I

’m a white Belgian American gay man. I filled with cheering crowds—and right in front
was a gender-expansive child, and I now
identify as a cisgender adult. My pronouns
are he, him, and his. I’m an ally.
From the age of 2, I grew up going back
and forth between my divorced parents’
houses. My father remarried a woman, while
my mother repartnered with a woman for 15
years. She then repartnered with a man and
identified as bisexual. Many of my mother’s
friends were queer or lesbian-identified. My
mother’s closest cousin was an effeminate gay
man with the sharpest sense of humor. He
taught me to laugh and properly lip-sync to
Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”—all essential
life skills, if you ask me.
I remember playing devotedly with my moth-
er’s scarves and high-heeled shoes as a child.
Anything soft, silky, perfumed, shiny, and glit-
tery was a source of exquisite pleasure. I rarely
cross-dressed, but when I did, I always
did it alone and with an aftertaste of
guilt and fear. Despite my mother’s
queer friends and my father’s progres-
sive attitude, I knew that this kind of
TRANSGENDER
play was “wrong”—something to enjoy
of us, a rainbow flag waves fiercely from the
Flatiron Building.
Maria, the mother of Lila, a 12-year-old trans-
gender girl, has been marching next to me in
front of our float. As we wait to cross a street,
she falls into my arms, tears streaming down
her face. “I’m crying from joy,” she says. “I can’t
believe I’m walking in the middle of New York
City with my husband and my child, and every-
one along the way is clapping for her. She’s
happy and proud of who she is. And I’m not
ashamed. I’m happy, too.”
I’M LILA
As I embraced Maria, I thought back to the
remarkable journey she and her family had made
since the more somber day, five years earlier,
when I’d met them for our first session. Peruvian-
born Maria was a teacher in the Bronx, while her
BY JE AN MAL PAS
THE

ourney
only in secrecy. Although I knew my

J
parents realized I was different and
that they loved me, I was never quite
sure their love would withstand my gen-
der fluidity. An invisible line existed in
my mind between what was okay and
what wasn’t, and I was determined nev-
er to cross it.
Yet my body language and behaviors
betrayed me constantly. All my friends
were girls, and all my hobbies were con-
sidered feminine, like makeup and the-
ater. At best, the boys in school ignored
me; at worst, they insulted and made
fun of me. Even before puberty, I knew
I liked boys in a special way. But I also
What Role
knew that while I liked boys, I never
wanted to be a girl. Unlike transgender
Should Therapists Play?
children who deeply want to transition,
I was a feminine gay boy.
Fast forward 35 years later. On a sunny husband, Ray, was a white computer program-
Sunday in June 2015, I’m walking in New York mer from the Midwest. They’d consulted me
City’s Pride March on Fifth Avenue, a rain- because their 7-year-old child, assigned male at
bow tutu adorning my jeans shorts. I’m also birth and until then known as Leo, had long
wearing a bright purple T-shirt that reads behaved and expressed himself in a traditionally
“Pride Is For Kids, Too.” It’s the slogan for the feminine fashion, gravitating toward colors and
Ackerman Institute’s Gender & Family Project, activities usually associated with girls. As if born
a program I founded in 2010 to support fam- with an eye for design, Lila (as she now calls her-
ilies of gender-expansive children and fami- self) turned bathrobes into dresses and towels
lies of transgender youth. The sidewalks are into headpieces, stumbling from the bathroom

P H OTO © R I C K C H A P M A N /CO R B I S PSYCHOTHERAPYNETWORKER.ORG 29 

to her bedroom in her mother’s shoes
to sit on her bed and quietly arrange
her stuffed animals and older sister’s
dolls. She became obsessed with prin-
cesses when she discovered Disney
characters in pre-K and openly pre-
ferred her girl-identified classmates
in kindergarten. In many other ways,
Lila was a typical child who loved phys-
ical activity and never missed a chance
to romp in the backyard with cousins
of both genders.
