Hello gay people in my phone. My child (16) sort of came out as trans to me today. I have been here for the memes for a while, and ive long been a supporter of gay and trans rights.
Do yall have any recommendations of resources for parents of trans kids? I want to help and support them correctly and to the best of my abilities.
Looking for maybe books and communities? Thank you.
And your first thought is to publicly share this extremely private conversation with a bunch of strangers. Are you nuts? Ask for advice from close friends or family, or even a therapist for a modicum of privacy… NOT the internet…
This feels like a bit of an overreaction. There’s no identifying information, this is a small corner of the Internet, and they’re here looking for advice on how to be better able to support the kid.
I’d say if I was the kid and I ran across this post, if anything it’d make me feel like my parent is taking a ton of effort to understand and support me.
I’d personally lose all trust in my parents and stop telling them anything if I found such a private conversation online.
Cool. I would assume OP knows their children better than you do, given how they came out to them not you.
My first thought was “damn i probably have a lot more learning to do” and this is probably the most trans-friendly community im involved in.
I have trans people in my life, but it seemed more respectful to not out my kid to anyone who knows them before they are comfortable coming out themselves.
Yes, perhaps a screenshot was unnecessary, but i wasnt sure if there was some nuance i was missing that yall might have a better eye for.
I understand and appreciate your perspective, however i doubt i would have received such good information had i not posted here. Case in point: a therapist for trans kids recommended a book for me. That is not the type of person i currently have in my life.
I was concerned if i simply googled all this i might get low quality information since its such a controversial topic and many on the right may have poisoned some of the discourse.
I will likely remove this post once i stop getting replies based on your notes.
There is no identifying information and asking an allied community for help us quite reasonable. What a bizarre take.
You can ask for help without screenshotting the private conversation. Your take is the weird one.
Also, how did you completely miss the fact that OP has put their face as a profile pic?? Anyone who knows them now knows who the texts are about. OP basically outed them publicly.
I’m on a mobile app and my vision is impaired but thanks for the assumptions.
i recommend practicing pronouns and terms of relation, thats the biggest thing from my perspective. just listen to what they tell you and believe it.
coming out to people is hard, but in my experience the sooner you feel comfortable telling people close to you the easier it is to start telling anyone. not recommending you encourage coming out, but being there to provide positivity and validation about their feelings is huge.
The only hesitation I’d give with this advice is, it may be better to wait on pronouns until they’re more fully out. It sounds like they have family they are NOT ready to know, and… Well, you can brush off one or two misgenderings without much suspicion, but eventually it could leak some information they don’t want out yet.
I had a friend in a similar situation, out to close people, but not out to their family or strangers. We decided it’d be best to keep using he/him, old name, etc. for convenience and safety, until they finally fully came out last year. The only difference from my perspective has been to delay those habits for a bit. No situation is the same, though, and the parent would be beat served talking to the kid.
Yes, this is a concern i have as well. I have not discussed new names or pronouns with them yet because they havent shared any of that with me yet, and i dont want to rush them.
I have tried to keep my reaction to supportive but also not act like anything has changed.
I am currently using gender neutral pronouns in this post because it already feels wrong to misgender them even if they are still “girlmoding” (am i using that right?)
They are coming for a visit soon, and i plan to discuss how they wish to be referred and if there are other differences in how they wish to be treated by me at that time. Until then i dont plan to make many changes in my behavior. In a 1 on 1 conversations the only pronoun is “you” so it probably wont matter yet.
I don’t have anything helpful to say but just wanted you to know this post is making me almost cry because I wish I had a parent like you. Thanks for being their safe space.
Hahah, I have no idea if you’re using that right, looks close enough to me.
I think that’s the best way to proceed. Each case is different, and each person is different. The only way to know is to talk to them. Like I said elsewhere, you seem like you’ve got the right mindset, and that’s 80% there. The rest you learn as you go, with the person you’re supporting.
youre right. its easy for me to forget that aspect because I have alot of practice in not gendering people to others when I know theyre still in the closet, but physical safety comes first.
Congrats on your son! I’m sure your support is going to help them tremendously as they discover themselves
I think this is a nice ressource (and also Doc Impossible is great in general)
https://stainedglasswoman.substack.com/p/oh-st-my-child-just-told-me-theyre
One rule could be censoring information that could plausibly out someone, such as the name of a (step?)family-member
Thank you. Hadnt thought of that since lemmy has kindof a small userbase. But i updated it
I’ve seen some decent discussions over on https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/c/trans
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]
good boy
Congratulations on being the parent they felt comfortable coming out to! Son came out around the same age, he’s 20 now.
A lot is going to depend on your location. Name change paperwork was a chore but not as much as navigating insurance for HRT. Public school was mostly okay but much was remote due to COVID.
Pm is you have any particular questions.
See if there is a PFLAG chapter near you.
Cool, that’s about the age I came out as a trans guy to my parents. They didn’t handle it well but they came around after 5 years or so of separation. Anyway, this is something I sent to them that was good advice from my point of view: https://www.rainbowhealthontario.ca/resource-library/families-in-transition-a-resource-guide-for-parents-of-trans-youth/
I’m Canadian, so it’s Canada-focused, but I’m sure most of it will still apply.
