This may feel triggery at first but is worth reading through.
Trans folx are under no obligation to be this patient, but some of us choose to dive into it and the rewards can be great.Â
Iâve got a ton of friends with teens and have been modeling and explaining to my community the science for YEARS and lo and behold a significant number of people Iâve known since their teenagers were infants are having their teens come out to them and just⊠supporting them. Iâm far from the only one. There are whole places that parents new to this can go, and they start out where he is and see, very quickly, the science and the support modeled from other parents (including trans parents of trans kids) and suddenly theyâre diving in wholeheartedly.
One of the interestingly complex issues around families is that a lot of teenagers, due to rapid brain development during puberty, have a very hard time âtaking the emotional temperatureâ of the people around them. Even without trans issues in the mix, it takes a lot of work for teens to hear through the static that their brains are throwing up, and it takes a lot of work for parents to not take it personally when their teens are not able to modulate their emotional responses to unclear data.Â
This is one of the reasons why I think itâs super, super helpful when parents can jump on board and get educated before puberty, because itâs a lot easier when youâve got an extremely thoughtful 4 year old or six year old explaining their gender and a doctor explaining what it means, at a time when the parent is in âlearningâ mode instead of in âreact mode.
Unfortunately bodies and brains donât always cooperate, because thereâs yeah, the âI always knewâ kids who came out at age 2, but thereâs also a large chunk of kids who donât figure things out until puberty strikes, and another whack of people who figure it out during or after puberty, and thatâs when things get particularly hairy.
See, MOST parents, in theory, want âwhat is bestâ for their kids. But how they shape that image of âwhat is bestâ depends hugely on their own background, how they were parented, and the social expectations surrounding them. Small town religious families often have a hard time bending, for example, where there are many specific social expectations in the culture (you will go to church, you will marry within the faith or âadjacentâ, you will get this kind of job, having a girl means this, having a boy means that.) But so do families in a lot of other places. The same force that makes a parent unhappy when their child doesnât decide to be a doctor or doesnât go to their alma mater, all of that⊠that stuff tends to be generational and difficult to change.Â
HOWEVER⊠Thereâs this incredibly potent argument to be had around mental health and suicide, that makes most parents, even with those complicated social expectations, sit up and reassess.Â
And thatâs what you see up there. Itâs not phrased, âIf you donât do this your kid will dieâ⊠itâs phrased, âI know you want whatâs best for your kid, and you wouldnât be asking questions if you werenât a good parent, and let me give you another angle to look at this from.â (And then the science is presented.)
It doesnât always work.Â
But it works often enough to be worth the effort. And it almost always needs to come from an outside person.Â
Because asking a kid who is struggling through dysphoria and fear of parental alienation to coddle their parent through this is often too much when that kid is ALSO going through puberty and unsure whether their parents are truly assholes who care more about their own expectations than they do the person their child actually is or just misguided.Â
Iâve seen so many parents make the leap, with varying levels of grace.Â
But Iâve also seen so many kids whose parents failed to make the leap, or worse, didnât even try.Â
If your parents didnât make this leap, I want you to know that it isnât because you did anything wrong or failed to make the correct attempt. In most cases, itâs a failing of family culture, and has roots farther back than you could possibly have influenced.Â
But if youâre a teen, and having a hard time figuring out whether your parent is really evil or just inept, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE reach out, when you can, to an adult who does already understand the issues, and specifically someone who is working for a hotline or is already a parent of a trans kid who is supportive.Â
I know parents around the country who would literally open their homes to kids and young adults in a heartbeat if necessary, to give them a soft space to land from parental rejection. I know multiple parents in the town Iâm in.Â
This is a hugely complex issue. But itâs an issue that is moving quickly in the right direction in a lot of places. Weâre at about 70 metaphorical monkeys out of 100.Â
