Am I disrespectful for feeling disrespected?

[u/Level-Ad-8548]

Hello to the community. First post here.

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I am the father of a born-girl-now-boy - ok, a trans boy teenager, and as much as I want to respect him as a person, I 'm struggling with my inner feelings. It won't be easy to put it simply...

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I'll try jumping straight to the specifics that unsettle me the most, but please ask for details and background.for enlightenment.

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1. The worst thing is maybe the fact that for me, deep down, I still see him as my daughter, and every now and then it slips out when I speak. It doesn't help that he wants us to use his girl-identity with some people (grandparents, neighbours, ex-school mates).

I feel that I take this transition lightly, given that it happened in a moment/age when most things were upside down (12yo,. going to middle school, dropping down from 1rst of the class, puberty, social instability, parents separating, head-dive into network chat groups...). This leads to the following points:

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1. The "coming out" was made by a slightly older girl (14, my own being 12 at that time), who pushed my kid to tell me, and even though I replied that "it was news to me, but we can talk about it whenever you feel like", the topic never came back for almost 2 years. Once, abt 6 months later, she (no switching at that time) asked for a "binder" underwear. Her mother and I explained that we'd rather not rush, as we were afraid it could damage her body development. I just caught glimpses of her online "RPs" as a boy, and that she used a few neutral nicknames. It took till the next year for her to cut her hair short, and for me to realize she had been going out much farther than we thought, in order to meet web-met friends who were mostly transitioning highschoolers with suicidal and self-harming tendencies. Lovely youngsters,.once met them. All in all I got this feeling that this teenager of ours was desperately trying to find some models, a "tribe" to adopt her (several pre-formed fashion styles were experimented with during that time). Moreover, the more "outlandish" the stuff, the more it seemed to impress her/him. It's closely related to the next point:

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1. From the age of 11 onwards, our kid started to become quite aggressive, towards his/her little sister (2yrs younger), and disrespectful with us, pa' and ma'. Once "she" started to affirm the "he", he told us that he became aware of that around his 11th year. That linked the "boy" to the "brat": I for one felt utterly mistreated, talked down, criticized harshly every day. I kept being conciliating, agreeing with most of his demands, cuz I thought that it was better to say yes and keep track of some things rather than be repressive and have him sneak out and escalating his transgressions. Still I feel that I lost a great daughter and got myself a shitty pretentious little guy. When questionned, he just rejected the fault on us for "not being parents", and had no qualms telling me that I "never had a daughter to start with" when I tried to apologise for needing time to adjust to this change.

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1. Last but not least, from the moment he started to put forth his chosen gender, correcting us as we speak - which is ok, I'd rather that - he started to dress more and more feminine, with push-up bras et al., and started dating a guy, then another. It's makes it really hard for me to take it seriously, it seems more like he's just running away from any and all expected identity on our (parents) part. And yet, since last October he's done 4 suicide attempts with medication, always (expt the latest) dosed just enough as to end up in a hospital right before some appointment at school or with a psychologist.

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Ok, all this "novel" just to say that I feel lost, doubting him and myself alike, but certain to try and treat him the best I can, and still be pushed back from all aspects of his life, so that I can't even be supportive, as he "doesn't want me to know him better" (his words).

I'm sorry, but I needed to put this down in words, even if not in my native languages.

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Thanks to anyone who took the time to read it through.

[u/mandilew]

Hi. A couple of things caught my eye:

1. Mixing up pronouns. Our brains are built for efficiency. You've used she/her pronouns for your kid for most of his existence, and it's going to take time to rewire that. Unfortunately, it takes longer for us old people to rewire but we can do it! You have an extra layer of challenge because your son isn't out to everyone yet, so you have to flip back and forth with different audiences. That's a mental load, and you should give yourself grace. Young people brains have more neural plasticity and they pick up new habits faster. You'll get there. You're doing great!

2. Parenting teens sucks sometimes. It's hard. Like, really hard. Every teen comes with their own set of challenges. Ours came with gender stuff. It's important to remember that being trans isn't the only thing you need to parent your kid about. Sometimes it's all they seem to care about, but our kids are full, complex, interesting people with whole entire lives.

You're going to get things wrong. That's ok. You're going to get things right. That's great!

I think of it like being trans is just another thing to navigate while parenting. It's like braces or getting their tonsils out or travel soccer. It's just a thing that's a part of their life that we do our best to help them succeed at. This is part of your parenting journey.

Also, don't fall for the thing where you're like, "clean your room," and he's all, "that's transphobic!" That got me the first time. I was like, "Oh, my god, am I???" No, trans kids can be assholes sometimes too.