Ask them for their preferred pronouns, ask if they have a preferred name, and ask for time to make those things natural to you. Then ask if they would like to go to gender therapy, take puberty blockers, or other age appropriate trans healthcare.
As for educating yourself, Judith Butler is a great starting point
I respectfully disagree with Judith Butler as an entry to gender theory. Unless they’ve made some more accessible material at some point and I’ve just missed it. It took me 3 attempts to finish gender trouble and I’m not even sure I completely comprehend it lol. That book is dense and full of extremely obscure language and some stuff that I’m convinced they just made up. Not saying OP shouldn’t eventually read it but he should watch some videos and read a few accessible books on gender theory before diving into Judith Butler
That’s a fair assessment. Some of her books are pretty difficult. I started Who’s Afraid of Gender and didn’t think it was more difficult than Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, but I suppose it’s all about where folks are at
Not preferred pronouns. Just pronouns
Please note that the trans community no longer uses the phrase “preferred pronouns” as it implies that trans people’s pronouns are a preference, not a fact.
https://glaad.org/reference/transgender
Op, glaad and hrc both have great resources to dig into
https://www.hrc.org/our-work/parents-for-transgender-equality-network (see supporting your trans children page)
I didn’t know the community dropped that term, my bad. Agreed, GLAAD is a great source. I recommended Butler because generally I think people want to know “why do people” when they want to understand
The rules are:
- I love you no matter what.
- See rule 1.
Well done. Good dad.
Depending on where you’re at I’m not sure I’d want to put mine or my kid’s name on anything that could be used to make us a target. At pride last year we spent some time talking to pflag and I ultimately decided not to give them our information, but took a card and flyer.
https://www.aclu.org/cases/pflag-v-office-of-the-attorney-general-of-texas
Depending on where you’re at defending your kid from the state is now something that must be part of your calculations. If you can afford it, I recommend moving to as safe of a state as you can. Because feeling like your government is targeting you is painful, exhausting, and incredibly lonely.
I will never not laugh at combining trans and parent as transparent.
I don’t even know why, it’s not even a good pun
But it’s like when Timmy wished for Super Vision
Lol my wife went as Transparent for Halloween last year…
Sounds like you’re doing alright. I’d say keep doing as you’re doing. Don’t change anything unless asked - make this whole thing seem completely normal. Just be attentive and listen to your child. You probably won’t understand, at least not fully, a lot of what they’re going through. No matter how hard you try, unless you experience it yourself, it’s pretty much impossible, like seeing a new color. Be open to that fact, that things are quite simply fundamentally different from their perspective.
Be a safe space. It sounds like you already are. Keep doing that. No matter the situation the two of you are involved in, your priority is their livelihood. Safety, autonomy, backup, whatever they need in order to provide that.
They were comfortable enough with you to tell you, and ahead of two others who might have a similar “right” to know. Your response was to provide the support you immediately could, and seek assistance otherwise. Keep doing what you’re doing, bud.
That’s when you have a transmission kid instead
That last bit seems kinda selfish. I mean maybe don’t listen to me because I’m not trans and I wouldn’t know firsthand, but the world seems to be pretty shitty to transfolk.
Not that you shouldn’t support your trans kids, I just don’t know you should be wishing for something that would probably make their life more difficult.
I spose in a better world it would be no different than specifically wanting a daughter or a son, but even then gender dysphoria seems like all kinds of not fun.
Yeah, that last line, the transparent bit? Was added in the end as a little joke.
The post is pretty transparently intended as a joke using wordplay.
Im totally straight and married but love this community on the lemmy.
Glad you’re here with us
Not sure why you mentioned being straight. Did you mean to say cis?
I was talking to them in their language.
What?
CIS guys don’t talk to each other like “hey I’m CIS!”
There’s no reason to make it anything more than that. I was trying to be kind and considerate. I didn’t have the answers that he was looking for. I wanted him to know that there’s other guys here like him.
If you start the conversation and tell me you aren’t a typical CIS man, I’d respond that I was a typical CIS man. Does that help you understand?
Exactly, which is why I’m confused why you started off saying you’re straight. Clearly you said it for a reason, but it doesn’t seem relevant to anything, so I don’t know the reason. My best guess was that you meant it like “hey, I’m not trans either so I’m empathizing with you here” which is why I asked if you meant cis, because the opposite of trans is cis, not straight.
To clarify, I’m not attacking, I’m just trying to figure out what you meant.
I’m assuming they meant “talking to the parent, using less complicated, more mainstream words, even if the meaning is a little wrong as a result”.
Which in my opinion is an ok approach, even though this specific parent, just by posting here, appears tech- and lgbt- savvy enough to probably know at least some terms.
Also, they could have just said ‘not trans’ instead, if ‘cis’ would be too advanced.Actually scratch that, I get using “straight” as non-lgbt. It is how is very commonly used outside of lgbt circles.
But not a bad thought on its own.
just maybe a bit othering.
Same. Im very happy i had a community like this to turn to that i kinda trust.
when you’re in the phone, you’re gay. no excuses.
Look if there are self-help groups/similar for parents/people around trans people in a city near you!
