A Mom’s Perspective

Being the Mom of a Trans Son

I knew from early on that the prissy little girl that I had envisioned wasn’t what God, fate, or the universe, (however you want to look at that), decided to give me. Apparently the universe had other things in mind for me and thought I could handle it.

And I feel like I have, for the most part. I feel like I’ve been there. Been supportive. Been encouraging (mostly)…

When I look back now, I can see there were signs of who he was long before either of us had the words for it.

As a toddler, if left to his own devices, he would have chosen the masculine-looking clothing over any dress every day, every time. Just like he preferred trucks and the sandbox over dolls.

As he got older, there were other little signs that, at the time, I just chalked up to him being a tomboy (in typical GenX mentality and unfortunately, it’s what the societal norms around me were at the time). He fought with his older brother about the BB gun, more interested in that than the little Bake Oven that I apparently felt was a more “gender appropriate” toy.

And then there was the family photo session when he was maybe 7 or 8 years old. The kids got to dress up in silly costumes, and he chose a baseball outfit. He was visibly so happy to wear it. I remember being hesitant because I wanted something more feminine. I still wanted something that fit the picture of the little girl I had envisioned.

Looking back, I wish I had paid more attention to his happiness than my expectations.

I think the first time that I actually realized that he might actually be “gay” was when he was probably 7 or 8 years old and we were sitting in the Doctor’s office waiting room and looking through a magazine. He pointed at one of the pictures of a woman and said “She’s really pretty”. It wasn’t that he thought a woman was attractive. It was the way in which he admired her. It wasn’t “I want to be like this” but more an underlying physical attraction. If he were older, I would call it an underlying desire. In this moment, I had an utter realization that he was physically attracted to females.

And in my head I went, “Oh..kay…”. So although it wasn’t fully a surprise, it was still a brash realization for me that, “yeah, okay. This is where this is going. Got it.” And it wasn’t anything other than realization and acceptance.

Coming Out

It wasn’t until years later, around 13, when he finally came out to me. I remember him coming to me and saying, “Hey, Mom. I really need to talk.”

And he was nervous. Really nervous. Maybe even a little scared.  And then he told me… something along the lines of “I like girls – not boys”.

My response was pretty easy. “Yeah. Okay. I knew this. I’ve been wondering how long it would take for you to say it out loud” For me, it was important to let him do it in his own time. Without pressure. Without coercion. But I knew. I knew from the time he was seven or eight. It wasn’t a question or a debate. It was just the reality. I didn’t feel a need to “accept” or “deny” it. It just was.

He looked at me like I had completely missed the assignment.

“Really? Really? That’s all you’re going to say? You already knew this? I’ve been stressing about this for weeks trying to figure out how I was going to tell you!”

And I’m pretty sure I was just sitting there thinking… What exactly did you think I was going to do?  I’m still not sure what he expected me to say. I’m not sure what he was afraid of. But you could see the relief wash over him.

After the initial shock of me not being shocked, there was this absolute release of tension. This realization that the thing he’d been carrying around and worrying about wasn’t nearly as terrifying as he’d imagined. There was no drama. No big confrontation. No tears or yelling or anything other than a conversation..  It was just “Okay.” And then life went on.

(Note: this is my interpretation of what I *think was going through his mind)

I think that’s something people don’t always understand about these moments. Sometimes the biggest moments in a person’s life happen in the middle of completely ordinary days. You say the thing you’ve been terrified to say. Someone says, “Okay.” And then somebody probably needs to figure out what’s for dinner.

Acceptance

I think my inward acceptance began to evolve after he actually “came out” to me. Up until this point, I think there was still this glimmer of a dream that he was just “going through things,” and so my actions, still trying to buy girls’ clothing, still trying to get him to have long hair, still trying to fit him into the role that felt comfortable in society, finally began to be questioned by me and slowly diminished. After that, I think my acceptance became more complete, but it still wasn’t immediate or perfect.

I’ll be honest…there were times when I longed for the little girl that I’d envisioned. The pigtails, frilly dresses, and dance classes… I probably put pressure on him without knowing it. Without giving thought to how my vision was limiting and possibly feeling like a lack of acceptance.

For this, I’m remorseful. Looking back, I could have been better. I could have reacted differently. I could have been more.

