It just dawned on me after digesting your incredible essay that I allowed my daughter’s trans declaration to completely derail my parenting style. Her declaration sent me into panic of despair and grief. She was my little girl one day and a “boy” the next. The problem is I was a loving and authoritative parent for years who became impotent, angry and terrified overnight. I’ve been living in that state since just as she has been living with hers. Your essay has helped me remember the parent I would have been if she had presented with any other issue. I wouldn’t have cowered or become angry or panicked. I would have talked to her, held her and told her we’d figure it out. Instead, I googled what to do, and it told me to affirm and not question. It didn’t feel right, but all that I told her was that I loved her no matter what. My point is that I allowed an ideology to take over as her parent and mine, quite frankly. Thank you for helping me remember that and realize that I have given waaay too much power to this ideology. No, I’m not going to storm into her room with a hammer and destroy her computer and phone (although I’ve thought about it). I’m going to be me again or at least try to be step by step. Thank you!
I must admit that I am not dealing with a gander questioning kid - at this point. I have had to deal with other high risk issues, so your strategies make sense to me. Overwhelming young kids with a tsunami of information and data is pointless because they can't process it. Adolescents will simply shut down when confronted with a long data loaded lecture. My experience has taught me to keep calm, set firm boundaries and keep communication lines open when dealing with my kids. I can panic and rip my hair out later in private
Excellent piece, Maia. As an educator who’s taken my share of courses and professional development on child development—I really appreciate you speaking about the fact that individuation is a natural part of adolescence, as well as your emphasis on addressing the root cause of why a young person might subscribe to a transgender identity. I literally had a high school girl tell me that she was considering opting into a non-binary identity because she felt burdened by her experiences as a girl/young woman. I believe misunderstood young people are, and have been, trying to communicate their needs to society and their caregivers and instead have been handed this ideology as the “answer.”
I can’t remember exactly, but I told her something along the lines of us needing strong women in our world who can speak to the experiences of girls and women. I think the sentiment that I emphasized was that a rose by any other name is just as sweet, and that she wasn’t alone.
Fantastic essay, as usual! It really brought clarity to some of the issues I’ve been mulling over the past couple of weeks. Glad to know I’m not on either end of the parenting spectrum, but, at times, I’ve been tempted to go full tiger mom. Thank you for allowing me to see what my daughter needs!
Beautifully written, but I am also amazed and appauled that there are whole adults out there who really believe that just throwing facts at a person will ever change their mind! Maybe because I taught for so long and have always interacted with young people, I've always found open-minded curiosity and a good bit of careful listening and detective work (within yourself, analysing their responses in an open-minded way) will get you FAR further than just stubbonly clinging to a 'fact' and thinking that's going to get you anywhere. We need to get to the needs and fears behind the behaviour...our young people have all the 'facts' that we have and then some, it's never been our role to inform, it's been our role to relate and to guide relationally. I'm just amazed anyone reaches my age without figuring this one out
It’s because parents who bombard their kids with facts are doing it from panic rather than from a place of logical reasoning. Panic is what causes these families to really go downhill fast
I guess fear is going to jam you into a desire to be right and commit to your story faster than anything else will! I can't talk as if I've never felt fear - I try to get really intelligent with it and drop into curiosity and playfulness whenever I feel it, but doing that when you're reasonably convinced someone you love's life is on the line is a WHOLE other ballgame. And these dominant narratives of "You have to or else s*icide" really fuel irrational fear like nothing else around. Real nightmare fuel, the whole situation
Thanks Maia, this was a really insightful and interesting perspective on the dynamics that exist in some families with trans identified kids. I’m a psychotherapist and I’ve worked in mental health for three decades with families and individuals with wide ranging difficulties and my first thought when I read your essay was, wow these teenagers hold a lot of power within their families. You are so right when you focus on the importance of separating from parents in adolescence and this is a long and turbulent process for both concerned. It is often characterised by conflict, intense emotions, misunderstanding and unfortunately, misattunement at times. This isn’t necessarily pathological and often, it has to be said, the adolescent pushes the parent away, not because the parent has actually said anything so damaging or is to blame, but because the teenager feels everything they do is wrong. This is adolescence, they see their parents as a source of persecution, harsh, critical and not understanding. They have to in order to rebel and kick against parental authority. However, more usually in teenage rebellion, the adolescent doesn’t expect their parents approval; they are pretty sure their rebellious acts will be met with disapproval and they don’t expect otherwise. This is why they usually don’t tell their parents unless they get too far out of their depth. And the parents have good reason to disapprove; their child’s rebellious acts, whilst normal and healthy can be self destructive and dangerous and sometimes just daft. Often a teenager will understand there will be this difference in opinion between themselves and the parent because this is part of the separation process too.
