Having stayed silent with my controlling, abusive parents about being trans and non-binary for most my life, I can say that for me it was DEFINITELY harder as I inched closer to completing suicide daily. Getting away from them was a big step toward healing. Staying away from them helped me finally discover and live my truth, which was even more life-affirming. I’m still weighing if I should even come out to them at all, since I’ve been estranged from them for close to a decade at this point.
There are some family (siblings) that already know and accept, some that do and don’t (a sibling and an aunt and uncle), a couple others that I’d like to know bc they are important to me (grandma and an uncle who raised me), and my parents, who I would like to know not so that I can achieve their acceptance and approval nor as an attempt to re-establish contact or a relationship (that ship has long since sailed, and I’ve long since bombed the harbor with no reason or desire to ever want to rebuild it to even receive said proverbial ship ever again), but so I can finally initiate the narrative of who I am, define myself on my own terms to them for the first time in my life, so they finally know that I am free of their controlling attempts to make me into someone I’m not.
It’s complicated, different for everyone, and there’s no way to predict what will happen. Best you can do is have a, “Ok, now what?” self care plan with chosen loved ones for afterward.
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