Supportive Parenting for Trans* Kids

Growing up transgendered back in the 1970s and 1980s was an absolute nightmare. I've told a couple of current teenagers & young adults what it was like to grow up in a completely hostile culture, and they seem bemused by the fact that any of us managed to survive. Whilst the current generation of trans* kids certainly have their problems, at least they're growing up in a society which has heard of trans* issues, so many of them are able to seek help. In some rare, precious, heart-warming cases, they're even getting help before the ravages of puberty get the chance to damage their bodies with the wrong secondary sexual characteristics. Good for them, and long may this trend continue.

But whilst some kids are lucky enough to have supportive families, many more trans* kids face rejection, humiliation or even violence from their families. Indeed, this was the case with my own upbringing: I first came out to my mother when I was 5 years old, having realised much to my distress that there were distinct social, behavioural and expectational differences between boys and girls… and that I was being lumped in with the wrong group. But this was in 1976, when pretty much nobody had ever heard of a 5-year-old girl telling her parents that she's really a boy, and actually being correct. So my mother dismissed me with an exasperated wave of her hand and declared that I was just 'going through a tomboy phase'. She assured me that I'd grow out of it and would eventually get back to being her pretty little girl again. She let me have a few small concessions, such as cutting my hair shorter and wearing (girls') shorts & t-shirts instead of dresses (except on special occasions where I was forced to wear dresses) but she left me in no doubt that these were only temporary indulgences and that I would naturally get back to being a girl in due course.

Well, that never happened. It's true that most tomboys grow out of their tomboy phase and become happy as girls and eventually women. In many cases this happens during puberty, when burgeoning hormones make most girls start taking an interest in boys…. and because of that, they start experimenting with being more girly so that they can attract those boys. But I never outgrew my 'tomboy phase'. And the confusing thing is: my own burgeoning hormones certainly resulted in me becoming attracted to boys, but as much as I wanted them I was never comfortable with them wanting me as a girl. The boys I could attract as a girl were not the sort of boys I wanted, as I realised aged 15 when an unattainable boy I was hugely attracted to came out as gay.

So puberty was extremely traumatic for me. Not only did I have the usual confusion about physical changes, emotional changes and my budding sexuality, but I became more & more horrified with each step my body took towards becoming more feminised. I felt betrayed by a body that was doing everything in its power to deny my identity and my attempts to pass as male. I could no longer convince the neighbourhood kids that I was a boy because everyone could see my curves, so I went into a period of wearing dark, extremely baggy clothing to try to hide what my body was doing to me. 

In the meantime, there were several occasions in my childhood and adolescence when I repeated to my parents that I didn't feel like a girl, but each time I did so my mother in particular just became more exasperated with me. It felt as if she was blaming me for not growing out of my stupid tomboy phase already. Why couldn't I just get over this ridiculous, childish infatuation with being a boy and start being happy as the pretty girl she saw me as being?

But I couldn't. I've tried so, so hard for many years to figure out how to do exactly that, but I just don't have it in me. I can't be happy as a girl because I never actually was a girl, despite what my chromosomes might say. But all along, I grew up feeling I was the one in the wrong; that I was different from other people but more importantly that I was to blame for being different.

The awful fact is: this isn't just my experience. Mine is just one of many voices in the LGBT community telling of the severe damage caused by non-supportive parents. According to research (referenced in the document linked below), the way families respond to a child's 'coming out' can have a profound effect on that person's health - both physical and mental. 

According to these studies, it's not unusual for unaccepting parents to try to force their LGBT kids to conform with hetero- and cisnormative behaviour. In other words: some parents try to bully their kids into being straight, thinking it's in their best interests to do so. They're worried that their kids are going to face difficulties in life if they're LGBT, so they try to force it out of them. Unfortunately, gender identity (like sexuality) is an innate part of a person's identity, so when parents engage in this kind of behaviour, the child can see it as a rejection of themselves as a person. This can lead to low self-esteem and self-harming behaviours. As a result, LGBT youth are almost 8 times more likely than non-LGBT youths to have actually attempted suicide, and are 6 times more likely to be depressed. I've suffered regular bouts of depression since the age of 7, and my first suicide attempt happened when I was 14... and it certainly wasn't the last.

Is it any wonder I felt such overwhelming despair? My parents were extremely dismissive of my identity from a very early age, and that led to many, many years of self-esteem issues. My parents and teachers left me feeling that I was in the wrong, and as a result I questioned my own worth as a person. It made me question my own identity, my sanity, my right to exist as a human being. And the more they fought against me, the more I bottled up my feelings deep inside, because I was a vulnerable child in a position of weakness, and they were in authority over me. But I just couldn't change who I am, no matter how much they wanted me to. All I could do was try to hide myself away until it was safe to come out.

