How supportive is your family of your transition? (Rate 1-6)

Despite having been on T for like 15 years now, being post top surgery, and having had a legal name change that they’ve had to put on paperwork, my sisters and I simply Do Not Speak Of It because they’re both evangelical. I’d say between level 4 and 5 for them. I don’t force the issue because I live across the country from them and only deal with it in small doses.

I have a queer cousin that is easily my number 1 supporter and stands up for me to her family (also evangelical), I love her so much 🥹 She’s easily a 1.

My parents were level 4/5 as well, but they’re dead so I don’t have to deal with that anymore. Kinda sucks they never got to really accept me before they died but they chose what they chose.

Frankly I consider myself lucky that none of my deep south super Christian family members went level 6 on me.

I just finished coming out this week to everyone who matters, personally and face to face, so I feel like I'm in a good place to go through this list

So to start I'd rate myself a 2 because of some internalized transphobia/homophobia from my conservative Christian upbringing.

My wife is a 3, she sees and loves the real me and is incredibly supportive up to a point and then not supportive at all. She's taken me shopping and helped me pick a purse, takes time out of her busy life to help me with laser hair removal in places I can't reach, is teaching me girl things like what to do with my long hair and painted nails... But then she won't call me by my chosen name and pronouns. I haven't asked her to, because she thinks she'd be lying to me. We are working on it, we're going to make it work.

My siblings and parents (and in-laws) range from a 1 to a 5, from Bible thumping to complete affirmation.

My gay friends are all a 1, but they don't understand that I'm still a Christian and hate that part of me.

I think "accepting as Trans/accepting as Christian" is the same scale, inverted. Those who accept my transness don't accept my Christianity, and vice versa.

Trying to convince both sides of this culture war that reconciliation is possible and good and right, and that I, the Transbian Christian, should be allowed to exist in both camps at once... It's exhausting. Why must existing itself be so hard.

I dream of a world in which this civil rights movement has been won, and people on both sides (and in the middle) look back at us today and say "what a bunch of bigots we all were"

I came out just over 7 years ago, so people have had quite a bit of time to adapt.

My mother started at 2. Now she's 1 in intent, but 1.5 in practice.

My kiddo started at 2, but has since gone through their own journey of queer self discovery, and is now a loud and proud 1.

My ex (the kiddo's other mother) and I were broken up for many years before I came out. We don't get on, but even so, she was instantly supportive of my transition and remains so to this day. She started at a strong 1 and is still a 1.

My grandmother, who was in her late 90s when I came out started at a 2. She has since passed away.

Other than that, I don't have much family in my life. My father passed before I transitioned, and aside from funerals, I don't interact with my cousins or aunts and uncles. If I had to rate them as a group, there somewhere between 3 and 4, but I don't really know, because I basically have no interaction with them.

My parents have been really accepting of me being bi, and are accepting of trans people in general but on the subject my dad said something along the lines of "don't expect me to call you they", but honestly I think he'd be accepting if I told him. I'm very lucky to have the parents I do, I know their love for me is more important to them than anything else about me. My sister I've told and she's amazingly supportive. Probably never going to tell extended family, if I see them in person they can draw their own conclusions

I apologize if this is too long. Feel free to skip to the tl;dr at the bottom if you wish.

Level 5½.

Most of my family didn't really disown me so much as just not inviting me to anything anymore. Or talking to me. Or calling/texting me.

Of the four people who were left:

• One was flat-out Level 5 – they AFAIK haven't changed to this day; we haven't spoken for almost 11 years. I typically refer to her as "That Bitch".
• One was Level 5 leaning toward Level 4 – thankfully, after a talk with them and some subsequent healthy eavesdropping on their end of a conversation with me and a friend of theirs (yes, I knew about it), they swiftly turned into a Level 1 and eventually one of my heroes in life. That was 6–7 years ago... I love my Dad. :)
• One was Level 3 – she's still Level 3 and I have accepted that she will never change but she has at least largely also accepted the fact that so won't I and that it's not a phase. But at least we're not fighting...
• And one was Level 1 with a dash of Level 2 – sadly, my paternal grandmother has been dead for a few years now. :( Rip...

tl;dr: Holy fuck, fuck, fuck then not fuck, sadface, and rip da homie...

