LGBT | Transgender | Allyship | Lifestyles

Top 7 Things To Do as An Ally for Your Transgender Loved Ones

How to show your transgender loved one they matter

So, you’re loved one has just dropped the ultimate coming out bomb. Transgender. Your first thought is “God, no! Not THAT!” quickly followed by “How on earth do I do this?”

Am I close? If your experience is anything like mine was, I bet I nailed it.

How do I do this? Let’s begin with one simple premise: the answer is love. No matter what the question, the answer is love. Let’s talk about the top 7 things you can do to show your transgender loved one (or anyone who is transgender) they can depend on you as an ally even if you have never been one before this very moment.

1. Listen. The most important thing you can ever do for anyone is to listen genuinely. This is really important when someone is coming out about their deepest secret. Listen to hear, not the regular listening, where we wait for the other person to quit talking so we can respond with our brilliance.

Listen to your heart. Listen to this person as if they just told you the most profound secret they have ever had, and you are the ONLY hope they have of ever being unconditionally loved again. Because, at this moment, that is quite possibly exactly how they feel.

Imagine this. You made it through your audition for “The Voice,” and Christina Aguilera just picked you for her team. And now you must admit you lip-synced your way through the audition. Head hung in shame, you stumble out the words, feeling as scared as a tiny kitten in a bulldog fight.

And she picks you anyway.

Don’t blow your best opportunity to be Christina Aguilera. It won’t come again. Listen to what they say. And listen some more. There’s plenty of time to talk later, but if you don’t hear what their heart is saying at this moment, there may not be a later.

2. Do ask what pronouns they prefer. Pronouns are important. Most of us never think about it. Our internal self agrees with what our external self looks like, and we roll with that. Female body parts are she and her. Males are he and his. And they and them only ever refers to more than one person.

Transgender people don’t have it quite so easy. They have likely spent their life up to this point using the pronouns you used when they were assigned their gender as babies. That makes sense. After all, it’s the way it has always been. The trouble is, it may not make sense to your transgender loved one. Although they were assigned one gender at birth, and have used those pronouns all of their life up to this point, now they choose to either use the pronouns associated with the gender they are on the inside, OR they stick with they and them, for a period of time anyway.

Being misgendered, called the gender you do not associate with, is painful. It signals an inability to accept their truth. Choosing to use the preferred pronouns consciously is one of the fastest ways to show your unconditional love.

3. Respect the privacy and the belief system of your trans loved one. They have no obligation to tell you all their details, even if you are the parent or sibling. Most transgender people are more than happy to answer questions that come from a desire to learn, to know the truth. As with anyone, mirroring the behavior we desire will encourage it to come to fruition. Respecting your family member or friend to know their own mind and soul, or at least to have the right of curiosity on their own behalf, is huge. HUGE. We all desire the respect of those we care about. You have the ability to offer that, free of charge.

4. Acceptance. For many people, this is a difficult step. We are conditioned to think that acceptance means agreement. But, what if it doesn’t mean that at all? What if acceptance simply means giving another human being, one you love and care about, the right to live in a way that is authentic and true. Accept that there is this difference between what you have understood in the past and what you are now told.

Think about algebra. Or grammar rules. Most people find one of the two fairly easy and the other more difficult. For me, algebra was a foreign language, and I didn’t get it. At all. When I finally accepted that it didn’t make sense to me, but it might just make sense to others, the doors began to open. I disagreed with my algebra teacher that this strange language of letters and numbers was challenging, interesting, and fun. Nope. I simply had to respect that it didn’t make sense to me, but that did not prevent me from learning how to do it.

Acceptance does not have to mean agreement.

5. Nurture. This is vital, particularly if the trans person you love is your child. It holds true for everyone, however. Most transgender people feel incredibly lonely before they come out. It’s not unusual for them to feel as if no one understands them or even loves them.

When you choose to nurture your loved one, even if you don’t understand, you demonstrate the essence of unconditional love even if you cannot seem to accept it. To nurture someone is to make sure they receive all the vital things they need, with a side dish of affection and caring.

6. Advocate for your loved one- especially when they are your child, younger than adulthood. Stop and remember how hard it is to be in confusion about yourself—most of us anguished with uncertainty throughout adolescence at the very least.

7. Let me tell you a little story to illustrate this final tip. When I first learned my oldest grandchild was transgender, my spiritual life was rocked. Hard. I had a biblical Christian belief system that clearly taught homosexuality was a sin and culturally allowed the belief that it was a tremendous sin. Yet, this child was my very flesh and blood, who I loved dearly.

I had no clue how to resolve this problem. I spent the next several weeks sitting on the deck, under my beautiful birch tree, reading my Bible, and crying out to God. I had been taught how to listen for His voice years before and had an intimate relationship with him. As I waited, I began to hear two words, “Love her, love her, love her.”

As some time passed and I absorbed the information as I searched my soul and reviewed my own life, I began to see that my job here, in this situation, was not to preach or wail or pray away the gay. Instead, the words turned to “Love them, love them, love them.” Obviously, I was quite ready to start talking back. I was urged to continue my journey of prayer and healing.

Finally, the God voice in my head, and my heart, began to whisper, “Love him, love him, love him.

And so I did. You can, too, starting with these 7 things to do to show your precious loved one that you can be their ally.

Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you more than you know. To follow a series I wrote regarding being an ally, start here.

Or, for more stories about my transgender grandson and his journey, begin with this one.

To read about where I spend my activist-ish passion for the rights of LGBTI people these days, this is a good beginning.