Both Maria and Ray were from
conservative family backgrounds, but
they were trying to make peace with
the idea that Leo was probably going
to be gay and enjoy a range of femi-
nine and masculine things. But Lila
had a whole other experience of
herself, one that went beyond
the question of gender stereo-
types and expression. She
wasn’t a feminine boy or a
gay preteen. Her dilemma
had to do with her deeply-
ways of being a boy and
felt gender identity. She
felt like a girl trapped
inside a boy’s body. Every
night, she prayed for God
to take Leo away and send
a girl, there are many
Lila back to earth instead.
A couple of years later, her
parents found the diary she’d
started in second grade. Page
after page, Leo called himself
“she” and “Lila.” “How can I ever tell
them who I really am?” she wrote.
“What if they stop loving me? What
if God doesn’t want me in heaven?”
Interwoven in these agonizing ques-
tions were thoughts of suicide, and
the fear of losing their child was the
catalyst to reach out for help.
The possibility of having a gay child
was already outside their comfort
zone, but having to accept a trans-
gender child was beyond their wild-
est imaginings. Like them, many par-
ents of transgender kids experience
the news as if hearing their child has
a disability. After all, parental hopes
and dreams are commonly tied up
with their child’s gender and gen-
der identity. So it makes a big differ-
ence to most parents whether their
child is a boy or girl, simply because
30 P S Y C H O T H E R A P Y N E T W O R K E R n MA R C H/AP R I L 2 01 6
they express their love and envision
future prospects for that child in
the largely gendered terms society
lays out for them. Rearranging that
internal mind map requires tremen-
dous effort and adjustment.
For Maria and Ray, the stakes were
particularly high: they knew they
had to get over their shock and
grief if they wanted to keep their
child alive. Initially, I met only with
them, then with all three
of them, and then with
Leo alone. It was clear
Just as
there are many
many ways of being
ways of being
trans­g ender.
that everyone in the family needed
support, but I alternated seeing Leo
alone with sessions involving the
entire family—which allowed me to
adopt a pace and language that was
sensitive to everyone.
I started my sessions with Leo by
asking him how I could help and
what name and pronoun he’d like
me to use. He was quick to tell me
that Lila, she, and her were what she
wanted. I then asked things like what
she knew about herself and when
she started feeling that who she was
inside didn’t quite match who she
was expected to be. When I gave her
crayons and paper, she drew herself
as a beautiful girl in the past, pres-
ent, and future, most often wear-
ing purple and with very long hair.
I could see that it was an enormous
relief to find a space outside of her
diary that reflected her sense of self.
GENDER DIVERSITY
Just as there are many ways of being
a boy and many ways of being a girl,
there are many ways of being trans-
gender. Some kids, like Lila, know
exactly that something isn’t right
and can express it at a very early
age. Other kids become aware
of their transgender identity
later in their teens. There’s also
a third category of kids—those
like I was—who don’t identify
with the opposite gender but still
feel great discomfort with the
narrow pink and blue boxes
of expected gender behavior.
The little empirical research
we have about gender non-
conforming kids show that
only about 30 percent
of children who explore
or question their gender
identity before puberty
will identify as transgender
teenagers and seek social or
medical transition as young
adults. Research calls that
group the “persisters” because
their desire to transition endures
over time. The remaining 70 percent
are known as “desisters.” Of those,
who will not identify as transgender
as adults, two-thirds will be gay and
lesbian adults and one-third will be
heterosexual. However, nearly 100
percent of the children whose dis-
tress about their gender is intense,
consistent in all areas of their lives,
and persistent over time, will contin-
ue to identify as transgender adoles-
cents and adults.
Lila belonged to these persisters.
It wasn’t a phase, a minor concern,
or a secondary reaction to another
primary problem such as trauma
or family dynamics. To the surprise
of many folks who don’t experi-
ence a misalignment between their
assigned sex at birth and their gen-
der identity, children are able to
identify their gender identity at a
very young age. Research shows that
a child as young as 3 or 4 years old
can be very clear about their sense
of themselves as a boy or a girl. It’s
the same for transgender children.
For Lila, kindergarten confirmed
that she was on the wrong side of
the class when her teacher told her
to stand in the boys’ line.
