Nonbinary transitions and your kids

[Trinity]

How has your transitioning affected your kids?


I'll go later, but it was rocky with mine and their choices of macho husbands reacting to me being trans was not good for them


Oddly those husbands don't care about me being trans,  Mostly.  One is missing, who knows what he thinks.


But it was rough on my kids, and there are different degrees of acceptance.  Some on acceptance.  They don't like it when I am full out she at all.


But the love is still there and I get to be weith them and all.  So that's pretty big, all things considered.


My nieces and nephews, pretty much gone.  Actually, most of my extended family is kinda not there now.  No disowning or anything, its just that I choose not to tangle with them, and they are pretty ok with that too.  Its complicated and all of them are different.


Big difference between being tolerated, and being accepted.  Painful one.


Anyway, how has it gone with your kids?

[Droomvlucht]

I'm sorry to read that it was so hard for you. Good that the love is still there, if there's love, there's hope, right? How old are your children?

Mine are so little (4 and 2), which makes it hard in a completely other way. The oldest is trying to grasp this concept of woman and man and I really feel like young children need a bit of certainty in their lives, they want to make sense of it all, so their starting point will always be binary or else they just get really confused. Of course I'll learn them that people can differ and always needs to be treatened kind and that it's really nice that not everyone is the same and that being a girl doesn't mean you should like pink and dolls (though they both like dolls a lot, which is okay too) and so on, but the concept of non-binary is a little too hard for them to understand (yet). Plus I don't want to give them a hard life on school, it will be hard enough for them they don't have a father like the others.

[Trinity]

How thoughtful for you to wake up a thread that fell through the cracks and wasn't seen!

30, 27 and 25, are my kids age.

And 1,2,3 and 5 are my grandchildrens age.

One of the grandkids lives with us, the 5 year old, and has seen me different ways. When my eyes are done it scares him, I think maybe its too much like the racoon in the incredibles. I also have helped and intervened with him most of his life, and he calls me grandpa now, but when he was 4 he called me grandmapa. He has asked me about my gender a number of times, and all I tell him is "i'd different". He doesn't need to know anything else, and its something that he can understand, that some people are different. And once he surprised us by saying "some boys look like girls" or some men or something like that, and that was referring to me. He sees me in many different presentations of gender around the home, because that is my normal, and because that is my normal, that is his normal too.

My wife can't even say the word androgyne, she freaks out, she can say that I am trans, that doesn't freak her out, and she has whatever coping mechanisms works for her going, so that is a good thing. One of my daughters can't deal with it at all, and she lives with us because she got out of New York to get safe from covid, so there are certain boundaries but she has caught me a bunch of times full out sh'e and she hates it. That won't change, and neither will I, but I wont get in her face with it. Bathrobes are great things, if I am too femme for her, I just throw a robe on. I have multiple robes, some are very femme, some are luxurious and men most likely wouldn't wear them, and some are traditional (boring) male. I wear whatever the heck I want.

Second one has tried to get me to stop being trans but seems to not want to deal with it and ignores it, third one doesn't care about it at all. Her kids usually see me male or androgyne presenting and relate to me as a male grandfather who protects them and loves them. Like when I shot a snake in their backyard....

So its all pretty good here, it wasn't in the early days, it was very hard. And the sad thing is that two of my daughters married very strong men, and one of them became dangerous, and the second one has serious anger problems but is a good man and is still with her. They reacted against me being trans by finding men that were very aggressive. I think that is very sad.

Not having a father is very hard. I fill that role with my grandson in many ways.

For them, its easy for them to understand "different". And frankly, for older people, that should be all they need to know too, but it never is.

Thanks so much for responding to the thread! I hope others might want to respond too, especially if they have fears about it.

[Droomvlucht]

Feb 4, 2021 8:16:06 GMT 8 Trinity said:

For them, its easy for them to understand "different". And frankly, for older people, that should be all they need to know too, but it never is.

