ILX Parents of LGBTQ+ kids

Following on from this thread: Trans/Genderqueer/Agender/Questioning Thread

Here's a place for parents of LGBTQ+ kids to discuss their experiences.

oh can someone fix my typo, I can't even spell a three letter acronym ffs

got it

I’m happy this thread is here! My daughter is 12 and polysexual with no interest in boys. She has a theyfriend who is non-binary. No problems or friction with schools or extended family so far. I know my mom isn’t happy about it but only because I know my mom. So far she has been smart enough to keep her mouth shut.

So far i’m amazed at how advanced kids today are with the terminology and self awareness. SO MUCH different than how I grew up.

Our daughter (13 going on 26) was clumsily outed by a friend about 18 months ago. My daughter was clearly rattled at the time, so we left it a couple of days before bringing it up. I basically said that she was awesome and that she should ask for whatever she wanted and could talk to us at any time. My approach - shaped as much by teaching as anything else - has been validation and curiosity. I've become an ally and an advocate at school and I'm regularly asking my daughter for advice on terminology and pronouns etc. It's been really humbling.

There are already so many brilliant responses on the other thread akm so I'll just endorse the 'validation' approach. As emil.y said, even if it is a phase, so what! Be curious and supportive and try not to approach it with any preconceptions or expectations. If I've learnt anything from this period it's been that if you've met one LGBTQ+ kid, you've met one LGBTQ+ kid.

thanks all. I guess my deeper worry is that my child is depressed, and has been for a while; and both my wife and I have suffered from pretty bad depression our entire lives (mine markedly worse; plus I acquired a drinking problem as a young adult and went through insane suicidal periods while being put on and off bad medicines. I'm now just on a low dose of celexa for anxiety and depression and it works fine but getting here was a fucking ride, but I've been more or less ok for about 18 years now). So I do wonder if my child is looking for an answer to the depression he/they are feeling. But either way, I want the kid to be open and communicative with us more than anything.

thanks for starting this. my older kid (11 AFB) identifies as male. it's been a gradual process, from rejecting traditionally feminine clothes at a pretty young age (like around 6-7), to saying he was a lesbian, to identifying as nonbinary, and now to identifying as male. i wouldn't say we've handled everything 100% perfectly but we are supportive and he knows that we have his back.

it definitely seems like the name change is a pretty common source of angst for parents. our kid proactively changed his name at school, without telling us, a couple of years ago. he told us about the name change at the same time he came out to us as nonbinary. i said we supported him as nonbinary, we love him etc etc., but that the name change might be hard to get used to since we had picked out his birth name. i didn't say we wouldn't call him by his new name or say we were mad or anything, but i still regret this knee-jerk reaction because after that he insisted that we could still call him by his birth name at home even while everyone at school was using this new name. so for a while we were still using this feminine name at home. every once in a while we would ask if he wanted us to use the new name at home but he would always just shrug it off so we figured it didn't bother him and didn't make an effort to use the new name. around when he came out to us as trans we realized that we should really be using his new chosen name, so we finally started doing it and have gotten accustomed to it. the funny thing is his chosen name is a name that is used for men and women with different spellings, and he chose the traditionally feminine spelling - i don't know if this was on purpose bc he was still nonbinary at the time and wanted something ambiguous, or if it was an accident. we've talked to him about changing the spelling to the masc version and it seems like he's thinking about it or maybe just changing his name again.

anyway from all that i've learned a few things:
* when he comes to us with big news, i need to just respond with generally supportive language at first, and then give myself time to think about what questions and comments i have and how to phrase them in a sensitive way instead of trying to ask them right away
* it's really not a big deal to change the words we use for him, like pronouns and his name. they're just words. it's weird at first but it gets normal quickly.
* we (his parents) need to be more proactive about aspects of his transition. for a long time we just assumed he would tell us what he needs, but it has become clear that sometimes he needs us to offer help instead of waiting for him to come to us

anyways i don't mean to act like we've got everything figured out, i still constantly worry about him and whether we're doing the right things, but my wife and i try to keep those concerns between us and only express support to our child. i told her that if he wasn't transitioning i'd find other things to worry about because worrying about your kids is the main thing about parenting

we are moving towards putting him on puberty blockers right now, so that's the main source of my anxiety currently, since that's a concrete medical step that has potential physical repercussions. he's had the lab tests and has been in the required counseling sessions for several months now, and tomorrow my wife is taking him back to the doctor to talk about next steps.

Wow. Great post NA. The medical stuff would be hard for me to get a handle on too, no matter how open-minded I thought I was being.

puberty blockers aren't a permanent medical intervention - the kid keeps getting injections and either they eventually decide to shift to testosterone and go through male puberty or they decide not to and go off the blockers and go through the puberty for their biological body. basically it buys us a couple more years or so for him to keep exploring his gender identity without the potential trauma of going through puberty as the wrong sex. but there are potential side effect impacts (mainly to future fertility and bone density) that we have to consider. it's not 100% sure we're doing it (haven't found out how much of it our insurance will cover, for one), but we're moving in that direction.

Thanks for sharing all of this. I can imagine the medical decisions are stressful at a level beyond accepting his identity. And can understand the stress of having a birth name rejected.

So.

Roe.

My elder child (15) is nonbinary, and they've thrown out some hints about identifying as transmasculine, and possibly wanting to pursue hormones and top surgery in future.

In the meantime, they exist in a social whirl where no one is straight and almost no one is cis. I am thoroughly cool with that.

So we want to have our talk about reproduction, contraception, pregnancy be respectful of gender and identity and presentation... while also being realistic about the anatomy involved.

To put it bluntly, a bunch of the trans kids in our orbit have the ability to cause pregnancy or become pregnant, whether through carelessness, wishful thinking, or nonconsensual contact.

None of these kids are stupid; they have the internet. It sounds silly to be typing this out.

But out of an abundance of caution, how do I say to Sky, "hey, look, I know you know this, but regardless of how each person identifies, we still want you all to be safe, because stuff happens"?

In the meantime I am ever-more-sure that a vasectomy is in my son's future, as soon as it can be arranged.

I think you can say it just as you typed it out. It acknowledges their intelligence and autonomy and underscores your concern.

And "safe" with regard to STDs as well as pregnancy

My oldest, 28, is a trans woman who transitioned several years ago. For me, the most challenging aspects were, first, dealing with the surprise of finding out that she was not quite the person I had raised from a newborn--or, more accurately, that my perception of her was not right on (and I swear it did not occur to me that she was transgender, just not very interested in conforming to male stereotypes). Second, dealing with my anxiety for her safety--on the one hand, she is quite tall even for a man, but that just makes her stand out as a woman. All of that aside, she is, from all appearances, so much happier and well-adjusted now than before.