So, if by any chance you're a parent of a gender-questioning child and you've happened upon this blog whilst trying to find out more info, please be very careful with how you respond to your child. You might think that you're acting in your child's best interests by trying to force them to be 'straight' or 'normal, but your child can't choose their sexuality or their gender identity any more than they can choose their race, or height, or favourite flavour of ice-cream.

Please remember that whilst it may be difficult for you to understand or accept what they're saying to you about their gender identity, it is vitally important for you to reassure your child of your love and support. Supporting your child does not necessarily mean agreeing with them (although that can be enormously helpful), but it does mean providing a safe, secure environment in which they can explore the truth of who they are. So please don't make them feel any worse than they do already. And please give this a read: Helping Families Support Their LGBT Children

Mrs Botha

When I was in High School, I had a Biology teacher named Mrs Botha who was the epitome of what South Africans call a 'plaasmeisie': an unsophisticated Afrikaans country girl who grew up on a farm and probably doesn't have all her own teeth. How she got to be a Biology teacher is beyond me, as I will soon explain.

Anyway, Mrs Botha used to wear frumpy, flowery dresses teamed with sensible shoes (a plaasmeisie staple), way too much make-up, and her hair was fussily curled into the sort of style you might get if you wanted a 1980s bubble perm but couldn't afford one, so you had to do the best you could at home with your hair rollers every morning. She had the appearance of someone who tries really, really hard to look 'fancy' but fails miserably because they're essentially a backwoods hick. 

Heh. Enough bitching about her appearance: I'm starting to sound like a girl. ;-)

She was also what South Africans call a 'kwaai tannie', which essentially means a dragon or a mean old broad (even though she was quite young; in her early 30s I'd imagine). She was a stickler for rules and everything in her class had to happen by-the-book. She was, in actual fact, a fairly decent Biology teacher, all things considered.

Anyway, we once had a week of outdoor lessons, sitting in the hot African sun in our school grounds because the Science block was being fumigated (well, it was Africa, after all). Due to the less formal surroundings, one of the girls in my class complimented Mrs Botha on her appearance -  rather sarcastically in my opinion - and asked her why she goes to such lengths to look so 'good'.

The answer surprised me, coming as it did from a University-educated careerwoman.

Mrs Botha revealed that she showered every morning, then spent an hour and a half getting dressed & putting on her make-up so she would look as nice as possible for her job. She said we should all go to such lengths, because a woman has a duty to always look her best around men, and that includes at work. I felt like Marty McFly, transported back to the 19th Century, to a time where delicate ladies powdered their noses and deferred in all things to the men around them.

So we asked her whether Mr Botha appreciated the efforts his wife went to so that she could look so good at work. She replied that Mr Botha had never seen her in her work clothes… because after she left work in the afternoon, she'd go straight home, start preparing his evening meal, and then take another shower to remove the day's grime. Then she'd dress up in her best, put on fresh make-up and do her hair, so that she'd look perfect by the time he got home. He'd come home to find food on the table, his newspaper next to his plate, and his wife looking a million dollars (cough - Zimbabwean dollars - cough). Because, she told us, it is a wife's duty to always look her best for her husband and keep his home nice & tidy so that she can keep him faithful to her.

Great Scott!

That was a pretty telling insight into the state of their marriage, if you ask me. 

Anyway, whilst she was more than happy to answer those questions, she became annoyed & refused to answer the question I asked her next: "What does Mr Botha do to make sure you're happy with his appearance?".

That's not an appropriate question, you see. Mrs Botha was quite happy to reduce herself to the status of an object, and she believed it was her duty to teach the teenage girls in her charge to do the same. But we didn't dare expect any form of equality. According to her, even if we achieved a University education and forged a career for ourselves, we should still expect to be chattels.

Sheesh. It felt more like 1885 than 1985. Fire up the DeLorean!

Being ladylike

"That's not very ladylike!"

I was 8 years old. By this age, I've been refusing to wear dresses for several years, and was dressed in my usual summer T-Shirt-and-shorts combo.

