Ever since coming out to my dad, the relationship between me and him got very strained because he's not accepting of it. Over the past 1.5 years we slowly drifted further and further, to the point of us being minimal contact. Up until recently, he sometimes invited me to smaller family gatherings (with my siblings who I'm on good terms with) but most of the time, I didn't come. Most of the time I had a proper reason but I could have also made it work if I would have wanted to.
A few months ago in the car ride back from some family gathering, we made a temporary solution to how we could communicate without him dead naming/misgendering me. The solution was pronouns: it (there's no "they" in German), name: a nickname from my childhood which was completely disconnected from my dead name. We explicitly said that it's a temporary solution until we had a proper talk. That talk was this week...
Most of the talk was just us trying to understand the views of each other and me explaining just how dire my situation before transitioning actually was. We basically got stuck at: we just have a fundamentally different world view and we can't change each other's, no matter how many scientific papers I can bring up (Yes he doesn't agree with science there which bugs the hell out of me).
One of the last things he said towards the end of the conversation: "I love you as a human, but you're -Deadname- in my heart. Do your thing, live your life, I see you the way I see you, isn't it completely irrelevant? I think that the tattoos and piercings of your sister are terrible and she ruins herself with them but I still love her as a person."
My thoughts are just a mess on this whole situation.... I guess I just wanna know if you had similar experiences with family and how did you manage them?
I probably won't respond to any comments...
I'm also German and my mother is similar, albeit less extreme. She is still nice to me and somehow genders me correctly when texting me but doesn't care for my preferred pronouns when we talk in person. I don't want to go no contact because I'm on good terms with the rest of my family (they mostly don't care and accept my identity without much fuss) so I cope by not interacting with her a lot when we see each other. I see my family every two months or so and when I do, I don't sit next to her, only talk the necessities etc. She still manages to misgender me every time to speak. It hurts, but no contact is not an option for me so I just endure it. I prepare visits to family by pampering myself and always plan quality time after a visit. I refuse to meet her 1-on-1. It's not ideal, but okay for me.
I don't know what it's like with your dad, but my mom is just a very stubborn person that doesn't adapt well to change. My sister's husband is vegan and has been for years and she still cooks meals with meat and dairy in them when he comes over. She just says he should bring his own food to family dinners. To me, this confirms that my mom isn't like this to me (just) because of my identity, but also/mostly because she can't handle change.
Edit: Oh and also it's gotten slightly better the more I visibly feminize. I think she's a bit of a transmedicalist without knowing the term, GRS will probably help as well.