I never loved him any less for wanting to wear the baseball cap instead of the hair bows. I never felt that he was “less” because he preferred the baseball costume to the princess. But I’m hesitant to say that my responses didn’t affect him. It’s quite likely that they did, in ways that I can’t even imagine. I can’t say that my hesitation may have been perceived as a lack of acceptance, even if it wasn’t the intention.

By 14, he had a girlfriend. That didn’t bother me. The fact that he dated girls wasn’t something I struggled with. Day-to-day life became increasingly “I have a lesbian daughter” not “I have another son.”

But when I think about that period now, there’s something that stands out to me. He had a girlfriend while I was still shopping for girls’ clothes and trying to fit him into something that felt more traditionally feminine.

I loved him unconditionally, but there was still a longing for “my little girl.”

I think about how strong, self-confident, and determined he was while growing up. He knew who he was and, at least outwardly, didn’t let anyone’s perceptions taint that sense of self-worth. I’m not sure where he got this. He was so strong that many times I was jealous of how easily he seemed to accept, respond, and deal with the societal pressures all around him – not to mention the unintentional pressures that I’m now realizing I’d placed on him.

An example was the public toilets. He would use the female room and the women would immediately tell him he had the wrong room. He was very male appearing, but at the same time, there was a discomfort in going into the men’s room. From my perspective, he handled this with so much ease and grace. With a slight shrug of the shoulders, he just carried on with whatever we were doing, seemingly without giving it another thought, while I was seething with anger at the others and compassion for him. Not really knowing how to outwardly “make it right.” Not that he ever asked, or even that I felt like he expected me to make it right. His comfort in all of it was admirable.

There was one time at a café when he came back from the bathroom shaking his head, slightly aggravated, and said, “I’m so tired of this.”

A woman had looked at him, yelled that he was in the wrong bathroom, and pointed him toward the door.

He told me that he looked her in the eye, put his hands under his breasts and pushed them up, gave her a quizzical “I am a girl” look, and continued into the stall to use the bathroom. When he told me the story at the café table, he recreated the same tata push-up without caring if anyone watched or listened.

I was both pissed that someone had treated him that way and proud of his cool confidence and slight irritation. He didn’t ask me to fix it. We recapped it quickly and went on with our day.

There were other moments too.

Back-to-school shopping was one of them.

I was still shopping in the girls’ section because I wasn’t ready for the full-on boys’ section yet. I would hold up shirts, look through racks, try to find something that we could both agree on. I’m pretty sure he was annoyed but humoring me.

Then one day, a store clerk took one quick look at him and directed us toward the boys’ section. He immediately started walking that way. And I followed. It was such a small moment, but I remember it. The clerk didn’t give him permission to be who he was. She simply saw what he already knew. He wasn’t confused. I was.

As time went forward, waitstaff would sometimes say, “Would your son like…?”

And I noticed it. Every time. A part of me wanting to correct them – but he just accepted “son” as naturally as if that was the word everyone had always used. He never corrected them. Never explained. Never made a big deal about it, so neither did I.

There were also the times when I introduced him to someone who knew me but didn’t know him. He had short hair and masculine clothes and was obviously male appearing, and I introduced him as my daughter.

I watched their faces do a visible mental recalculation. “Your daughter?” There was a pause while they reconciled eyes with words.

I still thought of him as my daughter, not because I didn’t love or accept him, but because I still conceptualized him as a girl who dressed like a boy, had short hair, preferred masculine clothes, and dated women. I never (not once) stopped to ask myself if he identified as a boy…or was simply a lesbian. I just assumed and for that, I’m full of remorse.

I had stopped trying to bring out the feminine…and I felt like I fully accepted that he was more comfortable and confident as a masculine presenting. But still he was still a “girl” to me. My daughter…

The hair got shorter. The dating scene was women…Day-to-day life became increasingly “I have a lesbian daughter” not “I have another son.”

I think that the continued experiences of “Would your son like…?” from shopkeepers or waitstaff at the local restaurant, alongside the grace with which he handled these experiences, were ultimately the point when I realized that he wasn’t waiting for me to give him permission to be himself.  I wasn’t the person who gave him his identity. I knew my child was different and I was just learning how to stop putting my expectations around it.

T-Day

Nearly three years ago, he came to me and told me he wanted to start testosterone. I wasn’t surprised. By then, there was a lot about this that made sense, although I still had medical and mental-health concerns and a lot of questions.

We talked about all of it. He had researched it, he was prepared, and he was confident about what he wanted. His confidence gave me confidence.