In my initial sessions with Lila’s
parents, Maria cried as if she were
literally mourning the loss of her
child, while Ray seemed shut down
and puzzled. He wanted to sup-
port Maria and protect Leo. (I used
this name in my early sessions with
Maria and Ray.) To start, I asked
them to give me a detailed account
of Leo’s gender development and
expression, from the expectations
and hopes they had before birth
to the most recent details of his
life. Every now and then, we had to
pause to allow them to express their
overwhelming sense of powerless-
ness along with their anxiety about
their child’s future: who will love
him? Will he find a job? Should we
change schools? Are there ways to
prevent him from being transgen-
der? Whom should we tell? Whom
should we never tell?
Adequately supporting Maria and
Ray was challenging. I had to be
careful to stay right where they were
in terms of how affirmative they
could be while I expressed compas-
sion and understanding. Now and
then, when I sensed an opening, I
cited psychoeducational facts that
would help them put their experi-
ence in perspective. Indeed, they
had a lot to discover about gen-
der. “Gender identity is about who
we each are, deep inside, as a boy,
a girl, man or woman, both or nei-
ther,” I explained. “But it’s differ-
ent from our biological sex and
whether we’ve been assigned male
or female at birth. It’s also different
from whom we love and choose to
have sex with as adults.”
In between sessions, they worked
hard to educate themselves on the
issue and kept arriving with new
questions. Gradually, they began to
make sense of Lila by understand-
ing the fundamental differences
between the body she was born in
(biological sex), who she felt she
was on the inside (gender identity),
what she showed the world (gender
expression), and whom she’d one
day love and desire (sexual orien-
tation). They even learned to give
themselves a new name, cisgender,
which applies to those whose bio-
logical sex is aligned with their gen-
der identity. The prefix cis means
“on this side” and can be thought
of as referring to being aligned with
something. When there’s a discrep-
ancy among our biological sex, our
culturally assigned gender role, and
our gender identity, we can call our-
selves transgender.
For Maria and Ray, taking in and
accepting this information was
far from a calm, linear process.
Sometimes, they seemed eager for
knowledge and willing to understand
Lila for who she was; at other times,
the whole idea was too much, too
scary, and their child was still Leo.
THE PATH TO ACCEPTANCE
For Maria and Ray, joining the
Gender & Family Project’s par-
ent support group—and acquiring
a community of peers, caregivers,
and family members who shared
the experience of parenting a trans-
gender child—was transformative. It
normalized their situation, widened
their resources, and allowed them to
get to know other parents who were
also struggling with a sense of loss,
fear, and helplessness. While Leo
connected with other kids in the
program and was affirmed as Lila
in the playgroup, her parents could
cry, laugh, and find relief with oth-
er loving parents who were trying to
figure out their next steps.
Each group session provided mate-
rial for discussions with me during
their individual sessions. One day
Maria sat down and announced, “I
couldn’t believe how relieved I felt
when the other mom said, ‘I’d love my
child to be just gay.’ I’ve been secretly
PSYCHOTHERAPYNETWORKER.ORG
saying that to myself for months. And
there she was saying it out loud! But
it got me thinking too. Why is it more
difficult to accept Lila as a transgen-
der girl than Leo as a gay boy? I don’t
know. As a straight and cis . . . how do
you call it again? Cisgender, right! As
a straight and cisgender parent, you
always just assume your kid is going
to be like you.”
Over time, Maria and Ray began to
see that the world is made of unique
individuals who are all over the gen-
der spectrum. They became avid
readers of the topic of transgender
kids and were soon more up to date
than me on the visibility of the trans-
gender community.
“Did you see Laverne Cox on the
cover of Time?!” Ray asked one day.
“Of course, it’s a big deal! What do
you think of it?” I responded.
“It’s good, I guess,” Ray said hes-
itantly, then added, “I’m glad Lila
can see that there are other healthy
and successful girls of color like her
out there. She’s not only transgen-
der, she’s also interracial. She needs
that to feel strong and hopeful.”
