Talking with a rare set of parents

 

I'm not going to say how I know this pair of parents.  But they have a trans child, and love that child unconditionally.  If I were to live my life over, I'd love to have parents like this couple.  (No, I'm not complaining about my parents.  But I'm not sure of how they would feel if I came out to them before I hit puberty.)

Chatting with this child's parents, I was pleased to find out that they were disenchanted with the parental support group that meets while their children socialize with other trans kids.  Why is this a good thing?  Well, they accept their child for who they are: Male, Female, or Bi-Gendered.  They do not ask why their child identifies differently than the gender they were assigned to at birth.  They simply focus on what's best for their child, instead of the image of what they thought their child would be as an adult.  Others in the parental support group have major difficulties in this area, as they are dealing with their grief of not having a child growing up in the way originally expected.

What father doesn't want to see his son grow up to be just like him (in good ways)?  What mother doesn't want her daughter to grow up just like her (in good ways)?  It's hard on many parents to find out that their child is transgender.  There is no roadmap for this.  Parents have to "wing it" and find their way on their own, as many friends and family will insist that "this is only a phase the child is going through" or "this can be fixed with the right instruction."  But it's not.  Most transgender children know that there is something different about them from an early age.

In our conversation, I noted that I could never talk to my parents about being trans, nor can I talk to my brother about this today.  Most of my friends know I am trans, but some of my long time friends (who I haven't seen in years) would go nuts if they found out about this part of me.  So I have to be very careful, unless I want to burn bridges that I don't yet want to burn.  Thankfully, this trans child will likely not have this problem going through life, thanks to the their parents.

As I said earlier - their child is lucky to have these people as parents, and I am very glad that I know them.

Do I need a support group? Can I help others in one?

 

I am a bit of an oxymoron.  The more female I become, the healthier my male personality becomes.  When I started going out in the world as Marian, I made a lot of beginner mistakes common to transgender people learning the ways of their identified gender. Over the years, I've learned how to dress the way cisgender women do, I've learned some of the communications skills that cisgender women use, and I've learned how to blend in as an oversized woman.

The question comes to mind now and then:

Could I have avoided making many of the mistakes I made, had I been part of a support group?

There is no way to answer this question, as I chose to learn by making a lot of mistakes.  A failed romance got in the way, as the fallout of that relationship made it impractical to develop simple friendships in the northern part of the region in which I live.  But I have learned, and wonder whether I have knowledge worth passing on to others.

A while back, I saw an acquaintance who once authored a blog documenting her TG journey.  When I had last met her before, she (when presenting as a male) had a subtle feminine softness to her masculine presentation.  In my most recent visit, she was presenting in an androgynous way - but not in a way that she'd easily blend with a group of typical cisgender males.  This is something I want to avoid at all costs in my masculine and feminine presentations. Since it is not my place to comment on my acquaintance's presentation, I did not do so.  And in doing so here, it is only to give her a lot of credit for not worrying about how others think of the way she dresses.  More people should have the courage to do what she is doing.  

So this makes me think of another question:

Can I help other "closeted" and "out" transgender people with my experiences?

If in the context of being a regular member of a support group, I don't think so.  But if it is in the context of an occasional contact with members of a support, or with the general public, I think I can do so.  I certainly have enough experiences that I can relate that will help others, as well as help many in the general public see us as "normal" people with one non-traditional trait.  

Hopefully, I will find more ways to give back to our community....