I plan to try and earn some financial patronage as an exhibiting painter at the local arts collective and also finish my first novel, which is about two-thirds of the way complete.

I think she'll end up in therapy before it's over with. I suggested PFLAG resources to her when I came out, but right now she's in hands-over-ears-screaming-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA mode. So I'm just avoiding the subject with her entirely right now.

^ So far, this tactic is nullifying the worst of her negative behavior towards me. I guess it's hard to be disdainful of someone who is sincerely trying to please you. But you're right, it does suck. I know I don't have a right to expect the rainbow-flag-waving-gay-pride-marching PFLAG mom, but I did sort of wish my mom would be like that.

Yeah, she already really stresses herself out during Christmas, that's why I came out a whole month early. I figured she'd be over it by now, seeing as how I acted so gay growing up, if my mom didn't at least consider the idea that I was queer, she's been living on a level of denial I can't even comprehend. When I came out to my brother, he said he'd suspected for a long time. I think my dad's quick acceptance stemmed from the same thing - he's suspected as such. I know my mom had to have known, because she asked me if I was a lesbian in college. If she didn't suspect, why would she ask?

Thanks Jay, and everybody else. I really appreciate all the love and support, EC is my only support net right now and sometimes I do feel a little overwhelmed by everything, especially when dealing with negativity. Part of me desperately seeks approval all of the time, which is why I've gotten pretty good at so many different things, but part of me also has a deep-seated streak of "**** you!" too, so I am pulled between the extremes of being emotionally distressed by my mom's lack of acceptance, and wanting to spite her for it. I try really hard to clamp down on the latter impulse, but it's hard when I'm giving so much respect and getting so little respect in return, and for no fault of my own.