Thanks so much for responding to the thread! I hope others might want to respond too, especially if they have fears about it.

This is so spot on! 

I hope so too, but obviously one only can do that when they have children  

Feb 4, 2021 8:16:06 GMT 8 Trinity said:

Not having a father is very hard. 

Oh, actually I don't think that needs to be hard at all. I just meant that they may find it hard because other children will ask questions or bully them. But I don't know yet if that is going to happen, I certainly hope not so it might be as well just a fear of mine. 

In other scenarios it can be hard to not have a father and it's nice that you can fill in that role for your grandkid, I realise it can really depend on what their situation is. But my children have two parents who really love them so (at the moment) this is not a problem for them at all. 

[Trinity]

Feb 4, 2021 19:03:21 GMT 8 Droomvlucht said:

Feb 4, 2021 8:16:06 GMT 8 Trinity said:

For them, its easy for them to understand "different". And frankly, for older people, that should be all they need to know too, but it never is.

Thanks so much for responding to the thread! I hope others might want to respond too, especially if they have fears about it.

This is so spot on! 

I hope so too, but obviously one only can do that when they have children  

Feb 4, 2021 8:16:06 GMT 8 Trinity said:

Not having a father is very hard. 

Oh, actually I don't think that needs to be hard at all. I just meant that they may find it hard because other children will ask questions or bully them. But I don't know yet if that is going to happen, I certainly hope not so it might be as well just a fear of mine. 

In other scenarios it can be hard to not have a father and it's nice that you can fill in that role for your grandkid, I realise it can really depend on what their situation is. But my children have two parents who really love them so (at the moment) this is not a problem for them at all. 

Oops I am still figuring it out here.....

I was thinking it was a one parent scenario where the entire burden is on the mother and the father has left.  Your scenario is completely different from that and my comment is therefore totally wrong for you.

[Droomvlucht]

Feb 4, 2021 21:19:11 GMT 8 Trinity said:

Feb 4, 2021 19:03:21 GMT 8 Droomvlucht said:

Oops I am still figuring it out here.....

I was thinking it was a one parent scenario where the entire burden is on the mother and the father has left.  Your scenario is completely different from that and my comment is therefore totally wrong for you.

I've just been unclear, I'm sorry. I have a wife, and we have two children, my wife has carried them so biologically my children are not related to me. We've used an anonymous donor (when the children are 16 they can get some information though), so there's no father. 

[nyx]

I didn't post here because I don't have children so I didn't know what to say.

But questioning my gender got me into thinking... a bunch of years ago, the wish to have children popped into my head. I had never imagined to be that kind of person that creates a family and so on... Having a weird relationship to my mother and having mental health issues made me think I am not suited to have children. But then, it happened. A bit stereotypical, being in your mid twenties and suddenly wishing to raise some little humans... But since then, I have looked forward to finish my studies and be settled in my new job, my partner finishing at least his master degree and then, we could go for it...

Now I have been unable to have penetrative sex for two years because my anxiety has won over my whole body. It doesn't work anymore. Not without pain, and pain kills my libido so no sex or at least not the sort that is for making children.

Plus, the nonbinary thingy.

If I would manage to produce children (let's say after some therapy), I'd have to deal with the 'mother' role. I will not give up my job, this one is for sure because I will not need to. I'll take a break for a year but then I'll get back to my job. My employer is very family-friendly, so this will be manageable. But of course I will be confronted by the stereotypes, people could think I'm a bad mother - and what will make it worse, I won't even be a 'mother' because I don't see myself as a woman.

And what if I find out that I need a physical transition? At the moment, my feelings go strongly to that direction. I have been wishing for a hysterectomy for many years now because my menstruation is nuts and I am taking birth control pills not for birth control but to avoid eternal bleeding and crippling pain. This isn't even connected to dysphoria. But I am dysphoric about my chest and my voice so there would be some reasons for change. But what with my wish for children? I would try to have one or two children first, and then... move away from the 'female body'.

Thinking about all this makes me wonder if I am not cut out to have children at all. The idea of giving birth kills me, I can't imagine to do it but I know people who had a c-section for similar reasons and it was ok. And I will never get an adoption because of my health file although I know I would do a good job as a parent. Maybe I should stick to my former plan: having just my cats...

You see, I'm a mess... 

[Droomvlucht]

Feb 5, 2021 0:00:59 GMT 8 nyx said:

I didn't post here because I don't have children so I didn't know what to say.

But questioning my gender got me into thinking... a bunch of years ago, the wish to have children popped into my head. I had never imagined to be that kind of person that creates a family and so on... Having a weird relationship to my mother and having mental health issues made me think I am not suited to have children. But then, it happened. A bit stereotypical, being in your mid twenties and suddenly wishing to raise some little humans... But since then, I have looked forward to finish my studies and be settled in my new job, my partner finishing at least his master degree and then, we could go for it...

Now I have been unable to have penetrative sex for two years because my anxiety has won over my whole body. It doesn't work anymore. Not without pain, and pain kills my libido so no sex or at least not the sort that is for making children.

Plus, the nonbinary thingy.

If I would manage to produce children (let's say after some therapy), I'd have to deal with the 'mother' role. I will not give up my job, this one is for sure because I will not need to. I'll take a break for a year but then I'll get back to my job. My employer is very family-friendly, so this will be manageable. But of course I will be confronted by the stereotypes, people could think I'm a bad mother - and what will make it worse, I won't even be a 'mother' because I don't see myself as a woman.

And what if I find out that I need a physical transition? At the moment, my feelings go strongly to that direction. I have been wishing for a hysterectomy for many years now because my menstruation is nuts and I am taking birth control pills not for birth control but to avoid eternal bleeding and crippling pain. This isn't even connected to dysphoria. But I am dysphoric about my chest and my voice so there would be some reasons for change. But what with my wish for children? I would try to have one or two children first, and then... move away from the 'female body'.

Thinking about all this makes me wonder if I am not cut out to have children at all. The idea of giving birth kills me, I can't imagine to do it but I know people who had a c-section for similar reasons and it was ok. And I will never get an adoption because of my health file although I know I would do a good job as a parent. Maybe I should stick to my former plan: having just my cats...

You see, I'm a mess... 

Wow nyx, what a tough situation. It's all very complicated for you. How strong is the wish for children for your partner, how does he think about it?

In my experience one can be perfectly fine a mother while not seeing themselves as a woman. And otherwise you'd still be their parent. I understand the worries, and sometimes I struggle with the concept of being a mother but that's also because I haven't been pregnant, sometimes it feels like you should have done that to actually become one.

But besides that I have been incredibly lucky. My wife loved being pregnant. I really didn't want to be, so for us it was an easy choice.

Is it normal to give up your job in Germany when you get children?

[Ativan Prescribed]

I have two daughters, and I had to play the father role for them all the time, but what I always told them is that they don't have to accept the roles of female, that they can and are in many ways tougher than most men pretend to be.
I taught them the skills that I could, that they were interested in or could use, that are the traditional mens domain, which is just pure bullshit.
They know how to use tools better than a lot of men do, gives them the ability to do things for themselves without having to play on having some guy do it for them.
They kinda scoff at the idea that men have specific roles for things, and I don't think they are intimidating and yet they won't back down either from men.
I've watched them and heard about them standing up to the put downs that girls their ages at the time put up with, and one of them just out and out decked the class bully for being that bully to the girls, just dropped him one day and told him to stop, he did.
It isn't a father thing to be the man, its the father thing to give your kids every advantage that you can, just like the mother needs to as well, while there seems to be something of the traditional roles, it is just as easy to tell your kids in no way do they have to subscribe to them.
They are both in their twenties now and are as independent as can be, they go their own way and both have roles in life that to be honest, most men would fail at if they tried, they know the difference and play the cis game when it suits them.
But I seriously doubt that many people would be able to do the things the do, like I said, they go their own way, but the ability to be their best and not let gender roles dictate what they can and can't do makes them formidable people to challenge, they are up for it.
The traditional role of a father has been bastardized into something that leaves them off the hook for just making sure their kids are able to meet life head on, its the role of parents, not a mother or father, its the role of being a parent.

[Becky]

Whew - this one is rough.

I have an 8 year old son, and he seems as cisgender as a boy can be. He has accepted my painted nails and purple hair completely, and doesn't even question them.

But he has never seen me on my high-femme days.

He is smart and curious, and I know the time will come when I need to talk with him about my being transgender. And it scares me to think about it.

The coward in me hopes that the topic will get covered in school, and he'll start figuring things out on his own. But this is Kentucky - I doubt it will get covered at all.

I need to start thinking about how best to talk about it, but it will take some time and a lot of careful wording. I want him to be proud of me, and proud of what makes me special.

[nyx]

Feb 5, 2021 0:43:05 GMT 8 Droomvlucht said:

Wow nyx, what a tough situation. It's all very complicated for you. How strong is the wish for children for your partner, how does he think about it?

In my experience one can be perfectly fine a mother while not seeing themselves as a woman. And otherwise you'd still be their parent. I understand the worries, and sometimes I struggle with the concept of being a mother but that's also because I haven't been pregnant, sometimes it feels like you should have done that to actually become one.

But besides that I have been incredibly lucky. My wife loved being pregnant. I really didn't want to be, so for us it was an easy choice.

Is it normal to give up your job in Germany when you get children?

I think my partner is quite open to the whole thing. He still thinks of himself as too young to take the father role (but he is 27 and seriously, I know him, he will say he feels too young even when he is 50 ) but loves the idea though. If I decided that I don't want children, he would be ok with it, I guess. He is really relaxed about such things... and my wellbeing is his prio no. 1 anyways.

It is not normal in Germany to give up your job on children. I think I got caught in some old-fashioned thinking there. Many women take some time off and then go back to their jobs. It sometimes depends on how family-friendly the employer is. This has changed a lot in the past decades.

I think I will need some time to sort things out before I can think clearly about this matter. So many fears... 

[taylor]

I'm not sure if anyone is still hanging around this thread, but here goes...

I have two children (ages 5 and 8 ). My 8 year old son is having a bit of a rocky road right now. He attends this super cool adventure camp on Saturdays, and one of the campers in his group is named "Steve" (I'm obviously not posting the kid's real name for privacy reasons). Now I don't know a single thing about Steve, but I've recently discovered that my son is having trouble remembering that Steve is a boy and wants to be referred to with he/him pronouns. Apparently my son has been spoken to on more than one occasion about this. And it was a huge fucking smack in the face to find out about this. The "trouble remembering" thing he says to adults about his behavior is clearly an excuse not to take responsibility for his actions, probably because he believes it will keep him from getting into trouble.

But wait, I'm not done.

We spoke with our son about this. We picked up several library books about trans kids and families. We felt completely behind and blind-sided on this topic, stupidly believing that we had covered it already. Apparently we weren't as good at this as we thought. Within the same week, my son sat across from me at the dinner table, and said, "Are you a boy or a girl?"

So here's the part where I'm completely honest. I stood up and walked out. I took the dogs for a very long walk. I couldn't look at my kid for the rest of that night. It took me hours the next day to be able to work through all of this.

He hit a really big trigger in me. I was nine when the bullying about this stuff started for me. The kids at school asked the same question of me, over and over. Are you a boy or a girl? They'd call me queer or lesbo or dyke all the time. I didn't even know what those words meant. It was a backwater midwest farming town in the middle of nowhere, and there were no queer role models. This was way before Ellen came out on TV. this was probably the same year as the Challenger space shuttle blowing up. It was a rough time. And it set me on a course through life that involved putting up with bullying for a very long time.

