I came out as a trans dude few years ago to my parents. Until recently they were not even neutral about it, like my mom would come up to me in the room I have at their house (I moved on my own four years ago at more than 100 kilometers for my studies) to talk “with” me. On this occasions, she has made fun of me, insulted me, but never threatened me. Here are some very hurtful, totally free gems:
Mom : Transsexuals are just circus creeps.
Me *hurt and outraged* : Mom, that’s transphobic!
Mom *looking kind of proud of her* : Well I AM transphobic!
(FYI: besides the “circus creep”, about which I believe anyone could understand why the fuck it’s offensive to anyone and not just trans people, transsexual is a term to use with caution since it’s related to pathologizing transidentity and to our genitals, which are private parts as one may or may not know.)
Mom : I don’t get it. You’re a beautiful girl!
(Some random strangers told me that, too, when I corrected the way they talked about me. Please random strangers, stop that.)
This one happens right after I communicated them the new name I had to pick alone since they wouldn’t help me. For me, it meant a lot because I figured out a huge problem I felt like I had to deal with really quick.
Mom : What if I came up to you, telling you that from now on I wanted to be a man and that I would like to be called [Ridiculous male name] ?
Luckily, I knew instantly where she was hoping to go with this, and, even tho I was completely baffled by her behavior and I had to take a few seconds processing that she, indeed, said that before answering, instead of arguing I said “I would accept that and call you dad.” and then went back to whatever I was doing, shaken.
She also sometimes came in for long rants, at the morning, and then went out crying as if I was an horrible brat, resulting in this scene :
Dad *on a tone of reproach* : What happened again ? Your mom’s crying!
Me *wiping off my own tears* : Well she came in, said a ton of horrible stuff, that I denied. I may have been a little harsh but I wasn’t rude or mean to her.
Dad : Oh, ok. *leaves*
(Mind you, I was crying alone and I don’t recall my father making sure I was ok, too, before going to comfort my mom. That makes it one of the worst moments of this period. I was left alone for a long time, trying to be as silent as possible while crying from fear to being yelled at, with no phone network and bad internet, early in the morning so no support until my sister comes by to use my bathroom and sees me cry.)
My dad would just sit through my mom’s shit, doing nothing to stop her, resulting in me not trusting them anymore and barely wanting to visit. He would sometimes join in about how “unauthentic” it felt to him calling me his son. To avoid my mom’s rants, I made sure my sister was in each time I would come by and stayed with her all the time because no one in the family, including me, wants to see her cry.
However, we had a fight around the time they suddenly decided to call me my chosen name and use the correct pronouns (but I believe that’s more from my grandma scolding my mom than from them wanting to respect me so it feels likes they are just going with it not to make me mad). The fight resulted in a quiet apology from my dad and nothing from my mom. I still don’t trust them and tell them as few as I can. I’m not telling any little unimportant thing to the woman who send me a letter as if she was talking to a shitty dumbass, and I’m not going to let her forget that she did that.

(I’m a natural redhead. Since Florida is a very sunny state, when my husband and I go there for vacation, I make sure to take sunscreen. I apply it before we go to the theme park and reapply it every two hours, stopping at the benches dotted throughout the park. At one point while I’m reapplying sunscreen, a man sitting across from me decides to talk to me.)

Man: I see you got yourself some sunblock.

Me: *nods* Yeah, I’m really fair so I have to reapply this stuff constantly so that I won’t burn.

Man: *scoffs* Yeah, well, if you had any melanin you wouldn’t be needing that sunblock.

Me: *wondering if I heard him right* What?

Man: White people don’t have melanin and that’s why you need the sunblock to protect you from cancer.

Me: *blinking in confusion* What?

(At that point the man laughed again then got up and walked away. My husband, who was sitting next to me throughout the whole exchange, looked at me and shook his head.)

Working field service for an industrial equipment manufacturer back in the early 1970’s; before the wide spread use of credit cards and when you could get on an airplane without going through security. A dollar was worth a lot more back then than now. We had five crew members already on a job site for over a week and were expected to be there another couple of weeks. Everyone going to a job site was given $300 cash in $20 bills from the company Business Office. You had to sign a receipt for the money. I was being sent out to assist with the job and replenish everyone’s travel money. I was given a note for the Business Office authorizing me to pick up $3300. Remember, that was in $20 bills, and I had to sign for all of it. At the time that was a LOT of money. I kept it in my pocket as I really didn’t want to have to pay it back if my luggage was lost. Fortunately I didn’t have to explain all that cash to a security agent, and I got to the job site with not problem. That evening I set in my motel room counting out $600 to each worker. Those were different times.

