I think my husband’s family is transphobic

TW: transphobia

So to cut a long story short, my sister-in-law shared an article about a trans man who’d been convicted of intimate partner violence against a woman. The article used he/him pronouns for the perpetrator with a photo, and he passes as male. It didn’t mention he is trans and I was none the wiser. She/her pronouns were used for the victim. SIL shared it with the comment “I knew her from school she’s a fucking vile human being”.

Cue confusion from me. I commented that it came across as though she was slagging off the victim. Lots of people had made transphobic comments on the article itself, and I also mentioned how trashy that was. I said just because he’s a criminal doesn’t make it okay to be transphobic, the genitals he was born with are irrelevant. I also made the point that being abused his whole life, which the article itself mentioned, probably hadn’t helped.

I then basically got dogpiled by my husband’s family. They said I was blowing everything out of proportion and apparently defending a criminal and justifying his actions. They argued I had “had a go” at SIL over a genuine mistake, even though the only thing I said that was directed at her was that it was confusing who she was referring to? SIL’s boyfriend basically said I was arguing what he’d done is okay because he’s trans. I didn’t understand that at all as I was pretty clear that it’s no excuse, and he deserves to be in prison for being convicted of the crime. He also claimed the man flitted between being “male” or “female” depending on the day while he was at school, so how could anyone know “their” pronouns. They all consistently referred to him as they/them throughout, which pissed me off because it’s still misgendering. This point went completely over their heads, they said they refer to other people as they/them in conversation all the time and I’m just stupid.

They also tried to argue that they’re not transphobic because they’ve been “accepting” of me. 🙄 I didn’t realise being nice to one trans person to their face means you’re accepting of all of us. Pretty sure they’ve all slagged me off behind my back given how I’ve witnessed them speak about other family members in my presence.

Oh and they also implied I’m being disrespectful to my husband’s family. Which to me comes across as though they don’t consider me part of said family. Really just felt like they were showing their true colours if I’m honest. Anyways apparently I’m “fucking dense”, a “silly twat”, and a “fucking cunt”. Really wasn’t expecting the abuse given I was fairly polite despite being blunt and firm throughout this conversation. Calling people out on blatant bigotry really gets their back up. And the lying to try and justify it is frustrating.

Just basically posting this as a sanity check and I could really use some support. I can’t believe I’m having to deal with this again after having to cut off almost my entire family. I thought my husband’s were better. I also feel terrible because it’s now going to be next to impossible to visit them. I certainly don’t want to sit there and be nice to people that secretly hate my guts.

Any advice on how I broach this with my husband? He’s extremely supportive and on my side but I don’t want this to negatively impact our relationship. Do I set a firm boundary that I don’t want to interact with these people if they hold these views?