Glad to hear she's happy, jimbeaux. Rock on.

Jaques, thanks. That's pretty much what I ended up saying.

My wife had broached the topic earlier in the day, and while her heart was in the right place I worried that she may have muddied the waters by saying "I know you like girls, but..."

I think what my wife meant was "I know you're queer/gay." Sky has only ever dated girls and AFABenvies, so far.

But from Sky's perspective, "liking girls" is not quite right. They don't see it that way. They are in a relationship with another nonbinary person, but regard it as a "T4T" relationship between two trans people. Not a lesbian relationship.

Further, Sky knows a lot of folks who identify as girls/young women and use she/her pronouns, but look pretty AMAB and are not out to their parents. To Sky, those individuals are not boys. I haven't checked, of course, but I suspect at least some of them have dicks.

I am sure it will all be okay but as a parent, trying to navigate this is difficult.

bookmarking this thread as a teacher who sponsors the lgbtq+ club at my school, just want to say yall are doing great

<3

xxp do you realise you're really fucking transphobic when you categorise people being AFAB or AMAB or their genitals.

When we're talking about reproductive health, it's relevant, though. I am trying to be sensitive to identity while being realistic about anatomy. If there's another way to put it I will adapt. Should I say penis-havers and uterus-havers?

If Branch and Jinx are intimate and a pregnancy results, the plumbing is relevant. And if reproductive choice is doomed - heck, they're coming for birth control next - the anatomy will be relevant.

If it's completely off the table to talk about genitals, I have no idea how we will educate these teens appropriately.

Rape is a thing too, tragically. Is there a non-transphobic way to worry about that?

Sorry, I did not mean to offend you. Talking about reproductive health is obv important, but it has nothing to do with gender identities.

Okay, I get that the A(whatever)AB terminology isn't okay with everyone here, and I won't use it again. There are some folks out there for whom it is useful information (my own child uses it, for example). But as some ilxors view it as inherently transphobic I will work around it.

How would you suggest I refer to the biology involved in baby-making?

I agree that it has nothing to do with gender identities and that is my whole fucking point.

Like, regardless of how individuals present and/or identify, if they can get pregnant or get someone pregnant, they should be concerned about access to birth control and abortion. That's all I am trying to establish.

But we really can't talk usefully if it's considered transphobic to address the plain facts of genitalia. Sky initially just kinda hand-waved away all discussion of Roe, like it's irrelevant to them. But it isn't.

I would suggest you'd refer to the baby-making by how it works? Being trans or non-binary isn't denying biology or science.

Rape can happen regardless of what physical genitalia are present. It is indeed hugely challenging to navigate all this - instead of focusing on what externals a person has, you might reframe as sperm-producers/ova-producers if the conversation is centered specifically on potential pregnancy.

So "sperm-producer" is okay then, while penis-haver and AMAB are "really fucking transphobic"?

Okay

Probably not, I'm trying to learn all this. But I do think focusing on external signifiers is problematic.

The Supreme Court seems way more problematic than me, but what do I know?

It is. And the small legal protections extended to non-cis non-het individuals are under threat as well. The ability to safely and easily procure contraception, be physically intimate with who you love, marry who you love - all under threat. As well as the threat to parents and family members who support the lives and well-being of non-cis non-het minors. But like you obviously realize, the language choices used have to adapt to what your audience can relate to, or you're talking to a barn door.

YMP, this is a difficult conversation and I’m glad yr asking questions, I find it a little wild that people are jumping down your throat for trying to do right by your kid.

Thanks, jaq and table. Ftr I have been 1000% loving and supportive of my trans kid from the getgo. Trying to get it right and keep them safe.

I don't know braised cod or their circumstances. Jumping straight to calling me "really fucking transphobic" surprised me, but I am going to try to chalk it up to a well-intentioned correction and move past it.

Maybe this is naive but I don’t get why someone being trans or queer or cis or whatever they are would change the conversation around safe sex? If a person can get pregnant but doesn’t want to then they should talk about protection with their partner and vice versa. Plus STDs of course. Right? Sorry if this is very reductionist

Exactly, and trans women are among the most affected groups in terms of HIV infection rates. The reasons behind this are multiple and complicated, but having conversations about pregnancy and sexual health with all teens, trans or not, is pretty important.

YMP, I sent you ilx webmail, I'm sorry if I have been too harsh. I'm just sensitive about things that affect people I love.

Tracer, I would be concerned about escalating body dysphoria if I were a trusted adult talking to a non-binary child about their body being equipped to carry or cause a pregnancy. So I think I would want to be especially conscious of not focusing on only what options I think they personally could use.

Cod: we cool.

Tracer: perhaps it shouldn't matter, but in practice it kinda does matter.

This is purely based on my close attention to trying to be a good parent in what has to be one of the weirdest times to be a young teenager of any sort, let alone a trans teen.

I'm not 100% sure I would've known for sure if I was an ova-producer when I was a young teen, especially if the link with body types is being minimised. (Hell, I'm not even sure if I produce eggs at the moment - it would take a bit of investigation). Just wondering how literal your kid is and that it might not always be safe to assume what they know (it might be fuzzier than you think?).
On the flipside, I guess someone knows if they're potentially a sperm-producer?
My kid is a lot younger but I remember being a teen and the big picture of 'how everything works' wasn't massively clear to me despite the leaflets I was given at school. Obviously it's a hugely different world now but sometimes the more sources of information there are, the less clear things become.

It's a tricky one - good luck.

Safe to say that 13 / 14 / 15 year-olds do not always make great decisions. I certainly didn't.

Sorry, but, as a parent I will have to set some parameters on things like who gets to be in Sky's bedroom with the door closed, who sleeps over, who comes on a beach trip, etc. Just as I would with a cis kid.

So, yeah, the question of which people might be able to make my kid pregnant, vs. Which people probably won't? Yes, that is a pretty salient issue.

... and would have been legit concerns before the Supreme Court decision. But it takes on extra seriousness now.

xxp do you realise you're really fucking transphobic when you categorise people being AFAB or AMAB or their genitals.

