I Understand.

And I recognize it as part of the grieving process that we go through. The dad dreams of walking his daughter down the aisle when she gets married, the mother dreams of having a son who’s a lawyer and all those dreams get dashed.

When I came out as trans to my mother, she accepted me with open arms. But then she became distant and told me she was grieving the loss of her son.

•     I decided to start my gender transition at 24 — just over a year ago.
•     When I came out to my mom, she welcomed me with open arms, but then she became distant.
•     She told me she had to grieve, but we are slowly rebuilding our relationship.

Insider
By Tessa Becker
September 4, 2023

From the moment I was born, I had hypertoxic masculinity imposed on my lanky childhood frame like an ill-fitting costume.

My father, the main perpetrator, always espoused the importance of manhood and the expectations that came with it. I had to be a man — even though I was interested in women's clothing, poetry, and my cousin's Polly Pocket dolls.

[…]

I was living with my divorced mom at the time. She was someone that I imagined would accept me if I came out, but I was still scared to broach the topic while under her roof.

Early in my transition, I decided on whom I wanted to come out to. My dad's side of the family was infected with toxic masculinity and Christian conservatism. I knew they would not accept the new me. I decided it was easier just to cut ties with my father and his side of the family.

When she told her mother she did it by texting with a support network around her and her mother replied,

She wrote: "I suppose I've known for a while… I'm glad you're comfortable enough to tell me and please, I know I'm a tightly bound ball of stress but please don't ever hold something back for fear of burdening me. You're not a burden, you're my child, and I love you."

For someone deeply afraid of coming out, that was the best response I could have gotten. I was elated. But it wasn't the end of the story.

Yeah, I can understand her father’s reaction coming from a Christian conservative family butut over time her mother said she was grieving the lost of her son, “’I'm grieving the loss of my son’ she said.

The same thing used to happen when a son comes out as gay or a daughter as a lesbian, the loss of grandchildren, the fear of the stigma of being LGBTQ+ and of those impacts the parents and siblings. The same things happens when a couple finds out that they can have any children, they don’t divorce but they do grieve over the loss of having children. Grieving does not mean not loving.

I believe that it is a natural process that parents and friends go through, they were hit with a big change in their life and I do not feel that it is rejection. I know when I came out it was a very big shift in understanding that my brother and his family went through. For me I have 60 years to think about it but for them it was a ton of bricks that landed in their laps. A friedns says the biggest thing she missed once her spouse transitioned was falling asleep on his shoulder on a train. Is that rejection or is a natural process we all go through with change.

So my question do you feel the grieving for the lost of their dreams is rejection, or is it only a natural process we go though?

online polls