Gender Help For Parents

My name is Rosana, I live in Sydney’s Inner West, and I’m the proud mother of a gender diverse young person. I am keen to share our story because my child’s journey has not been straightforward, even by trans* standards. I hope that in telling our story it helps all parents of trans* kids, but I especially want to reach out to those parents whose children do not present or ‘come out’ as typically ‘male-to-female’ or ‘female-to-male’ trans-identified.

My child, Oliver, or Ollie as we mostly call him, is 16-years-old and identifies as a ‘genderqueer’/transgender person. If you’re new to this, bear with me, I’ll explain the terminology as I go on. Suffice to say, for now, that Ollie is a ‘female-to-male’ young trans* person.

Nonetheless, Ollie is the kind of kid that resists labels, and in his case, the most prominent feature of their gender identity is ‘NOT GIRL’. The pronouns we use for him are ‘he’ and the gender neutral pronoun ‘they’, as Ollie is a non-binary gendered person, who does not identify completely as either male or female. I am trying to describe my child as they feel themselves to be in order to show other parents that not all children fall neatly within the male/female divide. Some kids, as do adults, identify somewhere on the gender spectrum other than the absolute opposites of male and female. That’s where the ‘genderqueer’ term comes in. Ollie ‘queers’ gender by identifying mostly as male, but not entirely. However, he does prefer to be ‘read’ as male, prefers a male name, male or gender neutral pronouns, male clothing, hairstyle etc, but may wear the odd girlish thing, like a flower in his hair, or occasionally even a skirt, although these things are never worn in a feminine way. There is

Catherine’s Story

When my daughter was growing up it never crossed my mind that she had any issues with her gender. I have no stories to share about her insisting she was a boy, no stories of my struggles to persuade her to wear girls clothing, no stories of how she was a tomboy or played on the boys soccer team. I have nothing like that to share. My stories are of a beautiful and creative little girl who loved her princess dolls, her My Little Ponies, her coloured hair clips, bows and fairy wings and the silver glitter star she made into a magic wand.

It was never on my radar that my daughter could be transgender nor that one day when she was in her early 20’s our lives would be turned completely upside down. I cannot remember clearly how my daughter told me he was a boy, or whether he used the word transgender. The panic that I felt at that moment thinking there must be something terribly wrong with my child has wiped some of my memories of that day. But I will never forget the anguish I saw in my sons face. I knew whatever he was struggling with, it was massive.

I didn’t know what I should do and I turned to a diagnostic manual which at that time was the DSM IV. I looked up gender and I came away worried that my son could be suffering a disorder and be mentally ill. I saw a psychologist specialising in gender issues and I told her about my son and how he behaved and dressed like a girl. But I also told her about the distress my son felt during puberty, his anxiety and discomfort with his female anatomy and of his breast binding. …

Lisa’s Story

My name is Lisa, I have two children, the youngest being a 19 year old transman.

I had suspected my child was transgender from an early age, the signs were small but enough to concern me. I became more concerned as my child approached puberty, I had the talk, “You know your body is going to change, are you ok with that?”. I even taped an Oprah show on trans kids and showed my child to see if that sparked any conversation, but no, it didn’t. Puberty was early, around 11 years of age and awkward. By the age of 14, my child came out as lesbian. I remember that conversation well because of my stupid response, “Oh thank goodness. I thought you were going to ask for a penis”. I was thinking being lesbian is easier than being transgender.

1 year later, that stupid statement came back to bite me when my child told me that the issue was indeed gender. Even though I had suspected it for years, I still went into panic, he was about to start year 10 and I felt that transition would be easier after school, if I could just hold him off it would be safer. Not much was said and I sort of just sat on it for about 6 months. I ended up with a very unhappy child. He did all the research online as to what to do and where to go, came to us with the information, and so the journey began.

I was so weighed down by fear in the beginning, it was hard to function. My husband seemed to have a better grip on it than me but his mind didn’t think as much about the negative things that occupied mine, “will my child be