I was sitting on the stoep* (verandah, porch) of our house with my feet on one of the steps leading down to our garden. My legs were spread wide open with my knees sticking out to the side. I've always sat this way (I still do today); I'm slightly knock-kneed which makes it uncomfortable for me to sit with my knees together, so keeping my legs spread open puts a lot less strain on my knees. Also, I just happen to like sitting like this. Is that so wrong? My mother had seen me sitting in my usual, comfortable way and decided that it Simply Wasn't Good Enough for her standards of what a little girl should do. So for the umpteenth time in my life, she told me off for not being 'ladylike'. 

Because you see, simply being comfortable rather than constraining yourself to certain standards of behaviour is wrong. Wrong for little girls, at any rate. Apparently, it's 'not very ladylike' for a little girl to sit with her legs spread wide. Because we all know that girls keep their private parts between their legs, and everyone thinks they have a right to dictate what females should be allowed to do with their private parts. My brother was never criticised for sitting the same way I do; despite the obvious bulge of his genitalia it was never 'not very manlike' for him to spread his legs for all to see. 

So… what did I learn about being 'ladylike'? I learned the following:

• Being 'ladylike' means being forced to conform to standards of clothing, hair, make-up etc. so that other people can be happy with your appearance, irrespective of what you might want. After all, your main purpose as a 'lady' is to prettify the place for other people's benefit. Apparently.
• Being 'ladylike' means never burping, slurping, farting, picking your nose, licking your fingers, or doing any of a huge number of perfectly natural things that human beings do. Nor should you ever discuss any of these bodily functions, because that sort of talk isn't 'ladylike' either.
• Being 'ladylike' means being berated every time you use strong language, because 'ladies' aren't supposed to swear. (I remember one time I was working at a company and the IT guy was in the room. My computer crashed, so I said "Shit!". He had the nerve to say to me, "Wow, watch your language, young lady!" to which I replied "I'm sorry, did I say 'shit'? I meant to say 'fuck'!").
• Being 'ladylike' means comporting yourself with grace at all times. You have to be very careful how you get into & out of a vehicle, especially if you're wearing a skirt, because it wouldn't be very 'ladylike' to flash a bit of thigh or underwear.
• Being 'ladylike' means shaving your legs and armpits religiously, because god forbid anyone should ever catch a glimpse of hair or stubble on you. They'll be sure to let you know about it if you neglect to keep yourself smooth as a baby's bottom (my husband used to bully me for years about my hairy toes. Now I'm quite proud of them).
• Being 'ladylike' means accepting second-best of anything on offer, and not making a fuss when you realise that this is all you're going to get. My brother was treated to private schooling and university education simply because of his XY chromosomes. I was pretty much abandoned because, according to my parents, a lady doesn't need an education because she'll graduate school, get a little job, and then marry the boss who will support her and her kids whilst she stays home & bakes cookies. Yeah. Thanks parents, that one worked a treat: I'm the main breadwinner, subsidising my husband who earns about half of what I do. But when I complained to my parents about the disparity of their investment in their children, they were up in arms that I'd had the audacity to expect that is should be treated as my brother's equal.
• Being 'ladylike' means biting your tongue when someone tries to 'mansplain' something to you. You may well know a great deal more on the subject than they do, but heaven forbid you should ever let them know that. Nobody likes it when some broad outsmarts them. 

Ugh. You can probably tell that I feel quite negative about a lot of the aspects of being 'ladylike'. That's because my parents, teachers and other adults used many manipulative and bullying tactics to try to get me to conform to their expectations of how a female should behave. But it's completely unnatural for me to behave like a female, so this caused me a great deal of distress over the years. Particularly the 'mansplaining' bit; that really used to get my goat. Well, OK, it used to annoy me, but I'd never let anyone get away with it. I'm not here to polish some other guy's ego. If I know more on a subject than he does, I've always been more than happy to let him know that fact. If he doesn't like it, then he should do his homework next time. 

If I had a penny for every single time in my childhood that my parents or some other 'authority' figure told me off for not being 'ladylike', I'd be able to buy Necker Island off of Sir Richard Branson and retire there today.

* If you know me from that well-known trans* support board, my current avatar pic is of me sat on that very stoep, albeit in a more 'ladylike' fashion than I might prefer. The reason? Just before taking that pic, my mother had yelled at me to pull my knees together so that I'd look more 'ladylike'.

The loss of my fertility

I'm due to start taking testosterone next month.

I've been attending a Gender Identity Clinic for the past couple of months and things have been progressing very well there. They have no doubts that I'm suffering from Gender Dysphoria and would benefit from further treatment, so they've made me various appointments to see various people so that I can start hormone therapy and get booked in for some surgeries. Hurrah!