Maria squeezed his hand hard, smil-
ing. Together, they were no longer
thinking about Lila’s identity as a trag-
edy. They were envisioning a future
and they wanted it to be bright.
These days, I often reflect on what
allowed Maria and Ray to change.
At the beginning, meeting with me
alone gave them space for their grief
and to trust that I could see things
from their perspective. As we pro-
gressed, a gradual sense of surren-
der to reality emerged. Maria and
Ray understood deep down that they
didn’t have a choice: they couldn’t
make or break their child’s gender
identity. They could make it harder
for Lila to be herself, but they’d also
make it likelier for Lila to feel bad
about who she is and internalize their
fears and rejection.
They’d once believed that being
protective meant refuting Lila’s
deep feelings about her gender,
but they now realized that it was
the other way around. Accepting
Lila was the best way to protect her.
31 
With that new sense of purpose
and agency, bolstered by a commu-
nity of parents who were cisgender
allies, they felt ready to take on the
big challenges ahead.
Of course, not every family, nor
every child, is that lucky. Many fam-
ilies lack the resources, time, and
access to a validating community
that can help them integrate this
perspective. Some parents flat-out
reject their children’s identity, expe-
riencing gender diversity as an irrep-
arable rupture. Some even kick their
child out of the home. Another
group of parents is more ambiva-
lent, caught in a dilemma between
unconditional love and cultural or
religious values that reject the
notion of self-determined gen-
der identity. And yet another
Research
group of parents is more
readily on board but still
shows that a child as
overwhelmed by questions
and fears: should I affirm young as 3 or 4 years old can struggling with his gender
identity for years. From the
my child’s identity, or is it
just a phase? Should I help be very clear about their sense time he’d entered puber-
ty, he’d desperately wanted
my son understand that
there are many ways of of themselves as a to avoid menstrual periods
and their painful remind-
being a boy? Should I help
my daughter realize it’s okay boy or a girl. It’s the same er of his female body. Since
Erik refused to buy him prop-
to be a tomboy and that she
doesn’t need to see herself as for transgender er binders for his breasts, he
used undersized sports bras
a man? At what point should instead. Despite my efforts to
my child be in therapy or medical children. acknowledge Erik’s feelings in indi-
care? If I do nothing, could I make vidual sessions, and to move slow-
it worse? ly, Erik wouldn’t consider hormone
blockers to put puberty development
THE ROOTS OF REJECTION When Erik and Pat entered the on hold, the medical treatment Pat
I’ve worked with several parents who Gender & Family Project, Pat wanted was begging for. While a young per-
left our program, most often at their to start testosterone to masculinize his son’s emotional, cognitive, and social
child’s expense. Erik, a wealthy, body. They engaged in family therapy development continues, blockers
white dentist, was the father of two and joined support groups. Pat went keep the body from developing sec-
children he parented on his own to the teen space, and Erik joined ondary sexual characteristics typical of
after their mom remarried and relo- the group for parents of adolescents. the assigned sex at birth.
cated to Europe. Nineteen-year- While Pat loved meeting the other Our team faced a complex dilem-
old Tom identified as a cisgender young people, Erik attended the par- ma: Erik clearly needed more time
boy and had just left for college. ent group reluctantly. He thought his to get on board, but Pat’s emotion-
Patricia, Erik’s youngest child, had daughter was acting out to get atten- al health was quickly deteriorating.
been assigned female at birth and tion. “She wants me to pay attention He was now avoiding school, abus-
had always been a tomboy. A year to her and provokes me with this ing drugs, and caught up in a deep
ago, at the age of 15, she came out trendy and incendiary stuff,” he said. despair that included thoughts of
as a transgender man. Since then, While Erik had a valid point about suicide. Aware of the significant sui-
she’d fiercely advocated to be called not taking every gender declaration cidal risk that trans youth present,
Pat and for a change of pronoun as a permanent fact, he had great dif- we began to feel that we had to do
from she to he. ficulty accepting that Pat had been something. Professional standards

32 P S Y C H O T H E R A P Y N E T W O R K E R n MA R C H/A P R I L 2 01 6 P H OTO © R O B I N R AY N E N E L S O N / Z U M A P R E S S / C O R B I S
of care indicate that preventing
children’s access to affirmative care
such as therapy, evaluation, and a
safe educational environment is not
only dangerous, but can be a form
of parental neglect or even abuse.
