“I love you but I can’t accept this”: On Parental Challenging of a Child’s Trans Identity and How it is Unproductive and Harmful
On first coming out, and, unfortunately still, my mother was of the persuasion that this is not something she can accept, at least – at the very least – without challenging. She questioned why every authoritative source or guide on dealing with your child coming out as trans said that the first thing one must do is accept one’s own child as they are. She didn’t, and still can’t, understand why one must accept it without challenge, and I feel she is missing the point if she believes challenge doesn’t exist (she has and continues to challenge this at every opportunity, I think she doesn’t see why she should accept this), though I appreciate that the types of challenging of this identity change varying on the age of person. I will discuss the effects and outcomes of challenging over affirmative parental behaviour towards their trans children at three different age intervals: young child (pre-puberty), young teenager (puberty), young adult (late puberty/post-puberty) [these are rough ambiguous categories to be taken with a pinch of salt and some of things are universally held between them]
If a young child identifies as trans, the parents’ priority should be the child’s health and wellness, and more often than not this should be managed through affirmation, social transition, and facilitating gender therapy; the challenging here comes from both therapy, where the gender therapist will be able to help the child understand their own feelings - there are many types of gender therapist and, as you are the parent, most likely it will be you choosing and you may choose one that aligns more with your thinking, and if the idea of a child being trans is unacceptable for the parent then they may seek someone that encourages repression over affirmation. However, what I would caution is that ‘reparative’ therapy prioritises the parents’ comfort over the child’s happiness, whereas, affirmative therapy works only to prioritise the child’s happiness and health - and allowing the child to explore their identity socially and psychologically with no real and tangible commitment to it. By allowing the identity to be lived by the child we are prioritising the child’s physical and psychological health. If we deny the identity of the child not only do we put them through unnecessary stress, but we also deny them the opportunity to experience, live, express, and either challenge or affirm their identity.
If someone in their early teenage years identifies as trans, once more the parents’ priority should be the teenager’s health and wellness throughout the turbulent time of puberty. At this point we should acknowledge that the young teenager has greater agency and understanding of how they identify, that is not to say that young children don’t, but it is to say that young teenagers have gone through the formative years of social understanding. If a parent wants to challenge this identity they should understand that if someone of this age is identifying in this way challenging will most likely not change any outcome, and their challenging and rejection of the identity is more likely to damage the young teenager over actually helping, though in a warped way parents may see rejection of the identity as a way of expressing care for the child, but once more rejection is prioritising the parents’ comfort over the child’s happiness and physical health. As we enter these important and turbulent years of puberty the parent must acknowledge the damage rejection of the identity could cause and mustn’t be surprised if their child suffers from poor mental health, reduces familial communication, reciprocates the rejection, or attempts suicide as these are the lived and protracted consequences of rejection. The ideal approach to a young teenager coming out as transgender would be socio-familiar affirmation of the identity and seeking an appropriate and affirming gender therapist to facilitate the medical intervention of puberty blocking hormones to facilitate a reversible exploration of their identity and prevent the pain of a dysphoric puberty. The effects of puberty blockers are reversible and give the young teenager more time to think about their identity, the effects of not intervening are, to be blunt, horrendous, not only does no intervention force a child to go through the psychologically damaging event of experiencing an unwanted puberty, but also increases their risks of experiencing violent crime when they transition as an adult as they are seen to transgress gender boundaries to a greater degree.
If a young adult identifies as trans, once more the parents’ priority should be to their child’s health and wellbeing, and at this point challenging the identity is nothing but futile as the young adult will have not only been thinking about this for a long time and come to a strong conviction in their identity but also may well have started the processes of coming out to friends to develop a support network who seek the happiness of the child and thus have some hard earnt social conviction on which to stand on. Challenging their very identity is fundamentally harmful, and if a parent is to continuously do this then they mustn’t be surprised when relationship with the child deteriorates or when the child is no longer in their life, either through leaving them through reciprocal rejection as an unaccepting home environment becomes unliveable and unbearable, or through suicide, in which, to be blunt, I would argue the parents become culpable in manslaughter for such abject familial rejection which leads to this. I am by no means saying parents should not ask questions of their child, which is in a very broad sense challenging the identity, as that allows the for the parents to understand the needs of their child and what they should do – that is if they are willing to prioritise their child’s happiness over their own comfort and way of thinking – but what I am saying is challenging which either begets or is intertwined with rejection, or anything which does not affirm their child’s identity, is the most ill-advised approach and I would contend that this, in a protracted sense, is equitable to abuse. The ideal reaction, naturally, is an acceptance and affirmation of their child’s identity, one which allows the child to take charge – as they are a young adult – and in which the parent is supportive of the journey their child chooses to take socially and medically.
Lastly, as there is a trend with some formerly authoritative – a polite way of saying now discredited – figures pedalling a pedagogy of gender variability in autistic people, if an autistic child comes out as trans, please see above for the best approach. It is ridiculous to believe that autism renders trans identity a rejectable variable to some, which, if the autism is supported, will go away; this is preposterous and there has been no compelling evidence to suggest the validity of this. Moreover, if a parent is to hope that their child is not trans, rather they have some other diagnosable issue which will, if ‘treated’ and/or supported, reduce the child’s performed gender variance, then they have a perverse hope. They have a hope in which their desired outcome is developmental difficulty on their child as they find that more comfortable than their child’s gender variance, and that is a perverse hope. Moreover, parents that use things like autism to simultaneously show the ‘source’ (obsessive tendencies leading to a fixation with gender) and invalidate a trans identity in a child, they are unlikely to be supportive of any special needs the child may have for autism, and I question both why they would have children and their own moralistic ground in which they stand as they use a developmental issue for their benefit, placing themselves before their child.
Overall, a parent should accept and affirm their child’s trans identity as it prioritises the child’s health, happiness, and wellbeing, it is, medically speaking, the most sensible approach, and it mitigates against the risks and damages rejection and aggressively challenging parental behaviour can cause. If parents want the happiness of their child, they must understand that by rejecting, dismissing, or aggressively challenging their child’s trans identity then they are telling their child, ‘yes, I want you to be happy, but only in a way that is palatable to me’. Although the parents’ love may target the authentic individuality of their child, the parent is telling the child that they love them, but they can only love them in an ‘ideal’ image of them which they have assigned to to the child (this is usually a preconceived notion of what you want your child to be and in this case lacks contingency and fluidity), and if the child cannot be that ideal the parent is thus telling the child that they are not loved, they are telling them that in order to have the parents’ love and support the parents get to define the child’s essence and it mustn’t vary from this preconceived vision they have, and in this circumstance the child sways from this vision and the parents’ notion of love will result in mutual damage. Thus, don’t ask your child to compromise for your own comfort or idealised vision of your child, rather accept and affirm your child, watch them blossom into happiness.
NB: I shouldn’t have to say this but please remember that not all experiences of trans youth, their households, familial relations, their development, and coming out are the same. This is representative of both lived, shared, and studied experience, primarily focusing on experiences in western Europe and North America, though some principles are universal, some remain contingent on a certain social context which I have experienced. If you feel anything needs added or omitted please let me know, and if you can add things more relevant to a different social space please do!