Dear Prudence,
Last year I came out as trans. My wife, our child, and our friends have inundated me with love and support. Our families, not so much. We both come from conservative religious backgrounds. Immediately after I came out, they stopped returning our calls and texts. Some deleted us from their social media. We were not invited over for the holidays, and none of them showed up to our 6-year-old son’s birthday party. My son keeps asking for them, and we don’t know what to tell him about why Nana and Papa no longer visit weekly, or why everyone was absent for his birthday and Christmas.
We assumed our parents would have trouble coping but never thought they would abandon their grandchild. We are aware that we could always go to their homes to try to start a dialogue, but we both agree there’s no use in trying to force someone to have a relationship with us. We’d been putting off our son’s questions with “They’re just very busy,” in the hopes that they’d come around, but it’s been almost a year. What should we tell him? Would the truth impede my son’s ability to reconnect with his family in the future? Should we even want that? While most of my transition has gone better than expected, this one thing has been filling me with guilt. I flip-flop between sadness for my son not having a large family like I did and being relieved that he won’t have to experience their brand of conditional love.
—My Family Abandoned My Son Because I Came Out as Trans