Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Tranifesto: My Mother Doesn't Believe I'm Trans

By Matt Kailey

A reader writes: “I’m an FTM, 18, and I came out to my mum about two years ago. She didn’t take it very well.

“She told me that she didn’t believe that I was transgender because I feel uncomfortable talking to her about sex (I’ve tried telling her multiple times this is normal and that my friends feel the same way with their parents, to no avail), and that I’m stuck in a phase that I just haven’t grown out of.

“Since I came out to her in 2011, thing have slowly gotten better and I’ve put in a lot of effort so that we could reach common ground. She is a lot less hostile about it, she’s fine with me wearing a binder, she tries to use gender neutral pronouns when she can, and I had a talk with her earlier on in the year about changing my name when I finished high school later in the year and she seemed all right with it.

“A few days ago, however, I was talking to her about my name change again, and she told me she thought changing my name would be a mistake, but that I’m an adult and she won’t try to stop me. As we continued talking I also discovered that she still thinks that I’m not transgender, and for the same reasons she told me when I first came out to her.

“While I do appreciate that she won’t try to stop me, my relationship with my mum is very important to me. I love her very much, and I just wish she would be supportive. I don’t want to try to move out, and when we’re not arguing about me being transgender, we get on very well. But I’m not coping well with the realisation that she still doesn’t think I’m transgender.

“I have a psychiatrist (so I can start medical transition) who is willing to approve me for testosterone. I asked my mum if she would be interested in meeting my psych, and she refused and was very negative about the whole thing. Not having her on board makes everything so much harder for me. There aren’t many things that I want more in my life at the moment than for my mum to see me as her son.

“So essentially, what I’m asking is do you know what else I can do to try to make my mum realise that I am transgender, and that the emotions and feelings I have because I’m transgender are real?”

I had to edit your letter a great deal for length, but from the entire letter, it sounds to me as if you’ve done just about everything you can to convince your mother that you are trans, including asking her to talk to your therapist and providing articles and information that she won’t read. She has chosen not to believe this and to dismiss any evidence to the contrary. This is a classic defense mechanism called denial, and she has decided to use this so she doesn’t have to deal with information that she doesn’t want to deal with.

There are several positive things here, however. One is that she has not asked you (or told you) to move out. Another is that she has told you that you are adult, which is true, and that you can do what you want, which is true, and she is not going to try to stop you. So you have a place to live and you are not going to be “punished” for proceeding with your transition.

You also get along fine with your mother when not talking about your transition. You have a therapist who is willing to provide any paperwork you need to proceed with your medical transition. While I agree that it would be easier for you if your mom was on board, other than that, you have most things working in your favor.

With those things going for you, I would suggest that you proceed with your transition. I would also suggest that you keep your mom apprised of your progress without hashing everything to death. For example, once you are given your letter to start hormones, you can tell her that. Once you start them, you can tell her that. Once you get your name changed, you can tell her that and ask her to call you by your legal name.

Hopefully, she will eventually see that this is all moving forward without her, regardless of what she thinks or wants, and she will have to come to some level of acceptance. She might not ever embrace this, but she will eventually have to acknowledge that it’s happening, with or without her blessing.

I think that it will be difficult for her to see you as her son at the moment. This is a very difficult thing for parents to go through, even if they are supportive. If they’re not, or if they have concerns, that makes it even harder.

I urge you to have patience. I know it’s been two years since you came out, but it is only recently that you have become of legal age, and now you are going to be able to get hormones, a name change, and so on, without any parental consent or involvement. So the time frame for her acceptance kind of starts now, when she can see that you really are serious about pursuing this.

Before, it was much easier for her to say to herself, “This is just a phase. It will be gone soon.” Now, she will not be able to say that as she sees you following through with the necessary steps for medical transition. Once she sees that occurring, she will have to take stock and reconsider. It will get to a point where she will look rather foolish referring to you by your old name and pronoun, because you simply won’t be that person anymore. Whether or not she actually accepts you as her son will be completely up to her. But how she treats you and refers to you, particularly in public, will be dictated by the realities of the situation.

For now, I suggest that you take a break from trying to convince her that you’re trans. If she is in denial, that’s going to be a losing battle. (And you’re right – her reasoning for not believing you is pretty ridiculous. Most young people are not comfortable talking to their parents about sex, and that has nothing to do with being trans or not being trans. I think she knows that. I think she’s grasping at straws, so just let it go.)

Just proceed with your transition, keep her in the loop, and go about your life. Make sure that she knows that you are available to talk about this at any time, but since she has indicated that she doesn’t want to, you will just leave that door open for her.

If she continues to refuse to acknowledge your real identity, even after the legal and physical changes take place, you might decide to make other living arrangements, and you might decide to rethink or redefine your relationship with her. But I think right now, you need to give it more of a chance to sink in as you really start to pursue this in a legal and medical way.

This post originally appeared on Matt Kailey's award-winning website Tranifesto.com. Republished with permission.