Short background:
I am a second generation immigrant to a Western country and M2F pre op trans. My family comes from a very conservative and homophobic country and culture. Coming out to the vast mayorities of families (90 % +) means, at best, being shunned immediatly – if not being attacked or even murdered. In that context my family is just unnaturally progressive and, with some starting issues, not only did not kick me to the street, but has fully accepted me and is helping me financially, emotionally and otherwise with my transition.
The Issue
I’ve meet my current boyfriend, lets call him Johan, via a dating app and we have been dating for about 7 months. He is actually my first exclusive partner since coming out. Johan had never meet my family before, which made things complicated, since I am still living at home. So, after 7 months of meeting outsides and at his place, I finally found the courage to ask my mother, if he could my boyfriend over for dinner, so they could meet him. We scheduled a family with just the core part of the family (which is already quite sizeable with multiple brothers and sisters, and my grandparents).
Big day comes and I am SUPER nervous. I cant sleep and eat for days. Its the first time I introduce anyone to my family and I know they can be a lot, and even without all the queer stuff, there are culturual differencs and, especially with my parents and grandparents, language barriers, that can make things akward.
So, the big day comes, and my boyfriend showes up. I bring him to the living room and things are just kinda really akward. My mother and father speak the language okayish, but they sometimes struggle, and they try to make small talk, like how are you doing, whats your job, whatever. My grandfather language level is below them and when he talks, he is just very direct and uses a lot of idioms from our home country, which he directly translates and sometimes dont make sense and can be inappropriate (think of sentences like “If you dont want to grow horns dont fuck the sheep”)
Now here is were the problems started. In the conversation my grandfather misgendered me several times, which I am so used too that I just ignore. He is not doing it because he hasn’t accepted me, he misgenders literally everyone all the time, because my mother tongue does not have genders and he just doesn’t get the concept. Like, he will misgender my brothers as well, using she / her pronouns when talking about them.
The dinner progresses and things are getting more relaxed. There is alcohol and a lot of it. My uncle makes a stupid joke about how me transitioning means now they have to pay the dowry and I should have given them more heads up to save money. My brother, who is like super MACHO but also my favourite person in the world and who has come out in force several times to defend me, then says how’s annoyed about my transitioning because I am the the worst cook ever (another joke and he immediatly gets lectured by my sister that women are not there for cooking). Johann is kind of politely laughing but I can tell he doesnt really find these jokes funny, which, fair enough.
Then my grandfather says something very innocent about how he loves to play chess with me, and he misgenders me and uses an idiom that related to the third born son (which I was) being the smartest in the family.
Then Johan just explodes. He gets super angry and starts literally shoutting at my grandpa, how he should be ashamed of being transphobic, how he cant tolerate it any longer how I am treated by them and that as family they should be ashamed. He also speaks very fast and in an aggressive ton, so I already know that neither my parents nor grandparents actually understand much of what he is saying. I can see the confusion in my grandpas face. He asks Johan to speak slower, which makes him even more angry and he just shouts louder and starts calling him an ignorant asshole.
I know Johan meant to defend me, but I was furious. My family isn’t perfect, but they’ve shown me love and support most trans people in our culture can only dream of. That deserved respect not a lecture. So, I grab him by the arm and tell him to leave.
Now everything is kind of broken. Johan is angry at me, because I didnt support him and he keeps calling my family queer phobic and tells me that I should leave them immediatly. My dad is super angry at Johan for being what he considers extremely disrespectuful (shouting to someone that is an elder is a huge no in my culture) and forbids him to come back. Johan refuses to apologize and has started to blame me for “having internalized transphobia”
I just want to fix the situation, but I dont know how. I, kind of, understand where Johan is coming from, but I also dont think he made an effort to understand the situation at all. He is now basically shunned from my family until he seriously apologizes, which he doesnt want to do. I love him so much, but, without my familys support, the relationship is just kind of doomed now.
I keep crying and I havent left my room at all in the last day. Anyone has dealt with the situation before? I just want Johan to understand that despite all their flaws, my family really loves and supports me, and that maybe he should make a bit more effort to understand them.
Edit: Sorry for the rambling! I asked ChatGTP to make it a bit readable
TL;DR:
I’m a pre-op M2F trans woman and second-gen immigrant from a very conservative, homophobic culture. My family, while far from perfect, has accepted and supported me through my transition—something incredibly rare in our background.
After 7 months of dating my first serious boyfriend, Johan, I finally introduced him to my family. The dinner was awkward due to language and cultural gaps. My grandfather misgendered me several times, not out of malice, but confusion—he misgenders everyone because our native language has no gendered pronouns.
Jokes were made (some tone-deaf, some harmless), but overall, the evening was going okay—until my grandfather used another misgendered idiom. Johan suddenly exploded, yelling at him for being transphobic. My family was confused, didn’t understand much due to language, and my dad was furious at the disrespect shown to an elder. Johan refused to apologize and is now banned from our home. He accuses my family of being queerphobic and says I have internalized transphobia for defending them.
Now I’m heartbroken. Johan won’t back down, my family won’t forgive him, and I feel caught in the middle. I love him, but without my family’s support, this relationship might not survive.