It’s so weird to me. Our friends who have trans, Ace, or nombinary kids have almost uniformly expressed relief when their kids came out to them. The general feeling is, parents already knew something was up, and were relieved their kids were figuring out who they really are.
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And knowing kids, they’re more likely to clam up if you try to talk to them and figure out what’s going on.
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It is weird to me too, but it’s a very common trans experience to be ostracized by one’s family. My fiancee is estranged from her dad because he refuses to see her as anything other than his son.
My dad (only surviving parent) said, when I came out to him at 43, ‘I always knew you were searching for something, but I never knew what it was’. It’s really hard to hide the incongruity between assigned and actual gender, even when you’re trying to as I was for so many years. So yeah, parents surprised by their kids coming out have only themselves to blame for their kids not feeling safe to talk to them about this stuff.
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My guess is that you probably self-select for friends who are not huge, authoritarian assholes…
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We’ve been down this path. There is mourning, confusion and fear. Lots and lots of fear. It’s not easy to realize the child you raised and envisioned a future for and with never existed. Those pictures of early childhood and school? A different, and not actually real, person. It is a hard, hard place to be, and i cannot criticize parents who have a hard time letting go. I can absolutely criticize parents who reject their children. That is never the answer. But, yeah, it is a gut punch. How you respond to having your reality turned upside down says a lot about you.
Signed
A proud, accepting parent of an outstanding trans child
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We trans folks aren’t the only ones who transition- our families & friends do to.
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Truth 
One of my oldest friends said something remarkably similar to me when I came out.
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I’ve had a few comments like that. I did a lot of stuff that in isolation doesn’t seem too weird, but looking back at it in aggregate and it’s like ‘yeah that was really trans’.
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My friends in college knew that I was different, they thought I was just a closeted gay guy, but they knew I wasn’t being honest with them about myself. It’s probably why those friendships have faded.
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I was so good at lying, dissembling and keeping secrets that if I had an ounce of patriotism I could have been a fabulous spy…
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I owe a debt to my trans sister-in-law. Her transition made me do a lot of deep thinking about how the child I think I know may not be who my child really is. I’m hoping that thinking about that, emphasizing to my daughter I will love her no matter who she is, and practicing inclusiveness in language and actions will help us both if she ever has a big revelation for me.
Edit to add: she’s firmly identifying as girl so far but she is also only 6
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Love is the answer.
Love is not “I will love you forever as long as you fit my preconceived idea of who you are”. Love is “I will love you forever for who you are”.
Everyone changes over time; some do it in traditional ways, some do it in non-traditional ways. It’s how we react to those non-traditional changes that really show who we are.
I hope I was as good a parent for my children as you are for yours.
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This. So much this. My SILs mom rejected her. We’ve tried hard to balance we love her for who she is and not requiring anything from her. Whatever level of contact she wants, that’s what she gets. We understand if she has to ditch us because we still have a relationship with her bigoted mom. She’s said it’s ok, but I get it may be too painful. Meanwhile, we try to show our kid tolerance and love and I refuse to listen to any bigoted talk from the grandmother. Not around me, not around my kid. No misgendering and no deadnaming. No way. When my kid gets older, we will talk about how hurtful and awful her grandmother was to do that to her child.
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TBF, there are definitely bigoted assholes on the periphery of the friend network, but it’s telling that one of the friends who has a trans son was the first who kicked the bigoted assholes to the curb and never looked back.
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So George Soros created trans people to… short the market in cisgender fiat currencies in yet another bid for world domination? It all makes sense now!
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Financial transaction, man, it’s all there!!
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Hiding in plain sight, the hallmark of the truly devious!
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