While parents are absolutely allowed
to struggle and feel deep grief and
anger about their child’s identity,
they can’t unilaterally increase their
child’s chance for self-harm because
of a difference of opinion. With
deep sadness, we referred the case
to Child Protective Services.
As we all know, such a step rarely
brings prompt resolution. We lost
access to the family: Erik was furi-
ous with us, and Pat dropped out of
the teen group. I often think about
why things didn’t work out better.
Clearly, Erik had struggled to shift
the way Maria and Ray had. Did he
lack his own support? Did we push
him too far too fast, not allowing
him enough time to grapple with his
own fears? These are all possibilities.
Another crucial difference is that by
the time Pat came out to his dad as
a teen and joined our program, he’d
been in great distress for years and
couldn’t afford to give his dad much
time to come around. The more his
dad resisted, the harder Pat pushed.
I dearly hope they’ve found a way to
move forward together.
Sometimes cultural and religious
dilemmas can lead parents to lose
their relationship with their child
rather than accept their gender iden-
tity. One day I received a call from a
social worker about Billy, an 11-year-
old African American boy who’d
been hospitalized eight times over
the past year. The provider insisted
that I take on the case, since the fam-
ily seemed to be severely challenged
by their son’s feminine identity and
gender expression.
In our first session, Sonia, Billy’s
mother, said, “I don’t really think
my son is a girl, but I just need some
help to make him understand that he
needs to calm down and figure him-
self out. He doesn’t get that it’s dan-
gerous to be a person like him in our
neighborhood. He has to be careful.”
I wondered what she meant by “a
person like him.” Did she think of
him as a young gay boy? Or was she
alluding to his gender expression and
identity? My cotherapists and I made a
note to return to these questions but
first wanted to gather a bit of infor-
mation from Billy’s parents, who were
both black, devout Christians working
in retail and con­struction, respective-
ly. Sean, Billy’s father, described the
exhausting marathon of challenges
they’d faced since Billy had been a
child, from temper tantrums to school
trouble to physical aggression. A year
ago, in fact, Billy became violent with
Sonia, who called the police and vol-
untarily placed Billy under the care of
Child Protective Services.
When my team and I met Billy for
the first time with his parents, he
shared some striking insights. “My
mom just doesn’t understand who I
am. She says I need to wait to be 18
years old to be me. I say that’s too late!
It’s already happened. I’m already
me!” Tilting his head as if posing for a
sassy photo shoot, he added, “I think
my mom is struggling with me being
a princess. But she’s a princess, too.
That’s why we’re here.”
“What kind of language is that,
Billy?!” erupted Sonia. “You see,
that’s exactly what I have to deal with
and why he gets in trouble every-
where.” Clearly, Billy was an exuber-
ant and expressive child, and those
qualities made Sonia anxious for him
and his future.
“There are many princesses in
my family, and not just girls!” Billy
said when his parents were out of
the room. We threw a large piece
of paper on the rug and a bunch of
colored sharpies and offered to draw
a family tree with him. “My mother,
my aunt, my grandmother, and my
grandfather on my mother’s side
are all princesses in different ways,”
he began. “They’re strong people
and they know what they want. But
my aunt is the most fabulous. I love
her dresses!”
Billy was proudly referring to his
family’s resilience and strength. He
associated femininity with power, and
PSYCHOTHERAPYNETWORKER.ORG
he believed that men could be prin-
cesses, forces to be reckoned with
in this world. In contrast, Sonia and
Sean explained that for them, princess
was a pejorative word, and an 11-year
old boy shouldn’t be calling himself
one. They also felt that Billy’s behav-
ior was overly sexual and he needed
to “keep it a little cooler.”
