At the Broken Places

by Mary Collins

  As one parent told me, to be asked to just go along with such a radical change is to “strip a person of their humanity.”

  The fundamental structure of the current support system for parents of trans children makes it extremely difficult to find parents who, for example, have tossed their kids out of the house. As I learned from interviews with parents, counselors, and individuals who work for nonprofits such as PFLAG, the mothers and fathers who feel the most alienated by the entire experience of having a trans child, and who probably need the most assistance, are the last to seek it out. They hunker down. They close out everyone, including their child.

  I heard of one angry mother, who, rather than change her point of view about her child’s decision to transition, accepted being ostracized by her entire extended family. I wanted to hear her story. I was lightly mocked by her family members for wanting to talk to her, as though by asking I was taking her side, and they found that offensive. I countered: But at some point she loved this child. Can’t we find a way back for her, for the child?

  I communicated via e-mail with someone still in contact with the woman but had no luck reaching her. All trust was gone. All hope was gone.

  So, I do not have the story of a parent who chose to cut all ties with his or her child and kicked that child out of the house, thus leaving the child homeless, even though for at least 40 percent of families with transgender children, that is the story.

  What I do have is an interview with a successful group facilitator whom many families credited with saving their children’s lives, their marriages, and their home life. Libby McKnight offers a model for what can happen in group work for even the most conflicted parent.

  Donald and I hope that our candid—often even pained—exchanges as parent and trans son will facilitate conversations that will draw a wider range of people to the table. For all those parents who feel they have lost so much, we hope this story exchange makes you feel a little less isolated and more motivated to seek help.

  SOUTHERN CATHOLIC FAMILY SEEKS MIDDLE GROUND

  The father says he and his wife raised a “traditional family,” with a dad who went off to work, a stay-at-home mom, and four children. They lived in the South, were active in their church, and placed their daughter in an all-girls’ Catholic high school.

  THE DAD

  Leslie Becomes Larry

  Leslie announced she was gay when she was twenty-two and living on her own after graduating college and taking a job. Around that time she was dressing, well, I guess you’d say pretty dour. Almost like a Chinese-worker-from-the-collective-farms kind of thing. There was definitely something different about her, but we weren’t sure what.

  Well, I’m a pretty religious guy. When Leslie disclosed that she was gay, I shared that God made us the way He did and you remain a child of God regardless of your orientation. The gay lifestyle is in contrast to how we live our lives, but it’s in God’s hands. It was not welcomed news, but we were prepared to learn more about what it meant.

  The name and pronoun did not change during that first year.

  When Leslie was twenty-three she sent us an extended e-mail announcing, “I am trans.” Perhaps she felt it would be easier to communicate something with that much depth [by writing], that it was easier to get it across.

  Now, that was a major change. My wife and I just didn’t see it. I just didn’t understand it. No doctor, counselor, teacher, family member, or coach ever suggested that there was something we were not seeing in Leslie. Then “Larry” started taking hormones. He talked about wanting to be male. We were concerned whether he’d do surgery, and we didn’t want him to rush into anything. Leslie/Larry has a lot of food allergies and issues, so we said, “Your body is stressed out. The hormones will add additional stress.”

  But then we found out she had already started hormones. Larry would share things with us after the thing had gone on for a while. Our counsel was not received.

  In the e-mail Larry said, “You repressed me when my orientation began to emerge earlier.” I felt that was a rationalization. The thought that there was a perception that we would not love Leslie enough that we’d want to repress her . . . [silence]

  What’s in a Name?

  “Leslie Nicole” was my daughter’s name. “Nicole” is a family name. . . . We lovingly gave our daughter her name. It meant a lot to me, and it was something really emotional to process [when Leslie changed her name to Larry and dropped “Nicole”].

  And the pronouns are really difficult. My wife can’t do it. Me, I can barely do it. I know Leslie knows we love him/her and we support him/her.

  We generally dodge trying to say “he” or “she” in group settings. When people ask if we have kids, we still say three boys and a girl and leave it at that. Most people are satisfied with that and move on.

  But we’ve been in the community a long time. We haven’t shared it with a lot of people because Leslie has moved away. Our best friends know and recognize the stress on our family and offer support for Leslie and us.

  It’s definitely good that my wife and I have each other.

  Mother and Father React Differently

  My wife was at home. Raising the children was her life’s work. I was there as well. I shared in that, but I worked outside the home.

  She and I are taking this quite differently, partially because of our natures. When I wake up in the morning, I think there’s a lot of good coming. When she wakes up in the morning, she worries about what will happen. She is so concerned what could happen if Leslie/Larry does surgeries.

  There’s been some communication between Leslie/Larry and my wife about whose “fault” this is, or if we did something wrong. I think God has his plan for us all and tend to look forward rather than back.

  My wife and I have prayed together more and harder than in the past. We both gain strength from our faith. We continue to love and support Leslie. But it’s so upsetting—the idea of her changing her body and shape, and perhaps going to surgery to alter her body. We want Leslie to be happy, to be healthy, to thrive. We shared this with Leslie.

  We let all of our children know we do not completely agree with all of their choices and decisions.

  I think the female is more thoughtful and really trying to process all of her emotions. How did this come about? How did this happen? We had someone we loved and perceived as a certain way, and now they are different. It’s much harder on my wife. Males tend to let things roll off of them more easily. Life goes on. Now what?

  My wife sometimes has arguments with Leslie. She’ll bring up that Leslie is a relatively young person, and that when she [the mother] was that age she thought she was right about a lot of things and now she knows she wasn’t and, hmmm, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea.

  Seeking Help Proves Difficult

  We went to [Chicago] to see Leslie and to see her counselor. It was a gay rights clinic. But the counselor saw it as her job to help Larry with his/her transition instead of answering our questions or even questioning if it was the right thing. So that did not go well.

  This idea that a parent has to be completely supportive or opposed to the transition is polarizing. It strips a person of their humanity to assume they must fall in line. Love is complicated. Life is complicated. You must process it in your own way.

  Very Little Middle Ground

  I find there’s very little middle ground when you talk to people or read literature intended to help. They say you’re hateful if you are not supportive or bad if you do support this “bad” behavior. Get in line. Fall behind them. That’s the attitude. So we need to find a middle ground.

  It’s been comforting talking with you.

  MEXICAN-AMERICAN MOTHER, RESISTANT FATHER, A TRANS SON

  M., the Barajases’ teenaged trans son, first mustered up the courage to talk with his mother about his growing sense that he was not a girl after he saw a video from an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show that featured transgender teens. After years of dressing like a b
oy, preferring the company of other boys, and hearing himself referred to as a “tomboy,” M. realized that he was transgender.

  At first he did not come right out and use that term with his mother, but instead talked about the kids in the video.

  “Isn’t it sad that the kids can’t just be themselves,” he said to her.

  “I said, ‘Yeah,’” Mrs. Barajas recalls but then admits that she thought her tomboyish daughter was just being sensitive to the struggles of others.

  Pronouns and Body Parts: United States vs. Overseas

  By sixth grade, M. wasn’t talking about other kids anymore but about himself; his mother knew that her daughter no longer wanted to present as female, did want to change her name and pronouns and, perhaps down the line, even more. M.’s father, who often travels overseas, did not know what was going on for some time. When M. did come out to him, he lamented the loss of his daughter and dug in about not switching to the new pronouns.

  Mrs. Barajas says, “I did not share these things with my husband. He was more removed from it all because he travels so much for work. M. was afraid to tell him. He feared rejection.”

  But then the family had to travel overseas for two years, and Mrs. Barajas suggested that M. start their new life as a boy using the new name at the new school right from the start. A year later, M. moved to a different school and this time registered as a boy and started to bind his breasts. The father had to accept that his daughter was officially registered as a boy at school.

  “At home there was a lot of yelling and crying,” Mrs. Barajas recalls. “I told my husband not to negate M., but he [the husband] felt M. was too young to know what he was doing and felt it was more of a phase. He did not want M. doing something irreversible on ‘his watch.’

  “So as a family, we are not navigating things all that well. We have a lot of big fights and no resolutions.”

  While overseas for two years, they were in a country that does not allow “blockers,” which prevent a preteen from going through puberty. But M. requested to take them as soon as they returned to the States.

  “I never questioned whether or not M. should use blockers, but my husband did,” Mrs. Barajas said. “So when I communicated with my husband [about this issue], I used three steps: I make him aware; I wait for him to deal with it in his mind; we have a conversation about things.

  “It was all very slow. It took eighteen months for him to just process the name and pronoun change. [He] initially went nuts [about the blockers], but then mulled it over and said okay.

  “So M. started blockers and plans to have top surgery this summer.”

  Visits to Mexico

  “I am Mexican and raised Catholic. In my family we never talked about anything, so I said that I would say everything when I became a parent. I really value open communication with my children. I worried that my extended family may not accept M., but they have. Everyone is supportive. We go to Mexico every year, and I reassure [M.] no one will harm him. I must be on and fully aware and ‘correct’ my family when they do not use the right words.”

  Striving for a Unified Response as a Couple

  When asked why did she assume her husband should “get on board,” Mrs. Barajas said, “I am not going to live M.’s life; he must do that for himself and on his own terms and not feel bad about it. So [my husband] needs M. to live his life as he sees fit.

  “In the end, the thing that freaked me out the most was not that I ‘lost’ a daughter but that I saw the pain that was coming, and that was hard for me. I could see there would be a big crash.”

  UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT

  Lisa is the mother of Robin Ezra (nicknamed Puck). Puck, formerly named Lily, transitioned to the use of “they” as a pronoun and had a name change in college. While sitting in a coffee shop in Connecticut with me, Lisa reflected on her child’s transition to a gender-fluid, more masculine identity. A tall, intelligent woman who spent a lot of her professional life in music journalism, Lisa tried to embrace and celebrate her child’s transition from the start.

  LISA

  Level of Acceptance

  If their [Puck’s] parents do not accept them, then how can they find acceptance from other people? I just felt it was my responsibility to support Puck’s transition. We’re very close.

  They’re still the same person. They have the same interests; we talk about the same things and still laugh about the same things. It was not always a smooth transition, but I do not feel that they are a different person.

  Pronouns and Body Parts

  The language piece has been the hardest because we had to switch pronouns. (Puck currently uses “they” or “he,” depending on the setting.) The nickname “Puck” happened in high school, and in college “Lily” was dropped. It took a while to get used to it because I was so attached to the name. That was my kid’s name. They were named after my husband’s grandmother, an artist and very cool person. But we got used to Puck. It’s a Midsummer Night’s Dream reference, and Puck loves Shakespeare.

  The legal name change just happened a few weeks ago [Puck had graduated college just a few months prior to the interview]. They didn’t have a license and weren’t confident showing any ID. When we went to get a nondriving license, they cried. “Why do I need an ID with my old name and a legal gender marker on it?” they asked. Everything legal is always a big emotional upheaval. I agreed that it would be helpful to just legally change their name to one they chose, so this past fall we did that. I think the name change helped me as much as Puck. Now when people say, “How’s Lily?” I say that’s not their name anymore; it’s Robin Ezra. It helps me. I don’t always want to give long explanations.

  Hormones from an NYC Clinic

  Puck took a semester at Sarah Lawrence College to participate in a writing program, and while near New York City, they went to clinic in Manhattan and began hormone therapy.

  My husband and I were afraid that any medical complications could distract from schoolwork. We just wanted them to get through school and deal with transitional issues later. But being the independent person that they are, they couldn’t wait. We were scared at first, as we were not sure of the side effects of the testosterone, but it has been going well so far.

  My husband went with Puck to visit [the clinic] with Puck’s permission. He felt that [the medical staff] did not spend a lot of time with him, and he wasn’t sure if they [the doctors] answered his questions, but a doctor did speak to him. They admitted that they did not know all the long-term effects of hormone therapy, but assured him [the dad] that they would be doing blood-work periodically to make sure hormone levels were where they needed to be.

  Endings and Beginnings

  I do not have to kill or mourn the past. Actually we were looking at old videos of when [Puck was] a little kid and laughing, and we still have some childhood pictures around the house. I am happy about that. I had eighteen years of a daughter (or so I thought), and it was great. No one is asking me to deny that.

  Disclosure

  Sometimes I’ll see people in the grocery store [who knew Puck in high school] and they ask how “Lily” is. I have to think fast: How well do I know this person? How much do they want to know? I just make snap judgments, and also I must decide if we have time [to get into a discussion]. Sometimes I’ll give a little five-minute account of Puck’s transition. Some are confused, but most people have always known that our kid was unique. Puck was even voted most unique in their high school yearbook.

  Protecting Your Child

  We lived through 9/11. We lived just blocks away [from the World Trade Center]. Puck was eight. As a parent I’ve been through some really scary stuff: how to get my kid through a terrorist attack and through to the other side in terms of dealing with emotional issues.

  [A few years after, at age twelve, Puck was diagnosed with scoliosis and had to have back surgery.]

  I think Puck’s taking control of their transition has enabled them to have more of a sense of overall control.


  I can’t always protect my kid from a dangerous world, but at least I can be as supportive as possible.

  COUPLE FINDS A WAY TO WORK IN TANDEM

  Most couples I spoke with did not fare well as they navigated a child’s transition, but the mother of one trans son from the Mid-Atlantic region talked about how important it was that she and her husband went through everything together, including the support groups, where few husbands/fathers ever came and certainly rarely stayed.

  Their daughter began showing signs of discomfort with her gender as early as age four, when some mornings, Judy says, her daughter would wake up and exclaim, “I’m going to be a boy today!” At age seven, their daughter felt incredibly stressed about buying a dress for First Communion.

  By college, C. had changed her name to T., began using male pronouns, and underwent top surgery.

  THE MOM

  Attending Counseling Sessions as a Couple

  My husband and I both agreed T. was different, but we were clueless about what was happening. We went to a support group. At that point T. was about nineteen.

  The first session was awful. There were lots of older men transitioning to women, and they didn’t pass well as women. So scary. Others had a lot of emotional issues. Luckily we kept going. At first we just didn’t understand. I did a lot of research. My husband was more skeptical about our daughter transitioning and the physical changes, but he came around.

  Men don’t feel comfortable in support groups. [With] one couple, the husband came once but then did not come again. It’s really hard what they are saying, so it’s hard for a parent to hear. At the time, we wanted to believe that this was a phase.