Something different seems to be happening with the trans identified teenager in that they are both kicking against their parents whilst simultaneously requiring their approval to go forth with their journey which puts parents in an extremely difficult dilemma. You give some really helpful thoughts and insights into the emotional turmoil of the adolescent, but I think I need to say something about the parents’ position. You are right that parents shouldn’t burden their child with their own panic and fear, but I think the parents are carrying a lot of emotions that the adolescent has passed to them; fear about their child’s future and what transition will really mean, and doubts, uncertainty and confusion about embarking on such a journey towards transition, whilst the adolescent appears so certain that this is the only way to go. They can be on the receiving end of rage and anger and a lack of empathy and this is really hard for everyone. Parents are just human, they aren’t therapists, they receive no training manual and they are learning on the job. They have limits and they won’t always stay calm and centred. The best they can do is try to put themselves in their kids’ shoes and try to understand as best they can, but their kid has to meet them at least a quarter of the way. There also needs to be room in the family for the feelings of others to take priority sometimes too; other siblings and parents who have other stresses in their lives too.
Thank you so much for this, for all the work you’ve done and for showing up. I have read several of your posts over the last few months but this one brought tears to my eyes. You helped me understand what is happening and how I can be more affective as a parent, turning my panic into hope. As a mother of nearly thirty years and someone working towards a masters in psychology I can appreciate the depth of your understanding and the value of your perspective. I appreciate you beyond words.
You are so insightful to connect all of this to individual and the human/adolescent search for identity. This quote really resonated with me: “What does this kid, right now, actually need from me to feel less alone in this game they don’t know how to exit? What about their reality is so unbearable that they think being trapped, disembodied, in a game console is their only chance at survival?”
Thanks so much for the time and effort put into this series. I have much to read in your older posts, and I am hoping to find some ideas on what I can do to improve my relationship with my son. We are currently estranged and my attempts to reach out have been unsuccessful/ignored, but I can see that my panic and anxiety/frustration/hurt/anger did not help. I appreciate you saying that no one really wants to be estranged - but my son doesn’t trust me and feels safer at a distance. As much as that hurts me, I don’t have a choice right now.
It makes a lot of sense that we cling to what in our persona feels under attack so giving space is an important part of enabling positive change. I have no personal involvement in this topic, but I feel I understand so much more after reading each of your essays.
Great job Maia! My experience was across the spectrum of parenting styles u mention - I started as permissive & affirming incl name, pronoun, binder; with research I migrated to perhaps authoritarian and walked back on pronoun (I avoid) and affirmation and then settled on maintaining connection and communication as the priority. While I continue to read, watch & learn, I do so invisibly and I don't 'share' my research with my daughter. This approach seems to work in our case so far as my now 20yr old has not medicalised so far despite wanting to earlier. She still binds some of the time and I do use chosen name which is almost gender neutral. I figure it's important to maintain agency wherever that does not lead to permanent harm.
I think I recall u being against using preferred name - is that when it's clearly opposite sex name eg David?
