I think there’s a huge difference between feeling an aversion and treating people badly. You are much better than those bigots.
Also, it gets easier with time and exposure.
My situation is easier than yours, but somewhat similar. I have a lot of trans friends. It’s hard for me to use different pronouns and new names. New names are easier than new pronouns, fwiw.
Also, my limited advice is that you should bitch about your difficulties (which are real) to us, not to your child. Your child has enough difficulties of their own without sharing yours.
Also, if you child does decide to change name or pronoun, and you slip up, I’m told that it’s best to just move on, either using the right word in the next sentence, or saying “oops, I mean Sally” and then continuing, without making a big deal of it. This should be about your child, not about you, at least when you are interacting with your child.
It’s a journey. Don’t be too hard on yourself, give it time. And effort.
T-T-T: things take time. Make your journey, keep your ship pointed in the right direction, and it sounds like you are, but don’t drive your ship too hard or too fast or she might break apart. Similarly don’t drive her too slowly or you may never get there.
Change is hard. It’s uncomfortable. You are lauded for heading in the right direction. In this case, follow your head; your heart will follow.
I love my son very much and it breaks my heart when I hear of his gay friends whose families have ostracized them, just for being G.
I subscribed to this thread when I first saw it, but haven’t responded.
My son (daughter now) informed us about 4 years ago.
The absolute best thing you can do is provide unconditional support. My daughter knew from pretty much birth but didn’t have the courage to tell us till she was 15.
It took tremendous courage, as you can imagine. Thankfully my ex and I are totally on the same page with this. Family support is EVERYTHING.
Please continue your support.
I had a hard time reconciling it; I suppose I still do. It’s one thing to support it intellectually, but when it’s your own kid it takes some time to adjust emotionally. That’s normal.
It gets easier. But support is paramount.
Feel free to PM me or email me if you want to talk. It’s in my profile.
Yes, of course we try to give our child all the support we can give them. It’s just a bit harrowing to discover that despite my tolerant ideals, I still have a serious case of NIMBY (what I mean is that when it gets up close and personal, it hurts to realize that I’m not as tolerant as I wanted to think that I am).
Yes, of course I don’t share my reactions with my child. They have enough issues as it is without having to handle that their parent has problems with it. That’s why I’m venting on an anonymous message board, since I somehow have to get stuff off my chest. And realizing that I’m less tolerant than I wanted to think I am is hard to share, even with my spouse for more than 25 years.
I guess it’s time to start getting used to not thinking about my child as “him”. That’ll be a fucking journey, too.
Again, thanks for the support. It means a lot to me.
Your posts made me cry, because this is all any kid wants. You’re willing to get uncomfortable for them, which speaks volumes. Like any good parent, you want to make sure they are happy and safe. ISTM that a lot of ‘‘happy and safe’’ for trans people comes from the support of family and friends. They may need to fall back on you guys more than the average kid - after job or housing loss due to discrimination against trans people (which is still legal in many places.) One of the most common problems facing young trans people today is homelessness, which increases the risk of so many other abuses. But your support will mean protection from a lot of that.
I realized my own prejudices on this subject in a much dumber and subtler way. I got a kitten, named her Abomination and adapted a feminine diminutive (Mina). Found out weeks later she was in fact a he. Drove me nuts calling a boy cat by a girl name. Same cat, suddenly seemed totally different to me just based on sex.
I’m supposed to be enlightened and stuff, but it was my husband who told me not to shove my cat in a gender box and let him be Mina.
We are all ordinary sinners, but you are a good parent.
I like to think that I’m willing not just to get uncomfortable for them, but actually to die for them. Life is about being born, procreating, and then dying. Having a good time in the meantime is nice and definitely something to aim for, but not a primary objective.
I try to be. But I’m still not certain that I am. At least not as good as I want to be.
Yeah but not all kids, trans or not, get that. I am cisgender and straight, but I related most to my LGBTQ friends growing up in high school because their parents were all too happy to throw them out on their ass for arbitrary reasons and I too was always on the verge of getting thrown out of my own house for imaginary sins. We bonded through the reality that our parents’ love for us was conditional.
One of my friends, shortly after he moved away from our high school, his mother read his diary and found out he was gay. She burned every artifact of his life she could get her hands on, torched his prom photos and all of his snapshots of friends, yearbooks, and notes we’d exchanged in high school (I was on the forbidden list because I supported him) and told him she would have rather he murdered someone than be gay.
So, you know, you’re struggling with some pronouns and new concepts that are often confusing even to the most supportive ally. Cut yourself some slack.
I have no real value to this thread as a cis-gender woman with no children. But please be listen to everyone who says the fact that you are tolerant and willing to support is the very thing that makes you NOT a bigot. Everything new takes an adjustment period: Kid hits puberty and starts dating - Adjustment; Kid wants to go to college on the other side of the globe - Adjustment; kid who showed ‘no signs’ of homosexuality comes out at 25 - Adjustment. Kid wants to run away and join the plumbers union instead of going to Med School - Adjustment. Kid comes out as Trans - Adjustment.
While not every good parent has that attitude, that attitude is rather indicative that you are a good parent. There is no instruction manual. All you can do is keep trying to be better.
It’s the same thing I tell people who are constantly worried about whether they are a good person.
I have an inkling of what you’re going through. It may become more than an inkling, I don’t know.
Like you, I’ve always been fully on board with treating “those” LGBT folks with sensitivity and respect - hell, just treat them like PEOPLE, right? I have LGBT friends, friends of many years, both who I met as openly LGBT and others who “came out” at some point after I met them, and I haven’t felt it changed my relationship with them very much.
But it’s a very different thing when it’s your own family, and even more so when it’s your own children. You’ve spent a lifetime - their lifetime! - nurturing them, which means whether consciously or unconsciously, you’ve had a mental model or fantasy of their future selves in mind.
If that child has been “closeted” very deeply, and/or the parents have been wilfully ignoring the “signs” or “hints” of their child’s true nature, having it all suddenly come out would be extremely unsettling. It literally feels like “my son - he’s gone - gone forever - that little boy I knew and imagined as X, or doing Y, will never be”.
And the natural extension, “Maybe… This is all a mistake… A joke? Can we get back to last week normal again, please?”
That’s even if you’re NOT a homophobic person who can somehow expel their child from their life, who feels “my son/daughter is dead to me, and now this gay demon I loathe but wears the skin to torment me”. And instead of hating such a person in return, we should be trying to get them to realize what they’re doing to their child, instead of thinking if it as what their child has done to them.
OP you are seeking to do right by your child, and that should help you do right by yourself.
Too often we fall into the trap of believing that all it takes is to know what is the right thing to do, and that it should come naturally.
That is not so. Not with non-family allies and not with family. It most often takes questioning and effort. Doubt WILL cross your mind, that is to be expected. But it can be handled.
The expectation that if I am good, then it should be patently obvious to me how to do what is good, and effortless to do so without even having to think twice about it, is an unfair one and especially so if it is self-imposed.
Imperfection is an intrinsic characteristic of humanity.