― braised cod

ok i'm not speaking for all trans people, just speaking as _a random trans person_, but like. people just don't react well to being called "transphobes". this is one of the hardest things for me when talking to cis people, like people are so afraid of saying the wrong thing that they won't ask questions i'd prefer they'd ask, that they won't make themselves vulnerable.

like you're allowed to fuck up, you're allowed to get shit wrong, i mean you gotta bear the _consequences_ for fucking up but sky gets to decide whether their (idk their pronouns sorry if i got this wrong) parents are being transphobic. we're all different and we're all set off by different things, that's what makes dealing with trans and gender diverse people so difficult sometimes

i've kinda held off on this to see what other folks would say but ok i will weigh in a little bit here

like sky is a teenager and they're going to think you're an out-of-touch dork of a parent because that's how teenagers think of their parents, that's kind of normal, it's _ok_ for you to come across as clueless and "not-with-it" because that's what's _expected_ of you. god, there's nothing i'm more afraid of being than the "cool mom".

mostly i'd go by... how blunt are you comfortable being? how blunt are _they_ comfortable being with _you_? there's one meme that reminds me of your situation, where someone is talking about being talked to by their partner's parent about avoiding pregnancy, and their response was "Ma'am, I am literally fucking your son up the ass, I'm not going to get him pregnant." are you ok knowing that level of detail about your child's sex life? i think that should inform your approach.

i think it's good to talk about these things! teenagers don't actually know everything, so maybe sky rolls their eyes at you and says "I _knowwwww_" and have learned something anyway, thought about something worth thinking about anyway. i mean if you're honest and respectful any shit you get from them, it's not really on you.

be willing to tell them things they already know, things that are obvious. you don't know how much they know or how much they don't. better for you to look clueless and out of touch than for them to be ignorant of something they shouldn't be because you figured they already knew! at the same time, teenagers aren't necessarily going to give meaningful feedback regarding whether or not they _understand_ something you said or not; on some level you kinda just have to trust they get it even if their only response is some cryptic sarcastic comment.

anyway, that's kinda the advice i have, for whatever that's good for. thanks for asking! i really appreciate parents who take the time to try and respect their kids _and_ keep them safe.

oh and i definitely _would_ say talking about consent is really important, there's this systemic and widespread lack of knowledge about what consent is, how it works, how to avoid being taken advantage of, so anything you can do around that would be great. particularly, like... i have a lot of friends who are really familiar with what consent looks like in _theory_ but still think of assault as something that happens to other people. even if you know all the theory, it just hits different when it actually happens to you, and for queer people, you know, it's just a possibility. the same thing with abuse. i mean queer people in general, we all got tons of trauma, and my experience with abuse is that it's not something Bad People do to us but it's a cycle. a lot of times there can be this... you know, level of trust of other queer people, like We Don't Do That, and anybody can be an abuser or an abuse victim. and again, i think of that in terms of not guilt and shame but of _responsibility_. queer people gotta be able to take care of themselves, first and foremost.

<3 kate

For the record, and *not* in response to Kate, I was going to talk about my experiences here but have decided against opening my flank to people who want to tell me what I’m getting wrong and fucking up. Parenting is hard and if you’re a committed parent you need to respond to literally anything you’re dealt, whenever it’s dealt and whether or not you’ve had time to think through your responses or shape your language or consult widely. Just felt like that needs to be acknowledged here.

I have a friend who's kid is going into 9th grade and is a trans boy. They are accepting and using preferred pronouns but remaining cautious and not willing to go along with hormones or surgery yet. The parents talk about NYT articles saying that in the past trans often was identified early and it was commonly trans women, but lately number of trans boys has spiked and one explanation is that when girls are going through their teens there is a certain amount of squeamishness about bodily changes and they cast about for why they are confused by their bodies and being trans is an answer that some hit upon and that they are not Truly Trans. BUT, they are not telling their son this and they are generally being supportive but not to the point of going along with hormones.

I haven't read any of these articles and have little to no experience with real life trans issues. Is there a larger number of trans boys than in the past? My gut reaction is that cis girls/women often have more societal pressure and they are often less aggressive in claiming the space they need and that seems a more likely explanation for why some girls may not have been willing to go through a transition in the past; it simply wasn't an option that they could see or were willing to go through.

Thoughts?

I don't know, but in decades past having "tomboy" as a moniker that isn't negative gave girls an alternative style/identity if they didn't fit in vs. identifying as trans.

I have a friend who's kid is going into 9th grade and is a trans boy. They are accepting and using preferred pronouns but remaining cautious and not willing to go along with hormones or surgery yet. The parents talk about NYT articles saying that in the past trans often was identified early and it was commonly trans women, but lately number of trans boys has spiked and one explanation is that when girls are going through their teens there is a certain amount of squeamishness about bodily changes and they cast about for why they are confused by their bodies and being trans is an answer that some hit upon and that they are not Truly Trans. BUT, they are not telling their son this and they are generally being supportive but not to the point of going along with hormones.

I haven't read any of these articles and have little to no experience with real life trans issues. Is there a larger number of trans boys than in the past? My gut reaction is that cis girls/women often have more societal pressure and they are often less aggressive in claiming the space they need and that seems a more likely explanation for why some girls may not have been willing to go through a transition in the past; it simply wasn't an option that they could see or were willing to go through.

Thoughts?

― Cow_Art

hahahahaha oh _god_ do i have thoughts

i'm gonna boil this down real simple. oversimplify, really. up until very recently, people didn't _differentiate_ gender and genital anatomy, like, _anybody_. "trans" was defined entirely in terms of people who got bottom surgery. transmasc people tend not to get bottom surgery. thus, you know, it's easy to treat "trans people" and "trans women" as being equivalent.

regarding the nyt article thing, yeah, that "not Truly Trans" thing is definitely a Guardian-level bad take. we call that "gatekeeping". cis people spend so much time wanting to differentiate between people who are Really Trans and Not Really Trans and maybe there's not just one way of being Really Trans? maybe like we know more about our gender experiences than we're given credit for?

if the kid wants... like, under 18, it's generally not even hormones, right? it's, like, puberty blockers. i don't know what the puberty blockers are, that ship had _sailed_ by the time i came out, but for god's sake, there's so much bullshit about "irreversible damage" and it's just a bad faith framing. making someone who understands themselves as male go through female puberty because the parents are afraid they're just "confused" is... look, it's not a morally neutral act, like the WPATH 8 draft puts it, denying treatment isn't a morally neutral act. the morally neutral act is let them at least get on puberty blockers until they're 18, and if they have to break state law to do it, fuck state law, texas and florida and the other red states are... ok, look, i have strong emotions about this, right? people i know are dying because of the shit that's being put on them. i'm not saying this to dump on _you_ but the situation for trans kids right now is super fucked up, and it pisses me off that the nyt is legitimating this stupid "irreversible damage" bullshit narrative.

ok, having gotten that out of my system, yeah, there are differences in the sorts of invalidation transmasc and transfem people face. nobody ever tells trans women stuff like "But you can be such a beautiful feminine man, an amazing wonderful man who wears dresses and makeup, why do you have to ruin and disfigure your fantastic masculine body with _hormones_ and abandon the Amazing Brotherhood of Men just because you don't want to wear pants all the time?" And transmascs get a version of that speech _all the fucking time_. a lot of transmascs are out as queer, do identify as queer from a _very young_ age, just aren't permitted because of structural and societal factors to go beyond a certain point, whereas for transfem folks the options were to self-identify as a "fetishist" or to repress, repress, repress. i don't think one set of bullshit societal constraints on identity is "better" or "worse" than the other, i think they're both bullshit in their own ways.

For the record, and *not* in response to Kate, I was going to talk about my experiences here but have decided against opening my flank to people who want to tell me what I’m getting wrong and fucking up. Parenting is hard and if you’re a committed parent you need to respond to literally anything you’re dealt, whenever it’s dealt and whether or not you’ve had time to think through your responses or shape your language or consult widely. Just felt like that needs to be acknowledged here.

― assert (matttkkkk)

thank you for sharing that matt, absolute mood, it's so easy for people to be hyperjudgemental and critical about things that and i'm not, like, saying this to be hyperjudgemental and critical myself, just that me being trans myself, seeing all these people having really strong opinions about things that they don't really have to deal with on a personal or practical level, has i think helped me be a lot more... empathetic and trusting of other people who are dealing with things i'm not. trans people in particular, there's this sort of implicit expectation that we be perfect and right all the time and we're not, we're flawed and make mistakes and fuck up and being held stringently responsible for every bad take one has... at some point making a calculated decision to remain silent rather than risk that sort of judgement becomes really tempting, especially knowing that it's _not ever our responsibility_ to talk about our experiences and share them with others. so total respect for your stance, matt.

Thank you Kate. My gut reaction to this friend's reaction is negative, but this all happened really recently and there have been a lot of other issues with their kid so... there's a lot of layers. They are all sorting out their feelings and researching and I've let my friend know that their son seems much more relaxed and outgoing than he was before he transitioned. But yes, "not really trans" is a big red flag in my eyes.

Thank you Kate, I have learned a LOT from you and I am grateful for your work.
I will contribute one thing - my younger daughter is gay and came out to me in what seemed a surprisingly low key conversation (of course I realise it wasn’t!) about three years ago. I separated from my wife about five years ago and my daughter is comfortably out at my place, even around my new partner, it’s just a given. But she hasn’t come out to my ex wife. I know the golden rule is that it’s never ok under any circumstances to out someone and that’s the way I intend to handle this. But I feel a bit sad that my ex doesn’t know her daughter fully in this aspect. I’m sure she suspects but I guess I just wanted to express it in case someone else had a similar experience.

"Thank you Kate. My gut reaction to this friend's reaction is negative, but this all happened really recently and there have been a lot of other issues with their kid so... there's a lot of layers. They are all sorting out their feelings and researching and I've let my friend know that their son seems much more relaxed and outgoing than he was before he transitioned. But yes, "not really trans" is a big red flag in my eyes.

― Cow_Art, Saturday, June 25, 2022 7:22 PM (thirty-one minutes ago)"

it is really saddening. particularly for transmascs or guys, like, ok, i don't have periods, but from everything i can tell periods _absolutely suck_. if someone's like "hey can you put me on these drugs so that i don't have periods" why would the answer be anything other than "yeah let's get that taken care of right away" instead of trying figure out if the person in question can be _trusted_. in the mean time people go out of their way to make sure cis guys never have to be in the same room as a sanitary napkin.

but at the same time yeah boundaries, you're not this guy's parent and it's your friend, not you, who has the say over their son's life, and the amount of influence you have there is pretty limited. if your friend asks certainly you can give your opinion but yeah there are a lot of kids going through really difficult situations and it's really hard to see that and not be in a position to help.

"I will contribute one thing - my younger daughter is gay and came out to me in what seemed a surprisingly low key conversation (of course I realise it wasn’t!) about three years ago. I separated from my wife about five years ago and my daughter is comfortably out at my place, even around my new partner, it’s just a given. But she hasn’t come out to my ex wife. I know the golden rule is that it’s never ok under any circumstances to out someone and that’s the way I intend to handle this. But I feel a bit sad that my ex doesn’t know her daughter fully in this aspect. I’m sure she suspects but I guess I just wanted to express it in case someone else had a similar experience.

― assert (matttkkkk)"

just wanna say that you're absolutely doing the right thing here. i definitely empathize with your feelings - it's really hard to know that your ex doesn't have the chance to know this really important part of your daughter's life. maybe it turns out she is making a mistake in not trusting her mom with that information! right or wrong, though, that decision is ultimately in her hands to make, and it's good that you're leaving that decision up to her.

coming out to someone is... it's a big risk, and it's a profound statement of _trust_. the more power and influence someone has over my life, the harder it is for me to come out to them. i don't know why your daughter doesn't trust your ex with that information, but i'm glad she trusts _you_, and from what you say, she was absolutely right to trust you with with that part of her.

a lot of the people i come out to... you know, it is, people can _mean well_ and still say or do things that _hurt_. i came out to my mom and she, without asking me first, sent a big message out to everybody in our extended family that was super awkward and that i would be terribly embarrassed about it if i hadn't already literally come out to everybody in the world before her. i wasn't mad at her for doing it, i didn't even bother telling her that i wished she'd at least asked me first - that's kind of what i _expected_, that's _why_ i came out to everybody in the world before her.

it's hard to explain sometimes... like people get hung up on "supportive" people and "transphobes" and that's just not what my relationships boil down to for me, it's not a one-factor thing. my mom's totally supportive of me being trans and treats me with as much respect and consideration post-transition as she did pre-transition, which is to say, _not very much_. that's kind of a hard thing to talk about with people sometimes, that "support" isn't just about "i'm ok with you being trans" or "i will use your preferred name and pronouns". i've come out to people and gotten those things from people and still not really been supported by those people, and conversely i've come out to people and they've struggled with my pronouns and made mistakes and been like "are you sure you really want to do this" and those people were still supportive of me, i don't define them by their mistakes.

ok i'm not speaking for all trans people, just speaking as _a random trans person_, but like. people just don't react well to being called "transphobes". this is one of the hardest things for me when talking to cis people, like people are so afraid of saying the wrong thing that they won't ask questions i'd prefer they'd ask, that they won't make themselves vulnerable.

I kept thinking about this. I like when people yelled at me if I said things that are or could be thought as transphobic. Because it's not intentional and how else would I learn?