Maia thank you but it seems to me that nothing justifies the way my daughter has behaved with us. She has been very cruel especially to her father. Nothing she was going through justifies her awful treatment of us
This essay isn’t about justifying bad behavior. It’s about explaining some reasons (not all) as to why it happens and trying to mitigate these outcomes strategically
Bless you Maia, but you are not a parent. Your limited experience is difficult to hear. Please share information from your own real experience, maybe by including your parent's viewpoints in your real life.
This part of the essay was largely informed by conversations with my parents. My “limited experience” was half of my life- or about a fifth of theirs. In the same way as I am not a parent, parents do not know what it’s like to be a teenager surrounded by this landscape. I was one, and I remember it like it was yesterday.
The toll of this on families is tremendous. Out of respect for my family and their privacy, I will not share entire quotes to be taken out of context by malignant forces— just to showcase something to an audience. I believe my arguments make sense, they jive well with even the most basic understanding of developmental psychology (a topic of interest I’ve had since I was a nine year old reading parenting books) and they accurately reflect my experience, the experiences of many of my friends and within families I’ve worked with.
As you can imagine, no family is eager to share their most vulnerable, painful conversations word for word on the internet. This is not a reasonable expectation to make of someone.
My advice is here. I stand by every word I’ve written. My readers have free will. I do not expect them to abide by every word of it, as I have stated many times— I do not claim to be an all-knowing god. I am merely a young adult sharing her perspective.
No worries. I'm just a parent in pain...looking for something beyond analysis. There are a lot of places to find that I guess. I think it's the generalities that are hard for me to hear. Not your fault. You do awesome analysis. Thank you for your perspective.
It just dawned on me after digesting your incredible essay that I allowed my daughter’s trans declaration to completely derail my parenting style. Her declaration sent me into panic of despair and grief. She was my little girl one day and a “boy” the next. The problem is I was a loving and authoritative parent for years who became impotent, angry and terrified overnight. I’ve been living in that state since just as she has been living with hers. Your essay has helped me remember the parent I would have been if she had presented with any other issue. I wouldn’t have cowered or become angry or panicked. I would have talked to her, held her and told her we’d figure it out. Instead, I googled what to do, and it told me to affirm and not question. It didn’t feel right, but all that I told her was that I loved her no matter what. My point is that I allowed an ideology to take over as her parent and mine, quite frankly. Thank you for helping me remember that and realize that I have given waaay too much power to this ideology. No, I’m not going to storm into her room with a hammer and destroy her computer and phone (although I’ve thought about it). I’m going to be me again or at least try to be step by step. Thank you!
I’m so glad my essay allowed you to come to this conclusion. That means so much ❤️
I must admit that I am not dealing with a gander questioning kid - at this point. I have had to deal with other high risk issues, so your strategies make sense to me. Overwhelming young kids with a tsunami of information and data is pointless because they can't process it. Adolescents will simply shut down when confronted with a long data loaded lecture. My experience has taught me to keep calm, set firm boundaries and keep communication lines open when dealing with my kids. I can panic and rip my hair out later in private
Yeah, that tracks.
Excellent piece, Maia. As an educator who’s taken my share of courses and professional development on child development—I really appreciate you speaking about the fact that individuation is a natural part of adolescence, as well as your emphasis on addressing the root cause of why a young person might subscribe to a transgender identity. I literally had a high school girl tell me that she was considering opting into a non-binary identity because she felt burdened by her experiences as a girl/young woman. I believe misunderstood young people are, and have been, trying to communicate their needs to society and their caregivers and instead have been handed this ideology as the “answer.”
I think you’ve nailed it
What did you tell that girl?
I can’t remember exactly, but I told her something along the lines of us needing strong women in our world who can speak to the experiences of girls and women. I think the sentiment that I emphasized was that a rose by any other name is just as sweet, and that she wasn’t alone.
Fantastic essay, as usual! It really brought clarity to some of the issues I’ve been mulling over the past couple of weeks. Glad to know I’m not on either end of the parenting spectrum, but, at times, I’ve been tempted to go full tiger mom. Thank you for allowing me to see what my daughter needs!
