Coming out as trans or gender-diverse (2024)

Probably from around the age of 15,16 we were aware that there was something going on, but we didnt really understand, as parents what that was. We tried to be sort of supportive and boost her confidence and, and what have you. But really she was a girl, trying to be a boy we didnt know that at the time. So she was just turned 18 when she came out. She came out to me actually by text. So shed messaged me to say, shed been out for a night out, messaged me to say, would I open the gate for her and I said, I will do but Ill be in bed when you get home. And she said, No, please wait up, I need to talk. So I knew whatever it was that had been going on for all this time that I was gonna find out what it was. And to be fair, I thought she was gonna tell me that she was gay. And Ive spent a lot of time telling all my kids, I don’t have any concerns or I don’t care what they are as long as it’s legal and theyre happy that’s all that mattered. So that’s what I expected and then just shortly after getting that message to say, please stay up, I got a very long text. And it was one that shed apparently written probably about two years before, had sat on a phone for all that time and shed never dared press the send button. So she pressed the send button and read it and I was very shocked, to be fair, because I didnt really understand what trans was about. But I messaged her back and I just said, drive carefully, cause it was late and it was winter and it was quite, quite icy. And I said, Ill have the kettle on when you get home. And we just sat and talked into the early hours of the morning, really. And that was the start of our journey, really.

It wasnt even as black and white as that. They didnt actually, it wasnt a specific time when they came out. They just started having issues I guess really the turning point really was the bullying at school, which was because of the isolation at school, because they didnt fit into their kind of gender group. They werent a boy, so they didnt hang with the boys. But they didnt feel they were a girl, so they didnt have a lot of friends at all. They only really had one friend at school who it turns out now has come out as a lesbian, as a gay female who could maybe relate to my child as a trans child. But I don’t think they even discussed whether they were gay or trans. I don’t think it ever came up in conversation. And certainly the coming out thing wasnt a big announcement, I’m coming out, it was a gradual thing which kind of started really with the CAMHS appointments, which started mainly because of the friction between mum and child. Mum looked for help via CAMHS and CAMHS couldnt put a finger on it, initially. We, certainly the first interview I went to, the therapist there one week said, my child was PTSD. The next time we went they were bipolar. The next time they went they were autistic. They were, it was kind of they were, pigeon holed, but they couldnt find the right hole. And it wasnt until my child was saying about gender issues that gender even came up. That was probably the first time I ever was aware of anything gender related at all. They brought it up at a CAMHS appointment. And eventually, CAMHS referred us onto the [Gender Identity Development Services]. And at that point, it was like the flood gates opened. Suddenly, my child knew where they were and could relate to the therapists and suddenly said, Finally, somebody’s taken me seriously. Somebody seems to understand. And so it was like the flood gates, flood gates had opened. And everything then started to fall into place.

Our daughter initially came out as being transgender at the age 13. And I suspect prior to that I think as a mum, I, and she’s the youngest. So I think I always thought that she was slightly different to the others, purely by, you know, mannerisms and friendship groups and things like that. And I know I suppose that this maybe a little bit of a cliché, but I would have thought, at some point she would have said she was gay. However, it was transgender, which was a completely different ball game and I hadn’t really had any knowledge about it to be quite truthful I mean, I was aware that there were transgender children and people out there, but I wasn’t really. So it, it did come as a bit of a bolt from the blue, I have to say.

He had really long hair, which everybody would always go, Oh, you’ve got amazing, beautiful, beautiful hair. And he started to just look more and more uncomfortable. So, I was saying, you know, Why don’t you have your hair cut?’ And he was reluctant and so I just, I just left that, but we went on holiday and I didn’t really notice it on holiday, but when we came back and we were looking at photos, he really did just look like he was so uncomfortable, all the time. So, we talked about it some more and a couple of years ago he did have his hair cut and it was, it was so long and so thick that we actually sent it off to one of the charities that make up wigs, cos it was, you know, it was such a big feature of him that, you know, everyone commented all the time. But once he had his hair cut, he kind of seemed lighter. But he also then started dressing a lot differently. So he’s never really been, not since he was tiny he had never really been fem-, particularly feminine. But then he wanted to start shopping in boys’ shops. And that was absolutely fine. And we just went along with that and we found a shop local to us, they never asked any questions. They didn’t mind what changing room he used. And he felt just really comfortable going there. So he hadn’t, before he told us, he hadn’t worn girl’s clothes for a good couple of years. But as he was starting to develop, which he did quite young, unfortunately. He was just more uncomfortable. So, we got into, you know, how he could kind of hide some of that as well. So, I think just the way he presented was really yeah it was really clear that it was gonna come. My husband and I remember probably about a year before he told us. I remember we were out for lunch and we were saying, you know, we just knew, at that point that it was coming. We just didn’t know when it was coming.