Or am I living in a queer bubble where it's ok to call out when people say phobic things? Because we know we all mean well and make mistakes.

as Kate has just said though, there's a difference between piling in hard on people who are actually knowingly phobic or at best disingenuous, and gently suggesting the reconsideration of language that is not acceptable in many queer circles, to people who are absolutely trying their best

but it looks like you and YMP have sorted it out amicably :)

my gf's sister is trans. her parents are from rural Ireland and have never known anyone trans before. they slip up a lot, but they do try, that's as much as she wants

mind you there have got to be fundamental differences between coming out to parents in your 30s (in her case) vs in your teens (in most of the above cases), so I fully sympathise with any of the kids who feel crushed by well-meaning mistakes

The important thing is: Do they accept that they made a mistake, or do they double down on the mistake? That's the important thing.

:(

if the kid wants... like, under 18, it's generally not even hormones, right? it's, like, puberty blockers.

puberty blockers are generally used for tweens - basically the ages where some (but not necessarily all) kids are starting to hit puberty but generally still generally look like kids, like 11-13 basically. if a kid is on puberty blockers, the conversation about hormones starts at around 13-14, because the idea is to get them to start to look and sound more masculine/feminine at the same time as their cis peers. 18 would be too late for puberty blockers because they've gone through puberty at that point.

oh you said under 18. but basically the blockers just hit pause on puberty, so ideally you start them before puberty really hits.

imago, your gf has amazing parents.

I kept thinking about this. I like when people yelled at me if I said things that are or could be thought as transphobic. Because it's not intentional and how else would I learn?

Or am I living in a queer bubble where it's ok to call out when people say phobic things? Because we know we all mean well and make mistakes.

― braised cod

OK, this is a good question, and it's hard one to answer. The thing is I personally have gotten into shit here on ILX for making a similar assumption. I don't know if the person in question is still on ILX - I killfiled them because I kept saying things that were in retrospect pretty ignorant and not understanding when they tried to correct me. Not a judgement of them, I just needed to kind of walk away and learn some shit instead of trying to talk through everything.

The thing is, this person _did_ identify themselves according to their AGAB (assigned gender at birth), and you know, me personally, I don't want to be defined in terms of my AGAB necessarily but not everybody is like me.

One of the things I struggled with most, in terms of my background, is I had this feeling that... I had not just the right, but the _responsibility_ to, like, control the terms of the discourse. To say what was or wasn't acceptable. That my status as a white (allegedly) cisgender man made me in some sense a Default Human Being and that everyone else was basically like me, more or less.

To be totally honest I still kind of do that sometimes. I was at local (USA) Pride yesterday and somebody was there wearing a Stevie Nicks T-shirt that had an offensive term for the Romani people on it and I said, not to this person, to the friends I was with, but within earshot of the person in question, "DAS RACIST". I'm not of Romani ancestry and I don't know anybody who is. The other person, who was just sort of standing around doing their thing, ignored me, which was the right thing to do. Why am I going to get into an argument with a stranger over whether their Stevie Nicks T-shirt is offensive against an ethnic group who weren't even around to see it? It's kind of the anti-definition of a "teachable moment", all that was gonna happen was that we were gonna argue and piss each other off. You know maybe I get to be a bit of virtue signaling or something, right? I just don't think it's an effective way of dismantling systems of anti-Romani prejudice within the United States of America.

What I'm trying to learn is that not everything is something I can speak with authority on, not everything is within my legitimate scope of concern, and that if something is none of my business the best way to handle it is just to keep my opinions to myself, that what I might personally think about any given subject isn't all that relevant. And that applies to you as well as to anybody else, like, you asked me a question and I'm answering it to the best of my ability but I _don't_ know everything, I _don't_ have all the answers. If it affects me personally, then sure, I'll speak from my own lived experience. If I think it might be offensive to someone I know, I don't find it to be necessary or appropriate to advocate for them. I trust them to be able to advocate for themselves.

This is a sensitive situation for me because as a trans person, a lot of the people who have hurt me the most were people who thought they were helping me, thought they were advocating for my best interests, but since they were talking about something they didn't really have any personal lived experience with, they got things wrong, and they wound up sort of codifying into dogma these misunderstandings of who I was. It's not like an absolute rule, there's space for nuance there, but overall it's very important to me to give people space for self-determination and, especially, for self-advocacy, especially because when I talk from a position of privilege about a marginalized group's experience, the tendency people have is to listen to _me_ over listening to what members of that marginalized group are saying themselves. I have to make space for people who aren't like me to speak for themselves and trust that they can do so better than I can.

That was kind of a long explanation, does that make sense?

my gf's sister is trans. her parents are from rural Ireland and have never known anyone trans before. they slip up a lot, but they do try, that's as much as she wants

― imago

the only thing i know about trans people in ireland is the visual novel "if found". you ever play that one? i liked it a lot.

never but ty for the tip!

I have a friend who's kid is going into 9th grade and is a trans boy. They are accepting and using preferred pronouns but remaining cautious and not willing to go along with hormones or surgery yet. The parents talk about NYT articles saying that in the past trans often was identified early and it was commonly trans women, but lately number of trans boys has spiked and one explanation is that when girls are going through their teens there is a certain amount of squeamishness about bodily changes and they cast about for why they are confused by their bodies and being trans is an answer that some hit upon and that they are not Truly Trans. BUT, they are not telling their son this and they are generally being supportive but not to the point of going along with hormones.

I haven't read any of these articles and have little to no experience with real life trans issues. Is there a larger number of trans boys than in the past? My gut reaction is that cis girls/women often have more societal pressure and they are often less aggressive in claiming the space they need and that seems a more likely explanation for why some girls may not have been willing to go through a transition in the past; it simply wasn't an option that they could see or were willing to go through.

there are more out trans children than before but that's almost entirely a factor of trans people being more willing to come out as children due to a significant increase in public acceptance (though that's rapidly backsliding) and awareness and visibility of trans people (especially of trans men, who were much more invisible than trans women in the public eye until relatively recently), meaning that trans people are more likely to figure things out sooner, be aware that transitioning is an option, and have the capability to pursue it. there was also very very little access to health care or even support for trans teens until the last decade or so - only the most supportive parents being well-off enough & living in the right areas could get their trans kids healthcare, and that's still not far off from being the case, it's just broader than before.

the belief that only "truly trans" people came out at a very young age is blatantly incorrect - there are plenty of trans people who didn't figure things out at a very young age and this is nothing new, though until the last decade it certainly helped access to treatment if one fit (or could appear to fit) the clinicians' very particular ideas of what a 'real' trans person's life narrative was like is (and this is still often the case just less than before) which usually included "always knew from an early age". the narrative that trans people who come out as teens are simply confused and not 'truly' trans is part of a wider reactionary backlash - there has been a lot of panic specifically about the idea that trans teens coming out is 'sudden' (because the parents didn't see it coming) and they're just confused, having a phase, etc. when in actuality it usually isn't sudden at all for the teen and they've spent a lot of time thinking about things. i know i dwelled on things for years as a teen before coming out then.

