Some Times All It Takes Is To Know Somebody

We make a difference just by know us. When someone knows a trans person it is a lot harder to hate us, and that also includes family members.

Evangelical pastor’s new calling: Supporting his trans parent
NY Post
By Rachelle Bergstein
December 12, 2018

Almost three years after his father came out as transgender, Jonathan Williams found himself standing in a Midtown hotel hallway, hesitating outside his father’s room. As he raised his hand to knock, the surreality of the situation struck him: The person he was meeting was both a beloved family member and a complete stranger.

A curly-haired woman named Paula opened the door.

“She looked nothing like my dad,” Jonathan, a church pastor, tells The Post. “It was almost otherworldly. I tried not to pass out.”

Since learning that his father — also a pastor — identified as a woman in fall 2012, Jonathan, who writes about coping with his father’s transition in the new book “She’s My Dad,” had profoundly struggled with the news.

It is hard on all those who are around us when we transition and it is especially hard on those of certain religious beliefs.

Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian household, he had been raised with certain beliefs, including that a man who wanted to wear women’s clothes was sick or depraved. Although Jonathan considered himself more progressive than his parents — he scoffed at the church’s dismissal of evolution, for instance — his father’s revelation shook him. He felt betrayed, angry and a profound sense of grief.
[…]
But, eventually, a mix of therapy and time helped Jonathan start coming to terms with his father’s new life. Eight months after meeting Paula for the first time, he asked her to come back to New York.

I am not saying all family members eventually accept us, what I am saying is don’t burn your bridges behind you, you never know if your love one will change and accept your transition. Also I am not saying it will be the same as before, nothing ever stays the same.

It took Jonathan a long time for him to accept her but eventually he did.