Supporting my teen through gender affirming care: fear, curiosity, and love
Part of raising a trans* teen is a sense of fear. I’ve written in other posts about the fears I had for my child’s safety at school, and that has been tremendously alleviated now that he is in a new, more diverse and accepting district. However, there are still more fears that I have to contend with, and some that I’m not proud of. You see, that’s kinda the thing about fear: it’s irrational and unreasonable sometimes. For me, one way to manage these fears is to share my story with all of you, so here it goes.
My child decided it was time to ask his primary care physician for a referral for gender affirming care. I was incredibly proud of him for advocating for himself and I was impressed with how respectful and compassionate his doctor was. At Portsmouth Pride this past June, we met a doctor who specialized in pediatric gender affirming care whom we felt was compatible with our needs, so a referral was sent and we left the doctor’s office feeling quite satisfied. We were warned that there is often quite a long wait for an appointment, so admittedly, I put it on the back burner. Then the phone call came. Much sooner than we were anticipating, my child had an appointment for an initial consultation and my thoughts and feelings started to run amok.
The endocrinologist sent us a lovely welcome letter introducing us to the practice and provided us with some initial paperwork and support resources. Of course, I immediately flipped to the local resources and was proud to see PFLAG-NH prominently featured. There were some great educational materials about how to support our teen through transitioning, and it was positive and validating to review them. There was also some educational materials about what gender affirming medical care might entail, and while I was reviewing it, that’s when the lurking fear began to bubble up.
I felt a pit form in my stomach and my pulse quickened. I immediately felt embarrassed at my own reaction. I see myself as a progressive and supportive mom involved in the queer community, but the thought of medical intervention suddenly felt alien and terrifying. My gut demanded that I immediately call and cancel the appointment to protect my child while my brain reprimanded me for being so irrational and unsupportive and my heart throbbed at the prospect of seeing my child go through such drastic changes. The head and the heart and the gut proceeded to duke it out in my kitchen while my quivering hand lowered the pamphlets and closed the folder. These feelings and thoughts were all so intense and contradictory that I had to walk away to let them all process.
Over the next few weeks, my brain, heart, and gut continued to skirmish while I tried to go about my normal life. When I saw my child, I found myself thinking some pretty awful and unsupportive thoughts like “is he sure he wants this?” and “what if he goes through with this and makes permanent changes to his body but he was mistaken about his gender?” and “wow, all these thoughts make me a really awful mom…I thought I was better than all this.” When I recognized this internal clash, I knew I had to take a step back and give myself some space for perspective.
Okay, let’s be honest with each other for a minute. We hear a lot of garbage rhetoric about trans* people and transitioning. On an intellectual level, when I hear that garbage, I can discard it like the trash it is. However, on a deeper and more emotional level, those messages can implant themselves and burst out of your chest like an Alien face-hugger at inconvenient times. At those times when fear starts to take hold and the brain is overruled by the heart and the gut the fears make their dramatic appearance.
I remember reading somewhere this idea: “The first thought that goes through your mind is what you have been conditioned to think. What you think next defines who you are” (Nikolaecuza). In a similar vein, I also read “I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom” (William Deresiewicz). While both of these ideas have been criticized by some, they helped to remind me that my thoughts and feelings are not the enemy here. My fears were not completely irrational because change IS HARD, and just because I see myself as a supportive mom doesn’t mean that fear will never happen. In a weird kinda way, my fear is really a reflection of my love for my child—to protect him from perceived harm and to process and acknowledge those fears and doubts is to better understand that gender affirming care is what will ultimately protect my child. The research is clear about how beneficial it is for the mental and physical health of trans* people.
I reconciled my brain and my heart by connecting these dots, but my gut still gets twitchy, and maybe that is okay for now. There is a healthy level of skepticism and curiosity that will help me ask the right questions when we meet the doctor later this month. I was honest with my son about some of my feelings. I wanted him to know that I would be asking some questions because I don’t know everything about gender affirming care. My questions should not be interpreted as being unsupportive of his decision to pursue medical care, but as being curious and wanting the best outcome for him. I kept the garbage and the Alien face-huggers to myself because they are my burden to bear, not his.
Through this journey, I have had to face a lot of fears and uncertainty. Thankfully, the right doctors and the right support network has helped me to navigate these fears. As his appointment is getting closer, the fear keeps popping up, and truth be told, I’m not sure they will ever completely go away, but it feels somehow more manageable now and I can feel hope also peeking through.
For more information about gender affirming care, click here and here.