as far as 'why are there more trans boys now' goes - there aren't great stats on this in general, but historically the rates of trans children actually getting medical support were incredibly low, and for trans boys it was much lower in trans girls, while in adults in recent decades there isn't much of a discrepancy between trans men/trans women as best we know. this historical discrepancy in children appears to be largely due to femininity in boys being more pathologised than masculinity in girls (not that both aren't heavily policed) with feminine boys being a much more active focus for conversion therapists, so even as more supportive treatment became prioritised, the medical field and also wider culture were much more aware of trans women than trans men, especially as children. the increase in visibility for trans men, as part of the wider increase in trans visibility is also a likely factor - trans men were less likely to realise transitioning was even an option for them as children if they didn't even know that trans men existed. so, any increase from the very low baseline rates of trans children is going to look more dramatic for trans boys than trans girls, due to the lower base rates (though it still looks dramatic for trans girls too and there's still media panicking about it). i don't really agree with your speculation that the lower historical rate of trans boys coming out as children being due to learned gender roles and related social pressure though, and i tend to be wary of any explanation relying on socialised gender roles when trans children are not really known for their fondness for or adherence to gender roles and there is also an awful lot of societal pressure to stop any child being trans (certainly less now, but again that's backsliding rapidly). "it simply wasn't an option that they could see" does appear to be part of it though yeah (and for trans children more broadly, but especially trans boys).

the nyt has a recent history of publishing garbage on trans issues, often with reactionaries from outright pro-conversion therapy groups being framed as having legitimate concerns in order to do a ~reasonable~ 'both sides' article which ends up deliberately laundering the anti-trans hate groups while disregarding the trans people interviewed. it's fairly common more broadly in the us liberal media over the last few years.

here's a bunch of criticisms of the most recent one of those pieces

Another atrocious exercise in concern-trolling. There is no evidence that large numbers of young people are transitioning without assessment. None.
This article consistently casts reactionary backlash as legitimate debate about transition care. https://t.co/JOZi2MpBUA

— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) June 15, 2022

Fascinating how nearly every article on this issue centers the experiences of parents over actual trans kids. In this case, at least one of the sources is a pretty straightforward transphobe. https://t.co/cYokESn9nW pic.twitter.com/bUj41KDn5b

— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) June 15, 2022

Ho boy.

I'm going to read the Emily Bazelon trans kids article several times today, but just a note that multiple orgs and people quoted in this article don't just want to "be better" about trans-affirming care for kids.

They want to END it.

Thread to slowly emerge today. pic.twitter.com/WIy3gD3po1

— Heron Greenesmith, Esq. (@herong) June 15, 2022

rushomancy, would you have commented on the offensive shirt if one of your friends was wearing that? That was the thing I was thinking about, that we're just trying to navigate the best we can to be respectful of everyone and correct each other when we think they're being offensive or wrong.

the belief that only "truly trans" people came out at a very young age is blatantly incorrect - there are plenty of trans people who didn't figure things out at a very young age and this is nothing new

― ufo

thanks for that insight ufo! lotta stuff i didn't know in there. regarding this bit - just the other day a friend shared a 2016 article by S.J. Langer, "Trans Bodies and the Failure of Mirrors", which postulated that "early and late awareness" regarding gender incongruence might be a better model than "early and late onset". this tracks really well with my experience. women were very confusing to me, particularly since the woman i knew best, my mom, was not, uh, necessarily a traditionally feminine woman, and this, in addition to the blatantly false narratives which were pushed upon me about gender, significantly delayed my awareness of my gender incongruence.

rushomancy, would you have commented on the offensive shirt if one of your friends was wearing that? That was the thing I was thinking about, that we're just trying to navigate the best we can to be respectful of everyone and correct each other when we think they're being offensive or wrong.

― braised cod

it would depend on the context, frankly. if it was a situation like the one on sunday where i'm going to pride and i'm meeting a friend and they're wearing that t-shirt, honestly i'd be horrified, i'd be like "oh shit you need to change that shirt, i'm not gonna hang out with you if you're gonna wear that shirt, that's really offensive" and if they asked why i'd explain it to them

if it's one of my friends sharing the link to the stevie nicks song on facebook (assume for the sake of argument that i'm on facebook) and it shows up on my timeline, i'm not gonna say shit. i mean what the fuck, this is a popular song, this is a great song, am i gonna go on a one-woman crusade to make sure that nobody ever listens to this song again? like if it happens, it happens, dire straits' "money for nothing" has basically been erased from history and i'm fine with that, that's _appropriate_, and the stevie nicks song in question hasn't yet, and if somebody asks me "is that song offensive?" i'll say yes, but if nobody asks me i'll keep my mouth shut.

if somebody posts a link to the video in the #music channel of the trans discord i admin, i'll ask them to edit the link and spoiler it and add cw: anti-romani slur at the beginning, that's a space that i'm responsible for and if people are sharing content like that i want it to be put in the proper and appropriate context

on the other hand if someone posts a link to the video in the personal discord where it's me and a couple of queer fans from the old pink floyd newsgroup, i'm not gonna say shit because there's like five of us and we all know it's an offensive word, i wouldn't say it myself but there are a lot of songs that use words i wouldn't say myself (waves at Kendrick Lamar).

and i mean there's kind of a meta thing here where like you as a friend are trying to hold someone you care about responsible for using language you think is offensive and me here on the other hand, i like you, i respect you, and i'm using a lot of words to say "hey yeah i get where you're coming from but speaking as a trans person again, just _a_ trans person, not like _all trans people_, i think in this particular situation you're maybe being a little harsh".

I don't know if it's a regional difference but a lot of groups over here identify as being part of the "Gypsy, Roma and Traveller" communities (abbreviated to GRT), so I wouldn't be sure about identifying it as purely a slur? I'm pretty sus about most of the usages in things like that Stevie Nicks song where it implies some dodgy stereotyping, and I'd avoid using it myself, but it'd make me pause before telling someone off.

There are definitely contexts where you *know* someone is intending it as a slur, though, so I guess ultimately I'm just agreeing with rushomancy and saying different situations do call for different approaches.

xp

Oh god, I've totally erased Money for Nothing from my memory that I didn't even remember the slur.

I agree with you and when dealing with problematic art it's key to acknowledge how it's problematic. and wrt reading people wrong I've already made a fool of myself here this weekend.

