There’s a lot to consider when your child is questioning his or her gender. Since 2016, I've worked with hundreds of families and I’ve been researching, learning, and speaking about the best way to support gender-questioning kids.
I would like to share my thoughts with you. Below are some of the most common topics I’m asked about by parents. I’ve provided some thoughts about each and helpful resources for families who want to learn more about these complex issues.
Unfortunately, this idea is often used to pressure families into affirming a child’s new identity. There are several reasons I view this as an unfair and damaging ultimatum.
There are so many other ways to support exploration without confirming or rubber-stamping your child’s identity experiments. Visit https://www.subscribestar.com/sashalpc.
I believe that honest communication with your child is important. Pretending, lying, or otherwise misleading your child may seem to reduce tensions in the short term, but ultimately, this erodes trust and creates an atmosphere of “walking on eggshells.” Though adolescents may act assertive or even desperate for you to call them by a new name, teens actually need parents to create clear boundaries, set the pace, and offer guidance.
I invite parents to think carefully about new names and pronouns. It seems that social transition can put a child on a pathway that solidifies the transgender identity and subsequent leads to medical interventions. If you feel uncomfortable using the name and pronouns, have a discussion with your child. Use warmth and kindness, but also remain calm and confident while clarifying what your family will or won’t do.
One of my most popular video series addressing this question is called “Responding to Your Child’s Trans Announcement + Setting Boundaries.” You can find it in my Parent Membership Group.
This is one of the scariest questions a loving parent can ask: “did we do the wrong thing?” Whether your child is 4 or 14, this can be a daunting fear. It is unbelievably painful to regret past decisions about your child’s social and medical transition. But this is not an isolated experience, and many families wonder if they were lead in a dangerous direction by medical or mental health professionals.
In addition to cultivating self-forgiveness and processing your complex emotions, parents like you have also found effective, practical ways to “walk it back.” Stella and I expanded on this topic on this episode of Gender: A Wider Lens and I also cover this in my Parent Membership Group.
When you have a strong intuition that something is wrong, but everyone around you thinks you’re exaggerating and blowing things out of proportion, it can be a crazy-making experience. Many parents who attended our Wider Lens Renewal Retreats reported that they’d never spoken to anyone in their lives about their child’s gender-questioning before coming to our event. They were afraid of having their parental decisions judged and criticized or losing important relationships. Finding other likeminded families who understand your concerns and parenting decisions can be a huge relief.
In my Parent Membership Group, we host a robust private discord channel for parents to connect with each other, share resources, and even develop friendships “in real life.” Other parent groups include GDSN, PITT, Our Duty, Genspect, and PEC. Two of the most well-established parent-focused online blogs are 4th Wave Now and Transgender Trend.
Have you ever had this thought: If I had no clue my kid would ever question her gender, what else am I in the dark about?
A child’s gender announcement can elicit self-doubt even if you typically parent with instinctive competence. Gender may also create a smokescreen, disorienting and confusing you about where to accommodate your child’s wishes and where to set limits.
Let’s consider some different scenarios without the distracting element of gender: If your socially vulnerable child was swept up in an unhealthy friend group or flirting with high-risk behaviors, what would you do? What if your daughter was restricting food or cutting? Or if your son had fallen down an online rabbit-hole of extremist groups or violent pornography?
In a less extreme example, maybe your daughter is adopting new mannerisms and interests that don’t really make her happy, just so she can fit in with her peers. And what if you could see that the deeper she goes into her new persona, the more unhappy, depressed, and self-conscious she becomes?
In these scenarios, would you lean in with guidance and instruction, or give your child space to “figure it out?”
For some families, these questions offer a different perspective and help parents re-connect with their instincts. My Parent Membership Group is a resource where I offer analogies and examples outside the gender realm that can help you clarify values, make decisions, and lean in with love.
I have a full caseload and have shifted my focus towards empowering parents. Working with families since 2016, I’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. If you want to be loving and supportive, but you also want to help your child think critically and avoid making permanent medical changes that may not serve him or her in the long run, then you should consider joining my Parent Membership Group.
Here I offer nuanced, thoughtful ideas and practical tools to help you feel more confident in parenting your gender-questioning child. I began building this Membership Group in 2018 and it has become a robust online resource with a vast library of videos, articles, and recorded conversations. You’ll also get access to new content that I post monthly, teaching you how to respond to your child’s gender experimentation with discernment, wisdom, and compassion.
There are two tiers of support you can join.
Here, you get to submit questions directly to me and join me and several other parents for our Monthly Live Group Session. We’ll briefly talk through your situation together and I’ll offer some feedback and ideas. I’ll also specifically tailor a set of further resources to deepen your knowledge and help you establish a plan of action. You’ll also have the benefit of hearing other parents talk through their questions with me: this process usually answers questions or sparks ideas that can help you with your own child.
*Everyone in the Personalized Support Q+A Tier also has access to all my Essential Topics Videos too.
Community on Discord
Both tiers have full access to our active private discord server! Here, parents can communicate with others who really “get it.” Build friendships, share helpful resources, and connect in a variety of ways based on geographical location, sex of your child, gender of your child, etc. There is even a discussion thread for fans of Gender: A Wider Lens Podcast.
I offer 75-minute telephone consultations for parents of gender-questioning adolescents and young adults. Parents can use this time to think through specific concerns, decisions and questions. These typically revolve around:
I often say, “bad therapy can be worse than no therapy.” The psychiatric and mental health professions, have at times throughout history, become swept up in cultural currents and adopted practices which ultimately harmed vulnerable patients. Some of you might have discovered that therapists are often quick to affirm new gender identities, no matter how sudden, and no matter how complicated the situation.
On the other hand, many concerned therapists believe it’s our ethical responsibility to treat each client as an individual. Many such therapists had been contacting me, looking for ways to support gender dysphoric youth in a whole-person, and least-invasive-first manner. So, in 2021, some colleagues and I started GETA, now called Therapy First - the aim of this group is to help connect like-minded therapists, provide training and resources, and offer families and dysphoric individuals a directory of therapists.
Therapy First believes psychotherapy should be a first-line treatment for gender dysphoria.
Please have a look at their website here.