@honeyscribe - thanks for sharing. It is really sad that you had that experience growing up. I was lucky enough to have family that was very supportive, and accepted me for who I was. I don't know if I would have been brave enough to accept who I was and come out if I had not had the support I did.
There will probably always be people who are not accepting. Most of the time it is from lack of understanding and ignorance/ fear. I touched on it in my post here.
To some extent, you need to decide if people like that are even worth having a relationship with. Not being accepting is one thing, and probably not a deal breaker by itself, but the abusiveness might be. That would be a really hard decision though since it involves family. There will always be a part of you that will love your family no matter what.
I'm glad that you were able to find a community here at Steemit where you feel comfortable enough to start to open up and share. I wish you the best of luck on your continued journey.
I was very happy to see your post this morning. It was as though you were standing there saying: You are not alone. Thank you @timcliff .