Reply to South Dakota forcing trans kids to detransition

Forum Index » Political Discussion

Reply to "South Dakota forcing trans kids to detransition "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I've shared some or most of this before. I'm not sure if I'll check back much after this, because I know I'm about to be called a bunch of names and have my parenting and morals questioned. I know our story has helped people understand the perspective of parents with a trans child before, so I'll give it another go.

My son is trans. I always knew he wasn't cishet, but I didn't even know what cishet meant when I first realized he wasn't that. He'd been in therapy for a while before coming out, dealing with anxiety and possibly depression. He came out in middle school as trans, and we started with therapy, no medial treatment. When he came out, he was so worried about telling us. I remember thinking that it all made so much sense, and DH said the same thing.

Probably a year after starting therapy with a gender specialist, we put him on a hormone blocker. Continued therapy. About 18 months after that, which is slightly longer than they usually recommend being on a blocker without adding other hormones, we added testosterone. Eventually we dropped the blocker and only did testosterone. He fully transitioned socially.

We agreed to hormones before he turned 18, but had planned to wait for any other procedures. Unfortunately, the kid was a D cup, and binding is so uncomfortable. It's also necessary for passing. I tried wearing a binder just to see what it was like, and couldn't deal with it. So we investigated top surgery. In the end, we decided to go ahead and let him do it the summer before his senior year.

We went back and forth with the decision for a while, but eventually agreed that it would be the best choice for him and for our peace of mind. First and foremost, he was already presenting as a young man, and it made sense to let him start college with his outsides matching his insides as much as possible. Binding sucks, and he was always uncomfortable. We were worried about his safety-it would be so much easier for someone to out him in a new environment if he was binding. He'd never had surgery before, and we didn't want him to have to go through his first surgical experience without our support. If we did this while he was a minor, we would have access to his records and control of the decision making process, being able to choose the doctor, helping with pain management, etc. If we made him wait until he was an adult, we'd lose that ability, and if he felt we weren't supportive of him having the surgery he might not want us to be involved at all. Plus, he was just so damn uncomfortable having large breasts, he probably would've had a reduction at some point even if he weren't trans.

It was freeing. He can wear t shirts. He doesn't have to wear layers to hide the binder. He doesn't have to be physically uncomfortable all the time. Of all the parenting decisions we've ever made, it's probably had the most positive effect on him.

Before we knew we had a trans child, I always thought that being supportive emotionally but delaying medical treatment until 18 was the way to go. But like so much of parenting, theory is different from practical experience.

What my son sees when politicians propose and pass these laws is that people wish he didn't exist, or think he doesn't deserve the same rights as them. He's an adult now, and he handles it reasonably well, but it's depressing to be called and treated like a deviant, pervert, and second class citizen.  Not that anyone who wants to prevent him from getting treatment really cares about his mental health, but I wish they'd stop acting like they want to protect kids. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics