Christy, who also reconciled the change with her beliefs, said, “I grew up in a family that was definitely like ‘live and let live,’ so I felt like, ‘Oh my gosh—this is something that makes her happy and doesn’t hurt anybody. That’s a good plan.’”
Sometimes, feelings can come out in other ways. Olivia spoke of traveling through Japan, right after she found out, with the news on her mind. “Immediately after, I was in action mode, but I was also somatically reactive. I wasn’t processing anything, because I think I had no means of processing it, but I also could not digest anything.” She was upset late at night, but couldn’t voice it. “I think my whole body was in shock or trying to protect itself.”
An initial rush of support can be followed by more complicated feelings. As Amy described, “The week she came out I ended up going to her trans support group with her as an advocate—I was just like—okay great! Let’s go.” As time went on, she went through a period of struggle and adjustment. “One of the hardest things for me was this big shift in personality and in interests, because all of a sudden our interests weren’t the same at all.” Sometimes, Amy felt like her parent’s new-found freedom had a flip side. Who had her parent been for the years when she was little? Amy said, “[My parent told me] ‘I’ve been living a lie for my whole life—now I can be who I really am.’ As a child, you’re sitting there thinking, ‘What does that make me?’”
Becca found herself questioning a lot of her childhood leading up to that point. “I thought that everything was a lie, because at that point my dad was like, ‘This is not how I’ve felt for my entire life.’ I totally get that, but then you start thinking about everything that you’ve ever done with him.” She started to rethink and reconsider their history together. “The sports and the training and the—just any activity—and you’re like, ‘Well was that all a lie now?’”
If our identity has been shaped by this person, then who are we?
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU?
So, what does this mean for you? How will this impact your life?
Monica described navigating this confusion: “I was trying to make sense of what it possibly meant for me. I was partway through my senior year of high school. I had gone through my parents’ divorce when I was really young, and so I was kinda mad that this other thing was happening that was gonna change things.”
One part that I never considered at the time was how my father and I were on parallel journeys. I was on the cusp of becoming a woman and she was doing the same. Each of us was on a rollercoaster of hormones and physical changes.
Monica experienced something similar at age 17: “I was becoming a young adult woman, and then my dad was becoming a woman.” She spoke of an initial sense of overwhelm, but at the same time, said, “Despite how emotional I felt about the whole thing, I also felt protective of my dad, and recognized what it took to do something—to follow through with this need to fully realize your identity.” At the end of the initial visit when she found out, driving back in the car, she turned to her dad and said, “No matter what, I love you—I want you to know that.” She said, “I really meant that, even though I didn’t know what it meant that I felt that way. I just knew it was really important. I knew that she needed to hear that at the time.”
I, too, felt this need to protect my dad and I didn’t fully understand it, but I just felt like I would do whatever I could to be protective when we were out. I would think, “Okay, so I’m not going to say ‘Dad’ anymore when we’re out together—okay—I hope I can remember that.” At the time, I hoped that I could do whatever was needed to help her with this stage of change. And then a little while later, I entered junior high and I wanted both of my parents miles and miles away. So even with the initial acceptance, other stages came after that. My reaction didn’t stay the same over time.
Riley described an initial plan to navigate the changes together. Looking back, he could see that they were setting out into uncharted territory. “I think I couldn’t have a clear picture of what trans would look like on my mom, what trans would look like in a relationship, so on that first day, both my sister and I were just like—okay great, we know you love us, we love you, so this is happening, without really getting into the details of physically what would change—anything like that. Just baseline—we’re going to work this out together.”
Trying to understand and navigate a parent’s wishes and our own understanding is ongoing. “I definitely had my difficulties in the beginning,” Danielle said. “Mainly because I was holding it in. I didn’t want to out her to anyone.” She asked her parent key questions to get some clarity. Name, pronouns, and coming out. “I’m calling you ‘Kay’ now—great. Am I using feminine pronouns for you? Yes—okay, good. But you’re not out to anyone else yet, so how do I navigate this?”
Self-knowledge is a part of the experience. “At the time, I hadn’t even fully come to terms with who I was,” Jennifer said. “I didn’t do a whole lot of research on my own about what being trans was and being involved in the community until a little bit later, so it’s not something that was a shock necessarily, but it was kind of a transition, I mean.” Our own transition comes with a growing understanding of what this means for us, for our parent, and out in the world.
It’s important to give voice to any difficulties you’re having. Amy said, “One of the biggest things for me was the fact that I felt really uncomfortable having any issue with it, which I feel like is such a disservice.” There’s a sense that if you have an issue, you’re not supporting the trans community, but denying an issue can come out sideways. It’s important to talk to someone you trust about any issues that come up.
Acting like you have no issue at all might help in the short run, but not in the long run. As Sarah W. said, “I just told my dad what I thought she wanted to hear, which was, ‘Oh no, of course it’s cool Dad—yeah it’s really awesome,’ even though inside, it was really, really heart wrenchingly hard for me.” Expecting acceptance right away can backfire in the long run, so it’s important to be open to a whole range of responses over time.
A SHIFT IN YOUR WORLD
More than one person I talked to spoke of having their sense of the world shift. They thought they knew their family and what it would look like for years to come. It’s almost like a rupture of solid ground—an earthquake that shakes up the pieces and puts them back in another order.
Questions can come up at any point: “Who am I?” “Who is our family?” “Can I really know for sure?”
A year or so after the transition, one of my friends who knew my dad before the change came to visit. The way she stared made me glad that no one else knew the whole story. She stared and stared like she was at the zoo. Dana had to step into another room to get away from the staring. I don’t think my friend realized what she was doing, but it made me want to protect my family and our story even more, to make sure no one ever found out. If they did, I might still have friends, I thought, but they would probably talk about how weird it was. I wasn’t going to risk that, and we had a family story in place, so I hid behind that story, kept it like a shield for as long as I could.
As a child, I liked to parade my dad around and introduce him to my friends. “This is my dad.” He was funny, silly, and handsome. From the start of the change, though, it felt irreversible. It never occurred to me to ask her to go back to who she was before. She didn’t tell us until she knew absolutely that this was who she was becoming. Until she’d looked into all the options and found none. At that point, it didn’t feel like she could go back.
CHANGING FAMILIES
Our whole family was changing. Who we were to the outside world. Now, my parents acted like sisters instead of partners. They shared