We talked about the medical side, the mental-health side, what to expect, and what the process would look like. Every question I asked; he had an answer. He really had thought this through. We talked about pronoun preferences and he informed me that he preferred he/him. 

That part has probably been one of the harder things for me, simply because I had spent thirty years calling him “her.” That’s a lot of muscle memory to undo.

When I’m telling stories from his childhood, I still sometimes catch myself using she/her because those memories are stored in my head as memories of a female child. That’s how I understood him at the time. We talk about it openly, and he knows I’m not doing it to disrespect him. It’s just something that has taken time to change.

Over the last six months or so, about two years into testosterone, the pronouns finally started feeling natural to me. They stopped feeling like something I had to consciously remember and started feeling like the right words. I now proudly introduce him as my “Son” and when asked by new acquaintances my response is; “I have 2 boys”

The physical changes have been interesting because he already had a strong masculine appearance that I didn’t experience some dramatic transformation. His voice gradually got deeper, but because we talk so often, there was never really a moment when I suddenly realized, Oh my God, his voice is deep now. It just happened gradually.

His face changed. His body changed. Sometimes the facial hair still catches me off guard, mostly because I’m not really a fan of facial hair in general. I’ll look at him and think, Yeah, you’re trying to have a beard, but you’re not quite there yet, which is probably not all that different from how I felt when his older brother started growing facial hair.

Most of this transition hasn’t been one giant dramatic transformation. It’s been a million tiny changes that gradually became normal.

And then came top surgery.

At some point he told me he was planning to have top surgery, and we talked about it at length. I understood and supported his decision. They’re just boobs afterall…and I knew what an annoyance they were to him. Always wearing a binder and never feeling quite comfortable. 

At the end of June, he had his pre-op consultation. We talked about what he was excited about and what he was nervous about, and he didn’t know yet how long it would take to actually get a surgery date.

Then, on August 14, I got a WhatsApp voice message.

“I got a surgery date! September 9th. So super soon.”

My response was immediate. “Yay! How are you feeling about everything? Did you tell your boss? How long will you need off work? I have so many questions, and it’s coming very quickly.”

We talked for a while. We went through the practical stuff, the work situation, recovery, logistics, and then we talked about how he was feeling. He was excited, and I was genuinely excited for him. When we got on video chat, I congratulated him. I was happy for him. I was proud of him.

There was no pretending or hesitation.

And then the call ended and something happened that I wasn’t prepared for.

I cried.

I don’t even know exactly what I was crying about. There was remorse in there, and sadness, and fear, and confusion. There were so many emotions tangled together that I couldn’t separate one from another.

And that confused me because I know this is what he wants. I know the surgery is going to make him more comfortable in his body. I know it will help him feel more fully himself. I support him completely.

So why did I feel like this?

Maybe there is still some part of me grieving the little girl I thought I was going to raise. I think there probably is. But even that feels complicated, because I’m not grieving him. I never have. I never loved him less. I don’t recall feeling sad about him being him… If anything, the older I get and the more I understand, the more proud I am of the courage it has taken for him to become exactly who he has always been.

I think what I’m grieving, if that’s what it is, is the picture I had in my head. The daughter I imagined before I ever knew the actual person. And maybe that’s the distinction I didn’t understand for a very long time: you can let go of an expectation without letting go of your child. You can mourn an imagined future without mourning the person standing in front of you.

He was learning how to live in a body and identity that felt right to him. I was learning how to let go of the version of him I had created in my own head. He was becoming more fully himself, and I was learning how to see him.

And maybe that’s why, after all these years, saying “my son” finally started to feel different. There wasn’t one dramatic moment. I just started saying it, and every time it felt a little more natural and a little more right.

But deep down, I know I couldn’t be more supportive than I am. I know how much I want this for him.

There may still be a little sadness mixed in with everything else, but what I feel most strongly now is excitement and pride. I’m proud of the man he’s become, proud that he’s had the courage to keep moving toward himself, and proud of the grace he’s shown along the way.

And I’m also aware that I could have done better. I could have listened differently. I could have paid more attention to the things he was showing me.

So…in less than twenty-four hours, we say goodbye to the tatas. They’ve mostly been something to manage, conceal, bind, layer over, and generally work around…a piece that never quite fit the picture.

So today, I’ll raise a glass in remembrance as he begins the next phase of his adventure!