Level 1. My sister is also trans and we're both super fortunate. When she first came out our parents were probably around a level 4, but after some time they came around. When I came out it was level 1 immediately.

I'm not trans, but your question reminded me of something my ex told me about her family supportiveness that I wanted to share. To use your numbering scale, her family were probably 2/3, but they thought themselves to be 1. She said that even though she knew she was pretty fortunate, and that coming out hadn't been as bad as she feared, she sometimes wondered whether it would be easier if her family were less supportive, but also were authentic in how much they supported.

The thing that really stuck with me was that she felt like she didn't know where she stood with her family, because instead of it being a team effort where everyone is working to understand something big and still fairly new, she often had to bite her tongue when she had issues with what they said or did, having to measure her words carefully because they were liable to feeling hurt at any criticism of their behaviour.

What I mean by working as a team is that she was fairly early on in her transition and was navigating what gender dysphoria, and euphoria meant for her. If they were truly level 1 supportive, as they believed themselves to be, she'd be able to say "hey, that comment made me feel bad" without it being a While Thing, and maybe they could've had a productive discussion that would've led to an increased understanding for all.

Another side of this is that we speculated that they adjusted to consistently using the right pronouns way slower than if they just sat with their discomfort when they got it wrong and were corrected, rather than making excuses. My ex said that she never expected them to be 100% understanding and supportive right off the bat, but that she hoped they would grow into that — unfortunately, as long as they perceived themselves to be maximally supportive, there was no room for improvement.

The rough shape of this is an all too familiar pattern: people being more concerned with being considered transphobic than actually acting in ways that are harmful to trans people. It's sad because regrettably, I used to be like that and so in them, I see alternate versions of myself — I was a queer person who very much considered myself a trans ally, without much understanding of what that actually meant because I didn't know any trans people, often scared of saying the wrong thing, but in a self-centred way. I only grew beyond that because let myself be humbled and I chose to put in the internal work to be better, and my world is all the better for it; Intersectional solidarity is literally the main thing keeping me afloat nowadays, hope-wise.

We don't talk much nowadays, but I hope her family have found the strength to challenge their internal biases and sit with their discomfort because this kind of improvement is uncomfortable and imo, the biggest "Level 1" thing is not treating it like a static level of supportiveness that is reached, like a max level i.e. understanding that what support is needed will change as life itself changes, and beyond the basics of "how not to be an asshole", there is no guidebook on how to be supportive

i'm still closeted to a large part of my family, mainly because i've been living very far away from them for a long time, but i will add a tentative level based on prior interaction. a lot of this involves my partner's family simply because i live with them.

level 1: partner and sister. sister was over the moon when she learned. our dad really did make some queerdos! were he still alive, i think my dad would also be a 1.

level 2: partner leans into this territory sometimes. his siring parent is an intersex trans woman who has been largely absent from his life but he never disparages her identity. tentatively putting my stepdad (i still call him this despite having divorced my mother) here as i recently found out through him that his sister's kid is transmasc and he's been concerned about anti-trans laws being passed in their home state. i say 2 for him because i don't know how he'll handle the complexity of my gender. that said, his current partner would probably also be 1-leaning-2.

level 3: tentatively putting my partner's mother here. she works as a florist for a local grocery chain and we go shop at this store periodically and i do see a lot of visibly queer people working there, i just don't know how she feels about them. and well, her ex is the previously mentioned intersex trans woman. second-hand accounts suggest they at least tolerate each other. would probably also place my sister's mother here because i genuinely do not know her feelings on anything anymore. is there a level 0?