I am so glad to hear ❤️
Beautifully written, but I am also amazed and appauled that there are whole adults out there who really believe that just throwing facts at a person will ever change their mind! Maybe because I taught for so long and have always interacted with young people, I've always found open-minded curiosity and a good bit of careful listening and detective work (within yourself, analysing their responses in an open-minded way) will get you FAR further than just stubbonly clinging to a 'fact' and thinking that's going to get you anywhere. We need to get to the needs and fears behind the behaviour...our young people have all the 'facts' that we have and then some, it's never been our role to inform, it's been our role to relate and to guide relationally. I'm just amazed anyone reaches my age without figuring this one out
It’s because parents who bombard their kids with facts are doing it from panic rather than from a place of logical reasoning. Panic is what causes these families to really go downhill fast
I guess fear is going to jam you into a desire to be right and commit to your story faster than anything else will! I can't talk as if I've never felt fear - I try to get really intelligent with it and drop into curiosity and playfulness whenever I feel it, but doing that when you're reasonably convinced someone you love's life is on the line is a WHOLE other ballgame. And these dominant narratives of "You have to or else s*icide" really fuel irrational fear like nothing else around. Real nightmare fuel, the whole situation
Thanks Maia, this was a really insightful and interesting perspective on the dynamics that exist in some families with trans identified kids. I’m a psychotherapist and I’ve worked in mental health for three decades with families and individuals with wide ranging difficulties and my first thought when I read your essay was, wow these teenagers hold a lot of power within their families. You are so right when you focus on the importance of separating from parents in adolescence and this is a long and turbulent process for both concerned. It is often characterised by conflict, intense emotions, misunderstanding and unfortunately, misattunement at times. This isn’t necessarily pathological and often, it has to be said, the adolescent pushes the parent away, not because the parent has actually said anything so damaging or is to blame, but because the teenager feels everything they do is wrong. This is adolescence, they see their parents as a source of persecution, harsh, critical and not understanding. They have to in order to rebel and kick against parental authority. However, more usually in teenage rebellion, the adolescent doesn’t expect their parents approval; they are pretty sure their rebellious acts will be met with disapproval and they don’t expect otherwise. This is why they usually don’t tell their parents unless they get too far out of their depth. And the parents have good reason to disapprove; their child’s rebellious acts, whilst normal and healthy can be self destructive and dangerous and sometimes just daft. Often a teenager will understand there will be this difference in opinion between themselves and the parent because this is part of the separation process too.
Something different seems to be happening with the trans identified teenager in that they are both kicking against their parents whilst simultaneously requiring their approval to go forth with their journey which puts parents in an extremely difficult dilemma. You give some really helpful thoughts and insights into the emotional turmoil of the adolescent, but I think I need to say something about the parents’ position. You are right that parents shouldn’t burden their child with their own panic and fear, but I think the parents are carrying a lot of emotions that the adolescent has passed to them; fear about their child’s future and what transition will really mean, and doubts, uncertainty and confusion about embarking on such a journey towards transition, whilst the adolescent appears so certain that this is the only way to go. They can be on the receiving end of rage and anger and a lack of empathy and this is really hard for everyone. Parents are just human, they aren’t therapists, they receive no training manual and they are learning on the job. They have limits and they won’t always stay calm and centred. The best they can do is try to put themselves in their kids’ shoes and try to understand as best they can, but their kid has to meet them at least a quarter of the way. There also needs to be room in the family for the feelings of others to take priority sometimes too; other siblings and parents who have other stresses in their lives too.
https://open.substack.com/pub/maiapoet/p/why-did-gen-z-become-the-transgenderation?r=1gcde6&utm_medium=ios
Here’s the essay where I discuss the misguided individuation attempts of Gen Z teens and try to figure out why it is that my generation goes trans
This is very true! I’ve written about this in another essay, which I’ll link below
Thank you so much for this, for all the work you’ve done and for showing up. I have read several of your posts over the last few months but this one brought tears to my eyes. You helped me understand what is happening and how I can be more affective as a parent, turning my panic into hope. As a mother of nearly thirty years and someone working towards a masters in psychology I can appreciate the depth of your understanding and the value of your perspective. I appreciate you beyond words.
