i cracked my egg a couple years ago and have been on hormones for over a year now, but i still havent been able to come out to my parents. ive had a coming out text saved in my phone for months at this point but i havent been able to send it. every time i think about trying i get this horrible sinking feeling like no matter how well i write it, how clear i am, how gently i tell them, no matter what its going to go badly.

as for why, theres lots of reasons. theyre republicans and religious, while im pretty far left and an anti-religion atheist. they were authoritarian when i was growing up and loved to use shame and punishment (both physical and emotional) to pressure me into doing what they wanted. they never listened to me when i was a kid and treated me like i was their property rather than a person who they were responsible for caring for. it always felt like they just wanted me to be a perfect little emotionless robot who did whatever they wanted. im not doing the pain of being their child justice here at all. its honestly hard to describe how bad it was, just like a constant low level psychological torture. after i moved out i got a girlfriend and brought her to visit for the holidays a couple times, but they wouldnt even let us sleep in the same room even though we were living together… like they couldnt even accept premarital sex from their (presumed) neurotypical cishet son, how tf are they going to accept a trans fem poly lesbian neurodivergent daughter? they acted so disappointed and concerned when i showed up with a couple piercings… wtf are they going to do when i show up with boobs?

im really worried that even if i can bring myself to tell them theyll use the same tactics they did when i was a kid. more than anything i dont want to suffer their attempts to talk me out of it, to suggest theres something wrong with me, to suggest im somehow wrong or brainwashed or something. i worry theyll parrot fox news talking points at me which amount to transphobic propaganda. theyve done that for years on other topics like climate change. i doubt even if i can get past all that theyll ever gender me correctly or call me by my chosen name if i ever decide to change it.

so yeah im thinking about going no contact, just cutting them off entirely. i kept thinking i should at least try to come out to them, give them one final chance to show me they arent the horrible people they showed me they were my whole life, but over the months of trying to work myself up to telling them ive come to the conclusion it might not even be worth the attempt. we barely have a relationship at all right now, just one or two short phone calls a year i kinda just suffer through. its coming up on two years since i visited them, and they live literally thousands of miles away. it would be so easy to just never see or talk to them again and theres literally nothing i want from them at this point.

i guess this is more of a rambling vent post than anything. maybe part of me wants someone to give me permission to finally be done with them, but i know i only need my own permission. something keeps holding me back. i guess the societal conditioning runs deep… ugh anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk.