I hadn't really thought of this before. 1. Denial I'll admit I went through denial. This is just a phase. I quickly realized even alluding to that deeply hurt my tran son's feelings. One of my cousins declared she was a lesbian, and a few years later, she ended up pregnant and is now living with her boyfriend. That has led my wife to believe it might be a phase that is outgrown. (Or...it might be the cousin is bi and didn't understand the distinction.) Life is hard, and being different from the masses increases the challenges. But I don't wish my son to be anybody else. 2. Anger I'm reminded of the giraffe in quicksand on YouTube. If you haven't seen it, a quick search should turn it up. I don't believe I was angry. At least, it didn't register. I believe I skipped this. 3. Bargaining I must be in denial about my stages, because I don't believe I went through this stage, either. 4. Depression Nope. I'm afraid for my son. But I'm not depressed. Maybe I'm stuck in phase one, and I don't realize it? 5. Acceptance I believe I'm here. In my heart, I truly want what's best for my son. I'm clueless, and I don't know much about this journey. I'm willing to learn and walk through this with him. He'll always have a safe and welcoming home. I want him to be happy, and I want him to be safe. More than 50% of Transgender youth will have had at least one suicide attempt by their 20th birthday.* <Youth Suicide Statistics> I want him to be the exception to the trend. I want him to feel valued and that his life is just as important as the next guy's. I don't want to visit his grave. That should be the other way around. I don't want him to be bullied. I don't want him to be the victim of snide remarks...or worse. I don't want him to experience bigotry. Basically, it's the same wishes that I have for my other children. I believe his is incredibly brave. I can't imagine sharing that with my parents. I'm honored he chooses to trust me this much.
You sound like a great parent. It's worth knowing that pretty much everyone goes through the stages, but sometimes one can go through the whole process in an hour, and sometimes it takes years. Anger isn't always what it looks like. It can manifest as "Why does my son have to go through this difficulty" or "Why would God do this" or any of a hundred other things. Bargaining is often something like "Well, I accept him as he is, but perhaps this is a phase he'll grow out of" or some variation of that. I don't like the way our article expresses the fourth stage as depression. A better word is grief. It's mourning the loss of the part of the person you knew, the experiences that person will never have, the experiences or changes it might make for you and your wife, and so forth. Also, the article neglects to mention that the stages aren't always sequential, that people can sometimes be in more than one at the same time, and people can regress. All of the individual stages happen, but not always in the listed order. All of that said, I wouldn't stress about whether or not you've experienced these things. In general, everyone does experience all of them, but in many different ways over many different time tables. The important piece is you love and accept him and want to ensure he's happy, and at the end of the day, that's all that really matters.
I'll second that you sound like a great parent and also think that your idea to sticky "the 5 signs" to be something that we should have thought about years ago,thankyou. If any mods read this I think we should have "the 5 signs" stickyd ?? here and on the coming out advice and coming out forums because pointing people to this often explains so much of what is going on when a parent/family member is acting so out of character.
Thanks for this thread, Reggie - teared up. Right there with you on loving, supporting and ADMIRING my daughter.