The most important thing for trans kids is to be supported and affirmed. So we already knew that cause we, there was always a point where, for a while, his early childhood his primary school years that, at any point, I was anticipating him coming back and saying, I don’t wanna be known as his birth name anymore. I wanna become this. I was always anticipating it. It just never, never materialised until he hit puberty.

So my child was born femalehey came out to me when they were eleven, a few months off being twelve, so quite young. Before they went to high school. And my, I suppose it was something that didnt shock me, but at the same time it was a shock to me. They had always been incredibly gender nonconforming, had really wore what we used to call boyish clothes and sort of, you know played with what you would call typically, you know, boyish toys. And, you know, were very sort of you know, boyish basically in their whole demeanour and had male friends, et cetera. And that wasn’t because, you know, I’d sort of given them any particular type of toys, but was, you know, from a very young age, from about kind of two, three, four sorts of shown a huge preference for that sort of thing. And I, actually I was really happy to have this kind, you know, uber tomboy as a child and was really thrilled with that. I thought that was brilliant and, you know, really supported that. But when they came out to me they weren’t actually in the house with me, they texted me to tell me [Laughs]. And I’m really quite pleased that they did, because I just kind of fell apart, I was kind of very upset and I was crying, I think from the shock of it as much as anything. And I didnt know anything about trans kids, either what it meant, you just knew the very little that you’d heard and it was before there’d been a lot in the media. So the only thing I really thought of was that film with Hilary Swank called, Boy’s don’t Cry and, you know, gets killed at the end [Laughs]. it’s just like, and I’m worrying, you know, my big worry was, you know, is anyone gonna love him and what does that mean? And really, really, really worried about bullying and about how it was gonna be received in school and with his peer group. Because he’d had really really hard time at primary school and didnt really have any friends. And I myself had had, you know, bad experiences at school. So that was really my biggest worry. So just lot, lots and lots of worry and fear. And then, immediately after they told me, cause they weren’t with me at the time. They were staying with their dad. I just remember hitting Google and just Googling the hell out of everything and trying to find out as much as possible to inform myself to put my mind at rest. And yeah, to be able to support them in the best way that I could.

I was just relieved that she felt she could trust me. I was concerned, because I couldnt really know where we would go and what, what kind of journey we would have. But it was good to know that what their concern was that at last we could address it rather than it always being an elephant in the room and I didnt even know there was an elephant there.

And then we talked about how to tell her dad, because to be fair, Ive been married to him, Ive been with him for such a long time. But I couldnt actually – because this had come as such a shock – I couldnt actually genuinely tell how he was gonna take it. So when it came to when she finally agreed that I could tell him, so she told me I think on the Friday night and agreed that on the Sunday morning I could tell him. And I told him in pretty much the same way as she told me. I showed him the text. And he read it and he said, Oh well that’s a relief. I thought you were gonna tell me shed got arrested. Obviously not using female pronouns though, at the time. Yeah and that’s, that’s how we kind of got underway.

The doctor suggested that it would be an idea for my ex to know before the referral went, because he thought it would cause problems, otherwise. And my son, hadnt at that point told him but he was due to go for a weekend and so I said to him, why don’t you write a letter. Bear in mind wed had many meltdowns about this, cause I was very aware that when he picked him up from school he was gonna get called the new name by the teachers and the kids. And his dad was gonna hit the roof, basically. Understandably. So I suggested that he write a letter, get him to read it and it was on his, when he came was it before he went yeah, it was before he went. So we got the letter to him and he read it and I got that he received it like ten oclock at night. So he rang me and gave me an earful and I got the brunt of it. But my theory was that hed have got it out of his system and started to think about it and research a little bit by the time my son went for his weekend with him.