Summary

A father shares his experience and emotions after his son came out as a transgender woman, discussing his personal transition and the importance of understanding and accepting his daughter's journey.

Abstract

In this article, a father recounts his initial reaction and subsequent process of understanding and accepting his twenty-year-old son's transition to become a transgender woman. He acknowledges his love and support for his daughter, while also admitting the pain and loss he felt in his own transition. The father emphasizes the importance of playing the "long game" with their relationship, focusing on the health and well-being of his daughter over time. He reflects on his own mother's parenting style, which allowed him to make mistakes while always providing love and support. The father acknowledges that his daughter's journey is her own and that his love and support are not dependent on his understanding. He ultimately realizes the need to honor the loss of his son and confront the pain he felt, leading to a deeper understanding of the ego elements of his love and a lesson in self-compassion.

Opinions

The father believes in being a loving, supportive, aware, and sensitive parent, regardless of his child's identity.
He understands that his daughter's transition is her own journey and that his love and support are not contingent on his understanding.
The father initially felt pain and loss due to his son's transition, but he recognized this as a result of his ego and not his daughter's intent.
He acknowledges that his son made a choice to become his daughter, and he must let go of the golden image he built up of his son to genuinely accept his daughter.
The father believes that honoring one's feelings can open the heart more fully for the next chapter.
He considers it a blessing that his daughter came out at the age of 20, as he is unsure how he would have reacted if she had come out as a child.

The Father I Want To Be For My Transgender Child

I had my own transition to deal with after she told me about hers.

Picture of the author with his newborn baby-burrito

It was three days before Christmas when my twenty-year-old son came out to me as a transgender woman. I was in the bedroom wrapping a gift. He came in and stood against the wall across from me while I was trying to cut wrapping paper.

Luckily, I don’t tend to be an overly reactive person, something that has manifested from a lifetime of relationships requiring eggshell walking. I said “okay” a lot. I tried to make it clear that I accepted her. I sought to communicate that my love for my child had not changed.

Everything I said was true, but I knew I needed space to do my own processing. My own transition had started.

I know the type of father I want to be, regardless of my child’s identity; loving and supportive, aware and sensitive. I want to see where I need to step forward and where I need to step back. Playing the “long game” with our relationship, focusing on the health and well-being of my daughter as played out across our lifetimes.

My mom was great at modeling this behavior for me. She let me make my own mistakes but has always been there with her love and support.

It is my daughter’s journey, and while I do make my own attempts to seek understanding, neither my love nor support is dependent on my understanding. God knows I’ve done, and continue to do, things others don’t always understand.

I wanted to simply step into the place of the father I know I want to be. In my mind, it doesn’t matter what I’m feeling, the emotional turbulence, the loss. It just matters that I am the father I choose to be.

So why couldn’t I just “be that person”? What is the deal with the pain? To my logical side, it served no purpose.

While I didn’t necessarily need to understand my daughter’s transition to support her, I did need to understand my own transition. That led to understanding the need to honor the loss of my son.

I always heard parents talk about how much of a sacrifice it was once they had a kid, all the things they didn’t get to do anymore, and how their “life was over”. I never felt that way. In many ways, my life didn’t start until my son was born.

For over twenty years, every decision I made happily centered around him. After his mom and I split, I researched the best schools in the area so he and I could live wherever it was that gave him the best educational opportunities.

I was not the “friend” parent, but my son was such an old soul that he made it easy. I have been grateful for him every day of his life (and continue to be for her). I cherished every phase he went through, even his teenage years. We connected on many different levels.

It took a lot of deep contemplation before I was able to articulate the pain I was feeling. When she came out as a transgender woman it felt like she was saying that the person I had willingly made the center of my world for over 20 years wasn’t good enough for her.

My daughter was rejecting the person to whom I had unconditionally given my heart. And that was profoundly hurtful. It seemed like she was wiping him out of existence, and I had absolutely no say. I was powerless.

Even while feeling this, I knew it was never her intent. I had made it about me when it most assuredly was not. My ego was suffering, which highlighted the elements of my love for my child that were decidedly not unconditional.

She does not deserve conditions on my love. Making the decision to live the life of her truest self regardless of the understanding of others (or lack thereof) is all the challenge she needs right now.

But, jumping straight to the father-I-want-to-be and not confronting the source of my pain would have robbed me of the important recognition of the ego elements of my love. And it has made me look for those qualities in my other relationships.

If not for that pain, which I still feel in waves of varying degrees, I would not have learned another lesson in compassion toward myself. This pain felt selfish and unproductive at first. But, sitting with it, embracing it, and not judging myself for it, let me see things I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Two years later, I’m still working through these feelings, still seeking to integrate the experience. Still making breakthroughs in my understanding.

While I was unconsciously focused on my daughter as the person who “took my son from me”, I’m starting to see where that narrative absolves my son from responsibility. I’m preserving this golden image I built up of him.

Since, ultimately, I’m talking about the same person this distinction may seem a matter of semantics. But, if I do not acknowledge my son’s choice to become my daughter, if I continue to play him as the victim in this story, that continues to be a barrier to genuinely accepting my daughter.

It’s just another step in finding where I’m grasping so I can let go.

This is all so fucking complicated and confusing. Considering that it feels like a jumbled mess of thoughts and feelings from the inside, I can’t even imagine what it looks like from the outside.

I consider it a blessing that my daughter waited until she was 20 years old before coming out. I have no idea what I would have done if she had still been a child.

If you are a parent in a similar situation, please be gentle and patient with yourself. You are not turning your back on your child by grieving the loss of that relationship.

Honoring your feelings can open your heart more fully for the next chapter.