When our kids were born, the number one thing I worried about for this stage of their life was that they would be bullied by someone else. I never dreamed that they would become the bully. And it never entered my brain that my own son could bully me. I really didn't see it coming. He didn't mean to do that, but the effect was pretty clear.

I don't even know what question to ask of anyone who might be reading this. I'm floundering as a parent. This feels like failure, and it hurts. I've talked with my wife about it, and she listens well, but she was never bullied or harassed at all. She's also very secure in being a cis-gendered lesbian woman. I'm not even sure where else to say something about how I'm feeling, so I'm trying this.

If you made it through all of this, thanks. It's nice to be heard.

[Trinity]

Jun 2, 2021 8:58:35 GMT 8 taylor said:

I'm not sure if anyone is still hanging around this thread, but here goes...

I have two children (ages 5 and 8 ). My 8 year old son is having a bit of a rocky road right now. He attends this super cool adventure camp on Saturdays, and one of the campers in his group is named "Steve" (I'm obviously not posting the kid's real name for privacy reasons). Now I don't know a single thing about Steve, but I've recently discovered that my son is having trouble remembering that Steve is a boy and wants to be referred to with he/him pronouns. Apparently my son has been spoken to on more than one occasion about this. And it was a huge fucking smack in the face to find out about this. The "trouble remembering" thing he says to adults about his behavior is clearly an excuse not to take responsibility for his actions, probably because he believes it will keep him from getting into trouble.

But wait, I'm not done.

We spoke with our son about this. We picked up several library books about trans kids and families. We felt completely behind and blind-sided on this topic, stupidly believing that we had covered it already. Apparently we weren't as good at this as we thought. Within the same week, my son sat across from me at the dinner table, and said, "Are you a boy or a girl?"

So here's the part where I'm completely honest. I stood up and walked out. I took the dogs for a very long walk. I couldn't look at my kid for the rest of that night. It took me hours the next day to be able to work through all of this.

He hit a really big trigger in me. I was nine when the bullying about this stuff started for me. The kids at school asked the same question of me, over and over. Are you a boy or a girl? They'd call me queer or lesbo or dyke all the time. I didn't even know what those words meant. It was a backwater midwest farming town in the middle of nowhere, and there were no queer role models. This was way before Ellen came out on TV. this was probably the same year as the Challenger space shuttle blowing up. It was a rough time. And it set me on a course through life that involved putting up with bullying for a very long time.

When our kids were born, the number one thing I worried about for this stage of their life was that they would be bullied by someone else. I never dreamed that they would become the bully. And it never entered my brain that my own son could bully me. I really didn't see it coming. He didn't mean to do that, but the effect was pretty clear.

I don't even know what question to ask of anyone who might be reading this. I'm floundering as a parent. This feels like failure, and it hurts. I've talked with my wife about it, and she listens well, but she was never bullied or harassed at all. She's also very secure in being a cis-gendered lesbian woman. I'm not even sure where else to say something about how I'm feeling, so I'm trying this.

If you made it through all of this, thanks. It's nice to be heard.

You have certainly been heard and that's a tough one.

I'm not in the same boat, I know what it is to be bullied, I know what it feels like to be called faggot every day from sixth grade to twelfth.  I know what that did to me.

But I have not dealt with having a child that is the bully, especially bullying a trans person.

My heart goes out to you, and I pray the answers come to you in your inner soul, so that you know what to do.

When I was asked, I always said and probably did on this thread, that I am different.  Just different.  Boy or girl is so binary.  But it was never asked hostily..

I wonder if someone taught him to do that, if it was how kids thought they would be cool in an America where cruelty became good and kindness to others who are different bad, the evil of this culture now where that was corrupted.

But as to the kid, and the uncoolness of it, as a parent, I share your confusion.  I suppose consequences for the behavior would be in order, and a talk with your wife about what the best thing to do is, even if she doesn't quite get it.

It was in the third grade, around 8, when I started to be bullied.  It was around then that I knew something was "wrong" with me.  Yes some of the kids were hitting me and stuff back then, or one or two, maybe one.  The irony of it was that the one that did that eventually became kind of a friend, he was always borrowing a dime to get a portion of corn at lunch, he was hungry, so I think he had it tough.  Good kid but he was angry and that anger was turned on me.

I don't know, maybe asking the kid why he is doing that would help, finding out if he is angry about something, asking the why word.

Hugs.

[Ativan Prescribed]

Just ask the kid why he said that and depending on the answer, you go from there.
Kids pick up bad habits very easily and its a part of parenting to set them straight and on what is right and what isn't.
If you have to explain that it is far worse to be a bigot than anything else, explain it in no uncertain terms.
This doesn't mean punishing for such things, it means correcting the problems.
How does that go?.. talking about the splinter in my eye and not seeing the log in yours? Something like that.
For every thing that people can come up with for reasons why they don't like trans, the biggest is the bible, or rather the bigots bible, the one that only has the things they like to quote in it.
But if they really respected the bible, they would know that it isn't written as they think it is and there are far more things they are guilty of than someone just being trans.
I ask this question at times to bigots when I overhear or it comes up in conversations, just exactly is the trouble besides your misinterpretation of the bible when it comes to trans, just calling out someone for being trans is against the principles in the bible just for starters.
Just exactly is the problem with trans, are they afraid of trans taking over the world, because it has been around a lot longer than even the bible, its a part of ancient culture and in most of them that are not centered around the bible, they are celebrated, so just what is this problem anyways?
The simple truth is that trans is just different and so are a lot of things, but there isn't the hatred that bigots have in them, and its that false hatred that is really talked about in the bible as a sin, but then picking up twigs on a sunday is a sin according to something in the bible.
There are so many things wrong with the bible and most of it is because even before it was put together, it became a political tool for those in power, the king james version is a blatant attempt to hold power over the people and the reason why it reads like some ancient language that nobody used, and it wasn't used, its a made up one for the royals to use so that the common people couldn't figure out what the fuck, that made it really really easy for them to bastardize much of the bible to their liking and their liking was to control the people and to stay in power, back to work serfs...
So really, just one page over from the much wrongly quoted passage about trans that isn't about trans at all but can be twisted into it, is the one about tattoos, and how many bigots have bigot tattoos, lot of them, the fricken sinners...
So if you need to get the info together to be able to explain in ways that an eight year old can comprehend, then get it together and parenting is like that with virtually everything about guiding a kid through life, its up to you and not the elite sat afternoon camp to do it for you, there is always going to be something from somewhere from someone on every subject under the sun, I know I have two kids on my own and the biggest part of the day was sitting down in the comfy couch and asking them about there day with it going pretty much like this, and then what happened?
Once they get off on the wrong path, its up to you to not just tell them where the path is, but point out why it is the better path for them to be on, not the one that everyone else is on, but defining their paths along with them is important, it shows you care and it shows that there is more than just the stale old crap everyone else goes by in the world, it invites a newness to life and if there is anything that is better, then show them the way, don't just say the words, live it and they will follow.

[danishcouple]

We started 5 years before our child was born.
We had a child wish and 5 years into our transition, at that time we had already legally changed our gender and name, we decided that we wanted a child.
So after visiting a ivf clinic and stopped t for a year we became pragnant, and both we decided that we wanted a Non-binair child so after birth we gived hen a non binair name, Felis Lynx goes by Lynx, we grow it up in a all gender neutral way.
Lynx is now 15 years old, at the start of Lynx puberty we taked Lynx to an friend of us, who is a hormone specialist, because we wanted not specify our child's gender to grown into the natural way, but wanted that our child become the same as us not surgery's but only hormones te become a mixture of both binair genders after a view consults we have had the recept for hormones, and started injecting 4 times a year hormones in our child's body ( same way as us ) now days there floods Testosterone and estrogen in our childs body, and it developed in both way's, it has a penis, but also some soft skin and breasts growing now,and our child is very proud of this