However, that does bring up the rather pertinent question of what, if anything, I wish to do with my remaining fertility before I start taking testosterone (which could permanently fry my ovaries) or have 'bottom' surgery (which would include a total hysterectomy).

I already have two children: two lovely daughters who are a joy and a delight in my life. In this I am more fortunate than many transsexuals, particularly some male-to-female transsexuals who yearn to be able to carry & give birth to their own children. One of the advantages of being born female-bodied is the ability to carry children, and I am grateful that I have had that opportunity. But my joy is tinged with an immense sadness: I was denied the opportunity to parent them properly and in a way, I was made to feel like a surrogate, or perhaps like someone who has lost custody of their children for some reason.

My tale of woe begins back in the mid-1990s, when I first met Hubby. We got together and things were pretty rosy for a while, and he soon proposed marriage. I was head-over-heels in love with him; he seemed such a kind, genuine, decent guy. We'd talked extensively about our plans for the future: we both wanted to travel, we both wanted to marry & buy a house together; we both wanted children. We even discussed the number of children: I told him that it had been my life-long dream to have three kids, the first two in my twenties and the third in my thirties. He was perfectly happy with all that, and on that basis we got married.

Whilst we had planned to have children some day, we hadn't planned to have them immediately. Our plan had been to first get married, then buy a house, then have our first kid a year or two after that when our finances had recovered. But fate had other plans. To our shock, I wound up pregnant a month after we were married, due to contraceptive failure.

So all of a sudden we had to rush our plans forward. We needed to buy a house pronto as the rented house we were living in didn't have enough bedrooms for our expanding family. We then had complications regarding the pregnancy – it turned out that I was carrying identical twins but one hadn't formed properly and was threatening the life of the healthy twin, so I spent a lot of time with consultants and ultrasound scanners and travelling to specialist hospitals for expert opinions, so all-in-all it was a very stressful year. Luckily the healthy twin was born just fine... but the stress of getting married, buying a house and having our first child all within the space of 10 months put a massive strain on us.

Then Hubby put extreme, immense, severe pressure on me to return to work a mere 3 months after the baby was born. This was because that would be the date when my higher-rate Maternity Pay would run out and I'd go onto a much lower rate. He pushed me so, so hard to go back to work when I was nowhere near ready to go back (and when my baby needed me) simply because he didn't want to take on the responsibility of bringing in the extra money we'd need to make up the shortfall whilst I was on maternity leave. 

The day I returned to work – and handed my beautiful baby over to my mother-in-law – was almost like handing her over for adoption. I was utterly devastated at the thought of handing over my child to someone else at such a tender age. It was far too soon, for both of us. Mother-In-Law would look after my daughter during the day whilst I worked long, 8-hour days slaving over a hot computer... and then I'd return home, exhausted, to spend about 2 hours with my daughter before collapsing into bed. The only time when I'd get a substantial period of time with my daughter would be on weekends. So really, it felt like I was part of a divorced couple handing over my child to my former spouse for the majority of the time, but then getting visitation rights on weekends. It made me feel very alienated; it almost felt like my daughter was my Mother-In-Law's child and I was 'borrowing' her for the weekend.

It was heartbreaking, but I did it because we were going to have another two children, right? Surely I'd be able to spend a year off work with at least one of them? Well, as it turns out... Hubby decided he'd found the circumstances surrounding our first child so stressful that he didn't want any more children.

After much convincing (i.e. I said I'd have to leave him if he went back on his promises) he reluctantly agreed to have the second child. Very, very reluctantly. He let me know in no uncertain terms throughout the pregnancy and the first two years of our second daughter's life that he hadn't wanted her at all. She's a lovely child and he eventually warmed to her as a person, but he kept constantly reminding me that she was the child I had wanted, not the child he had wanted. Again, he put immense pressure on me to go back to work when she was 3 months old, and again I had to hand her over to my Mother-In-Law. This was even more painful than the first time, but I let it happen because there was still one child to go, right? There's no way in hell I'd allow the same thing to happen again!

The cracks in our marriage continued to widen over the subsequent years. This went on until 2010, by which stage I was nearly 40 years old. My biological clock was ticking very loudly now: it's widely agreed that pregnancy after the age of 40 is Not A Good Idea, and anyway, we'd agreed to have Baby No. 3 whilst I was in my 30s. So in 2010 we had yet another discussion about the various problems in our marriage and Hubby once again refused to work on any of our issues. I realised that he had broken every single one of the promises we'd made to each other and the plans we'd come up with before getting married. We were never going to get anywhere... so I decided to divorce him. But whilst I was planning that, tragedy struck: Hubby suffered a stroke that left him brain-damaged and unable to fend for himself.

