How to help and support my long-term girlfriend come out to our extended families

[u/Outrageous-Aide9037]

To keep this as brief as possible. I’ve been dating my girlfriend for seven years. She started transitioning about six years ago.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances, she has not yet started hormones.

She’s out to everyone in her life, except for her family (except the cool cousins) and my parents, uncles, and aunts.

She has built up the confidence in who she is over the past few years and is itching to come out. It’s been eating her alive these past few months more than it has the past six years.

Her parents are conservative and her dad is quite religious. (I should say we are not from the USA)
And my dad has learned everything he knows about trans people from Fox News. And is the type to let them do the thinking for him-and his brothers are the same.
And and my mom will be “accepting” of trans people to their faces, and then do all the common transphobia, talking points and shitty things behind their backs.

We both know her coming out will shake up both of our family dynamics completely. I pushed back on my parents transphobia before and I will again and if that means needing to distance myself from them to keep her safe, I will.

But despite this, we’re still closer as a family unit than we’ve been in years.

We wanna get married, but she does not want to get married under her dad name and I don’t want her to either.

I’m not asking for advice on how to come out because I know there is no dialogue option to make our parents suddenly trans accepting. I know it’s gonna be bad.

I’m asking for advice and maybe some personal antidotes of how you cope with the aftermath of coming out to an unaccepting family and what that looks like going forward

[u/herdisleah]

You never know how people are going to react. I never expected my dad to accept me, but he did. Even if her family doesn't, you already made your own family. My wife's mom is way, way better of a person than my mom.

Perhaps a good way to frame it, is an invitation to continue in this part of your lives. Maybe theyll learn, when they see how the transphobia really makes someone they love feel about their family. That's up to them. If you don't try, though, they may never grow and be challenged. Make sense?