Dealing with anti-LGBT brother

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A few weeks ago, I had a major falling out with my brother, who is a conservative Catholic, over his views toward LGBT, particularly toward my wife. Not long after the shootings at Orlando, he sent me a Facebook friend request. I'm uncertain about whether I should accept it or not, based on how things ended with him and the things he said and did.

Here are the details:
I've been out as a Lesbian for 22 years. My dad was agnostic and my Mom is a liberal Methodist. My brother was never very religious growing up, and didn't seem bothered by my being gay. I married a transgendered woman, and he seemed fine. A friend of his played Rush Limbaugh on the radio at work, and my brother started saying a lot of very conservative stuff, much of it pretty insulting. He's always had a tendency to say sarcastic, hurtful things, and get very angry if anybody disagrees with his views. Now his hurtful remarks had a political theme, and if anybody said anything he didn't agree with, he'd throw a tantrum and say he had a right to his opinion. We didn't, apparently.

His wife's sister was living with them, and she committed suicide. His wife is Catholic but not conservative. The priest helped them through the crisis and was very supportive. My brother decided his sons would be better off if he converted to Catholicism and raised them in the church. We were okay with that, to each his own, but now Brother started ranting about his religious views and insulting us for any belief that was different.

My wife had been badly hurt in a hate crime and we were staying with Mom while she recovered from surgery. Behind my back, Brother was telling Mom to throw us out and how he was against homosexuality. Wife got on disability payments. Brother lectured us for half an hour on how the disabled were faking it for the disability payments. He would be rude to Wife and tell Mom that I should leave her. I said nothing to keep the peace, but stopped talking to him except at family gatherings where Mom insisted we both attend.

Last November, not long after he and his wife separated, we all got together again and he was making an effort to be civil for a change. I thought that maybe he was trying to make a new start, and started writing to him occasionally and let him friend me on Facebook.

This spring, during all the controversy over transgender people using the bathrooms of their identified gender, my brother posted a comment to a very hateful article calling transgenders sexual predators and pedophiles. He said, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but you can't make him a prom queen." I got really angry, saying that my Wife had been there for me through health and financial problems and my own recovery from violence, while he had never been supportive. I also said I'd kick his ass if he called her anything like that again, big mistake. I had not mentioned what insult we were talking about, that it was about transgenderism, or who we were talking about, but I stupidly wrote this on Facebook, since it's hard for me to talk about emotional things over the phone. Yes, I know I'm stupid, so if you feel like saying so, let's accept that as read. I was rather drunk at the time, doubly stupid. Drunken anger posting, not good.

Brother replied back with a vicious diatribe, on my public Facebook page, and then outed her as transgendered on my public page. We exchanged angry private messages and I blocked him.

Shortly after the Orlando shooting, he sent me another Facebook friend request. I don't know what this is about -- does he want to make up? Minister to the sinner? Insult me some more? Does he want to out some other secret of mine (like my autism)? How do you deal with a homophobic family member? I just feel so stupid for letting him hurt me like this and for replying to him in Facebook where others might see if he said something too personal. What should I do?

If he wants to talk to you, he can call you. Facebook seems a wee bit superficial, doesn't it?

Yeah it does, but I suspect he has as much anxiety about phones as me. He only calls me if he wants a favor and doesn't say anything personal. I honestly can't think of the last time we had a meaningful conversation over the phone, or even meaningless chit chat about his wife and kids. I suspect he's got some neurological differences of his own, although i don't know if they are ASD.

Hm. Rough choices.

If I were you, I would become the accepting sister of her ideologically prodigal brother. What I mean is: Accept him into your life on your terms. He would be welcome at your Facebook page, your family and your home in all ways except behaving in ways that aren't equally welcoming of you and your family. Your relationship must be equitable (each agreeing to withhold disagreeable opinions of the other).

If you can accept some of his religious opinions, explain to him how and why. But, also explain how you disagree with other of his opinions. But, neither of you should incite the other. Let him do the same in reply to you. After that, try to foster a better relationship. It will take time, but it can happen easily.

Family members aren't required to endorse the behaviors or opinions of their siblings and relatives, but they should be able to keep their inciteful behaviors or opinions to themselves if they want to continue the gracious relationship to continue.

Good luck.

Here is what I have to say: even though he's a bigot, he's still your brother. Don't burn your bridges.

Also, I really don't get what his problem with your relationship is: so he's anti-LGBT. Since your wife is trans, that means he should regard her as just being a man. And since you're cis-lesbian, you're a woman, so in his eyes this should just be regular heterosexual relationship.

Anyway, one possbility reason he's sending you a friend request now after the Orlando shooting is because after that he finally realized the people talking about hard it is for homosexuals actually have a point, but you won't know unless you talk to him.

I pretty much let him say what he wanted for years without speaking up, no matter how much it hurt, and he has stated that he has a right to say what he wants, no matter how we feel. If anyone in the family expresses even the mildest disagreement, even with nonreligious opinions, he flies into a rage. He does have his right to his opinions, certainly (and so do I), but the final straw was him calling me a bunch of names and outing my wife's transgender status. We are out as gay, but she was not out as trans. I'm fearful that his secret weapon will be to "out" other secrets of mine: my autism and the fact that I was raped. His outing my wife ruptured my trust in a way that the obnoxious opinions never did.

It's tough because this is really a conversation I should have in person or over the phone, but I get nonverbal when I am upset. Like, literally cannot speak at all.