level 4: i'm putting my partner's younger brother here, leaning 5. i am not convinced this dude is tolerant of anything outside of his narrow understanding of life from mainstream video games and whatever youtube he watches all day. and i'm a little scared it may go to 6 if my paranoid inclinations are correct. best case scenario is he calls his brother the f-slur (despite being scolded for using it while gaming before).

level 5: probably my mother, whom i haven't spoken to in a decade and change and i don't plan on ever doing so again. she did not take it well when i mentioned a friend of mine was bisexual, so i never came out to her as bisexual. she also didn't believe me when i said i was a lesbian, and did the weird "you just needed to find the right man" response after i started dating my current partner. i think she'd have a conniption if she found out i was trans and genderqueer. could potentially be level 6 but just disowning, and i would be so fucking relieved if she did. also gonna put my formerly-adoptive father on this level because he has a trans sister he vehemently hates and always misgenders and also strongarmed me into breaking up with a trans girl i was dating when i was 18. were my father still alive, he'd have to pretend to tolerate me probably.

oh god this got long how to i collapse this

I only came out to my mother (level 3)

Level 5, as far as my mother is concerned. Didn't really bother telling my father since I figured I'd just get the same treatment.

She's not out right stopping me from transitioning, though we'll see what happens once I actually start working towards getting HRT. Still, she actively misgenders me, "proudly" calls me her son / her young man; periodically comes to me with some bullshit excuse for why I can't possibly be trans despite pretty much not actually knowing me as a person (she stopped trying to be involved with my life aside from school or work since middle school); actively tries to guilt trip me with how worried about me she is :( and just keeps being manipulative in general. She refuses to listen to both me and my therapist and has made no efforts to change her views. I stopped engaging in discussions about the topic with her after I understood she'd just revert to her old views in a few days, no matter how much progress I thought I'd made the previous time. It happened evey time, without fail.

I don't have the means for going no contact, but I'm actively working towards moving by myself (we got a spare apartment downstairs), and try to minimise my interactions with her. Thankfully I don't have to worry about being kicked out, my parents made it clear multiple times that that wouldn't happen no matter what. Despite everything they are reasonable people, so that's not something they would do...

But the situation still kinda sucks :/

I think everyone is on level 1 (That includes my mother, brother, sister in law, nephew, 2 cousins, aunt and uncle. My grandparents don't know anything yet.) except my father who is I believe on level 3 although I don't see him too often (every few months) so I can't really tell what he thinks.

Mom is level 2.

Dad is level 4-5 depending on the day.

My wife's parents are both level 6. Haven't talked to them since we came out.

So far I'm out only to my mom and I would say she is somewhere between 1 and 2. She fully supports me but she also doesn't really know much about the topic.

Started 2, I think 1 now

When I came out to my parents they were around a 3-4, but after a few years they are now a 1-2. When I came out to them they thought it was "just a phase" and that was really frustrating, but now they are very supportive. My sister has always been a 1, which I expected since she's bi, and most of the other people in my life are pretty supportive too, so I feel pretty lucky.

My immediate family and my dad's side is level 5, my sister is level 1, my aunts are level 2. I think mostly I'm just on my own tho.

Mother and Step-Father 2 leaning towards 1 upd: more like 3 leaning on 4 now :(

Father and Step-Mother 6

Aunt (fathers sister) 2

Cousin (child of aunt and also trans) 1

everyone else I don't know for sure, probably 3 or 2

5. :3

Not out to anyone as of yet, but my estimates are:

Mom: 1/2

Dad: anywhere from 2-4

Sister: ???

Grandma: 6

Great grandma: 6

Grandmother's can best be described with a line from a Ministry song (Thanx but no Thanx):

For decent, church-going women With their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces

I would disown them myself if I wanted to put the effort into it but that would require me to devote energy/funds to them. I don't have contact with them anyway.

My immediate family is probably about a 2. They're reasonably accepting and "believe" in it, but are pretty suspicious that I am trans and don't use my name or pronouns. The rest vary, some surprised me with how accepting they were, others were about as bad as I expected :/