Hi, I don't have kids, although some of our close friends have trans teens who my partner & I are also close with, so some of these discussion points have come up. And props to all the supportive parents in this thread.

This is possibly not a useful thing to talk about, but some of the posts above made me think about it. I clearly remember a period as a boy telling my parents that I wished I was a girl, although I think this was mostly about me being a sensitive only child who was unprepared to deal with gender roles and (toxic) masculinity. I'm not trans or questioning. But I do wonder how everything would have played out in today's world, if there were commonly accepted ideas and terminology around that. I'm sure I would have at least had some different conversations and thoughts around it.

I'm certainly not suggesting anyone should do anything other than listen to & support their trans kids, and I don't want to play into any reactionary ideology. But sure it will also become more common for of cis kids to go through a 'trans'/questioning phase as they figure out their identity? And there should be space for that too in a way that doesn't invalidate trans people's experience.

"I don't know if it's a regional difference but a lot of groups over here identify as being part of the "Gypsy, Roma and Traveller" communities (abbreviated to GRT), so I wouldn't be sure about identifying it as purely a slur? I'm pretty sus about most of the usages in things like that Stevie Nicks song where it implies some dodgy stereotyping, and I'd avoid using it myself, but it'd make me pause before telling someone off.

There are definitely contexts where you *know* someone is intending it as a slur, though, so I guess ultimately I'm just agreeing with rushomancy and saying different situations do call for different approaches.

― emil.y"

there definitely is a regional difference in that, in my limited experience at least, there really is just total invisibility for romani people under any description in the united states. like i think a lot of people here would be genuinely surprised to know that the stevie nicks song traded in on kind of offensive ethnic stereotypes of a marginalized subaltern group. if i had to compare, like... how much direct experience do y'all have with native americans in the uk? i mean you probably know more about native american issues anyway because everybody talks about america as if it was the only country in the fucking world, but still.

anyway, yeah, this is the larger point i was trying to make, when people who don't have certain kinds of lived experience start talking about topics or situations that seem to us, based on what we know, to be offensive to people who've had those lived experiences, it's _really easy_ to get shit wrong, even if we have good intentions about it. that's the sort of thing i try to be careful about generally but sometimes i'm not and a whole argument erupts across a series of message board threads, where, i'm gonna try to choose my words carefully, _to my knowledge none of the people involve have let the other people involved know that they are of romani heritage_. and if anyone here _is_ of romani heritage reading this, i'm so, so sorry, i don't have your lived experience but i _have_ had the experience watching of a bunch of cis people arguing over the political football of "trans rights". it feels kinda shitty to be tokenized in that way.

"Oh god, I've totally erased Money for Nothing from my memory that I didn't even remember the slur."

isn't it great? i mean not just that i hate dire straits, but isn't it so fucking great that we collectively as a society decided without some huge fucking public debate or outrage about cancel culture or even consciously _realizing_ it was going on to go from "dire straits, oh yeah, that's the band that did 'money for nothing'" to "dire straits, oh yeah, that's the band that did 'sultans of swing'"? like that never fucking happens, does it? and i guess now i'm breaking kayfabe and a bunch of people will pop out of the woodwork to explain to me in detail that well, actually, knopfler wasn't _retweeting_ homophobia, he was _quote tweeting_ homophobia, and if i really "loved music" i would have known that, but at this point? at this point it would be a refreshing change from arguing about stevie nicks, let's find some different '80s pop music to argue about.

"I agree with you and when dealing with problematic art it's key to acknowledge how it's problematic. and wrt reading people wrong I've already made a fool of myself here this weekend.

― braised cod"

i do wanna actually thank you for being like willing to, like you say, 'make a fool' of yourself, i think that... particularly for queer people, we're held to this standard where we're _not_ allowed to fuck up, _not_ allowed to make mistakes, we have to always be right, and i can't do that. i fuck up all the time, i make a fool of myself all the fucking time, and if it's not ok for me to ever be wrong i'm never going to learn anything. if someone comes in, engages in good faith, listens, to me that's how i _like_ shit to go down, that's how i try to behave at least.

Hi, I don't have kids, although some of our close friends have trans teens who my partner & I are also close with, so some of these discussion points have come up. And props to all the supportive parents in this thread.

This is possibly not a useful thing to talk about, but some of the posts above made me think about it. I clearly remember a period as a boy telling my parents that I wished I was a girl, although I think this was mostly about me being a sensitive only child who was unprepared to deal with gender roles and (toxic) masculinity. I'm not trans or questioning. But I do wonder how everything would have played out in today's world, if there were commonly accepted ideas and terminology around that. I'm sure I would have at least had some different conversations and thoughts around it.

I'm certainly not suggesting anyone should do anything other than listen to & support their trans kids, and I don't want to play into any reactionary ideology. But sure it will also become more common for of cis kids to go through a 'trans'/questioning phase as they figure out their identity? And there should be space for that too in a way that doesn't invalidate trans people's experience.

― change display name (Jordan)

do you think it would be... a bad thing if you had some different conversations or thoughts about it? like, i genuinely, i know you're treading carefully and i am too because i don't know where this is going.

but let's play this out. ok, you tell your parents you wished you were a girl, and there's a number of possible outcomes, and i don't genuinely see how any of them are bad or hurtful to me as a trans person. like, there's the outcome where you say "i wish i was a girl" and your parents listen and are supportive and talk to you about trans people and encourage you to use the name and pronouns you feel most comfortable with, to express yourself how you feel most comfortable, and people accept you for who you are, and you do that for a little while and then you change your mind, right? you say "actually, i've changed my mind, i'm not a girl at all, i'm a boy", and again, same thing. your parents are supportive and helpful and, you know, i don't speak for the trans community but i don't know _any_ trans person who would be offended at someone questioning whether they're trans and having the answer turn out to be "no". like that's awesome, that's awesome that you were able to genuinely consider that possibility, and not only that, having done that, you're more secure in your own gender, more _connected_ to your gender. it means something to you that maybe it doesn't to someone who never questioned their gender identity, just went along assuming that they were a man because of certain anatomical features they had and don't find any particular meaning in their gender identity, there's this great old piece called "the null hypotheCis" talking about this entire idea.

now, if you go through that experience and decide that actually not only are you a boy but that everybody else who's AMAB and says they want to be a girl doesn't know what they're talking about, why, you thought that and you know better, why don't they all learn from your experience instead of being seduced by the Radical Transgender Agenda, if that's what you take away from that, well, then, you're an asshole. but i don't think you're an asshole, and i sincerely doubt that this would be your takeaway from the experience.

the whole framing of what gets called "detransition" (i kind of like the phrase "retransition" personally because we _don't_ go back, we _don't_ revert to some previous state) is that it's looking at the wrong thing. look, it's a really small minority of people who do choose to identifying as trans and then choosing to no longer identify as trans, particularly once you decide to exclude people who stop identifying that way because of external prejudice, but even thing, what's important is not "ok, did you choose to stop identifying as trans", but "Do you _regret_ identifying as trans?"

