fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
So I'm not sure exactly what I'm hoping for out of this thread, but here goes. Maybe somebody else has a similar story and will find this helpful. Or maybe it can just be used to promote acceptance.
Some of you may have seen me mention my 16-year-old daughter Talia in the past, mostly in the Political Subforum. Most notably here in the Pete Buttigieg thread, where @Sinn Fein managed to get the architect of Pete Buttigieg's campaign to shoot a happy birthday video in an attempt to dispel the conspiracy theory that Buttigieg was just faking being gay.
Anyway, in late March, the child I had previously known as Talia came out as trans to me, my ex-wife, and my younger kid. We now use male pronouns and he has taken the name Peter. This has all gone on during the pandemic so he's not out at school yet. Other than my ex wife and daughter and me, I think the only people that know are two or three of Peter's closest friends and some doctors and mental health professionals.
Nothing is set in stone yet but my expectation is that Peter will start hormone replacement therapy in the next few months and will present as male for his senior year of high school. He desperately wants to start hormones as early as possible. The process of coming out at school and to grandparents and others isn't something he's looking forward to, but his hope is that he can attend college as a male, and that most people will just see him as male and he won't need to be constantly coming out to people. I'm actually not sure how colleges assign trans kids to dorms -- I assume there must be some guidance there. Ideally he would be in a dorm with male roommates, but maybe the roommates are notified in advance that he transitioned? I guess we'll figure it out.
Anyway, we've had discussions here about transgender military service and transgender bathrooms and all that, but I can't remember anyone ever talking personally about a trans family member. It feels different when an issue is personal. I'm incredibly proud of my kid (for lots of reasons) and I guess I felt like sharing this info with the FBG community because I've been here so long a lot of you folks are like family. And honestly, all that transgender stuff always just seemed like an abstraction back before I had a trans kid, so I'm still in the process of learning and sorting through things myself.
If you have any questions or comments, even if they feel dumb, feel free to post in here. I know there's likely to be at least a handful of hurtful posts given the subject matter but that's OK, please just let people post stuff and try not to turn this into some sort of combative thread. This can be a beautiful thread. I know this place is generally supportive and I expect the vast majority of people to have Peter's best interests at heart. He's an awesome kid and I'm hoping this thread can also be used to document his transition so I can look back some day and read how I was thinking and feeling at the time.
Thanks for reading this.
Some of you may have seen me mention my 16-year-old daughter Talia in the past, mostly in the Political Subforum. Most notably here in the Pete Buttigieg thread, where @Sinn Fein managed to get the architect of Pete Buttigieg's campaign to shoot a happy birthday video in an attempt to dispel the conspiracy theory that Buttigieg was just faking being gay.
Anyway, in late March, the child I had previously known as Talia came out as trans to me, my ex-wife, and my younger kid. We now use male pronouns and he has taken the name Peter. This has all gone on during the pandemic so he's not out at school yet. Other than my ex wife and daughter and me, I think the only people that know are two or three of Peter's closest friends and some doctors and mental health professionals.
Nothing is set in stone yet but my expectation is that Peter will start hormone replacement therapy in the next few months and will present as male for his senior year of high school. He desperately wants to start hormones as early as possible. The process of coming out at school and to grandparents and others isn't something he's looking forward to, but his hope is that he can attend college as a male, and that most people will just see him as male and he won't need to be constantly coming out to people. I'm actually not sure how colleges assign trans kids to dorms -- I assume there must be some guidance there. Ideally he would be in a dorm with male roommates, but maybe the roommates are notified in advance that he transitioned? I guess we'll figure it out.
Anyway, we've had discussions here about transgender military service and transgender bathrooms and all that, but I can't remember anyone ever talking personally about a trans family member. It feels different when an issue is personal. I'm incredibly proud of my kid (for lots of reasons) and I guess I felt like sharing this info with the FBG community because I've been here so long a lot of you folks are like family. And honestly, all that transgender stuff always just seemed like an abstraction back before I had a trans kid, so I'm still in the process of learning and sorting through things myself.
If you have any questions or comments, even if they feel dumb, feel free to post in here. I know there's likely to be at least a handful of hurtful posts given the subject matter but that's OK, please just let people post stuff and try not to turn this into some sort of combative thread. This can be a beautiful thread. I know this place is generally supportive and I expect the vast majority of people to have Peter's best interests at heart. He's an awesome kid and I'm hoping this thread can also be used to document his transition so I can look back some day and read how I was thinking and feeling at the time.
Thanks for reading this.