Glad I found this comment. I was amazed by the bigotry, which actually got sort of violent, in my case.
I traveled to Paris for the first time, just before the Pandemic. I was so excited - I’m from the US, but my mom lived in Paris for a couple of years in the 1950s and I grew up hearing how wonderful it all was.
I’m a friendly, cheerful, cis-gendered American woman, feminine in voice and appearance. But I’m nearly 2m tall, and at the time had a short hair cut. Several times, while waiting in line for bathrooms or changing rooms in Paris, some security guard would decide I was “too tall to be a real woman”, physically yank me out of the line, bend my arm painfully behind my back, and frog-march me into a men’s room. And then all the Parisians around us would break out into a vociferous argument about gay rights, screaming in each other’s faces.
My French isn’t the best. It took me a while to work out what the heck was happening. I’d never been mistaken for a man before, except maybe for an instant or two, like if I was bundled up in a winter coat and hat, and someone just sort of perceived my sixe without looking up at my face or hearing my voice.
I’ve occasionally gotten misogynistic remarks about my height, so at first I figured it was just more that (some dudes really hate tall women).
I eventually figured out what was going on.
So yeah. I’m not transgendered, but wow, the LGBTQ community there must have it rough! I was really feeling the hate pouring over me from French people who thought I was transgendered. They were saying some pretty awful stuff, and weren’t willing to listen to a word I said. Just pure vitriol pouring out of them.
Occasionally I had a French champion or two. But in general the whole place felt hostile. I could not wait to leave, and vowed to never come back.
Since you like your family, I’d try- “Christmas is such an expensive, stressful, crowded, difficult time to travel. We’d rather spend time with you than stuck at an airport. So we’ll call on Christmas but visit in person a different time. Does date X work for you?” This approach worked for me