What I’ve Learned Since My Son Came Out As Transgender

When I read the Facebook announcement my son Leo posted in the early morning hours of January 2, 2016, letting the world know he was transgender, it turned my world upside down. Reading those words changed how I thought of gender, our family dynamics, and myself as a mother.

Leo’s coming out, however, didn’t change how I thought of Leo.

Even though I didn’t understand fully what it meant for a person to be transgender, or for Leo to be transgender, because everyone’s experience is different, deep in my heart, I knew that Leo was still the same person I had loved for 18.5 years.

There was a lot I didn’t know in those early days, and there would be a lot more I would come to realize I didn’t know in the years to come.

But here is what I’ve learned in the ten years since my son came out as transgender.

1. Grief will continue to show up long after you've made peace with your emotions about your child being transgender. You'll get to a place of acceptance and understanding, and your child being transgender will be something that's part of your everyday life, and you won't even think about it that much (trust me, you'll get there someday). Then, one day, something will happen in the life of someone close to you that reminds you of what you are missing out on, and it will all bubble back up to the surface.

2. Not everyone needs to know all the things all the time, and that includes how you feel about your child being transgender. How you feel right now isn't going to be how you feel next week, next month, six months from now, or one year from now. It’s normal to have doubts, questions, worries, and fears. You don’t have to share them with anyone else, but you should have one or two safe people to process your feelings with, including a therapist. Whatever you are feeling right now isn't going to last forever, even if it feels like it. And you are going to change your mind about some of the things you might be thinking. I promise.

3. There's nothing I could have known, done, or changed about the time before Leo came out that would have changed anything. His experience was his own, and it was his to live.

It took me five years of therapy to realize that. I talked to my therapist a lot about things I wished I had done differently, or I wished I had known when, and what I thought it might have changed. And none of it would have mattered in the end, because it was never about me.

4. I believe that one of the reasons we have such a difficult time when our children come out as transgender is that we don't understand it. And it's not that we don't understand it from an intellectual perspective; although that may also be true, we don't understand it from a relatable perspective. Until that moment, almost every experience our children have had is something we have also experienced. Then suddenly, they tell us they are someone different from what we thought, and most of us can't relate to that. We have no lived experience to pull from to make sense of it, which I think contributes to some of the pain, confusion, and grief that we experience.

5. In my experience, the first two years are the hardest. And they are hard in so many ways. There’s the mental and emotional aspect, and there’s a lot to think about and learn, appointments to make, new names and pronouns to learn and remember, and people to notify (or not), and it's physically exhausting. And it doesn't get easier for a long time. Because just when you think you've got one thing under control, or one emotion in check, something new crops up, or a holiday rolls around, and the hard starts all over again.

6. It's okay to be overwhelmed. It's okay to be confused. It's okay to feel like you don't know what the next steps are.

7. There’s so much to learn, and sometimes you are going to get it wrong, make mistakes, and your kid is going to call you out on it, and you will feel terrible. It’s all part of the journey.

8. We can learn that our children are transgender, but if we don't take the time to really understand what that means and learn how to support our specific child, they aren't going to grow and thrive.

There is so much information about what it means to be transgender and how to support your child in the form of articles and books, so much more now than there was when my son came out, and it's wonderful. But I still believe the most important question I asked Leo after he told us he was transgender was, "What does that look like for you?"

9. How people respond to our kids being transgender has to do with them, not with our kids. If we hold back on telling people, we take away their ability to love our kids for who they are. Some people will surprise you. And some people will respond exactly the way you expected. But you can't know until you tell them. Tell them, and once they've shown you how they are, then deal with the outcome. Know how you will handle a negative outcome ahead of time, and take it from there.

10. Sharing your pronouns may not seem like a big deal to you if you aren't a transgender person. It should be obvious, right? But when you share your pronouns, you are sending a message to transgender and non-binary people that it's safe for them to share theirs. You are letting them know you are a safe person to talk to about who they are, which isn't always possible.

When we share our pronouns, it makes people feel welcome and included in a society that can feel very unwelcoming and uninclusive. It's a simple act that speaks loudly.

Our children being transgender is just one part of who they are, and it's not even the most interesting part.

It feels like the most significant part because it's a drastic change that shocks our system, and then we spend a long time adjusting to it. Because of all that, and due to all the changes, it's all we think about for years as they change their names, change their outward appearances, and all that comes with the different parts of their transitions.

But eventually, we stop thinking about it so much. Our children become who they are, and how they presented in the past is just another part of their story.

If you had told me a decade ago that January 2 would be just like any other day, I never would have believed you, but here we are, and it has been that way for a few years now. Have faith that, if you are just starting out on your journey, you will get to this point as well. Just keep moving forward.