He objects to transgenderism too, possibly even more than homosexuality. Also he dislikes my wife personally, because she isn't afraid of him and refuses to be bullied by him.

Wow. I am sorry about the status of your relationship with your brother. Still, maybe he wants to apologize ... maybe a little? Accepting his attempt to communicate with you on Facebook might prove to be a good idea. Of course, on Facebook (as I understand it, I amn't a Facebook user), you can always reject "friends" if they become less than friendly. But, you have every right to whatever choice you make.

I can sorta relate. Those who have bashed me for marrying outside of my "race" have since tried to "friend" me on FB, even though they still express racist hatred in other places.. I've blocked every one of them from my FB account.

Such people - family included - are simply not worth my attention.

I may be completely wrong. And, I'm in a weird funk. So please forgive me.

It sounds like he is incredibly unhappy with his own life & is taking it out on you and your wife. His marriage was likely failing for some time. The two of you are the personification of all those things that he has been told are socially "wrong" and yet...you are amazingly close and supportive of each other. You have what he doesn't. From the little of you I've read of you here, you have what he was promised if he followed a certain set of rules. Only now somewhat later in life than is ideal, he's finding out that it doesn't quite work that way. That has got to be messing with his head as reality and cognitive dissonance and guilt battle it out to find some new balance that he can live with.

My advice is similar to what others have posted, something along the lines of "trust but verify". Reach out to him occasionally but only allow him into your life within firm boundaries that you set. You and your wife don't deserve the way he's treating you. He's using all sorts of privilege to try to prove something to himself - at your expense - and it's wrong.

Your brother sounds like a miserable bigot who is rotten to the core. I wouldn't have anything to do with someone who spews such hate like he does, certaintly not someone who called my wife a pig. My father pretty much is like your brother. He has every last ignorant, bigoted Fox News opinion and then 10 times worse than that. He thinks he is just the greatest Christian ever. Nearly every relative of mine are Christian as well but none are anywhere close to the sorry excuse for a human being he is.

I'm disabled so I am stuck here living with him but given the chance if I had my health, I would stay as far away as possible. I certainly wouldn't be his facebook friend. Sometimes he leaves his tablet laying around with his facebook feed open and honestly just once glance at his feed full of hate and bigotry makes me sick and ashamed I am even related to him. Speaking of transgender washroom rights he liked a post which said transgender people should be assaulted if they think they are going to use the same washroom as their daughter or sister or wife, basically refering to them as pedofiles. Peoples like him or your brother don't change, at least not for the better.

My advice is stay away. If you are around him not by choice, don't put up with his s**t. People like that are usually extremely ignorant and can be shut down real quick when you stand up to them and cut their logic to pieces leaving them looking like the blubbering idiots they are.

Oh and I just wanted to mention when I read that you said his wife left him, I was like "what a surprise"*sarcasm*.

Keep your relationship with your mom, you don't need him.

If I were in that situation then I would bring up religious freedom and how people forcing their beliefs on others generally doesn't end well. I actually used to be anti-LGBT until I realized that it was basically forcing my beliefs on others which changed my mind about it.

The funny thing is that the Pope isn't half as hard on gays as your brother. Yes, I agree that the Pope's comments on gay people are wishywashy at best, but you can't get away from the fact that your brother is not being very Christian about it all.

What does the wife think about all this? She being a woman and all? I'd like to hear her side of the story. I can't feel good to live with all this drama.

Agreed about Brother not being very Christian. Some people seem to only remember the fire and brimstone parts of the Bible, and none of the parts about reaching out to sinners or being peacemakers. I've known other Catholics who thought homosexuality was a sin but were still gracious, civil people--with the sensible reasoning that one can share one's beliefs more easily if one doesn't insult the listener. I think part of it is the fact that the newly converted of any religion tend to be more strict and strident than people raised in it. His wife, who was raised Catholic in Asia, often said that his sort of Catholicism was not the one she was raised in. She said in her country people didn't really get upset about gays--as long as they didn't bother anybody, nobody bothered them.

I think part of this is also just Brother's personality. He was always a really angry person. At first, it was about the government and the Viet Nam war. Then it was about the parents telling him what to do. Then he became a Limbaugh fan and it was all about how liberals are stupid, cowards, etc. I gave up on trying to talk to him about much of anything, because he was so touchy.

Yes, to some people it's like the New Testament never happened. Has your brother had any kind of therapy to deal with his bucket of issues? Have you tried being really blunt with him - telling him he's spent his life being angry about just about everything, and that he will always find new things to be angry about unless he starts dealing with his emotions? I think that if you want to have a relationship with him you will have to push back quite a lot, as in establishing rules for polite behavior. Otherwise it'll be Groundhog Day.

It must be rough on their kids to live in a household with so much rage.

I'm crap at interpersonal dramas, but I would offer this - if he has demonstrated nothing but the sort of transphobic, homophobic, bigoted, religious zealotry in the past without any indication of understanding or the desire to do so, and has publicly attacked you and your wife on these issues, and then contacts you again immediately after something like this incident ... Be prepared that it might be an "I told you so."
He might be there to rub it in. To tell you this is what sinners, or whatever, get and what they deserve and how this person was acting out "god's will," so on and so forth. If you're prepared to listen to this, if such be the case, then letting him have his say may be ok. If you're not in the frame of mind to be able to listen to hatred for the victims after mass murder, you may choose to decline.