I attended an Alzheimer’s seminar for caregivers. It discussed how a person’s brain changes as the disease progresses. We were taught effective communication strategies and given educational resources.

At the end of the lecture a Q&A was held. Some asked for help understanding their loved ones’ behavior, while others asked for financial aid resources. We had a good discussion.

Next came a middle aged man’s turn. He asked, “Which foods cause dementia? What do I eat so I don’t get this disease?”

There was a brief silence.

The speaker did the best she could, talking about the correlation between high blood pressure and worse dementia symptoms, but he only derailed the conversation more. She was asked everything from lifestyles to genetics information. She started answering, “you should ask your doctor,” to every question, but this man did not cease.

Finally, he was interrupted by an elderly man. The elder asked about organizing an awareness campaign. The lecturer leaped upon the opportunity, then ended the questionnaire. I feel sorry for the people whose questions were not answered because of that selfish man!

(A few months ago, we bought a new car and the first long drive we took it on was to visit relatives about a four-hour drive from our home. On the journey, the engine didn’t seem to run very smoothly, and on the first day of our stay, pretty much every warning light came on on the dashboard. In addition, we were having trouble getting the car to accelerate properly. Obviously, we took the car to the nearest certified [Car Brand] garage, where we discovered that the car had not – contrary to what we had been told when buying it – had its most recent annual service, meaning that it was overdue an oil change and needed a part replacing. (For the record, when we bought the car, they didn’t give us the service book until a few days later, so we had no way of confirming this claim, and didn’t think to check afterwards.) This was within a month of buying the car, so it was still within the warranty, so we called the dealership we bought it from in order to discuss reimbursal for the repairs. Note that we were told the warranty should cover pretty much any problem the car had. My dad was the one making the call.)

Dad: *explains situation*

Company Rep #1: The warranty will not cover those repairs as they should not need doing. Everything should have been covered in the annual service.

(I thought the point of a warranty was to cover unexpected costs?)

Dad: According to the garage here, it appears that the car never had its annual service, hence the issues. The service was your company’s responsibility so we feel you should be reimbursing us for this expense.

Company Rep #1: According to our records, the car did have its most recent annual service, so we will not be covering the cost of these repairs.

Dad: According to this garage, there’s evidence it wasn’t serviced – and there’s no record of the service in its service book either.

(The conversation continued this way for a while, with my dad explaining the situation and the company rep refusing to believe the dealership had made an error. Eventually, we gave up; the receptionist at the garage that was fixing our car offered to call again on our behalf.)

Receptionist: I’m calling about [gives car details]. I’d like information on its most recent annual service.

Company Rep #2: *checks database* According to our records, that car did not have its most recent annual service.

(The receptionist relayed this information to us. Angry that the first rep had lied, we called back again ourselves, telling them that we had been told there was no record of a service in the [Dealership] database. The latest rep tried a new excuse.)

Company Rep #3: Well, we must have done the service. We just forgot to record it. The warning lights are timed, so we probably did the oil change they were indicating and forgot to reset the timer.

(What about the part that needed replacing??)

Company Rep #3: Since you went to a garage to do unnecessary repairs without first contacting us, we will not be able to reimburse you for this. You should have just taken the car to our dealership, and we would have filled in the service book for you and reset the timers.

Dad: So, let me get this straight… you want us to drive four hours in a malfunctioning car to [Dealership] so you can fudge the paperwork and not even glance at the vehicle, rather than obeying the warning message on the dashboard telling us to take the car to a garage – a certified [Car Brand] garage, at that – to get it repaired when it is objectively not working properly?

Company Rep #3: Because you did not take your vehicle to our dealership, we will not be able to reimburse you for these repairs.

(We have since emailed the dealership, and they have been “looking into” our situation for several months now… It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but we were shocked at the blatant disregard for our safety that the third rep displayed when he suggested we should have driven for several hours in a malfunctioning car to not even get it fixed. Also, out of all the reps we explained our situation to, not one of them even had the decency to apologise or express sympathy for our interrupted holiday.)