thank you so much for this!!! I can so relate to the fears thsi father has. Honestly, when my daughter shows signs of still "being a girl" I get so hopeful...because I dont want the alternative for her. Other than the shorts and makeup she still has been fairly consistent with stating she is a boy and always has been. I still can't get use to calling her him. =(
For the most part, I don't post a lot in these parts. I pop in every now and again to see what's going on.
I've been following along, like
@jenniy122. We have one biological child; a daughter who is now 22 years old. When she was in middle school - only 12 years old - there was (what seemed like) an explosion of kids in her school coming out as LGBTQ+. It seemed like it was non-stop, and weekly, I would hear that another one of our daughter's friends had come out. Well before the end of the school year, pretty much every kid in that school questioned their sexuality and orientation. It was striking because up until that point, our community has typically been accepting of alternate lifestyles... as long as they weren't *here*, if you know what I mean.
This was 10 years ago, when there were fewer resources, fewer counselors, and much of what was available on the Internet had to be taken with a HUGE grain of salt. We had to work our way through the situation with the only tool we had readily available to us: an unending supply of love.
Some of parents nearly lost their minds. More than one family fell apart, more than one child was kicked to the curb and told not to come home until they could accept their biological body. Our daughter started bringing home kids with no place to go; there were many, many nights when our living room was basically a giant sleepover, and there were many, many of those nights when I would hold another mother's child who was sobbing from homesickness and fear. We opened our home and our hearts, because we couldn't bear not to, and it became a safe haven for those kids; they knew that we loved and accepted them regardless of who they were. The only thing we didn't tolerate was discrimination and disrespectful behavior (defined as "being a turd in a punchbowl" by one of the kids LOL), and everyone had to get up in the morning and go to school.
Those kids lived with us, some for a short time, and others to this day still call our house "home", still call my husband and I "Mom and Dad". We are blessed with five wonderful children now! They drop in all the time, and bring their new boyfriend or girlfriend to meet us, join us at the holidays, and most recently one of the boys had to bring his new pickup truck right over to show Dad, and get his seal of approval!
During that time, I talked to many of the parents. A few of them would come over to the house, but by and large, the conversations were via phone or text, and all were the same. All of those parents said the same thing to me, over and over: "I just want my kid back, the way s/he was before all this happened".
And time, and time again, I told them that it was OK to grieve the loss of who you thought they were going to be - but that didn't have to prevent them from loving their child. That you haven't lost your child - you have only lost what you thought and hoped his/her future would be.
One horrible night, at the height of the situation, when we had more than 20 kids every night, one of the boys was killed in a stupid, tragic, traffic accident. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and everything just... stopped. A couple of the other kids were witnesses to his death, and they shut down emotionally and mentally. I still feel physically ill when I think about that night. In that moment, most of the parents realized that they no longer cared about their childs orientation, all they cared about was that their child was safe and alive. By the day after his funeral, most of the kids were home again with their families.
As time passed, some families developed an uneasy truce with the truth; others still refuse to acknowledge the child's identity. A few (four, to be exact) did not, and those are my children, for the last 10 years, and for forever they have a place in my heart and my home - and I make sure they know it.
Today, there are four 22 year old adults who have non-bio parents, because their own family can't "handle" their reality. One is trans, one is bi, and two are gay. (For those of you playing along at home, our biological daughter is straight; that makes her the "weird" one of the group!)
I'll see you at PRIDE in Austin. I'll be the proud Mommy with 5 adult kids in the parade.
PS: I didn't write this because I want a pat on the back. I want you know - more than anything, that it's OK to be sad about the changes in your child's world. Just please never stop loving her, and never make your support conditional. Her world is scary and confusing enough right now without worrying about if Mom and Dad love her. Regardless of who she turns out to be, it doesn't change the loving heart inside of her. I promise.