My daughter came out as transgender and I can’t accept it

Dear Jane,

I am the proud mom of four kids. Three boys, one girl.

I love all of my children equally, but after having two boys, I was over the moon to have a girl and I’ve always loved the time that we’ve been able to spend together as momma and daughter.

But this past week, my daughter – who is 17 – told me and my husband that she is transgender. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I didn’t know what to say. How to react. I just sat there in silence as she told us that she’s always felt out of sorts with herself. That she never really felt natural or comfortable. And that after many years of doubt, she’s now confident in the fact that she was born very much in the wrong gender and body.

I just don’t know what to do. She’s always been a bit of a tomboy, I suppose, but she’s always enjoyed doing girly things with me, like shopping and manicures and Real Housewives binges. I guess boys can do those things too, but I just never imagined that deep down while we were spending all that time together, she secretly thought she was meant to be a boy?

I know that, as a supportive parent, my first instinct should be to help her and guide her through this. But honestly I just don’t know if I can ever get my head around the idea that my daughter wants to be my son? She started talking about hormone therapies and surgeries and name changes, and I just shut down.

It’s been a few days since she broke the news and I’ve not been able to stop crying. I’m so confused about how to go about dealing with this. And I’m too ashamed to tell any of my friends or family because I have no idea what they’re going to think. Then I feel like a horrible mother because I’m not supporting her in the way that she needs.

I don’t consider myself a closed-off person but I truly don’t know how I can accept this and continue our relationship in the same way that we always have. Is that even a possibility? I fee like I’ve already lost my daughter forever.

From, Lost in Transition

Dear Lost in Transition,

You sound like a mother who loves her children very much, and wants what’s best for them. I have enormous empathy for the pain you are in, and indeed for the pain your child must be in. Being a teenager can be ridiculously hard. 

Back in the day we often dealt with our discomfort by expressing our nonconformity and deep feelings of not fitting in with our clothing and our hairstyles. We sported mohawks, dyed our hair, put safety pins through our ears, all while listening to ‘alternative’ music. Today’s teenagers are even more anxiety-filled than we were, and their options are very different.

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The first thing I would say is that you have to put your judgments and feelings aside, and support your child unequivocally. That doesn’t mean you need to hide how hard this is for you; in fact, far better to tell her that this is a lot for you to understand, and may take time. I would advise doing less talking and more listening.

I keep thinking about a woman I know whose daughter went through the same thing. Her daughter announced she was a boy, and spent the next few years living as a boy. Her parents were as devastated as you are now, yet learned to live with the discomfort. 

And, they set clear boundaries. Whilst encouraging their child to dress however they liked, to get off the internet and spend more time outside in nature, they also refused to pay for hormones or surgeries. Some years later, their daughter has decided she is not a male, but is herself, female, sometimes butch, with no need for a label.

Your child is only 17, which many in science would say is too young to make life-changing alterations to the body, given what we now know about the teenage brain. The prefrontal cortex of the brain – the part that responds to situations with good judgment and awareness of long-term consequences – does not fully develop until we are around 25.

Love your daughter, support her dressing and living however she likes, and keep the lines of communication open between you. Encourage her to get off the internet and step into real life, as whoever she chooses.

Dear Jane,

My childhood was miserable, if I’m totally honest with you. I grew up with two parents who were incredibly cruel to me and my siblings. They never used violence as a punishment but emotional abuse was rampant in our household. Horrible comments about my weight, manipulative tactics to pit my and my brother against one another, and threats of beatings that left us terrified for our safety, even though the beatings never came.

I won’t go into more detail, except to say it has taken years – and plenty of therapy – for me to overcome the trauma caused by their abuse.

Three years ago, I became a mother to my own child, a beautiful boy, and I always vowed that I would never be the kind of parent that mine were. And that I would never expose my son to anyone who displayed the same kind of cruel behavior that my parents showed towards me and my brother. I’m proud to say that I feel as though I’ve succeeded in that.

But a few months ago, my parents got back in touch – I cut them off ten years ago and hadn’t spoken to them at all until they reached out. They insisted that they’ve changed, that they’ve done a lot of reflecting on how they raised me and my brother, and that they want to make amends for everything that they put us through. 

They also said that they are desperate to meet their only grandchild, my son.

My immediate reaction was ‘no’, and to be honest I just ignored their first email, but since then they’ve sent a couple more, all of which have been very kind to their credit, but all of which have included pleas to arrange a meeting between them and their grandson.

I honestly don’t know what to do. On the one hand, I feel selfish for preventing my child from having a relationship with his grandparents, but the other part of me cannot even entertain the idea of allowing my son to come face to face with two people with such a capacity for evil.

My husband thinks we should at least meet them and hear them out, but I’m terrified that seeing them again will bring back all of the horrors from my past that I have tried so hard to overcome.

What do you think?

From, Childhood Trauma

Dear Childhood Trauma,

Brava to you for getting a therapist and doing the work to ensure you were a very different kind of parent. The hardest part of dealing with this kind of trauma is, I believe, the last bit: learning to forgive.

I know a bit about difficult childhoods and I applaud you for everything you have done to keep yourself and your family healthy. And, it’s important to recognize that your parents, as emotionally abusive as they might have been, were probably doing the best they could with the knowledge they had. If anger was dominant in your childhood home, I am guessing that your parents were themselves raised with anger, and – given the time frame – had no access to therapists who might have taught them to do things differently.

But until you accept that and truly forgive them, you are the one carrying the pain, a pain that is still getting in the way of your own healing. The fact that you are terrified that seeing them will bring up old trauma tells me that forgiveness is where you need to put your focus.

And what my many years have taught me is that the worst parents can become the best grandparents. They sound like they already know what mistakes they made, and are desperate to prove it to you.

There is no harm in hearing them out, and more, introducing them to your son. It may be that seeing them light up in adoration, as most new grandparents do, will be the most healing thing of all.