In the following session, we tried to
convey Sonia’s dilemma to Billy. “Do
you think she might be able to accept
you for who you are if you reassure
her a little bit?” I asked. “She knows
you’re passionate about dancing and
pop music and strong women, but
she’s afraid you could get in trouble
and that things could be unsafe for
you. Maybe if she felt you respected
her advice as a mom, she’d be able to
hear your requests a bit better?”
Billy paused for a moment to con-
sider it then declared, “If she gives
me ‘accept,’ I’ll give her ‘respect.’”
Again, we seemed stuck in a pattern
of escalation where neither parent
nor child was willing to take the one-
down position. To Sonia and Sean,
raising a strong black man includ-
ed teaching appropriate respect for
authority and an urgent fear of racist
or transphobic violence, both inside
and outside their community. For his
part, Billy could only see parents who
didn’t understand him and his joy-
ful femininity. Sadly, he shared with
us that he wanted to leave home. “I
want to be placed outside,” he said.
“At least there I can be me.”
A couple of weeks later, Sonia
called to cancel our next session.
Billy had been placed in a residential
home. “I think it’s probably better for
all of us,” she said, sounding exhaust-
ed and resigned. As in Erik and Pat’s
situation, the combination of paren-
tal resistance and a child’s escalating
urgency had made it impossible to
shift from conflict to connection.
PARENTS SPEAK
Last September, I facilitated the
first parent group of the school
year. Forming an enormous circle
in the Ackerman Institute’s largest
C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 4 8
33 
Malpas F R O M PA G E 3 3
meeting space, 45 parents of gen-
der-expansive or transgender pre-
teens assembled. Looking around
the room, I saw all ages, races, gen-
ders, and sexual orientations. Many
longtime members were noisily
and happily reconnecting with old
friends, while others were warmly
greeting wide-eyed newcomers.
“Welcome, everyone!” I shouted
over the din. “Since our group is
welcoming quite a few new fami-
lies today, I thought we’d go around
the circle and introduce ourselves.
Maybe say a word about what brings
you here, or something about what
this community means to you.”
The room went silent. Then, to
my pleasant surprise, Ray spoke up.
“Well, I’m gonna start with a con-
tradiction,” he said. “In a way, this
space has helped me understand
that it’s all about me, and at the
same time, that it’s not about me at
all.” He took a breath. “It’s all about
me because I’m a father of a trans-
gender girl and I discovered that I
had to develop my own gender iden-
tity as a cisgender dad to be able
to help her. But it’s not about me
because the most important lesson
I’ve learned is that I can’t make or
break my child’s gender identity.”
Many heads nodded in recogni-
tion. “That was the hardest part for
me,” he continued. “I really thought
I’d done something wrong, that it
was my fault or that it’d be totally
irresponsible to let Lila dress as a
girl and transition at school. I just
couldn’t accept it. To be honest, I
feared I might not be able to come
around and would have to leave
Maria and Lila. What was I going to
do? Accept my daughter and throw
her into a life of hardship? Repress
her and watch her suffer until she
could leave us? I felt like every
option was doomed. And then I read
an article about a young trans wom-
an who’d committed suicide. She’d
left home at 14 because her parents
hadn’t accepted her. It just stopped
me in my tracks. “I thought, no, no,
48 P S Y C H O T H E R A P Y N E T W O R K E R n MA R C H/A P R I L 2 01 6
this is not going to happen to Lila.
I’m not gonna be that dad!” Ray’s
voice broke.
Maria took her husband’s hand.
“It’s not in my control who Lila is and
who she’s going to be,” she said. “But
I’m still her mother, and I still need to
make decisions and protect her. She’s
almost 13 now, and if it was up to her,
she’d be wearing gowns instead of
skirts to school. No, thank you! She
still needs some guidance!” A wave of
laughter erupted. “But she guided us
first to know who she was.”
Beatrice, the mother of a 10-year-
old transgender boy, spoke up. “You
all have also helped me accept that
being transgender isn’t a disease,”
she said. “When I came here two
years ago, I thought we needed treat-
ment to fix Troy. But the group
helped me understand that Troy was
actually doing great. I was the one
in crisis!” She rolled her eyes a little
and smiled.