And _vanishingly_ few people, even among people who detransition, even among people who detransition for reasons other than the bigotry and discrimination trans people face, _vanishingly_ few of those people regret it. You want to know how many of those people there are? Count the number of detransitioners who have their own ministries offering reparative therapy, because trust me those people are in HIGH FUCKING DEMAND, they are being actively recruited and _well_ funded as part of an organized campaign by anti-transgender bigots to erase and invalidate all of us, and those people _will_ get on the BBC, _will_ get in the Guardian, _will_ get in the New York Times, in the pages of every fucking media outlet desperate to show "both sides" because they're Teaching the Controversy. They're every bit as in demand as scientists who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change are.

Regrets are just part of life. Even Sinatra had some, even if he chose not to talk about them. Every surgery, no matter how innocuous, no matter how low the risk, some number of people will have regrets, and those regrets are measurable. I'm too lazy to look up the statistics, if I'm wrong, please tell me that, but my understanding is that you measure the regret rate among trans people? Trans-affirming treatment is a fucking _medical miracle_. If you'd worn dresses as a kid for a month as a kid and then decided it wasn't for you, would you genuinely fucking regret that? Why?

Because the other thing that can happen to a kid like that is that it _is_ someone like me. That at some point in my life I say "I don't want to dress like the boys! I want to dress like the girls!" And my parents, and my school, and my support system, say, "OK, what do you want us to call you?", and I say "Kate!" and I do that and by doing this - because there's no other way for me to realize this but by doing it - by doing this I find out that wow, actually, anatomy be damned, I _am_ a girl, that this "girl" thing _works_ for me. All of the denial, the repression, the guilt, the shame, it _never happens_, it never fucking happens. I don't wind up showing up on a Discord server someday at the age of 43 worrying, the way every single one of us worries, that I might not _really_ be trans, that my fake ass would be an insult to all the _real_ trans people out there, because nobody is expecting me to be sure about something before doing it when the only way I can be sure about it _is by actually doing it_. You know how many times I've dreamed about that world? You know how long I've had to mourn that loss, mourn those 25 fucking years of my life I will never have, mourn the girlhood, young womanhood, I will never have?

There already is space for exploring gender identities in ways that don't invalidate transness, an increasing amount of space. That's _why_ so many kids nowadays are queer, trans, gender non-conforming, not because of "radical gender ideology" or "transtrenders" or whatever the fuck bigoted bullshit the fucking Guardian and New York Times are platforming this week, but because queer kids are not being erased and bullied into nonexistence the way I was.

Being trans is not a fad. Percentage-wise, there are _much much fewer_ 45-year-olds identifying as trans than there are 15-year-olds, that's true, and cisgender 45-year-olds, the same ones who bullied me when I was a kid, the same ones who swallowed and perpetuated the same bullshit I did about my gender identity being a "fetish", well, they look at that data and interpret it one way, and my lived experience tells me that those people are _wrong_.

Jordan, you're not trans or questioning. I actively affirm you in that. I respect, in absolute terms, your right to self-determination. Wanting to be a girl when you were a little boy doesn't make you trans. You know who you are, know yourself, better than I or anybody else can possibly know you.

When I was young I didn't get to make a fair, free, and uncoerced decision about my gender identity. When I was young I was told by other people who I was based on my anatomy, based on what _they_ wanted me to be, based on the idea that these white cis male experts knew more about me than I could know about myself. Nobody my age, nobody the age of _anybody on this board_, got to make a fair, free, and uncoerced decision about their gender identity. We were all told who we were based on our anatomy. And if our anatomy was ambiguous, if we were intersex, well, it was _routine_ and _normal_ for surgeons to operate on us to make our anatomy _unambiguous_, and to never tell us, never tell our _parents_.

I think that it is worthwhile for _everybody who is alive today_ to challenge the lies we were taught. I think that we all have the right to make decisions based on _evidence_, rather than the farrago of lies and assumptions that was the standard when ... I'll say everybody here who is under 30... was young.

There is a site, and if you have trans kids you should see this site. This is a site that a lot of us, when we start questioning, we look at it, we look at what it says, and we say "Oh, shit."

https://genderdysphoria.fyi/

You want to support your trans kids? Start there. Everything you were taught was wrong.

hi! i'm apparently going hard today

oh wow i’ve never seen that website before but it’s excellent

i skipped right to the estrogenic second puberty section and learned a lot of things i’ve been wondering about but have been scared to investigate (i’m taking my coming out as a woman very slowly just bc that’s my preferred gender revelation pace, i learn something about myself and think “huh that’s interesting” for at least a year before doing anything about it)

when i’m back in the states next week i’m gonna work toward starting hrt. i know this is the wrong thread for this lol

no worries, #onethread, really hype to hear about you looking to start hrt!

one of the things i've been really leaning into lately is the importance of community for trans people, i legit feel like my transition has gone _really_ fucking well and a lot of that has been making positive community connections with other trans folks. one of the reasons i ride so hard on discord is because discord frankly _has_ been so fucking good to me, there were a couple years there starting early in transition where i literally couldn't leave the house or talk to anybody else so even though my preference was for in-person community over online community, i wound up relying a lot on online community and it was _way better_ for me than I imagined. these days i'm making a lot more in-person connections which is something that has a lot of really strong advantages, but i increasingly feel that "online" doesn't automatically equal "shitty"

this is again, ah, shit, lemme dig up the article, julia serano wrote a real nice piece about the history of the "social contagion" model of queerness and transness and the false assumptions underlying it a little bit ago:

https://www.salon.com/2022/06/17/its-time-to-rethink-born-this-way-a-phrase-thats-been-key-to-lgbtq-acceptance/

i feel like the piece stops a little short as in it doesn't really offer an alternative to "born this way" so i wrote a little response:

https://www.alanauch.org/wtob/2022/06/21/beyond-born-this-way/

i think at least the first article is really important reading for any parent who's worried about, like, social pressures in regards to their kid coming out as trans

anyway, flamenco drop, if you have any questions about anything at all or just wanna talk, hmu, i promise to not have any authoritative answers and i _super super_ promise not to tell you how brave you are lol

also wanna affirm, everybody goes at the pace that's right for them, there's no wrong way to do it. a friend and i came out at about the same time and she's about to hopefully start hrt next months and i just had the one year anniversary of my bottom surgery sooooo, haha