What could I do?

I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances: I stood by his side and supported him through his illness. As angry as I was at him, and as much as I needed to move on for my own wellbeing, I do love him and he is my kids' father, so I stayed primarily so that my kids could keep their father.

He slowly recovered - no thanks to the NHS, which has been hugely dismissive of him from day one - and this year he has finally started to claw back some sense of normalcy. He's not 100% like he used to be before, but he was about 40% immediately after his illness and has worked his way back to 80%, so that's pretty good going. But despite my best efforts, the cracks in our marriage are still there. In fact, they're worse than before, because he's had some damage to his frontal lobe and as such he's completely unable to empathise with other people, so he's become quite heartless and cruel.

I deserve happiness in my life, and I'm not getting it with him; I haven't for a long time. So now that he's able to live independently again, I came out to him and decided to transition. We had major dramas around this subject, and the bottom line is that because he identifies as straight, he won't be able to stay with me through my transition so we'll have to split up. So now I'm back to planning a divorce, dividing up the assets, and figuring out how we are going to co-parent our kids. Just like in 2010. But with one crucial difference.

One crucial, awful difference.

Over the past six months my periods have become erratic and I've been getting hot flushes in the afternoons. At the same time, the Gender Clinic asked me to consider whether I wanted to do anything about preserving my remaining fertility before I go on testosterone next month. So I consulted with my GP... and she has essentially told me that my chances of having another biological child are almost zero. At my age my eggs are pretty much scrambled, and the symptoms I've been experiencing over the past few months suggest that I've probably started the menopause. There is a possibility that some eggs might be harvested, but that procedure costs £2,000... which is exactly £2,000 more than I have available at the moment. Plus unfertilised eggs have a very short lifespan; they'll only be viable for less than 4 years, at which time they'll be thrown away. The best way to preserve them is to fertilise them, but Hubby will definitely not volunteer for that job and there's no way I can attract a new partner in a very short space of time and before I start testosterone, nor can I attract one whilst appearing female! So I'm up the creek without a paddle.

I feel so angry with Hubby that he went back on our agreement to have three kids. I feel so angry at myself for allowing him to dictate my fertility. I feel so angry at the universe/fate/sheer bad luck that he fell ill three years ago, right at the time I was planning to leave him. This may make me sound horrible, but I deeply, deeply regret staying to help care for him during his illness.

Because doing so has cost me my chance to fully enjoy being a parent. And his unwillingness to pull his weight made it impossible for me to enjoy it whilst I had the opportunity.

The Granny Test

I don't know what it is about people. Maybe it's natural curiosity, maybe it's the Jerry Springer effect. But for some strange reason (perhaps because transsexuals are relatively rare), people seem to think it's perfectly OK to ask totally inappropriate questions of any transsexual they happen to meet.

In an attempt to remind them of their manners, I like to challenge such questions by asking the questioner to consider what I call 'The Granny Test': basically, if you want to know whether your question is appropriate, just think about whether you'd ask that question of some random elderly lady you bumped into in a supermarket. If it's OK to pose your question to Granny, then it's OK to pose it to any stranger, including me. If Granny would take offense, there's a good chance that any stranger would take offense too. Simples, eh?

Here are some examples of questions that pass The Granny Test:

"Excuse me dear… sorry to trouble you, but I was wondering whether you had the time?"

"Pardon me, but do you know when the next bus is due?"

"Do you know where I might find the Marmite in this shop?"

Do you see what I mean? Those questions are completely inoffensive and Granny will probably be only too happy to answer you. So it's unlikely that anyone will take offense at being asked them. Feel free to ask me those questions any time you like.

And here are some questions that would fail The Granny Test so badly that she'd probably whack you about the head with her handbag for asking them:

"Excuse me dear, but I'm very curious… just how exactly do you have sex?"

"I was wondering… do you actually have a vagina?"

"I know you've asked me to call you Mrs. Smith, but tell me... what is your real name?"

See the difference? Those questions are impertinent, overly familiar and none of your damn business. If Granny wouldn't like to answer those questions, who on Earth would? Why should someone who happens to be transsexual be happy to answer them?

Please consider this if you ever meet someone who reveals to you that they're transsexual. After all, transsexuals are just ordinary, everyday people who deserve as much consideration as the next ordinary, everyday person. Otherwise, you might find yourself getting whacked about the head with somebody's hand/man bag.