“As a lesbian woman and a mother,”
Cindy followed, “I’ve always known
there were many possible identities in
life, right? But Peter, my 6-year-old gen-
der-fluid son, reminds me every day
that even gender is this web, this spec-
trum of different ways to be human.
It’s ironic, really. As a pretty butch
person myself, I kinda know this, but
Peter really brought the point home.”
I was observing the tone of the
group. The longtime members had
clearly started on a light note, creat-
ing a sense of cohesion and making
sure not to scare the newcomers. I
also knew this celebratory mood was
sure to shift.
“Yeah, I get that intellectually,”
responded Mark, a member since
2010. “We’re all different and gen-
der is diverse and all that.” He
looked pained. “When we got here
five years ago, we were in crisis. All
of a sudden, my 14-year-old boy was
a girl and needed hormones and a
dress, and I hate to say this, but I was
freaked out. I didn’t recognize my
child. I felt like I had to get to know
a stranger all over again.”
More heads nodded quietly.
“Thank you, Mark, for keeping us
real here,” I said. “When I think
about when each of you initially
entered the project, I’d say that many
of your families were going through
a crisis of belonging. As a family, we
feel that we belong together. And
one of the ways we do it is based on
this assumption that we share a lot in
common, including being cisgender.
Gender diversity brings in a sense of
otherness that we have to become
acquainted with, become less afraid
of.” I looked around the circle. “Does
that make sense?”
“It does,” said Laura, the mother
of a 12-year-old boy who’d social-
ly transitioned last year. “I felt like
my family had been broken, but I
couldn’t say it to anyone. I felt so
unequipped to raise a child I didn’t
understand. I was like, ‘How am I
gonna keep my child safe and know
what to do? My ex-husband and I
were fighting about it, and I felt so
lonely,” she said. “And then I came
here and began to get to know my
child again through your stories,
through recognizing my fears in
your fears. I needed to talk to other
folks and make mistakes, learn the
language, and know what I could do
as a mom—as an ally, really.”
Most of these parents had arrived
here as pioneers, some never hav-
ing heard the word transgender or
cisgender before, all of them hacking
their way through a wilderness of
confusion, panic, and shame. As we
worked together, they slowly began
to understand—and act on—what
we’ve found to be three essential
elements of healing. First, follow
your child’s lead. If your daughter
says, “I’m a boy” persistently, you’ve
heard the truth. For many parents,
understanding this comes as an
enormous relief. The endless inner
questions—What should I do? Try to
change him? Hope she’ll grow out
of it? Refuse to talk about it at all?—
fall away. The work is acceptance.
Second, there’s no pathology
here. Your child isn’t disordered,
doesn’t have a disability, doesn’t need
treatment for being transgender.
C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 5 0
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24
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ss ou or other difficulties that come with
oc n
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VANCOUVER SCHOOL FOR NARRATIVE THERAPY PRESENTS io lin the challenges of trying to live outside
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Therapeutic prescribed pink and blue boxes. As

a parent, you may need professional

Conversations 13 support, too. But there’s no underly-

ing condition to treat. Fundamentally,
your child is fine. So are you.
Let’s Start All Over Again Third, we need each other. Gender-
diverse kids and their parents need to
belong to a community of folks who
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As I looked around the circle to see
who wanted to speak next, I flashed on
a photo of me as a kid, wearing a blan-
ket on my head to pretend I had long
hair. I’m deeply moved by these par-
ents’ devotion and their commitment
to becoming their children’s allies so
they won’t have to face the challeng-
es that lie ahead on their own. The
5-year-old boy inside me is in awe. He
never imagined it possible to feel free
to express his forbidden feelings about
gender fluidity outside the dark closet
of secrecy, let alone be surrounded by
a whole tribe of friends and allies. At
this moment, I realize that what was
once unimaginable is now happening
right in front of me.

Jean Malpas, LMFT, LMHC, is the director

of the Gender & Family Project and director
of international training at the Ackerman
Institute for the Family. He maintains a
private practice in New York City. Contact:
jmalpas@ackerman.org.

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