Don’t Say You’re Sorry My Kid Is Trans
Because I’m not
Don’t tell me you’re sorry when you find out my kid is trans.
“Sorry” is something you say when someone has died. My child isn’t dead, he’s right here — still the same bright, bold, beautiful person he’s always been. Even more so, in fact: more confident, more self-assured, more comfortable in his skin.
What you mean is you’re sorry for me, which implies that you pity me for some perceived misfortune. So tell me, how is having a transgender child unfortunate? As we’ve already established, my child isn’t dead. I don’t seem to have lost anything, except for illusions. I have lost the fantasy of who my child was, the distorted lens I perceived him through. I have lost the gendered roles I imagined he’d play, the imaginary future I had in mind. I’ve also lost the false image I had of myself as a mother, the identity I built around his gender and my own.
Here’s something else I’ve lost: the relative anonymity of being in a traditional heteronormative family with a mom, a dad, two cis kids and a cat. It was a safe mask, this Norman Rockwell portrait — nothing to see here, nothing to criticize. So I may have lost some respect in my community, and maybe some people won’t want to be our friends anymore, won’t invite my kid to birthday parties or include us in movie nights and barbecues. Maybe one of those people is you. But, in truth, I don’t want someone as a friend if all they could love was the façade.
Research suggests that children who assert a gender-diverse identity know their gender as clearly and consistently as their developmentally matched peers and benefit from the same level of support, love and social acceptance.
Don’t amend your “I’m sorry” with “It must be hard.”
Yes, it’s hard, but only because of people like you who think that having a trans child is a tragedy. Accepting my kid was the easiest thing in the world. Anyone can do it, even you! It goes something like this: your child tells you, “I’m not a boy/girl,” and you look at them and say, “Cool.”
Because, you see, I know my child’s feelings are real. I love him for the person he is, and when he told me, I realized gender never mattered to me anyway. I didn’t want to find out his gender during the prenatal ultrasound, and when the delivery room doctor placed him on my chest, all I cared about was the fact that he was healthy and alive and here with me. So when he told me he wasn’t a girl, my heart filled with pride that he trusted me enough to tell me. And I said, “Okay, what should I call you, then?”
What’s hard is people making me doubt my instincts. What’s hard is hearing the opinion that my child is too young to know who he is, even though developmental experts have long known that gender identity develops by the age of four. What’s hard is politicians saying that I’m abusive for affirming his gender. What’s hard is legislation that criminalizes his transition. What’s hard is being told, “No, we can’t do that because [insert legal roadblock here.]”
What’s hard is hearing people refer to trans folks as delusional, mentally ill, sexual deviants, or pedophiles. What’s hard is the assumption that I should be shocked and devastated to have a child like him. What’s hard is questioning my own heart because of what other people think.
We’re tracking 638 bills in 2024, more than any other year on record. That makes this the fifth consecutive record-breaking year for total number of anti-trans bills considered in the U.S.
Here’s a shocker for you: having a transgender kid has changed my life for the better.
I am braver for watching my child be brave. I am stronger for seeing my child challenge the status quo. I’m learning to use my voice as I hear my child speak up for himself. I live more authentically as I watch my child walk through the world as his authentic self, a world that largely doubts and sometimes reviles him.
I am truer to myself, in no small part because having a trans kid required that I confront my own gender. As a cisgender person, I swallowed what I was fed: a boy is this, a girl is that, and that’s just how it is. It’s no different from being taught that a tree is green, watching green leaves emerge from winter gray year after year, seeing classmates swirl green loops with fat crayons atop brown trunks.
In truth, “green” is just a mental concept, an interplay between the visual signals picked up by our eyes and the meaning assigned by experience, language, and culture. Some peoples’ eyes have fewer color-detecting cells; some species have more, different kinds, or none at all. Some languages don’t distinguish between shades of green and blue. Really, there’s no way to know whether the green I see is the same as the green you see. And forget about Japanese maples, they just won’t follow the rules.
Here’s what I learned by having a trans kid: I wasn’t born a girl. I was made. My body may have a certain reproductive capacity, but my behavior was shaped by my specific culture’s concepts of what “male” and “female” means and does. Once you see this, you can’t unsee it. You’ve crossed a threshold.
Then, perhaps, you realize that the vague discomfort you’ve felt all your life, that sense that you weren’t the “right” kind of woman or man, was because you’d accepted a single version of reality as the only version. And it wasn’t your own.
My relationship with my partner has improved, too. Having a trans kid means we’ve had to confront our roles as parents, married folks, and social beings. We’ve reckoned with internal biases toward trans people and toward one another. We’ve had to be more honest with each other and as a result, have become more vulnerable. My husband has grown and expanded in ways I didn’t think possible, and this has brought me closer to him, and him to me.
Would that have happened anyway? It’s possible. But having a perspective-changing, norm-defying kid to raise doesn’t hurt.
So don’t tell me you’re sorry my kid is trans.
I won’t preface that with “please” because I’m done begging for the dignity, kindness, and compassion we all deserve. I simply expect it — for me, for my child, and for every other trans kid and family like ours.
Instead of “I’m sorry,” you can say, “Congratulations.” Say, “It’s wonderful your child felt safe coming out to you.” Say, “It’s great your child can be themself around you.” Say, “It’s awesome that they know who they are. Aren’t you glad they can access gender affirming care in your state?” Say, “Your kid is so cool. What a great time to be alive!”
Variations on this theme may be submitted for consideration. If you still find yourself plagued by pity, or if you come up with more ways to insinuate that I should be disappointed, kindly save it for somebody else.
Like someone whose puppy died.
