I’m a 22 year old transgender man with a whole list of diagnoses. I have ADHD, OCD, major anxiety and depression, PTSD, and audio processing disorder. I live in a red state (Republican controlled state) and live in a small town.
I have been out as a transgender man for almost 2 years at this point and have been on testosterone for 1 year and a few months. I also diagnosed with this list of things above a few months before the start of this year. Back in 2023 my parents sat me down and told me that I had until January to either start paying rent or moving out. Before this intervention my parents told me that they didn’t mind me living there as long as I was working and “doing my part”. Such as taking care of dishes and cleaning up around the house.
Because of my ADHD I would often loose track of time and forget to do these things or get paralyzing executive dysfunction when I went to try and do these things. Often my parents would get upset and call me lazy or ungrateful when I would forget to do the dishes or wait a week to clean my bathroom. To remember to do the things I needed to do I’d set timers on my phone but sometimes even those wouldn’t be enough for me to get up and do whatever I needed to do. I would often forget to take my medication because of this too. I would hear the alarm go off when I was in the middle of doing something so I would hit the dismiss button and go back to what I was doing. Often forgetting that I didn’t take my medicine or do the thing I needed to do.
My parents would often tell me that I shouldn’t have to be told to do things that needed to be done. The problem with that is I just forget about stuff and have no time management.
Flash forward to January I’m still at my current job and can’t afford to pay rent. I am having no luck finding a better job because the job opportunities in this small town are limited. You literally can’t make any money without having a trade skill or college degree. Every other job in town pays minimum wage or a little over.
A few months go by and my parents are hounding me the whole time about finding another job. I apply for jobs online, I call places, I ask around and I still cannot find anything. Then my brother moves back into our parents house. My brother is younger than me and him and his girlfriend lived in a small house. They both moved back in with their parents so they could save money to move to a different town. After a week my mom gives me the contact for the landlord of my brother’s old house. And tells me to take my friend (let’s call her Alexis) to the house and see if she would like to move into the house with me. At the time I was exhausted from constant hounding from my parents. Specifically my stepdad. So I went with my friend Alexis to look at the house. My friend was pretty much sold on it so I just went along with it.
While all of this is happening and since me coming out as trans my stepdad has made a thousand homophobic and transphobic jokes, remarks, and comments. And while my mom claims to be supportive she ignores his comments and often doesn’t defend me at all. Back in 2023 she made me go to chick fil a with her and after telling her I didn’t want to order from them because their company is homophobic. She ordered me a chicken sandwich and told me to “shut up and eat your homophobic sandwich”.
Not her best moment.
After a week I was moving into the little house that my brother used to live in with my friend Alexis. During this time I had 3 dollars in my bank account, I was in the process of stopping my hormones because I was losing my hair, and changing my medication because my body started becoming immune to the medicine I was taking for a year. During the move my stepdad flat out refused to help me move until my grandmother came by to help move my dresser. Because he “didn’t want her to get hurt”. After 3 days I was fully moved in and my mom gave me 200 dollars to help with rent. The rent is 250 split between me and my roommate which isn’t bad but if you work for 11 dollars an hour for 3 days a week it’s a lot.
The next month rolls around and I’m 100 dollars short because I missed a few days of work. I asked my mom for help and she agreed but told me I was on my own from here on out. She wouldn’t even help with groceries. This whole time I have been having to ask my grandmother for help in exchange for helping her around her house and property.
After getting settled I started unpacking my emotions and the whole situation. Here are my feelings on the whole thing.
First my parents, I feel like they lied to me when they said that they didn’t mind me living there as long as I was working. I had been working for a whole 3 years while i was living there. There wasn’t a time I wasn’t working unless I was in-between jobs. Also since I came out as trans and started hormones they have not offered to help me in that process at all. Luckily my hormones and top surgery were covered by my insurance. That is the only reason I was able to transition. The last thing I wanted to do before moving out was change my name and gender marker. Unfortunately I can no longer change my gender marker in my state. But I still could change my name. They said they “didn’t know how long that would take” and made me move out before I could even find out any information on how to change my name in my state.
I feel like I have been “othered” by my parents because I’m transgender. While my mom respected my name in pronouns, it took having a literal meltdown in front of my stepdad for him to call me by my chosen name. He often misgendered me and treated me differently than my siblings. Just a few days ago he posted a meme on his Facebook about trump (who he voted for) knowing that I would see it. Not to get into politics but trump is very anti lgbtq+ and has said he would ban transgender healthcare if he were to be re-elected.
My stepdad knows this about trump and posted that meme knowing I would see it.
Flash forward to a few days ago my grandmother invited me to have dinner at her house with everyone. I knew my parents were going to be there so I just acted like it was a normal Tuesday. They started talking about the people of Walmart memes and my stepdad said “haha yeah now days you might see a boy in a skirt and high heels”. I was already tired of being around him so I gave my granny a hug and a kiss and left. I didn’t want to be around my parents.
To clarify a few things. The reason I feel othered is not only because of the comments my parents made. My brother also made a snarky remark about me moving out. At least he had a choice to move out, I did not. I didn’t even have time to mentally prepare or save up money to afford rent, utilities, and food.
My mental health has really taken a crash. I am often sad or angry. I cried in front of my therapist for the first time last week. I have a hard time eating and sleeping. I feel like I was tossed out and made to feel like a burden on my parents. My stepdad even told me that me living with them was a burden on them. I feel betrayed by my mom who used to tell me I could go to her if I needed anything.
The last thing I want to mention is that before all of this in the year before. My papa passed away and left me one of his guns. One day I got 2 flat tires and had to get brand new ones. My stepdad said he would pay for the tires in exchange for the gun. I’m not really a gun person and I probably never would have used it so I agreeed. Now I’m wishing I hadn’t because that is a part of my papa that I could have had.
It has always been a transaction between me and my parents if I wanted anything. They never stopped treating me like a child and then suddenly decided I was adult enough to move out. They never taught me any life skills I needed to know. They never took my mental health seriously. My stepdad called me selfish after my first unaliving attempt and told me that I wasn’t thinking about anyone else but myself. After that I never told them about how I was assaulted when I was 16. I never told them that I was being abused by a 37 year old when I was 19. I never told them that I was actively self harming for a year. I never told them anything about my life after that because they never took me seriously. They never took my transition seriously. And they never checked on me. I really feel lost, angry, depressed, and scared.
The only things keeping me alive are my partner, my roommate, and my friends. The people who have been with me through this whole thing. The people who have gone out of their way to make sure that I’m okay.