Thank you. I appreciate this so much
You are so insightful to connect all of this to individual and the human/adolescent search for identity. This quote really resonated with me: “What does this kid, right now, actually need from me to feel less alone in this game they don’t know how to exit? What about their reality is so unbearable that they think being trapped, disembodied, in a game console is their only chance at survival?”
I’m so glad this quote resonated with you
Thanks so much for the time and effort put into this series. I have much to read in your older posts, and I am hoping to find some ideas on what I can do to improve my relationship with my son. We are currently estranged and my attempts to reach out have been unsuccessful/ignored, but I can see that my panic and anxiety/frustration/hurt/anger did not help. I appreciate you saying that no one really wants to be estranged - but my son doesn’t trust me and feels safer at a distance. As much as that hurts me, I don’t have a choice right now.
It makes a lot of sense that we cling to what in our persona feels under attack so giving space is an important part of enabling positive change. I have no personal involvement in this topic, but I feel I understand so much more after reading each of your essays.
I’m so glad !
Great job Maia! My experience was across the spectrum of parenting styles u mention - I started as permissive & affirming incl name, pronoun, binder; with research I migrated to perhaps authoritarian and walked back on pronoun (I avoid) and affirmation and then settled on maintaining connection and communication as the priority. While I continue to read, watch & learn, I do so invisibly and I don't 'share' my research with my daughter. This approach seems to work in our case so far as my now 20yr old has not medicalised so far despite wanting to earlier. She still binds some of the time and I do use chosen name which is almost gender neutral. I figure it's important to maintain agency wherever that does not lead to permanent harm.
I think I recall u being against using preferred name - is that when it's clearly opposite sex name eg David?
I will also say that binding does lead to permanent harm. It certainly has in my case.
In general I recommend using a nickname from childhood if the names become an issue
Maia thank you but it seems to me that nothing justifies the way my daughter has behaved with us. She has been very cruel especially to her father. Nothing she was going through justifies her awful treatment of us
This essay isn’t about justifying bad behavior. It’s about explaining some reasons (not all) as to why it happens and trying to mitigate these outcomes strategically
One of the best essays I have read lately. I'd love to read more on practical moves that would help to explore what's behind trans identity.
Bless you Maia, but you are not a parent. Your limited experience is difficult to hear. Please share information from your own real experience, maybe by including your parent's viewpoints in your real life.
This part of the essay was largely informed by conversations with my parents. My “limited experience” was half of my life- or about a fifth of theirs. In the same way as I am not a parent, parents do not know what it’s like to be a teenager surrounded by this landscape. I was one, and I remember it like it was yesterday.
The toll of this on families is tremendous. Out of respect for my family and their privacy, I will not share entire quotes to be taken out of context by malignant forces— just to showcase something to an audience. I believe my arguments make sense, they jive well with even the most basic understanding of developmental psychology (a topic of interest I’ve had since I was a nine year old reading parenting books) and they accurately reflect my experience, the experiences of many of my friends and within families I’ve worked with.
As you can imagine, no family is eager to share their most vulnerable, painful conversations word for word on the internet. This is not a reasonable expectation to make of someone.
My advice is here. I stand by every word I’ve written. My readers have free will. I do not expect them to abide by every word of it, as I have stated many times— I do not claim to be an all-knowing god. I am merely a young adult sharing her perspective.
I did- in part two.
No worries. I'm just a parent in pain...looking for something beyond analysis. There are a lot of places to find that I guess. I think it's the generalities that are hard for me to hear. Not your fault. You do awesome analysis. Thank you for your perspective.
which resources are you looking for? A parent group? Therapy? A plan/solution? A listening ear?
I have all of those. Sometimes I just sit with the pain. It's a process without a solution. Not everything has a solution. Grief takes time.